//------------------------------//
// Final Battle: The Grand Finale 
// Story: Demon Slayer: The Strange Demon 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
//------------------------------//

Pinkamena said nothing as she waited for Muzan to step out of the area she had sent him into, where it didn't take the Demon King long to emerge from the wrecked area of the dimensional fortress, looking the same as before, though she knew that it would take some time before her foe could be brought down.

"I can tell that you have gotten stronger, and even more persistent than before... such a thing bores me." Muzan said, as if he felt no desire to fight, rather he likely thought that, as the progenitor of the Demon race, such a thing was beneath him or something, truthfully Pinkamena had no idea what he was thinking right now, "You, and all of the Slayers, sicken me from the bottom of my heart... all you can think of when you open your mouths is revenge, be it avenging your parents, siblings, or loved ones. Honestly, the Humans should be thankful they survived and just move on with their lives... think about it this way, being killed by me is like being killed by a calamity. You can't get revenge on, say, rains, winds, volcano eruptions, and the like, no matter how many lives they take... your companions should have just accepted that they were lucky to survive and moved on with their lives, but I know why they won't do that: they're deviants, and I am tired of dealing with them... I am the only one who really wants to end this."

It was easy to tell that his words were annoying everyone else that was observing them, as Tanjiro and the others arrived at the edge of the area she had found her foe in, but she chuckled a little as she listened to him, as he clearly thought he was a supreme being and no one could challenge him.

"What's so funny?" Muzan inquired, though this was one of the rare times that someone dared to laugh at something he had said, where his desire to crush her into the ground grew more as the seconds ticked by, especially since he had a feeling that if she fell it would cripple the moral of the other Slayers.

"If you're a calamity, then I'm far worse." Pinkamena replied, where she tapped into her power for a moment and called forth a piece of Akaza, a fragment of Doma, and a chunk of Kokushibo, allowing her to chomp down on all three of them in rapid succession, causing Muzan to raise his eyebrow for a moment as her tails shuddered and three move grew in, giving her a total of nine, before reality itself seemed to shake a little, "Allow me to demonstrate."

Muzan and the others barely had time to react as Obanai and Mitsuri were dropped into the area that the Slayers were in, before Pinkamena moved her hands as if she was yanking something back and pulled Nakime from where she had been resting, as she appeared nearby, allowing her to rapidly slash her to bits before turning towards Muzan. For a moment he had to wonder if she was insane or something, even though the pieces of the Demon in question disappeared in seconds, unlike what happened when a member of his kind died, though he also found that the dimensional fortress didn't shake at all, in fact it was too still for it's creator being dead. Pinkamena grinned for a moment as she focused her mind, which sent a wave of crimson energy out and allowed everyone to see her symbol, the marking of Chaos World, appear on the walls around them, before they simply melted away and she had them appear in her World. Thanks to devouring the rest of the Upper Moons her power was far greater than before, where she was able to integrate Nakime's power into her own in a matter of seconds, so now the dimensional fortress was part of her World, dragging everyone into her domain, but that was only the start of things.

She shifted her stance and another chaos marking appeared around where she was standing, causing Muzan to stand still as Pinkamena enforced her will on the rest of her domain, forcing mountain ranges to form, forests to appear in seconds, made the ground split in places to add rivers, and even added a place for Tanjiro and the others to stand on while she and Muzan fought each other, and once she was done her power died down.

"Reality responds to my command... what can you do, Mr. Calamity?" Pinkamena inquired, because this show of power, a scene that took plan over ten to fifteen seconds, was enough to convince everyone in the Slayer Corps to understand that she wasn't to be underestimated, in fact they knew facing her might very well be suicide, and she was taunting Muzan, as it would blind him to what was going on.

