Chapter 237: Recharge

At the Asakusa Mansion, blood covered one side of the road, furrows and cracks everywhere; on the other, frost dominated the air, turning every breath into snow.

Shinobu and Kanao stood back to back, coated in a thick layer of ice crystals.

Behind them, Ivy and Pearl tried to move in and help several times, but they found it impossible.

Their threads were vulnerable to fire and to extremely low temperatures.

Douma stood in the center of the courtyard, his fan half-open and a smile in his eyes.

If Tanjiro and Inosuke hadn’t withstood the snow’s charges by sheer force to confront him, Shinobu and Kanao would already have been captured.

No one had anticipated that Douma’s technique would turn out to be so terrifying: six small replicas of ice crystal, each with the full extent of Douma’s original abilities and power.

It was something irrational.

’Hinokami Kagura!’

"Ara, ara... You two again."

Douma tilted his head, dodging Tanjiro’s slash and letting the flames graze his face.

Tanjiro didn’t relent and rekindled the fire on his katana, slipping in from one side. Inosuke, in his boar helmet, swung his katanas with no order whatsoever and lunged from the other end.

The two of them worked in perfect sync.

But Douma didn’t show the slightest interest in them.

By creating his replicas, his strength had dropped — though not to the point where they could wound him.

"Kokushibo-dono, could we switch places? I’d like to catch up with Akaza too."

At the other end, Kokushibo swung his katana and once again cut Hakuji to pieces, just as he’d finished regenerating.

But before he could sheathe his katana, Gyutaro lunged, crossing his scythes to slice through his neck, while Ume’s sashes dropped from above and wrapped around his wrist.

"Annoying." Kokushibo murmured as the eyes on the blade of his katana snapped open.

’Moon Breathing, Seventh Form: Mirror of Misfortune, Moonlit.’

Arcing slashes exploded from the blade, spreading in every direction.w

The ground split open, the rubble was cut into clean cross-sections, and the air filled with crescent-moon-shaped gusts.

Ume let out a scream as her body was cut into several segments that scattered across the ground. Gyutaro dodged most of it, but from the waist down he was torn to shreds; his upper half fell to the ground, spewing blood in gushes.

Still, he didn’t take the blow for nothing: he hurled his scythes, burying them in Kokushibo’s head.

As he reached up to pull the scythes out and toss them to the ground, Kokushibo’s legs buckled slightly and he gasped for air, swaying a little.

The wound on his head was visibly healing much more slowly than before.

Facing the simultaneous attack of all three was a nuisance.

Coming out unscathed was impossible: when one went down wounded, the other two stepped up to face him, and by the time he finished with them, the first had already healed.

This relay of a fight was meant purely to wear him down.

Though his wounds were minor, using his Breathing technique continuously over such a large area drained his strength.

Added to the constant regeneration and the expulsion of the poison, his energy was being consumed far faster than expected.

In terms of raw strength, he wasn’t overwhelmingly superior to the three of them combined either.

But it didn’t matter; the effort was worth it.

He walked toward Ume. She was the weakest, and if he was going to capture someone, it would be her.

At that moment, Hakuji — who should have stepped forward — was still trying to piece his body back together, the sprouts of flesh growing at a pitiful speed.

Gyutaro, on the other hand, erupted.

"DON’T YOU TOUCH MY SISTER!!!"

Legless, he pushed off with his arms to leap up from the ground.

In midair, his hands condensed the scythes once more, hurling himself at Kokushibo.

Kokushibo didn’t even bother to turn around; he let him drive the scythes in up to the handle.

Then four blades shot out from his back, tearing Gyutaro apart.

"ONII-CHAN!!!"

On the remaining half of Ume’s face, tears mingled with blood.

She tried to wrap her brother’s remains in her sashes to bring them back, but the moment she stretched them out, Kokushibo severed them.

All she could do was watch that hand reach out toward her.

But just a second before his fingertips could brush against her:

"Stop, Kokushibo."

An indifferent voice left Kokushibo frozen. But without thinking too hard, he turned around and bowed his head.

"Muzan-sama has arrived."

The person standing before him wore a black suit, sported scarlet pupils, and stood erect beneath the moonlight.

"Marcus is about to return. Fall back."

Kokushibo was bewildered. "But here..."

"I said fall back. Did you not hear me?"

A flicker of doubt crossed Kokushibo’s lowered gaze... and when he raised his eyes again, his expression had turned furious.

"I heard you perfectly, Tamayo-shoujo."

Swish

A flash rose up and the "Muzan" before him split in half.

The figure collapsed, revealing Tamayo’s pale face.

Blood staining the corner of her lips, she braced her hands against the ground while her body wouldn’t stop trembling.

Kokushibo looked down at her with a trace of admiration.

"... Truly impressive."

"It’s no easy thing to push a mere illusion to the point of interfering with another’s perception. If not for the fact that I can communicate with Nakime, I’d have found it hard to notice." He regarded her with keen interest and added: "But... do you really think that by holding me up a few simple seconds, you’re going to turn the situation around?"

Tamayo said nothing; the corner of her lips curved into a faint smile.

"And why not?!"

A voice brimming with vigor rang out behind Kokushibo.

Frowning, Kokushibo spun around sharply and swung his katana.

Hakuji struck the blade with his fist, undoing the attack by sheer force.

The shockwaves projected outward like a gale, sending rubble and chunks of ice flying.

Kokushibo staggered back two steps to steady himself, his pupils contracting slightly.

Hakuji stood before him, unharmed, his arms strong, and even his complexion, once pale, had turned rosy.

To his left was Gyutaro with a savage smile, his legs regenerated, spinning his scythes.

To his right was Ume as well, her face restored and mocking, while more than ten sashes writhed behind her.

All three were in peak form.

Kokushibo’s brow tightened.

He swept his gaze over them and fixed it on the person behind them: a boy with golden hair and haori, trembling from head to toe with eyes soaked in tears.

"I-I almost...! I almost got split in half!"

Zenitsu lay on the ground, trembling nonstop, but keeping a large quantity of packaged blood bags shielded in his arms.

In the air, a paper talisman flew off from the shockwave and drifted downward.

Invisibility Talisman.

Tamayo knew full well that her illusion wouldn’t fool Kokushibo for long.

The reason for that distraction was to give Zenitsu the chance to recharge Hakuji, Ume, and Gyutaro’s energy.

The corner of Kokushibo’s eye twitched.

He turned his head to warn Douma, but before he could utter a single word, he saw two of the mini-Doumas cornering Shinobu and Kanao go flying through the air.

"There’s someone invisible!"

Douma’s smile froze.

He quickly waved his fan, and an icy gale laden with icicles shot toward the empty space.

The air distorted from the freezing, revealing an illusory silhouette amid the cold wind.

It was Yushiro!

His chest was pierced by three ice icicles, blood streaming down the edges, but he gritted his teeth and refused to fall.

He used his last strength to lunge forward, shoving Shinobu and Kanao out of the encirclement of the four remaining mini-Doumas.

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