Dismembered and cut in half at the waist—Kokushibo had truly been merciless with Genya. It was hard to say what had motivated such brutality.
Seeing this, Sanemi Shinazugawa believed his younger brother had been killed. In his grief, he unleashed a tremendous power and threw himself at Kokushibo.
"Wind Breathing, Fifth Form: Cold Mountain Wind!"
As a long-established Hashira, Sanemi, in his grief-fueled rage, would not be defeated in a single blow by Kokushibo. But how long could a human maintain such an explosive output in battle? Even two professional boxers would exhaust themselves in less than five minutes in the ring.
Sanemi seemed to be fighting Kokushibo to a standstill out of sheer grief, but he had to remember: Kokushibo would not tire. His stamina was endless.
Soon, Sanemi was knocked back by one of Kokushibo's moves, his body covered in wounds from invisible crescent blades.
"Such pointless emotion. Human life is so fragile. Your body should be feeling the fatigue by now..."
With that, Kokushibo took a step, intending to finish Sanemi off. But he stumbled, a wave of dizziness washing over him.
"Heh heh. My blood is delicious, isn't it? It's marechi. It gives off a substance that can anesthetize and stun demons. You're covered in my blood now. How does it taste?"
The Wind Hashira, Sanemi, was drenched in his own blood. The blood loss made his face pale, which only made him look more ferocious. But it did nothing to diminish his determination to kill this man.
"Wind Breathing, Eighth Form: Primary Gale Slash!"
Sanemi unleashed the final, most powerful form of his Wind Breathing. This was his last chance—to kill Kokushibo before he could recover from the effects of his blood.
"Moon Breathing, Sixth Form: Perpetual Night, Lonely Moon - Incessant."
"What?!" Sanemi's pupils contracted. His opponent could still swing his sword while dizzy and paralyzed?
BOOM!
Countless crescent blades clashed with his Wind Breathing. Sanemi was defeated. He was sent flying, landing in front of his brother, his Nichirin Blade shattered, his body grievously wounded.
After defeating the Wind Hashira in a single blow, Kokushibo's sword had changed its shape, now looking like several scythes fused together. Only then did Kokushibo shake his head, clearing it.
"Quite a potent rare blood. A unique ability, to be able to paralyze even me. A pity. Before I became a demon, I too was a swordsman seasoned in a hundred battles..." For a moment, a trace of a memory from the past flickered in Kokushibo's eyes, but it was quickly extinguished.
"Now then, you may welcome your deaths. I must greet my next opponents. Moon Breathing: Moonbow, Half-Moon."
"Dammit!" Genya, the demon-eating boy who had just been reassembled by Muichiro, grit his teeth against the searing pain. His trembling hand reached for another vial. If he drank it, his body would no longer be able to withstand the Hashirama cells, and he would die, turning into a great tree. But at least he could hold Kokushibo off before he died.
"Muichiro, take my brother and run! I'll hold him back!" Genya roared.
"If we go, we go together!" Muichiro bit down on his bandage, pulling it tight to staunch the bleeding from his severed arm.
"It's too late..." The Wind Hashira, Sanemi, spitting out mouthfuls of blood, showed a bitter smile for the first time. The three of them were half-dead. None of them had the strength to dodge Kokushibo's killing blow.
Just as Genya was about to pour the contents of the test tube into his mouth, a large hand grabbed his.
"If you drink the contents of test tube #2 again, you'll turn into a great tree." Uchiha Nagi appeared beside Genya with a smile. He had made it just in time.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Kokushibo's killing blow rained down on Nagi's Susanoo. At the critical moment, he had manifested his massive, half-body Susanoo, shielding the three of them.
Who knew where Nakime had teleported the Stone Hashira? The three of them had nearly been wiped out. Was this the butterfly effect in action?
"Are you that new Hashira? Kaigaku's intelligence mentioned a newly promoted Hashira with peculiar red eyes who took the Flame Hashira's place and then mysteriously disappeared. That must be you."
Kokushibo looked at Nagi with great interest. "You give me a very different feeling. You've actually managed to put some pressure on me. You are strong, at least much stronger than the other Hashira."
Slowly raising his multi-scythed Nichirin Blade, Kokushibo felt an excitement he hadn't known for centuries. "Come. Let me feel the joy of battle. It has been hundreds of years since I was last serious."
Nagi, however, ignored Kokushibo. He turned and bent down to treat the critically injured Sanemi, speaking calmly. "Is that so? While I would love to have a match with you, an old man has pleaded with me. He asked that if I should meet a self-depraved swordsman of the Moon Breathing, I should leave him to him. Because he misses him very much..."
Kokushibo's heart, which had not wavered for centuries, suddenly skipped a beat. A figure emerged in his mind, and his hand tightened around his sword. His face gradually contorted with rage. "What did you say?"
At that moment, an aged voice slowly filled the hall, striking Kokushibo's heart like a bolt of lightning from the heavens.
"How pitiful you are, my dear older brother..."
"Older... brother?" Kokushibo's pupils shrank. His expression, which had not changed for centuries, finally shifted for the first time.
