Chapter 54: Zero: This Must Be an Illusion!

Iguro Koban touched the bandages on his face — only he himself knew how that wound had come to be.

He thought of his clan and those memories too painful to look back on.

Colluding with demons, taking the lives of others to gain wealth and prosperity for the clan.

Born into a clan like that — how was he any different from them? What right did he have to be forgiven?

Hearing that Zero was going to treat his wounds, he turned to leave at once, but Zero pressed down on his shoulder.

"Koban, where are you going?"

"Don't bother with a sinner like me."

Iguro Koban pushed Zero's hand off his shoulder and walked away without looking back.

"Sinner?"

Zero was puzzled — why would he call himself a sinner?

Zero didn't know Iguro Koban's past, so he had no idea what this was about.

"Gyomei, Sanemi, do you know what happened to Koban before?"

Shinazugawa Sanemi thought for a moment, then said he didn't really know either, because Iguro Koban rarely told them anything about himself.

"Amitabha, I'm not too sure myself, but you could go ask the former Flame Hashira — he's the one who saved Koban back then, so he might know the whole story."

"Is that so? Alright, got it. Let's go in first and treat those two; everything else can wait."

The three of them entered the room, where Rengoku Kyojuro and Tomioka Giyuu had already lain down inside the 【Recovery Chamber】.

Zero stepped up to the 【Recovery Chamber】, closed the lid, and began the treatment.

【Status: Eardrum rupture】

【100 Energy Crystals required to begin treatment】

【Treatment duration: 1 hour】

【Status: Muscle tissue damage】

【100 Energy Crystals required to begin treatment】

【Treatment duration: 1 hour】

Watching the data displayed on the 【Recovery Chamber】's monitor, he fed 100 【Energy Crystals】 into each one to start the treatment.

With nothing else to do, Zero went back to the bed and continued finishing the portrait of the 【Upper Rank demon】 he hadn't completed yet.

Himejima Gyomei, meanwhile, sat to one side silently chanting sutras.

Shinazugawa Sanemi sat quietly on the other side, holding a cloth, carefully wiping down his Nichirin Blade.

As time passed, an hour slowly slipped by.

The data status panel on the 【Recovery Chamber】 also showed that treatment was complete.

【Beep~ Treatment complete】

【Beep~ Treatment complete】

Opening the lid of the 【Recovery Chamber】, the three silently turned their backs on Rengoku Kyojuro and Tomioka Giyuu to let them change clothes.

After changing, Rengoku Kyojuro said boldly, "Zero, thank you very much!"

"Thank you." Though it was only two brief words, it still conveyed Tomioka Giyuu's gratitude.

After a few pleasantries, Rengoku Kyojuro and Tomioka Giyuu left the room, ready to continue training.

"You two get in there too. I'll wait outside the door first."

"Amitabha, understood."

"Thanks!" Shinazugawa Sanemi replied in his usual tsundere way.

Fortunately, the 【Recovery Chamber】 was big enough — otherwise Himejima Gyomei's build and 2.2-meter height really wouldn't have fit.

Two minutes later, Zero returned to the room and looked at the data status panel.

【Status: Bilateral blindness】

【100 Energy Crystals required to begin treatment】

【Treatment duration: 1 hour】

【Status: Skin tissue damage】

【100 Energy Crystals required to begin treatment】

【Treatment duration: 1 hour】

He fed 100 【Energy Crystals】 into each one to start their treatment, then closed the lid.

As for himself, he went back to the bed to draw.

As he drew, the words Iguro Koban had said drifted back into his mind unbidden.

When he heard that Zero was going to treat his wounds, his hand had unconsciously brushed the bandages on his face.

That small gesture made Zero feel that the wound on his face might not be so simple...

After thinking it over, he took out the 【Analysis Glasses】, hooked them over his ears, switched to projection mode, and pulled up Iguro Koban's information.

【Personal Information: Iguro Koban】

【Loading... Load complete】

"Now, let me see just what happened to Iguro Koban."

【Personal Information: Iguro Koban was born on Hachijo Island. The Iguro Clan he belonged to, in his own eyes, was a shameless blood clan that enriched itself by plotting against others.

A vile clan that used plundered wealth to build houses, live in luxury, and indulge in extravagance — without a shred of shame.

It was a clan that only gave birth to girls; for a full 370 years not a single boy had been born, and Iguro Koban was one of those rare male infants.

