The medicinal tea tasted like concentrated dirt.
But the dirt wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the sky suddenly trying to crush me into paste.
The moment Shinobu Kocho’s butterfly-patterned haori disappeared around the corner of the wooden corridor, my legs simply ceased to function.
I hit the gravel of the courtyard courtyard hard, dropping the empty teacup.
It shattered, but I couldn’t even hear the sound over the deafening, high-pitched ringing in my ears.
It wasn’t physical pain.
It was a localized, suffocating pressure, like the gravity in the garden had been dialed up to a thousand.
It felt exactly like standing in the epicenter of a warlord’s Conqueror’s Haki, except this wasn’t coming from a person.
It was coming from the air, the dirt, the very fabric of the reality around me.
I coughed violently, a thick splatter of dark blood painting the white gravel.
My freshly healed shoulder screamed, the muscle fibers spontaneously beginning to tear themselves apart without any physical impact.
The air in front of my face flickered violently, glitching in a chaotic mess of static before the System interface ripped its way into my vision.
The text wasn’t the usual cheerful blue or the ominous red of a combat warning.
It was a blinding, frantic yellow, accompanied by a blaring siren echoing directly inside my skull.
[CRITICAL ERROR: Narrative Divergence Threshold Exceeded!] [Warning: The Will of the World (WoW) has detected a foreign anomaly in the vessel of ‘Genya Shinazugawa’.] [Immune Response Initiated: Host erasure imminent.] “What the hell…” I choked out, bracing my hands against the ground, trying to push myself up.
It was like trying to lift a mountain with my bare hands.
“…is happening to me?” The System’s mechanical, genderless voice ground into my mind, stripped of all its usual pop-up advertisement cheerfulness.
It sounded strained, like a machine operating at two-hundred percent capacity just to keep me from evaporating.
[The Will of the World is actively rejecting your soul, Host.
The Simulation System is a parasite within this dimension.
I have been camouflaging your presence by placing you inside an established vessel, blending your soul into the narrative parameters of Genya Shinazugawa.] “Then why,” I grunted, spitting more blood, “is the universe trying to crush my organs?” [Because you are failing to play your assigned role!] the System snapped, the yellow text flashing aggressively.
[The Will of the World operates on fixed destinies and narrative momentum.
Genya Shinazugawa’s character possesses a fundamental, unyielding emotional attachment to his brother, Sanemi.
He is defined by his feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and a desperate need for his brother’s approval.
You just threatened to blow his head off with a shotgun.] I managed a pained, bloody smirk.
“He swung first.” [Irrelevant!
The Will of the World does not care about self-defense.
By completely shattering the destined dynamic between the Shinazugawa brothers, the WoW has flagged you as a lethal virus.
The System is currently utilizing 80% of its processing power just to stop the universe from erasing your existence.] The pressure increased.
I felt one of my newly knitted ribs fracture again with a sickening pop.
“So what?” I rasped, glaring furiously at the yellow screen.
“You want me to cry?
You want me to chase that rabid hedgehog around, begging for forgiveness?
I’m not a damned actor!
I’m a swordsman!” [The System cannot completely blend your soul into this world if you actively reject every core aspect of the vessel’s existence.
I am not asking you to act.
I am demanding you fulfill his designated narrative functions.] The screen glitched again, displaying a list of heavily redacted objectives.
[You must hit the primary checkpoints of Genya’s destiny.
You are required to participate in the upcoming battles as a secondary combatant.
You are required to utilize the vessel’s unique physical trait—demonic ingestion—to temporarily boost your parameters during critical plot events.
If you do not perform these roles, the WoW will purge you, and the Existential Energy required for the Resurrection Protocol will be permanently lost.] The mention of the Resurrection Protocol was a bucket of ice water dumped over my burning rage.
Kuina.
I was suffocating in the gravel of a foreign universe, getting crushed by the literal script of a dead man, all because I was too stubborn to play along.
I had spent seven years in the East Blue refusing to bend the knee to the Systems, and it had left me weak, bleeding out in an alley.
If I let my pride dictate my actions now, I would lose the wager.
“Fine,” I growled, my voice vibrating with sheer, concentrated spite.
“I’ll hit your checkpoints.
I’ll fight where the script tells me to fight.
I’ll eat the demons.
But I am not going to grovel to that wind-breathing idiot.
You tell the Will of the World that we compromise.
I give it the plot it wants, and it lets me do it my way.” The yellow screen pulsed rapidly.
For a moment, the crushing pressure peaked, threatening to snap my spine.
I didn’t yield.
I channeled every ounce of my will, the same unyielding aura that had intimidated warlords and sea kings, and pushed back against the weight of the universe.
My name will reach the heavens.
I will not be crushed by the dirt.
Slowly, agonizingly, the pressure began to recede.
The ringing in my ears faded, replaced by the gentle rustling of the wisteria trees in the courtyard.
[Compromise registered.
The Will of the World has temporarily suspended the immune response.
Warning: Further severe deviations from core narrative checkpoints will result in immediate erasure.
The System cannot shield you from a Tier-1 WoW purge.] The yellow screens shattered into digital dust, disappearing into the air.
I collapsed onto my back, staring up at the bright blue sky, gasping for air as if I had just surfaced from the bottom of the ocean.