Sure enough Muzan, now annoyed by her actions, raised his hands and transformed them into long whips, which had all sorts spikes and blades along their edges, that he swung in her direction, allowing Pinkamena to see that he was able to hack and slash through all of the trees that were around him like they were made of paper. She was fine with that, since her power allowed her to restore the area in no time, as she rushed forward and swung her arms as well, where Muzan found that she had drawn her blades and was dancing around, swinging at his attacks and parrying them with ease, just annoying him further. One thing he did find, however, was that when she cut through part of the whip, and severed a tiny fragment of his body off, it was removed from reality and disappeared instantly, why he had no idea, but decided that he didn't care all that much as he continued his onslaught. Another fact was that, despite her remarks that she could control reality, Pinkamena couldn't call forth the sun to burn them both to dust, especially since it was still night out, so while she might have taken away Nakime's power it meant nothing in the end, as the ball was still in his court.

Such a thing would have amused him in the past, though he had lost all of his kind in this attack and he was left with two renegades, this fool and Nezuko, but right now he was annoyed beyond belief, because of the fact that this Slayer seemed to think that she was better than him, even if she happened to be a Demon as well.

"Your 'reality' matters little to me, as everything will collapse under my power," Muzan remarked, something that caused Pinkamena to pause for a moment as his whips stopped as well, showing everyone that he believed himself to be the far more superior being of the two, "I'm not sure when I sired you, but tonight you will meet your end, just like the rest of the Slayers that were brought to my Infinity Castle."

"Wait, do you seriously not recognize me? Well then, allow me to reveal myself." Pinkamena said, where she sheathed her blades for a moment and raised her left hand to her face, calling upon her power as everyone watched her, observing as her Kitsune Form was sealed inside the mask, which she pulled off to show Muzan her true form once she was sure the process was finished, "There. Remember me now?"

Muzan's eyes widened as he finally realized who Pinkamena was, she was the fallen person who he found over two years ago, who he thought had died after taking in his blood to mend her wounds and had been burned away by the sun, but, in that moment, he realized something else, either her power allowed her to walk in the sun or she had gained Nezuko's sun immunity in no time.

"That's right, I'm the one you tried to save and left once I didn't immediately transform into a Demon, but I did turn and unlocked the power to walk under the sun's beautiful light." Pinkamena continued, where she was pleased to find that her foe did remember her, something that annoyed him further when he realized that the figure he had been waiting for had been missed by his own annoyance over her not transforming instantly, before she returned her mask to her face and let her body shift back into her Kitsune Form, "Nezuko wasn't the first Demon to unlock the power to walk in the sunlight, rather that honor belongs to me, which I kept as a secret until I was ready for this day, because I knew that if you found out about me before this point you'd come while I was weak... now, however, I have the power to stand up and face your might."

In that moment, as Muzan growled, Pinkamena smiled for a second as his back tore open and bladed whips erupted out of his body, showing her that his body was just packed full of weapons that were designed to kill everyone that dared to challenge him. By her count there were ten new whips, giving him twelve tools to cut up the surrounding area and kill whoever got in the way of their fight, to which she made sure Tanjiro and the others were up in their safe section, though she didn't wait for a response as she drew her blades and rushed forward. A moment later the Slayers watched as the entire forest area that they were current observing started being carved up as Muzan unleashed his power on the area, tracking down his foe to the best of his ability, all while finding that their champion was dancing like she was a goddess or something, as her movements were far too refined. Tanjiro recognized them from two places, the first being the Zeroshiki battle doll he and Muichiro had used for training, to boost and refine their own abilities, while discovering that the second was several of his inherited memories from the time that Yoriichi was alive.

As they watched the fight, however, Tanjiro finally realized that Pinkamena had been studying his inherited memories, to learn Sun Breathing from the one who used it and match her fighting style to Yoriichi's own, and such a thing messed with Muzan more than he realized, as he likely thought his foe was back from the dead.