Not long after his birth, Iguro Koban was locked in a cell. Although his mother, sisters, and other relatives brought lavish meals to his cell every day,

their hypocritical smiles and sickening-sweet words always made him feel disgusted.

At the same time, the cell had no windows, so the entire cell was always filled with the greasy smell of oil, which left Iguro Obanai not only with no appetite, but constantly feeling nauseous.

Every night, the sound of some enormous creature crawling back and forth would come from the ceiling of the cell, which made him, still young at the time, terribly afraid.

At the age of twelve, Iguro Obanai was finally taken out of the cell and brought to an ornate, grand room.

In his terror, Iguro Obanai clearly saw the creature sprawled atop the altar in the very center of the room!

It was a half-human, half-snake female demon! Iguro Obanai immediately realized that the one making sounds at night back then was this very snake demon before his eyes.

He only later understood that the Iguro clan he belonged to had, for over three hundred years, been living off the wealth the snake demon seized back after killing others.

In exchange, they would offer their own children as living sacrifices to this snake demon, who loved to eat infants most of all.

And being a boy, and born with eyes of an unusual color, he naturally piqued this snake demon's interest.

But at that moment, the snake demon decided Iguro Obanai was still too young, and planned to raise him a bit before eating him.

Although Iguro Obanai's life was spared because of the snake demon's cruel whim, he was likewise, again because of that same cruel whim, required to "have a face like a snake's," and so his family cut open his mouth and utterly destroyed his looks!

That is why he has always kept bandages wrapped around his face...

Thrown back into the cell once more, Obanai developed an intense will to survive.

Using a hairpin he had stolen from a clansman, he began chiseling away at the cell's wooden bars.

What he had seen and heard that day made him lose all trust in other people completely; the only companion he could trust was a little white snake that had wandered into his cell by mistake.

And he named it "Kaburamaru."

After day after day of effort, finally one day Iguro Obanai succeeded in escaping, but he was quickly caught up with by the snake demon, who had come upon hearing the news.

Just as he was about to be killed by the snake demon, fortunately the former Flame Hashira—Rengoku Shinjuro, the father of Rengoku Kyojuro—arrived in the nick of time and used a Flame Breathing sword technique to slay the snake demon, and only then was Obanai's life preserved.

Afterwards, Rengoku Shinjuro took Iguro Obanai and went to find the sole survivor within his clan, namely his older cousin.

However, the moment she saw Iguro Obanai, his cousin shoved him away and, weeping, loudly berated him.

From her words, Iguro Obanai learned: after he had escaped, the snake demon, in a fury, had killed nearly all of the clansmen—over fifty people in total had died.

Not only that, Iguro Obanai's cousin went further and berated him, saying it was all his fault—that if he had not run away, everyone would not have been killed!

As a sacrifice, Iguro Obanai obediently letting himself be eaten would have been his best choice...

Although his cousin's accusations held no logic whatsoever, they still deeply wounded Iguro Obanai's heart.

It was not that he had never considered what kind of catastrophe might befall his clansmen after he escaped... but he still ran away in the end.

As the descendant of a clan of scoundrels, he too was a scoundrel...

Believing himself burdened with grave sin, Iguro Obanai no longer dared hope for an ordinary life.

Afterwards, he followed Rengoku Shinjuro and joined the Demon Slayer Corps, and later became the Snake Hashira.

To vent the hatred inside him that had nowhere to go, he poured all of that feeling into demons, wholeheartedly slaying them—only to slightly ease the guilt within his heart...】

Staring at the information on the 【Analysis Glasses】, Zero fell silent...

"..."

"..."

"So... it was because of a past too painful to look back on that you've come to think of yourself as a sinner as well..."

Iguro Obanai's past can only be described as a cruel trick of fate...

He himself had done nothing wrong—not a single fault!

Even if there were any, it could only be said that he was born into a bad family.

Put another way, Iguro Obanai's escape was, in effect, an indirect salvation of many lives, sparing them from the Iguro family's evil grasp!

Those people of his family—let them die and be done with; there's nothing to pity!

But as for Iguro Obanai himself...

Zero's heart, while sympathizing, was even more worried.

But likewise, he would not try to lecture him—at most he would offer some gentle guidance.

Just as with the former Flame Hashira, Rengoku Shinjuro before, he would offer him no lecturing.

Do not urge others to be good without having first suffered their hardships.

A saint? A holy mother?

Heh... sorry, but Zero is no such person.

On his hands, too, countless lives had once been stained—including the lives of people...

