Isekai Mizuki S1 - A World With Demons

Chapter 88.5 - Insanity

Kanao's been sitting alone in the dark canyons, trying to keep her head right from all the dark words she's hearing. She's trying to drown it out with happy thoughts, but she keeps hearing so many that she's having flashes.

"Give up, Kanao."
"You're alone, your soul isn't here to help you now."
"You don't even know the key to getting out of here."

Kanao succumbed, and began to cry. Then, she notices a presence. She looks up, and sees the consciousness of her demon form. "Join me. I will show you a world of perfection," it says, trying to convince Kanao to never leave the demon realm. She never answered. The demonic consciousness just stood there.

Eventually, Kanao stood up, and looked at her demon side. "Never! I know what's happening here. The key isn't to destroy my soul, it's to destroy YOU!" she shouts, readying her fists. "Very well then. I'll end you here and now."

The two of them charged at each other and became locked into a fight. They were at equal leveling, and this fight's far easier to win when compared to dueling with her own soul. When Kanao gained the upper hand, she got ready to deliver a powerful punch. Unfortunately, the demon clapped its hands, showing Kanao a vision of her fighting Tanjiro.

She snaps out of it, and begins trying again. She blinks each time the demon claps so that she can evade seeing the visions. Her will to fight on lies within her sanity. After she made a blink, the demon clapped again, hitting her with another vision, this time, killing the slayers at the Irohazaka Route division.

She was starting to lose her mind, but she powered through it and kept on fighting. But each time she got back into the reality, the demon would clap again. She was always too late to blink, so she kept getting hit with the visions. There was one of her fighting Genya during one of his missions, another one of nearly killing Ozaki. Had she not been saved by Kanae arriving, she would actually have died.

Within each flash she's seeing, her sanity drops lower and lower. Her heart couldn't bear the amount of manslaughter she was committing unconsciously. "Please... PLEASE STOP!" she begs, tears flowing out as she hits the demon's consciousness with an extremely sloppy strike. She opens her eyes and flip-kicks her opponent. She then fires a Solar Shot to try to burn the demon. Unfortunately, it didn't even have to move as Kanao missed completely.

"Your accuracy's waning, Kanao. Give up. Your soul isn't here to help you," it said, using Root Wrap to hold Kanao in captivity. She could no longer move. She could only keep her eyes open as the demon claps its hands repeatedly, showing the kills she's accumulated. Eventually, she just succumbs and loses her consciousness due to complete sanity loss. No power was left in her. All that was there was her, the shackles that hold her captive, the demon's consciousness, and the endless void canyon.

To be continued...