The stillness between them was as heavy as stone, pressing down on the battlefield until even the wind seemed unwilling to move.
Moonlight bled across Kokushibo's crescent blade, its silver arcs stretching like pale claws over the torn earth. The glow traced the harsh lines of his form, from the horns jutting above his brow to the rippling folds of his demon's haori, making him seem less like a man and more like a fragment of the night itself given shape. Each faint shift of his stance sent shadows bending unnaturally across the ground, warping around him as if the darkness obeyed his will.
Opposite him, Yoriichi stood with one hand resting lightly on his hilt, his posture deceptively relaxed. The faint warmth radiating from him seemed to push back against the cold breath of the night, as though the sun's ghost lingered in his presence. His eyes, calm yet unyielding, never left Kokushibo—watching, weighing, remembering.
Kokushibo broke the silence first. His voice was deep, measured, and deliberate, as if he were dissecting every word before letting it leave his tongue.
"I never thought I would see you again," he said, his gaze narrowing, studying Yoriichi as one might study a relic from a world long gone. "And yet here you stand… unchanged, as if time itself refuses to touch you."
Yoriichi's eyes swept over him—taking in the horns that crowned his head, the black veins coiling beneath his skin, the unnatural markings etched like curses into his flesh. Then there were the eyes—too many, too sharp—scattered across his face, each one gleaming with a predator's focus.
When Yoriichi finally spoke, his voice was calm, but the faint crease in his brow and the subtle drop in his tone carried a weight that cut deeper than steel.
"This is heart-wrenching, brother…"
For a fleeting moment, Kokushibo's eyes flickered—something old and almost human breaking through the void. It was the ghost of a memory, the echo of a boy who once stood in a sunlit field, looking up to his younger brother not with hatred, but with an emotion.
But like a candle snuffed by the wind, it vanished. The faint tremor in his gaze hardened into the cold, unyielding glare of a demon who had buried his humanity beneath centuries of blood and power. His grip on the hilt tightened, the polished steel groaning faintly under the pressure of his hold.
When he spoke, his voice was no longer that of a man—it was a blade drawn across stone.
"Enough. You will witness the strength I've carved from every century, every battle, every drop of blood spilled in my path."
His stance shifted—fluid yet immovable. The moonlight seemed to bend toward him, its silver glow clinging to the crescent blade in his hand as if answering a silent call.
"Moon Breathing—Sixth Form…" His tone lowered, each word deliberate, heavy, and final.
"Perpetual Night, Lonely Moon… Incessant!"
The air split with a scream of steel as a storm of crescent slashes erupted outward. They spun endlessly, chaining one into the next like the phases of the moon locked in a relentless cycle. The battlefield became a night sky in motion, every arc of light sharp enough to cleave stone and silence the wind.
"If your life must end by my blade to bring Muzan's reign to ruin… then so be it, brother. I take no pride in this, only sorrow."
"Sun Breathing—Eleventh Form… Fake Rainbow!"
The words left Yoriichi's lips like a breath carried on dawn's first wind. In the blink of an eye, his form splintered into a cascade of afterimages—phantoms of light and movement that wove between the cold arcs of Kokushibo's moon blades.
Each image was indistinguishable from the last, each step impossibly precise, each sway timed with the rhythm of Kokushibo's own attack. The crescent slashes cut through the illusions with a metallic scream, shattering fragments of air that shimmered like fractured glass before vanishing into nothingness.
Yet Yoriichi's true body was nowhere to be found.
The ground shuddered beneath Kokushibo's shifting stance. His many eyes flared, pupils dilating as he scanned the chaos before him, but the battlefield was no longer still—it pulsed with motion. Light and shadow braided together, flickering faster than instinct could track.
The moon's pale glow clashed with the sun's golden heat, and in that collision of worlds, Kokushibo felt the faint, unnerving pressure of a presence moving closer—silent, weightless, yet carrying the sharp inevitability of a blade that had never missed its mark.
A flicker—there.
Kokushibo's lips curved into the faintest smirk, his many eyes narrowing as his blade whirled upward, stance shifting with a precision honed over centuries.
"Moon Breathing—Fifth Form: Moon Spirit Calamitous Eddy!"
From the edge of his crescent blade, spirals of moonlight exploded into being—five colossal torrents, each a tempest of spinning arcs that carved through the night. They roared outward in perfect unison, tearing the ground into jagged trenches, pulverizing stone into dust, and shredding the air into glittering ribbons of pale light.
The illusionary Yoriichis were ripped apart one after another, their forms breaking into shimmering fragments before dissolving into nothingness. The battlefield became an unrecognizable wasteland, the very soil uprooted, swept into the ravenous pull of the silver vortex.
Each rotating crescent sang with lethal intent, the overlapping currents forming an unending storm that devoured everything in its reach. The night echoed with the deep hum of Kokushibo's technique—an otherworldly resonance that rattled bone and made the very air quiver.
And yet… somewhere within that maelstrom, Kokushibo's senses caught it again—a thread of presence, so faint it could have been a phantom. A step. A heartbeat.
"Sun Breathing—Seventh Form: Beneficent Radiance!"
Yoriichi's blade traced a perfect, unbroken circle through the air, its motion fluid yet unyielding. From its arc spilled a radiant halo, sunlight condensed into steel, blazing against the night. Each motion was deliberate, carrying not just strength, but the grace of a man who had long since mastered the dance between life and death.
