Moonlight flickered once, and the air around the ruined temple sagged as if drained of strength.
The Water Hashira’s left shoulder blade vanished. Flesh and bone were shaved away by the razor edge of moonlight, and hot blood burst out in a rainstorm.
The old body dropped to its knees. Gravel on the ground drank in the blood, and the blood quickly thinned like water, seeping into the earth.
The Water Hashira clenched his teeth.
Every breath felt like his lungs were being torn apart, and every exhale left the edges of his vision blackened. And yet his eyes had not gone out.
With his trembling right hand gripping his sword, he forced his back upright.
“...Not yet.”
Blood foam burst at the corner of his throat.
“Not yet...!”
Kokushibo’s six eyes watched the Water Hashira in silence. His gaze was cold and still, but something within it was shifting little by little.
“Even after losing your left arm, you still do not let go of your sword.”
He angled his blade one-handed and gave the smallest nod.
“I am a Pillar. Do you think a Pillar of the Demon Slayer Corps would beg a demon for his life!”
Daki’s breath caught sharply in the distance. The fingertips clutching her kimono sleeve went pale as the blood drained from them. What showed in Kokushibo’s profile now was neither mockery nor contempt.
There was a trace of small, quiet respect for the swordsman known as the Water Hashira, Iwanai Kotaro. It was an expression she had never once seen, even before Muzan.
The surviving subordinates of the Water Hashira all trembled at the edge of the temple grounds. No one was crying. And yet all of their eyes were wet. A Kasugai crow cried out briefly overhead. Far away, the presence of reinforcements had still not arrived.
“W-Water Hashira-sama...! Fall back!”
“Water Hashira-sama must live!”
The young subordinate’s shout rang toward him. But the Water Hashira shook his head.
“The ones who need to live are you.”
He stood again. The ground warped beneath him. But his feet kept moving forward. The tip of the sword in his right hand scraped against the moonlight.
Kokushibo realized long before that this would be the Water Hashira’s end. Respect and consideration directed toward him.
He felt it. This was the last.
When the Water Hashira gripped his sword hilt again, Kokushibo also took the same stance. A swordsman several times younger than himself, and one who belonged to the weaker side of the scale.
And human.
It would have been right to kill him without mercy and strengthen the power of the demon, but this time, he did not feel like doing that.
He did not even know whether it was because of the brief bond of this long night.
With the faintest lift at the corner of his mouth, he said softly, “...I am Kokushibo. A demon who will decorate your end.”
“—Water Breathing!”
The sound of breath being shaved away mixed in thinly. Facing the overwhelming strength of Kokushibo, the Water Hashira’s right hand surged forward, blood vessels bursting as he moved.
“Twelfth Form, Wave Crest!”
Kokushibo answered in a low voice.
“Come. As a warrior!”
§§§
The Water Hashira’s body dropped low as if vanishing. One arm left, one breath left.
The sword showed no flash. Only flow remained. Like a river finding an unseen valley, his strike slipped into the lowest gap beneath Kokushibo’s ribcage.
In an instant, Kokushibo’s six eyes narrowed to a single point.
Thinly, truly thinly, a slash unfolded. The two blades never met, and yet the sound of the blade’s rupture rang out like friction.
At the place where before and after brushed past each other, the Water Hashira’s sword tip rebounded and drew a small circle in the night sky.
The Water Hashira coughed up blood again.
His knees tore against the ground, leaving a smear of blood. Even so, he picked up his sword. His fingers would not close properly, but he managed to hold the blade with the back of his hand.
“...If I can’t finish it, then I’ll hold on!”
The moonlight hanging from the sword’s spine trembled once.
Kokushibo’s toes scraped the dirt very lightly as he passed. There was no sound, but the air where he stepped turned over, leaving a thin crease.
“Hold on...”
He murmured low. Two of the six eyes measured the Water Hashira’s hand and ankle, one measured the rotation of his waist, and the rest measured the spacing of his breath.
“Is that resolve what keeps your sword in your hand for so long?”
