"Good... it's not Lower Rank Six of the Twelve Kizuki."
Yoshizuru Asato's voice echoed through the empty chamber.
He sounded relieved.
Takeo also scrutinized the demon child's eyes, feeling slightly reassured.
They say the Twelve Kizuki bear a distinctive mark in their eyes—a character denoting their rank.
For example, a Lower Rank Six demon would have "下弦六" (Lower Rank Six) inscribed in its eyes.
Thus, if there are no characters or numbers, the demon is not part of the Twelve Kizuki.
But Asato seemed to relax prematurely.
The moment his words fell, the demon child cocked its head and anger flared across its face:
"So... you look down on me too, huh?!"
As he spoke, he breathed out visible mist through his mouth—mist that began to spread throughout the chamber.
Takeo's eyes widened slightly and he quickly snuffed out the torch in Asato's hand, putting it away safely.
All three of them had trained to see in the dark, so the absence of such a faint light source wouldn't affect them much.
But if that demon expanded the range of the dust cloud, and it came into contact with open flame, it could easily trigger a dust explosion.
Even if Takeo had long forgotten most of what he'd been taught in school, this piece of knowledge had stuck with him.
Dust explosions were extremely dangerous. If one really occurred here, the demon might be killed, but they would almost certainly die along with it.
Granted, there was no proof that the dust this child-like demon exhaled was even flammable.
But Takeo had no intention of gambling his life on a "maybe."
Takeo's swift move left both Asato and Iori momentarily stunned, but they didn't question him. As the demon child showed signs of preparing to attack, the two of them immediately dropped into a combat stance, weapons raised and eyes locked on the enemy.
"Are you the only demon here?" Asato asked calmly.
Apparently, something in that question struck a nerve.
The moment Asato finished speaking, the demon boy roared in fury:
"You're just like the rest—looking down on me!! Looking down on someone who's about to become one of the Twelve Kizuki!!"
As the demon child shouted, the dust in the air surged, instantly flooding the entire chamber.
Their vision was completely obstructed. Without the improvised masks made from Takeo's haori, even their breathing would've been seriously hindered.
The swirling cloud of dust seemed to gather into strange, shifting shapes.
All three of them felt a strange gust of air surge toward them. As relatively skilled members of the Demon Slayer Corps, they instinctively dodged in their own ways before the wind reached them.
When they turned back to look, they saw that part of the dust cloud had solidified into something—and it had slammed violently into the wall of the cavern.
This demon could condense dust into a physical form?!
The same thought flashed through all three of their minds.
Suddenly, Takeo's brow twitched. His heightened senses—slowly returning thanks to his growing supernatural abilities—sent off a clear warning.
Sensing imminent danger, he shouted to the others:
"Watch out!!"
But the warning came just a moment too late.
Among the three, it was Asato whose ankle was suddenly seized by something. In the next instant, his body lost balance completely—he was yanked off the ground and dragged into the thick cloud of dust.
And then—
Bang!!
"Gah—!"
A heavy crashing sound rang out, followed by Asato's muffled cry of pain.
He'd been slammed into the cavern wall.
"That's what you get for looking down on me!!"
The voice of the demon controlling the dust echoed from within the haze.
Having locked onto the source of the sound, Takeo's eyes flashed with focus. He lowered his body and vanished from where he stood in an instant.
Within the dense cloud, thinner wisps of mist weaved through the dust like threads.
Takeo's figure moved like a starving wolf hidden in the fog—tracking his prey for the perfect, lethal strike!
Wolf Breathing, Fourth Form – Wolf Strike Through the Mist!
A flash of silvery light cut through the dust-filled air, and under the arc of Takeo's blade, the demon's head soared high into the air.
The resistance he felt in his arms startled him for a moment, but when he saw the demon's severed head fall, he relaxed slightly.
With his current strength, using Total Concentration Breathing in conjunction with his self-developed Breathing Style, Takeo could typically decapitate most demons without difficulty.
