Hantengu continued to scream as my blade cut into his blade. The screams were so loud that I knew that my ears would probably start bleeding at any moment but I didn't stop. This was our chance, I had to make sure to take off Hantengu's head so that this fight would stop. Suddenly a chill went down my spine and I knew that there was a demon at my back. It wasn't any of the emotion demons but at the same time it was them, I didn't understand but whatever they were I wasn't going to stop my mission.. Trying to force my sword further threw Hantengu's neck was useless as it had stopped glowing but that didn't stop me. Not even death would stop me from taking this demon's head.
"Hikaru move it!" Genya yelled out. Gritting my teeth I realised that we had miscalculated. Because I was where I was trying to decapitate Hantengu and the other demon was at my back, Genya couldn't attack unless he wanted me to be caught up in the crossfire.
'Think Hikaru, think. Come on think' I thought to myself until I heard a drum. It must have been the newest demon's attack as suddenly a large monster made of trees burst out of the ground right where I was. Or had been. Before I could move myself Nezuko had grabbed me around the leg and put me over her shoulder as she jumped away from the creature even though she had her right arm and leg taken off by the monster.
"Nezuko!" Tanjiro yelled as he grabbed both of us to stop us from hitting the ground and I quickly scrambled away from them. It was a miracle that Nezuko had managed to not get any of my blood on her.
"Nezuko, Hikaru, you okay?" Tanjiro questioned and Nezuko collapsed onto the ground, she had already regenerated her arm and leg which must have exhausted her.
"Savages who torment the meek" The new demon said.
"Hah" Tanjiro said as he looked at the demon.
"Spite. Enmity. Nothing but hatred for those who bathe in pure evil" He said. he looked much like the emotion demons but also different since he looked younger. He had two horns on his head, hair that's shoulder length though the top half was black while the bottom half was a different colour. He wore some pretty weird but traditional looking clothes, he had a pair of weapons in his hands that looked like something a shinobi would use and finally there was a large ring behind him with what looked to be five drums on it that had the kanji for 'hatred' on them. Beside him was where the tree monster had begun and Hantengu was on one of the thick branches still letting out eeks and covering his head with his hands.
'A sixth!' Tanjiro thought.
'Damn, I didn't think that they would separate again since Tanjiro had been cutting them giving them plenty of time to make a sixth but they didn't until now. Why not? Hang on a moment' I thought.
'We have a sixth now! You've got to be freaking kidding me! No.... That's not the sixth? I don't smell the other four demons anymore' Tanjiro thought.
'The other demon's auras had disappeared but at the same time they hadn't, somehow they were all squished into the demon in front of us creating a full aura' I thought. I had known that someone was up with the primal emotion demons since their auras were so dull and filled with only one type of emotions but I had never guessed that this was the reason for it.
'What just happened? How did we get to this point? That thing was the Anger demon until just now. When Hikaru's blade struck the ting demon's neck the Anger demon raised both his hands and in a single second, he drew them in. The Joy and Pleasure demons. It looked as if he was twisting and crushing their flesh, then he absorbed them both. Then in another second, the Anger demon went to Aizetsu who opened his mouth as if he was trying to protest but he got absorbed without saying a word. The Anger demon's body changed into that. So what is it? He didn't split up but he got even younger. A kid. It's a combination of all the demons minus the old fart, the one we think is the main body,' Genya thought, trying to make sense of what he had just seen. With the weapon in his right hand the Hatred demon reached back and hit one of the drums. As soon as the drum was hit the branches around Hantengu started to close up into a ball of protection.
'Crap! The body's getting surrounded!' Tanjiro thought.
"Hold it!" Tanjiro yelled. The Hatred demon turned to us, his eyes piercing through us with hatred but that wasn't what grabbed my attention since this kid had nothing on Muzan's glare. I noticed that it affected Tanjiro, making him flinch.
'I choked on my breath, his aura's pressure is so strong that I feel pain in my heart. I can only imagine what his aura looks like to Hikaru,' Tanjiro thought. The kid's aura was a bright vibrant red showing his hatred as well as a pitch black of a demon but still my attention was drawn behind the demon.
"What? Scum. You don't like what I'm doing here? Hey, you evil shitheads" Hatred demon sneered, his lips pulled back to show his teeth.
'Heavy. Voice. Pressure. I can barely stand because my strength is leaving my limbs' Genya thought. When driven into a corner, humans aren't the only creatures that can release explosive strength. The demon known as Hantengu was driven into a corner countless times and every time that happened, his strong emotions became personified and split from him through blood techniques. That's how he won. The worse the situation gets for him, the stronger he becomes.
"Wh..." Tanjiro started and I saw his hand clenching the hilt of his blade and his head was down.
"Why are...Why are we....Evil?" Tanjiro questioned.
"You're tormenting the 'weak', right? You, things, were just trying to cut the 'small weakling' thing enough to fit on my palm. That is pure injustice, only a savage would do that" Hatred demon sneered.
"Small weakling? Who.....Exactly is this? Don't say that. Your smell...Smells of blood! You've eaten a hundred, two hundred people! Maybe even more! And what did those people do to you? All of them. Did you just arbitrarily take their lives as payment!? Stop playing the victim after eating and killing those people!" Tanjiro yelled out in anger. Nezuko looked at her brother blinking since this was the first time in a long time that Tanjiro had been this angry.
"You have a sick mind, absolutely unforgivable. Evil Demon! I will cut your head off right here!" Tanjiro glared, Genya was lost for words and couldn't say anything.
"Tell me something Hatred or whatever your name is. Does your back feel heavy? I am sure that it does, after all the spirits clinging to your back seem to have been there for a while and they aren't leaving anytime soon" I sneered. What I had been looking at behind the Hatred demon was human shapes of dull grey with no individual colors like when I had seen Sabito and Makamo. Since I was the only one able to see them I guess my eyes were able to pick up on them because of their large grudge against this demon. Either way things were about to get intense so I should brace myself for it.
