Anime/Manga: Bankai Starting with Demon Slayer

Kanzaki Aoi held the medicine bowl, her voice trembling with barely suppressed sobs.

Shinobu Kocho on the tatami mat had become so thin that she was just skin and bones.

She turned her head slightly, as if trying to give Xiao Kui a comforting smile, but the moment her lips moved, she burst into a violent cough.

"Cough cough...cough!"

Blood stained the pristine white bedding, its dark purple hue startlingly vivid.

"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 beastly intuition told him—

The person inside the house is going to die.

Tanjiro, with his lips tightly pressed 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 Asuka, the swordsman he respected most.

It was a smell that... didn't belong to this world.

At the other end of the courtyard, Asuka stood under the withered cherry tree, his condition no better than Shinobu's.

His skin was covered in large cracks, and pieces were peeling off one by one with the flickering sparks of spiritual pressure.

"It's time to go, Asuka."

That inner voice became louder than ever before at this moment, making his soul buzz.

“That woman’s time to die has come. If you don’t leave, you will end up like those other souls, preventing her from entering the cycle of reincarnation in this world… I can’t guarantee what she will 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 sensed the collapse of the broken shell, 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...in the end."

"Shinobu-neechan! You'll get better!" Zenitsu cried, her face covered in tears, but she dared not make a sound and could only sob quietly.

“Silly child…” Shinobu Kocho gave a weak smile.

As she lay dying, 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 tumbling medicine also 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 racing, my body just wouldn't move.

A huge, dark crack suddenly appeared in the sky.

The space was torn open, and a strange purplish-red light shone through the gaps.

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... 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. Bird!"

Tanjiro suddenly stood up.

He smelled it—it was the smell 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.

The flesh and blood had begun to peel away, but no flesh or blood tissue was exposed; only a spiritual structure shimmering with a ghostly blue light remained.

Asuka silently crouched down.

"Asuka! What are you doing! Get out of here!"

An inner voice hardened, clearly not expecting Asuka to suddenly take such action: "You can't take this woman away! She is a soul belonging to this world; forcibly interfering will cause 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 grove of the Butterfly Mansion, in the abyss of the Eternal Paradise Cult.

Is this gentle yet cunning woman finally leaving this world?

【Don't be foolish, Asuka! You might die in the Severed Realm for a soul! It's not worth it!】The plundering deep within the soul also speaks out at the right time.

"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 only whether I want to or don't want to."

He smiled, slowly extending his left hand, which was completely shattered and in a state of pale blue spiritual energy, and firmly reaching towards Shinobu Kocho's dissipating soul.

"I'll take you away."

He whispered his promise, then suddenly hugged her.

Boom!

The gate between the two worlds opened its gaping maw wide, and a black beam of light, reaching to the heavens and the earth, illuminated the flying bird emblem.

"Mr. Asuka—!" Tanjiro lunged forward against the fierce 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 butterfly-patterned haori remained on the tatami mat, along with a pile of broken tiles.

Asuka and Shinobu Kocho 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 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 excess flesh and blood 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 had been 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 has vanished.

But as a whole—or rather, a spirit—she was reborn.

"Well......"

Shinobu Kocho let out a soft moan.

She felt that the suffocating feeling that had been bothering her... that burning pain from being slowly eroded by toxins, all of it was gone.

An unprecedented lightness filled her entire body; she was no longer the worm pillar burdened with hatred and responsibility, but a butterfly truly emerging from its cocoon.

She slowly opened her eyes.

"Asuka?"

Shinobu Kocho was surprised to find that she could see again.

No longer a blurry trace, no longer a chaotic patch of color.

She could clearly see the man's face in front of her—handsome, aloof, with a sense of unapproachability, yet also a face with a touch of clumsy tenderness.

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?" The butterfly reached out in disbelief and touched its face.

But the next moment, she let out a piercing scream.

"Pervert—!!!"

Chapter 119 The Two Who Crossed the Broken Realm

Because she was stripped of her physical body in a daze, her spirit had just begun to take shape and had not yet formed even a simple piece of clothing.

Now, apart from that thin protective membrane made of bird spirit pressure, she is almost completely naked.

The direct skin-to-skin contact between his body and that of a member of the opposite sex caused the usually composed Insect Pillar to momentarily go blank.

She instinctively tried to struggle, wanting to reach out and push the boy in front of her away.

However, she soon discovered that her hands were limp and had no strength at all, a feeling similar to walking in deep water.

The surrounding [Restriction] was constantly oppressing her spirit.

This is the Boundary, a space where several layers of spacetime planes overlap and are surrounded by the torrents of time.

It is the rift between life and death, the gap between the mortal world and the Soul Society.

The so-called "binding flow" refers to the special air currents that permeate the broken boundary, which can hinder the movement of souls and create a binding effect on souls attempting to cross the broken boundary.

The situation with the bird is too special. The boundary he crossed has interfered with the power of other planes, which caused the Juliu to go berserk because of his existence, which is extremely dangerous.

His calm eyes stared straight at her, without revealing any unpleasant expression, not even a flicker of emotion in them.

In his eyes, Shinobu Kocho is now just a fragile soul that he needs to protect with all his might.

"Don't move." Asuka looked around warily, her voice unusually calm: "Your spirit is not stable yet. If you don't hold on tight to me, you will disappear."

“But, this…” Shinobu’s pretty face turned so red it was almost bleeding.

She never imagined that her first trial after death would be such an embarrassing situation.

The overwhelming mix of shame and anger made her temporarily forget that she was already dead.

The birds seemed to have sensed something as well.

Looking down, she realized the unusual situation on Shinobu Kocho.