Training - 4

A/N: Well, sorry for not updating for the past few days, but, as many of y'all that read my other novels know, I had to go to a wedding, and due to the fact that I'm the cousin of the groom, I had a fairly important part to do in the wedding, so I didn't have enough time to write chapters with setting up the wedding those days, and my tiredness after the day was over. So, once again, sorry for the inconvenience.

As I was training my body to the fullest, I couldn't help but contemplate certain questions that my mind had raised with itself during the menial exercises.

The first and foremost question that my mind asked itself was about this certain perk that I had received from "Rob", the one where I supposedly inherited the memories of my past life before my life on Earth.

But, as of now, I still couldn't access the memories for some reason.

And, the deeper and deeper that I probed into my complex consciousness, one that was already tangled and twisted due to the merging of Kioshi and my former self, I couldn't help but learn sone thing.

At some point during this whole "merging" process, my personalities had diverged.

Sure, there were some parts that had mixed with each other, like my acceptance of Kioshi's situation with his sister. I would like to think that the "Main" personality accepted this.

Currently, I could feel two personalities in my consciousness, my original one, and Kioshi's.

My original one was clearly the dominant one right now, but I could always feel Kioshi's in the back of my mind, as our personalities had connected at some points.

This raised the question, 'If, instead of merging, the personalities I inherit are kept separate, then does that mean that, in certain situations, I won't have control over my body?'

This thought utterly terrified me.

Coming back to the query about the third set of memories that I was supposedly in possession of right now, with the train of thought from earlier, this could only mean that this personality was hiding somewhere in my subconsciousness, where I had no connection to it.

And, my fear of the unknown was probably my greatest fear, my fear for death long gone after realizing how peaceful it was.

So, right now, I was extremely paranoid, having been taught my whole life to eliminate the unknown, being in this situation was the exact opposite of my very nature.

But, I couldn't do anything about this unknown at the moment, and decided to move onto my second question for myself.

'Why did I leave Yasu?'

As I've kept reiterating over and over again, my main personality had already fused with Kioshi's personality in the aspect of love.

But, when I had met Muzan, I came across a dilemma.

Every fiber and being in Kioshi's personality told me to stay with Yasu.

But, of course, my original mind was far more logical than that.

I actually had to reason with myself, telling Kioshi that it was better to leave Yasu and go with Muzan alone.

I presented 3 arguments in my defense.

First, if I didn't somehow persuade Muzan to leave, then he most likely would have killed both of us and eaten us.

Second, if I had brought Yasu with me, then she would have had to become a demon, and I knew that Kioshi would want to bear this burden himself, being the ever present, self designated, "protector" of the family of two.

The third reason was that, if I was able to complete my tasks, then we would be able to take Yasu with us to the next realm that I would be assigned to, meaning that we would then have a lot, and I mean, a lot, of time to spend with her.

And of course, the fastest path to completing any of the tasks was the one where I had to kill Tanjiro.

So, I made a deal with the Kioshi personality saying that I would pursue this task wholeheartedly, meaning, I would train my butt off to kill Tanjiro as quickly as possible so that we could go to the next world.

And that was what I was doing right now.

'9,998...'

'9,999...'

'10,000...'

Going down once more, I held the last push up for a full 10 minutes before pushing myself back up.

'10,001!'

As I sat there on the ground in a perfect seiza without a drop of sweat on my head, I couldn't help but marvel at my current strength.

"Slap!"

A sudden slap to the back of my head sent it flying towards the floor, but I flexed my core muscles immediately and stopped my head's descent.

Drawing myself back up into a perfect seiza, I broke it and started rubbing the back of my head where the hand had hit.

"You know, you really didn't have to do that..."

"And you didn't have to break the perfect round number just to spite me!"

"What can I say, your reaction is just so fun!"

And no, I wasn't a masochist if that was what all of y'all were thinking.

Turning around whilst still rubbing the back of my head, I looked at Muzan who was looming over me, trying to seem intimidating.

But, not a second later, his fierce expression crumpled and he was left with a disgruntled face.

