Chapter 87: Why Must You Force Me to Kill You?
His gaze fell upon Masashi, who was pinned to the tree.
"Oh?"
Tatsu's eyebrows raised slightly, a trace of surprise flashing in his eyes.
Under the gaze of the Transparent World, he clearly saw the flow of blood within Masashi's body.
That could no longer be called blood; it was streams of thick, deep-purple liquid.
The high concentration of wisteria poison had completely permeated Masashi's internal organs.
Looking at Masashi's tattered body, which was filled with deadly poison, Tatsu couldn't help but feel a sense of absurdity:
"Does the Demon Slayer Corps nowadays like injecting poison into their own bodies? Shinobu is like this, and this piece of trash who doesn't even have hands is the same... What a bunch of lunatics."
Retracting the Transparent World, Tatsu slowly walked in front of Masashi.
He looked down at Masashi, who was pinned to the tree and unable to move, his voice tinged with mockery:
"Oh my, look who this is? Isn't this the one who shouts every day about wanting to kill me? How did you end up in such a sorry state? Come to think of it, I've saved your life once again."
This taunt was like a loud slap, hitting Masashi hard across the face.
Masashi's breathing became rapid.
He looked at Tatsu, at this evil demon he dreamed of killing, his eyes filled with incomprehension.
Why?
Why would an evil demon use the Demon Slayer Corps' Breathing Style?
Why would an evil demon kill a Lower Rank of the Twelve Kizuki?
Why did this enemy he hated to the bone happen to descend like a savior at his most desperate moment and save his life?
"You..."
Masashi stared fixedly at Tatsu,
"Why did you kill him! Who asked you to meddle in my business!"
"Evil demon!"
Masashi twisted his body frantically, causing the nichirin sword piercing his chest to grind against his bones, making the blood flow even more rapidly.
He glared at Tatsu,
"Aren't you a demon! Don't you eat people! Come on! Eat me! Eat me skin and bone!!!"
As long as Tatsu bit him, just one bite!
He would be able to drag this scourge down to hell with him!
However, facing Masashi's mad invitation to die, Tatsu merely glanced at him coldly.
There was no killing intent or anger in that gaze, only a high-and-mighty indifference, as if looking at a dying stray dog on the side of the road.
"Sorry."
"I don't eat people."
After saying this, Tatsu didn't even have the interest to look at Masashi again; he turned around without hesitation and walked toward the outside of the forest.
To Tatsu, saving Masashi was completely accidental.
He had merely sensed the aura of a Lower Rank here and came to clean it up in passing.
As for Masashi?
An ant who had once cursed at him to his face and shown undisguised killing intent toward him.
Tatsu did not consider himself a saint who returned evil with good.
That he hadn't personally drawn his blade to chop off the head of this piece of trash who had repeatedly provoked him was already his greatest display of "kindness" because he was in a good mood today.
Save him? Impossible.
Just let him be pinned to this tree by his own nichirin sword, and in loneliness and despair, watch his own blood drain away before dying a miserable death.
This was the best punishment for such an overconfident fool.
Watching Tatsu's receding figure, Masashi became truly desperate.
"Stop! You stop right there!"
Masashi roared hoarsely.
If Tatsu just left like this, then what did that make him?
He had endured severe pain to inject himself with poison every day, turning himself into something neither human nor demon.
If everything he had suffered and all the sacrifices he had made couldn't drag Tatsu down with him here, then what was the point of it all?
He would die bleeding out in this wilderness like a joke, carrying the regret of being unable to exact revenge!
"You coward! You dirty monster!"
Masashi lost his sanity; he began to frantically curse Tatsu with the most vicious language he could think of,
"Do you think that just because you learned a Breathing Style, you aren't a demon anymore! You have that disgusting blood flowing through you! You will always be a monster that only deserves to live in the gutter!"
Tatsu's footsteps did not pause.
This level of abuse didn't even count as wind passing by his ears.
How could a lion be angry because of the barking of a wild dog?
Seeing that Tatsu remained indifferent, the madness in Masashi's eyes had completely overwhelmed his reason.
He had to provoke Tatsu; he had to make him turn around, kill him, and eat him!
Therefore, he pointed his spearhead at the only woman Tatsu cared about, the former Flower Hashira.
"And that slut Kanae Kocho!"
Masashi screamed hysterically. Because of his hatred and fear of death, his features twisted together, looking incredibly hideous:
"What kind of bullshit Flower Hashira, what kind of gentle and kind person, it's all just a fake act, she's a bitch! A dignified Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, actually degrading herself to throw herself at an evil demon! She is just a promiscuous woman who isn't picky about her food! A slut being toyed with by you, this monster, , "
"Swish, , "
Masashi's last word was stuck in his throat forever.
The wind stopped. Fallen leaves hovered in mid-air.
Tatsu, who had already walked a dozen steps away, had disappeared.
Tatsu's entire being seemed to have directly traversed the distance of space, appearing in front of Masashi like a teleportation.
Fast! Fast enough to surpass the limits of human optic nerve perception!
When Masashi's retina finally captured Tatsu's figure, what he saw was a pair of eyes devoid of any human emotional color.
In those eyes, there was no anger, no killing intent, only a coldness as if looking at a dead object.
"Clang, , "
Tatsu drew the nichirin sword from his waist, and then, swung it.
A cold blade light flashed through the air and vanished, cutting through Masashi's neck without any resistance, as if cutting through a piece of tofu.
"Gurgle..."
Masashi's head slid off his neck, fell onto the soil soaked with blood, and rolled a few times before stopping.
Until the moment his head hit the ground, Masashi's face still maintained that hysterical, crazed expression of abuse.
His eyes were wide open, and his pupils reflected Tatsu's cold face.
He didn't feel pain; in the instant his brain lacked oxygen, only one final piece of information remained: So fast...
Tatsu stood quietly in front of Masashi's headless corpse, holding the blood-free nichirin sword in his hand.
He raised his wrist, casually flicked the blade in a flourish, and sheathed the blade.
"Click."
Tatsu lowered his head, looking at Masashi's head on the ground, which had died with its eyes wide open.
There was not a shred of pity in his eyes, nor any sense of guilt for having killed a member of the Demon Slayer Corps.
He tilted his head up slightly, looking at the cold moon in the sky that had finally broken free from the shackles of the dark clouds and cast a spread of clear radiance, and let out a sigh tinged with helplessness and mockery.
"Sigh..."
"Why, must you force me to kill you?"
He lowered his eyelids, and Kanae's gentle, water-like smile appeared in his mind.
That was the woman who would stand firmly by his side, even if it meant betraying the entire world.
He didn't look at the corpse on the ground again, turned around, faced the moonlight, and walked toward the town without haste.
There, he had his only home in this world, the woman who was waiting for him to come home.
As for the headless corpse filled with wisteria poison behind him, it would soon rot in this forest, becoming nutrients for this land, and along with his pathetic obsession with revenge, would disappear from this world completely.
The night was still long.
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