At that moment, the yellow-haired boy opened his eyes and let out a cry of pain.
Thud! Thud!
With their necks severed, the two demons' bodies lost all support and collapsed to the ground, landing squarely within the yellow-haired boy's field of vision.
He froze for a split second—then immediately screamed and sprang to his feet.
"AAAAH!!! Demons!!!"
Clutching his mouth with both hands, he jumped around in terror. Then he noticed Kazuki, who was calmly sheathing his sword.
In the next instant, the yellow-haired boy dashed over and hid behind Kazuki, grabbing his arm as tears streamed down his face.
"You killed those two demons, right?! Let me stay with you! Please, you have to let me stay with you! If I'm alone, I'll definitely die here—absolutely! Please, save me!"
He clung tightly to Kazuki's arm, bawling as if he had found his savior.
Kazuki was momentarily at a loss.
Clearly, it was this yellow-haired boy who had killed the two demons—but he seemed completely unaware of it.
And judging from how effortlessly he had decapitated them earlier, surviving here for seven days shouldn't have been difficult for him at all.
"You were the one who killed those two demons," Kazuki said truthfully as he pulled his arm free. "It had nothing to do with me."
Hearing that, the yellow-haired boy stopped screaming for a moment. He stared at Kazuki, tears still hanging on his cheeks, his expression full of disbelief.
"I don't care! I'm sticking with you anyway," he declared, now firmly convinced that Kazuki was the one who had slain the demons.
"Suit yourself. If you want to follow me, then follow," Kazuki said, not bothering to argue further.
The moment he heard that, the yellow-haired boy's face lit up.
"That's great! My name is Agatsuma Zenitsu. What's yours?"
"Kazuki," he replied.
With that, Kazuki picked a direction and started searching for more demons on the mountain.
Zenitsu hurried after him.
"Kazuki, where are we going now? Shouldn't we find somewhere to hide and wait until daylight, then go look for food?"
Zenitsu asked curiously as he followed along.
"To find demons," Kazuki answered. "And kill them."
Zenitsu stopped in his tracks, forcing a laugh in disbelief.
"Hahaha… you're joking, right? You're pretty funny, you know that?"
"I'm not joking," Kazuki said, turning back to look at him in confusion.
"Aren't we here to join the Demon Slayer Corps? And isn't the Demon Slayer Corps' purpose to kill demons?"
Seeing that Kazuki was serious, Zenitsu immediately panicked and began trying to persuade him earnestly.
"But we're not official Demon Slayers yet! The Final Selection only requires us to survive here for seven days—that's all! There's no need to go out of our way to hunt demons, right?"
Most people who sought to join the Demon Slayer Corps were those who had suffered at the hands of demons, their hatred burning so fiercely that they wished to eradicate every demon in existence.
But there were exceptions.
Zenitsu was one of them.
Crushed by enormous debt, he had been noticed for his talent by the former Thunder Hashira, who paid off his debts and took him in as a disciple. He had come to the Final Selection only because his master demanded it.
Having never truly encountered demons before, Zenitsu's hatred toward them wasn't nearly as intense. That may also have been part of the reason he could later accept a demon like Nezuko so quickly.
To him, this Final Selection was simply a test from Grandpa Kuwajima—passing it was all that mattered.
With such a mindset, his fear was hardly surprising.
"If you're scared, then find somewhere to hide on your own," Kazuki said calmly.
"I'm going to wipe out every demon on this mountain."
Zenitsu's words had no effect on him. Turning away, Kazuki broke into a run in the chosen direction.
Watching his figure grow more distant, Zenitsu hesitated, torn by indecision. In the end, he made up his mind.
"W-Wait for me, Kazuki!"
He shouted as he chased after him.
—
"Kazuki! If a demon shows up, you have to protect me! I'm super weak! Any random demon could kill me! If you don't protect me, I'll definitely die here—absolutely!"
As Kazuki moved through the forest searching for demon traces, Zenitsu followed behind, tugging at the hem of his clothes and chattering nonstop.
He had already repeated similar lines more than ten times in this short span, making it difficult for Kazuki to reconcile this trembling coward with the person who had just decapitated two demons in a single strike.
At first, Kazuki had reassured him that he would protect him. Now, he had completely stopped responding.
The two continued forward when suddenly Zenitsu's ears twitched. He abruptly pointed in a direction and screamed in terror.
"Eek!!! There's a demon over there!"
Kazuki immediately looked where Zenitsu was pointing—but saw nothing.
"Where?" he asked.
"Straight ahead—about two hundred meters!" Zenitsu insisted, gripping Kazuki's sleeve. "I heard it!"
Kazuki chose to trust him. Drawing his Nichirin Blade, he sprinted in the indicated direction.
"W-Wait for me!" Zenitsu hurried after him.
Sure enough, after advancing roughly two hundred meters, Kazuki spotted the demon Zenitsu had mentioned.
Crunch… crunch…
A massive demon, towering more than two heads taller than an average person, was squatting on the ground gnawing on something.
By the moonlight, Kazuki saw clearly what it was eating—a human leg.
A corpse lay on the ground before it, a Nichirin Blade still clutched in its hand, its neck already twisted completely around.
The blood-soaked scene dragged Kazuki's memories back to the massacre in his own village.
Zenitsu arrived moments later. Upon seeing the sight before him, he couldn't make a sound.
"Creatures like you… truly have no right to exist in this world," Kazuki said coldly, then charged forward with his blade raised.
Hearing movement, the giant demon turned and swung its thick right arm down at him.
But its action had already been foreseen.
In a single instant, Kazuki delivered two slashes—one severing the demon's arm, the other cleanly cutting through its neck.
"So… so strong…" Zenitsu murmured, staring in awe as Kazuki instantly killed a demon twice his size.
The giant demon's body slowly crumbled into ash.
Sheathing his sword, Kazuki walked over to the fallen corpse. Looking at the broken body, he slowly brought his hands together in prayer.
After silently offering a brief blessing, he carved a broken piece of wood into a crude shovel and began digging into the earth.
"I'll help too."
Zenitsu stepped forward. Though clearly afraid of the corpse, he didn't retreat.
"Yeah," Kazuki replied, turning to Zenitsu with a faint smile.
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