The air was suffocating.
When the two locked eyes, everyone present felt an overwhelming pressure—
everyone except Daki.
She was completely detached from the confrontation.
Her gaze was fixed on the child lying on the ground.
Her mind buzzed.
Drank the poison…
That mother… even at the moment of death, she was thanking her son?
She suddenly remembered her own days as a human.
That mother who despised her white hair and pale eyes.
Who had cut her hair with scissors.
Who had tried to strangle her.
Who had loathed Gyutaro for being filthy.
Who had ultimately tried to burn them both alive.
Both were mothers.
So why was the difference so great?
Both were hell.
So why?
"…Brother…"
Daki's eyes were shot through with blood.
"Why…?"
"Heh…
Hehehe…"
After a long silence, Inosuke laughed.
He had anticipated this day long ago.
Anticipated Muzan's interrogation.
He had prepared a flawless explanation.
Now—he would strike back.
Inosuke took a single step forward, pointing straight at Muzan's nose, his voice suddenly rising.
"Explain what?
Angry about what?!
Do you even understand what a plan is?!
Do you know what human hearts are?!"
Dead silence.
He was… questioning Muzan?!
Muzan froze for a split second—
then his fury erupted like a volcanic blast.
For a thousand years, no one had ever dared speak to him like this!
"Insolent!!"
BOOM!!!
A dull explosion.
Red and white matter splattered everywhere.
On the high platform, Doma's head exploded outright, bursting into a cloud of blood mist and shattered bone.
"And who do you think you're talking to?"
Muzan retracted his flesh tendrils, his gaze cold and venomous.
"Inosuke, don't think that just because I once trusted you, you can forget who you are.
Say one more useless word—
And I can't guarantee whose head explodes next."
Looking at his headless father, the last thread of reason in Inosuke's eyes snapped.
He didn't retreat.
Like a true madman, he leapt straight down from the high platform—
Charging directly at Muzan.
Tanjiro and Zenitsu followed immediately behind him.
Inosuke grabbed Muzan's hand—the one still smeared with brain matter—and slammed it hard against his own crown.
"COME ON!!!"
Inosuke roared.
"Blow it up! Blow me up too!!
I fought like hell out there!
Got beaten like a sandbag by those Pillars!
I ground my pride into the dirt!
I got betrayed by everyone!
For who?!
Huh?!
For your damn ambitions!!
I finally get a lead on that damn flower—
and now you think I'm pathetic?!
You think I'm embarrassing?!
You want to kill my whole family?!
DO IT!!
KILL ME!!
Then you go fight that blind bastard Ubuyashiki yourself!!"
Muzan's hand stiffened.
He sensed Inosuke's condition.
Those unhealed injuries were real.
And the information leaking from Inosuke's words hooked straight into his fatal weakness.
"…That damn flower?"
Muzan's pupils shrank violently. His killing intent instantly twisted into suspicion and greed.
"What do you mean?
You're talking about the Blue Spider Lily?!"
Inosuke violently flung Muzan's hand away.
"You think I got chased out like a stray dog for no reason?"
He let out a cold laugh.
"Because Ubuyashiki Kagaya.
That blind bastard… knows where the Blue Spider Lily is."
BOOM!
Muzan's mind exploded.
A thousand years.
A thousand years!!
Finally—finally he'd heard it!!
"Where is it?!
Tell me!!"
Muzan grabbed Inosuke's shoulders in agitation.
"What's the rush?"
Inosuke slapped his hands away in disgust.
"That's the Ubuyashiki family's highest secret.
You can't force it out of him.
He'd rather self-destruct and die with the secret.
That's why I staged this whole thing!"
Inosuke pointed at his own wounds, his gaze dark and vicious.
"I deliberately exposed flaws.
Deliberately made them suspicious.
Deliberately let them beat me, curse me, humiliate me!
I wanted them to feel irredeemable guilt toward me!
When they realize they wronged a hero—
when that blind man can't sleep at night from remorse—
He'll give up the secret to compensate me!"
"Do you get it?!"
Inosuke jabbed Muzan's chest, harder each time.
"I was baiting the line for a big fish!
I was gambling my life for your future!
And you?
You really disappoint me…"
Muzan was stunned.
But the more he listened, the brighter his eyes grew.
The more it made sense.
Yes!
That old fox Ubuyashiki would definitely hide it deeply!
