63. Burn In Hell

Hana moved through broken wood and burning debris that covered the streets in endless stretches of ash and blood. The air felt poisonous. Smoke choked her lungs with every breath she dragged in, hot and sharp enough to make her chest ache violently.

The smell of iron was everywhere. Blood soaked the shattered ground beneath their feet until the earth itself seemed to bleed.

Beside her, Obanai staggered forward with determination. Blood dripped from beneath his bandages, staining the torn fabric of his uniform black-red. Kaburamaru curled tightly around his shoulders, the white snake tense and restless as if it could sense its master nearing his limit. But he kept moving. Even now. Even while trembling. Even while barely standing.

He had deep, jagged cuts across his eyes, plunging him into a world of absolute darkness. Despite losing his remaining sight, he continued to fight relying entirely on his Kaburamaru's spatial awareness.

Muzan stood ahead of them, his monstrous body writhing grotesquely beneath pale flesh. His attacks were slowing. Not by much, but enough for the difference to become terrifyingly noticeable. The speed that had once made him untouchable was beginning to crack apart.

He was getting weaker. His regeneration had become unstable. His old wounds from Sun Hashira were resurfacing guiding them to his weak spots. Veins bulged violently beneath his skin. His limbs twitched unnaturally as if his body itself could no longer obey him properly. Still, he attacked.

Whips of flesh tore through the battlefield with murderous force, ripping apart stone buildings already reduced to ruins. Hana barely ducked beneath one. The attack sliced through the air above her head hard enough to shatter the remains of a wall behind her into dust.

Her arms screamed from exhaustion as she forced herself upright again. Everything hurt. Her ribs. Her legs. Her lungs. Even gripping her sword felt impossible now. But they could not stop. Not now. Not after everything.

"He's getting weaker!" Tanjiro's voice cut through the chaos. Hana turned toward him instinctively. For one terrible second, her chest tightened. Tanjiro looked barely alive. Blood soaked nearly every inch of his uniform. One side of his face was swollen so badly that one eye could barely remain open. His breathing came in ragged, painful gasps that sounded wet in his chest, but his hands still gripped his sword tightly.

"Forty minutes until dawn!" another slayer screamed somewhere behind them.

Hana tightened her grip on her blade. Then suddenly, the pressure vanished. The endless storm of attacks stopped so abruptly that Hana stumbled forward from momentum alone, her sword cutting through empty air.

"He's running!" someone shouted.

Muzan had turned. The Demon King fled through the ruins with desperation. He fled through the ruins, his body writhing and snapping as he forced himself forward. In his wake, he unleashed uncontrolled shockwaves behind him slashing at anything that caught in his path.

Obanai cursed viciously under his
breath. "Don't let him get away!" The Serpent Hashira lunged after him instantly.

Hana and Tanjiro grabbed fallen Nichirin swords from the corpses of dead slayers as they ran after him. One after another, they hurled them toward Muzan with shaking arms. The blades spun violently through the air. One pierced Muzan's shoulder. Another sliced into his side. Another buried itself into his leg. Anything to slow him down.

Obanai reached him first. With a roar torn from somewhere deep inside his ruined body, the Serpent Hashira drove his crimson blade directly into Muzan's neck. The impact slammed Muzan violently backward into shattered stone.

​"Iguro, take these!" Hana screamed, her lungs burning as she threw the talisman shards toward him. "You'll be able to share Kaburamaru's sight!"

"Corner him!" She screamed, blood spilling from her mouth as she forced herself forward. "Don't let him take another step!"

She lunged toward them, and agony exploded through her arm. A whip lashed across her left side faster than she could fully react. The flesh blade tore deeply into her arm and shoulder, slicing through muscle hard enough to spray blood across the broken ground.
Hana gasped violently. For a horrifying second, her vision dissolved into red and grey haze. Her sword slipped from numb fingers and clattered against stone.

"Shit-"

Pain crashed through her body hard enough to buckle her knees. But she refused to stay down. Breathing hard, Hana tightened her grip on her sword again with trembling fingers and forced herself upright.

