| 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘈𝘣𝘺𝘴𝘴 | t. kamado

Chapter 1

- Reader's P.O.V -

As soon as the sun started to rise I set off. With one last wave at my family, I passed through the gates in front of my house. It was quite a long journey, about a days worth of walking. I suppose I'd have to get used to it though, if I pass the final selection I'll have to walk everywhere on my missions.

My family told me all about final selection, at least how they saw it. I feel like they were undermining it. I think it's going to be a lot harder than what they say. But what can I expect, of course demon slayers are going to say final selection is easy. What's after it is the hard part. I made sure to double check my belongings before I left. I wouldn't want to starve during the selection, meals should be the least of my worries.

The path to get to Fujikasane Mountain was relatively straight. I'm sure I'd get there on time. Until then, I'll just enjoy the pretty scenery. I had to pass through a couple of villages, so I took those chances to stop and take a break for a little bit. But in no time I would be on my way.

After many hours, I arrived. I glanced around at all the wisteria flowers. We have a couple wisteria trees around our house, but not this many. Looking past the flowers, other people stood in a small clearing, waiting for the selection to begin. Near the edge of the clearing was a girl with a butterfly hairpin. She had a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. The next person that caught my eye was a boy with a foreign haircut. It was shaved on the sides, leaving a streak of hair in the middle.

I walked near the middle of the clearing and looked at the people beside me. One was a blond boy, he looked scared out of his wits, poor kid. To my left there was a boy with burgundy hair and scarlet eyes. He seemed tense, but aren't we all. The anticipation was eating at me before a set of twins came out. One with black hair and one with white.

"Everyone, we thank you for coming here tonight to the Demon Slayer Corpse Final Selection." The two girls said simultaneously.

"There are demons imprisoned here on Mt. Fujikasane, captured alive by the Demon Slayer swordsmen, and unable to leave." The white haired one spoke first.

"That is because wisteria, which demons hate so much, blooms year-round from the bottom to halfway up the mountain." The black haired one chimed in.

"However, there is no wisteria from this point on. You'll need to survive here for seven days to pass the final selection." The white haired one continued. "And now, be on your way." They both said.

I turned towards the direction they gestured to. It was an archway welcoming us up the mountain. I waited for a good majority of the people to go before me, I didn't want to be first.

I decided to play it save and not go all the way up the mountain. I'm sure the very top is where the most demons reside, probably to stay as far away as possible from the wisteria. It didn't take long for the moon to reach its highest. I wasn't as lucky as I thought, I still encountered a vast amount of demons. Either I wasn't lucky or there's just a crazy amount of demons on the mountain. Either way, they were still low level demons, it wasn't difficult to kill them.

As the moon set and the sun started to rise, I began seeing demons less and less. I didn't think the first night was too difficult, maybe my parents were right. I haven't seen many of the other participants, they probably kept going up the mountain. I decided to go east so I can catch the run rise faster.

-

A couple of days pass by. Surprisingly, final selection wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be, I was probably just overthinking it. The sun should rise in about an hour or two.

As I swerved through the trees I saw someone. A silhouette was propped up against the tree, hunched over and panting heavily. I looked closer and recognized him. It was the burgundy haired boy from earlier.

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Word count: 740