I Spy

Chapter 50: The Final Selection Part 2

Date: December 8, 2024
Time: 8:13 PM
Location: Mt. Fujisakane 
Weather: Windy and Cold

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The air was cold and dry, the peak of the mountain had not experienced proper rainfall in a while. The oxygen there was very thin due to the altitude of the mountain. It was easily one of the tallest mountains in the region but still hadn't been recognized by geographers surprisingly.

Despite the thin air and below-average temperatures, Tanjiro was trucking along perfectly fine. He managed to find some edible berries to feast on while looking around for some food at the beginning of the second day.

He took some along with him and at this point, had berries stuffed in every pocket of his pants. "I swear, if I get hit on one of these pockets, my entire outfit is going to look like I just came back from a mass homicide or something..." Tanjiro thought as he walked up a mound and over it.

"It's fine...I can just clean in the lake I found earlier today...all I need to remember is to B R E A T H E," he humorously thought.

Just as soon as he thought that, his nose picked up a rather putrid scent. "God dam! Smells like somebody f*cking died here!" He thought with a disgusted look, he unsheathed his blade and advanced toward the smell. 

He passed through a few bushes and shrubs before finding a severed arm on the ground. The arm looked like it was torn from the person's body with pure strength due to the irregular shape of the flesh that went around the severed part. 

It was still letting off some blood indicating that the arm had recently been dropped or the person to whom the arm belonged was not far from Tanjiro when they were devoured. Tanjiro picked up the arm and started waving it around and inspecting it, "It seems like two demons devoured the same person, or at least fought them before defeating them. Big oof to whoever was devoured, I'm not sure how the Ubuyashiki Family is going to cover this insurance claim." Tanjiro thought while showing a little bit of sympathy to the person who was brutally eaten earlier.

Tanjiro looked around the area and started to trace the scent of the two demons that murdered the participant.

As he focused on locating the scent of the demons, the world around Tanjiro started to turn black, and the only thing that could be seen, or really, smelt were trails of multiple colors that represented the smell of the things that were in Tanjiro's environment, from the smell of the grass to the smell of rot that the arm gave off.

The scents were all normal until two trails of deep red suddenly entered through Tanjiro's nose. He noticed the smell and felt the familiar scent of rotting flesh and sinister intent. 

He looked into the trees and saw two pairs of eyes glaring at him, they soon jumped to reveal themselves. 

They both had sadistic smiles on their faces filled with hunger and murderous intent. "Look what we have here, another person fell into our trap." One of the demons said, "Our trap?! This was my idea!" The other demon complained, "And I was the one who got the first victim!" The other argued back.

"So?! Let me have this kid, you had the last one!" The second demon exclaimed back, ''F*ck off! I'm starving!" The first demon argued, "So am I b*tcha*s! You had the last one, so let me have this one!" The second demon said, "In your dreams! Whoever gets to him first, gets to devour him first!" The first demon shouted.

Meanwhile, as Tanjiro was watching the two demons have a petty argument about who was going to eat him, he took out some berries from his pocket and started to munch on them. "Mm. Taste like cranberries." He said to himself, "Y'know, maybe I should take some home so I can make a dish out of them." He stated as he began to stroke his chin.

"I mean...I have enough right now to make a pie." He said, "Oh yeah. I forgot I have to make a camp somewhere so I'm not always walking around...yeah...I'll do that after I deal with these two." He thought to himself, "Hey!" One of the demons said as he snapped Tanjiro out of his thought process.

"Yes?" Tanjiro replied, "Are you not afraid?! We're here to devour you!" The other demon asked, "No...I was just thinking about whether you want some of these berries I found." Tanjiro said as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a handful of berries to offer to the demons.

The demons looked at him with a very confused look, "What are you going to expect us to do? Eat it?" The demon asked, "I mean yeah...they're berries, what else could you do with them?" Tanjiro questioned back. "We're demons, we don't eat anything else other than humans..." The other demon stated, "So that's a 'no'? Well...sucks to be you then. These things are a delight. Y'know, I found them over back there when I was walking here!" Tanjiro said as he pointed in a random direction.

"Nobody cares about that!" The demon exclaims, "I do." Tanjiro murmurs, "Are you not afraid?!" The other demon questions once again. "Hmmm...Nah, not even a bit." Tanjiro replied.

The two demons started to become pissed at the absolute indecency of the child, "Kids these days...don't even know what true fear is..." One of them furiously complained, "Really? How old are you guys?" Tanjiro asked. "Why do you care?" The other demon said, "Oh, so now we're asking who cares? C'mon man, I just asked a simple question, so answer it." Tanjiro replied.

