Akaza had felt that something was wrong with his mind ever since the day his head was cut off.
All along, he had never preyed on human women, and he especially despised Doma, who specifically hunted women.
But even he could not clearly explain why.
Perhaps some kind of subconscious impulse was at work, or perhaps he simply disliked the scent women carried. In any case, whenever he faced the corpse of a human woman, he felt absolutely no appetite.
Now, however, the situation had grown worse.
During the days he spent searching for the Wind Breathing training grounds, he hunted while simultaneously tracking the movements of Demon Slayer Corps members.
One day, as he prepared to kill a man standing in front of his lover, a woman's voice suddenly rang beside his ear.
'Hakuji, stop this!'
Who was that? How could someone appear beside him without a sound?
Startled, he frantically looked around, but there was no sign of the woman.
The killing intent inside Akaza faded with the sound of that voice. In the end, he spared the couple and vanished into the mountains.
Similar incidents continued to occur from time to time.
When he devoured humans, he would hear the woman crying. When he trained his fists, he would hear the same woman's praise.
Who exactly was she? In the middle of the night... could it be a ghost?
The moment the thought appeared, even Akaza himself couldn't help but laugh in irritation.
He was called a demon, but he was nothing like the wandering spirits humans spoke of. At most, he was simply a more advanced predator.
At the end of the day, he was still a living creature.
"Should I ask Lord Muzan? Could ghosts really exist in this world?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Hakuji. It's been so many years. If heaven and hell, Buddhas and gods truly existed, you would have suffered retribution long ago."
"...Wait. What am I even saying?"
Walking through the forest while talking to himself, Akaza increasingly felt that his mind was becoming abnormal.
Bang!
He simply smashed his own ear with a punch, thinking that perhaps a newly regenerated one would work better.
But nothing changed.
Now, Akaza's fist was only inches away from Rika.
As long as he wished, he could shatter both the woman and the boy behind her instantly.
But for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to strike.
"Damn it! That black-haired swordsman scrambled my brain!" Akaza roared in frustration, unable to explain what was happening to him.
"Hakuji, you're not like this! Don't keep going down the wrong path!"
"Come home! Come home!"
"Enough! Who the hell is Hakuji? I'm Akaza! Upper Rank Three! Akaza!!"
"Graaah!"
With a furious roar, he unleashed Destructive Kill: Shattering Form: Myriad Leaf Flash Willow.
Boom!
The punch slammed into the ground of the Hayama training grounds, instantly blasting half the estate to pieces.
Broken stones and roof tiles flew everywhere.
Nearby, Inosuke and Rika were directly blown away by the shockwave.
Kenichi and the others hurriedly dragged the unconscious Master Arasaki away, while several children even younger than Inosuke gripped long swords and formed rows between their teacher and Akaza, trembling as they pointed their blades at him.
"You can't destroy our home!"
"Get out! Demon!"
Veins bulged across Akaza's forehead as he clenched his iron fists, preparing to beat these ignorant brats to death one by one.
But in the next moment, he suddenly felt the world spinning.
Bang!
Akaza felt himself slammed heavily onto the ground. Above him stretched a bright blue sky.
Daytime? Impossible!
Panicking, he scrambled to his feet and tried to flee from the sunlight.
After running two steps, he realized something was wrong.
He stared at his muddy, somewhat thin hands.
They weren't burning under the sunlight...
What was going on?
"Haha! You have real talent, boy! Want to join my dojo?" A middle-aged man dressed in a white martial arts uniform laughed heartily at him. "Come give it a try. I'm Keizo of the Soryu Dojo!"
"Go to hell!"
Akaza couldn't be bothered to listen and threw a punch.
Keizo wasn't angry. Instead, he assumed a stance to receive the attack.
"Then be reborn, young man."
Bang!
His vision spun again.
But the man before him was no longer that middle-aged master.
Akaza discovered that he had been violently rammed by that boy wearing a boar's head mask, sending him crashing onto his back.
This is insane...
