Chapter 8. Selection exams

In the afternoon,

On a mountain peak, was a youth with black hair reaching his shoulders.

Currently,he was standing infront of a perfectly cut boulder.

"Ah,now that I've cut the boulder in half,master will let me participate in the selection exams!

I can't wait to slay some demons!!" Harada thought excitedly.

As he was thinking that,he heard his master,Urokodaki-san's voice.

The red tengu mask was hiding his much surprised expression.

"Hm I see that you have completed the task that I gave you,in only three months at that,good,good,very good"

"Now let me tell you the reason why I told you to cut this boulder"

"Wasn't this because you wanted me to improve on what you taught me?" I asked.

"That's only one of the reasons" He said.

"When I was a demon slayer,I captured a demon,now that demon is trapped in the demon slayer selection grounds"

"The thing is that,now that demon bears a grudge against me,and kills all lf my students during the exam,never letting one become a demon slayer.

The worst thing is that it's sense of smell is terrifying,it can tell who my student is just from the smell.

I didn't want you brothers to die at the hands of that demon,thus I gave you these boulders to cut,which should be near impossible for someone who just learned water breathing"

This truth made me stupified,I didn't know what I should say,thus I kept quite.In reality,I was thinking "How can my memory be so bad!Arrgh!"

Seing that I wasn't going to say anything,Urokodaki-san took his leave.

"While seeming at first like a stern, grouchy old man (and he definitely is when it comes to teaching), this hides an extremely compassionate personality. Though he pushes his students hard, he also cares for them deeply, viewing them as akin to family"

Harada finally had this realization.

It turns out that Tanjro still hadn't cut his boulder.

I didn't help him nor did I disturb him.

"In the canon,he was helped by the ghosts of Urokodaki san's two dead diciples,and there's three month's time before the selection exams,and it will be better if I don't intervene" thought Harada

After three months....

Tanjiro had finally cut his boulder yesterday

As for my training,

It didn't end the day I cut the boulder,instead,my traning got even harsher,my fexilbility and capacity of my lungs increasing by day.

Today we will set out for our way to the demon slayer selection exams.To Fujikasane Mountain.

The Final Selection is an entrance exam for individuals who seek to become a Demon Slayer of the Demon slayer corps The exam takes place on Fujikasane Mountain, where Wisteria flowers bloom every season from the mountain's foot to its slope.

The area around the mountaintop does not have any Wisteria flowers and is infested with Demons which were caught alive and placed on the mountain by existing Demon Slayers. Since Wisteria is poisonous to Demons, the Demons remain trapped on the mountain top and cannot leave.

The exam requires the examinee to survive seven nights on the mountaintop, without any outside aid. Candidates who successfully survive the seven nights are then permitted to become official members of the Demon Slayer Corps.

At the end of the exam, they get to choose their own ore for their Nichirin Blade,best weapons for killing demons and, additionally, receive their own uniform and a talking black crow which will give them missions.

We arrived at the Fujikasane mountain,

"We will go seperate ways,ok?" I said to Tanjiro.

"okay,Ni-san" Said Tanjiro calmly.

We saw tens of would-be demon slayers here.

But I knew one thing and that was "most of these will die" I knew it but I didn't feel anything, "what did their deaths have to do with me?"

We were given two fox masks by master.

I really liked these fox masks.

We were walking here and there,seeing the beautiful wisteria flowers.

Then suddenly there came two girls.

They had the same expressions.

Smiling.

They looked like dolls.

They started explaining the rules to us.

And then our Examination started.

We enter the forest.

There was no none,but my mid was compeletly calm.

I couls sense demons near me, I could also see their openings, in their defences,the opening threads.

I swing my sword with the highest amount of momentum I could muster.

Some demons try to pounce at me,some try to flee,but...

"I won't let any of you escape!" I shouted in my mind while keeping an indifferent expression.

I cut a demon's neck,but I didn't stop just yet,I use that momentum to cut the nearest demon in two halfs.

I jumped forward with all my might,then swinged my sword to get momentum,then kill.

That night,everytime I swinged my sword,I killed a demon.

There were dead demons everywhere,and I was killing any one of them who came in my way.

It felt great to move with such momentum,such power,such force.

