I lay in the dirt for a full minute, staring up through the canopy at the sliver of the moon.
My chest throbbed with a sharp, rhythmic spike of agony every time I inhaled.
In my East Blue body, a fractured rib was a minor inconvenience that usually sorted itself out after a heavy lunch.
In this body, it felt like someone had wedged a hot iron spike under my collarbone.
I sat up slowly, wincing, and looked across the clearing.
The massive, grotesque Hand Demon was rapidly turning into a pile of grey ash.
That part was normal enough—demons in this simulation apparently disintegrated upon decapitation.
What wasn’t normal was what the kid in the checkered haori was doing.
Tanjiro Kamado was kneeling in the dirt, holding the disintegrating, monstrous hand of the creature that had just tried to turn him into a bloody paste.
His head was bowed, his expression filled with a profound, quiet sorrow.
He was praying for it.
I stared at him, genuinely bewildered.
“You know that thing literally just bragged about eating forty-four teenagers, right?” I asked, my raspy voice cutting through the quiet of the forest.
Tanjiro didn’t look up until the hand fully dissolved into ash, slipping through his fingers.
When he finally turned to me, his burgundy eyes were soft, completely devoid of the killer intent he had displayed just moments ago.
“I know,” Tanjiro said quietly.
“But they were human once.
Demons are tragic creatures.
When they die, I pray that they find peace in the next life, so they don’t have to suffer as demons again.” I blinked.
I thought about the mountain bandits I had beaten to a pulp, the pirates I had thrown into the ocean, and the absolute lack of remorse I felt for any of them.
“You are way too nice for this line of work, kid,” I grunted, using one of my scavenged Nichirin swords as a crutch to push myself to my feet.
“But you swing a good sword.
A little flashy, a little too much wasted movement on the follow-through, but the cut itself was clean.” Tanjiro stood up, his super-sensitive nose twitching.
He looked at me with a mixture of awe and deep concern.
“Your scent…” Tanjiro murmured, taking a step closer.
“It’s completely asymmetrical.
You aren’t using any Breathing Styles, but your scent is incredibly heavy, like…
like a massive beast trapped in a small cage.
And you’re injured!
I can smell blood pooling under your ribs!” “It’s just a fracture,” I deflected, brushing the dirt off my purple yukata.
“And my scent is fine.
I just haven’t showered since I got trans—since I got here.” “Trans…
what?” Tanjiro tilted his head, clearly confused.
He bowed deeply, a perfect ninety-degree angle.
“I’m Tanjiro Kamado!
Thank you for saving me back there.
I would have died if you hadn’t broken its guard.” “I was just clearing the way.
You did the heavy lifting,” I said, sliding the two cheap katanas into my obi sash since I lacked proper scabbards for them.
“The name is…
well, you can call me Genya.
Genya Shinazugawa.” Saying the name felt weird on my tongue, but the System had hard-coded this vessel’s identity into the simulation.
Introducing myself as Roronoa Zoro would just raise questions I was too tired to answer.
“Shinazugawa?” Tanjiro’s eyes widened slightly, recognizing the surname, though he didn’t press the issue.
“Genya, we need to bind your ribs.
If you keep moving like that, the bone might puncture your lung.
We still have six and a half days left on this mountain!” “Six and a half days,” I echoed, my stomach letting out a loud, miserable rumble.
“Tell me there’s a buffet table somewhere on this mountain.
Or at least a convenience store.” “A…
convenience store?” Tanjiro repeated, blinking.
“It’s a demon-infested mountain.” “Right.
Nature’s grocery store.” I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Forget the ribs.
I have an incredibly fast metabolism.
If I can find something to eat, my body will handle the fracture on its own.
I’m going to go find a river or a berry bush.
See ya around, Kamado.” I turned my back on him and confidently strode into the dark forest, picking a direction that felt vaguely like ‘downhill.’ If I found water, I could find fish.
If I found fish, I could eat them raw, kick my Iron Stomach into high gear, and patch this annoying bone.
I walked for about five minutes, the dense trees looming overhead.
The forest was eerily silent, the only sound the crunch of frost beneath my sandals.
“Um…
Genya?” I stopped.
I looked over my shoulder.
Tanjiro was standing about ten feet behind me, an incredibly awkward, apologetic smile on his face.
“Are you following me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“I appreciate the teamwork back there, but I’m a solo act.” “I’m not following you!” Tanjiro said quickly, waving his hands.
“It’s just…
you said you were looking for a river.” “I am.” “Genya, you’ve been walking in a circle.
We are literally fifty feet away from where we fought the Hand Demon.
You just walked around a very large clump of wisteria bushes.” I paused.
I looked to my left.
Sure enough, through the foliage, I could see the massive, cratered clearing and the pile of grey ash we had left behind.
I ground my teeth together.
Even across dimensions, even in a completely different body, my curse had followed me.
The System had nerfed my muscle mass, confiscated my Wado Ichimonji, and completely stripped me of my East Blue physical dominance, but it had left my absolute, god-awful sense of direction completely intact.
[DING!
