62. Desperation

Hana felt like she was stabbed in heart over and over again. The words didn't feel real.

"Tanjiro Kamado is dead."

A scream tore out of her throat so violently it felt like something inside her ripped apart with it. Her voice echoed through the crumbling Infinity Castle like an animal being slaughtered alive.

She stumbled forward before she even realized she was moving, sprinting toward Tanjiro's body through the collapsing ruins of the Infinity Castle. Debris crashed around her. Muzan's flesh-whips tore through the air like thunderbolts.

"Hana, no!" Giyuu yelled. But she couldn't hear him properly anymore. ​She didn't care about the whips. She didn't care about the falling debris or the shifting walls. She sprinted toward Tanjiro's still body, loud, choking wails broke from her throat, the sound of a heart snapping in two. Muzan's flesh-whips lashed out like lightning, aimed directly at her. She didn't even turn around.

Tanjiro was lying there. Blood soaked through his uniform in thick patches, his chest barely moving beneath the grotesque swelling spreading across his body. His sword had slipped from his fingers.

Her legs felt heavy, like she was dragging chains behind her, but she kept running anyway. Her vision blurred with tears so violently she almost tripped over the bodies scattered across the ground. And now Tanjiro too.

"Hana!" Giyuu's voice cracked, panic breaking through him, taking a step toward her but Muzan's whips exploded toward him instantly. He wanted to reach her. But he couldn't. All he could do was watch her fall apart. He slashed desperately, trapped in place, his eyes wide with fear as he watched her run straight toward death.

​Suddenly, a rough hand grabbed the back of her uniform and she was yanked backward with such force that her feet left the ground. Sanemi pulled her into a mid-air leap, narrowly dodging the slashes that would have carved her into pieces.

​They hit the ground hard. Sanemi spun around, his face twisted in his usual snarl, ready to scream at her for being a reckless idiot. But the words died in his throat the moment he looked at her.

​Hana wasn't just crying, she was breaking, her chest heaving in short, shallow gasps. Her hands were clawing at her own chest, right over her heart, as if she were trying to tear out the pain physically. ​Every time she tried to take a breath, it turned into a choked sob.

"Hana! Breathe!" Sanemi barked, grabbing her shoulders.

She couldn't. The world was spinning. All she could see was Tanjiro's body next to the mountain of corpses of the younger slayers who had just died for her. It was too much. The loss of her family, the loss of her friends, and now her brother.

"Tanjiro..." she choked out weakly. "Tanjiro's dead-"

​She felt like she was drowning in ice water. Her lungs refused to take in air.
​Sanemi gripped her shoulders tighter, shaking her. He knew this feeling. He had just watched his own brother, Genya, crumble into ash in his own hands. He knew the world-ending weight of watching a younger sibling die while you were still standing.

​"Look at me!" Sanemi roared, forcing his face into her line of sight. "Don't you dare give up right now! If you stop now, his death would mean nothing! Do you hear me? Stand up!"

​Hana's eyes slowly flickered toward him. She saw the grief in his own eyes the same jagged, bleeding holes in his soul that she had in hers.

"I know," he said, voice softer now. "I know exactly how you feels. But if you give up right now," he growled, forcing steel back into his voice, "then all of this would be for nothing."

​"He's... he's gone, Sanemi," she choked out, a fresh wave of agony twisting her features. "He's really gone."

​"Then make Muzan pay for it!" Sanemi hissed, his voice cracking with his own rage. "Don't let the grief kill you. Use it to kill him!"

"I can't-" She sobbed, her head shaking back and forth.

"Yes, you can."

"I can't breathe-" She tried to pull away from him, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"Yes. You. Can."

He grabbed the back of her neck firmly, forcing her to focus on him.

"Look at me, Hana. Breathe with me. Now." he said, quieter now, though his voice still shook with restrained rage.

Hana looked at him like she was hanging onto his words by a thread. Tears spilled endlessly from her eyes, sliding down her trembling face faster than she could wipe them away. Her entire body shook violently beneath his grip. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced in a breath.

"Good," Sanemi muttered roughly when he saw her force in a shaking breath. "That's it. Again."

