Chapter 17: Final Selection

Some time had passed.

Akio was currently near a small village shopping for something. As he was walking around searching for the item, Mitsuri became a little curious.

"What are you looking for? Maybe I can help."

"It shouldn't be too hard to find. I'm looking for a warding mask." Akio replied.

"Warding masks?" Mitsuri had a perplexed expression.

Akio gave a nod, "It's suppose to bring good luck and protect people from harm. It's an animal mask with unique patterns on it."

Akio knew this wasn't true. He simply wants one to find the mutated demon Tanjiro fought in final selection. Akio thought that since it may be classed as a different rank of enemies, he could gather some more attribute points.

"That sounds nice! I'll help you find them!"

After a few more minutes of searching, they eventually stumbled upon a stall selling some masks.

Akio was carefully looking at each one. It needed to resemble some kind of fox with markings on it. However, he could only see ones that looked like cats or other creatures.

"I really like this one!" Mitsuri pointed at a cat mask with flower patterns.

"Hm, that isn't bad." Akio carefully thought. Although it wasn't what he was after, it did look quite similar to the fox masks in the anime due to its pointed ears.

Akio asked the person selling the masks, "Do you sell anything similar to this one?"

"Oh?" The man looked up from what he was doing at the two strange people before him. One had strange hair colour and the other had devilish eyes. However, he wasn't one to judge. A customer was still a customer.

"Here are the other masks, pick any you like."

Akio simply picked a mask that had two black lines running down the eye like it was crying. It didn't look the best, but it should suffice for his objective.

After buying the two masks, Akio gave the one with flower patterns to Mitsuri, which made her extremely delighted. It felt like they had those identical accessories couples had, making her quite pleased inwardly.

"Let's head to final selection now." Akio spoke.

"Okay!"

...

"Wow! This place is so pretty!" Mitsuri spoke whilst looking at the wisteria trees. Akio also briefly looked at them. Like in the anime, this place almost looks magical with how the trees glows in the night, giving off purple light.

Both Akio and Mitsuri had finally arrived near the place final selection will be held at.

As they walked up the steps, they noticed all the people that had gathered here.

As Akio was walking, an absentminded girl had accidently bumped into him.

"S–Sorry! Sorry!" She apologised excessively.

"It's fine." Akio replied, not really caring.

The average looking girl in front of Akio breathed an air of relief as she looked at who she had bumped.

Judging from the voice, she thought she would see a kind looking man, however, as she saw Akio's appearance, she became somewhat intimidated and quickly ran off.

Akio simply sighed helplessly, "Are my eyes really that scary..."

"Not at all! I think they are quite cute and nice to look at! It makes you look reliable!" Mitsuri quickly consoled. It was the honest truth. To her, all of Akio's features made her blush whenever she thought of him.

"Cute? I'll take that as a compliment I guess." Akio chuckled.

"Everyone here looks really anxious." Mitsuri spoke as she was walking and looking around her. Most people had a stern expression, whilst others seemed somewhat worried.

"It really can't be helped. I'm certain everyone here knows or are at least aware of the dangers of demons." Akio replied to Mitsuri, making her tense a little.

She still hadn't faced off against a demon yet, which made her somewhat nervous.

As they arrived near the centre, they noticed what they assume to be twins greeting the group of people taking final selection.

"Greetings. We thank you for coming here tonight for the Demon Slayer Corps final selection."

"There are demons imprisoned here in Mt. Fujikasane. The demons are unable to leave due to the wisteria that they hate which is covering this place. However, there is no wisteria from this point on."

"You'll need to survive here for seven days to pass final selection."

"And now, be on your way. Thank you." The twins finished, giving everyone a polite bow.

After that, everyone began preparing for final selection.

Akio noticed how they had to enter one by one. Akio thought that this is probably to prevent teaming up initially at the start, else wouldn't everyone just work together?

However, he could probably meet up with Mitsuri later on.

After a few minutes of walking, Akio eventually left the wisteria forest, before suddenly being enveloped in an ominous area where only the moon was his source of light.

"Where would that demon be." Akio pondered. The low level demons wouldn't be a challenge in the slightest even without his abilities, so Akio wasn't really worried about not passing final selection.

After thinking for some time, Akio eventually began walking towards a random direction. There wasn't any point in trying to come up with a plan when there's nothing to go off of.

...

At this moment, somewhere in the forest, a group of people were fighting some demons.

"Ah! Someone help m–" The man was quickly interrupted as a small beast-like creature pounced on the man's neck, biting off a chunk off his throat.

