The first rule of survival when you possess a heavily nerfed physical vessel is understanding your new limitations.
I sat by the crackling campfire, listening to the rhythmic, exhausted breathing of Tanjiro Kamado.
The kid had passed out the second his head hit a mossy rock, his checkered haori pulled tight around his shoulders.
I, on the other hand, was wide awake.
The raw trout I had eaten was working its magic, the high-density protein fueling my ‘Iron Stomach’ to patch the micro-fractures in my rib.
The sharp, stabbing pain had already subsided into a dull, manageable ache.
But my mind was restless.
I reached down and picked up the hilt of one of the scavenged Nichirin swords I had claimed from the clearing.
I needed to know if I could still use my primary style.
I wiped the dirt off the grip, brought the hilt to my mouth, and bit down hard.
A sharp, electric shock of pure agony shot through my jaw, vibrating all the way up to my temples.
I tasted copper instantly.
I opened my mouth and let the sword drop into the dirt with a dull thud, clapping a hand over my mouth.
“Okay,” I hissed through my teeth, rubbing my aching jaw.
“Note to self: the Three-Sword Style is officially retired until I find a way to magically reinforce human enamel.
I’ll crack my own skull if I try to block a heavy strike with these normal teeth.” That left me with two swords.
I picked up the dropped sword and drew my other standard-issue katana, holding one in each hand.
I stood up slowly, stepping away from the firelight into the shadows of the trees to practice my forms without waking the kid.
I fell into a standard Nitoryu stance.
I swung the blades in a slow, deliberate cross-slash.
It felt wrong.
In my old East Blue body, the sheer density of my arm muscles acted as built-in shock absorbers.
I could swing two heavy blades with reckless abandon because my wrists were practically made of steel cables.
But Genya Shinazugawa’s body was different.
It was lean, wiry, and built for agility, not raw, overwhelming torque.
When I swung both swords, my center of gravity felt slightly off, and a faint, warning ache flared in my wrists.
Before I could analyze it further, the subtle crunch of frost echoed in the darkness.
I didn’t move my head.
I just shifted my eyes.
Three figures were creeping through the dense wisteria bushes, their pale, grey skin reflecting the faint moonlight.
They were low-level demons, emaciated and practically drooling as they stared at the sleeping Tanjiro.
“Look at that,” one of them hissed, a creature with elongated limbs and a mouth full of needle-like teeth.
“A sleeping fox.
Easy meat.” “I call the liver,” the second one giggled.
I let out a long, silent sigh.
I stepped out of the shadows, directly into their path, resting the two cheap Nichirin swords over my shoulders.
“Keep your voices down,” I whispered, my tone dangerously flat.
“He had a long day, and if you wake him up, he’s going to try and empathize with you before he kills you.
It takes forever.” The three demons froze, startled by my sudden appearance.
Then, they sneered.
“A two-sword brat?” the leader mocked, lunging forward with its claws outstretched.
“Die!” I didn’t shout an attack name.
I just stepped forward.
I brought the left sword up to parry the demon’s descending claws, intending to use the right sword to slice its neck.
CLANG.
SNAP.
My eyes widened slightly.
The moment the demon’s heavy, reinforced claws struck my left blade, the cheap, rusted steel of the scavenged Nichirin sword couldn’t handle the kinetic transfer.
It shattered instantly, exploding into a shower of silver shrapnel.
The demon laughed, its claws continuing their downward trajectory toward my face.
My wrists are too weak to absorb the shock, and these swords are garbage, I realized in a fraction of a second.
I didn’t panic.
I dropped the broken hilt in my left hand, pivoted on my heel to narrowly avoid the claws, and gripped my remaining right sword with both hands.
Ittoryu (Single Sword Style): Thirty-Six Pound Cannon.
Without the air-pressure projectile of my old body, the attack was just a brutally fast, flawless physical swing.
But gripping the sword with two hands gave me the mechanical leverage this body required.
The blade sheared cleanly through the demon’s neck, severing the head before it could even register that its claws had missed.
The other two demons paused, staring at their disintegrating leader.
“You broke my spare,” I growled, glaring at them.
I didn’t give them a chance to retreat.
I dashed forward, my footwork silent and explosive.
I ducked under a wild swing from the second demon, bringing the sword up in a tight, vertical arc that split the creature from its groin to its chin, before twisting the blade and decapitating it on the backswing.
The third demon turned and tried to run.
I threw my sword like a javelin.
It flew through the air, pinning the demon directly by the back of the neck to a thick oak tree.
The creature shrieked, thrashing wildly, but it was stuck.
I walked over at a leisurely pace, grabbed the hilt of my sword, and roughly pulled it sideways, severing the spine.
I wiped the dark blood off the blade onto the demon’s dissolving clothes and sheathed it.
I looked down at my hands.
Dual-wielding in this body, especially with standard-issue weapons, was a death sentence.
If a low-level demon could snap my off-hand blade just by hitting it, a Moon-ranked demon would shatter my wrists.
I needed a secondary weapon.
Something that didn’t rely on my physical torque to generate destructive force.
Something that packed its own kinetic punch.
An explosive projectile.