​Hana took another long, shuddering breath. The panic didn't go away, but it settled into a cold, hard stone in her stomach. She looked back at Muzan, who stood there looking bored by their suffering. The agony in her chest didn't shrink, it turned into a dark, poisonous fuel.

​Sanemi didn't waste a second. He moved swiftly, drenching Muzan in oil before striking a match. The flame bloomed instantly, engulfing the demon king in a roar of orange fire before slashing him and splitting him in two.

"That's dirty." Muzan growled, the smell of burning flesh filling the air as he stood within the heat, unfazed.

"Well, it's for the likes of you!" Sanemi spat, his face twisted in a manic grin. "I'll grind you into smithereens, punk-ass shithead!"

Hana looked around frantically. Her eyes landed on Tanjiro again. He was still hacking up blood, his face mutated and swollen.

A strange, shaky chuckle left her lips as she shook her head. "No..That's not right," she whispered to herself, her voice sounding hollow. "He's fine. Nothing will happen to him. He's fine, he's fine..."

She forced the denial into her mind like a shield. She had to believe it. "Murata!" Hana shouted, spotting the slayer nearby. "Tanjiro can't move! Take him to a safe place and treat him! Go!"

Murata didn't hesitate. He scooped up Tanjiro's limp body and began to run for safety. Hana turned back to the center of the chaos. The battle was reaching a fever pitch. Every slayer left standing was charging, desperate to land even a single scratch on the monster.

Suddenly, Mitsuri screamed. She had been hit, Obanai let out a strangled cry and rushed toward her instantly, abandoning his attack without hesitation as he caught her before she could collapse completely. His hands shook violently as he dragged her out of the path of Muzan's whips, shielding her body with his own.

The remaining Hashiras kept up the assault, but the pressure was suffocating.

"His attacks got faster again!" Hana thought, her legs feeling like lead.

Hana, Don't use your eyes to see. Use your heart to feel the world..You can see his movements..

Focus. She forced herself to inhale. She inhaled sharply, trying to steady herself the way she had before. Slow the heartbeat. Read the muscles. See through the movement before it happened. But everything was wrong. She couldn't not.

"Don't space out now! Or I'll murder your ass!" Sanemi roared at Giyuu. "You can still do this! Pull yourself together! You are the Water Hashira! Fight without shame until your last breath!"

Hana tried to move, but her vision blurred. The poison Muzan had injected into them was spreading. It was a slow, agonizing death, destroying her cells and making her weaker with every passing moment. Her heart felt like it was stuttering.

Then, a blur of calico fur leaped through the air. It was Tamayo's cat. It carried a strange apparatus on its back, and with a series of mechanical clicks, it launched medicine capsules into the air. Hana felt a sharp sting as a needle pierced her forearm.

The effect was instant. The burning sensation in her veins cooled. The erratic pulsing in her chest slowed down, and the purple mutation marks on her skin began to recede.

"I have no idea what the fuck just happened!" Sanemi yelled, though he looked revitalized. "A stray cat just saved my ass!"

"Tamayo-san did this," Hana realized, her hope flickering back to life. "She even created a serum that stops his blood from destroying our cells."

Muzan looked livid. The sight of his "deadly" poison being neutralized by a house cat sent him into a frenzy.

"Don't struggle in vain!" Muzan bellowed, his whips smashing the ground into dust. "Just die already, you obsessed freaks!"

Obanai lunged forward, his blade glowing with a strange heat. He slashed through Muzan's chest, and for the first time, the wound didn't close instantly.

"Slow!" Sanemi observed, his eyes wide. "So when Muzan gets cut by a red blade, even his regeneration starts slowing down!"

Hana felt the heat rising in her own hands. She gripped her hilt, focusing every ounce of her willpower into the steel.

"Hinokami Kagura!" she shouted. Her blade burst into a brilliant, crimson red, the heat radiating off it like a furnace.

"Tomioka, take this!" Sanemi shouted. He slammed his sword against Giyuu's. The friction and the sheer force caused both of their blades to change into a deep, dark red.

