Yoriichi's blade carved Muzan into ribbons. It shredded his tentacles, sliced through his five brains and seven hearts, and cleanly severed his neck.
It was invisible to the naked eye.
One moment Yoriichi stood before Muzan; the next, the Demon King had been reduced to a wretched heap of mangled flesh.
It was as if cause and process had been erased, leaving only the inevitable result. Yoriichi's sincere, focused strike was an act that none could deny was the descent of a god.
Unlike before, Muzan's regeneration seemed to fail him. He could only wheeze and gasp, desperately clutching his head to his shoulders as it threatened to slide off.
It is over.
It is finally over.
Now, Yoriichi only needs to deliver the finishing blow...
My eyelids feel so heavy.
The strength is draining from my arms.
Is it because I finally feel a sense of relief?
"Elder Brother!"
"Lord Tsugikuni!"
I hear voices calling out, but they sound so far away....
Why am I so tired? My eyes are closing—
@@@
A familiar ceiling.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying in a room I knew all too well.
It wasn't an ancient house from the Sengoku period. This was a home one would find in 21st-century modern Korea.
This place...
A deep sense of familiarity clashed with an inescapable feeling of cognitive dissonance.
"This is my room, isn't it?"
It was the very room where I had lived before falling into the Sengoku period.
Does this mean those seventeen years were all a dream?
Was it all just a long, vivid hallucination?
"No..."
At the sound of a low, dragging voice, I turned my head. Sitting there were the doppelganger I had seen at the Sanzu River and the female version of Muzan.
Seeing those two made me realize—for better or worse—that this wasn't some cheap 'it was all a dream' ending.
"And why exactly are you here?"
I glared at the female Muzan.
Muzan should be dead. So why was this wretch still here?
"My connection to the main body was severed. Consequently, my consciousness was left stranded here."
Propping her chin on her hand, the female Muzan looked at me with a venomous expression.
Look at her. Is she about to throw a punch? She needs to fix that look on her face.
I was just as displeased as she was.
Even if she was just a clone, who would want to share space with someone who had blown a hole through their body?
"Did the connection break because Muzan died?"
"I regret to inform you... but Muzan is not dead..."
The doppelganger interjected.
Muzan isn't dead?
That's impossible.
"Yoriichi struck the final blow. There was nothing left for him to do after that."
The doppelganger shook its head and continued.
"It is true... your twin's attack... was more than enough to corner him... However, in the moment you collapsed, his focus shifted to you for a fraction of a second... Muzan did not miss that opening..."
"The main body chose to flee by splitting his form into 2,000 fragments. Your twin managed to cut down roughly 1,913 of them... but in the end, he succeeded in his escape."
The female Muzan supplemented the doppelganger's explanation.
He still had the strength to flee after taking all that?
God damn it, that bastard Muzan is as persistent as a cockroach.
"The connection was likely severed at that moment, perhaps due to the extreme shock inflicted upon the main body. As for why I remain here... it is most likely because you consumed the main body's hearts."
"And why does that matter?"
"Because in the last five hundred years, you are the only madman to ever rip out and devour the main body's hearts entire."
I see... though calling me a madman is a bit harsh, don't you think?
That was the gamble of a lifetime for me.
The female Muzan sighed and continued.
"The conclusion is that I am bound to you. If you perish, I vanish as well."
"Which means..."
"Yes, you are not dead yet. And this is not Purgatory."
"You could call this your Mental Realm... Since it was created based on your memories... it is a space familiar to you... though for us, it represents a far-distant future..."
So that's why it looks exactly like my old room.
Regardless, I expected to be struck down by the Hashira immediately after becoming a demon. This is quite a surprise.
"It is unpleasant, but given the circumstances, I have no choice. I shall cooperate with you."
Wait, what? Suddenly?
That came out of nowhere.
"And why should I trust you?"
How could I trust someone who tried to eat me?
"If you die, I vanish. Even if I were absorbed back into the main body, there is no guarantee that 'I'—as I am now—would remain. I cannot interfere with you directly, but I refuse to disappear, even if the main body ceases to exist."
Listen to those reasons.
Since the original is selfish, the fragment is just as selfish.
"She and I have already assimilated with you... Her words are not false... Your end would signify our ultimate demise."
"Unpleasant as it may be," the woman added.
It didn't seem like they were lying...
In short, we are one in spirit and body. It means a doppelganger and a gender-swapped Muzan have taken up residence in my soul.
Actually, 'taking up residence' sounds strange. What could these two possibly offer me?
"Putting the doppelganger aside... Muzan. What exactly do you have to offer?"
