A heavy, stifling pressure seemed to hang in the air.
Faced with Shinobu Kocho's undisguised suspicion and hostility, Giyu Tomioka only knit his brows slightly.
"This child and his younger sister… their situation really is unusual. I've already requested instructions from our master," he explained at once.
"Unusual?"
Shinobu tilted her head, the faint smile still resting on her lips.
"Tomioka-san, you do understand that a demon is a demon, don't you? Or are you saying you can guarantee—to me, to everyone in the Demon Slayer Corps—that this demon will never harm a human being in the future? Not even once?"
Giyu parted his lips, yet no words came.
Shinobu took another small step forward, her tone gentle.
"You've only just met them, and yet you still chose to trouble our master over this. Tomioka-san, have you considered the possibility that the boy is simply being 'bewitched' by the demon? Preying on human sympathy is one of their favorite tricks. As the Water Hashira, are you telling me that possibility never crossed your mind?"
Before her sentence even finished, Shinobu's fingers were already on the hilt of her Nichirin blade. Her thumb nudged—
Steel slid free, cold light flashing.
And then—
A figure in red moved forward without a sound.
He placed himself between Shinobu and the wooden box, his small frame nevertheless like a silent mountain, completely blocking her line of sight to what lay behind him.
Shinobu's advance halted. She kept smiling, but a sharper scrutiny gathered in her pale violet eyes.
"My, my… so you're the child I've heard about—the one who knocked a Hashira unconscious?"
Her voice carried a teasing lilt. "You look quite young… Tomioka-san, you really were careless. To capsize in a place like this."
She emphasized the words "knocked unconscious."
But instead of bristling the way she expected, Giyu shook his head with grave seriousness.
"It wasn't carelessness. I truly can't beat him."
"This child's talent with the blade is far beyond what you imagine… even beyond mine."
"Is that so?"
Shinobu's smile curved into something knowing, and her gaze sharpened. "Just from appearances, you'd never guess…"
Even as she spoke, her muscles tightened imperceptibly, her breathing method beginning to circulate.
She searched—quietly—for an opening. For a single, decisive kill.
Yet in the next heartbeat, she realized something strange.
The boy in front of her seemed to be nothing but openings from head to toe.
He was too relaxed—so relaxed he still hadn't assumed any guard at all. Those dark red eyes weren't even fixed on her, his opponent. Every ounce of his attention remained on the box behind him—the bamboo-wrapped crate that held Nezuko.
Shinobu narrowed her eyes.
Facing a Hashira… and he was worried about the demon behind him?
"Well then… it seems I really am being looked down on!"
She let out a soft laugh, though a chill had slipped into it.
In the very next instant, her figure vanished from the snow-laden branch.
Too fast.
It wasn't simply speed from running—it was like the flutter of a butterfly's wings: light, silent, and frighteningly swift.
Giyu's pupils contracted. Only when the afterimage disappeared did he snap back, twisting his head and shouting—
"Watch out—!!"
But the speed of sound itself seemed unable to catch up with that petite shadow.
In a blink, she was behind Yoriichi.
More precisely—she had flashed to the wooden box behind him.
From the very beginning, Shinobu's target had been clear.
Not the boy barring her path.
The demon in the box.
All it would take was poison injected into the demon's neck—and it would be over.
Her slender Nichirin blade traced a graceful arc through the air, stabbing toward the box.
The strike was so fast it was almost inconceivable.
Cling—!
A crisp, bright note of metal meeting metal rang out through the wind and snow.
Shinobu's deadly thrust was stopped, her body forced to freeze midair.
Her smiling eyes widened in disbelief.
What had intercepted her killing blow wasn't some extraordinary weapon—
It was a rusted woodcutting axe.
Yoriichi's posture hadn't changed. Not even the snow beneath his feet was disturbed.
That strike had been nearly impossible to defend against… yet he had moved as if he'd already seen the future, calmly bracing her lightning-fast thrust in midair.
The tip of her blade pressed against the axe's haft—
And could not advance a single inch.
A brief flicker of surprise crossed Shinobu's eyes. She used the contact to spring lightly backward, opening distance again.
The perfect, mask-like smile returned to her face.
"My… looks like I was the one who underestimated you."
Giyu hadn't been wrong. The boy looked frail, and even the way he held a weapon was careless, like an amateur. But that block just now—its timing, its judgment, the maturity behind it—none of it belonged to a teenager.
The feeling was almost like facing a master who had lived in the sword for decades.
But—
Shinobu's lips curled, her smile turning sly, as though she'd just watched prey step into a trap.
In the end, he was still too young.
He had focused on the opponent in front of him—and forgotten that a battlefield never contains only what's in front.
She lifted her head sharply and called into the canopy above:
"Kanao!"
Almost the instant the name left her lips, a silent figure appeared like a specter at Yoriichi's left rear.
Kanao Tsuyuri.