It felt great to move my body in every direction as quickly as I could.

It felt great when my blade cut a demon's neck,the feeling soothed my soul to the very core.

Any demon who came across me was cut in two halfs.

Any demon who tried to obstruct me,their heads were pierced by my blade.

Any demons who tried to attack me from behind didn't even get to know when they were cut.

I was wearing black cloths when I came here but the blood of demons colored my clothes red.

I killed,killed and killed,but I didn't get tired at all.

I didn't encounter any demon slayer trainees,maybe they were fighting elsewhere or just didn't want to come near me or the demons around me.

Currently,100 meters away,there was a grotesque looking demon,staring at Harada's direction.

"What kind of human is that!,He is that water Hashira's student yet I don't think I should go anywhere around him".

It was clearly the hand demon.

The Hand Demon is a monstrously large, veiny, hulking monster with olive green skin, blood red fingernails, and beady yellow eyes with cross-hatch shaped pupils. He used to have a very normal demonic appearance, with regular hair and clothes, but after he started eating multiple humans, he started growing in size. He grew multiple arms and his mouth became huge, with jagged teeth. He grew so many arms that not only was he forced to stop wearing his clothes, using his arms instead to cover himself, he also stopped using his legs, walking on a sort of hand stand.

He bore a great hatred for Sakanoji Urokodaki, cursing him for defeating and trapping him in the wisteria-riddled Fujikasaneyama, and vowing to kill all of his apprentices.

"hehehe there another one here,I'll kill him,but first" saying that,the hand demon looked to his right.There was a boy standing next to him with a blade in his hand,yet currently,that boy's hands were trembling.

*Bam*

The hand demon squished the boy.

The Hand Demon was ruthless in his treatment of humans, immediately killing them and even attacking the ones who fled.How could he let someone who acted brave infront of him live.

The world is cruel,being brave and stupid were two completly different things.

Then he saw a youth that smelled exactly like that water hashira's diciples.

He also had a fox mask.

The hand demon went there,catching and killing demonslayer trainees on his way to the boy.

That boy was Tanjiro.

Tanjiro smelled a strong stench of a demon,these past two years,his sense of smell had reached a terrifying level.

He could use his sense of smell to tell how many,and where the demons were.

He saw a demon with countless arms.

The demon was coming to attack him.

It extended one of his arms and attacked Tanjiro.

Tanjiro dodged the attack,and kept dodgeing.

The hand demon kept trying to infuriate Tanjiro.

The Hand Demon claimed to have eaten fifty kids. He then notes that Tanjiro was the fourteenth apprentice of Sakonji's he had encountered, having killed and eaten all the others. He describes the two that stood out in his memory the most, a boy with pink hair and a scar on his mouth, and a girl with flower patterend clothing and quick light movements.

This enrages Tanjiro, who charges at him, chopping apart the various limbs the spite-filled creature attacked him with. However, one of the deadly demon's limbs gets through Tanjiro's line of attack, delivering a solid punch that knocks the enraged youth unconscious. The Hand Demon stretches several of its limbs out towards him, only for them to be dodged at the last second. Getting these appendages severed as well, the crafty Demon attempts to catch his foe off-guard with a surprise attack from beneath the ground. This is also dodged, but the undeterred mutant extends a massive limb towards the falling youth, which is countered with a solid headbutt. Noting that he doesn't have any more hands to utilize, the desperate Demon decides to solidify the defenses around his neck.

But this was all in vain as Tanjiro used Water breadthing -Second form,horizontal version.

Cutting off the demon's neck.

The Demon panics over his rapidly approaching death. Assuming that Tanjiro would look at him with disdain as he died, he is instead shocked to see the youth's eyes filled with sorrow. The Demon extends an arm out to his opponent, who respectfully clutches it, praying that he would never again turn into a Demon when he reincarnated.

When he was human, he had a habit of asking his older brother to hold his hand, a trait which made his sibling label him a scaredy-cat.In his final moments, the Hand Demon extended a hand to Tanjiro for him to hold, shedding tears of gratitude when his request was granted

"May you have a better life next time" Tanjiro said in a voice filled with gentleness and a but of sorrow.

To be continued...