Infinity Castle.
The endlessly tangled corridors and pillars twisted and groaned like the beating of a heart deep underground.
As if the entire mountain range were being shaken, a heavy thud echoed through the whole space, like the sound of something gasping for breath.
Akaza braced a hand against the wall.
A massive ripple rose from beneath his feet and surged up his ankles to his waist. In an instant, cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
“...What is this...?”
He had experienced Infinity Castle’s whims countless times. When Nakime plucked her biwa, hundreds of rooms and stairways would be rearranged at random, and ceilings and floors would interlock and shift.
But this vibration was different. It was the resonance of someone’s sword biting into space itself and roaring out.
Akaza’s golden eyes flashed. Then he frowned.
“...This presence is Upper Rank One...!”
The vibration just now had been like a natural disaster. A blizzard, a storm, an earthquake. But the force shaking Infinity Castle now was unmistakably Upper Rank One, Kokushibo’s.
Akaza instinctively realized that he had reached some new realm.
“Why... I, too, am one who hones the path of the warrior as your equal. Why are you transcending the highest realm――and heading beyond the farthest horizon!”
He ground his teeth and shouted. When he slammed a hand down on the tatami in the room, a burst of thunder cracked out like a ripple exploding outward.
Boom
“It’s always that bastard. Always...”
Akaza had originally wanted a private audience with Muzan.
He was heading deeper into Infinity Castle, hoping either to receive a new order or to display the “strength” he so desperately wanted to prove.
The one he found was Nakime, the woman who controlled this castle.
With her black hair falling around her, Nakime was always expressionless. Only her lips and delicate lower face were visible.
Her true face could not be seen.
As she plucked the biwa strings, the floor beneath Akaza’s feet warped and a new corridor opened.
“Biwa woman.”
Akaza’s voice rumbled low.
“That vibration just now... was that from Upper Rank One?”
Nakime did not even lift her head. Her lips moved faintly.
“...Yes.”
Akaza’s brow furrowed deeply. Veins bulged at his temple. His fist trembled.
“Send me... to where that bastard is.”
Nakime looked at Akaza for a moment with half-lidded eyes.
“The Upper Ranks are forbidden from fighting each other by Muzan-sama. Surely you know that?”
“I know that. I just have something to say to him. Enough chatter—send me to him already!”
At Akaza’s shout, Nakime’s biwa strings rang again.
Twang.
The note rang out even more sharply than before, as if carving a silent warning into Akaza.
Not to attack him under any circumstances unless it was a Blood Battle.
§§§
In an instant, space twisted.
When Akaza stepped forward, he was suddenly standing in a wide room that felt almost like a temple.
A large tatami mat lay in the center.
And atop it sat a massive shadow in seiza, its six eyes closed in silence as it exuded an overwhelming killing intent from its entire body.
Akaza’s breath caught for a moment.
“Ghk...!”
The sensation of his demon body being heavily pressed down. It was as if the weight of the entire earth had been placed on his back.
The presence of that enormous shadow, filling the room completely, made even Akaza struggle to breathe.
A chill that froze the lungs and a cold dread ruled over his whole body.
Akaza, drenched in cold sweat, stared at the huge shadow sitting quietly in seiza――Upper Rank One, Kokushibo.
A monster who had lived longer than he had.
His sword rested on his knees. From the tip, the red embers of the Red Blade still flickered like sparks.
But it was not mere embers. It was a new and inexplicable fusion of moonlight and flame.
Akaza’s lips went dry.
“...W-what is this. This bastard definitely... transcended something.”
Akaza could not hide the cold sweat running down the back of his neck, even as disgust welled up inside him.
Ever since becoming a demon, he had pursued only strength. Strength was the reason for his existence.
The weak fell easily, and only the strong survived. That was the belief Akaza had clung to.
But now, in front of Kokushibo, that belief wavered.
This was not simple strength.
A being who had been cut down hundreds, thousands of times and yet stood up again, forging the scars within himself into a sword.
The killing intent he radiated seemed almost as if it had been learned from humans.
“Kuh...”
Akaza ground his teeth. Jealousy beyond anger spread through him.
Jealousy he could not even deny. Kokushibo’s strength had transcended the highest realm Akaza had desired but could never reach, and then gone even further beyond it.
The air in the room was so dense it felt hard to breathe.
The killing intent pouring from Kokushibo’s body was like the sea. Moonlit waves rolled in, then surged again like crimson flames.
Akaza clenched his fists.
The Blood Demon Art tattooed across his forearms seemed to writhe on its own.
As if instinct itself was trying to protect his body in front of Kokushibo.
His six eyes were still closed. But Akaza could feel it. Kokushibo already knew he was there.
His breathing grew rough.
Clenching his fists, Akaza took a step forward.
“...You.”
He called out with difficulty, but the seated shadow did not move an inch. Only the red embers trembling over the sword stood in for any motion.
Akaza clicked his tongue.
“Are you ignoring me... or am I just not worth your attention right now?”
At that moment, Kokushibo’s lips moved very slowly. His voice was low, heavy as stone.
“...What business do you have, Akaza.”
Akaza’s eyes wavered.
Cold sweat gathered at his throat.
Kokushibo’s presence remained calm, but within it, a “new moon” was awakening.
Akaza spoke in a steady voice. Yet unease seeped into it.
“What in the world did you just do...?”
Kokushibo did not answer. He simply opened his six eyes slowly.
Flash
For an instant, Akaza’s breath stopped.
Within those six eyes were both cruel moonlight and the fighting spirit humans had drawn up from their scars.
