Chapter 240: Engagement Gift
Obviously he was being sarcastic; he knew Muzan hadn’t run.
After being sent flying, Muzan had noticed that "Yoriichi" wasn’t chasing him, so he’d stayed watching from the shadows, full of doubt.
"Quit playing around!"
Muzan’s face turned savage as he pointed furiously at "Yoriichi," who stood behind them.
"Did you think your little tricks could fool me?!"
"Huh? I didn’t fool you?" Marcus arched an eyebrow. "So you got that scared just from seeing me?"
He chuckled. "It’s quite an honor to frighten you so much."
"YOU!!!"
Muzan gritted his teeth.
In truth, Marcus didn’t believe a puppet with Yoriichi’s appearance would scare Muzan into hiding for another few hundred years.
At the end of the day it was a puppet: no body heat, no scent, no presence.
For someone who’d devoured humans for a thousand years, the effect he’d pulled off had already been pretty good.
The moment he calmed down a little, Muzan would find the flaws soon enough.
"So... you still want to fight?"
Marcus drew Makomo; the pinkish-purple blade turned a burning red.
Muzan’s eyes ran over Marcus’s body, fixing on the red flower-shaped mark on his forehead.
"The mark?!" He narrowed his eyes. "That’s what you’re relying on?"
Marcus’s mark had awakened the night he "devoured" Shinobu.
Even Obanai’s mark had bloomed because, upon his arrival, the ability spread like a virus: it’s hard to awaken, but once one person activates it, the nearby Hashira tend to catch it if they meet the conditions.
Marcus looked at Muzan with a smile. "What I’m relying on is none of your business. I just want to know whether you plan to fight us right now. Or are you... buying time for your raid on Asakusa?"
Muzan’s expression shifted slightly. "You can really know what’s going on over there?"
"I don’t just know about it." Marcus shook his head without losing his smile. "I also took the time to head back once. Otherwise, you think I’d be carrying the antidotes on me?"
Muzan ground his teeth. "Can your transfer be used without limit?"
Without answering, Marcus extended his left hand and sliced off his pinky finger with Makomo’s edge.
Then, under everyone’s incredulous gaze, he tossed the piece toward an empty patch of ground.
Swish
The next second, Marcus reappeared where the finger had landed. He knelt on one knee, plunged his hand into the soil, and flashed away again.
In the blink of an eye he reappeared beside Mitsuri.
Only this time, he was holding an ugly, tiny old man.
Hantengu.
"S-Spare my life..." Hantengu kicked and flailed desperately, covered in tears.
Marcus held him out in front of Mitsuri. "Mitsuri, kill him."
"Marcus-kun... is this...?" Astonishment spilled from Mitsuri’s eyes. "...the Upper Rank Four?"
"Yep, it’s the real body. He’s been holed up hiding here, doesn’t have much combat ability."
"B-But..." Mitsuri hesitated, loosening her grip on her katana. "But you’re the one who caught him..."
"Doesn’t matter." Marcus pinched her cheek. "Consider it my engagement gift."
"AN ENGAGEMENT GIFT?!"
Mitsuri covered her face with her hands.
"WITH ME?!"
Crack!
Crack!
Two grinding-teeth sounds rang out at the same time.
One came from Obanai’s mouth.
When exactly did these two start talking about marriage?! They’ve clearly only met twice! And what about him?! What did all his years of knowing her mean?!
The other grinding came from between Muzan’s teeth.
Even if Hantengu wasn’t exactly the apple of his eye, he’d fed her with his own blood, and now Marcus was using her as a courtship gift.
Swish
The Nichirin blade flashed. Hantengu flailed for a moment in Marcus’s palm before falling to the ground and starting to crumble into ash.
On the mountain behind them, Nezuko was happily stomping away.
In the wood dust beneath her feet, every time a head tried to emerge, she’d burst it with a stomp as if playing whack-a-mole, crouching down to see if it would grow back.
But this time, the head didn’t grow back.
The flames consumed everything cleanly.
Nezuko waited a few seconds, but seeing that no one came out to play, she pouted and turned around to go looking for Marcus.
Setting Nezuko to stomp heads had been Marcus’s punishment for Zohakuten.
Since he couldn’t be killed, there was no point wasting time on him; a newborn head had no strength and couldn’t leave the range of the wood dust either.
And in that moment, Marcus had taken the chance to go to Asakusa for the antidotes. Since the situation over there had turned around, he’d returned to the mountain, picked up "Yoriichi," and rushed toward Muzan, where the urgency was greater.
Having lost his troops and generals, Muzan looked at Marcus.
Knowing the game was lost, he slowly backed onto the door radiating candlelight.
"Consider yourself lucky... but remember..."
"I’ll be back!"
Marcus watched him with a serene smile.
"Don’t bother. It won’t be long before I come looking for you."
"Oh, really?" Muzan laughed, amused. "Then we’ll just have to see what you’re capable of!"
Mitsuri tugged at his sleeve. "Marcus-kun, are we just letting him go, just like that?"
"Yeah, either way... the most important part is already done."
As the door slowly closed, Marcus shut his eyes.
In that instant, inside the Infinity Castle, among the brilliantly lit spaces whose floors overlapped without revealing top or bottom, a piece of a pinky finger still coated in saliva crept toward the shadows between the panels.
It found a crack between a pillar and the wall, compressed itself until it squeezed into the deepest part, and sank into a silent slumber.
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