Three bullets.
A triangular barrage that had sealed off every possible avenue of escape.
Hairo watched with his own eyes as the blood-soaked man before him split one bullet apart, twisted aside to evade another, and took the last one head-on—
And yet, Kyojuro Rengoku was still standing.
Not only standing, but continuing to advance toward him at terrifying speed.
Only three steps remained between them.
"What…?"
Almost instinctively, Hairo raised his pistol and pulled the trigger.
Click.
An empty tallic snap echoed from the chamber.
He was out of bullets.
Hairo's pupils contracted. He imdiately tossed the pistol aside and plunged his hand into the shadow behind him—the space created by his Blood Demon Art where he stored his firearms.
Only then did he realize every loaded gun had already been emptied. He still had spare ammunition, but there was no longer enough ti to reload.
There was no ti left at all.
His fingers searched frantically through the shadows, until they brushed against sothing cold and tallic.
In an instant, mories flooded back—mories from his human life, mories soaked in pain and humiliation.
It was a weapon abandoned by the tis.
But now, he had no room left to hesitate.
He drew it imdiately and used it to block the slash descending toward him from Kyojuro.
Under the moonlight, Hairo finally saw clearly what he held in his hands.
A katana.
Its blade was long and elegant, the hamon still visible despite the years. The wrapping around the hilt had long since rotted away with age, leaving only bare tal behind.
It was an old sword.
His sword.
The blade he had once practiced with endlessly as a human, the blade he had trusted with all his heart. Back then, he had firmly believed that swords could never lose to firearms.
And yet now—
This very sword had beco the only thing left he could rely on.
"How laughable," Hairo muttered with a self-mocking smile. "A weapon discarded by the age… and now it's my final lifeline."
He raised his head again and blocked another strike from Rengoku's Nichirin Sword. The familiar sensation of gripping a sword returned to him once more.
That feeling—
The swordsmanship he had once been most proud of. The art he had devoted himself to, training tirelessly in hopes of reaching greater heights.
"Then let use this abandoned swordsmanship…" His eyes sharpened as he t Kyojuro's gaze head-on. "...to cut off your head."
Steel clashed against steel once more.
"And let us end this battle in the way of the samurai."
The mont the words fell, shadows began to erge from every direction around them. They wriggled across the ground like living creatures, converging rapidly toward Hairo.
Kyojuro's eyes narrowed warily. Earlier, those shadows had already proven themselves troubleso enough when used as weapons.
But this ti, they did not attack him.
Instead, they gathered around Hairo himself.
The shadows crawled up his legs, coiling around his calves, his knees, his thighs—
Like massive black serpents, they wrapped tighter and tighter around his body as they climbed upward.
"Blood Demon Art: Captured Cavity: Warwolf of Horror."
The darkness spread over his waist, climbed across his chest, and slithered down his arms to the tips of his fingers.
Then Hairo's body began to change within the shadows.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
The sound of shifting bones echoed through the night.
Muscles bulged beneath the writhing shadows as Hairo's body expanded and grew taller.
The surface of the darkness rippling across him began to resemble fur, like a layer of black pelt covering his entire body.
Then even his head started to change.
Shadows swallowed his face. His jaw pushed forward, ears lengthening into sharp points—
Until his head resembled that of a wolf.
By the ti every strand of shadow had attached itself to him, Hairo no longer looked like the military-clad figure from monts ago.
He had transford into a towering bipedal wolf, his body cloaked in flowing black shadows. Thick limbs bulged with strength, and razor-sharp claws extended from his fingers. Between the gaps in the darkness, eerie green light glowed from his eyes, cold and rciless like the gaze of a wolf beneath a winter moon.
Kyojuro Rengoku tightened his grip on his sword as he stared at the transford demon before him.
His left shoulder was now nearly impossible to lift. His right leg sent jolts of agonizing pain through him every ti he shifted his weight, and the wound at his waist continued to seep blood.
But his eyes never left the katana in Hairo's hand.
Kyojuro moved with a sudden explosion of force, his blade whistling through the air in a swift strike toward Hairo.
