The Father Demon roared and charged at Noe, driving his fist into the ground where she'd been standing.
She hopped clear with ease, planted a foot on his arm, and used it to launch herself onto his back. One deep breath, and a sharp cry followed.
"Love Breathing, Fourth Form: Heart-Stopping Suffocation."
She swung her blade, the edge whipping around his neck in a tight coil. Then she planted both feet against his back, leaned her full weight backward, gripped the hilt with both hands, and pulled, trying to finish the job in one motion.
At six times normal muscle density, that pull carried real force behind it. The blade dragged against his frozen throat with a sharp, sizzling sound.
He dropped to his knees, hands flailing behind him, grasping at nothing. Unable to reach her directly, he clawed instead at the blade wrapped around his own neck, then forced himself back up, twisting violently to try to throw her off.
Noe held on, the edge slowly cutting deeper into his neck as she gripped the handle tighter.
Across the river, Inosuke stared, stunned. He hadn't expected a girl who'd looked this soft to have this much fight in her. He scooped up his broken blade and started moving to help.
Sensing the danger, the demon roared and bolted into the trees, crashing wildly through the forest, snapping trunks thick as a man's torso and pulverizing boulders in his path.
Noe clung to him through all of it, whipped around like fabric caught in a storm. Even dazed and disoriented from being slammed against trunk after trunk, she wouldn't let go.
A few minutes later, he leapt back toward the shore, trying to use the impact of the landing to finally shake her loose. It didn't work; instead, his ruined knees buckled under his own weight, and he crashed back down onto them.
Inosuke saw his opening. Pushing through the pain in his own battered body, he gripped his sword, took a breath, and sprinted across the river straight toward them.
"Beast Breathing, First Fang: Pierce."
He drove his broken blade into the demon's throat with everything he had, pressing it in alongside Noe's, trying to help her finish the cut in one combined push.
She understood exactly what he was doing. She locked her knees against the demon's back, gritted her teeth, and her muscles bulged with a strength that looked almost impossible on her frame.
If not for her face, anyone watching would have mistaken her for a grown man built like a wall.
The wound in his neck sat less than three inches from going all the way through; a little longer, and the head would come free.
At the worst possible moment, the demon summoned one last burst of strength and drove a punch into Inosuke.
He flew backward into the trees and didn't get up this time. All he could do was hope the girl could finish what they'd started or they were both finished.
The demon yanked both broken blades free of his neck, flung them to the ground, and roared as he fought to rise again.
Noe's face burned red with effort. She was barely keeping this thing under control anymore.
Then, out of nowhere, a large golden bee-shaped shape cut across the battlefield and landed on the demon's head. A light, musical voice rang out from above.
"Insect Breathing, Dance of the Bee Sting: True Flutter."
Kochou Shinobu dropped gracefully out of the trees behind them, sailing clean over Noe's head. Her thin rapier, needle-fine as a bee's sting, punched into the demon's skull. She landed lightly, one foot briefly resting on his head before touching down.
He fought it for a moment, then the fight started draining out of him fast. A green fluid leaked from his fanged mouth, and his clustered spider-eyes filled with a fine webbing, like glass about to shatter.
Finally, worn down by Noe's relentless sawing, the demon's head tore free and shot into the air. The force sent her flying too, tumbling backward across the ground before she slammed into a fallen tree stump and went still.
Shinobu was at her side in seconds, calling her name softly, twice.
Noe's eyes opened slowly, pain written across her face.
"Noe? Can you hear me?"
"Sister Kochou... what are you doing here?"
She fought her way upright. After a battle that had thrown her against tree trunks over and over, everything in her body had gone stiff and sore now that the adrenaline was fading.
"We got word of a mission and came to back you up. Where's Cold Cry? Weren't you two together?"
Shinobu reached down and helped pull her to her feet.
At his name, Noe's face fell, and she shook her head. "I don't know. We were together, and then he just left."
"By the way, where's the boy with the boar mask?"
"Boar mask? What boar mask?"
Shinobu had arrived after Inosuke had already been thrown into the trees, so she'd never seen him.
Still hazy, Noe pointed her toward where he'd gone flying, and together they found him barely conscious in a thicket.
His mask had been knocked loose nearby, revealing short, dark blue-black hair. It was hard to reconcile the rough voice that came out of him with a face that looked softer than most girls'.
"Noe, stay with him. The medics are already on the way. I'm going after Cold Cry."
Noe murmured an assent and told her to be careful.
Part of her wanted to go looking for him herself. But she couldn't bring herself to leave this teammate she barely knew, someone she'd just fought and nearly died beside, alone out here. So she stayed, and waited for the medics.
According to the report from the Kasugai Crows, there was a strong chance a genuine member of the Twelve Kizuki was somewhere on this mountain. Whatever they'd just fought had been powerful, certainly, but it wasn't that. A real Kizuki wasn't something two or three inexperienced recruits could hope to bring down.
Shinobu suspected Cold Cry had picked up on the Kizuki's presence and gone after it alone. She couldn't say exactly why she thought so, just a feeling that wouldn't leave her.
If he really had gone looking for it, the situation was dangerous in a way he likely didn't understand. He had no real sense of what a Kizuki was capable of. His own sister had died at the hands of Doma, one of them.
If even a full Hashira could struggle against one of the Twelve Kizuki, what chance did a Mizunoto-rank recruit have?
---
Deep in the trees, Tanjiro faced the pale, boyish figure closing in on him and felt a cold cut straight through his body. He'd never known pressure like this, like a thousand needles pricking every inch of his skin at once.
*This... this is one of the Twelve Kizuki?*
His sword hand shook, and the air around him seemed to curdle, thick and foul. He kept backing away until the wooden box on his back finally struck a tree trunk with a dull thud, the jolt just enough to pull him partway out of the grip of his own fear.
"Impressive that you even made it this far."
The boyish figure looked down at the strand of spider silk between his fingers, turning it lazily. A thin, contemptuous smile crossed his face as he murmured, half to himself, "He swore he'd protect me. And look at him now. Pathetic."
---
Want to Read ahead? Join my Patreon to get early access to 70+ advanced chapters!
> patreon.com/cw/MexxyWave