Fear, disbelief, dread, anger, jealousy, and even a hidden trace of longing. It was hard to imagine that a single face could display so many emotions at once.
A white-haired figure slowly walked forward. The old man, just as he had been hundreds of years ago, looked at him with infinite sadness, tears streaming from his eyes, dripping endlessly onto the ground.
Long white hair, a hunched back, a red haori, and the mark on his forehead. Even after centuries, even after the faces of his parents, wife, and children had blurred, Kokushibo could never forget him.
Yoriichi Tsugikuni. His twin brother.
"Yoriichi... How can this be? Aren't you dead?" Kokushibo's hands trembled, still unable to believe the scene before him.
"I have waited for you on the road to the underworld for hundreds of years, my brother. But you never came to hell to atone for your sins. So, I have come back to find you," Yoriichi said, looking at Kokushibo with sorrow. Because of his jealousy, Kokushibo could no longer maintain his human form. The once-handsome man had become ugly and twisted.
"Look at you now. Are you still the dashing and dignified older brother I once knew?"
Nagi, who was staunching Muichiro's bleeding on the side, saw his chance and provided some divine assistance. With his Ice Release, he created a mirror. While Ice Release was a kekkei genkai, simply creating a mirror was not beyond his abilities; after all, even Kakashi could use it.
Seeing his own reflection in the mirror, his features growing uglier with his jealousy, Kokushibo shattered the ice mirror with a furious stroke of his sword. "Impossible! You are not Yoriichi! Yoriichi has been dead for hundreds of years! You are an imposter! Die!"
His face growing even more ferocious, Kokushibo unleashed his strongest technique. "Moon Breathing, Sixteenth Form: Moonbow, Half-Moon!"
The white-haired Yoriichi, just as he had been so many years ago, looked at him with a pained expression, appearing to be on the verge of collapsing. In the next second, he drew his sword.
"Sun Breathing..."
Clang!
Defeated.
The two figures passed each other. Kokushibo stood frozen in place, just as he had been so many years ago. He had lost again.
Wounds erupted all over his body, blood gushing forth, unstoppable. Yoriichi's single strike contained over a thousand forms. Even after centuries of training, he still could not block it.
"I see now. That sword strike back then... it wasn't that you couldn't kill me. You were holding back," he said. With those final words, Kokushibo's head rolled to the ground, and his body began to burn.
Yoriichi did not reply, only looked at his older brother, his tears flowing endlessly.
"Yoriichi... your flute... I still have it." It seemed that, knowing death was inevitable, or perhaps upon seeing his twin brother again, Kokushibo began to shed his icy exterior, remembering the emotions he should have had as a human. "Forgive me, Yoriichi. I was always so jealous of you... only because I wanted to catch up to you, to become you..." Kokushibo shed his first tear since becoming a demon.
"My dear... older brother." The white-haired Yoriichi dropped his Nichirin Blade, walked over, and picked up the flute from Kokushibo's remains. "It took me hundreds of years to finally understand why I became a demon."
This flute was a symbol of their bond. It was a gift from Kokushibo in their childhood, and Yoriichi had carried it with him until his death. When Kokushibo had cut down Yoriichi's corpse, he had also severed their bond as brothers. But Kokushibo, as if to fill a permanent void in his heart, had carried this flute for centuries, never abandoning it, even in death.
"I forgive you. Let us go to hell together and atone for our sins before our father and mother," Yoriichi said, clutching the flute, kneeling before Kokushibo's ashes, tears streaming down his face.
"Thank you, Yoriichi. And... I'm sorry."
After speaking these words, Kokushibo smiled. His head completely turned to ash. He had no thought of regenerating, no will or reason to hold on.
Nagi had finished staunching Muichiro's bleeding. Seeing that the three of them were not going to die for the time being, he got up and walked over to Yoriichi.
"Senior, Muzan has not yet been eliminated. We should go."
"I'm sorry, young man. I'm afraid I cannot go."
"Huh?!"
Only then did Nagi notice that Yoriichi's body was beginning to flake away into paper, a white light emanating from within. It was the sign that the Edo Tensei was about to be released on its own.
"But you... you're not..."
"Cough, cough. I did promise you I would help eliminate Muzan. But just now, I promised my older brother that we would go together. So now..." Yoriichi said, tears still in his eyes, "my business with my older brother is finished. I have no great regrets left in my heart. I can no longer linger in the world of the living. But I believe you can all eliminate Muzan."
He then tossed a scroll to Nagi. "I have finished modifying the Sage Art you wanted. I believe with a few years of hard practice, you should be able to master it. I am truly sorry, young man."
"I must go with my older brother now. I leave Muzan to you all."
As soon as he finished speaking, Yoriichi vanished in a flash of white light. The self-release of a reanimated soul meant that this person could never be summoned again, as they no longer had any unfinished business in the world of the living.
"This..." Nagi stared blankly at the spot where he had disappeared.
You can't be serious! Big bro, I was planning on giving you a better body later, summoning you to be my bodyguard and fight Hashirama and Madara! And you just leave like that?
My Edo Tensei Sword God bodyguard just ran off?!