When Hikari caught the handball earlier, she'd already coated her palm with a layer of chakra. Even so, she still felt a slight sting, which showed the ball's impact was no joke.
But that was about it.
Against an opponent of this level, she didn't even need to use her Mangekyō Sharingan.
As her words fell, Uchiha Hikari's figure vanished from the spot. As the handball dropped, she closed in on Susamaru at breakneck speed. She casually swatted away one handball thrown at her, sidestepped another, and with a final leap, unleashed a clean, spinning double kick!
*Bang! Bang!*
Hikari's left leg whipped out, staggering Susamaru, and her right leg swept through, sending the demon flying!
*Thud!*
Susamaru's body slammed into a tree, her two blocking arms faintly fractured. But they began healing at a visible rate.
*Thump, thump—*
Two sounds rang out simultaneously.
The first was Hikari landing from her double kick, knees slightly bent to absorb the impact.
The second was the handball she'd caught and released, hitting the ground and bouncing lightly.
"Reaction speed: average. Physical strength: average. Healing ability… decent."
Hikari gave her assessment.
Her nonchalant attitude stunned Susamaru for a moment before rage took over. "Where'd this human brat come from, daring to look down on me, one of the Twelve Kizuki?! Fine, I'm getting serious now!"
Sensing the rising aura from Susamaru, the injured Tamayo shouted from a distance, "Little girl, you can't kill a demon like this! Only a Demon Slayer's Nichirin Blade—"
"Katon…"
Hikari ignored Tamayo's warning, forming a hand sign.
She knew full well that demons in the *Demon Slayer* world were ridiculously resilient, unfazed by anything except sunlight and Nichirin Blades. Even wisteria flowers, commonly thought to counter demons, only repelled them unless injected in massive doses to be lethal. But…
(What if they're burned to ashes?)
Tiger–Ox–Dog–Horse–Monkey–Boar…
As Hikari began her hand signs, Susamaru gathered all six handballs, charged them briefly, and hurled them forward in one go!
*Swish, swish, swish—*
A series of whistling sounds erupted like firecrackers!
At the same moment, Hikari placed a hand to her lips and exhaled softly:
"Gōka Mekkyaku!!"
Chakra surged, and a scarlet line of fire shot out!
In the blink of an eye, it swelled into a tidal wave of flames, roaring skyward! The vivid firelight not only illuminated the ruined courtyard but also painted the night sky crimson!
In that moment, everyone's eyes widened.
Five handballs were swallowed by the flames, their ferocious momentum snuffed out in an instant, reduced to ash. Susamaru, too, wore a look of terror, retreating while instinctively raising her three pairs of arms to shield her neck. She didn't even finish the motion before the raging flames engulfed her, and she vanished in an instant!
"…Huh?"
Tamayo was dumbfounded.
Nearby, Yushiro, Nezuko, and Tanjiro—who'd just arrived after eating half a Senzu Bean—stood frozen in shock.
About half a minute later, the roaring flames began to shrink and die down.
As the fire cleared, a charred humanoid figure remained.
Yes, "humanoid." The demon's body was almost entirely incinerated, leaving only the head, clutched tightly by her six arms, vaguely recognizable. The remaining flesh was so damaged that a gust of wind scattered it into clouds of ash.
"…That's… incredible!"
Yushiro swallowed hard, staring at Hikari's silhouette in disbelief. "Miss Tamayo, this girl… is she really human?!"
In his mind, only Blood Demon Arts could conjure fire out of thin air like that.
Tanjiro, hobbling over with the wall for support, was equally stunned, his shock no less than Tamayo's. "That demon… was she just burned to death?"
A brief silence followed.
Then…
"No…"
Hikari slowly shook her head. "She's still alive, but her healing is extremely slow…"
After testing with taijutsu and ninjutsu, she'd gotten a rough sense of the "demons" in the *Demon Slayer* world.
How to put it…
Their physical abilities and reaction speeds were definitely stronger than an average human's, but compared to a ninja… they'd be mid-tier Chūnin at best, and not even the taijutsu-specialized kind.
Of course, this demon wasn't a true Twelve Kizuki, just a small fry hastily turned by Kibutsuji Muzan, so the real Kizuki might be stronger.
Some demons' Blood Demon Arts were also quite bizarre, a bit like *Naruto*'s Shikotsumyaku bloodline, where raw power alone didn't determine strength. Hikari wasn't worried for herself, but if Bulma was coming later, they'd need to be cautious.
That said…
The demons' regeneration was on another level.
Hikari's Gōka Mekkyaku could kill a typical Jōnin, yet Susamaru still wasn't fully dead. Her presence was faint, like a candle in the wind, but it flickered, trying to reignite.
Her vitality was almost on par with Edo Tensei.
Compared to the regeneration Hikari gained from her Dragon Ball wish… hard to say. She wasn't about to test her own limits by burning herself to ash—there'd be no one to complain to if she actually died.
"Interesting."
"With this kind of regeneration, she'd make a decent test subject for 'Yasogami'…"
As the flames died out, after a minute or two, the charred figure twitched slightly.
Then, fresh flesh began to grow, slowly reforming her humanoid shape…
"Young lady, please use a Nichirin Blade to finish her now, or she'll recover soon!" Tamayo shouted urgently.
Tanjiro instinctively moved to charge forward but was stopped by Hikari's raised hand. "Hold on, wait a bit."
"?"
Though confused by Hikari's intentions, Tanjiro obeyed, halting and holding back Nezuko, who was itching to finish the job.
Tamayo and Yushiro, though anxious, weren't fighters. Awed by Hikari's earlier display of power, they could only hold back and watch from afar.
After a full ten-plus minutes, Susamaru's form had recovered about halfway, roughly resembling her original appearance, though she'd shrunk noticeably, looking like a ten-year-old child.
By now, her regeneration had visibly slowed.
"Is this the limit for an average demon?"
"Probably needs to eat humans to replenish energy and keep recovering?"
Hikari figured she wouldn't learn much more from her. In a flash, she appeared before Susamaru and lightly pressed a pre-formed seal onto her: "Jigyō Jubaku no In!"
Black runes snaked across the charred figure, binding her tightly.
With her strength nearly depleted from regenerating, she couldn't even struggle.
Then, Hikari pulled out a scroll. Her fingers danced, chakra-formed runes glowing at her fingertips, spreading outward: "Gogyō Fūin!"
These two sealing techniques were ones she'd recently learned from Namikaze Minato. She wasn't fully proficient yet, but against the half-dead Susamaru, they were more than enough. The combo smoothly sucked the demon into the scroll.
As the runes on the scroll flickered, the demon's presence vanished completely, leaving only a faint trace in the air, carried away by the cool night breeze.
Hikari tucked away the scroll and stood up slowly.
"First one down."
**(End of Chapter)**