Gyomei arrived, his flail and axe glowing with the same deadly crimson light. The four of them stood in a circle around the demon king, their blades shining like embers in the dark fortress.

"You pathetic weaklings!" Muzan growled, his voice trembling with a hint of something that sounded like fear. "Stop with the pathetic schemes!"

Sanemi and Hana rushed forward together through the smoke. As they ran, Sanemi's eyes darted to the floor, and he scooped up two paper talismans from Yushiro.

​"Kamado!" he barked, throwing one at her.

​Hana caught it and pressed it to her forehead. Immediately, her vision shifted. The vision she had lost was back. The world became transparent again, and she could see through Muzan's pale skin.

​"I see now!" Sanemi said. "These talismans... they let us see what's hidden! He has multiple brains and multiple hearts! This man, Muzan... he's unbelievable! This is the reason why severing his head won't work. We have to destroy them all at once!"

Hana​ and Sanemi shared a single, grim look of understanding. They charged, their red blades cutting through the air like streaks of blood. They were so close. They could see the organs pulsing inside his chest.

​But Muzan's eyes widened in a look of pure, murderous hatred. He didn't just swing his arms, his entire body seemed to explode in a shockwave of compressed air and lashing flesh.

​"DIE!" He roared.

​The attack was too fast to dodge. It wasn't a strike, it was an eruption.

​Hana felt the force hit her square in the abdomen. She was launched backward, the wind knocked out of her lungs instantly. She saw a blur of her comrades being tossed like ragdolls.

​Gyomei slammed into a stone pillar, his leg severed below the knee. Sanemi was catapulted high into the air disappearing into the debris of the upper floors. Giyuu hit the ground with a sickening thud, his right arm gone, blood soaking his mismatched haori.

​Hana's world turned into a spinning mess of gray stone and red mist. She crashed into a thick stone wall with a bone-shattering impact. Her head snapped back, hitting the masonry so hard that a white light blinded her.

​Her body crumbled to the base of the wall. She tried to move her fingers, but her limbs felt like they belonged to someone else. Her vision was swimming, and the sound of the battle became a dull, distant hum.

​"Get up..." she whispered, but her mouth was filled with the copper taste of blood as she felt blood trailing down her forehead "Hana, get up..." But she felt pang in her head as she lost consiousness.

"Hana..Open your eyes."

Hana's eyes snapped open. The world was a blurry mess of gray stone and crimson streaks. She could feel a thick, warm liquid flowing down her face a deep gash on her forehead was pouring blood into her eyes, staining her vision a terrifying shade of red.

"Hana! Stay with me!" Yushiro's voice broke through the ringing in her ears.
​He was suddenly there, hovering over her with a desperate look on his face. He didn't wait for her permission. He slammed a syringe into her neck, injecting the last of the recovery serum into her system.

The pain in her head flared, then settled into a dull, throbbing ache. Hana gasped, her fingers clawing at the rubble as she tried to sit up. Her body screamed in protest, every bone feeling like it had been ground into powder.

​"You can't," Yushiro hissed, his hands shaking as he tried to hold her down. "Look at you! You've lost too much blood. You're finished!"

She tried to speak, but only a cough came out. Her head throbbed in rhythm with her heartbeat, and her vision was slightly blurry. She looked down at herself. Her uniform was soaked in blood, and she could feel the cold air hitting wounds that should have made her stay down.

"You're in a very bad condition," Yushiro hissed, his hands trembling as he tried to check her pulse. "You can't your ribs are broken, and the head trauma... you need to stay down."

Hana grabbed Yushiro's wrist with a grip that surprised him. She looked him dead in the eye, her expression hard and hollow.

​"I can still fight," she whispered, her voice low and dangerous. "I'm not done. Not yet."

She forced herself to her feet, using the crumbling wall for support. Her legs wobbled, but she stood.

"He's going to need me," Hana said, looking toward the center of the clearing. "Tanjiro..I can feel him...he's fighting..I am not going to leave him alone. Not now. Not ever."

​She took one step, then another. Each movement was a battle against her own body, but she kept moving toward the ground.