“...I merely trained.”
The words were dry, but Akaza could feel with painful clarity that this was no ordinary training. That vibration from just now, the natural-disaster-like wave that had shaken all of Infinity Castle, could not have been produced by simple practice.
“Training?”
Akaza let out a hollow laugh.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re telling me mere training made the whole of Infinity Castle tremble? You just... created something new.”
Kokushibo’s six eyes slowly lifted. In the flashing moonlight, it almost seemed as though human fighting spirit had seeped into them.
“Moon Breathing, Seventeenth Form. I have not yet even finished naming it, but I have settled the strike.”
The sword tip trembled ever so slightly. In that instant, the air in the room folded and spread again. An invisible trajectory brushed past Akaza’s cheek. His flesh was not cut, but the sensation of being cut remained vividly behind.
The tattoo on the back of Akaza’s hand twitched.
“......You. You didn’t even cut me, and yet you made me feel as if I’d been hit?”
Kokushibo nodded.
“An intangible slash. Scars do not remain only in flesh and bone. Traces alter direction, and the sword follows those traces.”
Akaza unconsciously took a step back. But then he clenched his fist again and leaned forward.
“If you want to talk about strength, then come back stronger? Your way of speaking never changes.”
Kokushibo did not move.
“This is a warning. You know the rules. Unless it is a Blood Battle, combat between Upper Ranks is forbidden. If you take one more step, I will cut you down at once.”
At that moment, far away, Nakime’s biwa strings rang out with a twang.
A warning pierced Akaza’s ears.
Akaza clenched his teeth and opened and closed his fists. The pattern on the back of his hand pulsed like a heartbeat. He let out a laugh mixed with a sigh.
“I only want to spar with you.”
Kokushibo’s six eyes moved slowly. His gaze was as unwavering as moonlight that had remained fixed in the same place for hundreds of years.
“You always say the same thing. But whether you call it sparring or battle――in the end, it is only obsession with blood and death.”
Veins bulged on Akaza’s forehead. He gritted his teeth and lowered his head.
“Yeah... that’s right. I’m still weak. That’s why I crave strength. But today, at this moment, this is not a fight. I just want to know.”
Kokushibo was silent for a moment. The embers at the tip of his sword trembled faintly, and the air in the room split apart.
“What... do you want to know...”
Akaza’s golden eyes flashed.
“That power you saw. The power drawn from human scars. What is it? Is it something we demons can never possess?”
Kokushibo’s lips moved slowly.
“Scars are born from wounds. But they only grow in the sword of one who bears pain. You long for strength, but you have not carved scars into yourself. Your fists fight, but they do not remain.”
Akaza’s hand trembled. He stamped his foot, pouring enough force into the tatami to make it groan.
“...Don’t be ridiculous. I have countless scars too! Hundreds of battles, thousands of blood and flesh. How could those not remain!”
Kokushibo’s six eyes closed briefly, then opened again.
“You were wounded in battle, but you did not draw that into a path of your own. A swordsman and a warrior are the same in that regard. They transcend those traces and complete intangible slashes or fist techniques. Your fists are still only those of a demon obsessed with destruction.”
In an instant, the air in the room split. As an invisible blade cut through the void, the skin on Akaza’s forearm split slightly. No blood flowed, but the thin line left on his skin was unmistakable.
Akaza’s breath caught.
“Kuh...!”
Kokushibo calmly sheathed his sword and said, “This is the intangible. A sword strike that leaves a trace without cutting. Scars follow beyond the body and into the soul.”
“Yes... I’ve just decided the name of the Seventeenth Form.”
“――Moon Breathing, Seventeenth Form: [Empty Moon Full Light, Shadowless].”
A slash that cut with the brilliant light of the full moon suspended in the void, leaving not even a shadow behind.
Akaza’s compass can detect every attack with the precision of a magnet or a compass. It could be called a lesser version of the Transparent World.
But that slash just now could not be reacted to.
Shock seeped into his expression. His golden eyes shook violently.
Anger, jealousy, and awe he could not deny all crossed at once. Grinding his teeth, he belatedly realized the distortion in the wide room that had been sliced apart in an instant.
“――As expected, spar with me. Only you can show me that possibility...!”
Akaza’s shout filled the room. Infinity Castle’s walls and pillars once again gave off a trembling resonance.
Kokushibo did not move. His six eyes shone quietly like moonlight, and red embers rippled from his fingertips in place of an answer.
“Sparring... So that is all you want.”
His voice was low and firm.
Akaza’s golden eyes blazed. He tried to step forward again, but at that moment Nakime’s biwa strings rang out once more with a twang.
An invisible force barred Akaza’s feet.
It was a warning. The taboo between Upper Ranks.
Akaza clenched his teeth and balled his fists.
“...Hold on, Nakime. I’ll explain it to Muzan. Send him back. It’s only a brief spar...”
Nakime’s biwa strings trembled low.
Twang, twang.
Space rippled like water, and the force holding Akaza’s ankles sank deeper. He tried to pin himself in place by stamping his toes into the tatami, but the floor itself seemed to vanish and reappear, trembling beneath him.
[Permission denied.]
Nakime’s voice spread from all directions.
[It is Muzan’s prohibition. Not for a moment, not even by exception.]
Veins bulged on Akaza’s forehead.
“I said I’d take responsibility. Trust me and――”
[This is not a matter of trust.]
The biwa rang again.
Twang, twang.
[I am the one who protects Infinity Castle.]
Nakime hated the thought of Infinity Castle collapsing more than anything, even if it meant dying for it.
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