The warmth rolled outward in waves, meeting the cold, tearing fury of Kokushibo's eddies. Where gold met silver, the world seemed to fracture—each crescent of moonlight dissolving instantly, stripped of its malice as if touched by the first light of dawn.
The collision was blinding. Spirals of silver and gold collided in a frenzy, twisting together into a vortex of pure light that drowned the battlefield. The ground buckled beneath them, deep fissures snaking outward, while the shockwave tore through the surrounding forest. Ancient trees splintered like brittle twigs, their trunks flung aside; stones and shards of earth rattled through the air before vanishing into the void of the night.
The battlefield became a storm of steel and light—razor-sharp moon blades carving through the air in endless arcs, colliding against the blazing radiance of the sun. Silver crescents and golden flames tore across the night in a deadly dance, each strike threatening to consume the other, yet neither yielding.
Till that moment, Kokushibo's strikes had been meant to keep Yoriichi at a distance—testing him, measuring him, pushing him without revealing the full extent of his ferocity.
But then… his stance shifted. His many eyes narrowed to slits, every muscle coiling with controlled violence. The night air thickened, swirling unnaturally, as though the battlefield itself understood what was about to be unleashed and recoiled in dread.
"Moon Breathing—Seventh Form: Mirror of Misfortune!"
With a single, fluid motion, Kokushibo's blade carved upward in a wide vertical sweep—yet from that swing bloomed not one slash, but dozens. Each was a flawless reflection of the original, rippling outward like the shards of a shattered mirror. These mirrored crescents raced forward in overlapping waves, crisscrossing one another until they formed a lattice of pale death that devoured the horizon.
When they struck, the ground didn't simply split—it ruptured with a sound like thunder tearing through stone. Massive slabs of earth were cleaved into perfect fragments, fissures webbed outward in every direction, and boulders exploded into clouds of razor-edged debris. The mirrored slashes ricocheted unpredictably, curving midair as if guided by a will of their own, striking from above, behind, and even from the reflections they cast upon the shattered earth.
The range was vast—stretching far beyond what the eye could measure—and the destruction was immediate, merciless. Each mirrored slash curved with unnatural precision, bending in defiance of straight paths, twisting midair like serpents of silver light. They rebounded off shattered ground and jagged walls, splitting anew with each collision, multiplying the threat. From every direction they came—above, behind, and from impossible angles the human mind struggled to comprehend. The onslaught was not merely meant to cut; it was crafted to erase the very concept of escape, to close in from all sides until the battlefield itself became a killing chamber. Every step, every breath, every fraction of movement was already anticipated, forcing the target into a tightening prison where evasion was not simply difficult… it was unthinkable.
But then—another moment, faster than thought—Yoriichi was simply there, standing before Kokushibo as if he had stepped through the very fabric of space. Shock flickered in Kokushibo's many eyes, but he had no time to voice it. A burning slash, radiant as the morning sun, tore through the darkness and carved a direct path toward his head.
Until now, he had met every strike, weathered every technique—but this… this was different. Even in that single heartbeat, his centuries of honed instinct screamed, forcing him to raise his blade. The clash rang like thunder, yet the strike was not singular—it multiplied in the instant of contact, becoming a storm of cuts too swift to follow.
Steel bit deep. The hem of Kokushibo's haori shredded into drifting tatters, and a line of fire carved across his flesh, forcing part of his upper body bare beneath the torn fabric. The scent of scorched cloth and blood mingled in the air.
Yoriichi didn't give Kokushibo the faintest chance to recover.
No breathing forms—no intricate patterns—just pure, unrestrained swordsmanship born from instinct and decades of battle.
In a heartbeat, he was there. The gap between them vanished as if space itself had been cut away. His blade came down with such force that the air split before the steel even struck.
Kokushibo met it head-on. The moment their katanas collided, a sound erupted—an ancient, miserable wail of steel on steel, echoing across the battlefield as though the earth itself mourned their clash. The vibration was so fierce it seemed to rattle the bones of the mountains.
Sparks burst from each connection, flaring in brilliant showers that painted their faces in fleeting flashes of gold and silver. In the darkness, it looked as if they were fighting beneath a collapsing constellation, stars dying with every swing.
The sound was miserable—metal grinding against metal in a shriek that cut deeper than any blade could. Each strike carried the weight of centuries—hatred buried but never forgotten, regrets that clung like chains, and the blood of countless battles echoing in every swing.
They moved so fast that even the night air failed to keep pace; the wind seemed to break apart around them, chasing after where they had already been. Leaves torn from nearby branches hung motionless in the air, suspended between moments, too slow to bear witness to the ferocity unfolding below.
The world narrowed to the space between their blades—every movement a lethal conversation, every clash a refusal to yield. Sparks and fragments of shattered earth danced around them, the ground beneath their feet cracking under the strain of their relentless footwork.
In that blur of motion, time itself seemed to distort—seconds stretching and collapsing all at once—until the only things that existed were the gleam of steel, the raw force of will, and the unending, miserable song of their swords.
From a distance, Rengoku could only watch—his eyes straining, yet unable to follow the storm before him. He could not tell who was pressing the advantage; the movements were too precise, too fluid, their blades weaving a dance beyond mortal comprehension.
The sheer mastery in each swing left him breathless. The swordsmanship of both men transcended even the finest techniques he had ever witnessed.
And then—it happened.
A single clash, sharper and heavier than all before, split the air like thunder. The ground beneath them cracked, a deafening blast tearing through the battlefield.
A cyclone of force erupted outward, hurling debris in every direction.