"There is no point in telling you the main body's weaknesses since you already know them well enough to make my throat sore. My offensive capabilities are identical to those the main body used against you."
"Then...?"
"The existence known as the Blue Spider Lily."
A spider lily?
But aren't spider lilies red? There's a blue one?
"As you heard from the main body, my goal is to conquer the sun. To achieve this, I have been pursuing two separate paths."
I had heard one of them.
"You said it was to create a demon with a constitution that could withstand the sun, then absorb them."
"Yes. The other is the creation of a medicine."
A medicine?
"I was originally human. I did not always possess this superhuman body. I obtained it through a medicine concocted by a certain doctor."
A vein throbbed on the female Muzan's forehead, as if she were recalling something profoundly irritating.
Wait, what? A medicine?
You mean to tell me the progenitor of all demons was created because of a drug?
And one made by an ordinary doctor at that?
"If you're going to lie to me, at least make it believable."
"Whether you believe me or not is none of my concern. Regardless, thanks to that medicine, I gained this power, though it left me unable to walk in the sunlight."
"So, your inability to walk under the sun was a side effect of the medicine?"
"..."
The female Muzan suddenly went silent.
"Why the silence?"
"The medicine was incomplete... Or perhaps 'side effect' is the correct term..."
"A doctor gave you an incomplete medicine?"
Was he a quack?
Surely she isn't about to tell some nonsense story that Muzan isn't the real boss and there's another mastermind behind the scenes?
Muzan hesitated before speaking again.
".....I killed him before he could finish."
"".....""
Is he an idiot?
The doppelganger, who had been quietly listening, stared at the female Muzan with an expression that clearly said, 'What kind of brain-dead move was that...?'
Seeing our dumbfounded expressions, the female Muzan cleared her throat.
"At any rate, based on the logs the doctor left behind, I spent five hundred years searching the archipelago for the ingredients of the medicine that turned me into a demon, all to conquer the sun. However, the Blue Spider Lily was the one thing I could never find."
Wait a minute, something's wrong.
"Didn't you say it was a medicine to conquer the sun? Not a medicine to turn you into a demon?"
"That was the only medicine recorded in the doctor's journals."
Muzan spoke as if she saw nothing wrong with that logic.
No, there's a massive hole in that logic.
How would taking more of the same medicine that burns your body in sunlight make you normal again?
And Professor, hasn't it been five hundred years since you became a demon? You haven't taken this 'essential' medicine for five centuries; do you really think taking it again now would even have an effect?
"Do you even understand the specific efficacy or principles of the Blue Spider Lily and the other ingredients? Is there any proof that taking the same drug that turned you into a demon would suddenly allow you to conquer the sun? And even if it worked, five centuries have passed. Where in those five brains of yours did you get the idea that the same medicine would still work after all this time?"
"...."
It seemed she had never considered that.
Why exactly does she have five brains?
"Well, what choice did I have...? That was the only medicine in the doctor's journal. It was all I had left."
Then who told you to kill the doctor?
Regardless, the female Muzan handed me a book that recorded the ingredients and proportions of the medicine that had made her a demon.
She seemed to remember it all perfectly. Perhaps those five brains weren't for a high IQ, but just for data storage.
@@@
The doppelganger suddenly reached into the empty air, and a Go board materialized from nothingness.
"Let us have a match..."
This guy is just as random.
How did he even do that?
"Don't you think this is a bit abrupt? And where did you get that board?"
"A true master never neglects mental cultivation... Besides... it will be some time before you can return to reality... and I have questions of my own that need answering..."
'There are things... I must ask... this man...'
Come to think of it, he did say something like that when he was stopping the female Muzan.
I wonder what he's curious about. I'm the one with a mountain of questions myself.
I sat down on the floor to match the doppelganger's eye level.
"By the way, who are you? If that female Muzan over there came from me eating Muzan's hearts, what about you?"
The doppelganger began setting up the stones as he spoke.
"I am... a manifestation born from the fusion of your cells and Muzan's... In a way, you could consider me a type of Blood Demon Art you possess..."
That sounds incredibly disturbing when put that way.
Born from a mixture of Muzan and me? Does that mean my 'first time' was with that monster?
God, I feel like I'm going to throw up.
Wait, do Blood Demon Arts usually have their own egos?
I looked at the female Muzan as if asking for an explanation for this situation.
"How should I know? You were a freak of nature who defied my understanding from the start."
Right. So even Muzan is clueless.
Once the doppelganger finished setting up the board, he smoothly took the black stones for himself.
"Hold on. I'm a complete beginner who has never played Go before. Why are you taking the black stones?"
"The same applies to me... I have not been alive for even an hour... You take the white stones..."
This little...!