The Connected Bonds: Daybreak and First Light

This is the fifty-fifth episode of the anime and the eleventh and final installment of its third season. Muichiro hurls Tanjiro the ancient blade sharpened by Haganezuka, and Tanjiro at last cuts Hantengu's neck. The severed head belongs to a clone rather than the true body, and the demon lunges at nearby swordsmiths to recover. As Tanjiro readies a decisive blow, dawn breaks and exposes Nezuko to sunlight, forcing an impossible choice between killing the demon and saving his sister.

Tanjiro chases the fleeing Hantengu, channeling Thunder Breathing's leg focus to close the gap, and combines his Hinokami Kagura with that technique as Dancing Flash to behead the giant clone, Urami. He then discovers the kanji for resentment on its tongue, realizing the real demon lives on. Nezuko kicks him away and signals him to finish the fight, sacrificing herself to sunlight. Tanjiro triangulates Hantengu inside the giant's heart, slices the body apart, and beheads the demon, whose memories of his human crimes flash by before the sun reduces him to ash.

Believing Nezuko lost, Tanjiro grieves, only to find her standing unharmed in the light, having conquered the sun. Mitsuri's foe fades as Zohakuten dies with the main body. Muzan Kibutsuji, reviewing Hantengu's memories, rejoices that after a thousand years a sunlight-immune demon exists, declaring he no longer needs the Blue Spider Lily. His past as a sickly Heian man cured by an experimental medicine is recounted. Tamayo writes to Tanjiro about Nezuko's blood, and the grateful villagers send Tanjiro off with confetti and thanks.

The episode adapts chapters 125 through 127 and is partly named after chapter 126. It runs an extended length of roughly fifty minutes. The anime expands Muzan's backstory into his own spoken recollections, adds the closing village farewell scenes absent from the manga, and reorders Tamayo's letter. The song Kamado Nezuko no Uta by Go Shiina featuring Nami Nakagawa serves as the insert track.