The train groaned like a beast in its death throes, the sound reverberating through the valley as if the very earth recoiled from the dying creature's scream. Steel warped and shrieked, its tortured cry echoing through the night. Bolts tore loose with explosive force, flinging across the tracks like shrapnel. The cursed flesh entwined through the machine convulsed and spasmed, unable to hold its shape. The once-coordinated momentum shattered—cars lurched wildly, pulled in opposing directions, as if the train were trying to resist its own death.
The tracks beneath the monstrous engine bent and cracked under the unbearable weight. Wheels screeched against the iron, sparks flying like showers of burning needles. One by one, the carriages derailed in violent succession. Wood splintered and snapped like bones. Massive metal links snapped apart with deafening clanks. Entire compartments flipped sideways, rolling into each other in a twisted, smoking heap.
The ruptured furnace at the core burst open, coughing out flames and steam. Fire spread through the wreck like wildfire over dry grass, devouring what remained of Enmu's body. It was no longer a train—it was a collapsing ruin of flesh, steel, and agony, crumbling in on itself as though reality itself rejected what it had become.
And in the chaos of that collapse, Yoriichi moved.
As the front engine screeched and twisted off the rails, dragged down by its own severed weight, he leapt with impossible speed. His form cut through the smoke and sparks like a streak of light, launching into the air just before the final impact. Wind howled around him, catching his haori as he rose, a blur of motion that defied the violence below.
Then—silence, only for a breath.
His figure vanished into the edge of the forest, carried far by the force of his jump. The trees swallowed him without resistance. There was no crash, no stumble, no trace of where he landed. Only the whisper of disturbed leaves and the fading glow of his presence.
Behind him, the last of the train collapsed.
Twisted metal hissed and settled into ruin. The corrupted machine, once so unstoppable, now lay broken across the rails it had consumed—shattered into unrecognizable fragments. Flames licked at the sky. Black smoke rose in slow, curling pillars.
The train lay in ruins.
And what remained of Enmu was crumbling.
His severed head, grotesquely fused with the engine's core, twitched weakly atop the wreckage. The once-living steel around him sagged and collapsed, its cursed energy fading rapidly. His face—half-melted, half-torn—twisted in something that wasn't pain, but raw disbelief. One eye remained open, flickering, unable to focus. Burnt veins pulsated across his temple, and his mouth hung slightly open, trembling.
Half-submerged in mangled metal and seared flesh, Enmu whimpered—not like a demon meeting his end in defiance, but like a child who couldn't understand what had gone wrong. Steam hissed from ruptured pipes beside him, coating the air in a thick, ghostly mist. Each breath he managed to take came with a wet, choking rattle, more of a death spasm than true life. His voice was barely a whisper, lost beneath the wreckage and fire, yet full of something deeper than agony.
"This power… this strength… it's not fair…" he stammered, words catching on his crumbling tongue. His one good eye rolled upward, wide and frantic, searching the smoke-choked sky for some answer that would never come. There was no blood in his tears now—only grief. Pure, hollow, unfiltered grief. "Why...? Why do the Lower Moons always die…?"
His body began to seize, the remnants of his form spasming against the jagged debris beneath him. Cracks split across his skin like dried clay. His cheek peeled, his jaw stiffened. Ash flaked off from his shoulders with each tremor. He was breaking apart from the inside out—burning, unraveling, fading.
"Our power… it's nothing… nothing compared to them…" he continued, voice splintering into fragments as the edges of his face began to dissolve. "The Upper Moons… they've never changed… not once… their place has stayed the same… for centuries…"
His lips moved, but no more sound followed. His eyes turned dull, the fire within them gone.
The words came slower, more strained, as if each syllable fell through sand—fragile, crumbling, slipping away before they ever fully formed. His voice rasped like broken glass against rusted metal, dragged from a throat that no longer had the strength to carry it. Regret clung to his final breath—not the regret of cruelty or murder, nor of guilt or repentance, but something colder. Something sadder. It wasn't about the lives he had taken, the pain he had caused, or the path he had chosen. It was regret for something deeper—for the future he was never meant to have. For the strength he had always lacked. For the status he would never reach.
How much blood he consumed, how twisted his form became, the truth never changed. He had never been enough.
A failure—marked from the beginning. Not because of a single mistake, but because the ceiling was always too high. Because the hierarchy he served didn't need him to grow—it needed him to die. A disposable name. A stepping stone. Nothing more.
Maybe one last curse. Maybe a plea. But his throat gave out, and his tongue withered before the words could form. The last of his thoughts scattered into the wind as his body disintegrated—flesh turning to dust, dust to nothing.
But not far from the ruined tracks, just beyond the edge of the wreckage, Yoriichi stood alone in the open field.