Pinkamena confirmed something as she clashed with Muzan, who was getting annoyed that he couldn't hit her, and that was the fact that his regeneration was off the charts, as anything aimed at his neck, at this power, healed instantly, while any wounds dealt to any of his ten whips was slower to heal. That was due to the fact that she usually took the head of his weapon clean off, allowing it to be transported to a section of her Storehouse that she had prepared for the Demon King, forcing a slower regeneration upon the section she cut into, which just annoyed Muzan. She was trying to annoy him, to make him lose focus on what was going on around them and open himself up to attacks he wouldn't see coming, though at the same time there was another way for her to annoy him, fight without her weapons. One nice thing about being a Demon was that her body was tougher than a normal Human's body, and with the blood of the Upper Moons being added to her body, combined with her own innate powers, her body was now far tougher than a Nichirin Blade, in fact she was sure that next to nothing could cut her, in terms of mortal weaponry.

Such a thing meant that she could lash out with her fists and legs, parrying, blocking, and overcoming Muzan's attacks as her sharpened claws slashed through his limbs with ease, though if she wanted to her blades could dance without her needing to hold them, something she did just to annoy Muzan even more. Pinkamena also continued with the melee for a time, allowing everyone to see that her foe was desperately trying to take her down while she was just dancing, or at least that was how some of the Slayers were classifying her elegant movements. The reality of the situation was that she had a move she wanted to test out, a melee attack that utilized her true power, now fully unlocked thanks to the Upper Moons, and could only be used in her inner world, making it just like the Lunar Fang, hence why she made sure Muzan couldn't see her right hand. She suspected that this wouldn't do a lot of damage to her foe, since it wasn't a Sun Breathing Form, but she wanted to try it anyway, just to see how effective it really is with her own eyes, and when the opening in Muzan's defenses opened she took it immediately, flashing through his whips as she swung her right fist, which had a sphere of energy around it, right into his chest.

In the following moment everyone watched as the ground around her buckled, as if an earthquake was happened before their very eyes, cracking the very mountains and breaking the region in half, like it was made of something soft, though as everything settled down Pinkamena grinned as Muzan coughed up some blood, where she kicked him across the gap and resumed the fight with her fists.

"You're keeping up with me... either Chaos World allows you to cheat to match your foe's power, or you have a mark like Kokushibo had." Muzan commented, showing her that he was still thinking about what was going on and had several new ideas on what might be happening right now, though he frowned for a moment as she fought off his whips like they were nothing, which was just annoying to see, all while he wiped his mouth and refused to acknowledge what happened just a few seconds ago, "You remind me of that monster... it makes me sick."

"If this makes you sick, than you'll really hate this." Pinkamena remarked, finding it humorous that Muzan didn't know of her other Breathing Style, to which she called her blades to her, sheathed her own blade, and then shifted her stance as she released two burning horizontal slashes that slashed through Muzan's attacks like nothing, "Sun Breathing, Third Form: Raging Sun."

"You... know his cursed Breathing Arts." Muzan said, though his hatred for Pinkamena rose to new heights with this new and terrible discovery, as he had been convinced that Yoriichi was the only one with Sun Breathing, in fact Tanjiro's was so different he couldn't call it Sun Breathing at all, but her movements and attacks matched Yoriichi's perfectly, and, unless his eyes were deceiving him, she had his blade in her hand.

"If it helps, just think of me as 'Yoriichi Reborn', as much as that freaks you out." Pinkamena replied, though as she shifted her stance for a moment, replicating the legendary Slayer, she tapped into the Transparent World and found out why her foe was so hard to kill, he had seven hearts and five brains scattered throughout his body, which seemed to move every now and then.

Muzan, in response to that, resumed his onslaught as he tried to take her down, where Pinkamena found that he had a new plan to make such a thing happen, he was trying to pull her in with the sheer rotating force of his whips, to knock her off her balance so he could cut her up and kill her. It was amusing to watch him do this, evolve to take down his foe, but it meant nothing as she danced along with his attacks and removed a good portion of his right arm, though as it vanished he regenerated it in no time and attacked as if it hadn't been taken away from him. A moment later she discovered the true source of his ability to pull her in, some of the mouths on his arms had the power to create small gusts, which amused her to no end as her power forced them to detonate earlier than he intended, even though they tore craters into the ground as that happened. Her sword strikes were clear and smooth, with the precision of Yoriichi, cutting through Muzan's arms while he tried to do something, anything, to take her down and end this fight, and any part of him that was severed quickly vanished as they fought, even though she was patiently waiting for something to happen before really going all out on the Demon King.