"Kekeke! I've been starving for a while, how lucky!" The small creature licked his blood stained mouth as he stared at his next prey.

Beside him were other demons that have already teared some other humans limbs off as they viciously feasted on the dead demon slayers.

Usually demons were very territorial and liked working alone. This means when they come across a singular human, they would fight eachother to eat them. Especially since they have been starving here everytime final selection ends.

However, when they come across a group of demon slayers, it was risky to fight alone, so they sometimes work together. That was the danger of forming groups — you attract more demons.

Someone had thought of this idea before final selection began and told a few people to form a small group. However, he was currently in a demon's belly.

The sole survivor was an average, frightened girl that couldn't even hold her weapon properly as she watched the demons annihilate and devour her companions in front of her.

She almost puked what she had eaten a while ago as her eyes were watching the demon that was crawling towards her in terror.

"G-Get away from me!" She shouted.

"Keke. This one looks tasty. She's mine!" The demon screeched as it pounced at her, its sharp teeths attempting to bite into the girls flesh.

The girl couldn't even scream as she was so terrified, her teary eyes were shut extremely tight. However, what she had expected, didn't come. The sensation of death hadn't enveloped her.

Slowly opening her eyes, despite her somewhat blurry vision, she could clearly see the demon in front of her — making her heart stop for a second from fright.

However, she could also notice a sharp blade that had pierced through the demons neck from behind. She could also recognise a familiar silhouette behind the demon, especially his sharp, scarlet eyes.

It was only an instance before the katana was turned, before quickly slicing the demon's neck.

Time seemed to slow down as the demon's head began falling to the ground, eventually turning into dust.

Around 2 days had past since final selection began. Akio had dispatched many demons, however, he couldn't find the mutated one which made him a little bit irritated.

He had thought he had found it when he heard a bunch of screams from this direction. However, who would have thought it was just some low level demons wiping out a group of participants.

Akio brandished his katana, removing the blood on it before he turned to the four other demons in front of him.

The demons became extremely wary. They had an animal like instinct that was screaming at them currently. They knew Akio wasn't like the other humans they had easily killed.

However, it was already too late.

Before they could even react or comprehend what had happened. Their vision had for some reason spun, abruptly staring at the sky.

Akio had swiftly decapitated them.

"Another day without rewards. How boring." Akio muttered dejectedly.

"I wonder how Mitsuri is doing. She should be fine. Even if she stumbles across that mutated demon, she could probably kill it by herself."

Akio hadn't even noticed the woman that was staring at him with wide eyes. Well, it was more like he couldn't care less as he simply walked away.

The woman looked at Akio's back that was slowly going further away from her before quickly attempting to lift herself up.

"Ah! Wait a moment." She spoke before quickly falling down. She had sprained her ankle when fighting those demons previously.

Akio casually turned around, "Oh. It's you."

"Could you please help me? I would really appreciate it." She asked in a hopeful tone.

"Why should I do that? I don't want to carry deadweight that could potentially endanger me." Akio replied coldly. It was a lie, as nothing could really endanger him in this forest. However, he really saw no reason to help this woman.

He wasn't someone that would do things from the kindness of his heart or because "its simply the right thing to do." Yade yada. He already saved her once, why should he inconvenience himself more?

"Eh?" The girl didn't expect that response.

She thought she found her knight in shining armour, swooping down and saving her from the demons' clutches before princess carrying her out.

However, Akio simply disregarded her pitiful appearance!

She thought maybe it was due to her bumping into him previously and running off. However, as she was thinking, Akio had already moved a good distance away from her.

"Wait! Wait!" She hurriedly spoke.

However, Akio treated her words like thin air as his steps continued deeper into the forest.

The girl knew if she was left in her current predicament, she would definitely die, so she racked her brains.

After a while, she thought of that pink haired girl she saw a few hours before her group had been attacked. She noticed how that girl and "scarlet eyes" seemed quite close.

"Wait! I might know where the pink haired girl is!" She shouted, bargaining that this would work.

Thankfully, Akio had heard her before casually walking back.

Arriving in front of her, he spoke, "Speak."

"Not until you promise me you'll help me out of this situation."

"Fine. Only if the information is accurate else I'll throw you to some demons." Akio answered.

The woman felt a bead of sweat trickle down her forehead.

She simply thought that Akio was bluffing, however, as she looked at his expression, she felt less confident...

At the very least, it was better than certain death! So she gave a nervous nod.