"Why?" You might ask, well, it really was a simple matter.

Well, not so simple now that I think about it, but simple nonetheless.

You see, for some reason, I had earned myself a special place in Muzan's ice fucking cold heart.

Whether this was due to my unusual precognition abilities, my immensely efficient learning curve, or if it was just because I was basically his "child" after taking so much of his blood, he could never be his emotionless, demon progenitor self around me.

After all, in these past 2 and a half years, I had cemented myself a place in his heart, even going to the point of calling him "Father" some times.

Thinking about this, I couldn't help but reminisce back to the times when he had read me bedtime stories, to when he had tickling battles with me, and even when he and I had taken a bath... cough cough... I mean, a bitch together.

And no, I don't mean it in THAT sense, stop thinking about dirty perverted things all you middle aged men, I'm only 15 years old for god's sake! I was just talking about how we had seduced a woman together, with Muzan being the seducer and I being the wingman, we had actually gotten that woman to offer herself up to us, and at that point, we had just simply started feasting.

Well anyways, now that my strength had reached this point, I knew that it was now time for some meddling on my part.

After all, what had I done these past few years? Well, I had discovered my blood demon art, I had created a completely new breathing technique to use with a Chokuto (A type of Japanese sword), and my body's physical strength had surpassed most, if not all of the lower ranks of the twelve kizuki.

(A/N: I'm assuming two and a half years here as the manga never specified how long it took Tanjiro to reach the setting of the "Final Selection".)

So now, it was time for me to enter the world.

"Are you ready for your initiation? Son?"

"Yeah dad... I've never been more ready for anything in my life!"

Getting up from my seated position, I quickly moved to Muzan's side and held onto his hand with my own tiny hand, grabbing only two of his fingers with the entirety of my own.

The sound of a biwa resonated, and we found ourselves in an infinitely expanding and contracting space with hallways scattered all over, in no particular direction or orientation.

'The Infinity Castle, what an interesting space.'

Although I had seen it in the anime and in the manga, seeing it in real life was a whole 'nother matter.

It was just... indescribable.

Honestly, I was a little bit overwhelmed with the information overload that I was receiving.

So, in order to fight this, I focused the entirety of my attention to my new "Father", Muzan.

I watched as he motioned to who I presumed was Nakime, and she strung the Biwa once again.

With this motion, she called all of the 12 Kizuki into the space around us.

Although the Lower 6 were surprised by the change in their surroundings, the Upper Moons didn't even look fazed.

But, when they all took a look a Muzan, all of them couldn't help but be surprised at the appearance of a little boy who was holding his hand.

Still, none of them dared to look directly at Muzan's eyes, and none of them voiced their questions.

Finally, after a moment of silence, Muzan announced what I had been waiting for all day.

"Lower Moons, prepare to fight, those who lose will be deemed unfit to live."

After another moment of silence that they couldn't bear, Lower 6 spoke up.

"And who will we be fighting?"

He died right after asking that question, as a huge, grotesque, arm-like thing swallowed him up.

"Such arrogance in front of your master, to ask a direct question! Tsk!"

Clicking his tongue, Muzan allowed another second to pass, before introducing me to the Kizuki.

"Everyone, this little one here is Kioshi, and he will be the one fighting the lower ranks for a position."

Everyone, including the Upper Moons, were stunned at this proclamation.

This was not due to the fact that the challenger was just a little kid.

Nor was it due to the fact that Muzan actually let this kid challenge them.

No, it was due to the fact that when Muzan looked at the kid, his eyes changed.

Instead of his usual cold, hard glare, there was a certain degree of warmth in his eyes.

And, at this point, all of them were thinking the same thing.

"T-that kid! To think that he could be so cute as to warm Master's eyes!"

They all looked at him as if he was the cutest baby in the world.

It was at this point that Kioshi decided to make his first attack.

"Hi everyone!" He said, in the cutest voice he could muster, whilst making the cutest expression on his face.

Seeing and hearing this, all the demons present had their hearts stolen, including Muzan.

At this point, the Lower Moons had already lost their battles.

The kid was just too damn cute!