Flames surged outward, sealing off the beautiful woman whose hand had started to burn the moment it touched sunlight. Under Ryuji's control, the inferno blazed precisely around her. He might not have known how demons like her had hidden from the Demon Slayer Corps' watchful eyes, but one thing was clear: her head was a ticket.
A demon's head—that's what would get him and Mai into the Demon Slayer Corps.
"Damn you!" the woman spat.
From her body, countless sashes erupted, snapping out and pulling down planks and debris to block the sunlight and protect herself.
But Ryuji was already airborne. Dragonfire swirled to life around him, lashing out like a living beast as his flame mastery coiled the fire toward the demon.
"You must be Daki, right? "
Even before his words finished, he brought his greatsword crashing down.
Daki's wide eyes flickered with both surprise and rage. Ribbons shot toward him like a storm, desperate to block his attack. But the dragonfire incinerated them almost instantly, and the force behind Ryuji's strike tore through what was left.
With one mighty blow, his sword smashed into Daki's head.
Though the blade itself wasn't particularly sharp, the blazing edge of fire cleaved her cleanly from head to toe, splitting her in half in one brutal motion. The remaining momentum of the strike tore through the floorboards and support beams of the wooden building, collapsing the second floor completely and sending both of them crashing to the ground floor below.
Ryuji hadn't expected the demon to be this weak. But watching her charred, twitching corpse struggle against the dragonfire, he couldn't help but click his tongue in wonder.
Even as her body burned at over a thousand degrees Celsius, it continued to regenerate. As the fire ebbed, her carbonized limbs began to twitch, then pulled themselves back in as fleshy tendrils began regrowing. Her body was desperately trying to reform.
Of course, her clothes were long gone. And he got a clear view of the demoness beneath—an undeniably beautiful body, unnervingly offset by the grotesque sight of a head regrowing from a stump.
Yeah, she was beautiful. Great body, stunning face.
But she was also a demon—a flesh-eating, twisted creature.
And Ryuji? He had zero interest in screwing something that could be categorized alongside beasts.
Sure, he was fine with centaur girls or mermaids. Even if they looked animalistic, their minds were still human in many worlds. Not like this thing.
Daki may have once been human, but now? She was a monster, through and through.
He vaguely remembered something about her and her brother—a tragic past, working in brothels, beaten by samurai, and then turned into demons by Muzan after being left for dead.
But all that compassion vanished the moment they gained power and started preying on innocents.
People like that? Ryuji had no sympathy left.
His dragonfire surged around him again, igniting everything nearby. In a wooden district like this one, the fire spread rapidly, engulfing walls, floors, and ceilings as nearby dancers and guests screamed in panic.
Mai arrived beside him, clutching her twin fans.
He gave her a sideways glance and sighed, silently handing her the Kashu blade from his waist.
Seriously—what was she gonna do with fans against demons? Good for stealth and quick fights, maybe, but real combat? You needed steel.
Then again, with him here, these demons wouldn't be making any kind of comeback.
Watching Daki's severed body twitch and slowly pull itself together, he smirked coldly.
"Weak as hell," he muttered, "but that regeneration's no joke. Still, that's the end of the line. Normal fire might have trouble burning you freaks... but lucky for me—this isn't normal fire."
His flame—gifted by the Red Dragon Queen—was what gave him the edge. Without it, Ryuji guessed his destructive power would've dropped by at least 75%.
Regular flames just couldn't compete. Even if he poured in three times the stamina, he couldn't replicate dragonfire's heat.
There was something fundamentally different about it. Something he still didn't fully understand.
"Damn you… are you with the Demon Slayer Corps?!"
Daki glared at him, her voice twisted with rage.
She couldn't see any wisteria crest on him—but his actions were exactly what a demon slayer would do.
Too bad for her—he wasn't.
"Nope," Ryuji replied casually. "I'm just here to ask a few questions. And also, well—demon heads go for a pretty high price these days."
He grinned wickedly.
"Nothing personal, just need your head to earn some military credit."
His body moved again—fast as a shadow, nearly vanishing—appearing next to Daki in the blink of an eye.
She panicked.
"Brother!!"
Her cry didn't go unanswered.
From within her body, a grotesque creature emerged—a hideous figure gripping a scythe, lunging straight for Ryuji's skull.
Ryuji didn't flinch.
Dragonfire burst around him in a blazing torrent, engulfing the creature and his scythe instantly. The weapon melted into slag within seconds, and the wave of fire surged forward, slamming into Daki's body.