“A gun,” I muttered to the empty forest.
“I need a damn gun.” The next six days on Mt.
Fujikasane were a grueling, exhausting blur of blood, ash, and terrible culinary decisions.
Tanjiro and I fell into a highly effective, if completely bizarre, rhythm.
I was the vanguard.
Using my Single Sword Style, I utilized pure speed and biomechanics to break the demons’ guards, shatter their limbs, and create massive openings.
Tanjiro was the finisher, using his Water Breathing to deliver the clean, killing blows when my physical strength wasn’t enough to cut through the thicker necks.
We fought dozens of them.
Through it all, Tanjiro proved to be exactly as annoying as I expected.
He was constantly worrying about me.
When he saw me eat a raw, mildly poisonous mountain toad to heal a sprained ankle, he looked like he was going to cry.
He spent half his free time trying to lecture me on the dangers of salmonella, and the other half actively trying to cook proper meals for me so I wouldn’t eat things off the ground.
I pretended to find it infuriating, but…
it was nice.
It had been a long time since anyone had cared if I poisoned myself.
By the dawn of the seventh day, we were battered, bruised, and covered in a mixture of dirt and demon ash.
My purple yukata was in tatters, and my single Nichirin sword was chipped along the edge, but we were alive.
We emerged from the dark canopy of the forest, greeted by the blinding light of the rising sun and the breathtaking, surreal glow of the wisteria trees marking the safe zone.
“We did it,” Tanjiro breathed, leaning heavily on his black sword, tears welling up in his burgundy eyes.
“Genya, we survived.” “Yeah,” I grunted, stretching my arms.
My rib was completely healed, my Iron Stomach having processed enough weird forest fauna to knit it back to 100%.
“Now point me toward a bed that isn’t made of rocks.” We walked through the wisteria arches and entered the main clearing.
Out of the dozens of kids who had entered the mountain a week ago, only four of us remained.
Tanjiro and I stood on one side.
On the other side was a girl with a side-ponytail and a butterfly ornament, staring blankly at a butterfly landing on her finger.
A few feet away from her was a kid with bright yellow hair, covered in dirt, hugging his knees and actively sobbing.
“I’m gonna die,” the yellow-haired kid muttered to himself, rocking back and forth.
“I survived this, but I’m gonna die on the next mission.
I’m a dead man.” I stared at him.
“Are they all this pathetic, or is he a special case?” “Genya, be nice!” Tanjiro whispered frantically.
Before I could insult the crying kid further, the two identical, incredibly creepy children who had initiated the exam stepped out onto the porch of the main pavilion.
“Welcome back,” they said in perfect, monotonous unison.
“Congratulations on surviving the Final Selection.” They explained the ranks.
They explained the uniforms.
And then, a flock of crows descended from the sky, landing on our shoulders.
A large, rather aggressive-looking crow landed heavily on my shoulder and squawked directly into my ear.
I glared at it, heavily debating if my Iron Stomach could digest feathers.
“Now,” the white-haired twin said, gesturing to a table covered in rough, unrefined chunks of metal.
“Please choose the ore for your Nichirin swords.
The blade that will be forged will be yours alone.” Tanjiro went first, using his absurd sense of smell to pick out a piece of ore.
The yellow-haired kid grabbed one at random, still crying.
The quiet girl selected hers with graceful precision.
I walked up to the table.
I didn’t look at the ore.
I looked directly at the two creepy twins.
“I have a request,” I said, my voice flat.
“You must choose an ore,” the black-haired twin repeated monotonously.
“I will,” I said, leaning over the table.
“But my wrists are currently incompatible with dual-wielding, and I refuse to fight with just one weapon.
So, tell me something.
Do your swordsmiths know how to forge firearms?” The twins blinked, a rare crack in their unsettling synchronized demeanor.
“Firearms?” “A gun,” I clarified, tapping a piece of dark, heavy ore on the table.
“A pistol.
A shotgun.
A hand-cannon.
I don’t care.
I want this ore melted down and forged into a firearm that fires Nichirin buckshot.
Can your people do that?” Tanjiro stared at me, completely bewildered.
“Genya?
You want a…
a gun?
But we’re swordsmen!” “I’m a pragmatist, Kamado,” I corrected, keeping my eyes on the twins.
“I fight with whatever keeps me alive.
So?
Can they make it?” The twins stared at me for a long, silent moment.
“The swordsmith village contains many eccentric artisans,” the white-haired twin finally said softly.
“If you request a specialized weapon, a smith may choose to forge it.
But you will still only receive one piece of ore.” I reached into my torn yukata and pulled out the broken hilt of the scavenged sword from night one, tossing it onto the table with a clatter.
“Melt that down for the barrel,” I demanded, picking up a large chunk of fresh ore.
“Use this for the bullets.
I’ll take a standard katana for my right hand, and a Nichirin shotgun for my left.” I turned away from the table, ignoring the stunned looks of the other survivors.
One sword.
One gun.
It wasn’t the Three-Sword Style.
It wasn’t the Asura path I had walked in the East Blue.
But as I looked down at my new, fragile hands, I knew I was going to turn this bizarre fighting style into a nightmare for every demon on the planet.