"After we tell you the answer, we're going to devour you. You cocky little brat." The demon threatened, "If you can." Tanjiro said in a mocking jingle. "Tch...we're from the very mid-Showa Period." The demon answered, "Oh, so that makes you about...80+ years or so, I'm guessing." Tanjiro asked. "Yes! Now let's fight!" The other demon furiously stated as he finally had enough of it and charged at Tanjiro.

"Rookie mistake." Tanjiro thought with a grin before swinging his sword once at the demon's neck and swiftly decapitated it. "Huh!" The decapitated demon said in shock before fading away.

"Wh-" The other demon said, but was soon decapitated by Tanjiro and was not even allowed an opportunity to say his last words as his head plopped on the ground and Tanjiro crushed it under his feet.

"Shut up," Tanjiro stated before sliding his sword back in after he cleaned the blood off of it with his Saya.

"Now...time to make camp..." Tanjiro thought to himself as he went to a tree to pluck some sticks off of, "I think there is a fine place." Tanjiro thought as he placed the sticks in the middle of the area.

"I wonder what Kanata and Kiriya did after they saw me..." Tanjiro thought as he searched around the place for a few objects to set up camp.

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"Onee-san, can you pass the sauce?" Nichika said to Hinaki as they sat next to each other while eating along with the entire family. 

"So, how was your day Amane?" Kagaya asked his wife, "Very good, dear." Amane responded with a sincere smile. "Glad to know," Kagaya stated as he returned the smile and went back to eating. The entire family was talking to each other while they ate their dinner...all but two were actually engaging in a conversation.

Though Kanata and Kiriya were shown to have smiles on their faces, they couldn't forget the very unexpected meeting they had with Tanjiro a few days ago. "What's wrong you two?" Amane asked as she saw their smiles, but noticed that their smiles were a bit...fake...

"Nothing, Mom," Kiriya said as he smiled at his mother before taking a spoonful of his soup. "Hmm...there is something wrong, was it something you saw?" Amane asked, "Perhaps it was, mother..." Kanata stated which caused both Amane to raise an eyebrow and the entire table to fall silent after hearing what the two had to say.

"A few days ago, during the beginning of the Final Selection. We met Tanjiro-san..." Kiriya stated which caused Ubuyashiki to widen his eyes in suprise. "Oh my..." Amane said in a bit of shock, she knew Tanjiro since she was the vice-principal of the school and she knew him and his gang quite well due to the amount of trouble and appreciation they get from students.

"Isn't the Final Selection a bit dangerous for him?" Ubuyashiki asked, "We thought so, but we didn't stop him. I don't know why..." Kanata replied, "I thought he called in sick..." Amane told her husband, "Me too...but we can't just pull him out of the forest with our bare hands, if he wants to become a slayer, then let him be. It's his decision, and plus, if he is in the Final Selection, then maybe he was holding back during Physical Education." Ubuyashiki kindly replied to his wife.

"Should we tell this to the other teachers tomorrow?" Amane asked, "No, I have a feeling Tanjiro would not like that. And if he has a plan, I'm interested to see what it will be." Ubuyashiki replied before going back to eating.

The entire family just shrugged and returned back to eating as conversations continued around the table about other topics.

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A few days had passed before the Final Selection, It was Wednesday now, but our redhead was still going strong.

"There...I'll name you...Billy..." Tanjiro said as he placed a wooden sculpture that he carved with his sword on the ground next to a lot of other hand-made sculptures.

"There we go...I finally finished carving all of the sculptures so that I could finally have friends." Tanjiro jokingly said to himself, "Haha...I need help..." He started with a slightly depressed face.

"Oh yeah...how's our food situation?" Tanjiro wondered as he went to a makeshift house that was made out of branches, leaves, and logs and looked at his food supply which was just kept on a large leaf that he found.

"Hmmm...I might have to go get some more berries..." He thought while picking up the very few pieces of berries that he had left. 

"Ok! Now I know what to do!" Tanjiro said to himself while standing up proudly, he then turned to his sculptures and waved at him before walking away from his camp, "Wait here, Billy! I'll be back with some more food!" Tanjiro exclaimed as he waved and walked off, "Why am I talking to sculptures...?" Tanjiro wondered while walking.

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About fifteen or so minutes later, Tanjiro came back with his pockets full of berries. "Hey, Billy! I'm back and-What are you doing?" Tanjiro asked as his happy face soon turned to confusion at the sight of two people in his camp.