Thousands of years of battle, countless fights to the death, countless struggles on the edge of life and death, had gradually bred in him a certain indifference toward life and death.

But ever since that final battle against the Void Worm Mother, and the words Sister Luo Li had said to him...

And since coming to this world, the first time Xiao Bai Yue expressed her own thoughts, and the words Xiang Nai Hui and Xiao Xiao Mili later said to him, Zero's character had gradually begun to change...

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through his head, and all kinds of fragmented memories kept surfacing in his mind—very blurry...

One of those blurry memory fragments left him feeling both familiar and strange...

A little girl, one of whose arms was mutated—into a tentacle...

"... Brother...!"

"Damn it... my head hurts so much...!!"

"What exactly... have I forgotten?! Who... who was that little girl?!"

"Just how much... how much of my memory have I lost... damn it... it hurts so much..."

Zero clutched his head, struggling ceaselessly!

But the more he struggled, the more agonizing it became, as if his skull were about to burst open!

He forced himself to calm down, and after quite a while, his splitting head finally eased.

"Good thing Xiang Nai Hui and Xiao Xiao Mili and Xiao Bai Yue aren't here... in the future I should still try not to think about my past..."

Phew...

Taking a deep breath, he calmed his inner heart.

Now he only needed to wait for Himejima Gyomei and Shinazugawa Sanemi to finish their treatment before considering his next plan!

……

Mount Sagiri.

Clang! Clang!

Tanjiro was holding the blade in his hand, hacking at a giant boulder.

This was the final test given to him by his mentor, Urokodaki Sakonji.

As long as he passed this last test, Urokodaki Sakonji would permit Tanjiro to take part in the annual Mount Fujikasane Selection.

However, after nearly a year of effort, he still had not been able to complete the task Urokodaki Sakonji had given him.

But even so, he still had not given up.

Not far away, two figures appeared in a tree—one man, one woman—watching Tanjiro practice his sword swings.

"Shouldn't we go meet our little junior brother now?"

"No, it's not time yet! And that fellow on Mount Fujikasane has been getting increasingly restless lately!"

"Is it because of that person from back then?!"

"Mm, after all, he could even sense our existence! If I had the chance, I'd very much like to meet him again!"

The two figures exchanged a smile and continued watching Tanjiro hack at the boulder.

The scene shifted, arriving at Zero's side.

After an hour of treatment, Himejima Gyomei's eyes had already regained their sight, including that long scar across his forehead.

The scars all over Shinazugawa Sanemi's body had also been completely erased.

After the two expressed their thanks, they left Zero's residence one after another. However, Himejima Gyomei was called aside by Zero alone, who said he had other matters to tell him.

"Amitabha, Zero, is there something else?"

Zero handed the finished portrait of the Twelve Demon Moons' Upper Rank Demons to Himejima Gyomei.

Although earlier Ubuyashiki Nika had been beside him explaining, the specific details of their appearances still needed to be told to him personally.

"Gyomei, these are portraits of the Twelve Demon Moons' Upper Rank Demons. Take them back and look them over first, then pass them on to the Master later."

Himejima Gyomei took the portraits and said, "Amitabha, thank you, Zero! This way, I'll be able to understand the Upper Rank Demons better and fight alongside everyone!"

Watching Himejima Gyomei off, Zero felt that today too had been quite fulfilling.

"Phew… been busy for so long, time to take a bath and relax properly~ And while I'm at it, think about… how to properly teach Douma a lesson next time! Hehe…"

He prepared his clothes, humming a little tune as he headed to the bathroom.

Click—

Opening the door, he once again witnessed a scene bathed in holy light.

"Uh… not again…"

Zero saw Xiang Nai Hui and Xiao Xiao Mili scrubbing each other's backs.

Xiao Xiao Mili's wildly surging chest weapons stood proudly upright!

And Xiang Nai Hui was the same!

Xiang Nai Hui and Xiao Xiao Mili froze just like that, two pairs of eyes meeting Zero's at the bathroom door…

With a "plop," both women's entire bodies began to flush red and burn hot! Steam even rose from their heads!

Fwoosh!!!

Seeing this situation, a well-known red liquid spurted from Zero's nose…

"Hehe… an illusion! This must be an illusion…!!"

His eyes rolled back, and he fell straight backward! His back made an intimate contact with the ground.

Xiang Nai Hui/Xiao Xiao Mili: "Zero!!!"

…………