Marcus shook his head.
"Let's see. First: I just got a new ability, so right now I can't devour another one. Second, I really do want this ability, but I only want it for everyday stuff. I don't want it stuck inside my own body."
Enmu's ability was powerful. It was, in fact, a conceptual-level ability. But that was exactly why he didn't want it for himself.
And for the record, it wasn't that he couldn't!
Until just recently, he certainly couldn't, after all, Enmu was one of the Twelve Kizuki. But things were different now.
With the "Resignation Letter" in the equation, it was indeed possible now.
In other words, the appearance of this "cure" had allowed him to exploit, in practical terms, a glitch in the system. Bypassing the rule through a technicality. A Kizuki ceasing to be a Kizuki, in a way, threw him right into the "devourable demons" bag.
So if he wanted to, once the injection was given, he could easily gobble him up and keep everything.
However, after the fight against Akaza, he had stumbled upon a truth.
Blood Demon Arts were devastating against humans. But against the demons themselves, their performance dropped drastically.
His Arrows, for example, could toy with a Hashira who hadn't yet opened the Transparent World. But against a demon of his same level, given the innate sensitivity they had towards Blood Demon Arts, the Arrows weren't just easily detected, they could practically be shattered.
And as for Enmu's forced sleep, forget about it.
Given the religious devotion Enmu felt for Muzan, if his forced sleep had any miraculous effect on higher-ranking demons, he would have started a civil war centuries ago to climb the ranks.
How else would he have remained stuck all this time, never moving from the Lower Rank One spot, settling for being a good dog?
It had to do, yes, with his lack of offensive capabilities. But it also proved that his main trump card, the famous forced sleep, didn't actually pose any serious threat to the Upper Ranks.
And for Muzan it was, straight up, a joke.
Muzan has five brains, if one goes to sleep, he still has four left running.
In the future, when it was his turn to face Muzan, the Koketsu Arrows could indeed hinder his movements a bit. But Enmu's dream induction, compared to that, would be little more than a simple, pretty decoration.
And that wasn't even the most important point.
The truly critical point was something else.
The number of times he could devour Blood Demon Arts was limited!
Looking back through all of Demon Slayer, the named female demons with real relevance were very few.
The ones that simultaneously combined a useful ability, potential, and enough importance to trigger the Level 4 reward could be counted, without exaggeration, on the fingers of a single hand.
Nezuko: Level 4 reward already spent.
Tamayo: same thing.
The only ones left with the capacity to trigger Level 4 were two.
Daki and Nakime.
That is to say, even if he got both, his chances to devour a Blood Demon Art were reduced to two.
One of those two, needless to say, he had to save for Muzan. His capacity for transformation and control was of vital importance for his long-term plans.
That left, therefore, only one open spot.
And for that spot, he had a candidate that got him way more excited than any other.
The Infinity Castle!
Nakime's ability.
Before, when he couldn't even see the possibility of devouring her, it hadn't even crossed his mind to take her seriously. But now things were different.
That Blood Demon Art, without exaggeration, was the one that most grossly defied the natural laws of the whole world!
How could he not want it?
That ability would either not be kept, or, if it was kept, it absolutely had to be in his own hands. He wasn't going to rest easy leaving it with anyone else.
Therefore, for the two remaining chances to devour, he would bet on both Muzan and Nakime.
He was betting it all on those two numbers.
And precisely because of that, there was no way he could afford the luxury of wasting one of those chances on Enmu.
Huh...?
Wait..!
Inspiration hit him like a bucket of cold water.
If in the future he managed to devour Nakime's ability and then, ripped Enmu's out of him and transferred it... to Nakime herself...
Perfect!
Private music capable of hypnotizing whoever listened to it. A biwa that also put you to sleep... Heh~
Just thinking about it was already making him hard with excitement!
He would always take her with him to important negotiations. Did he need to speak alone with someone without inconvenient witnesses? Plink, a single note, and all the pesky bystanders would go take a nap.
S-PEC-TA-CU-LAR!
And at night, he would have an exclusive soundtrack to fall asleep to. Goodbye insomnia...
The more he turned the possibilities over in his head, the more excited he got.
He looked at Tamayo with dazzling eyes.
"Are you absolutely sure that Enmu's ability can be fully extracted?"
Tamayo nodded. "From the moment I learned you could devour demon abilities, I ramped up my research in this field."
"... Although, of course, the main trigger was Rui. Before him, I had never seen any demon dare to grant their own ability to others. It hadn't even crossed my mind."
Marcus smiled, still pumped up. "Rui was a special case. Muzan practically raised him as if he were his own son."
Tamayo offered a little smile. "So Muzan probably wouldn't imagine even in his wildest dreams that thanks to Rui we would end up developing this."
As she said this, she glanced at Tanjiro out of the corner of her eye.
"U-Understood!" Tanjiro reacted.
Turning around, he ran out of the warehouse. He didn't take long to return, also running, holding an artifact in his arms that looked like a giant syringe: about as thick, more or less, as one of his own legs.
The device had a completely transparent tubular wall, a thick and very sharp needle at the bottom end, a black filter behind the needle, and two small drainage holes on the sides.
Marcus recognized it was an enlarged version of the blood filtration device he used for Rui back then.
"Senpai!" Tanjiro handed him the syringe somewhat absentmindedly, with shining eyes. "No matter how many times I see it, your carriage is AWESOME!"
Marcus gave Tamayo a sidelong glance. "You guys came in the carriage?"
Tamayo nodded.
"Yushiro didn't want to come pick you up, so Tanjiro drove the carriage... He learned very fast."
"Ha, everything is working out great, this way I won't have to walk back."
Satisfied, Marcus examined the syringe.
"Knowing that he had already fused with the locomotive." Tamayo explained. "I found some materials on short notice and put together this blood collector."
Having said that, she held out her hand.
In her palm was another syringe, but much smaller, containing a clear liquid.
"The... I brought you the Resignation Letter too."
Saying this, she looked at Marcus reproachfully, "In the future, stop naming things. Such an effective, well-designed blocking drug, and you call it Resignation Letter... It's horrendous. It sounds as awful as your Desire Breathing. Honestly... what a lack of taste."
As she grumbled this, she handed him the small syringe. "You decide which one you want to use."
Holding the syringes, Marcus plunged into his final thoughts.
Injecting the Resignation Letter would allow him to set Enmu aside for the time being. As long as he stayed alive, whatever happened next would always have room for readjustment. However, that also left behind a pretty massive risk.
On the other hand, stabbing him with the large syringe meant draining Enmu dry tonight. By the time he finished, the only thing left in his place would be a flask with the condensed essence of Muzan's blood.
If by any chance an accident occurred during the process, he would lose his ability forever. Even so, this was also the safest method in the long run.
On one side was life.
On the other, death.
In the end, he decided to leave the choice to Enmu himself.
"You choose. Which one do you want me to stab you with?"
"..."
Enmu looked at the syringes and started sweating... literally. He was actually sweating.
Finally, he gritted his teeth and took the gamble.
"The small one! I choose the small one!"
"Alright."
Marcus leisurely tucked the small syringe into his belt.
And, with a clean squelch...
...he stabbed the large syringe into the side of the locomotive.
"???"
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Throw your stones, drop them ALL! đź’Ž
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