Chapter 6

The brother did what the younger brother had wanted and held his hand, as the demon turned back to his human. "You're hopeless, you know? Still such a scaredy-cat." And with that said, the two brothers walked together back to their home, as the hands Tanjiro had been holding on disappeared completely, leaving the boy standing there in somber silence.

The mages of Fairy Tail were once again left speechless.

No one knew what to say, as they could only sit there and stare at the scene in silence, watching as Tanjiro give one last prayer before taking his leave from the area, looking for a safe spot to spend the rest of the night before any more demon would come and attack him after such an intense fight with a powerful demon.

"Master…" Finally, Erza Scarlet broke the silence, turning to the master of Fairy Tail and asking him in a slow tone as he had a somber look on his face "what was that? What did we just see? Could it be that…"

"Yes, Erza. I believe… we just witnessed a memory of that demon Tanjiro just fought back when he was a human." Makarov answered with a sad nod of his head "Based on what we just saw, I feel that when the demon faced its final moment, its memories as a human would come back…"

"I see." Erza said, nodding her head slowly to him as she turned back to the projection, watching as Tanjiro fought to survive another night of the gruesome Final Selection. Makarov's theory was soon proven to be correct, as they watched the human memories of the demons that Tanjiro slain, admiring the young man as he prayed for each and every one of them every time.

"These demons… they are not born demons. They were all once humans."

"That's right." Makarov nodded his head, smiling at Mira who found herself saying it.

"And the things that they did… the people that they killed… they couldn't help it, could they?" Lucy couldn't help but ask, and once again, it was Makarov who answered the question.

"It appeared to be the nature of the demons of Tanjiro's world, Lucy."

"But what about Nezuko? She recognized her brother, didn't she? And she even resisted it."

"I think… Nezuko might be a special case." Makarov replied while rubbing his chin thoughtfully "Judging from Tomioka's reaction to her, and he's someone who had fought demons long enough to be one of the leaders of the Demon Slayer Corps., it's clear that Nezuko is not a normal demon… I am not saying that she is the only ones, and there can't be more like her… but the demons of that world, they seem to be driven solely by their natures. Everything that they were, the humans that they used to be… all gone till their final moments…"

"And Tanjiro, I think he understands this better than anyone… even us, who are watching his journey. To feel sympathy for even his enemies, not for who they are, but for who they were and what they became… That boy is truly something else." Makarov said, before smiling warmly at the members of his guild as he continued "Let this be a lesson to you all, everyone."

"Yes, master." Erza nodded her head with a smile, and around her, her teammates and other fellow guildmates of Fairy Tail couldn't help but do the same.

Makarov smiled at his children before they all continued on watching. Although, deep down, he couldn't help but grimace at the thought of the first demon of the Kamado siblings' world, having a feeling that if there was anyone that could be regarded as a true monster, it would be that demon.

Time passed, and seven days have passed. With the Final Selection finally coming to a close, only four participants, including Tanjiro himself, showed up at the place where it all began.

"WHA…" Levi gasped in shock, covering her mouth in realization at what it could only mean "only 5? There were so many back then. Don't tell me that they're all…" The mages of Fairy Tail shuddered at the thought, while Makarov could only lower his head solemnly.

"Only four of us? But there were at least twenty." Tanjiro wondered while looking around the place.

"Oh, that girl made it!" Cana exclaimed when she noticed the girl in the pink kimono standing next to Tanjiro.

"She did not just simply make it. Her clothes… it's completely clean." Laxus pointed out the fact in a serious tone, making everyone around him widen their eyes in realization. While all the boys looked like they had gone through hell and back, the girl did not look any different than how she was when she entered the test.

"I wonder how strong she is." Natsu couldn't help but grin excitedly.

"Even if I survive now, I'm gonna die in the end anyway." The boy with yellow-orange hair said with a tone filled with fear, making Tanjiro turn his head and look at him.

"What the hell is that attitude?" Gray asked with a deadpan expression.

"Well, he made it to the end, so I think he must be a capable fighter too." Erza said with a shrug, knowing better than judging a book by its cover.

"Welcome back." The twin from before said simultaneously as they arrived before the four.

"Congratulations." Hinaki said.

"We're pleased to see that you're safe." Nichika said.

"Can't say the same about the others, can they?" Wakaba asked while lighting a cigarette.

"They knew the risk when they chose to become a demon slayer." Was the only thing that Makarov could say with a small sigh.

"So? What am I supposed to do now? Where's my sword?" The boy with scars on his face said impatiently.

"First, we shall issue you all uniforms. We will take your measurements, after which your rank will be engraved." Hinaki told them. "There are ten ranks in all..."

"Kinoe."

"Kinoto."

"Hinoe."

"Hinoto."

"Tsuchinoe."

"Tsuchinoto."

"Kanoe."

"Kanoto."

"Mizunoe."

"...and Mizunoto."

"Currently, you are at the lowest rank, Mizunoto."

"Ugh… why are there so many ranks?" Natsu couldn't help but ask with a hand holding his head, trying to remember all the ranks the twins had just told the four demon slayers. "Why just not call them S, A, B, C like us?"

"Well, they have their own system, that's for sure." Lucy pointed out with a shrug.

"And like us, higher rankings mean that you can undertake much more dangerous missions. It's not like you can send a B-rank mage to a S-class mission now, can't you?" Mira explained to Natsu with a small giggle.

"I guess." Was the only thing the pink haired dragon slayer could say, even though he had been on multiple S-class missions with Erza and his team before while not being an S-class mage himself.

"And our swords?" The scar faced boy asked once again with growing impatience.