She made no sound at all. Her eyes were empty yet unwavering, her Nichirin blade gripped tight and pointed straight at Yoriichi's completely unguarded back.
At the same time, Shinobu moved.
"Insect Breathing: Dance of the Bee Sting — True Drag!"
She launched another high-speed thrust—faster than before—completely sealing off Yoriichi's space to evade forward.
Poisoned stinger in front.
Blade at his back.
A killing formation with no solution.
Giyu's heart lurched into his throat. His hand had already closed around his own hilt, ready to rush in—
But in the center of the pincer, Yoriichi remained calm.
He didn't draw a sword.
In that split second of flashing light, he simply took a soft breath.
It wasn't any breathing style known in this era.
It was his—Yoriichi Tsugikuni's—ultimate realm of the sword.
In that instant, the chaotic wind and snow seemed to stop.
The rusted axe in his hand, for a heartbeat, looked like rippling water.
He turned.
One hand lifted, precisely slipping into the inevitable line of Shinobu's thrust—
And the other hand drew a circular motion with the axe, as fluid as water itself, lightly stopping Kanao's fatal strike.
The air turned unnaturally still.
Giyu stood rigid, having forgotten to draw his blade at all.
What… was that?
The movements were entirely different, and he felt none of Water Breathing's rhythm—
Yet the defensive emptiness with which Yoriichi erased every attack in that moment… was unmistakably similar to Water Breathing.
It wasn't Water Breathing.
So why… did it carry the shadow of "water"?
Before Giyu's shock could settle, the outcome was decided.
Kanao's killing blow slammed into the seemingly fragile axe haft—only to collide with something like an immovable mountain.
The rebound force threw the small girl's body backward, beyond her control.
In the same heartbeat, Yoriichi stepped forward.
Ignoring Shinobu behind him, he followed Kanao like a shadow.
"Kanao—!"
Shinobu's cry rang out, alarmed.
But the horrific outcome she imagined never came.
Yoriichi rotated the axe haft smoothly. A strike that should have been lethal withdrew its power at the last instant—
Right before it touched the back of the girl's neck.
Thud.
It was only a light tap against her pale nape.
Kanao's pupils unfocused almost immediately. Her body went slack.
Yoriichi reached out and caught her as she fell—exposing his back completely to the Insect Hashira, a woman famed for speed.
He crouched and gently laid the unconscious girl beneath a tree.
"Don't worry. I controlled the force. She'll wake up in three hours."
His voice was calm as he rose, turning to face Shinobu behind him.
"I thought you might take the chance to strike from behind."
Only then did Shinobu seem to fully return from her shock.
Seeing Kanao uninjured, then glancing at the boy—so utterly unguarded—she quietly loosened her grip on her sword and let out a small sigh.
"My… attacking from behind when you're still considerate enough to care for your opponent in the middle of battle would be rather tasteless, wouldn't it?"
Then her tone shifted, and she cast Giyu a sidelong look.
"If I did that, I might end up just like Tomioka-san over there—someone everyone dislikes."
Giyu was still lost in what he had just witnessed—whatever that peculiar "breathing" had been.
Hearing her, he snapped out of it, turning toward Shinobu. For once, disbelief broke through his usual blank expression, and he blurted out almost on instinct:
"I… am not disliked."
Shinobu ignored the wounded look in his eyes.
She adjusted her clothing with practiced elegance, then turned to face the boy squarely.
This time, she reined in her killing intent and spoke with a polite smile:
"Nice to meet you. I'm Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps. My apologies for earlier—our duty is to handle swordsmen who violate regulations by harboring demons, but given your skill…"
"Have you been angry… this whole time?"
Yoriichi cut in abruptly, interrupting the courteous yet distant phrasing.
The air seemed to congeal.
Shinobu's smile stiffened for a fraction of a second. Then the familiar gentle curve returned to her lips.
"…Oh?" She blinked, tilting her head. "What are you talking about? Do I look angry to you?"
Yoriichi didn't answer. He simply watched her in silence.
In his Transparent World, everything in existence appeared in its most essential form.
The emotions hidden beneath the girl's smile—rage and sorrow—were almost painfully clear.
They were the kind of emotions that squeezed the life out of a person just to keep them standing.
Under the boy's pitying, compassionate gaze, Shinobu's brow twitched.
For some reason, irritation rose in her—an inexplicable, crawling restlessness—like she was being seen through completely.
Then she heard the boy sigh softly, and speak with quiet mercy:
"Your heart is screaming. You're furious. So why… do you force yourself to wear a smile that hurts you?"
Silence.
Rarely seen, Shinobu's smile began to fade—little by little.
The light, teasing atmosphere vanished.
In its place came a coldness that sent a chill up the spine.
She lowered her lashes slightly, shadow darkening her eyes.
After a long, heavy pause, she lifted her gaze again.
"I see…"
Those dim, icy eyes fixed on the boy.
"You're even more irritating than Tomioka-san."
-------
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