"Ghost!!"
Shinsuke had been sprawled on the beam. He peeked down at the commotion, yelped, and ducked behind Fukuda.
Ghost shouting "ghost"—who're you calling a ghost?
Fukuda reached back, clamped Shinsuke's neck, and gave it a sharp twist. "Crack." The room went quiet.
"It isn't a demon," Urokodaki Sakonji said—the keenest nose here aside from Tanjiro.
By scent alone he can tell "dead" from "living," even down to how many people a demon ate in life. The doors and windows hadn't budged; unless a Blood Demon Art was used to make a blade vanish, there should've been that unique, fetid iron reek lingering in the room.
There wasn't. So it wasn't a demon.
Giyu was the quickest of them. The instant the short blade broke into motes and vanished, he flashed to the south wall—but came up with a handful of air, watching those flecks of light slip right through his fingers.
"No one touched it. It disappeared on its own." After a silence, Giyu flexed his hand. In that instant he'd felt something—"solid turning to void." Elusive, hard to put into words.
Saigū folded his arms, glanced at Roy snoring softly on the futon, and murmured, "Could it be tied to Roy?"
"It's his blade—it's closest to him. If it disappears, he should feel it."
The fox-faced boy swept the room with a calm look. "My vote? We wait—ask him in the morning."
"Senpai really dotes on Roy… can't even bear to wake him." Chin in hand, Makomo squatted by the futon, peeking from one face to the next, quietly waiting for dawn to break…
"So be it." A sigh drifted out through the shōji.
They snuffed the lamp. People—and ghosts—each curled up or lay down with their thoughts, listening to the mountain wind howl. It was a hard night for sleep.
…
10 a.m., bright sun. Even so, this "quiz town" still looked clammy and cold beneath the light.
Beneath the corner where a camera was hidden…
Roy sculpted the short blade in his mind. In his open palm—under Kuraging's startled stare—points of light shimmered into being, stitched into a line, spread into a plane, and in the blink of an eye became a katana. The boy snatched it up with one hand and held it steady.
Not another—it was the very short blade that hung on the south wall of the hut.
So fast… he pulled it off. Nakajima Sachiko watched in surprise, and couldn't help praising him: "You've got talent."
He's my master, after all. Gotoh straightened with pride. Kuraging, new to Nen or not, could hear the weight in their words—strong—and doubled down on the plan to cling to the Zoldyck thigh.
Aboard the Association airship, the scene lit the monitors.
Netero didn't gasp—just flicked a glance at Zeno, accepting that bit about "not knowing" the boy's type.
"Ho-ho—no need to guess now. Turning void to reality, Conjuring from nothing… Zeno—"
"If I recall, he's your second Conjurer since Zigg?"
The Chairman's gaze dimmed at the name. "The old man said I 'stole him,' but he knew the truth—Zigg ran to the Dark Continent to gather materials and perfect Re: Game of the Dead on his own."
"Twenty years gone in a blink. Time to lay some things to rest—once they're past, leave them."
"Can't." Zeno watched the boy on-screen—taller again in a few days, the lines sharpening into a man's—and answered coolly, "Right or wrong doesn't matter. The old man won't have you. That's that."
"Is he now?" Netero didn't bristle, only eyed the blade in Roy's hand. "Conjurers do tend toward the eccentric. You lot never did raise a sword-saint, but the kid can 'imagine' a blade from scratch. Rare enough…"
The old man's "Reinforcement," Zeno/ Silva's "Emission," Ilumi's "Manipulation"—and not a swordsman among them. But—
"Roy's different," Zeno said, eyes bright. "You're wrong about his 'object.' It isn't the sword."
"Oh?" Netero lifted a brow, waiting.
Zeno drew a breath, glanced out at the high, clean sunlight, and let the corner of his mouth tilt. "It's the sun."
"Ho-ho-ho…" Netero paused, then laughed and swung upright. "Boy's got appetite. Think he can hold a sun…"
The dawn ripping night's veil; the great disk that births all and pulls the tides; the last blaze that paints the sky at dusk—life has never escaped the eye above. Whether I'm here or gone, whether you are—the sun remains.
"Zeno—tell the old man when you're home. Better let me adopt the boy. Fate's too hard—you'll never keep him."
Zeno snorted. "Hand him to you? Raise another Beyond?"
"You wanna die, go on and try it."
The Chairman fell silent.
"Ho-ho…"
It wasn't a warm laugh; Mamen Beans shivered, pretended to pour tea, and wiped a bead of sweat. Stuck in the middle again—not a job for a sane soul.
On-screen, the boy slid the staff-sword free with a ring and watched the blade scatter sunlight into beads on the opposite wall.
He smiled and told Sachiko, earnest as ever, "Compared to you, it's nothing."
A blade is only a blade; "Nen beasts" were another mountain—he knew that much.
He let the True Heat fall away, sheathed, and with a thought sent the short blade back to the Demon Slayer world. In the town, it broke apart into motes and faded from sight—
—and woke everyone in the hut.
The motes glimmered again—
Fukuda smacked Shinsuke. "Look! Roy's blade—it's back!"
~~~
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