My clothes were soaked in a cold sweat, and my body felt like it had been run over by a carriage.
“Shinazugawa-kun?” I rolled my head to the side.
Shinobu Kocho was standing on the porch, a fresh cup of tea in her hand, staring at the blood on the gravel and my broken state with genuine, unmasked alarm.
For a girl who always smiled, she looked remarkably close to panicking.
“I literally left you alone for four minutes,” she said, her voice completely devoid of its usual cheerful lilt.
“How did you manage to spontaneously hemorrhage in an empty garden?” “I tripped,” I rasped, closing my eyes.
“The gravity here is terrible.” The following weeks at the Butterfly Mansion were a lesson in malicious compliance.
I had made a deal with the System and the Will of the World.
I would play the role of Genya Shinazugawa.
I would be the angry, gun-toting Slayer who couldn’t use Breathing Styles.
I would be the underdog.
But I was going to be the most lethal underdog this universe had ever seen.
Since Shinobu had officially banned me from the courtyard until she was satisfied my internal organs weren’t going to randomly explode again, I spent my time in the recovery ward perfectly refining my new armory.
I sat cross-legged on my bed, the double-barreled Sun-Spitter in my lap.
I practiced reloading with my eyes closed.
I trained my right hand to crack the barrels, eject the spent brass, and slam fresh Nichirin shells into the chambers in under a second.
The motion became a mechanical extension of my own body.
With my left hand, I practiced drawing the moss-green katana.
I couldn’t swing it—Shinobu’s threat of paralysis was highly credible—but I could refine the initial draw speed.
The Lion’s Song technique relied entirely on the explosive force of the draw.
If I could blind a demon with a shotgun blast and follow up with a flawless, single-handed draw-slash, I wouldn’t need muscle density.
I just needed perfect timing.
“You look like a very angry mechanic.” I opened one eye.
Tanjiro Kamado was standing in the doorway of the ward, leaning on a wooden crutch.
He looked terrible.
He was covered in fresh bandages, and his signature checkered haori was missing.
Apparently, he had just returned from a brutal mission at a place called Natagumo Mountain.
“And you look like a chew toy,” I replied, sliding the green katana back into its scabbard with a crisp click.
“Heard you ran into a Kizuki.” Tanjiro hobbled into the room, taking a seat on the bed opposite mine.
“It was terrifying, Genya.
The Lower Rank Five.
His threads…
they were harder than steel.
If the Water Hashira hadn’t arrived when he did, my sister and I would be dead.” I paused, raising an eyebrow.
“Your sister?” Tanjiro’s eyes widened slightly, realizing he had slipped up, but his inherently honest nature won out.
He rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the floor.
“Her name is Nezuko.
She’s…
she’s a demon.
But she doesn’t eat humans!
She fights with me!
She protected me!” I stared at him.
The protagonist of the Demon Slayer Corps was carrying a demon around in a box.
I thought about the Will of the World throwing a catastrophic tantrum just because I was rude to my older brother, while this kid was actively breaking the most fundamental law of his organization’s existence and getting away with it.
“Protagonist privilege is a disease,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?” Tanjiro asked, tilting his head.
“Nothing.
I don’t care about your sister, Kamado.
As long as she doesn’t try to eat me, I won’t shoot her,” I said, going back to polishing the oak stock of my shotgun.
“So, you fought a Lower Moon.
You realize that means the training wheels are off, right?
The freaks we fought at Final Selection were jokes compared to what’s coming.” Tanjiro’s expression hardened.
The gentle empathy in his eyes was replaced by a fierce, burning resolve.
“I know.
That’s why I’m going to master Total Concentration Breathing: Constant.
The Insect Hashira offered to train us while we recover.” I stopped polishing.
Total Concentration Breathing: Constant.
Keeping the magic breathing active twenty-four hours a day to permanently elevate physical parameters.
It was the fundamental stepping stone to Hashira-level strength.
“Good for you,” I grunted, feeling a familiar, bitter pang of annoyance.
“My vessel—my body—is completely incompatible with Breathing Styles.
I can’t generate the elemental effects, and I can’t maintain the internal rhythm.” Tanjiro looked at me, his super-sensitive nose twitching.
“But Genya…
at the Final Selection, you healed a fractured rib by eating raw fish.
And when we fought the Hand Demon, you moved with so much power, even without a Breathing Style.
You have your own way of fighting.” “Yeah.
Gunpowder and green steel,” I said, cracking the shotgun open and inspecting the empty chambers.
[Notice: The Will of the World accepts your current trajectory.
The next major narrative checkpoint approaches: The Swordsmith Village.] I closed the gun with a heavy snap.
I couldn’t use magic air.
I couldn’t cut a mountain in half with a single swing anymore.
But I had a shotgun that fired sunlight, a sword forged from spite, and an Iron Stomach that could weaponize the very monsters hunting us.
“Hey, Kamado,” I said, looking over at the battered protagonist.
“When you master that Constant Breathing…
don’t fall behind.
I’m not going to carry you through the next one.” Tanjiro smiled, a bright, resilient expression.
“I won’t let you down, Genya!” I turned my back to him, staring out the window at the setting sun.
The universe wanted me to play a role.
Fine.
I would be Genya Shinazugawa.
But when the dust se ttled, the only name the demons were going to remember was Zoro.