Only a poisonous, heart-crushing strategy like Inosuke's could force it out!
So that beating… was for me?
Being driven out… part of the plan?!
"HAHAHAHAHA!!"
Muzan suddenly burst into manic laughter.
"Good! Good! GOOD!!
I misunderstood you!
That useless Doma's head exploded? So what! It'll grow back anyway!"
The misunderstanding was cleared?
No.
The fury in Inosuke's heart did not subside at all.
He looked at Shōsaburō on the ground.
At the mess of brain matter everywhere.
A sorrow and rage from the depths of his soul pushed him to something even more insane.
He was certain now—Muzan dared not kill him.
"What are you laughing at?"
Inosuke slowly reached back—
And drew Tanjiro's blade from his waist.
"What are you doing?"
Muzan frowned.
Inosuke held the sword and advanced step by step.
That pressure—
That certainty—
Even the Demon King took half a step back.
Inosuke spoke slowly.
"You were laughing pretty happily just now."
He pointed at Shōsaburō's corpse.
"Watching a child fall into despair…
Watching a sincere heart get crushed…
You found that fun, didn't you?"
He stopped.
His gaze turned hollow, deep.
In that instant, his figure overlapped with that red-haired swordsman from four hundred years ago.
He spoke.
Each word struck Muzan's fragile nerves like a hammer.
"What's so funny?"
"Where's the fun in it?"
"You…
What do you take life for?!"
Buzz—!
Muzan's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Cold sweat soaked his back instantly.
That line.
That tone.
That gaze.
Yoriichi Tsugikuni!!
The nightmare who had cut him into eighteen hundred pieces!!
Why…
Why was it appearing in Inosuke?!
"You… you…!"
Muzan pointed at Inosuke, his finger trembling.
"So you think life is worthless?
You think we're all just your toys?!"
Inosuke didn't notice Muzan's fear.
He was only venting his rage.
He suddenly pressed the Nichirin blade to his own throat.
Shhk!
The blade cut skin. Blood fell.
"Fine!
If you think life means nothing—
If you're so eager to kill my whole family—
Then I'll die right now for you!!
I'll take your Blue Spider Lily secrets!
Your ambitions!
And drag them straight to hell with me!!"
"STOP—!!"
"Madman!! You lunatic!!"
CLAP!
Muzan's flesh tendril snapped out instantly, knocking the blade away from Inosuke's neck.
He roared—hysterical, panicked.
"For a human, you'd kill yourself?!
Who gave you the right to threaten me?!"
"I'm not doing it for him."
Inosuke stared at Muzan coldly, his eyes filled with death-bound resolve.
"I'm doing it to tell you—
Don't provoke me.
There's nothing I wouldn't do."
Muzan panted heavily, glaring at Inosuke.
He wanted to kill him.
To tear this insolent brat apart.
But he didn't dare.
The Blue Spider Lily.
Yoriichi's shadow.
Inosuke's madness.
All of it made him hesitate—fear harming the rat and breaking the jar.
The humiliation nearly drove him insane.
He needed to vent.
He needed to prove he was still king.
Muzan's gaze fell on Shōsaburō's corpse.
"You value life, do you?
You think life is precious?
Fine! I'll give it to you!
I'll give him eternal, perfect life—
Just like your father's!!"
Muzan seized Shōsaburō's body.
PFFT!
His pale hand plunged violently into the child's thin neck.
A massive amount of blood—enough to burst an ordinary demon—was injected straight in.
"WAKE UP!!"
Shōsaburō's body convulsed violently.
Bones cracked as they grew.
His skin turned bluish-gray, his frail body swelling instantly.
Those eyes that had died in despair flew open—
Vertical pupils.
Etched within them, two blood-red characters:
Lower Moon · Six
"Heaven…
Hell…
Poison…"
Shōsaburō muttered the three words repeatedly, his voice shrill with resentment.
His obsession was too deep.
So deep that he endured Muzan's blood.
So deep that he became one of the Twelve Kizuki.
Muzan pulled Shōsaburō into his arms and looked at Inosuke, a smile curling at his lips.
A provocation.
"See?
This is life.
Cheap.
And everywhere."
He leaned close to Shōsaburō's ear, but those crimson eyes never left Inosuke.
"Remember today.
Hell is far away from you.
Following me…
That is true paradise."
ZING—!
The sound of a biwa rang out.
Muzan and Shōsaburō vanished from the hall together.
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