Twitch…
"Hahaha…" Akaza's laugh echoed across the Resurreccion Dimension, carrying nothing but pure lust for the battle. "This is great!"
The Upper Rank Three demon walked out of a scorched crater, standing at its edge.
His entire bone armor bore cracks. Blood was seeping out of the hole in his stomach as if even the regeneration couldn't catch up with the rate of conceptual destruction. His tail, something that his Resurreccion transformation didn't possess in his last life, was cut in half as well.
With a bang, that tail regenerated.
Akaza, in glee, looked up.
High up in the sky, standing on the head of a nearly two-hundred-meter-long dragon — with lava and fire as its body — was Rengoku Kyojuro… smiling.
The Flame Hashira's body had become a volcano.
His skin seemed to be made of black soil, with veins of lava trailing over it like rivers.
On Rengoku's head, two curved horns burned red-hot, matching the color of the fire which curled around his long hair and burned within his demonic, slitted pupils.
In his right hand rested a scimitar, its blade blazing red-hot — Hi-no-Kagutsuchi!
And, all around the two of them, nothing was left alive.
Everything burned under the fiery sky.
Everything froze above the icy earth.
Twitch…
"You surprised me, Hashira," Akaza said, his voice echoing with a dull tone as it came out of the bone mask. "This strength… Magnificent. Have all of you become so strong?"
Rengoku nodded.
"… Not the insect you tried to save, though," Akaza said, sounding disappointed. "Fools like him shouldn't be a part of the incoming War, don't you think? Let me kill him. Let me purge the weakness that lingers among the truly strong… like a disease. Those who reject strength… should they have the right to even live?"
CRACK!
As if time just skipped a step, Akaza's fist landed on Rengoku's chest.
This wasn't even the same teleportation he had used against Kai in his previous life.
That teleportation, though extremely fast, still lagged and occupied a definite length of time, no matter how small.
Shockingly, after being resurrected, Akaza had already displayed that kind of teleportation without releasing his Resurreccion.
The release made the speed of teleportation so fluid now that even time failed to hold it back, forcing it to stop under the demon's whim.
A sonic boom rang out as Rengoku was sent crashing into the frozen earth, the icy field gaining hundred-meter-long cracks.
In the sky, though, Akaza paused again instead of following up.
In pure amazement, he looked down and found a trail of lava running from his right shoulder down to his waist. The long cut looked shallow but glowed almost white. It burned right through the bone armor, melted his insides, and then made the armor on his back almost ashy.
"Cough!"
Blood poured out of Akaza's mouth, trickling down from the cracks in his helmet.
Then, just as he was about to laugh, he found the dragon Rengoku had been standing on looking right back at him as if… it were alive.
Twitch…
"…"
ROAR!
Dragon Flame Breathing —
The dragon's jaws, made of pure fire and lava, opened and bit into Akaza's body.
With a flap of its tail burning through space, the creature shot up, made an arc as it turned around, and came down, booms breaking the sky in the background.
In a matter of seconds, the dragon went beyond supersonic, Akaza struggling to snatch himself out of its jaws. It was as if the fire had burned the laws themselves that made the Resurreccion Dimension work, making it impossible for him to jump between time nodes.
Then, even as the noise deafened the ears, making it all look like a blur, the dragon slammed the demon into the ground… going hypersonic.
A BOOM, louder and mightier than ever, rang across the world.
It was so loud that, momentarily, everything else went silent.
In that silence, a mushroom cloud shot up, ballooning wider, going higher and higher, as if it were aiming to reach the moon.
— Rengoku!
When the picturesque destruction settled, a shockwave upended the earth in all directions, changing the topography.
Hills were flattened.
Mountains were decimated.
Rivers dried up, and the icy earth became glass.
Even the dimension, fueled by Akaza's Reiatsu, shattered, the massive snowflake pattern breaking into a million pieces.
Rengoku, holding his caved-in chest and still wielding his blade, walked toward the epicenter of the nuclear-level attack.
Slowly, the mangled flesh within him regenerated.
Surely, his spine straightened, the demonic blood coursing through his veins bringing him closer to his prime… once again.
"Believe it… or not," the Flame Hashira said with a raspy breath. "Kai didn't let himself be restricted by that technique. He was nowhere near as fast as you, but… he reacted fast enough. Later, he admitted that if he had faced this attack, instead of avoiding it, then… he would have died. Or, at least, faced horrible consequences. For you to survive it…"
"… no…"
With small, crunching thuds, a figure walked out of the flames, wearing an armor of ash.
Burnt to a crisp, thin trails of smoke were oozing from the spots where the helmet had eye slits. Even the word that had come out of this figure had sounded burnt, as if someone had stuffed its throat with coal, burning red-hot.
Twitch…
Akaza could taste the fire.
It was sour, with the lightest touch of sweetness.
"… no…" he said again, lifting his hands as they crumbled into dust. "… it's not enough… What… What am I lacking…"
"Attitude."
Akaza's head shot up, and he fell as his legs crumbled.
He looked at Rengoku… in Rengoku's eyes, where he saw him… Kai Stormborn.
Blood Demon Art —
"I could sense your hesitation," the Flame Hashira said, raising his sword and letting it fall. "The question is… could you?"
— Flame Heaven!
As Akaza embraced the familiar emptiness, he finally realized the meaning behind the Kai's old words and the Hashira's current question.
Yes.
Attitude…
Just knowing it won't be enough, Akaza thought, dying.
If he wanted to step on the path — the same path that Kai walked — then he must… break the chains that shackled him still.
Completely.
And, so… he could not die this time!
And, so… he must not die this time!
Twi…
Booooooooooooooom!
The world-ending fiery slash of Rengoku's Blood Demon Art paused midair as a hand, pitch black, reached out from the grave to grab it…
… making the blind man seated far on the roof of the Butterfly Mansion finally stand up.