The Water Hashira lowered his body even further. With only his remaining right arm, he held the sword flat, compensating for the trajectory with his armpit, ribs, and the twist of his waist.
An old technique that drove the blade forward not with arm strength, but with the inertia of flowing water—the more of the body you abandoned, the thinner and more precise the path became.
“Haa—”
He let out a long exhale. The blood on the ground trembled faintly, as if reacting to his breath.
The Water Hashira’s sword tip scraped the moonlight as it searched for the lowest channel. The shallow gap between ribcage and diaphragm, a gap a normal sword would never find.
In that instant, Kokushibo’s sword tip was already sealing it.
They had never actually clashed, and yet the sensation of impact traveled up from his wrist to his shoulder. It felt less like blades colliding and more like time itself colliding. The Water Hashira’s sword tip lost its rebound and was flung upward, drawing a small circle in the night sky.
“...Huff.”
The Water Hashira exhaled roughly. Nausea surged up inside him, but he bent his waist again. His fingers had grown even stiffer, and the act of gripping itself felt like torture. Then—he would not grip with his fingers.
The Water Hashira hooked the ridges of his knuckles and wrist bones over the sword spine, fixing it in place as if stitching it shut.
Kokushibo smiled without light, in silence.
“You are truly impressive, even with that body.”
Then the edge of the temple grounds suddenly surged.
The three surviving subordinates all sprinted at once without even looking at one another. The hooked crow cried out behind them. Daki’s pupils shook.
Daki had only recently become an Upper Rank. Without Kokushibo’s order, she was not in a position to act recklessly. And yet, for some reason, what filled her heart was not anxiety, but relief and elation.
“Don’t come!”
The Water Hashira squeezed out the last of his strength and shouted, but their feet had already committed. One came from the left with a low slash aimed to cut the waist, another circled behind to sever the neck, and the last drove in to stab at Kokushibo’s arms and legs.
As expected of comrades who had fought together for a long time, each angle covered the others’ openings.
Kokushibo’s six eyes blinked once. He did not swing his sword wide, nor did he add force. Only a short slash, as if pushing sideways. Moonlight brushed the blade’s spine and left behind a thin film.
And then, time opened from behind.
The subordinate on the left took one more step with a thin white line like a crack left across his chest, only for that line to split open as if breathing and collapse quietly.
The subordinate on the right lost his ankle first as he charged in, and as he fell forward, a shadow-like line of severance followed late from waist to shoulder, dividing his body.
And the one in the center was struck head-on by a crescent slash, cleanly separating his upper and lower body.
“Stop—!”
The Water Hashira’s throat split with blood. His cry scattered into the wind like dust lifted by a gust.
Kokushibo swept his blade once more, as if tidying the remaining sword marks. It was not blood that fell away, but the thin residue of air.
“Fools. Is this the end of the weak? Truly fleeting, utterly fleeting creatures.”
Kokushibo had little interest in the subordinates who had only stood by and watched from behind. Rather, he simply swung his sword as the body’s owner’s instincts dictated.
He felt the discordant blending of mind and body fully synchronize. Stronger demon power than before, Moon Breathing, and even Blood Demon Art.
He wondered if he might be able to reach his twin brother—Yoriichi—even a little.
The Water Hashira’s knees trembled, but he stepped forward.
For the first time, he abandoned the front. Not the side, not the diagonal. He gave up the front and placed his sword in the non-front.
Water flows, but it does not collide head-on. It curves around and erodes.
“...Water Breathing.”
He whispered it.
Kokushibo lowered his sword.
“Show me. That choice.”
The Water Hashira turned his back to the moon. His shadow stretched long, and for a single instant, night existed at Kokushibo’s ankle. The Water Hashira’s sword touched that night. Another low point in the unseen valley.
Clack—.
From the wrist came the sound not of bone breaking, but of resolve breaking. The nerve cords in his right arm snapped upward like a ball of fire and burned his shoulder. The Water Hashira gritted his teeth and pushed the sword forward.
