Hearing a noise I turned to see Tanjiro and Urokodaki walking towards me, making me smile a little.
"Look I managed to cut it, isn't that great? How did you go, Tanjiro?" I asked.
"I managed to slice mine as well," Tanjiro answered but Urokodaki stayed silent.
"I had no intention of sending you two to the Final Selection" He said, making me and Tanjiro shocked as we looked at each other. After all that training that we had done, Urokodaki still didn't want to send us to the Final Selection.
"I didn't want to see children die anymore. I was sure you wouldn't be able to slice the boulders that I assigned you both but" Urokodaki said before he reached his hands out and began to pat our hands making me look at him trying to keep my tears at bay.
"Well done, my boys. Tanjiro, HIkaru you are both remarkable kids" Urokodaki praised and I couldn't help it anymore as I started to cry, Tanjiro also had tears dripping down his face.
"Make sure you come back alive from the Final Selection. Both Nezuko and I will be waiting for you both here" Urokodaki said as he pulled us into hugs. That's when it occurred to me it wasn't just Sabito and Makoma, there were other children, ones that Urokodaki had trained but they had never come home from the Final Selection. I didn't say any of my thoughts out loud since I could see the worry, sadness and pride that Urokodaki's aura was swimming with. Getting to the house, me and Tanjiro changed into different clothes since the ones we were in were dirty from our training for the day.
"What's the occasion? There's so much" Tanjiro smiled seeing all the food that Urokodaki was cooking.
"Geez Tanjiro you can't be that dense can you? It's to celebrate us finishing our training, isn't that right Urokodaki-sensei?" I asked.
"He is correct, don't be shy, eat up" Urokodaki said, passing us each a bowl of stew. It was the same stew that he had fed us the first time making me beam. Urokodaki's stew was the best that I had ever tasted so it wasn't a surprise when I asked for seconds and then thirds. Once we had all eaten our fill Tanjiro laid down some cloth and grabbed some clippers and began to cut his hair that was slightly shorter than mine in length.
"Are you not going to cut your hair, Hikaru?" Urokodaki asked as he was folding up some material that looked the same as his hiori.
"Ah...No" I said as I gently touched the ends of my hair, I had already trimmed it to get rid of the dead ends. Feeling Tanjiro's nudge to my side and seeing Urokodaki's curiosity I sighed, it was about time that I told my sensei about what happened.
"Urokodaki-sensei do you remember the night that we first met? When we introduced ourselves Tanjiro introduced himself as Kamado Tanjiro yet I only introduced myself as Hikaru" I started.
"I do remember that," Urokodaki said.
"I didn't introduce myself with a family name because I have disgraced my family and therefore I am no longer welcome to bear my family name" I explained keeping my head down. I didn't want to see the anger or disappointment that would surely appear in Urokodaki's aura nor did I want to see the sadness and self-blame in Tanjiro's.
"I see, may I ask what your family name was? And what have you done to disgrace yourself?" Urokodaki asked and I looked at him shocked. He was looking at me calmly even his aura was calm, yet I was sure that he was going to throw me out and demand that I never come back.
"My family name was Akatsuki and what I did to disgrace my family was when I was fighting that demon that killed Tanjiro's family and turned Nezuko into a demon. I cut my hair to try and defeat him. In the Akatsuki family we never cut our hair unless it is to trim the dead ends off" I said.
