Believe in Yourself

Injured and pressed by Kyogai's relentless slashes, Tanjiro searches for a strategy. A memory surfaces of the demon being mocked for his poor handwriting and told to give up, an insult that drove him to cut the man apart while hiding his nature. Reliving this, Kyogai grows furious and quickens his tempo until the slashes come five at a time.

When the spinning room scatters Kyogai's pages across the floor, Tanjiro carefully avoids stepping on them, startling the demon. Realizing that short breaths let him gather strength without harming himself, he reads the mold-like scent that precedes each strike, closes in with the Ninth Form of Water Breathing, finds the opening thread, and tells Kyogai his Blood Demon Art is remarkable just before beheading him.

Breathing too hard, Tanjiro injures himself further but pushes on, reminding himself that as the eldest son he must endure. As Kyogai's head disintegrates, it asks whether he truly admired its art, and Tanjiro affirms that he did, while adding that killing humans cannot be forgiven. He then draws blood from the body with Yushiro's tool and entrusts it to a talisman-bearing cat for Tamayo.

The demon crumbles to ash, comforted that someone valued both his writing and his drumming. Tanjiro rejoins Teruko and Kiyoshi, leading them out of the house, but at the entrance he smells blood and rushes out to find Shoichi weeping as the masked slayer beats a wounded Zenitsu crouched over Nezuko's box.

The chapter completes Tanjiro's first victory over a former member of the Twelve Kizuki and marks the first time he gathers demon blood for Tamayo's effort to cure demons.

It also gives Kyogai a sympathetic end, with Tanjiro acknowledging the demon's pride in his neglected art, and it sets up the confrontation with Inosuke, who is introduced attacking Zenitsu while guarding Tanjiro's still-boxed sister.