The force of the train's collapse had thrown him clear of the blast, his body soaring over the twisted metal and fire in a graceful arc. He hadn't resisted the momentum—hadn't fought the chaos—but had let it carry him, and when he landed, it was with quiet precision. The plain was scarred where he touched down: deep furrows carved into the dirt, pebbles scattered like seeds, and the grass flattened in a wide arc behind him.
Now, he stood still among the calm that followed catastrophe.
The glow of distant flames flickered against his silhouette. His haori moved gently in the wind, no longer billowing with motion, but resting like a banner lowered after war. His katana hung loosely at his side, its edge already sheathed, as though it had never needed to be drawn.
Smoke rolled behind him, rising from the ruins of the train, but he did not look back. His breathing was steady. Unrushed. His gaze fixed forward—not on a threat, but on nothing in particular. As if he was still listening to the silence. Still feeling the echo of something long finished.
Kyojuro came to stand beside Yoriichi, the two swordsmen silent in the vast field just beyond the crash site. The air around them still buzzed with the aftershock of the train's destruction. Ash floated gently through the air like falling snow, drifting across the ruined plain as if trying to bury the wreckage behind them. The ground was scorched, carved by the violence that had unfolded just moments ago. Smoke curled upward in slow, heavy coils, veiling the moonlight in gray.
Neither of them spoke. Neither needed to.
The silence between them was not absence—it was alertness. Stillness born not of peace, but of something waiting.
And then—
Yoriichi's heart pulsed.
A single beat.
But not like the others.
This one struck deeper. Harder. It thudded through his ribs like the toll of a distant bell, vibrating through his bones. His body didn't flinch, but his senses shifted—his awareness sharpening like the blade at his hip.
His pupils narrowed.
Time seemed to slow.
He saw it.
But not with his eyes.
Not in any way a normal human—or even most slayers—could comprehend.
It was deeper.
Through the world itself.
Through the skin of existence.
With—See Through the World—Yoriichi perceived more than presence or motion. He sensed the rhythm beneath all living things. The pulse of muscle, the flow of blood, the harmony of breath. The very soul of what moved, lived, and waited to strike.
From the haze ahead, a figure began to form—not walking, not arriving, but simply appearing, like a thought made real. At first, it was just a silhouette. Humanoid. Upright. Draped in something that moved like cloth but shimmered like mist.
The shape of a man.
A swordsman.
But that illusion shattered the moment its presence touched the world. The very air shifted—thickened—like pressure before a storm. A wrongness radiated outward from the figure, washing over the field in waves that made the earth itself feel colder, heavier, smaller.
No… not a man.
The aura was demonic. Unmistakably so. But not just any demon.
This one carried weight.
An ancient, suffocating pressure that clung to the lungs and dug into the skin. The very grass around its feet began to wilt. The breeze that once stirred Yoriichi's haori seemed to die midair, smothered beneath the gravity of that presence. It wasn't a roar. It wasn't even loud.
It was focused.
Sharp. Measured. A blade drawn not with rage, but with purpose.
The energy pouring off the figure dwarfed anything they had felt from Enmu. Dwarfed even the higher-ranked Lower Moons. This wasn't chaotic or wild—it was disciplined. Terrifyingly so. Refined through ages of malice and intent.
Kyojuro's eyes narrowed, a quiet breath escaping his lips, and even his flame-like spirit dimmed slightly in the face of what now stood before them.
Still, the figure had not fully stepped into clarity.
Only the outline remained, vague and flickering, like the world itself struggled to fully render it. But the power—it was there. Real. Immense.
Yoriichi's breath stilled—not from fear, but from memory.
This presence... it wasn't unfamiliar. It wasn't the sudden intrusion of a stranger or the overwhelming weight of a powerful demon.
It was known.
Felt across a span of time so vast it could not be measured by years alone. Deeper than memory. Older than blood. It was as if his very soul had crossed paths with this being once before, in a life long forgotten or a silence between lifetimes.
A pulse in the world. A wound that never closed.
He didn't speak, didn't flinch. But inside him, something ancient stirred. A recognition that clawed its way out of the stillness like fire licking dry wood.
Even as the figure remained half-lost in the haze, certain details began to take shape.
A long sword hung at his side—too long for a standard katana, its silhouette jagged at the hilt, as if worn down by countless battles. It swayed faintly with each shift in presence, not from movement, but from the weight of the energy surrounding it. The weapon didn't shine. It absorbed light, drawing it inward like a void, as if even the moon dared not reflect off its surface.
His haori—if it could still be called that—was draped over his shoulders, but its design was unclear. The shadows clung to it unnaturally, obscuring details.
And then…
Six glowing eyes opened within the dark.