[3rd pov]
Doma, with a serene yet mocking smile, flicked his fans, unleashing a blistering wave of ice toward the unsuspecting Inosuke. The attack was too fast to evade, but before Inosuke could even react, and before Kanao could fully commit to her desperate defensive lunge, Ghost interfered.
He moved with a blinding flash, a single, decisive swipe of his blade through the air. The action wasn't a physical block, but a disruption. A shockwave of pure darkness, a rippling tear in the fabric of the air itself, surged from his blade, intercepting and instantly dissolving Doma's ice attack. The wave of unnatural cold dissipated, leaving behind only a faint shimmer. Doma paused, his perpetual amusement replaced by a glint of genuine fascination. This "Ghost" had more secrets.
Doma decided to escalate the confrontation, believing this room was too crowded for a proper duel. He clapped his hands together, asking Nakime to transport him and Ghost to a more isolated space so they could fight without distractions. But nothing happened. The silence was deafening, and Doma's smile briefly faltered, a flicker of genuine embarrassment crossing his face as he realized Nakime had ignored his request.
Ghost seized the moment. His voice was a cold, sharp blade slicing through the silence. "Hey, you piece of shit, let's end it quickly. I have some business with Muzan next."
Doma's eyes narrowed, a vein in his forehead pulsing with annoyance. He found Ghost's arrogance both insulting and captivating. He laughed lightly, but there was an edge to it now. Ghost raised his blade, a series of quick, deliberate strikes through the empty air.
With each movement, another dark shockwave, a silent, invisible blade, charged toward Doma. The attacks were overwhelming in their number, strength, and speed. Doma managed to block the first few, but several connected, a jarring, concussive force that pushed him back.
"How amusing! What do you call this attack, Ghost-dono?" he asked, his voice no longer playful but tinged with a predatory curiosity.
"I don't name my minor attacks," Ghost replied flatly, his indifference now a clear taunt. The fight intensified, and Doma began to feel overwhelmed, the cold, powerful presence of Ghost a weight on his consciousness.
Inosuke, foolishly thinking he could get a hit in, launched himself from behind with his signature Beast Breathing: Fourth Fang. Time seemed to slow to a crawl from Inosuke's perspective. He saw Doma turn in an instant, his eerie smile widening as his eyes landed on the approaching demon slayer. Inosuke knew he was about to be killed.
But at the last split second, Ghost stepped between them, once again saving Inosuke. In a breathtaking display of speed, Ghost cut Doma's arm while simultaneously pushing Inosuke aside. Doma's perpetual calm shattered as he felt the sickening bite of the Nichirin blade, a rush of genuine anger and pain flaring in his eyes.
Ghost dropped Inosuke unceremoniously, his spectral form radiating a chilling, murderous aura. He turned, and the unmasked Inosuke and the watching Kanao were met with a gaze so terrifying it felt as if their souls were being torn apart.
Ghost's voice was low, slow, and full of a terrifying finality. "Get… out… of… here… Take the Hashira to a safe place."
Inosuke, probably for the first time in his life, nodded with a deep, shuddering fear. He and Kanao, with the severely injured Shinobu in tow, scrambled to leave the room.
Doma watched them go, his smile returning, but it was colder, more sinister. "You guys are lucky this time," he said. "Otherwise, I would instantly kill someone who takes away my food."
Ghost faced him, his form still radiating a pure, unrelenting cold. "That's not luck," Ghost said in a calm, authoritative voice that sounded more like a decree than a threat. "The truth is, you can't reach them passing me."
The air in the room thickened, crackling with the immense power of two beings on a different plane.
The battle began not with a roar, but with a silent, blinding flash. Doma moved first, his fans slicing through the air with a flourish that scattered a storm of razor-sharp ice crystals across the chamber.
Ghost vanished, the world bending around him, and reappeared in the storm's heart. His blade cut clean arcs through the air, shattering the incoming shards before they could touch him. A half-step later, he was already upon Doma.
The first clash came with a deafening CRACK, Ghost's sword colliding with Doma's iron fans. Sparks erupted in a spray of light as the floor beneath them fractured. Doma's smile held, but the pressure behind Ghost's strikes forced him back a fraction, his arms trembling against the sheer weight of each blow.
Ghost did not fight with single killing strikes, his assault was a torrent. Each swing came on the heels of the last, blade carving patterns so tight and relentless that Doma had to twist and bend like water to avoid being torn apart. Fans spun, redirecting strikes into glancing blows, but every block left new cracks in his frozen defenses.
Doma retaliated, sweeping his fans in wide arcs that unleashed crescents of ice along the floor and ceiling. Ghost pivoted, sliding between them, blade flickering with precise counter-swipes that shattered the frozen blades mid-flight. The room echoed with the rhythm of destruction — metal ringing, ice shattering, the stone floor breaking under their feet.
Their duel unfolded like a dance of extremes — Doma, graceful and measured, each motion flowing into the next like a deadly performance; Ghost, a streak of shadow and steel, his movements jagged yet inexorable, every attack layered with the suffocating gravity of his presence.
The pressure escalated until even Doma's forced smile faltered. His elegant defenses began to splinter, ice webs breaking faster than he could reform them. Ghost's blade blurred faster, heavier, carving paths through the storm itself.
And then Ghost saw it — a moment, fleeting but fatal. Doma lunged too deep, his fan extended for a counter meant to disarm. Ghost's form snapped solid in the instant, his Nichirin blade flaring with malevolent crimson. The air twisted, tearing as if reality itself recoiled, heralding the weight of the technique he was about to unleash.
"Thousand Years of Death" Ghost murmured, his voice a low, terrifying hum.
A fierce, crimson and black dragon of pure darkness and rage erupted from his blade. It roared, a soundless scream of pure power, wrapping itself around Ghost's blade. The dragon lunged, its form a consuming storm of teeth and claws. Doma's eyes widened in a rare moment of fear, a feeling he hadn't experienced in centuries.
The dragon's dark form tore through his torso, and Doma felt a cold so intense it was as if his very being was being unmade. He tried to regenerate, to fight back, but the dragon was a living curse, its presence consuming his very essence.
With a final, devastating motion, Ghost swung his blade, the dragon's maw clamping around Doma's neck. A clean, silent slice, and Doma's head flew from his shoulders, his serene smile gone, replaced by a look of profound confusion and shock.
His body crumbled into ash, and his head, suspended for a moment, began to dissolve. Doma's final, fading thoughts were not of fear, but of an eerie, haunting emptiness. "This... is a terrible feeling," he whispered, his voice weak and full of bewilderment. He looked at Ghost, seeing not a killer, but a cold, final judgment. "You... you feel..." his words trailed off into nothing as his head turned to dust, a final puff of smoke in the wind.
Now, only Ghost was left standing in the ruined room. His body was no longer just a spectral form — it was solid, radiating a dark, immense presence that could kill lesser demons with a single, icy glance. He was no longer just a ghost. He was death itself, finally at its full, terrifying potential.
[Image]
To Be Continued…