Walking through a dark, demon-infested forest with a fractured rib and a severely nerfed physical vessel is not the ideal way to spend a Friday night.
As I made my way toward the sound of crashing timber, I took inventory of my new body.
Genya Shinazugawa.
That was the name the System had assigned to me.
I was tall for a teenager, lean, and possessed a Mohawk that I was already planning to shave off the second I found a sharp enough knife.
But the biggest problem was the muscle density.
In my old East Blue body, if a tree fell on me, the tree broke.
In this body, if I tripped over a root, I felt a concerning twinge in my ankle.
I was basically made of glass compared to what I was used to.
I pushed through a thick cluster of wisteria bushes and stepped into a wide, devastated clearing.
The first thing I noticed was the smell.
It was a suffocating, metallic stench of old blood and rotting vegetation.
The second thing I noticed was the creature currently trying to flatten a teenager into a pancake.
It was a demon, but calling it that felt like an understatement.
It looked like a morbid modern art project made entirely of moldy play-dough and anger issues.
It was massive, bulbous, and composed of dozens of tangled, thick green arms wrapped around a central, grotesque face.
Darting around the clearing, desperately dodging the massive, sweeping strikes of those green hands, was a kid in a black and green checkered haori.
He was wearing a kitsune mask on the side of his head, gripping a black Nichirin sword, and breathing so hard I could hear his lungs working from thirty yards away.
“Water Breathing!
Second Form: Water Wheel!” The kid leaped into the air, spinning his body in a vertical circle.
A trail of what looked like pure, rushing water followed the arc of his black blade, slicing cleanly through one of the demon’s extended arms.
I paused, leaning against a tree trunk, and raised an eyebrow.
From an outsider’s perspective—specifically, the perspective of a guy who couldn’t use magic breathing—the “water” didn’t actually exist.
It was just a visual manifestation of the swordsman’s intent and pressure.
What I saw was just a kid doing a highly inefficient front-flip and slashing a giant arm.
Too much wasted movement, I critiqued mentally.
He telegraphed the jump.
If the demon had a brain, it would have swatted him out of the air like a fly.
As if on cue, the Hand Demon regenerated its severed arm instantly and lashed out with three more.
“You little fox!” the demon roared, its voice echoing with a sickening, gurgling resonance.
“Another one of Urokodaki’s brats!
I’m going to crush your skull just like I did to the others!” The kid—Tanjiro Kamado, the protagonist of this whole tragic simulation—froze for a fraction of a second, his eyes widening in shock and horror at the demon’s words.
In a real fight, a fraction of a second is an eternity.
A massive, tree-trunk-sized arm slammed into Tanjiro’s side.
He flew across the clearing, crashing violently into a thick oak tree.
He slumped to the ground, his sword slipping from his grasp, gasping for air as the breath was knocked entirely out of his lungs.
“Ahahaha!” The Hand Demon laughed, a dozen arms stretching out to grab him.
“Forty-four!
You’ll be the forty-fourth fox I eat!” I sighed, pushing myself off the tree trunk.
I didn’t care about the lore.
I didn’t care about the history between this overgrown booger and whoever Urokodaki was.
I just knew that if the protagonist died on night one, the System would probably declare the simulation a failure and I would be stuck in that rain-slicked alleyway in the East Blue forever.
I gripped the hilt of my cheap, standard-issue katana.
I couldn’t brute-force this.
I had to use actual, genuine technique.
I exhaled slowly, clearing my mind of the pain in my fractured rib.
I didn’t use a Breathing Style.
I just used physics.
I stepped into the clearing.
I didn’t run; running wasted kinetic energy that I needed for the swing.
I glided.
My footwork was perfectly silent, my center of gravity skimming just inches above the ground.
Just as the Hand Demon’s massive fingers closed in on the dazed Tanjiro, I appeared between them.
I planted my left heel, pivoted my hips, and channeled the rotational torque through my shoulders and down into my wrists.
I didn’t swing at the thickest part of the arm.
I aimed precisely for the joints—the gaps between the dense muscle fibers where the cartilage met the bone.
Ittoryu (Single Sword Style): Flying Dragon Blaze.
Without the sheer muscle mass of my old body, the sword didn’t ignite with air friction.
But it didn’t need to.
The dull steel slid through the joints of three massive demon arms in a single, fluid arc.
The arms detached cleanly, hitting the forest floor with heavy, wet thuds.
The Hand Demon recoiled, shrieking in confusion and pain.
I stood in front of Tanjiro, flicking the demon blood off my blade with a sharp snap of my wrist.
I didn’t look back at him.
“If you’re going to use a spinning attack, don’t jump so high,” I said deadpan, my voice raspy and unfamiliar in this body.
“You lose all your ground leverage.
Next time, pivot on your back foot.” Tanjiro stared up at me, coughing, his burgundy eyes wide with absolute bewilderment.
“Who…
who are you?
Did you use a Breathing Style?
I didn’t smell any elemental shift!” “I don’t do magic,” I grunted.
“I just hit things really accurately.” “Agh!
Another insect!” the Hand Demon bellowed, its multiple red eyes locking onto me.
The severed arms were already bubbling, new flesh rapidly weaving together to form fresh limbs.
