Moonlight dripped across the ancient rooftops of Tokyo, casting long silhouettes across the city.
Inside a dimly lit room tucked in an abandoned shrine, where incense still faintly burned despite the decades, a single figure stood surrounded by silence.
Sahiru.
A letter lay open in his gloved hands, its edges faintly glowing under the silver light.
"To Sahiru,
I speak to you not as the leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, but as a man desperate for balance.
The fall of Rengoku Kyojuro… the retirement of Uzui Tengen… the tides shift against us.
I have seen what you are. What you can be. You are a phantom that walks without chain,
but I ask you now, walk with us. Even if only once more.
For if we are to weather this storm, we will need a shadow stronger than fate.
— Ubuyashiki Kagaya"
The masked man remained still. Shadows clung to the walls around him, wrapping the room in mystery.
He didn't move for a long while. The letter trembled slightly in his hand—not from hesitation, but memory.
"…Kagaya… you still believe in hope."
His voice was low, deeper than steel, carried by thought rather than tone.
A gust of wind passed through the broken windows, and the candles inside flickered like dying breaths.
Sahiru raised the letter once more, reading it again. Not for clarity. But out of respect.
"…I told myself I would never return. That my blade had drawn enough blood… burned enough futures…"
He stepped out into the moonlight. His coat flared with the wind.
The mask never moved, but beneath it—he was thinking.
He looked toward the sky.
"…But if I don't step forward… who will?"
He pocketed the letter.
And vanished into the wind.
____