Thwack!
Thwack!
Thwackthwackthwack!!!
The sound of steel cutting through flesh was as dense and relentless as a downpour hammering banana leaves.
“AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”
The moment Shinsuke completely lost himself to it, the Hand Demon let out the most wretched scream it had produced since the fight began.
It swung its remaining arms and freshly regrown ones wildly, trying to swat away the pink afterimages, but it couldn’t lock onto Shinsuke’s real body at all.
The blade moved like a living pink wild fox, gnawing freely across its enormous frame.
“Too slow!
Way too slow!
Move faster!
If you can’t give me enough to cut, my next strike goes straight for your neck!!!”
“No!!!
I was wrong!!!
Please spare me!!!”
The Hand Demon’s screams echoed through the mountain forest like the death cries of a cornered beast.
Its massive body shook violently under the combined strain of constant pain and the endless drain of regenerating.
In just three minutes, its once bloated, enormous frame had already been whittled down to a third of its original size.
Dark black blood seeped from every broken wound, and tender new flesh squirmed at the edges, struggling to regrow limbs.
But every time a new limb reached its most vulnerable, most sensitive stage of growth, Shinsuke cut it away.
Because he had discovered that cutting at exactly that moment was when it hurt the most.
“Keep going!
Keep going!!!”
Watching Shinsuke hack away with total abandon, Tanjiro had long since shifted from tense vigilance to sitting flat on the ground like a stunned duck.
He stared with wide eyes as the Hand Demon was stripped thinner and thinner, layer by layer.
This wasn’t killing a demon anymore, this was torture, this was an execution, this was death by a thousand cuts.
He had never seen his senior wear an expression like this.
He had always thought his senior liked to smile.
Whether it was a wicked grin, a cold smirk, or a mocking laugh, there was always a smile.
But right now, he was seeing a Shinsuke who wasn’t smiling at all.
It was…
terrifying.
The methodical, cut-by-cut torment finally stopped after five minutes.
The Hand Demon, or rather, just the demon now, no longer had hands in any meaningful sense.
In fact, more accurately, it no longer had skin anywhere on its body.
What remained was a dripping, raw mass of ruined flesh.
“Why…” the murky yellow eyes it once had were now just two hollow, sunken craters.
It could no longer regenerate even the eyes Shinsuke had carved out.
Every drop of energy it had accumulated over decades had been wrung out of it by Shinsuke in the most brutal way imaginable, leaving nothing.
Shinsuke stood beside it and gave Makomo’s blade a light flick, shaking off the thick black blood clinging to it.
Across the mud-churned clearing full of craters, only he and the blade were clean.
“Why?” He tilted his head slightly, his voice carrying no emotion at all.
“I’m helping you…
atone~”
“You should be thanking me~”
“Stab.”
The cold point of steel pierced through what remained, and the Hand Demon shrieked wildly.
“Thanks!
Thank you!
Thank you!”
Once it had said the words, its screaming dissolved into something wet and sobbing, saturated with desperate pleading.
“Kill me!
Shinsuke looked down at Makomo in his hand.
The violet-pink glow on the blade still flickered like breathing, but it had steadied considerably.
Makomo was at peace, more or less.
But…
‘I’m still not satisfied.’
‘If it weren’t for the Hand Demon, I could have actually taken Makomo’s hand and walked with her into the sunset.’
‘She wouldn’t have needed to live inside a blade just to stay by my side!!!’
Shinsuke’s technique became extraordinarily precise, or perhaps the better word was cruel.
He no longer aimed to sever limbs, since there was nothing left on the Hand Demon capable of growing, and instead pressed just the tip of the blade along the edges of wounds that hadn’t fully closed, slowly, carefully…
opening them further from within.
The cold blade parted muscle and dragged lightly across the surface of bone.
“AHHHHH!!!
Stop!
Stop it!!!”
The Hand Demon’s screaming had changed pitch entirely, the sound of something collapsing beyond the limits of physical pain.
It thrashed what was left of its body in frantic, pointless attempts to escape, but it had no energy left to regrow so much as a single tendril.
All it could do was wail and endure this surgical dismantling.
One minute…
two minutes…
The Hand Demon’s bleached-white skeleton was on the verge of being completely exposed…
“Enough!
Senior!”
Shinsuke’s hand was grabbed.
It was Tanjiro.