“It doesn’t matter!
I’ll eat you both!
I have eaten so many of you useless slayers!” I glanced around the clearing.
Scattered in the dirt, half-buried under fallen leaves and broken branches, were the rusted swords of previous Final Selection participants who hadn’t been as lucky as us.
I walked over to a nearby corpse—or what was left of one—and casually kicked the hilt of a discarded Nichirin sword.
The blade flipped into the air.
I caught it perfectly with my left hand.
The balance was slightly different from the one in my right, but it would have to do.
“Two swords?” Tanjiro wheezed, forcing himself up and grabbing his black blade.
“Are you…
are you dual-wielding?” “Three is my standard,” I replied, falling into a low stance, crossing the two blades in front of me.
“But the management confiscated my property, so I’m improvising.” “Arrogant brat!” the Hand Demon shrieked.
Suddenly, a dozen arms shot out from the creature’s main body, extending like massive, fleshy whips.
They tore through the ground, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and debris, hurtling directly toward us from multiple angles.
“Look out!” Tanjiro yelled, gripping his sword and taking a deep breath, the sound of rushing water filling the air again.
I didn’t yell.
I didn’t breathe deeply.
I just analyzed the incoming trajectory of the limbs.
In my old body, I would have just stood there, let the arms hit me, and then chopped the demon in half while it was confused.
But Genya’s body couldn’t take that hit.
I had to parry.
I exploded forward.
The first arm came at my chest.
I didn’t try to stop it.
I angled my left sword, catching the thick skin of the demon’s forearm, and simply redirected its momentum, letting it smash harmlessly into the dirt beside me.
Simultaneously, I brought my right sword up in a tight, upward slash, severing a second arm that tried to hook me from the side.
Nitoryu (Two-Sword Style): Hawk Wave.
I became a localized blender of steel and biomechanics.
I didn’t fight the demon’s strength; I rode it.
Every time an arm swung at me, I used a fraction of my own energy to deflect it, creating an opening for a counter-slash.
I moved like a ghost, weaving through the chaotic barrage of green flesh, severing fingers, hands, and forearms with surgical precision.
My rib screamed in protest, a sharp, stabbing pain radiating through my chest with every twist of my torso, but I ignored it.
I was in my element.
The East Blue had been a joke.
This?
This was actual combat.
“He’s…
he’s incredible,” I heard Tanjiro whisper from behind me.
“He’s not using any Breathing techniques, but his movements…
there’s zero wasted energy.
It’s like he knows exactly where the attacks are going to be before they happen!” “Less talking, more cutting, kid!” I barked over my shoulder, ducking under a sweeping backhand and slicing the limb off at the elbow.
“I can’t chop the main neck with these cheap swords!
I don’t have the leverage!” It was true.
The Hand Demon’s neck was thick, guarded by layers of dense, hardened flesh.
My current vessel lacked the raw physical output required to shear through it with standard-issue blades.
I needed Tanjiro’s magic water-sword to do the heavy lifting.
“Right!” Tanjiro shouted, his expression hardening.
His scent—which in this world apparently meant his aura—shifted from fear to absolute determination.
“I’ll clear the path!” I yelled.
I crossed my two swords in front of my chest, taking a deep, normal breath.
I sprinted directly at the massive, bulbous center of the Hand Demon.
“Fools!
You can’t reach my neck!” the demon laughed, retracting all of its arms to form a massive, impenetrable shield of layered hands in front of its face.
“Watch me,” I growled.
I lunged forward, launching myself off the ground.
I didn’t aim for the flesh.
I aimed for the microscopic gaps between the interlocked fingers.
Nitoryu: Rhino Cycle!
I spun like a drill, thrusting both swords forward.
The sheer rotational kinetic energy forced the tips of the blades between the demon’s defensive hands, acting like wedges.
I wrenched my arms apart, using the mechanical advantage to pry the shield open violently.
The demon shrieked as its defensive wall was forcibly parted, leaving its thick, ugly neck completely exposed.
“Now, kid!” I roared, falling toward the ground.
From above me, Tanjiro Kamado descended like an avenging angel.
The moonlight caught the edge of his black blade.
A massive, roaring manifestation of a water dragon seemed to coil around him as he unleashed his strongest technique.
“Water Breathing!
First Form!” Tanjiro screamed, his eyes locked onto the exposed neck.
“Water Surface Slash!” The black blade met the demon’s neck.
For a split second, the hardened flesh resisted.
But the path was clear, and Tanjiro’s technique was flawless.
With a final, desperate yell, the blade sliced cleanly through the bone.
I hit the dirt, rolling to absorb the impact, and let out a long, painful groan as my fractured rib violently reminded me of its existence.
A heavy, sickening thud echoed through the clearing.
The Hand Demon’s massive head hit the ground and rolled into the wisteria bushes.
The towering, grotesque body stood frozen for a moment before it began to crumble, rapidly disintegrating into gray ash under the moonlight.
I lay in the dirt for a moment, staring up at the dark canopy of the forest, catching my breath.
Two standard swords lay in the grass next to me.
“Well,” I mumbled to the empty air, closing my eyes.
“That’s one down.
I wonder if there’s anywhere on this mountain to get a decent bowl of rice.”