His great sword followed right after—cleanly slicing her head from her shoulders.
There was no blood.
Her voluptuous, beautiful form turned to ash in a matter of moments, consumed by fire.
Her severed head soared through the air—Ryuji caught it mid-flight, holding it up by the hair.
Her face twisted in fury and hatred, cursing him even in silence.
Fleshy tendrils tried to sprout from her neck, working to regrow her body—but Ryuji surrounded her neck with dragonfire once more, halting the regeneration completely. The rest of her body was already nothing but ashes.
"You're thinking something like, 'Why me? Why kill me and not the people who hurt me?'"
Ryuji tilted his head slightly. He had a vague sense of her emotions—his haki picked up flickers of what she was feeling.
He sighed.
"If I'd met you before all this—before the murders, before you twisted into a monster—maybe I would've helped you. Maybe even bought your freedom. Hell, if I was in a good mood, I might've helped you live again. I'm not that cold."
He exhaled.
"But too bad. I met you now—as the creature you've become."
He wasn't the kind of guy who looked down on women who'd sold their bodies to survive.
Not at all.
People had to live. If someone fell into that life out of desperation, Ryuji respected that. Hell, it wasn't dirty—not in the way people usually meant.
Diseases? Sure.
But moral filth? No. They didn't even get to choose their clients.
Women who did it for survival weren't dirty. Just trapped.
He had no sympathy for the vain ones who just liked easy money and luxury—that was different. That was a choice.
But this? This wasn't that.
And Daki—her monstrous, regenerated head—froze.
Because she could feel it. His emotion. His sincerity.
Everything he said was real.
His Chi—his aura—aligned with his words.
It shook her to the core.
And that's when Mai stepped up beside him, staring at the head in his hand.
"…So this is a demon?"
Mai furrowed her brows as she stared at the grotesque display in front of her. The demon's severed neck kept sprouting fleshy tendrils, only to be burned away again and again. She'd witnessed the whole fight—Daki's speed and those razor-sharp sashes were no joke, nearly on par with her own reflexes.
But what really stunned her was just how much stronger Ryuji had become.
She hadn't seen him in a while, but the gap between who he was back then and who he was now… it was like night and day.
"Yeah," Ryuji replied, nodding casually. "This is a unique kind of monster from this world. And with her head, we can probably get into the Demon Slayer Corps."
As soon as he mentioned the Corps, Ryuji's mind wandered.
He didn't know much about most of the Demon Slayers, but there were a few members he remembered vividly—specifically, the women.
Shinobu Kocho. Mitsuri Kanroji. Kanao Tsuyuri. Kanae Kocho. Aoi Kanzaki. The wife of Kagaya Ubuyashiki. Those four eerily identical daughters. And, of course… Nezuko.
Yes, painfully realistic.
He'd read so many fanfictions about the Demon Slayer Corps—but those were the only characters that truly stuck with him.
Hm… Mitsuri and Shinobu might be easy to win over," he mused. "Mitsuri just wants a man who doesn't think she's weird for her strength—and she loves food. As for Shinobu, it should be okay for me to help her kill that Doma or reviving her sister at the cost of her body, right? Then, under the pretext of setting Shinobu free, I can get Kanae to sleep with me out of gratitude, and then, on the condition that I can resurrect her parents and keep Kanae's life for a long time, I can get Kanao too...
Perfect. A closed loop.
Aside from using up a bit of conceptual lifespan, it was absolutely flawless.
As expected of me, Ryuji thought smugly. Flawless.
He stroked his chin in satisfaction, already pulling Mai along to find a quiet spot to wait for the Demon Slayer Corps to arrive. With all the noise they'd just made, someone had to be on their way.
That guy who called himself a ninja… what was it again?
Uchiha Rice Ball…? No, wait. Uzui Rice Ball?
"Are you scheming again?" Mai cut in, eyeing the strange grin on his face. "And... are we really just going to ignore the damage we caused?"
She glanced back at the brothel now engulfed in flames.
"Of course we're ignoring it," Ryuji replied nonchalantly. "The madam definitely knew about Daki being a demon. Maybe she was scared, sure—but she still went along with it. That makes her an accomplice."
He waved her off, then answered her first question with equal carelessness.
"And what I was thinking was serious. It's about us joining the Demon Slayer Corps. I wonder if that guy—Uzui Rice Ball—will actually show up."
Ryuji muttered in Chinese this time, prompting Mai to give him a look of disbelief.
