Chapter 119: Entertainment District -9-
“Urgh…! Nezuko! Nezuko!”
Tanjiro clutched his torn wounds and struggled toward Nezuko. His vision was blurring.
Nezuko’s agonizing screams pierced his ears as if they would tear them apart.
“……Tch, annoying pests just keep piling up.”
Daki, who had regenerated her head after it was severed, frowned in irritation.
In her eyes, the crawling Tanjiro was nothing more than a bug to be crushed to death.
“You’ll die first, and then I’ll burn that thrashing bitch to ashes in the sunlight.”
Daki sharpened her obi, aiming for Tanjiro’s neck. Tanjiro didn't have the strength to dodge.
Swish!
At that moment, explosive beads flown in from somewhere detonated right before Daki’s eyes.
Boom! Bam! Pow!
“Aaah! What is this?!”
While Daki was momentarily confused by the smoke obscuring her vision, a man with flashy silver hair burst into the scene like a storm.
“Sorry for being late, I had to make a flashy entrance!”
Sound Breathing, First Form: [Roar]
K-BOOM!!
Tengen’s massive twin blades slammed down with a thunderous roar. Daki’s obi defense was shredded effortlessly, and her head rolled across the floor for the second time.
“Aaargh! Again…! How dare you, again!”
The severed head shrieked in rage. Her power had become overwhelmingly stronger due to Akira’s blood, but her battle intelligence, having lived arrogantly in the entertainment district for over a hundred years, was at a pathetic level.
She was completely unprepared for ambushes or erratic attacks. This was exactly why Gyutaro had been the true Upper Moon Six—due to his superior combat intellect.
She possessed great power but didn't know how to use it; despite receiving Akira’s blood, Daki remained truly pitiful.
“You were struggling against a stupid demon like this? You need to reflect, Tanjiro.”
Tengen casually kicked Daki’s severed head away and surveyed the situation.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt a lot?!”
Nezuko was still thrashing wildly in Mitsuri’s arms.
A horrific mutation was continuing, with bones twisting and flesh bursting out.
However, Tengen’s gaze was fixed more on Mitsuri than on Nezuko.
‘That woman… what is she? She’s restraining the demonized, rampaging Nezuko through sheer strength. And she doesn’t have a single scratch on her.’
The bite mark on Mitsuri’s shoulder had already vanished without a trace.
His ninja instincts were screaming at him. That woman wasn't a normal human. She might even be a demon.
“You there, cherry-blossom hair. Who are you?”
Tengen glared at Mitsuri with sharp eyes, pointing his blade at her.
“Huh? Me? I am….”
Mitsuri blinked as if flustered, then soon answered with a bright smile.
“I’m Mitsuri Nagao! I’m the wife of Nagao Akira-san, the chairman of the Akatsuki Trading Company!”
“……What?”
Tengen’s expression hardened. The Akatsuki Trading Company.
A massive organization that had taken control of Yoshiwara and was suspected of either colluding with demons or harboring them within.
The lady of that house was standing right before him.
“The chairman’s… wife?”
“Yes! My Master is truly wonderful, you know? He cherishes me so much that I’m happy every single day!”
Mitsuri rambled on about her pride and joy with a sunny smile. Tengen was confused.
He couldn't feel any malice from the woman’s words or attitude. Yet, his instincts as a ninja were ringing loudly that she was a demon.
“Are you… human? Or a demon?”
At Tengen’s interrogation, Mitsuri scratched her cheek as if troubled.
“Well… that is… My Master gave me his blood, so I did become a demon… but I’m not a bad demon….”
Mitsuri ended up speaking the truth about something she should have hidden. Even as she spoke, she became flustered and started rambling incoherently.
It was then.
Sssshhh.
────Snap.
It sounded as if something had snapped.
The noise of the battlefield that had been tearing at their eardrums until just a moment ago—
The roar of collapsing buildings, Nezuko’s screams, the cries of the people, and the sound of the raging flames were all erased in an instant.
As if someone had forcibly turned off the sounds of the world.
“……Eh?”
Tengen was engulfed in a bizarre sensation where his own heartbeat sounded as loud as thunder.
The texture of the air changed. The air entering his lungs was no longer oxygen.
It was viscous, cold, sweet, and yet nauseating….
A purple miasma where death and pleasure were intertwined.
Ssssss~
The thick dust covering the night streets of Yoshiwara split apart to both sides like a living creature, paving the way.
From the gap, a dense purple mist flowed out. It wasn't just mist. It was a massive pressure in itself.
“Ugh… uuuugh….”
Zenitsu, who had followed Tengen, began to foam at the mouth and convulse. His absolute hearing had caught it.
The heartbeat approaching from beyond that mist was as massive and ominous as the sound of the earth's rotation.
Step, step.
Footsteps could be heard. It was the simple sound of dress shoe heels clicking against the stone pavement.
Yet, each of those sounds crushed the space and dealt a shock as if striking the listener's brain directly.
Tanjiro couldn't breathe.