Of course she also discovered that Muzan really didn't like the coloration of Yoriichi's blade, the crimson color had much more of an affect than an ordinary colored blade, and her blade followed suit as she slashed at her foe, cutting into his instant regeneration more than before, which annoyed him even more, before he started to notice something, his strong movements were slowing down.

Pinkamena, of course, knew what was going on, as this was part of Tamayo's plan in case her power wasn't enough to take down their foe, she purposely created a poison with multiple effects and the first was the cover, turning a Demon into a Human, but there were more after that. The second one was that, once Muzan's body started to decompose the poison, it would flow throughout his body and force his body to age fifty years per minute, and while the Slayers had been fighting his Demons for a long time it had been roughly five hours since Kagaya was slain. Muzan himself likely decomposed most of the poison three hours ago, meaning his body had aged by nine thousand years and his power had been chipped away to stave off the aging drug, and he should have known this sooner since his hair had started black and now it was white, a sign of old aging apparently. There was, however, a problem with what they were doing, as Tamayo knew that it might age Muzan's blood like wine, given that Pinkamena took in the blood and flesh of her defeated foes, so there was a chance this might increase the potency of his blood and make her even more overpowered than before.

As her foe realized that fact, something that annoyed him to no end as he cut up the surrounding area, Pinkamena let a smile grace her face as she slashed at the attacks and danced around the area they were fighting in, though the far more interesting aspect about this was that she was now able to predict his movements. Muzan was getting slower and slower as time went by, making his attacks easier to predict, and while he was unable to hit her in the first place, due to her skills in combat, this just meant he lost the ability to actually hit her, which just annoyed him. That was the reason she had done so much to annoy the Demon King, to make sure he didn't notice the aging drug that was coursing through his veins and weakening his body to the point that it was far slower now, as it was constantly eating at his stamina. Even if he was able to decompose the poison, and stop the aging process from claiming him, his body would be forever altered, but she was going to kill him, she was just waiting to see what else Tamayo's poison could do before she ended the fight.

This also came with an unexpected side effect, old scars appeared all over Muzan's body and caused his eyes to widen, as he was now no longer able to hide them from anyone, though in that moment Pinkamena realized what she was seeing, it was the positions of his cores. To many it would look like Yoriichi was guiding the tide of this battle, given that these were the wounds he inflicted on Muzan, wounds that were constantly being burned and couldn't heal, but with her power, her two Breathing Styles, and the Transparent World she knew that this would end in her victory. Muzan likely assumed that she and Yoriichi were the real monsters of this story, given their skills and abilities, and she sort of agreed about herself, but, in the end, she didn't mind her foe thinking of her in that manner, rather she focused on the fight and continued to waste his time as she waited for Tamayo's poison to work it's magic. As she considered that, however, Muzan raised his left arm and it started to expand, like he was going to detonate himself, causing her to realize that he was going to use his escape method, just like he used against Yoriichi, but, in the end, it failed and surprised her foe, where Pinkamena knew that the third drug was now taking effect, a drug to prevent his splitting ability.

As he vomited blood, however, she knew that the fourth and final drug, one designed to destroy Muzan's cells when they were at their weakest, was starting to effect him as well, all to cripple him and open the way for someone to end him, to which she landed nearby and sheathed her blades, while her foe started to huff, showing that he was reaching his limit for the first time.

"As grand as our fight was, I think its about time we ended this." Pinkamena commented, where Muzan's eyes widened for a moment as he recognized the stance she had taken, it was the same one that Yoriichi had used before giving him these scars, and her hand rested near Yoriichi's blade, "Originally I had planned on using my Chaos Breathing against you, but it just seems like overkill to be honest... so I will send you to your doom with the beauty of Sun Breathing's Thirteenth Form."

