Deep in the mountain forest.
Shinsuke and Tanjiro walked side by side at an unhurried pace.
Tanjiro kept his nerves on edge, his nose twitching at intervals, carefully picking up any trace of unusual scent carried on the wind.
“Senior, shouldn’t we be moving faster?” Tanjiro said under his breath.
“Everyone else seems to have pushed ahead already.”
“What’s the rush.” Shinsuke strolled along, his gaze drifting with apparent laziness over the surrounding trees and shadows.
“We have seven days.
Charging too hard at the start just makes you a target.”
He paused and glanced sideways at Tanjiro with a meaningful smile.
“Besides, as guests, shouldn’t we give our hosts a little time to get ready?”
The words had barely left his mouth when…
“Heh…
heh heh…”
From the bushes to the left came a heavy, unsettling rasp of breathing.
Tanjiro drew his blade in an instant, the gleaming edge cutting a bright arc through the dim forest.
A demon with ashen-grey skin and clouded eyes crawled out from behind a tree, its body hunched, bone spurs jutting from its elbows, thick drool dripping from the corner of its mouth as it fixed its stare on Shinsuke.
“Humans…
humans…”
“Smell so good…
hungry…”
Tanjiro drew a deep breath and settled into the opening stance of Water Breathing, his eyes going sharp.
“Leave this one to me, Senior.”
Shinsuke stepped back half a pace, crossed his arms, and settled into the posture of someone watching a show.
“Go ahead.
Let me see what a year and a half of training has done for you.”
“Right!” Tanjiro let out a low shout and lunged forward.
“Water Breathing, First Form, Water Surface Slash!”
He swept through like flowing water, his blade tracing a smooth arc, and the demon at the front never even had time to react before its head left its body and dissolved into black ash mid-air.
But before Tanjiro could even exhale, another demon burst from the treetops directly above him, claws out, shrieking as it dove.
Tanjiro didn’t panic, sidestepping smoothly and spinning his blade back around, having clearly already caught the scent of the one hiding above.
“Water Breathing, Second Form, Water Wheel!”
His body rotated like a wheel, blade flashing out in a circular arc of water-like slashes, shearing cleanly through the demon’s outstretched claws.
“Water Breathing, Fourth Form, Striking Tide!”
Tanjiro launched off the ground, and his blade, trailing a sharp current of blue, cut cleanly through the demon’s neck while it was still in the air.
“Ghhk…” The demon’s shriek caught in its throat as its body began to crumble and scatter.
Tanjiro sheathed his blade and caught his breath, then turned back to Shinsuke with a thread of expectation in his reddish eyes.
“So?
How was that, Senior?”
“Passable.” Shinsuke’s words were casual, but his eyes carried quiet approval.
“Movements were clean enough, Breathing didn’t fall apart.
Looks like all that boulder splitting paid off.”
Tanjiro scratched the back of his head, then suddenly remembered something and smacked his palm with a groan.
“Ah, I forgot to ask questions!”
Shinsuke shook his head.
Tanjiro’s expression stayed serious.
“I still have to try, just in case.”
Shinsuke gave another helpless shake of his head.
“Do what you want.”
The words had barely settled when Shinsuke’s expression shifted, just slightly.
His left hand moved to the hilt of the Tang Blade at his hip without drawing any attention to itself.
The blade was trembling faintly.
Not the eager trembling that came before a fight, but something closer to a sob caught in the throat, a trembling born from rage, and a grief so deep it had become a wail.
Makomo…
A flame rose in Shinsuke’s chest.
A blade spirit didn’t react like this without reason.
On this mountain, only one thing could stir Makomo’s emotions this violently.
He raised his head, his gaze seeming to cut straight through layer after layer of trees and shadow, reaching toward the deeper dark of the forest ahead.
From that direction came a presence far more dense and far colder than either of the two minor demons they had just dealt with.
“That stench!” Tanjiro had clearly caught it too, and looked immediately to Shinsuke.
“That’s stronger than every demon I’ve ever smelled combined.
Senior, is that it?”
Shinsuke didn’t answer right away.
He simply rested his hand gently against the hilt, steadying the faint trembling there.
“Tanjiro,” Shinsuke said, his voice a register lower than usual.
“Whatever happens next, stay behind me and watch.”
“Huh?” Tanjiro blinked.
“But Senior…”
“Do as I say.”
Shinsuke cut him off, leaving no room for argument.