‘It’s not… a scent. This isn’t a scent. He’s different from Muzan. If Muzan is a disaster or a storm…. Then that… is like a vast, empty sky….’
An instinctive fear. The primal despair one feels when facing an existence of a completely different order of life.
Tanjiro barely held on, using his Nichirin Blade as a staff to keep his knees from buckling.
Even Inosuke was trembling with his beast instincts, cold sweat pouring down inside his boar mask like rain.
“Mitsuri.”
A voice came from within the mist. It was hauntingly soft, elegant, and benevolent.
It resembled the voice of Ubuyashiki Kagaya, the leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, with its 1/f fluctuations, yet beneath it lay a darkness deeper than the abyss.
And finally, he revealed himself.
A man dressed in a black suit darker than the night sky.
His skin was so pale it looked transparent. A single horn sprouted from his forehead like a crown. And more than anything else….
Those eyes.
The ink-black sclera and the vertically slit crimson pupils seemed to suck in all light like a black hole.
The moment he made eye contact, Tengen felt a sense of shame and terror as if his soul were being stripped bare.
The King who ruled these streets—no, this world of the night—stood right there.
“……Ah.”
Before that overwhelming presence, the tip of the twin blades Tengen held trembled slightly.
His brain commanded him to fight, but every cell in his body was screaming that he would die if he moved.
“Kyahaha~! Master!!”
Breaking that frozen silence, Mitsuri ran forward with a bright smile.
The demon of monstrous strength who had been restraining Nezuko through force just a moment ago was gone, replaced by a lovely wife welcoming her beloved husband.
Mitsuri fell into Akira’s embrace. That incongruous sight only amplified the horror.
A contradiction where the most terrible monster and the purest love coexisted.
“I’m sorry I’m late. It must have been very difficult, right?”
Akira softly stroked Mitsuri’s cherry-blossom hair with a hand from which demon claws had sprouted.
His smile was as gentle as a saint in a holy painting.
“No! It wasn't difficult! I was just taking a walk when this commotion started, which was a bit troublesome~ but it wasn't hard! Still, I’m so happy you came~!”
“Yes, you’re a good girl. My lovely wife.”
Akira lightly kissed Mitsuri’s forehead and then slowly turned his gaze.
His eyes swept over Tanjiro, Tengen, and the rampaging Nezuko. In that instant, there was an illusion that the air temperature had dropped below freezing.
“Ma, Master…! Sniff…!”
Holding her severed head in her hands, Daki stumbled toward Akira with her headless body.
“Those guys… those filthy Demon Slayers…! They cut my head off… and set me on fire! It hurts… it hurts so much, Master…!”
She looked just like a child who had been hit outside and was coming home to tell her parents.
That pathetic dependency shown by an Upper Moon level demon starkly revealed what kind of existence Akira was to them.
“Oh, how pitiable. Our pretty Daki’s face has become a mess.”
Akira picked up Daki’s body with one arm and took her head with the other hand, reattaching it to her body.
With a sizzle, Daki’s wounds regenerated in an instant.
As Akira wiped the tears from Daki’s eyes, he stared at Tanjiro’s group.
He still wore a smile, but his gaze was colder than a glacier.
“So… was it you who hurt my children?”
It wasn't a question. It was a sentence. A crushing pressure that felt like it would stop their hearts.
Tengen remained rooted to the spot, having forgotten how to even breathe.
“Kroaaaah! Kieeeeeeek!!”
Just then, Nezuko, who still hadn't grasped the situation, let out another monstrous shriek and twisted her body.
It was a seizure caused by the collision between Akira’s cells and her original cells within her body.
Akira looked down at Nezuko as if he found her annoying, yet interesting.
His red pupils pierced through Nezuko’s trembling ones.
“……Quiet.”
He didn't shout. He merely whispered softly. But that word carried an absolute power that could not be disobeyed.
Thud.
Like a machine that had its power cut or a puppet with its strings severed, Nezuko’s rampaging stopped as if it were a lie.
She collapsed to the floor, doing nothing but taking short, ragged breaths. It was an absolute obedience that wouldn't even allow her body to tremble.
It was a cell-level surrender to a superior predator, imprinted at the biological level.
Akira nodded in satisfaction. He then slowly began walking toward Tengen.
With every single step closer, Tengen felt the shadow of death tightening its grip around his neck.
“I didn't intend for it… but I’ve unexpectedly gained a new child.”
Akira glanced toward the fallen Nezuko and then asked Tengen.
“Tonight is a truly flashy night. Isn’t it, Sound Hashira?”
Akira grinned. That smile, where the corners of his mouth seemed to stretch all the way to his ears, was not human.
It was a smile that could only be worn by an existence of absolute evil or something close to a god, seeing humans as nothing more than livestock or toys.
If a devout Christian were to see him, they would call him this:
The Antichrist.
On a night where even the flashy lights of Yoshiwara had lost their color, under the rule of the true Night King, the Demon Slayer Corps was sinking into a swamp called despair.
A chill that froze one to the marrow swept through the night streets.
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