A month passed in the blink of an eye.
Mount Fujikasane, that strange mountain range surrounded year-round by wisteria covering its slopes, welcomed the Demon Slayer Corps' latest Final Selection.
Night fell. Twenty or thirty young swordsmen from various places had already gathered in the assembly square at the foot of the mountain. They wore kimonos or training clothes of all kinds, gripping their Nichirin Blades tightly, their expressions varied. Some trembled all over with fear, others flushed with excitement at the coming battle, and still others wore expressions of numbness and confusion.
Among them, a few figures stood out in particular.
A boy wearing a green checkered haori, with a dark red scar on his forehead, carried a heavy wooden box on his back as he gazed resolutely at the stone steps leading deep into the mountain forest. That was Tanjiro Kamado.
Not far from him, a blond boy wearing a yellow haori patterned with triangles clung to a tree trunk, tears and snot streaming down his face as he wailed incessantly, "I'm going to die! I'm definitely going to die! It's full of demons in there! Why did I come to this deadly selection? Help-"
Everyone around him looked at the embarrassing blond boy as though he were an idiot. Only Rokuya knew that he was the personal disciple of the former Rumble Hashira, Jigoro Kuwajima-Zenitsu Agatsuma.
At the very edge of the crowd, a girl wearing a pink kimono and a white cape stood quietly. A pink butterfly ornament adorned her hair, and her exquisite face held no expression, as though the surrounding noise and fear had nothing to do with her. She merely tossed a copper coin into the air from time to time, caught it on the back of her hand, and stared blankly at