"What a stubborn little brat."
The demon raised a hand and clawed bloody furrows into his own face.
"I've decided. I'll kill you last. It's better if I let you watch your little brother die with your own eyes. You're the older one, and yet you're this useless."
"…Unforgivable."
"Hm?" He turned toward Muichiro. The moment their eyes met and he caught the hatred there, his expression darkened. "…Unforgivable? You're the unforgivable ones.
"I'm a debt collector. My creed is simple: if you owe something, you pay it back. That brat dared call my little sister ugly, so I'm just taking his life to cheer her up. What's wrong with that?"
"Calm down." Yuichiro could hear Muichiro grinding his teeth. "He's trying to rile you up."
Uzui struck again.
The shriek of blades slicing through the air pierced everyone's ears. In an instant, he and Gyutaro had already traded more than a dozen blows.
Muichiro glanced at Yuichiro one last time, jaw tightening, then rushed forward with his sword. But instead of disrupting Uzui's rhythm, he went straight for Daki.
"You little bastard, stay away from my sister!"
With a low snarl, several crimson blood blades split from Gyutaro's sickles and shot toward Muichiro, only to be shredded midway by a howling gust of blade wind.
At the same time, Yuichiro's steady voice rang out.
"You're the one who needs to stay away from my brother!"
"Hey, don't lose focus!" Uzui slashed across, closing in with Yuichiro from both sides. "Your opponent is the God of Festivals!"
Gyutaro clicked his tongue, his face twisting with malice.
"Mere humans. Quit getting in my way!"
Before the words had even left his mouth, blood-forged sickle blades slashed out at high speed. As Uzui and Yuichiro raised their swords to block, Gyutaro blurred and shot toward Daki and Muichiro.
But even as he reached them, he was too late. Muichiro had already taken Daki's head in a single stroke.
The sight sent him into a frenzy. Countless crimson blood blades burst forth, lashing out in every direction. They forced Uzui and Yuichiro back as they tried to close in again, while also driving him a step closer to Muichiro.
Muichiro saw him coming.
He didn't meet him head-on. Instead, he spun and kicked Daki's body up to intercept the incoming blood sickles. With his free hand, he seized her severed head by its pale hair. Then, in the instant Gyutaro faltered while catching the body, Muichiro smashed the head through a wall and hurled it far into the distance.
Daki's scream quickly faded away.
But the moment Gyutaro snapped back and slashed, Muichiro didn't relax for even an instant. Pale breath spilled from his lips as he pushed Mist Breathing to its limit. The forms spread like drifting clouds and rolling fog, and the hideous sickle pierced nothing but an afterimage.
There was no time to recover.
Uzui was already on him again, blades in hand. Deafening blasts rang out alongside a flurry of strikes, cleanly severing the sashes extending from Daki's headless body before turning toward the arm gripping the sickle.
Yuichiro and Muichiro followed, swords raised. The sharp wind failed to disperse the thin mist—if anything, it made their attack angles even harder to read.
Just as four Nichirin Blades were about to tear into that gaunt body, Gyutaro's hoarse voice rang out once more.
"Blood Demon Art: Rampant Arc Rampage!"
An overwhelming surge of crimson blood blades erupted outward, knocking every incoming Nichirin Blade aside. The room, already on the verge of collapse from the battle, finally gave way under the relentless barrage and crumbled completely, sending dust billowing into the sky.
With several sharp bursts of air, Uzui and the others shot out of the dust cloud and landed on a nearby rooftop.
Each of them looked different.
Muichiro's sleeves had been shredded from both arms, and a noticeable chunk of hair on his right side had been cut away. Fortunately, he wasn't injured.
Uzui's diamond-studded headguard had completely shattered and fallen off, leaving his white hair loose and disheveled. He had just set Yuichiro down from under his arm, and he too had avoided being cut by the blood blades.
Yuichiro, however, looked far worse.
Terrifying blotches had spread across half his face. The medicine he'd taken had slowed the poison, but as time passed, he could already feel his movements stiffening. If Uzui hadn't carried him just now, he would have come out of it with far more wounds.
Adjusting his breathing and trying to hold the poison at bay, he lowered his voice.
"Sorry. I'm dragging you down."
"That's not true." Uzui kept his gaze fixed on the dust still hanging over the street. "Just give me a little more time. I'll finish them in flamboyant fashion and take you back for treatment."
"…He might already be here," Muichiro said, quietly, eyes locked on the same cloud of dust. "That female demon mentioned someone letting her prey escape, but the aura of her Blood Demon Art was extremely well concealed. The only ones who should be able to track it this far are the four of us."
Uzui agreed, but his expression didn't relax in the slightest.
If Hiru had really arrived, the situation would only become more complicated.
Just then, several brilliantly colored sashes shot out of the dust toward them. They cut them down one after another and finally got a clear view of the street below.
Daki had regained her head.
Her arms were wrapped around Gyutaro's neck as she clung to his back. Her legs had vanished completely, fused into his body. The two had merged into one, with only those vividly colored sashes trailing behind them like venomous snakes ready to devour their prey.
The battle at Kyogoku House had grown even more intense, to the point where buildings were collapsing. There was no way to hide it anymore from those who had come to the Entertainment District for pleasure. Panic spread as people shouted and fled, and the surrounding streets fell into chaos in an instant.
But something felt off.
Even though the nearby houses were brightly lit, not a single person ran out. Instead, it was the people farther away who panicked—only to be intercepted by Kakushi who seemed to appear out of nowhere and quickly began evacuating them.
What's going on? Why is no one coming out? It's not like they couldn't hear this.
But there was no time to dwell on it.
Gyutaro's muddy eyes slowly shifted, and a twisted smile spread across his face.
"Now then… let's start over."