The wind in the north was colder than it should've been.
Even for a place like this—where snow piled thick against temple steps and the trees stood like frozen statues—the air carried something unnatural.
A stillness.
A silence.
A scent that didn't belong.
Rin stood at the threshold of a hidden mountain temple. Its crimson gates were old, worn, painted in blood long dried. The statues that lined the walkway were smiling, hands folded in prayer—yet their faces were wrong. Unsettling.
The kind of smile that belonged to corpses.
He had followed the trail for two days, moving through villages where women vanished without a sound, where laughter echoed through empty courtyards and blood painted snow like spilled ink.
Now, he was here.
He didn't knock.
Inside the temple, Doma was seated cross-legged, humming softly, a fan in his hand, his face lit by dozens of paper lanterns.
"Oh?" he said with a pleasant smile. "Now this is unexpected."
Rin stepped through the paper doors without a word.
Doma tilted his head. "You're not a Demon Slayer. Not one of theirs. So what are you, exactly?"
Rin didn't answer.
But something heavy unfurled behind him—a pressure like ancient flame, coiling and shifting like a beast just under the surface of his skin.
"Strange…" Doma muttered. "You smell like a human, but… wrong."
He stood, still smiling.
"You came all this way to die, didn't you?"
It ended in under a minute.
The air tore in half from the force of Rin's first strike. Doma moved fast—fast enough to blur—but Rin was faster. Brutally so.
His hands glowed red-hot, claws of dragon flame lashing out like death incarnate.
There were no final words. No closing monologues.
Only the scream of a demon lord being devoured from the inside.
[Later – Mountainside, Alone]
Rin stood under the starlight, breathing evenly. His body buzzed with power—but it wasn't just strength.
Something else stirred within him.
Like a voice—low, ancient, speaking in a language that wasn't words.
You are more than flesh now. More than blood.The abyss you consume begins to remember you…
He closed his eyes.
The snow hissed and melted around his feet. Dragon energy coiled up his spine, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
He had devoured Doma's core. And it had fed more than just his power.
Back at the Kamado house, Nezuko sneezed in her sleep and rolled over. Tanjiro stirred briefly, then smiled and went back to dreaming.
Far away, something evil had died.
And not a soul in the world even noticed.