<3 months later>
Mount Fujikasane would be far away, further than I could probably muster alone, but there was something on my mind for the past year and a half. I glanced down at the Onyx bracelet. If I'm not mistaken, there are still 5 years until the main plot begins, and if I am also right, then my uncle has two, maybe three years to live. I should visit them, the first and last time I saw Tanjuro and Kie Kamado was when I was born. I had a vague idea of where they were situated, and I could ask around after that. I returned to reality and thanked the vendor whose shop I was in for the water and bento.
So I set out. To my rough calculations with the powers I possess in my eye, which I know remember is a form of the transparent world, perhaps a little more potent, I figured out that I must have moved about 500 miles from where I had lived with Jigoro.
The road to my cousin's house was not too long. I acquired a map from a helpful villager in return for having slain a troublesome demon for them last night. It revealed that I had about a two-week walk to the town where the Kamado family sold their coal, which in the Manga was unnamed; however, the map told me it was Namasuka Town.
I contemplated my decision not to go to the final selection yet, there was time until I realistically needed to join the slayer ranks, for now, I must do things that would matter, not make the mistakes that certain transmigrators do, I must not react to the plot, my life has had enough tragedy, I must save everyone, every single one.
The road to Namasuka was not a straight line, nor was it merciful. Villages huddled in valleys spoke of demons haunting their rice fields or of children taken from the roadside. Each night was the same—eyes open in the dark, watching the world in every direction at once, waiting for the stench of blood to mix with the mist.
The First Week
The first demons were as expected—weak, desperate. They were little more than starving animals. One had burrowed into a barn to feast on livestock, another crept into a shrine pretending to pray before leaping at a priest. They died easily. My blade whispered through them, and the air fell still afterward.
I used them as Jigoro had trained me to—targets to refine breathing, timing, stance. I slashed through one as its claws scraped the ground; another I dispatched by hurling a rock to stagger it before severing its head. They were slow, sloppy. They were reminders that Jigoro had not wasted his years forging me.
But by the fifth night, there were more. Three demons came together, prowling the outskirts of a village, circling like wolves. They fought with more coordination, even growled to each other. I let them circle, let them taste the idea of prey. Then I moved—one cut through the neck, pivot into the second, the third trying to flee but not fast enough. Ash in the wind.
The villagers saw nothing of it but the corpses of their missing loved ones, drained to husks. They bowed to me in silence, and I walked away without taking their coin. What would money matter when I knew where my feet were headed?
The Second Week Begins
By the ninth day, the mountains grew steeper, the air thinner. I welcomed the strain. Every mile tested my body, my breath, the control of my lightning legs. I carried fallen logs up ridges simply because I could. I waded rivers with boulders strapped to my back. Jigoro's training was not a memory—it was habit, an instinct that carried me forward.
That was when the demons began to grow bolder.
On the tenth night, I found one already gorging on corpses along the roadside. A caravan had been torn apart, wagons overturned, horses shredded. The demon was hunched low, jaws working as it chewed through flesh and bone with wet cracks.
I froze.
For the first time in these two weeks, something pierced my calm. My eyes narrowed, and a heat bloomed in my chest. It wasn't fear. It was anger. Sharp and bitter. I had long taught myself not to feel, not to let emotion rule the swing of my blade. But watching it eat, watching blood stream down its chin as if it were wine—it pulled something from me I thought buried.
The demon looked up, noticing my presence. Its mouth twisted into a grin, its hands dripping with gore.
And then my heart stilled. The marks appeared across its skin, etchings of blood-red kanji glowing faintly under the moonlight. My gaze sharpened, and I read them instantly: Lower Moon Five.
The world seemed to quiet, though it had always been quiet to me. This was not one of the fodder demons, nor a starving beast. This was one of Muzan's chosen, one of his Twelve.
I tightened my grip on the hilt.
The demon rose to its full height, towering, grotesque, yet graceful in its stride. Its voice reached me in broken fragments—I could not hear the tone, only the shape of its lips. But I could see mockery there, taunting, as if my presence was laughable.
I said nothing. What words could matter between us? My disgust was carved across my face, my stillness sharper than steel.
We faced each other across the blood-soaked ground, and the night seemed to bend inward. The demon licked its claws clean, slow and deliberate, eyes gleaming with hunger and pride.
I lowered into stance, lightning already beginning to surge through my legs. My breathing steadied, chest rising and falling in controlled rhythm. The anger in me did not boil over—it sharpened into a blade.
The fight had not yet begun.
But it would.