A demon slayer story

Chapter 9: The boulder

We followed him up a snowy mountain, wondering where we could be going.Final selection maybe?We could only hope...

Suddenly, we stopped.Two large boulders sat before us, ropes wrapped around each.
"If you can cut this boulder in two, I'll allow you to enter the final selection"Urokodaki said, his voice flat; not an ounce of emotion when he was telling us to cut a boulder in half.

Me and Tanjiro looked at Urokodaki as if he were insane, rightfully so I'd say.

Is that even possible?We both thought, wiping some dust off our clothes from running up and down the mountain.

I'm gonna fail, I thought.My sword will break.

Urokodaki started to turn around and walk away from us.
Tanjiro whipped around "Urokodaki?Hey!Hang on a second!Urokodaki!?"he called out, but he was gone.Urokodaki was already miles away, leaving us stranded with an impossible objective: Slice the boulder.

After that day, that was it.He never taught us anything ever again.

We clutched our swords, shooting eachother a glance before swinging our swords.The only reaction we got was our body's shaking from the impact between the metal and the rigid stone.
"This is impossible!"I complained, balancing myself.
"On the bright side, we didn't break our swords?"
Oh yeah, real bright.

From then on, we spent every day practicing what we learned from Urokodaki.
We held our breath underwater, did more than 500 pushups each.
Day by day, we worked towards splitting the boulder.
But still, even after six more months, we couldn't cut through the boulder.

Our hands were calloused and blistered, some parts even bled from how tightly we held our swords.I'd never felt pain like it, even in all those years of delivering crops between towns in heavy baskets.
Tanjiro took it as he wasn't training hard enough, pushing himself to do double the training.
I, on the other hand, spent my time trying to find at least one weak spot on the boulder, obviously...without luck...

I swung in every direction, even tried to stab the boulder (which ended in the handle of the sword pushing back against my hands and grazing my blisters).

"It's no use, it's never going to happen it's just...impossible"I sighed, utterly defeated.
"I don't think we'll ever make it to final selection at this rate..."I continued, tucking into bed a few paces away from Tanjiro's futon.
"Goodnight Tanjiro, sleep well"
I muttered in my sleepy state.I didn't hear him say goodnight because I had already drifted off into a sleep...

"You give up to easily Anza, it'll be your downfall one of these days"my mom chuckled.She had set me a challenge:Fill the bucket with the hole on the bottom with water and don't spill a drop.I had tried all day, standing on a rock in the center of the pond trying to collect enough water to keep it from dripping but it was no use.
In the end I had thrown my bucket into the pond and left to cool off.

"My dear child, you don't even understand that you did complete my challenge...the bucket is full" I understood what she was saying, the bucket had water all around it but technically at the bottom of the pond it was full.
"Never give up Anza, anything is possible if you believe it is"

And then it hit me, my eyes shot open.It was already morning and Tanjiro had already left but with the encouragement from my dream, I grabbed my sword, springing to my boulder and swinging at it as hard as I could.

Tanjiro was talking to himself, I think all the exhaustion finally got to his head...which I could relate to.

It was then that I heard it, my moms voice.
"You can do it Zaza, I know you can"She spoke, that soft tenderness i so missed.It had been almost two years since her passing yet here she was, clear as day stood in front of me.
"M-mom?"I stuttered, struggling a little to keep myself from crying.
"Don't cry my dear, you're doing so well...you just need to believe in yourself" she combed hair from my eyes and behind my ears.
I nodded, swinging at the boulder again.
"All you've done is memorise what you've been taught, your body is still figuring itself out"
She spoke.
I couldn't do it anymore...I fell backwards, blacking out from exhaustion.

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I didn't stop that day, I kept trying and trying until I could hardly breathe.Tanjiro said something about a Makomo and Sabito and how they were helping him but, I think he made them up to cope with the pain.
Sweat trickled down my nose, the salty taste abusing my tongue when it landed in my mouth.

I swung my sword, but still, I couldn't cut through the boulder.I thought about giving up, maybe dying way my only way out but, seeing the state Tanjiro was in, I couldn't leave him for dead against god knows what.

Six months later, everything changed.
My once shoulder length hair now reached the back of my knees and Tanjiro's hung just below his armpits.Most of my hair was brown by then, the red ends still hanging on to my fringe as well as the rest of its length.

Once again, I challenged myself to cut open the boulder, I had tied my hair into a bun at the back of my head to keep myself from stepping on it accidentally.
I swung my sword, aiming to push myself to the limit.Complete the challenge or die trying, I repeated like a mantra.

And finally, when I opened my eyes there it was; two halves of the boulder that plagued my existence for a whole year.
A part of me wanted to believe that Mom, Nari and Suske hand helped me cut open that boulder, for my own state of mind.
I looked over to Tanjiro and...He had cut his boulder too