Chapter 9 — Slash
Time reached the deep night of the fourth day of the Final Selection.
It was a moonless, windy night. By that little stream filled with memories, Zoro stood up and dusted off the dirt from his pants.
"I'm heading over there to take a leak."
He pointed to a clump of bushes less than five meters from the campsite and spoke calmly.
"Ah, okay! Please be careful and don't go too far!" Tanjiro reminded him without even looking up, focused on sharpening his blade.
"Tch. Don't lump me in with your sense of direction. I'm just taking a piss. I'll be right back."
With an expression that clearly said you're insulting my intelligence, Zoro strode into the bushes.
...
And then, he disappeared.
Completely. Utterly. As if he had evaporated from the face of the earth.
---
Day Five.
"Mr. Zoro——!! Mr. Zoro——!!"
Tanjiro's voice echoed through the empty valley, tinged with anxiety. He and Zenitsu had already searched every corner within a one-kilometer radius of their campsite.
"This makes no sense! Absolutely no sense!" Zenitsu clutched his head, wailing through tears and snot. "Tanjiro! Isn't your nose amazing? Hurry and sniff! Where did that moss-head go? Without him we're dead! We'll definitely get eaten by demons!"
"I have been sniffing!" Tanjiro was drenched in sweat as well, his face filled with confusion and disbelief. "But… Mr. Zoro's scent… it's too strange!"
In Tanjiro's scent-tracking perception, the trail Zoro left behind was a tangled mess. It went straight into the bushes—then abruptly made an impossible sharp turn toward a cliff. Next, it circled along the cliff wall, jumped up into the treetops, inexplicably appeared across the river, and finally cut off in a place where there wasn't even a path.
"That movement pattern… Can he fly? Or is the space in this mountain distorted?"
For the first time, Tanjiro began to doubt his own nose.
---
Day Six.
The two of them were attacked by several waves of demons. Although Tanjiro's swordsmanship had grown steady and Zenitsu—when unconscious—was a devastating force, the distraction of searching for Zoro left them in a sorry state.
"Mr. Zoro——! If you're there, answer us——!"
"Waaah… He must've been swallowed by some weird spatial Blood Demon Art… Like being flushed down a toilet… I'm going to die too…"
---
Day Seven, Dawn.
At last, the long seven-day survival trial came to an end.
Hope's light rose once more in the eastern sky. It was the brilliance of the sun—the nightmare of all demons, and the salvation of the survivors.
At the exit of Mount Fujikasane stood the vermilion torii gate, bathed in morning light, surrounded by a sea of blooming wisteria. Crossing it meant qualification. It meant survival.
The grass rustled, and two filthy figures stumbled out—covered in mud, clothes torn to shreds, hair tangled with twigs.
Tanjiro still carried the wooden box on his back. His sword bore several chips along its edge, and dark circles framed his eyes. Zenitsu, meanwhile, was practically crawling on the ground, face smeared with tears and mucus.
"Finally… finally we made it out…" Tanjiro looked at the wisteria before him, nearly on the verge of tears. "But… we lost Mr. Zoro… How are we going to explain this to Master Urokodaki…"
"We'll have to commit seppuku to atone… Waaah… Our powerful bodyguard…" Zenitsu rubbed his face against the dirt in despair.
At that moment, however, a familiar voice—carrying a hint of impatience—came from atop a rock beside the torii gate.
"Hey. You two are way too slow."
Tanjiro and Zenitsu froze as if struck by lightning. Stiffly, mechanically, they raised their heads toward the source of the voice.
There, sitting cross-legged atop a massive boulder, was Roronoa Zoro.
His clothes were somehow even tidier than when he first entered the mountain. Wado Ichimonji rested in his arms, and a blade of foxtail grass hung from his mouth. His expression was that of a boyfriend who had been waiting two hours for his girlfriend to finish getting ready—thoroughly annoyed.
At his feet lay a thick layer of vanishing ash—the remnants left behind after demons perished.
Judging by the amount, at least a dozen demons had fallen to his blade while he waited out of sheer boredom.
"M-Mr. Zoro?!"
Tanjiro and Zenitsu shouted in unison, their eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.
"You're too loud." Zoro dug a finger into his ear and jumped down from the rock. "I've been waiting here for you two for a full two days. What were you doing? Don't tell me you got lost."
The air froze for three full seconds.
"You're the one who got lost!!!!"
Zenitsu sprang up from the ground and pointed at Zoro as he roared, his shriek so piercing it sent birds scattering from the trees.
"You went to take a leak and then vanished! We searched for you for three days and three nights! We almost got eaten by demons! And you were sleeping here this whole time?!"
"Hah?" Zoro frowned, looking completely justified. "What nonsense are you talking about? I came out after taking a piss and you guys were gone. So I just followed the path to look for you. Somehow I ended up at this exit. Obviously you two were the ones running around."
"No way! Absolutely no way!" Even Tanjiro couldn't hold back. "Your scent trail was completely chaotic! And this is the finish line! From our campsite that night to here takes two days under normal circumstances. How could you have 'just followed the path' and ended up here?"
"That's the mountain's fault." Zoro crossed his arms and snorted, offering an utterly irrefutable explanation. "The trees in this place keep moving, the paths are crooked, and the clouds are drifting in the wrong direction. I had to walk in a straight line to correct my course."
"How does walking in a straight line take you to the summit and then here?!"
Regardless of the logic, the three of them had finally reunited.
By now, the other survivors were also emerging one after another.
Aside from the three of them, only two more remained.
One was the strange girl who flipped a coin. She didn't even have much dust on her clothes, still wearing that faint smile as she stood quietly beneath the wisteria trees, as if everything around her had nothing to do with her. A colorful butterfly rested gently on her fingertip.
The other was a fierce-looking boy with a mohawk hairstyle. His body was covered in wounds, his face filled with hostility. It was clear he had endured brutal battles.
Five people in total.
That was the complete list of those who passed this Final Selection.
"So that's it? That's everyone who made it?" Zoro swept his gaze across them, a hint of disdain in his eyes. "Only this many survived? Sending a bunch of kids who still smell like milk to fight monsters like that… The head of the Demon Slayer Corps must be a ruthless bastard."
"It's to select the truly strong…" Tanjiro felt sorrow for the fallen, but he understood the cruel necessity of it.
At that moment, two identical girls, delicate as porcelain dolls, stepped forward carrying lanterns.
One had white hair (Ubuyashiki Kiriya, disguised as a girl).
The other had black hair (Ubuyashiki Kanata).
Expressionless and emotionless, they spoke in flat, unchanging voices:
"Welcome back."
"Congratulations to you all for passing."
Zoro stared at the eerily doll-like children, his eyebrow twitching.
"Hey, Tanjiro, are those two demons too? Why do they feel so creepy?"
"Shh!! Mr. Zoro! They're the examiners! Please don't be rude!"
The morning sunlight poured over the blooming wisteria, stretching the shadows of the five youths long across the ground.
For Zoro, this was merely a minor episode in a long journey.
But for this world, the gears bearing the name "the strongest swordsman" had already begun to turn.