"It's Uzui Tengen, okay? What are you, an old man? Can't remember names anymore?"
"…Wait, you speak Chinese?" Ryuji blinked in surprise.
"Just a little," she shrugged. "There are tournaments everywhere. You gotta learn the languages to keep up."
Many martial arts manuals were written in different languages these days, especially those from China that emphasized health and internal cultivation—perfect for evolving the Shiranui-ryu style. Naturally, she'd started studying.
"Got it," Ryuji nodded.
But before he could say anything else, he suddenly turned toward the street.
To his surprise, it wasn't Uzui Tengen who appeared.
Instead, a petite girl wearing a haori patterned like butterfly wings stepped into view, flanked by a small squad of soldiers.
They moved quickly, heading straight for him.
Ryuji stood under the eaves of a nearby building, holding up Daki's severed head. Its smoldering eyes still glared with hatred.
The girl in the butterfly robe rushed over the moment she saw it. Her eyes locked onto the demonic numerals in Daki's pupils, and her expression shifted to one of pleasant shock.
"That's Upper Rank Six!"
Upper Rank Six. One of the six strongest demons directly under Muzan.
And this man had just killed her.
"You defeated her?!" the butterfly girl asked, wide-eyed.
"Yep. That was us," Ryuji said, casually slinging the head for her to see. "So… do we qualify to join the Demon Slayer Corps?"
He studied her face. Her smile felt a bit forced—there was something faintly unsettling about it.
Judging by her clothes and demeanor, he guessed this was none other than Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira.
His gaze trailed up and down her frame. And... he couldn't help it.
Damn, she's short.
Barely over 150 cm—maybe. Meanwhile, Ryuji's body, honed from his time in the One Piece world, was just shy of two meters tall. (A little less than 6′ 6″)
She barely came up to his chest.
She looked like a middle schooler standing next to a grown man.
{Shinobu Kochō (Image Here) }
…Well, aside from that part. She was hiding a surprisingly full chest beneath that uniform, Ryuji noted.
But what really stunned him wasn't her appearance. It was what his Observation Haki picked up.
Her body… was falling apart.
Liver and kidneys failing. Stomach and intestines a mess. Heart and lungs riddled with damage. Her muscles, bones, and blood vessels were full of microscopic tears and strange obstructions.
The fact that she was still standing was a miracle.
There was no way she'd live past thirty. Hell, even twenty-five was pushing it.
Ryuji figured that if they ever got intimate, he'd probably have to use dragonfire just to keep her body from breaking.
By comparison, Mai —who was also petite—but her body was much healthier.
But Shinobu had no idea what was running through his mind. She just smiled brightly.
"You two want to join the Demon Slayer Corps? That's wonderful!"
Recruitment had always been about willingness. As long as you could kill demons, the Corps welcomed you. The stronger you were, the more you earned—not just in rewards, but also the Corps' willingness to fulfill your wishes.
Background didn't matter. Nobility didn't matter. The only requirement was strength—strength to kill demons.
You really had to admit—when humans were driven by hatred, their motivation was terrifying.
Especially now, when the Demon Slayer Corps was in desperate need of new recruits. The stronger, the better.
But Ryuji couldn't help but be a little curious. Including Shinobu, this was already the third Hashira-level individual he'd seen in the area. That couldn't be a coincidence.
Hashira weren't that common. It's not like they could be sent out on every random patrol.
Shifting his gaze away from Shinobu, his thoughts clicked into place.
He handed Daki's head over to her.
"She's all yours. But… does the Demon Slayer Corps have a plan in motion? I've seen too many Hashiras around here for this to be normal. Don't worry—we do have our own reasons for wanting to join. We're trying to understand what's really going on with this strange phenomenon."
Shinobu accepted Daki's severed head without hesitation and casually tossed it into the sunlight.
The moment it touched the rays, Daki's stunningly beautiful face began to dissolve—first her skin, then her bones.
Just before her features vanished completely, Ryuji caught a glimpse of something twisted pushing out from the back of her skull—an ugly, monstrous visage.
But there was no room for resistance.
Her head was completely reduced to dust beneath the sun.
"…I see."
Shinobu's expression finally turned serious. For the first time, her smile showed a hint of sincerity as she studied Ryuji and Mai.
"This isn't a secret. It's fine if you two know."
She paused briefly, then spoke in a low voice.
"Recently, we've discovered demons merging with other supernatural creatures—yokai, to be precise. That's why so many of us are here. We're investigating that anomaly."
~~~~~~~~~~
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