"What trial... what are you even talking about!"
This was insane.
—I don't want any trial. My goal is to survive and overcome sunlight — to live without fearing the sun. Nothing else has ever mattered and nothing else ever will.
Kibutsuji Muzan let the thought scream through him, even if saying it aloud was the kind of thing that would earn nothing but mockery. It wasn't dignified. But it was the only reason he'd kept going in this world.
Live. Overcome sunlight. Become something truly unkillable. After that, eliminate every single threat until none remained.
"It's too late to be afraid, Kibutsuji Muzan."
The girl advanced with quiet steps. The ribbons along her sleeves and skirt swayed with each word she spoke — and that garment, more exposed than conventional taste would allow, caught the moonlight along its crimson trim.
Muzan had absolutely no interest in whatever her outfit was failing to cover. His full attention was locked on the living clothing itself — because he knew, with certainty, it wasn't fabric. It was a living organism. Where had she come from? What manner of species was this?
"Only one of us sees tomorrow's sun. Oh... sorry. I forgot you don't do sunlight."
There wasn't a trace of apology in her eyes. Just naked mockery.
"Don't get ahead of yourself... you monster!"
The fear crystallized into fury.
Even a coward had his limits. He was Muzan — lord of the dark for a thousand years, the Demon King that every demon alive bowed to. He had dignity. He had a line.
—Right. Think clearly. She is Inori. She is not Tsugikuni Yoriichi. She is not a Marked Swordsman. She's a pitiable creature no different from myself — and yes, her blood corrodes mine, but with my regeneration speed, as long as it doesn't flood my entire body at once, I can sever whatever's contaminated and regrow it.
This is nothing like the Bright Red Nichirin Sword or sunlight. Those I cannot regenerate from. Her Blood Toxin is different.
The thought steadied him.
Even if she was his equal in strength — even if she exceeded him — she was clearly newly transformed. Otherwise he'd have encountered her long before now. He had every advantage in experience.
With that resolve, Muzan made the decision in one push: he would defeat Inori here with everything he had. Even if all he brought back was her corpse — extracting the components from her blood for research might still yield what he needed to overcome sunlight.
His severed right arm regrew in an instant, a flash of motion, and the new arm was already complete.
"Good. That's the spirit."
The blood was rushing through Inori's whole body, rising to a boil. Ten pale fingers gleamed with deepening red. Whatever Muzan tried next — she was about to go in full force.
"Feather Blade Thirteenfold!"
Her eyes blazed like two stars igniting.
Both arms swept forward as though she were throwing an armful of flowers — but what spilled out wasn't petals. Thirteen Feather Blades, coiled with killing intent, swept outward in a cresting wave and drove straight for Muzan.
He reacted quickly. It wasn't enough. The sheer number overwhelmed his defenses, and five blades struck home with massive penetrating force, embedding in his body and sending him off his feet. He hit the ground and kept rolling until the earth stopped him.
Blades distributed across his four limbs and torso. His hat was gone, lost somewhere in the chaos. That once-composed black hair was plastered with mud, bunched on his head like a dirty mop. Muzan had, in the fullest sense of misery and dishevelment, hit the floor.
The eight blades that missed him drifted back to hover quietly beside Inori. She didn't recall them into her body — not yet. Re-materializing them would cost time she couldn't spare.
This was part of why she'd spent so long in conversation earlier. She'd needed to prepare all thirteen blades before striking, and she couldn't afford to absorb them before the fight was finished.
Eight Feather Blades hung in silent formation around her — an effect reminiscent of ancient Chinese sword-controlling arts, yujian, and not entirely unlike it in practice.
She didn't celebrate the hit. She watched Muzan, and waited.
She'd already been pushing Blood Toxin through the five embedded blades. Given time, he would react.
The reaction came, but not the way she expected.
The man on the ground didn't use his hands to push up. He straightened using only his legs, rising in a movement that looked fundamentally wrong. A wind picked up — and in the moonlight, the true body beneath the ruins of Kibutsuji Muzan's suit revealed itself.
The Feather Blades had cut through his clothes.
They hadn't cut into his flesh.
What the torn fabric exposed were mouths. Several of them — enormous, each lined with shark-like rows of fangs. Where Inori's Nameless Monster was composed of countless Inner Eyes, Muzan's body was covered in these vast, gore-dark maws. Their serrated teeth clamped down on every embedded Feather Blade, locked them in place — and no matter how Inori strained to control them, they would not move another millimeter.
The eyes in each Feather Blade buckled under the pressure, crushed by those knife-edged fangs. The blades collapsed into pools of blood on the ground — like birds plummeting from a great height, broken and bloodied.
...The strength wasn't enough?
Inori registered mild surprise, nothing more. She'd factored in worst-case outcomes. Muzan was not a target she'd clear in a single pass, and Feather Blades were fast and sharp but not especially resilient — even less so against something as naturally powerful as a clenched jaw. The blades losing was preferable to her losing.
But the blades hadn't been wasted.
Calmly, Inori reached out and plucked one of the eight hovering blades from the air, then flicked it directly into the "eye" of another one.
Muzan's focus had narrowed entirely to the blades embedded in his body. He was dismantling them one by one: one gone, two gone, three gone, four — nearly at the last, wedged in his left shoulder, clenched tight in a body-mouth's grip.
Then his entire left shoulder detonated with pain.
"What — what?!"
One blade remained: the one in his left shoulder, locked in the body-mouth's jaws, unable to move. That was supposed to be true.
But something had torn through it from the inside. The entire shoulder — bone, muscle, the architecture of the joint — dissolved under the released Blood Toxin. The arm came apart and fell, and Muzan's suppressed cry was raw.
Severing a limb was one thing, instant and almost clean. The Blood Toxin was different — it temporarily blocked his regeneration. He had to wait for the arm to fully dissolve before regrowth could even begin. The process wasn't long. It was agonizing.
...When had she thrown the extra blade? I'd dealt with all of them...