The Sound Hashira's Apprentice // tengenuzui x reader

Chapter 4

When I was younger, I would spend most of my time engrossed in fantasies of who I wanted to be. I thought I would be a singer. Or a pianist. Maybe someone who took care of animals or an advocate for those who aren't very well off in my country. My fantasies were my escape, as I visualized what my life would be like when I was older.

I did all the right things. I went to school, a privilege many didn't have. I listened most of the time to my parents. I was mostly liked, other than some bullying here and there. That's for character building I suppose.

I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. And perhaps that was my mistake. All I ever did was within the ordinary. It was the blueprint my parents lived in fear upon and instilled in my mind. My dreams were always so far away, the person I could become constantly out of reach to do more than just play innocent as atrocities from the demon race ravaged my country.

To be honest I should have been more thankful. But the fear that half raised me to the women I became was what I despised. It ate me away, making me the failure I labelled myself upon. I got to the prime age of 17 and still had no clue what to do with my life, many others even younger than me achieving much more than I could ever fathom.

Was I falling behind? Am I really a failure?

I remember the day I decided to do something that wasn't mundane or ordinary. That was to join the demon slayer corps. Unlike most decisions of my life, I kept my choice a secret as I knew my family would not approve. Not just because it was dangerous, but because they would have thought I could never succeed. I knew that if I told them the sorts they would talk me out of it.

It was something I had to do alone. Starting a lonesome and slow-paced journey. Even if my skills weren't as impressive as my peers, I got here through hard work and all on my own. Head tucked behind books for months straight, using a flimsy sword found on the stairwell of a worn down bar for any grasp of what it would be like to slay a demon, and a whole bunch of odd jobs to get me by as I toughed it alone.

It was those choices that led me to the most frightening moment of my life. You would think the final selection would've done the trick, but the lack of experience and naivety may have been the very reason that spared my life.

I was sent with a division of other slayers to a mass killing assignment. All lower-ranking demons, an easy task it seemed. I had been part of the corps only a year then, and I lacked much experience comparably to the others. But again, my naivety held me from any affect of worry about my mission.

Then it hit me.

I struggled to keep up, not able to kill as many demons as my brethren nor was as fast. I had been cornered by three of the deadly creatures, feeling completely useless as I cowered and watched over as my comrades suffered to slice the multiple heads around them. I knew nobody could save me at that moment, a sense of doom taking me by a choke hold.

Governed by the walls of fear, in a bubble of safety my whole life, I never faced the mortality I truly had. It was the first time my life felt tangible. And yet the taste of fear, of adrenaline pointed so jarring in my face, was when the dragon peaked its head from my own hands.

No, literally, as my fingers gripped desperately upon my nichirin sword, an unknown feeling called over me. I bore the mouth of the beast down with my weapon across all targets.

The feeling was loud, the ringing in my ears boiling hot. But it was a mere whisper. "First Form: Jaws of Destruction"

The silence that followed was deafening, as my comrades, all still alive yet battered and bloody stared at me in amazement. I couldn't even remember how it played out if you even asked. And not has it ever happened again since that day, but the event catapulted me from low rank to Kinoe within those 12 months. The sense of hope lingered inside of me as I continued my path in being a decorated demon corps member even if I still wasn't the fastest, or the flashiest, or the strongest.