"Oh...uhh...is this yours?" One of them asked as he picked up a sculpture and inspected it, "Yeah." Tanjiro simply replied, "That one right there is Hans you're holding." Tanjiro said as he pointed to the sculpture. "Oh nice-Wait...what the f*ck you named them?" The person replied with a lot of confusion.

He had peach-colored hair, a scar that ran from the right side of his mouth to his right ear, pale lavender eyes, and a green and yellow geometric hexagon design on his kimono which was tied down with a piece of black fabric. 

"Yeah, I got lonely, so this is what I did in the meantime during the day." Tanjiro replied, "But it's night! Shouldn't you be out there killing demons?!" He asked, "Technically, the kids at the front of the forest said that we had to survive here, not to kill as many demons as we can in the seven days." Tanjiro answered. "I-Ok...you got a point..." He stated with a finger raised.

"And also, may I ask who the other person is? Your girlfriend or something?" Tanjiro said as he pointed to the much younger-looking girl with cyan-colored eyes and semi-long black hair that spiked out at the ends along with short bangs on her forehead. She was wearing a red yukata with a pink and white flower dot pattern, she was also wearing a deep blue sleeveless haori which was tied down by a large piece of brown fabric. 

"What-NO!" He screamed with a mad blush on his face as he turned around to the girl who was laughing a bit at the comment with a bit of a blush on her cheeks, "Oh sorry, you guys just look like the type if you get me." Tanjiro said with a grin. "Also..." Tanjiro added as he went closer to the man and started smelling him.

"What the absolute f*ck are you doing?" He asked with confusion and a bit of frustration, "Relax...I have a good nose that can pick up almost any scent and distinguish it from any other scent. And it seems like you two aren't giving off any scent, unlike humans which all give off a distinct scent. So I just have to assume that you guys are dead and appeared in a spirit form, or I'm hallucinating." Tanjiro as he waved him off.

"Ok...anyway, yeah, me and her are already dead, and our souls are trapped here forever unless someone kills the demon that kills us." He stated, "How does that work?" Tanjiro asked. "I don't know! Some random curse or some shit like that, you just need to know that you need to kill that demon in order to set us free!" The boy replied.

"Hmmm...and why me?" Tanjiro asked, "Because you're the only one capable...and...because I couldn't find anyone, either all the other participants are dead, or there aren't that many left..." He said with a somewhat down expression. "And what would I get in return?" Tanjiro asked, "I-Wh-We're f*cking ghosts! We can't give you anything! God dam, people these days!" He exclaimed while stroking his forehead in frustration and annoyance.

"Hahahah! Relax buddy! I'm only playing around with you! Sure, I'll go kill the demon that killed you both." Tanjiro said while laughing. "Really?" He asked out of suspicion, "Promise! I've been looking for another way to entertain myself other than carving wooden sculptures and talking to them." Tanjiro said as he looked at his army of sculptures.

"Great, me and her will lead you to said demon, and I guess you could deal with him from there." He said, "Nice, also, can I ask what your guys' names are?" Tanjiro questioned.

"I'm Sabito, and she's Makomo. She's a bit quiet and shy, so don't expect to talk that much." Sabito answered as he started to walk away from the camp with Tanjiro trailing behind, "Nice, she's kind of like my other friend. Quiet, shy, but kind." Tanjiro said with a smile and pointing to her.

"That's good, but for now, just follow us," Sabito said as the three started walking through the mountain.

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"Are we there yet?" Tanjiro asked, "Just a little more..." Sabito answered. "What the hell do you mean 'a little more'? We've been walking for the past 45 minutes!" Tanjiro exclaimed, "Jeeze...you are one impatient man, aren't you?" Sabito asked, "I can be patient when I want to! But when it comes to me and spending the rest of the night talking with my friends, I can't help it!" Tanjiro exclaimed, "What friends?! So far, the only friends you have are those wooden sculptures back at your camp!" Sabito argued back, "At least it's better than being dead." Tanjiro mumbled to himself.

"Also...if I don't mind asking, you know a person named Giyu Tomioka?" Sabito asked which caused Tanjiro to raise an eyebrow in interest, "Yes...he's the gym teacher at Kimetsu High." Tanjiro replied, "So that's where the idiot is..." Sabito stated, "What? Are you two of his best friends that he lost a while back?" Tanjiro asked, "Yes. How the hell do you know these things?" Sabito questioned. 

"What can I say, I'm a smart man," Tanjiro said with a smug look, "Also I heard it from rumors too..." Tanjiro added, "Yeah...anyway after you get out of here, if you can that is..." Sabito said as he quietly mumbled the last part, "Tell Giyu 'How is he doing?' And to also give him this face." Sabito said as he turned around and pointed to his face.