novelnext Chapter 119 Let's Go Together
Chapter 119 Let's Go Together
Chapter 119 Let's Go Together
Late spring in Hayama should be a vibrant time of year, but a lingering gloom hangs over the dojo.
Shinobu Kocho was completely unable to get up. It was sudden, yet it seemed to be within everyone's expectations.
"Shinobu-neechan..." Kanao knelt by the bed, gripping Shinobu's cold hand tightly.
This girl, who rarely showed any emotion, now had red eyes and large tears falling onto the bedding.
"Lord Shinobu... please drink some more medicine."
Kanzaki Aoi held the bowl of medicine, her voice trembling with barely suppressed sobs.
Shinobu Kocho, sitting on the tatami mat, had become so thin that she was just skin and bones.
She turned her head slightly, as if to give Xiaokui a comforting smile, but as soon as her lips moved, she burst into a violent cough.
"Cough cough... cough!"
Blood stained the pristine white bedding, its dark purple hue shockingly vibrant.
"Don't... cry, Kanao... Aoi..." Shinobu's voice was as soft as a wisp of smoke: "I'm just... a little tired."
Inosuke, who was guarding the door, clenched his fists tightly.
This wasn't the first time he'd seen something like this... His animalistic intuition told him that the people in the house were going to die.
Tanjiro, with his lips pressed tightly together, stood outside with Nezuko and Zenitsu, looking sadly at the dying Shinobu Kocho.
At the same time, his sensitive nose detected a strange smell.
The flavor came from his most respected swordsman, Asuka.
It was a smell... that didn't belong to this world.
At the other end of the courtyard, Asuka stood under the withered cherry blossom tree, his condition not much better than Shinobu's.
His skin was cracked in large areas and was peeling off piece by piece with the flickering spiritual pressure sparks.
"It's time to go, Asuka."
That inner voice became louder than ever before at that moment, making his soul buzz.
"That woman's time to die has come. If you don't leave soon, you'll end up like those other souls, preventing her from entering the cycle of reincarnation in this world... I can't guarantee what she'll become then."
The bird closed its eyes, its stray hairs fluttering in the wind.
He sensed it; in that void, a pitch-black gate was slowly taking shape.
It sensed the bird's strong will to return, and it also sensed the collapse of this broken body, as it opened its menacing maw...
"Everyone... is here."
Shinobu Kocho's voice was as soft as a wisp of smoke: "It's so good to see...you all...at the very end."
"Shinobu-neechan! You'll get better!" Zenitsu cried, her face covered in tears, but she didn't dare to make a sound, and could only sob quietly.
"Silly child..." Shinobu Kocho gave a weak smile.
On her deathbed, she seemed to sense something, and with her now dull purple eyes, she desperately searched for the direction of the birds.
"Asuka... has your time come too...?"
"Goodbye, you idiot..."
Rumble—!
The once clear sky suddenly darkened.
Then, the wind stopped, and the air became heavy and suffocating.
The floating flies were frozen in mid-air, and the churning medicine stopped swaying.
For a moment, the gravity of the entire Ye Mountain seemed to disappear, and everyone felt as if their hearts were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand.
Although my mind was still working, my body just couldn't move.
A huge, dark crack suddenly appeared in the sky.
Space was torn open, and an eerie purplish-red light shone through the gap, enveloping the entire Ye Mountain.
Om-! !
The next moment, everyone regained control of their bodies, unconsciously swaying to maintain their balance, and looking up at the sky with fear and uncertainty.
"Was that... the end of the world?" Zenitsu was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground.
"Don't be afraid, Zenitsu, that's just the way home."
The sound of a bird rang out beside Zenitsu, startling him.
He appeared suddenly at Shinobu Kocho's bedside, moving so fast he was invisible.
"Mr. Asuka!"
Tanjiro suddenly stood up.
He smelled the scent of parting, bitter and resolute.
He tried to reach out and grab the bird, but found that he couldn't get close at all.
Within ten steps of him, even the air was distorted.
Before everyone's eyes, his skin began to peel away, but no flesh or blood tissue was exposed; only a spiritual structure shimmering with a ghostly blue light remained.
