Amare Flos (Demon Slayer)

Chapter 45: Shock

In some senses, Demon Slayers and Muzan's demons weren't so different. They shared a common hunger for strength, to be powerful and to be able to walk the path they want to. Just as the Demon Slayer Corps had Hashira, demons had Upper Moons, uncontested in strength and the most fearsome of all. Upper Moons were the 'Hashira' of demons, and the Hashira were the 'Upper Moons' of humans. Just as those two groups co-existed and bore similarities, the same could be said for the middle ranks of the Corps and Lower Moons. Respectable in strength but there was constant death and replacement, Lower Moons were not steady in their hold of the title, the average length a demon would hold the title of Lower Moon was three to four months. A Lower Moon would often lose their title in two common ways, either the Lower Moons would be killed by Demon Slayers or they would be challenged for their title and lose.

During the past year, the Lower Moons had shifted, changed and been replaced as usual, however, there was one demon that remained untouched. Lower Moon One, Ali.

Ever since Enmu's defeat, Ali had been promoted to Lower Moon One, and with the new change came a flood of challenges for the positions. Many demons, brazenly arrogant, challenged Ali whenever they had a chance.

This was due to the fact that Ali was severely underestimated by a lot of the demons, demons often thought he was only a Lower Moon due to his close association with Akaza. In total, Ali faced 55 challenges to his title, many of them being regular demons, the strongest opponent Ali had faced was Lower Moon Two.

Regardless of the demon, Ali had no issue in humbling every single one of them.

The fights would mostly follow a pattern that Ali soon grew bored of, the challenger would come in and ruthlessly insult Ali while they were intoxicated with arrogance. They would challenge Ali, and immediately start their charge towards Ali, unleashing their most powerful attacks. Depending on the day and his mood, Ali either evaded all the attacks completely or simply took them without budging a single inch as a sign of disrespect to the challenger. After that, Ali would throw his first punch.

Once the demon took the first hit from Ali, suddenly, the universe would become apparent and clear to them. They would have an epiphany. They would realise.

They didn't stand a chance.

From then the fight would be extremely one-sided, Ali would throw the challenger around like a ragdoll, and once he felt that he had enough fun, he would absorb the demon. Due to the repetitive practice of absorbing, he had become much more efficient at it. Now he was able to absorb an entire demon's body without leaving behind a ghastly grey corpse. Instead, the demon just turned into dust as Ali absorbed them.

The challenges soon grew less and less in number as word spread of how Ali was defeating challengers with little effort, even when Lower Moon Two challenged Ali, Ali made light work of it.

It was clear that there was a large gap between Ali and the rest of the demons below him. Even if Ali was growing stronger by the day, his mentor Akaza endlessly encouraged Ali to go further, he believed that Ali was Upper Moon material.

"You have to fight Upper Six!" Akaza spoke to Ali as they sparred, Akaza's foot hit Ali's chest with immense force and Ali went flying backwards. To this day, Ali hadn't got a hit on Akaza when they were sparring. Not that it was anything like sparring, Akaza treated Ali like a punching bag.

"I'm good, I'd rather not do all those missions Lord Muzan sets" Ali burst out with laughter as Akaza grew more frustrated. Akaza launched forward and slammed his knee into Ali's nose, Ali groaned in pain as blood flowed out of his broken nose.

"You're wasting your potential staying at Lower Moon One," Akaza sighed as he stepped back, he looked at Ali and took a deep breath.

"Being the strongest weakling means nothing," Akaza sighed as he held out his hand for Ali. Ali brushed at his fully healed nose and smiled as Akaza pulled him up.