But the blade did not find flesh.
Instead, it felt as though the sword had plunged into a swamp, the force of the attack swallowed whole by sothing bottomless and sticky.
Had he not withdrawn his blade in ti, Kyojuro felt his Nichirin sword itself might have been dragged into the darkness.
"My shadows can devour everything," Hairo said coldly. "Any blade that cuts into them will only sink deeper and deeper into the dark."
He slowly raised his head, gripping his katana tightly.
"Can your flas burn through this darkness?"
A savage smile spread across his wolf-like face.
"It's been a long ti since I held a sword like this. Now… it's your turn to face my blade."
Boom!
The instant the words fell, Hairo lunged forward like a ferocious wolf, his katana cutting through the air with terrifying speed.
The swordsmanship he had once possessed as a human was now displayed to its fullest extent. Even Rengoku Kyojuro was steadily forced backward beneath Hairo's attacks.
It wasn't that Kyojuro's technique was inferior; rather, it was because every ti his Nichirin Blade struck Hairo, it felt like hitting a mud. All damage was absorbed by the shadows. Conversely, as a human, Kyojuro could not afford to take even a single hit from Hairo's blade.
"Humans are so weak," Hairo sneered while continuing his attacks. "Even without firearms, an old-fashioned katana is still enough to easily end your life."
Throughout it all, Kyojuro said nothing.
He simply continued fighting.
Fla Breathing flowed steadily through his body, flas igniting once more along the edge of his blade. Golden-red light flickered through the darkness.
Then—
"Fla Breathing, First Form: Unknowing Fire!"
Flas exploded from the sword as Kyojuro surged forward in a streak of burning heat.
This strike lacked the explosive speed of before. The injury to his shoulder had drastically weakened his power.
But the flas burning along the blade were fiercer than ever.
Hairo raised his katana to block.
Clang!
The collision of steel erupted through the night like thunder. Sparks burst between the two blades as Kyojuro's Nichirin Sword crashed against Hairo's katana.
But imdiately, shadows poured from Hairo's body and crawled over Kyojuro's blade like living creatures. Once again, that dreadful sensation of sinking into a swamp spread through the sword as the flas dimd beneath the darkness.
With a violent shove, Hairo knocked Kyojuro back two full steps.
"It's useless," Hairo murmured. "Your flas cannot burn through my shadows."
Kyojuro steadied himself, chest heaving violently.
His breathing had beco ragged now, every inhale sounding like the strained pull of a rusted bellows. Blood dripped steadily from his wounds, pooling at his feet.
Yet he did not stop.
"Fla Breathing, Second Form: Rising Scorching Sun!"
The blade swept upward from below, flas surging like erupting magma.
Hairo twisted aside to evade the strike, while shadows stretched from his blade like a black whip, lashing toward Kyojuro's side.
Kyojuro blocked with his sword, but the shadow-whip instantly wrapped around the blade, trying to wrench it from his grasp.
Grinding his teeth, Kyojuro tightened both hands around the hilt. Flas erupted violently from the sword, blasting the shadow-whip apart.
But more shadows imdiately surged forward.
Hairo's form flickered through the darkness, his katana slashing from every conceivable angle.
Each strike carried the weight of the shadows; each collision caused Kyojuro's blade to stall for a mont. Kyojuro blocked, countered, and blocked again, the flas on his sword flickering and swaying like a candle in a storm.
Kyojuro Rengoku's body was failing.
With every swing, the wound on his shoulder tore a bit further.
With every movent, the injury in his leg caused him to stumble.
With every deep breath, the gunshot wound at his waist seeped more blood.
Then Hairo's sword ca crashing down.
Kyojuro raised his blade to et it, but the mont the swords collided—
His knees bent.
"You've reached your limit," Hairo's deep voice rumbled beneath the wolf-like head, calm and heavy.
"Five or six gunshot wounds. Massive blood loss. Even your Breathing Style is beginning to fail."
His glowing eyes stared directly into Kyojuro's.
"Why are you still standing?"
"You should fall now, Shinjuro Rengoku."
...
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