The bird silently crouched down.
"Asuka! What are you doing! Get out of here!"
The voice within him hardened, clearly not expecting Asuka to suddenly act this way: "You can't take this woman away! She's a soul belonging to this world; forcibly interfering will have unpredictable consequences!"
At this moment, Shinobu Kocho's breathing had completely stopped.
Her soul was slowly emanating from the remains; it was a faint wisp of spiritual energy, glowing with a pale purple light, appearing so small in this deathly room.
As the bird watched the ball of light slowly rise, many memories flashed before its eyes.
In the blood-soaked night of Sendai, in the bamboo forest of the Butterfly Mansion, in the abyss of the Eternal Bliss Cult.
Is this gentle yet cunning woman finally leaving this world?
Don't be foolish, Asuka! You might die in the severance zone for a single soul! It's not worth it!
The plundering deep within their souls also spoke up at the opportune moment.
"Is this the first day you've met me?"
As soon as he said this, He Duo knew something was wrong.
This kid always seems to like doing the opposite of what he says.
"The things I do are never about whether they are worthwhile or not, but simply whether I want to or not."
He smiled, slowly extending his left hand, which was completely shattered and in a pale blue spiritual state, and firmly reaching towards Shinobu Kocho's dissipating soul.
"I'll take you away."
He whispered his promise, then suddenly pulled her into a tight embrace.
boom-!!!
The gate between the two worlds opened its hideous maw completely, and a black pillar of light that reached the heavens and the earth enveloped the flying bird within it.
"Mr. Asuka—!" Tanjiro lunged forward against the raging wind, but his fingertips couldn't even touch the hem of Asuka's fluttering clothes.
A flash of black light, and spacetime collapsed.
When the light faded, only an empty haori with butterfly wing patterns remained on the tatami mat, along with a pile of broken tiles.
Asuka and Shinobu have vanished without a trace.
Kanao knelt on the ground, staring blankly at the empty void, completely unaware of what had happened, and let out a heart-wrenching cry.
Tanjiro looked up at the slowly closing crack in the sky, his eyes welling up with tears.
He realized that those two people no longer existed in this world.
Only the wooden butterfly carving displayed on the cabinet proves that the bird once came.
pain....
It's like having your soul repeatedly crushed on a whetstone, an endless, excruciating pain.
The moment Asuka entered the gate, she felt as if her body was being shredded by thousands of sharp blades at the same time.
This body, which had fought for several years during the Taisho era, was quickly reduced to dust by the turbulent flow of time and space.
Although a strange sense of fullness filled his body when the cumbersome flesh completely disappeared, the process still caused him so much pain that he couldn't speak.
The spiritual pressure, no longer forcibly suppressed, surged forth from the depths of his soul, filling the void left by the demise of his physical body.
Strong muscles, perfect bones, and tough skin.
Inch by inch, it is being reshaped.
When the black Shinigami armor re-formed on his body, he was completely transformed and regained his healthy appearance.
In his arms, Shinobu Kocho was undergoing the same transformation.
Her life force, which had been extinguished, miraculously stabilized again under the protection of Asuka's domineering spiritual pressure.
Her physical body as a human being has vanished.
But as a whole—or rather, a spirit—she was reborn.
"Hmm..."
'
Shinobu Kocho let out a soft moan.
She felt that the suffocating feeling that had been bothering her... and the burning pain from being slowly eroded by the toxins, all of it was gone.
An unprecedented lightness filled her entire body; she was no longer the insect pillar burdened with hatred and responsibility, but a butterfly truly emerging from its cocoon.
She slowly opened her eyes.
"Birds?"
Shinobu Kocho was surprised to find that she could see again.
No longer blurry shadows, no longer chaotic blocks of color.
She could clearly see the man's face in front of her—a handsome, aloof face with a sense of unapproachability, yet also with a touch of clumsy warmth.
He was no longer the scarred man with a missing arm; he was as whole as when they first met.
"I can see clearly now... I can move too?" Shinobu Kocho reached out incredulously and touched her face.
But the next moment, she let out a piercing scream.
"abnormal-!!!!"