But this time, there had been resistance.
If his swing had been even slightly weaker, his blade might have gotten stuck in the demon's neck!
Despite the demon's childlike appearance, its physical toughness surpassed that of any demon Takeo had encountered before.
And thinking back to what the Dust Demon had shouted earlier—about being qualified to join the Twelve Kizuki—it all made sense.
This demon wasn't even a Twelve Kizuki yet, and it was already this difficult to behead. Just how powerful were the actual Twelve?
Still, at least the demon's head had been cut off...
That thought had barely formed when Takeo's pupils shrank to pinpricks—his body moved before his mind caught up, launching him into the air in a powerful leap.
The moment he left the ground, a massive hand made of compacted dust swept across where he had just been standing.
It was easy to imagine—if Takeo hadn't leapt away in time, that massive dust-formed hand would have grabbed hold of him, and he would've ended up just like Asato: slammed into the wall.
"What!?"
Sakoma Iori, whose sharp eyes had witnessed the entire exchange, had clearly seen Takeo decapitate the Dust Demon—and yet the demon immediately launched another attack.
Her shocked voice rang out as she looked toward the severed head on the ground.
"Takeo!! That's not the real body!!"
"!?"
Takeo snapped his head around.
Sure enough, the demon's severed head was now crumbling into particles, disintegrating into the dust and seamlessly blending into the thick fog that filled the cavern.
It wasn't the main body.
It was a clone.
A demon that could create clones!?
There was no time to think about where the real demon might be. Still midair from his earlier leap, Takeo suddenly found himself facing the next attack from the true Dust Demon—coming fast and without mercy.
This next attack resembled the dust-whip that had taken down Asato—only now, there were more of them. Countless tendrils of dense dust surged toward Takeo from all directions.
And Takeo was still midair—nowhere to land, nowhere to dodge.
Do I take the hit?
The thought barely crossed his mind when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimmer of light—a flash of water.
Water Breathing, Fourth Form—
Iori leapt from the ground, her Nichirin sword slashing through the air. The gleaming arcs of water flowed from her blade like crashing waves, striking the dust-whips in succession.
One strike. Two. Three. Each wave shattered another dust tendril.
—Striking Tide!
It seemed her training had paid off—she could now execute multiple forms of Water Breathing, and had grown into a capable Demon Slayer in her own right.
But what surprised Takeo even more was what came next.
After breaking the attack, Iori shouted:
"Takeo! The whips are coming from six meters directly behind you!!"
"Got it!"
Iori's keen eyesight proved invaluable in this moment. From the trajectory of the dust whips, she'd pinpointed their origin and relayed the exact position of the demon to Takeo.
As soon as he heard it, Takeo responded without hesitation.
Landing firmly on the ground, he twisted his body, reversing his grip on his Nichirin blade. With blade pointed forward like an unstoppable arrow, he charged into the darkness—toward the source of the attack.
Wolf Breathing, Second Form — Lone Wolf's Last Stand!
A full-power thrust that sacrificed all defense for pure offense—his strongest piercing strike, meant to tear through a demon's throat with unstoppable force.
But when the blade struck the "enemy," there was no sensation of flesh being pierced. Instead, he felt a sharp jolt of resistance—an unnatural, grinding halt.
Clang!!
The sound rang out clear and cold.
Takeo's eyes widened as he looked up— Eh?
—what stood before him was a solid cave wall.
A wall?!
No… that's not right!
Takeo had nearly assumed that Iori had made a mistake—but in the next moment, he saw it.
Something inside the rock… was moving.
It squirmed faintly within the surface of the stone—and then vanished deeper into the wall.
Takeo's eyes dropped to the tip of his Nichirin blade. There—just barely—was a faint smear of blood.
Realization hit him instantly.
The demon was inside the rock.
That dust demon's true body… was hiding within the cave wall itself!
_________
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