“This demon…
is mine.”
He set off toward the source of that presence.
His stride was as steady as ever, but Tanjiro’s sharp nose caught something in the air that wasn’t there before.
Not the usual easygoing scent that made people want to both relax and punch him at the same time, but something cold, saturated with killing intent.
Tanjiro swallowed and tightened his grip on his hilt, then fell into step close behind.
The deeper they went, the denser the trees became and the darker the light.
The cold, heavy presence in the air thickened with every step, laced now with the sharp copper of blood and a sickening, rancid odor underneath it.
Tanjiro’s brow furrowed hard, and it was obvious the smell was taking a real toll on someone with senses as keen as his.
Then they heard the sounds.
Not a demon’s screech, but a human scream.
Brief, desperate, cut short.
Followed by a crunching, grinding sound that made the skin crawl.
Tanjiro’s face flooded with fury and his feet moved faster on instinct, though he still didn’t pull ahead of Shinsuke.
They rounded a thick cluster of trees, and in the middle of a relatively open clearing in the forest, they finally came face to face with the source of the stench.
It was a monster of almost incomprehensible size.
Its body was a mass of flesh piled upon flesh, its ashen-grey skin crosshatched with twisted sinew.
But what was most horrifying was its body itself.
Countless human arms grew out from every part of its torso, packed dense as weeds, writhing through the air like grotesque vines or squirming tentacles, moving with a slow, mindless rhythm.
Several of those arms were currently clutching what remained of a human body, feeding it into a massive mouth formed from two more arms pressed together.
Blood ran down from its chin and soaked into the earth below. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Around it lay scattered pieces of torn clothing and the blades of other participants who had come before.
“What…
what is this…” Tanjiro’s voice trembled, caught between fear and rage.
He could smell it, the overwhelming reek of death and despair, and beneath it, the dense, suffocating hunger and malice radiating from the creature in front of them.
The Hand Demon.
Shinsuke’s eyes narrowed.
His right hand pressed down firmly against the hilt of the Tang Blade, which was now trembling harder than before.
Makomo’s emotions poured through the blade and into him.
A hatred that cut to the bone, a grief that pierced the heart, and beneath all of it, a sorrow with no end in sight.
This was the one.
The one that had eaten Sabito, eaten Makomo, eaten so many of Master Urokodaki’s beloved students.
The Hand Demon seemed to sense new prey, stopped chewing, and turned its head slowly.
Its face had no nose, only a vast mouth and a pair of murky yellow eyes.
When its gaze landed on Shinsuke and Tanjiro, that huge mouth pulled wide into a twisted, cruel grin.
“Heh heh…
two more little ones have come.”
Its voice dripped with mockery.
“That mask…
heh heh heh…
I know those carved markings.”
The Hand Demon’s eyes focused on the sun-patterned fox ward mask on Tanjiro’s face.
“Urokodaki…
Sakonji Urokodaki’s little ones.” Its laughter grew louder, cresting into deranged delight.
“Wonderful…
wonderful!
I’ve waited so long, and finally another of his students has come!”
Countless arms swung into motion with excitement, slapping against the ground with heavy, dull thuds.
“Do you know, little one,” the Hand Demon said, fixing its gaze on Tanjiro, yellow eyes swimming with venom, “how many little ones wearing masks like yours I’ve eaten on this mountain?”
“Twelve?
Or thirteen?
I’ve lost count…
heh heh heh, but I remember every single one of their dying screams perfectly!”
Tanjiro’s pupils snapped tight.
Fury erupted in his chest like a volcano, the veins on the back of his sword hand standing out as he gripped the hilt.
“You…
it was you, you bastard!!!”
“Tanjiro.” Shinsuke reached out and held down his junior’s shoulder before he could launch himself forward.
His voice was completely calm, and that calmness was more unsettling than any rage.
Tanjiro turned, and when he saw his senior’s face, he went still.
There was no expression on it at all.
But for someone like Shinsuke, who was always smiling, always stirring things up, no expression at all meant the storm inside was at its most violent.
“Senior…” Tanjiro murmured without thinking.
Shinsuke didn’t look at him, his gaze locked on the Hand Demon.
He lifted his hand from Tanjiro’s shoulder and took one step forward.
“Thirteen.” Shinsuke said, his voice quiet but cutting clean through the Hand Demon’s deranged laughter.
“You ate thirteen of Sakonji Urokodaki’s students.”