The end of special training

"Cough, cough... ah..."

Kaigaku curled up on the ground in agony, his face filled with disbelief and fear. He struggled to get up, only to discover that both his arms were completely dislocated. He could not even move a finger.

Footsteps slowly approached.

Rokuya walked up to Kaigaku and looked down at him. There was no anger in his eyes, only the indifference of someone looking at a dead thing.

"Gone too far?" Rokuya crouched down, picked up a broken piece of the blade, and tossed it in his hand. "Do you think I've been ignoring you because I'm afraid of you?"

Kaigaku stared at Rokuya in terror, cold sweat streaming down his forehead, unable to utter a word.

"Those petty little tricks of yours, the traps, the broken blade, the bait... I knew about all of them." Rokuya casually tossed the broken blade aside. "I just couldn't be bothered with you. Because in my eyes, you don't even qualify to be my enemy."

Rokuya stood up and dusted off his hands.

"You're jealous that I learn fast? That's because I broke my bones falling deep in the mountains every night to fix my weaknesses. While I was risking my life, all you could do was whittle bamboo spikes in secret, you useless bastard!"

"If you have any backbone left, turn that jealousy into strength to swing your sword. Want to kill me? Fine. Face me openly and take a strike from me. But if you ever try those dirty tricks behind my back again..."

Rokuya suddenly stomped on the ground beside Kaigaku.

Boom!

The entire ground shook violently. A crater three meters across formed beneath Rokuya's foot in an instant, and spiderweb cracks spread right up to Kaigaku's cheek.

"Next time, it won't be your blade that shatters. It'll be your skull."

Leaving those words behind, Rokuya turned and walked away. Hunger surged through him like a tide. Activating his demonic power for that brief instant had left him wanting nothing more than to devour the freshly cooked rice in the kitchen, pot and all.

"If the old man hasn't made braised pork today, I'm snapping his cane..." Rokuya muttered, his figure gradually disappearing into the night.

Meanwhile, on a cliff not far away.

Jigoro Kuwajima stood leaning on his cane, silently watching it all.

The mountain wind brushed the old man's robes, and his expression was deeply conflicted. There was heartache and disappointment at Kaigaku's crooked nature, as well as profound shock at Rokuya's terrifying strength.

"He perfectly combined Thunder Breathing's explosive force with his own monstrous strength... and even overcame the weakness of charging in a straight line." The old man murmured to himself, his hand trembling slightly around his cane.

He had thought Rokuya would need at least six months, perhaps even a year, to work out a solution. But he had been wrong.

The word "genius" was no longer enough to describe this boy's talent.

"He's nothing short of a born monster."

Jigoro Kuwajima let out a long sigh and turned toward the wooden house. Though he called Rokuya a bottomless pit, the corners of his mouth would not stop lifting.

"Tonight... I'll give him another two pounds of meat. This little bastard really does give a man something to look forward to."

The two-month deadline finally drew to a close.

After all that training, Rokuya had fully adapted to the rhythm of Thunder Breathing and completely incorporated its extreme speed into his fighting style.

Although he still could not use "Godspeed" repeatedly like Zenitsu in the original story, Rokuya's "Extreme Blade Flash" had begun to take shape. It was a savage fighting style that abandoned flashy combinations, seeking only to close the distance in an instant and then kill the enemy with a single blow through his system passive and absolute strength.

It fit Rokuya's "pragmatic" aesthetic perfectly.

As for Kaigaku, after Rokuya broke his blade with a single punch that night and he spent half a month in bed, he became even gloomier and more withdrawn. He stopped playing those petty tricks, but whenever he looked at Rokuya, his gaze resembled a venomous snake lurking in a dark corner.

Now, Rokuya had something more important to do.

Judging by the time, the Final Selection was about to begin.

Early morning, at the highest point of Mount Momoyama.

Rokuya had changed into a neat black fighting outfit, his dark blue haori snapping in the wind. A specially made heavy katana, a gift from Jigoro Kuwajima, hung at his waist. Its blade was two finger-widths broader than an ordinary Nichirin Blade, with an extremely thick spine, specially forged to withstand Rokuya's freakish strength.

"Old man, I'm leaving." Rokuya looked at Jigoro Kuwajima, who stood before him leaning on his cane, and for once did not use his usual flippant tone.

Jigoro Kuwajima looked at the tall, straight-backed boy before him, recalling everything that had happened over the past few months. From his initial arrogance to his later grueling, frenzied training, and the alarming quantities he ate at every meal.

The old man suddenly felt his eyes sting a little.

"Go, go, go! Get out of here!" Jigoro Kuwajima raised his cane as if to strike him. "My rice bin can finally catch its breath! Remember, the Final Selection is on Mount Fujikasane. If you can't even get through that little ordeal, don't tell anyone I trained you!"

Rokuya chuckled softly. He knew this old man had a sharp tongue but a soft heart.

In this unfamiliar world, aside from the Kocho Sisters, this irritable old man before him was the first person to treat him well with all his heart.

"Don't worry." Rokuya turned around and waved with his back to the old man. "A place full of small fry like that? I'll be back before you know it. Once I officially join the Demon Slayer Corps and get paid, I'll treat you to the most expensive wagyu in all of Japan."

With that, Rokuya strode down the mountain on his long legs.

"Little brat..." Jigoro Kuwajima watched Rokuya's retreating figure, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes easing as he said softly, "May fortune favor you in battle."

Rokuya did not turn back. He simply kept striding forward.

His hand gently brushed the sword hilt, feeling its cold touch against his fingertips.

"The first stage of my goal is finally about to begin." Rokuya's gaze gradually sharpened like a blade. "Whether it's a Lower Rank or an Upper Rank, if they dare stand in my way..."

A gust of wind swept past, stirring up a few peach blossom petals and carrying away his unfinished murmur.

"They'll have to survive a strike from me first."

The wind carried Mount Sagiri's distinctive damp chill.

Rokuya wore his signature black fighting outfit, the specially made heavy katana on his back giving off dull metallic clanks with each step. Dead branches snapped beneath his feet with crisp cracks.

"Damn it, haven't I already seen that pine tree that looks like a twisted dough stick?"

Rokuya stopped and looked up at the mountain forest shrouded in thick mist, the corner of his eye twitching hard.

Three full days had passed since he left Jigoro Kuwajima's training grounds on Mount Momoyama. The hot-tempered old man's Thunder Breathing training had benefited him enormously. The rudiments of "Extreme Blade Flash" were already etched into his muscle memory, to say nothing of the ferocious destructive power produced by combining his single-target critical-hit passive with Thunder Breathing. But after shattering Kaigaku's bones, he had said goodbye to the cursing old man that very night and set off back to Mount Sagiri.

But there was a problem-he was lost.

"This is too damn much! Why is the fog on this lousy mountain even thicker than when I left?"

Rokuya rubbed his empty belly. His enormous appetite had become increasingly pronounced after the initial stage of Demon Form awakened. After spending these past few days eating and sleeping out in the mountain forest, his stomach had long since begun to revolt. If he could not find old man Urokodaki's little wooden house before sunset, he feared he would starve himself to death first.

Closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath, Rokuya forced himself to calm down. He activated Total Concentration Breathing, his senses extending outward under the stimulation of his demonic power, piercing layer after layer of mist.

"Where the moisture is thickest... wait, is that the smell of salmon stewed with radish?"