Shinobu Kocho's Secret

Before she finished speaking, a cold gleam flashed.

She drew a small scalpel used for preparing medicines from the strap at her waist. In one smooth, unhesitating motion, she sliced the pale palm of her left hand.

Bright red blood welled up at once, running down her slender fingers and dripping onto the dojo's wooden floor with a faint patter.

"There, now we have an injured person."

Shinobu Kocho held her bleeding palm out in front of Kiyohiko as though showing off a newly bought toy. Her tone was so casual that she might have cut something other than her own skin.

"Come on, Kiyohiko. Show me how a demon 'saves people.'"

Kiyohiko froze.

He had been ready with a retort, but now the words stuck in his throat.

An unprecedented shock struck him straight through the crown of his head.

It was the smell of blood.

To demons, human blood usually meant sweetness, temptation, and an appetite that was difficult to suppress. The blood of powerful fighters at the Hashira level, whose bodies had been tempered through countless trials, should have been even more enticing.

But what entered Kiyohiko's nose now was nothing like the aroma of a delicacy.

It was a stench.

A Wisteria stench so strong it suffocated him.

It was neither the scent of a sachet clinging to her clothes nor some kind of natural body fragrance. The smell came from Shinobu Kocho's blood, as though every drop of it, every cell in her body, had been thoroughly soaked in highly concentrated Wisteria poison.

It was like injecting a whole syringe of highly concentrated sulfuric acid into a prime steak.

"..."

Kiyohiko's playful grin vanished completely in that instant.

His facial muscles stiffened, and his brows drew tightly together. The evasiveness and humor vanished from his eyes, replaced by unprecedented gravity-even shock.

Instead of using his Blood Demon Art right away, he instinctively stepped forward. Completely ignoring the wooden sword still in Shinobu Kocho's other hand, he grabbed her injured wrist.

"Hm?"

Shinobu Kocho was taken aback. She had expected the demon to bare his fangs in greed at the smell of blood, or recoil from the scent of Wisteria.

But he did neither.

His hand was hot, and his grip was tight, even a little painful.

Kiyohiko stared fixedly at the blood welling from Shinobu's palm, his nostrils flaring. The nauseating smell of poison confirmed his judgment.

"What are you doing?"

His voice dropped, its usual flippancy gone without a trace, replaced by a demand barely suppressing his anger.

"I'm testing your ability."

Shinobu Kocho tilted her head. Though surprised by his reaction, she maintained that perfect mask of a smile. "What's wrong? Is my blood so 'fragrant' that you can't resist-"

"Stop joking!"

Kiyohiko cut her off sharply, his voice echoing through the empty dojo.

He raised his head, his mismatched demon eyes meeting Shinobu's gaze, sharp enough to pierce her disguise.

"Normal eating habits could never produce a concentration like this. Even if you ate Wisteria for every meal, you couldn't turn your blood into poison this concentrated!"

Kiyohiko pointed at her still-bleeding wound, his finger trembling slightly.

"It smells as if you've stuffed all the poison on Mount Fujikasane into your body. This isn't self-defense. You're turning yourself into a walking jar of poison!"

The smile froze on Shinobu's face.

In that instant, she felt as though she were standing in a frozen wasteland. The deepest, craziest secret in her heart, one not even Kanao fully knew, had been laid bare by a demon she had known for only a few days, using nothing but his sense of smell.

"That's a lethal dose... no, that's hundreds of times a lethal dose, isn't it?"

Kiyohiko took a deep breath, forcing himself to endure the stench that made his head spin. He did not let go of her hand; instead, he gripped it even tighter, as though afraid she might shatter the next second.

"Shinobu Kocho, you're a doctor, aren't you? What kind of doctor would do this to herself? Are you trying to kill demons, or kill yourself first?"

Shinobu Kocho looked at Kiyohiko. His eyes held neither a demon's hatred for a Demon Slayer nor a prey animal's fear of a predator.

There was only pure, incomprehensible... absurd concern.

It was the look a normal person might give a madwoman dancing on the edge of a cliff.

Shinobu Kocho fell silent.

She looked at the boy before her, who was a demon, yet cared more about her physical condition than anyone else.

For the first time, she saw an expression of heartache on a demon's face.

After a long while, the curve of her lips slowly flattened, and her eyes grew dark and cold.

"What a keen nose you have, Mr. Demon."

Her voice was soft, but it carried a bone-deep chill.

"Now that you know it's poison, why don't you let go? Be careful, or it might seep through your skin and melt a 'good demon' like you."

Kiyohiko ignored Shinobu Kocho's icy warning.

Patients got emotional; he was used to it. In his previous life, when Kiyohiko had cautiously told a patient he had a problem in that department, the man had chased him halfway around the examination room.

The next second, the hand gripping Shinobu's wrist suddenly tightened, and the blood in his body began to flow backward.

Shinobu Kocho froze.

She felt something strange, as though her flesh and blood were being drawn away through an invisible straw.

"You-"

Shinobu Kocho's pupils contracted slightly.

She watched as the still-bleeding cut on her left palm healed in the blink of an eye, as though time had reversed.

The skin joined back together, and the scab fell away. In the end, not even a trace of a scar remained. Her palm returned to its original pale appearance, becoming even softer and smoother.

But at that same instant, a muffled groan escaped Kiyohiko's throat.

"Ah-that's really potent..."

Kiyohiko abruptly released Shinobu's hand and stepped half a pace back as though shocked.

He raised his right hand, deliberately holding it up between them.

A cut had appeared out of nowhere on his previously uninjured palm. It was in exactly the same place as the one Shinobu Kocho had just made on her own hand, identical down to the smallest detail.

But that was not the most frightening part.

Normally, a small wound like this would take a demon only a breath to heal, let alone Kiyohiko, whose regenerative ability was extraordinarily strong.

Yet even now, the wound still had not healed.

Instead, its edges had turned a strange purplish black and were giving off a faint sizzling sound. Wisps of white smoke rose from it, as though it had been splashed with strong acid.

"Do you understand now, Miss Shinobu?"

"You should know what this means for your body."