Chapter 164: Half a Step Back
Save Gyutaro first?
"Think it over carefully." Marcus spoke to her in an unsettlingly gentle voice. "If only one of you can live, do you really want it to be your brother?"
Daki held his gaze, unwavering.
"Heh. I knew it."
Marcus glanced sideways at Gyutaro and pinched Daki’s cheek.
"But I don’t want him..."
Daki burst into tears on the spot. If she’d been able to make a sound, she’d probably have been bawling her eyes out.
Shaking his head with a resigned smile, Marcus pulled a second little vial of "Resignation Letter" from his pocket and dangled it in front of her eyes.
Daki stopped crying instantly and started squirming with sheer joy, her eager eyes tracking the vial without a break.
From the moment he’d decided to make Daki his, Marcus had always carried two spare vials on him.
Today, luckily, they came in handy.
"I can save them both." He tilted her chin up, a wicked smile on his lips. "But let’s get one thing straight first: is your servitude contract still in effect?"
’Contract?!’
On the very brink of death, that was the last thing Daki expected.
She couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
’Pervert! All he does is take advantage of other people’s misfortune!’
’Does he seriously think a scrap of paper is enough to tie me down?’
’Hmph. At most I’ll play house with him for a couple of years, and once I get bored, I’m gone.’
Still, to placate this pervert happy, she hurried to blink in agreement.
Paying no mind to Daki’s petty little calculations, Marcus smiled meaningfully.
"Deciding takes a few seconds. Paying for it is going to take the rest of your life."
Daki went on blinking, unfazed.
"Excellent!"
Marcus nodded. With a quick glance, and guided by the Arrows, the two vials shot forward and buried themselves in her and in Gyutaro.
The moment the medicine entered her body, Daki shuddered. Like someone drowning who’s just been hauled out of the water, she gasped for air.
The black veins faded from her skin and the convulsions gradually subsided. Even her appearance changed completely, restoring the way she’d looked in life.
A tsundere.
Off to one side, Zenitsu stared at her, stunned.
Daki was so beautiful it was hard to look away.
Daki—or rather, Ume—got to her feet at once and went looking for her brother.
The clots covering Gyutaro’s body were dissolving just as fast. The tumors deflated, the fractured bones knit back together, and the torn skin healed over as if nothing had ever happened.
He got back the face he’d had in life: skinny as a skeleton, covered in blotches, and fierce beyond all measure even so.
And then, before the astonished eyes of Marcus and his sister, Gyutaro didn’t say thank you or anything of the sort—he snatched up the scythes lying beside him and threw himself at the crowd.
"MUZAN! How dare you lay a hand on my sister?! I’ll kill you!"
Seeing him come at him like a rabid dog, Muzan instinctively moved to control him with his cells.
...Useless.
The cells inside Gyutaro were as good as dead. He couldn’t feel them at all!
Veins bulged across his forehead in an instant, and his red pupils locked onto Marcus.
"You—"
Splat!
And in that very moment of distraction, a scythe tore through his chin.
It was the first time he’d been wounded in the entire battle!
"FILTH!!!"
A blood-red shockwave erupted from Muzan and sent everyone around him flying.
And at that same instant, a mass of pink mist rose up, squaring off against the crimson from across the distance.
Marcus stood at the center of that mist, blades in hand, settling into stance.
"Desire Breathing: Eighth Form!"
From the blades whirling in a frenzy burst countless pink crescents, fired off with the speed and density of a machine gun.
Wherever they passed, the air tore open, the ground shattered, and the ruins were ground down to dust.
"Three Thousand Calamities!!"
A deafening roar rang out across Yoshiwara in an instant.
It was still night, on the outskirts of Asakusa...
It was still the most powerful ultimate technique...
The scene was almost identical to their first encounter, a year ago.
Only this time, Marcus had no intention of running.
And in the very instant he attacked, he was the first one left stunned.
The spread was insane!
Every swing of the blades spat out dozens of pink arcs at once, like a swarm of frenzied fireflies bearing down on Muzan.
Muzan’s reaction wasn’t slow either. The four whips on his back unfurled and spun at full speed like fans, deflecting the overwhelming majority.
But there were too many, so there was always one that managed to slip through.
The tips of the whips were left notched, his suit shredded, his face covered in marks—the cuts opened across his cheeks and healed over at the same speed they appeared.
Even if the damage wasn’t devastating, pressed by such a dense barrage of slashes, he was forced back half a step.
And it was precisely that half step that sent a stabbing pain through his chest.
A thousand years, and apart from Yoriichi no one had ever made him give ground...
Did that half step measure mere distance?
No.
What had retreated was his own dignity.
Loosing a roar of rage, four more whips erupted abruptly from his spine.
All eight lashed about in a frenzy until they had wrapped him completely. The pink blades struck them with ringing metallic clangs, but not one so much as grazed his body again.
Muzan began to advance, his gaze fixed on the source of the cuts. On Marcus.
’I’m taking back what you stole from me!!’
But before he could take two steps, the attack stopped.
Marcus was still standing atop the ruins, catching his breath.
He watched Muzan’s wounds close in the blink of an eye and shook his head with a bitter smile.
How absurd...
This technique, built on Daki, surpassed Valkyrie in raw power; even so, it still couldn’t match that regeneration speed.
Muzan stopped as well and looked at him with a mocking smile. "Attack. Go on. Go on. Keep attacking."
Marcus shook his head. "Fighting like this, I’m no match for you."
"Don’t say such pessimistic things."
A voice came from behind him.
Tengen approached with his blades drawn and took position on his left. "Alone you can’t, but you’ve got us."
Hakuji moved too. He planted himself in front of Marcus, clenched his fists slightly, and the blue aura flared back to life; beneath his feet, the snowflake reappeared in even more vivid tones than before.
And Tanjiro, exhaling a scorching breath, took up the right.
Even Gyutaro came over.
Marcus looked at him, and he in turn shifted his gaze to Daki, who had moved to Marcus’s side and grabbed the hem of his clothes.
"Tsk."
Gyutaro leveled his scythes at Muzan.
Marcus swept his gaze over the ones standing around him.
Hakuji’s fists were trembling—not out of fear, but out of excitement.
Tengen’s breathing had already leveled out, though the blood on his hands hadn’t dried yet.
Gyutaro had "I’m killing you today" written all over his face, and even so his expression came off as more agreeable than usual.
And Tanjiro, with a fire in his eyes that burned hotter than the Hinokami Kagura on his blade.
Marcus understood it perfectly: seeing Muzan give ground before that last attack had given every one of them their hope back.
"Haaa..."
"Even with all of you, this is going to be rough."
"Senpai." Tanjiro spoke firmly. "If we can’t beat him, we hold out. There are a lot of us. Even if we have to fight to the death, we last until dawn—right?"
"Dawn?"
Muzan laughed, amused. "If it really comes to dawn, I’m afraid the deaths on your side will be greater still."
Inosuke came barreling out of the ruins all at once.
"You think everybody’s scared of the sun like you?! Even Nez—Mmh?!"
Zenitsu came flying in and didn’t let him finish.
"Mmmm! MMMM!"
Inosuke’s nose was mashed flat like a platypus’s while he flailed his hands around wildly.
"Shut up, idiot!" Zenitsu’s face was white as a sheet.
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