"Thirteenth... Form? Sun Breathing only has twelve Forms!" Muzan replied, as he knew what he had seen when he faced Yoriichi, a battle he wished he could have avoided given the sheer power that the figure possessed, because he had seen twelve sword strikes that brought his flesh to this point.

Pinkamena drew a breath before attacking, unleashing the shimmering flames of Sun Breathing as she linked the twelve Forms of Yoriichi's style together in perfect harmony, attacks that hacked and slashed through Muzan's body before the Demon King had a chance to understand what was going on, and when she landed behind him all she did was shake off the blood on the blade before sheathing it, reducing Muzan to a pile of parts.

"Sun Breathing, Thirteenth Form: Dance of the Fire God." Pinkamena said, as she knew that the Thirteenth Form was the only unnamed Form in the set, though she had named it in honor of Tanjiro's family custom, the dance they performed at the start of the year, which was oddly fitting since they had created the dance to keep Yoriichi's techniques alive, before she focused on what she had just done, "Begone from this world, Muzan."

For a few moments nothing happened, his body didn't put itself back together and no piece pulled itself out to make him a new body, because Pinkamena had done the impossible, she had slain Muzan without needing the power of the sun, due to the fact that she could use Yoriichi's techniques. The Demon King was dead, his kind was finished, and right now only two Demons existed, Yushiro and herself, as Tamayo had given Nezuko the elixir to make her Human before the battle had started, something she was sure had worked out quite well. As she started to move the parts of her foe to his portion of the Storehouse she also held a hand out and gathered his potent blood in a sphere above her fingers, finding that her thoughts were true, Muzan was dead, where she could hear the observers cheering for their success. They had worked hard to make this reality come true, many of them sacrificing everything to ensure that Muzan and his Kizuki fell, to rid the world of evil Demons, and as she glanced up at where everyone was standing she smiled as she found Tamayo's Echo with the others, overjoyed that Muzan was dead at long last.

As they started to celebrate, however, Pinkamena claimed her reward for all her hard work, condensing the blood sphere into a marble that she proceeded to swallow without delay, something that caused a pillar of crimson energy to envelope her as it surged into the sky, all while she found herself in an empty space with Muzan staring at her.

"As much as it pains me to admit it, Kagaya was right... feelings are eternal." Muzan remarked, sounding like he hated the fact that he had to say such a thing, though all Pinkamena did was stare at the Echo that was in front of her, simply out of sheer curiosity, before he raised his right hand for a moment, "That is why, Pinkamena, I will pump my power and blood into your unique body, making you the carrier for my emotions and desires... with all of your powers, and the cursed arts of that man, you will become the strongest ruler of Demons, the Queen of Demons. I know now that nothing can kill you, a feat I tried, in vain, to complete, so you can carry on my work and bring about the complete destruction of the Demon Slayer Corps..."

"Yeah, I'm not interested in killing my friends and comrades," Pinkamena replied, interrupting Muzan before he could even finish whatever he was trying to say, as he wanted her to continue with his position and slaughter everyone around her, a fact that she wasn't too happy with once he told her what he wanted, though in that moment iron chains erupted from the floor and started to wrap around Muzan, "but I will take your blood and push my power to new incredible heights... as for you, however, your soul will be dragged down into the depths of Hell, where you belong, while this Echo of you, which was made by taking in your blood and flesh, will be locked away in the deepest reaches of the Demon Mansion, never to see the light of day. Goodbye, Muzan."

As Muzan cried out, for her to inherit his feelings or something like that, the chains wrapped around him and dragged his Echo into the ground without delay, though once he was gone Pinkamena focused on her new power, dismissing the pillar of energy that had appeared around her before glancing at the others.

"Its time to celebrate! Muzan is dead!" Pinkamena stated, where she found that the cheering resumed without delay, as all of her friends were happy with what had happened, though she also made sure to bring them back into the real world, all while ensuring that Yushiro was safe from the sun.

She smiled as she watched her friends and comrades for a moment, as they deserved some rest before they celebrated the end of the long fight that they had been fighting, but she knew it was going to be a glorious affair, and she was eager to see what the future held for them.