Keizo...
Why does that name sound so familiar?
Akaza planted his hands on the ground and flipped back to his feet with astonishing speed, staring at the people before him.
Kenichi stood at the front of the disciples, holding his master's old Nichirin Blade and shouting firmly,
"Demon! I'll be your opponent!"
One after another...
Just a group of brats who couldn't even properly master Breathing Techniques, yet they dared to think they could kill him with those broken swords?
Akaza found it utterly ridiculous.
"Haha, everyone starts out weak. Only under the protection of others can they slowly grow."
"One day, you will become strong too. When that day comes, it will be your turn to protect others."
Akaza instinctively swung a punch behind him, only to discover there was no one there.
Clang!
In that brief moment of distraction, Akaza suddenly felt sharp pain.
That damned boar-headed boy refused to give up.
At that moment, he and the woman struck together, three blades slashing simultaneously across Akaza's neck.
"Are you idiots?" Akaza was truly furious now. He couldn't understand what these two weak humans were trying to accomplish. "You're not Marked swordsmen, and your Nichirin Blades aren't burning. What makes you think that standing here and slashing will actually cut my neck off?"
"How ridiculous!"
He swung his fists.
Under his suppressed rage, both fists transformed into a storm of flashing afterimages, colliding repeatedly with the Nichirin Blades with ringing clangs.
But whenever he resolved to kill—to punch straight through the boy's body—a force would tug at his arm, preventing him from delivering the blow.
"Stop fighting, Hakuji! Why do you keep fighting?"
"Isn't that obvious? Without fighting, how can I become stronger? How can I reach the supreme realm?"
"...But why do you want to become stronger?"
"Ko... Koyuki... what are you saying? If I don't become stronger, how can I buy medicine for Father? How can I protect the dojo? How can I protect you..."
Hah!
Akaza suddenly felt suffocated.
It was as if someone had struck his brainstem with a heavy blow.
He staggered backward several steps uncontrollably.
In an instant, countless memories surged forward.
He finally remembered why he had fought all this time.
Akaza...
Or rather...
Hakuji.
He had once been a boy who stole every day just to earn money for medicine for his sick father.
Even when branded with the tattoos of a criminal and beaten until he could barely stand, he never cared about the judgment of others.
His father, unwilling to burden him, hanged himself.
That despair nearly destroyed Hakuji completely.
If Master Keizo of the Soryu Dojo had not taken him in and taught him martial arts and the principles of being human, he might truly have lost himself forever.
Years later, he fell in love with his master's frail daughter, Koyuki.
They became engaged.
Hakuji swore he would become a good man—someone who could protect his beloved and his master's dojo.
But everything was destroyed by human jealousy and malice.
His master and Koyuki were poisoned by a neighboring dojo.
Enraged, he slaughtered sixty-seven people, becoming something almost like a demon in human form.
That very night, Muzan transformed him into a demon.
All memories of Hakuji vanished.
Akaza could not suppress the shock and terror rising within him.
Trembling, he looked down at his hands, stained with centuries of blood.
"What have I... done..."
Inosuke's blade slashed toward him again.
But this time, Akaza did not fight back.
He simply allowed the Nichirin Blade to carve into his body, opening wounds so deep bone could be seen, using the physical pain to numb the agony in his heart.
"Someone like me... do I even deserve to see you again..."
"...I suppose I'll only fall into hell..."
"I'm sorry, Koyuki... I'm sorry, Master..."
"I didn't keep a single one of those promises..."
Crack!
At last, Inosuke's Nichirin Blade broke through Akaza's neck.
Just as he prepared to use Exploding Fang to saw the head completely off—
Akaza suddenly raised his hand and grabbed Inosuke's Nichirin Blade.
He stared blankly at the boar mask.
His eyes filled with unbearably complicated emotions.
Regret.
Guilt.
Resentment.
Shame.
And fury toward the one who had manipulated his mind for centuries.
Suddenly, a blazing idea surged within him.
##Discount##
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