Chapter 200: Entertain Me for a While
Fresh blood slid down the length of the blade, dripping onto Douma’s robes.
The thrust had been dead-on.
Shinobu held the hilt while her wrist trembled; not from the physical effort, but because she’d waited years for this thrust.
And yet...
"Whoa! What speed!"
The voice came out in that same playful tone.
"Although... you know this kind of attack does nothing against us, right?"
Douma was still standing. Despite having his skull run through from the left eye, the smile on his face didn’t waver. He raised the closed fan and tapped it against his throat.
"You have to cut right here."
Shinobu gritted her teeth, twisted her wrist, and yanked the blade free before taking a step back.
"I know...," she muttered through her teeth. "I never thought that would kill you."
"Oh?"
Douma blinked with his eye, which in the space of an instant had already fully regenerated.
"Gh!"
But in that same moment, the skin around his left socket turned black. Purplish veins branched across his cheekbones like a toxic spiderweb.
Douma swayed for a moment and dropped onto one knee on the ground.
He looked at his hands stained purple, and the smile on his lips finally faltered for a moment.
"So it was poison." His voice lost strength, in a fascinated whisper. "Now this is really—Cough!"
A gush of purple blood spurted from his mouth, staining the earth.
"Flower Breathing: Fourth Form: Crimson Hanagoromo!"
Kanao gave him no room to process it.
Seizing on Douma’s collapse, the peach-colored blade drew two arcs beneath the moon, aimed straight at his neck.
Clang!
Still on his knees, Douma blocked the blade, holding the iron fan in a single hand.
"A very beautiful surprise attack... Though quite a bit slower than hers."
As he spoke, the fan opened.
"I can ignore a thrust, but I can’t let you decapitate me that easily~!"
An icy halo poured from Douma’s body as he glanced at Kanao out of the corner of his eye.
’Blood Demon Art.....’
He beat the fan to its fullest and a frigid gale laden with sharp icicles shot out at them both.
’—Lotus Ice!’
The ground froze instantly and the air crackled from the extreme temperature.
Master and disciple leapt backward.
"Kanao, hold your breath! The ice will shred your lungs if you inhale it!"
"Understood!"
Douma, who had used the opening to retreat, shook his head with a smile.
"Ah... Akaza-san really landed us in a big mess... It’s bad enough that he betrayed us, but going around leaking our secrets is in very poor taste—COUGH!"
Douma dropped onto his knee again, spitting up another thick clot of blood.
He lifted half a face corroded by the toxin and looked at Shinobu with his eyes wide open.
"What an impressive poison! No doubt about it, you’re the Insect Hashira."
He wiped the corner of his mouth with his fingers. Noticing how the purple tone of his skin was beginning to fade, he tilted his head.
"It’s just... what a shame!"
He stood up and dusted off his knees.
The vascular marks on his face dissipated at an absurd speed, and in less than three seconds his skin looked flawless again.
"That was close, that was really close!"
He gave light taps to his head with the fan, his pupils gleaming. "For a second I thought I’d get a headache."
Shinobu’s pupils contracted.
Fifty times the usual dose of wisteria.
A single trace would have annihilated a Lower Rank... she’d injected it straight into his brain, and he’d simply broken it down in seconds...?
Was this the gap between her and an Upper Rank Two?
His frigid breath made him her absolute nemesis.
"Sensei! Look out!"
Kanao’s shout snapped her back, making her leap backward on instinct.
A swarm of ice icicles grazed her robe and lodged into a tree behind her.
Crack!
The trunk split in two, coated in a layer of frost.
Douma tilted his head, waving the fan to scatter the remaining crystals.
"You dodged it..."
Shinobu touched down six meters away, fixed on her opponent.
"Kanao."
"Yes."
"Let’s attack together."
"Understood."
The two of them lunged at the same time. Shinobu from the left flank, driving her blade like a stinger toward Douma’s side. On the tip of the blade she’d already prepared a different toxin.
If one formula didn’t work, she’d try another! And if that one failed, she’d use the full combination!
Douma watched the flashes flanking him on both sides as he spun the fan between his fingers.
"What a pity~ Muzan-sama strictly forbade me from eating them... But I suppose you can entertain me for a while, right~?"
Bursts of steel, golden flashes, and a frigid gale intertwined in the night!
Shinobu’s attacks were devastatingly fast. Douma couldn’t block them all—or, driven by a sick curiosity, preferred to take them head-on.
Kanao’s slashes, on the other hand, aimed to decapitate him. Unlike the thrusts, Douma took the trouble to stop each one of her attacks.
His laughter rang out more and more lively, while the breathing of the two girls grew progressively heavier.
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