Tsugikuni Mitsuba of the Demon Slayer Corps had passed away.
She was like a shooting star streaking across the night sky—suddenly appearing, then abruptly vanishing after that brief brilliance.
To the Demon Slayer Corps, the death of Tsugikuni Mitsuba was undoubtedly a tremendous loss.
This descendant of the original Breathing Style swordsman possessed not only exceptional swordsmanship talent but also considerable administrative ability.
Everyone in the Demon Slayer Corps had once believed that if she had lived, she would certainly have led the Demon Slayer Corps back to the peak of that distant Sengoku era.
Unfortunately, heaven does not fulfill human wishes. Those brilliant, outstanding people always seem to pass away so easily...
"Is that so, I see..."
In the Ubuyashiki mansion, the Ubuyashiki Master, already critically ill and lying on his sickbed barely able to move, merely let out a light sigh after hearing the account from Ubuyashiki Kagaya beside him.
His blurred eyes gazed at the ceiling above, and the corners of his eyes, already covered in curse marks, seemed to shed a few teardrops.
"Did this Miss Tsugikuni leave any final words?"
"Teacher told me to live well."
Having changed his address for Mitsuba from "Miss Mitsuba" to "Teacher," Ubuyashiki Kagaya knelt sitting beside him with his head lowered, eyes wide open, fists tightly clenched.
"She also said that I should properly lead the Demon Slayer Corps in the future, and that she would be waiting for me... to avenge her in the future..."
His fingertips pierced his palm, threads of fresh blood seeping from between his fingers. His shoulders trembled slightly, tears continuously falling from his eyes onto his thighs.
Ubuyashiki Kagaya had never at any moment hated his own powerlessness so much, nor detested the existence of demons so deeply.
Teacher was clearly only nine years older than him, clearly also so young, clearly the one most deserving to survive among them...
But why...
Why did it have to be Teacher who sacrificed herself in the end...
Why did it have to be someone like him, who could do nothing, who survived...
He hated it so much, he truly hated it so much...
"Kagaya."
Before him, his father's voice rang out again, interrupting Ubuyashiki Kagaya's suppressed sobbing.
He turned with difficulty, using his blurred vision to look at his young son beside him, a slight smile forming at the corners of his mouth.
"From now on, the Demon Slayer Corps... is entrusted to you."
"Fa...ther?"
"Hold a proper funeral for Miss Tsugikuni... You must let the other swordsmen know how she left us, understand?"
"...Yes."
"..."
Noon, at the Rengoku clan ancestral estate, Shinjuro staggered in, completely devastated.
"Husband, what happened?"
In the courtyard, his childhood sweetheart wife Rengoku Ruka was basking in the sun while holding their infant son.
"Did something happen... Mmph!"
Seeing her husband's devastated appearance, Rengoku Ruka had just wanted to ask when she was interrupted by Shinjuro.
"Mitsuba is dead!"
This devastated man suddenly lunged forward, tightly embracing his wife before him, and burst into loud sobs.
"Just last night, Mitsuba, to protect me and the Young Master, went alone to hold off those two demons... She didn't return!
I waited for her all night last night, I hoped to see her return! But, but I waited until this morning and she still hadn't returned!!"
Allowing her husband to hold her, Rengoku Ruka's pupils gradually dilated.
She certainly knew Tsugikuni Mitsuba.
This legendary existence of the Demon Slayer Corps had met her husband at the Final Selection over a year ago.
Under the arrangement of that Master, the two had since become a swordsman team, carrying out missions together multiple times over the past year.
Even at her wedding with Shinjuro, and when their child was born, this legend had personally come to offer congratulations, even giving their child a haori she had woven with her own hands...
Rengoku Ruka had heard rumors about Tsugikuni Mitsuba more than once in the past.
She was the descendant of the legendary original Breathing Style swordsman, the star of hope for the Demon Slayer Corps, the strongest Demon Slayer of the current generation, the one most likely among all Demon Slayers to slay the Demon King...
Since wielding her blade, she had never suffered any injury; any mission she participated in would certainly be completed successfully. Even Lower Rank demons of the Twelve Kizuki were no match for her...
Yet such an unbelievably powerful Demon Slayer... she was actually dead?
"Why, why..."
Before the stunned Rengoku Ruka, Shinjuro continued to break down and weep, freely venting the frustration and grief in his heart.
"How could Mitsuba die before me! How could she die before me! The one who should have sacrificed themselves should have been me!
Ruka! I'm so useless! I abandoned Mitsuba! I couldn't help her at all! I'm a deserter! A coward! I'm truly so useless!
What qualifications do I have to call myself the Flame Hashira, what qualifications..."
To her husband's tearful self-blame, Rengoku Ruka could not answer a single word.
She merely silently set down the child in her arms, raised her hand, and tried her best to embrace this broken, self-blaming man before her.
The fiery heart her husband once had seemed to have broken...
And outside their residence, the four-year-old Iguro Obanai, holding a bamboo blade in his arms and originally planning to come request Shinjuro to teach him swordsmanship, also heard the conversation between the husband and wife inside.
In his mind, recalling that beautiful older sister who would smile at him, Obanai tightly gripped the bamboo blade in his arms.
As if having firmed some kind of resolution, he raised his hand to fiercely wipe his moist eyes, turned around and quickly ran away.
"..."
"Is that so, Miss Tsugikuni has already been killed..."
Several days later, in that small mountain cabin, Kamado Tanjuro received the latest information brought by the Kasugai crow from the Demon Slayer Corps.
Sitting by the bed and setting down the medicine bowl in his hand, the man lowered his head, remaining silent for a moment.
Recalling that lively, cheerful girl with a much healthier body than his own whom he had met a year ago.
The man had seemingly never before considered that this girl clearly several years younger than him would actually precede him in death?
"Yes."
And before him, that Kasugai crow which Mitsuba had specifically left for him a year ago continued speaking with that sorrowful yet sharp voice:
"It is said that she encountered an attack from two Upper Rank demons of the Twelve Kizuki. Miss Mitsuba, in order to buy time for the Young Master to escape, was killed by them..."
"Is that so..."
Still silent upon hearing this.
Kamado Tanjuro slowly closed his eyes. That hand of his placed on the table clenched, unclenched, clenched again, unclenched again...
Time passed bit by bit. After who knows how long of silence, this man finally opened his eyes once more.
"Kie."
He slowly turned his head, looking at his wife beside him who was already covered in tears, and a smile appeared on that emaciated face.
"Pack our things, we... shall go to the Demon Slayer Corps together."
"Mm..."