His face was ashen and his whole body was shaking, but his eyes were steady with a strange, clear resolve.
He was afraid.
But not of the Hand Demon.
He was afraid of Shinsuke.
He was afraid of his senior becoming consumed by hatred.
He was afraid of watching his brother fall into madness.
“Enough…
Senior…
please just kill it…”
Shinsuke turned and looked at Tanjiro with an expression somewhere between a smile and not.
He took in the concern in those eyes, heard the near-pleading in that voice…
And at that same moment, a faint sense of release drifted through the blade from Makomo.
Shinsuke glanced at the Hand Demon, which had been stripped down to separated bone and flesh, and slowly exhaled.
He worked some of the stiffness out of his expression and let his easy smile come back.
“Fine.
I’ll do it as a favor to my brother-in-law.”
This time…
Tanjiro had not even the slightest urge to object, because as long as Shinsuke wasn’t swallowed by his hatred…
he would have answered to just about anything.
“You finish it.”
“Huh?!” Tanjiro blinked.
Shinsuke shrugged.
“I don’t know Water Breathing.”
Tanjiro pointed at himself, then at what remained of the demon, looking genuinely confused.
“It’s already like that, do we really need a Breathing technique?”
Shinsuke gave him a quiet pat on the shoulder.
“I think…
Master would probably want it to die by Water Breathing…”
His senior was…
Trying to give those children something they never got?
Trying to give Master…
a chance to make it right?
Senior was…
genuinely so kind…
Shinsuke held out Makomo toward the dazed Tanjiro.
“Use my blade.”
Holding this Tang-style blade his senior never let anyone touch, the one named Makomo, Tanjiro’s first reaction was that it was heavy, his senior’s blade was so heavy.
His second reaction was that it felt familiar, there was a warmth to it he couldn’t quite place.
His third reaction was, ouch, that really hurt.
Clutching the back of his head, Tanjiro looked at Shinsuke pitifully.
“Why did you hit me?!”
“Hurry up and do it, how long are you planning to hold it!” Shinsuke was very possessive about this.
Not just Makomo, he didn’t even want Tanjiro this close to Nezuko right now either.
(｀⌒´メ) “Tch, so stingy.”
Tanjiro looked at the Hand Demon, which could no longer even scream properly and had lost any recognizable shape entirely.
He didn’t stall any further, gripping the blade in both hands and pulling into a side stance.
“Water Breathing, First Form, Water Surface Slash!”
When the cool edge finally sank into its neck, the Hand Demon almost felt something like relief.
But the familiar technique stirred one last surge of bitterness.
Urokodaki!
Sakonji!
My entire existence!
Was destroyed by you!!!
Carrying that bitterness and resentment, the Hand Demon…
perished.
While Tanjiro was still staring at the crumbling ash of what had been the Hand Demon, Shinsuke had already snatched Makomo back, and was blowing lightly on the spot where Tanjiro had been holding it with a barely concealed look of distaste.
If it weren’t for wanting Makomo to be the one to deal the killing blow, he would never have let Tanjiro touch it.
(￣ー￣) Tanjiro stared at him, completely speechless.
“Senior, so what do we do next…”
“Next!” Shinsuke cut him off without looking back, cradling the sheathed Makomo blade.
He turned away with the solitary silhouette of a lone master and spoke in a slow, grave voice.
“Tanjiro, you’ve grown up now.
There are things it’s time for you to handle yourself.
You can’t always rely on me.”
Tanjiro tilted his head.
“Huh?
Senior, what are you talking about?”
“Ahem!” Shinsuke cleared his throat.
“What I mean is, the road ahead is yours to walk on your own.”
Tanjiro sniffed the air, and his expression immediately shifted into something strange.
Stare.
╬(´-＿-｀)
“…Senior, your scent just changed…
you’re not trying to ditch me to go find Kanao, are you…”
The moment he saw Shinsuke’s back go rigid, Tanjiro knew he had guessed right and lunged forward with both hands.
“No way!
Senior, you promised Master you would…”
“Harem Breathing, Second Form, Fox Walk!”
The next second, Tanjiro stared blankly at the fading pink mist dissolving in his open palms, with no trace of Shinsuke anywhere in sight.
“SENIOOOOOOOR!!!”
A wail of pure abandonment rang out through the forest from a child left behind.