The blade tip tore a thread’s width from Kokushibo’s collar. Moonlight was disturbed by the width of a hair.
All six eyes smiled at once. No—acknowledged it.
“Good.”
The moon folded and spread over the sword in layers.
“...Moon Breathing—First Form, Dark Moon, Evening Palace.”
He swung horizontally in a wide, sweeping blow, unleashing a massive slash. As if carving the surrounding space like paper, the moonlit ferocity of the strike continued like a chain of slashes.
The first slash rang out behind the Water Hashira.
The second slash closed in front of the Water Hashira.
His body was caught between the two slashes, and his eyebrows went white for a moment. The sword he had been holding with the back of his hand slipped from his grip and fell with a dull thud. His hand was empty.
The feeling in his fingers vanished, and below the wrist there was only a black hollow.
Daki’s lips curled up unconsciously. Her kimono sleeve grew wet. The hooked crow scratched the night with a sharp cry.
Do not fall—
The Water Hashira spoke the words to himself like a spell.
One shoulder was gone, one hand was gone. Even so, his knees held. His back swayed, but his head did not bend.
He searched for the scabbard with his head. The sword was on the ground. He could not even reach it.
His lower body trembled violently. Countless slashes scattered in all directions like flying blades, all of them aimed at him.
Clang! Clang!
When he barely deflected the lingering force of the slashes, huge scrapes were left across his body.
“Aaaaaaah!”
This might have been his final struggle. The Water Hashira willingly chose his own end.
He did not let go of the sword, holding it to the very end in order to endure even a little longer against the overwhelming strength of Kokushibo.
“Fine spirit.”
Kokushibo said it again. This time, it was unmistakably calm praise.
“Your flame does not go out with the wind alone. The flow of water is calm, but that flow only spreads the flame further.”
He approached. The tip of his sword did not aim for the Water Hashira’s throat. Not the chest, not the stomach. Eye level. A courtesy to let a warrior die as a warrior.
“Enough.”
The Water Hashira shook his head.
“N-No, not yet. The people in the district... are still far.”
He stared somewhere distant with unfocused eyes. The red lanterns of Yoshiwara, the pale light of the riverbank, broken roof tiles. The wreckage of the night tangled together into one scene.
“I’ll... buy more... time from you!”
One of Kokushibo’s six eyes trembled faintly.
“Then,”
he said in a low voice,
“I will give you an end that does not shame a warrior.”
“And do not worry. As you wish, I will not touch the humans in the district.”
The Water Hashira’s toes brushed the ground one last time. His body tilted forward. He stopped the body from falling with his chin.
One final time, he formed the posture of a warrior. Even without hands, even without arms, the posture remained.
“...Twelfth Form. ...Wave Crest.”
He mouthed the words only with his lips. No sound came out anymore. Even the faint sound of his breathing was slowly going out.
The limit of an aged body, the appearance of a man facing death.
Kokushibo’s sword moved sideways, just slightly.
Moonlight rose behind the Water Hashira, drawing out only his shadow before vanishing.
Silence.
The Water Hashira’s body leaned forward with delayed collapse. His knees hit first, then his forehead, then his torso touched the ground. No more blood surged out. As if a river had reached the sea and merged into it without a sound, the flow came to a stop.
Kokushibo sheathed his sword but did not close his eyes. He watched him to the very end.
“Water Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, Iwanai Kotaro.”
He called the name once more in his heart.
“Your path was splendid.”
The wind rippled through the ruined temple grounds. Daki finally let out a breath. The crow cried again from far away.
From a distance, the faint murmur of human footsteps was crossing over the ridgeline. The late shadow of reinforcements.
Kokushibo did not turn his head.
He stood there for a moment longer, until the edge of the night grew even thinner. A time when the courtesy of a warrior and the instincts of a demon cooled in the same place.
And then, as if leaving no trace behind—he slowly turned away.
“Daki, retreat.”
With that final line, the two of them vanished completely.
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