Move. Move. MOVE.

"Thirty-five minutes!"

Then suddenly Muzan's body suddenly began to swell grotesquely. His flesh rippled violently like boiling liquid beneath skin. Bulges formed across his torso, expanding outward in horrifying waves.

Hana's eyes widened. Her stomach dropped. "He's splitting apart!"
Panic surged instantly through the battlefield. Every slayer understood what that meant. If even one fragment escaped, if even a single piece of Muzan survived, everything they had sacrificed would mean nothing. Thousands dead. Hashira gone. Entire lives destroyed. For nothing.

The bulging mass of flesh twisted violently, then suddenly stopped. Muzan lurched forward. Black blood erupted violently from his mouth. The liquid splattered across the ground in thick, dark waves as his body convulsed uncontrollably.

Tamayo's poison was finally working. Hope ignited painfully inside Hana's chest. She forced herself upright again despite agony ripping through her legs and ribs. Beside her, Tanjiro stumbled forward too, barely able to breathe but still refusing to stop. The eastern horizon had begun to change. Darkness was fading. Very slowly, light was coming.

"It's dawn!" Hana whispered, her voice cracking against the ruined streets.

Her vision started blurred. The moment she looked upward, dizziness slammed into her so hard she nearly collapsed again. Everything sounded distant now. Muffled. Like she was underwater. She forced herself to open her eyes.

Then Muzan let out a scream. The sound shook the battlefield itself. His body began swelling grotesquely, flesh expanding outward in enormous masses. Bones cracked loudly beneath stretching skin as he transformed into something monstrous and gigantic enormous, infant-like creature of writhing flesh. Shielding himself. Protecting his vital organs from the sunlight.

The first ray of sunlight broke over the horizon. The massive flesh creature surged violently. The impact blasted slayers backward across the ruins. Hana was thrown through the air hard enough that her hearing vanished completely upon impact. Silence. Only ringing remained. Her body hit the ground violently. She couldn't feel her legs. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.

Everything became distant flashes of movement and noise she couldn't properly understand. Then her eyes focused. And terror seized her entire body.

Tanjiro.

The massive flesh creature was swallowing him whole. "Tanjiro!" She tried forcing herself upward immediately. Pain exploded through both legs so violently she collapsed again. Her body refused to obey. Still, Hana dragged herself forward anyway. Her fingers clawed desperately across blood-covered stone as she crawled. Every movement felt like tearing herself apart. But she kept moving. She had to.

Ahead of her, Giyuu gripped Tanjiro's arm desperately with his remaining hand. The Water Hashira's face was pale with exhaustion and blood loss, but he pulled with everything he had left. Tanjiro was slipping deeper into the flesh mass. Being consumed inch by inch.

"No-"

Giyuu pulled harder. His arm trembled violently from strain. Still not enough.
"No... no! Tanjiro!"

Hana forced herself onto shaking legs again. Agony immediately ripped through her lower body hard enough to nearly black out her vision, but she shoved herself forward anyway. Around them, the other slayers continued attacking Muzan desperately. Trying to hold him still. Trying to stop him from escaping the sunlight.

Sanemi appeared beside the monstrous mass like a demon himself, covered in blood from head to toe.

"You're wavering, you fuckwad!" he snarled viciously, slamming his blade downward again and again. "JUST TURN INTO DAMN DUST ALREADY!"

Then, the sun fully rose. Golden light spilled across the battlefield. For one impossibly still second, everything froze. The sunlight touched Muzan's flesh. His massive body began disintegrating instantly beneath the light. Flesh peeled apart into ash. Entire sections of his gigantic form crumbled away while black smoke erupted violently into the air.

Hana could barely see anymore. Her vision dimmed heavily around the edges. The last thing she saw was sunlight swallowing Muzan completely as his body finally-finally-began turning to dust.

She lay motionless against broken earth, staring upward blankly as sunlight warmed her blood-covered face. She couldn't move properly.

Then darkness took her completely.