The ‘Divine Navigator System’ once again humbly offers its services!
Bind now to unlock a compass that actually works!] I violently swatted the air, shattering the invisible blue screen.
Tanjiro flinched, looking at the empty air where my hand had just passed.
“Genya?
Did you just try to hit a ghost?
My nose…
your scent is radiating intense frustration.” “I’m fighting my inner demons,” I muttered darkly.
“Point me toward the water, Kamado.” Tanjiro smiled, a bright, earnest expression that was incredibly jarring in the middle of a literal death trap.
“I can do better than that!
I can smell a fresh stream about a mile from here.
We can camp there for the night, and I can help bind your ribs.” I wanted to refuse.
I was a lone wolf.
I was an Asura who walked the path of carnage alone.
But my rib was practically screaming, and the idea of wandering into a bear cave because I couldn’t tell north from south was highly unappealing.
“Lead the way,” I grunted.
“But I’m not sharing my fish.” The stream was exactly where Tanjiro said it would be.
While the kid with the scarred forehead busied himself gathering dry wood and starting a small fire—an impressive feat considering how damp the forest was—I stood knee-deep in the freezing water.
I didn’t have a fishing pole.
I didn’t need one.
I stood perfectly still, two standard swords resting on my hips, watching the dark water.
The moonlight caught the silver scales of a large mountain trout darting against the current.
I didn’t swing a sword.
I just plunged my bare hand into the freezing water with lightning speed, gripping the fish right behind its gills.
It thrashed wildly, but I hauled it out and tossed it onto the grassy bank.
Within ten minutes, I had caught three.
Tanjiro had a respectable fire going.
He looked up, impressed, as I walked over with my catch.
“That’s amazing, Genya!
We can gut them and roast them over the fire.
It will take a little while, but—” He stopped talking, his jaw dropping open.
I hadn’t bothered to gut them.
I sat down on a rock, lifted the largest, raw, flopping trout to my mouth, and took a massive bite directly out of its side.
Scales, raw meat, tiny bones—I chewed it all with mechanical efficiency and swallowed.
“Genya!” Tanjiro shrieked, looking absolutely horrified.
“You can’t eat that!
It’s raw!
You’ll get sick!” “I don’t get sick,” I replied, taking another bite.
It was true.
My ‘Iron Stomach’ might not have had the insane demonic fuel of the East Blue, but it was still functioning.
As the dense, raw protein hit my stomach, the biological furnace kicked in.
It wasn’t the explosive, super-powered healing I was used to, but I could feel a slow, comforting warmth spreading through my chest.
The sharp pain in my rib dulled to a manageable ache as my body aggressively metabolized the food to knit the bone micro-fractures back together.
I finished the first fish in under a minute and tossed the skeleton into the bushes.
Tanjiro was staring at me like I was the actual monster on this mountain.
His nose twitched furiously.
“Your scent…
it just changed.
You were in intense pain a minute ago, and now…
your body is repairing itself?
Just from eating a raw fish?” “I told you, I have a fast metabolism,” I said, picking up the second fish.
I paused, looking at his horrified expression.
I sighed, breaking the second fish in half and tossing the tail end to him.
“Here.
Roast yours if you want to be delicate about it.” Tanjiro caught the fish clumsily, still staring at me.
He carefully skewered it on a stick and propped it over the fire, sitting cross-legged across from me.
“You’re a very strange person, Genya Shinazugawa,” Tanjiro said softly, the firelight dancing in his burgundy eyes.
“You don’t use Breathing Styles.
You fight with two swords.
You eat raw fish.
But…
your scent isn’t bad.
You’re angry, and you’re sad, but there’s no malice in you.” I stopped chewing.
For a brief, painful second, I saw Kuina sitting across the fire instead of Tanjiro.
I saw her dark blue hair, her confident smirk, and the way she used to lecture me for eating expired rice balls on the dojo porch.
The memory hit me harder than the Hand Demon’s strike.
I looked down at the dull steel katanas resting by my feet.
They weren’t the Wado Ichimonji.
I was stuck in a fragile body, fighting a war that wasn’t mine, just to gather enough invisible energy to cheat death.
“I’m just a guy trying to keep a promise,” I said quietly, the snark draining out of my voice entirely.
“And I don’t care how many of these ugly freaks I have to cut down to keep it.” Tanjiro didn’t press further.
His empathy was apparently as sharp as his sword; he could smell that the conversation was over.
“We should sleep in shifts,” Tanjiro suggested gently, turning his roasting fish over the flames.
“The demons are more active in the dead of night.
I can take the first watch.” “No,” I said, leaning back against a thick tree trunk and crossing my arms.
“You used a lot of stamina with those water tricks.
You sleep.
I’ll watch.” “Are you sure?
With your rib—” “I’m fine,” I interrupted.
I closed my eyes, but I didn’t sleep.
I just expanded my awareness, feeling the vibrations in the earth and listening to the wind.
I was going to survive these seven days.
I was going to master this fragile body.
And when I finally got back to the East Blue, I was going to turn the Grand Line upside down.