That was a “person” with the build of an adult male, but with a twisted posture, skin of an unnatural ashen-blue, and ten fingers tipped with long black nails.
He grinned, baring sharp teeth, his murky eyes glinting with greed in the moonlight, locked intently onto Shinsuke, or more precisely, onto his body.
“De…
delicious…” a hoarse, sticky voice crawled out from the demon’s throat, trembling with barely contained excitement.
“Brother…
you smell so good…”
Rare Blood constitution attracting demons automatically was a nuisance that followed him no matter where he went.
Shinsuke grumbled inwardly, but his expression stayed blank, simply watching the creature with calm eyes.
The demon slurped up his drool, his gaze finally drifting from Shinsuke to Nezuko, cradled in his arms.
“As long as I eat you…
and the one you’re holding…” his words suddenly caught, and the greedy look on his face froze for a moment, replaced by something blank and confused.
The demon tilted his head, as if his brain couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing, and asked dumbly, “You…
why are you holding a demon?”
Shinsuke didn’t answer.
He swept a glance in the direction the demon had been creeping from, the path that led down to the village at the foot of the mountain.
“Were you heading to that village?” he asked, his voice cutting clean through the stillness of the night, carrying a cold edge.
He found it a little strange that Master Urokodaki regularly swept this area, yet a stray had still managed to slip this close.
The demon’s attention snapped back, and it let out a crooked laugh.
“I was…
but now that I’ve run into you, there’s no need.”
“Eating you alone is worth a hundred…
no, two hundred ordinary people!” His gaze turned fervent and frenzied again, thick drool dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
Shinsuke let out a quiet sigh.
Honestly, if he had been alone, he would have genuinely wanted to have a little fun with this one.
Test his own skills in his normal state, draw out some conversation, figure out what made a demon capable of slipping past Urokodaki’s watch.
After all, this was the first “complete” demon he had ever faced truly alone, in the proper sense, since the demon head at the temple didn’t count.
But…
He glanced down at what he was holding, at the freshly washed, soft, sweet-smelling little Nezuko.
Sleeping while holding a Nezuko like this, even his dreams would be sweet, wouldn’t they?
How could he let this filthy, foul-smelling, drooling demon so much as dirty her?
Not even a speck of dust was acceptable.
Shinsuke’s gaze grew quiet and still.
He bent down and gently set the heavy cloth bag by the roadside.
Then he shifted Nezuko’s position in his arms, moving to a single-arm hold, while his now-free hand slowly closed around the hilt of the Tang Blade at his waist.
“Shing!”
A clear, crisp sound rang out as the blade left its scabbard, splitting the night.
The straight edge shimmered with an eerie pink light beneath the moon.
“Heh…
still want to fight back?
With those skinny little arms of yours…
and a deadweight in them on top of that…”
Shinsuke took no stance, simply drew a slow breath and, in a perfectly unremarkable motion, swung a horizontal slash toward the demon.
The movement even looked a little slow, a little casual.
The demon’s laughter grew louder, thick with contempt.
“You haven’t even reached me yet and you’re already swinging wildly?
You…”
His words cut off abruptly.
Because on that seemingly lazy blade, something suddenly changed.
A pale pink haze, carrying the faintest trace of a warm, sweet fragrance, drifted from Shinsuke’s mouth and nose, instantly coiling around his right arm, and like something alive, it clambered up the length of the straight blade.
Hum!
The blade let out a low, resonant thrum.
The pink haze surged.
It solidified, extended, and took shape.
In nearly the blink of an eye, the straight edge that had been only an arm’s length long was completely swallowed by a layer of blazing, radiant pink energy.
The energy tore forward wildly, expanding and spreading across the forest clearing, coalescing into a greatsword of unimaginable size.
A pink radiant greatsword.
Its length, by rough estimate, exceeded twenty meters.
“Harem Breathing, First Form, Valor of the Heroine.”
The pink flames formed the outline of the greatsword, dazzling and brilliant against the dark, casting a soft glowing haze across everything around it, and reflecting in the demon’s face, which had twisted in an instant into pure, naked terror.
“Wha…?!”
The demon managed only one broken syllable.
The greatsword had already swept silently across below his neck.
Because it was so vast, there was no crisp sensation of a clean cut as it passed.
It was more like an eraser passing over a pencil mark.
Everything between his neck and his waist vanished without a trace.
This was not a beheading.
His entire midsection had simply been erased by the greatsword in an instant.
All that remained was a solitary head, dropping straight down beside two solitary legs.
A moment later, both crumbled into black ash and were scattered by the wind.
By then, Shinsuke had long since sheathed his blade, bent down to pick up the cloth bag, and settled Nezuko back into the most comfortable princess-carry position.
As if nothing had happened at all, he set off and continued up the mountain path.
When he returned to the mountain cabin, Tanjiro had not yet come back, just as expected.
After finishing his own meal quickly, he portioned out a serving and brought it to Master Urokodaki, who had moved to the storehouse to stay.
Back on his own side of the cabin, Shinsuke began laying out the bedding.
He very “naturally” arranged his and Nezuko’s sleeping mats extremely close together, close enough that in the night, all he would need to do was reach out and drag Nezuko over, mat and all.
Satisfied, he gave a nod, then headed out and up the mountain to call Tanjiro for dinner.
From a distance he could already hear the steady “clang, clang, clang” of repeated strikes.
Drawing closer, he saw Tanjiro, drenched in sweat, jaw set, swinging his blade again and again at a massive round boulder, sparks flying, leaving only faint white marks on the stone.
“Dinner!” Shinsuke called out.
Tanjiro stopped, breathing hard, and turned around, his face streaked with sweat and grime, looking battered but stubborn.
“Got it…
just a moment.” He wiped his brow and stared at the completely unscathed boulder, a flicker of discouragement crossing his eyes before determination quickly took its place.
“Go on ahead, wash up first, you reek of sweat, don’t go bothering Nezuko smelling like that.”
Shinsuke waved him off and sent Tanjiro on his way, staying behind himself.
With a light push off the ground, he leaped up onto the massive boulder.
He sat down cross-legged, reached into his robe, and pulled out a small wine flask and a packet of peanuts wrapped in oiled paper.
He uncorked the flask and, by the light of the moon and the shimmer of the snow, slowly poured himself drink after drink.
The peanuts were fried to a crisp, crunching satisfyingly with every bite.
The rice wine went down warm, carrying a thread of heat with it.
The surroundings were perfectly quiet, nothing but the sound of wind and snow.
The flask emptied quickly, and only a few peanuts remained.
He tossed the last one into his mouth, tucked away the flask and oiled paper, and dusted the crumbs from his hands.
He didn’t get up right away, still sitting there, his gaze drifting across the empty clearing.
“A whole year now…” he paused, a note of quiet resignation in his voice.
“Still won’t come out for a chat?”
The night breeze passed through, sending snow cascading softly from the treetops.
No one answered.
There was only the sound of his own breathing, steady and deep.
Shinsuke waited a few seconds, gave a rueful shake of his head, and jumped down from the boulder to leave.
Before he had taken two steps, a voice came from behind him, light and thin as a breath.
“You…
just killed a demon?”
Shinsuke paused, his back still turned, a flash of quiet delight crossing his eyes before he reined it in.
He slowly turned around.
Under the moonlight, a slender figure appeared at the edge of the boulder, seemingly out of nowhere.
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