"Today, we will let you choose the ore for your swords." Hinaki mentioned. "However, the swords will take ten to fifteen days to complete."

"Are you kidding me?" He sighed and muttered in disappointment.

"A standard time for a sword to be made." Erza confirmed with a nod of her head.

"But first..." Hinaki clapped her hands twice and the sounds of crows can be heard upwards. Each crow landed on top of the slayers' shoulders or arms.

"I suppose these crows are their own forms of communication and mission assignments." Makarov said thoughtfully while rubbing his chin. "Some old people in our world also use various type of birds for far distance communication, but they normally only use them to send letters and light packages."

"So, do you, master?" Natsu asked with a teasing grin, making Makarov look at him while the whole guild laughed.

"We will assign each of you your own Kasugai Crow." Hinaki said.

"Kasugai Crow?" Tanjiro muttered as he looked at his crow.

"These Kasugai Crows can be used primarily for communication." Nichika informed them.

"Knew it."

"Did you say 'crow'?" Zenitsu asked in disbelief. "Isn't this a sparrow, though?"

"Did they run out of crow or something?" Gray asked with a small chuckle.

"The sparrow suits him though… with his personality…" Evergreen said with a small laugh.

Before anyone could answer his question, Zenitsu and his sparrow got startled by the growl of the scar faced boy as he swatted his crow away. "Don't give me that crap!"

With that said, the scared face boy stomped toward the twin, making his way past Tanjiro and the others with an angry look on his face.

"Who the hell cares about some stupid crow?"

Stopping in front of Hinaki, the boy scoffed angrily before he reached one hand out and took a handful of Hinaki's white hair, pulling her up to look at him directly in the face.

"OI! What the hell are you doing to her, you bastard!?" Natsu stood up from his seat and asked angrily. Around the guild, everyone else also shared the same feeling, crying out in protest at the scared face boy, even though Hinaki did not react in the slightest to his action.

"I want a sword, you hear?" He said this to her with intimidation, but Hinaki's expression remained unchanged. "Gimme one right one! The Demon Slayers' sword! The Color Changing Sword!"

"Color changing sword?" Despite the anger she was feeling, Erza couldn't help but ask.

From earlier, she knew that the sword of a demon slayer that could be used to slay a demon was called the Nichirin sword, but she did not know that it could change color, nor had ever heard about any type of steel to make a sword that was capable of doing such thing.

Having had enough of this, Tanjiro walked forward and grabbed onto the boy's arm that was gripping Hinaki's hair.

"Take your hand off her! Or else, I'll break your arm!" Tanjiro warned him.

"Ohhhh!" The mages of Fairy Tail couldn't help but whistle in amazement. Having gotten used to seeing honest and kind Tanjiro, none expected to see such a side from him.

"Hell yeah! You rock, Tanjiro!" Natsu and Happy cheered loudly in excitement to the dark red haired boy.

"I say Tanjiro just breaks his arm." Gajeel said jokingly with a wide grin, earning him a light slap on the shoulder from Levi, even though she couldn't help but silently agree with him.

"Huh? Who the hell are you?" He asked Tanjiro.

Zenitsu panicked at what was happening in front him. "Wh-Wh-Wh-What should I do?"

At the same time, the girl in the pink kimono simply stood still and gazed at her crow.

"I mean… I am all for the idea of her and Tanjiro becoming a thing and all with you, Cana… but don't think she's a bit weird?" Lisanna asked with a sweat drop and a forced smile.

"You know what? I agree with you." Cana nodded her head in agreement, before the smile on her face became a wide grin "Then let Tanjiro be the one who will crack that shell of her."

"Where does she even get these assumptions from, I wonder…" Wakaba asked his friend Macao, who could only shrug his shoulders in defeat.

"Let's see you try it!" He dared Tanjiro to do it and tried to break away from his grip. It did not take it long, however, for him to realize that no matter how hard he tried, his arm wouldn't bug, as Tanjiro's grip slowly tightened harder and harder.

"Wow, he really got it." Lucy said in amazement.

"Tanjiro really has become stronger." Laxus couldn't help but notice the way Tanjiro was breathing and could tell that the Kamado boy was using his breathing technique.

Finally, after a moment of struggle, with the scared face grunting in pain as Tanjiro suddenly tightened his grip even more around his arm, he was finally released, allowing him to stumble back while holding his arm.

"Serve you right, asshole!" Natsu laughed along with his Exceed.

"Yeah, try to be nicer next time." Lucy added.

"Are you finished chatting?" Nichika breaks the silence between them.

With that said, Nichika then turned around and pulled away a purple cloth on the table that hides the ores that he had mentioned earlier for their swords.

"Now then, please select an ore. The steel for the sword that will annihilate demons and protect you will be of your own choosing." Nichika offered them before stepping out of the way.

"Well, not that I'm going to live very long. Probably." Zenitsu uttered with a long face.

"This guy…" Gray shook his head in defeat. "I don't think that he's scared of death, which can be good considering the job he has chosen… it's just that he's…"

"A coward?" Juvia finished her crush's word, making him look at her before nodding his head nonetheless.

"Then if he's always like this then why did he choose to become a demon slayer, I wonder…?" Erza pondered her thoughts out loud.

Soon, all four new demon slayers presented themselves before the ores and looked at them, wondering which one should they choose to be forged into their weapons.

"I wonder if this is one of those 'the weapons choose their wielders' situations?" Mira asked, more to herself than anyone else but everyone could hear what she said. As far fetched as that might sound since the ores on the table did not look that special, that might be the case.

They really couldn't rule out any possibility.

'They're asking us to choose, but how are we supposed to pick one out? I've never seen an ore before, and I can't tell the difference anyway.' Tanjiro thought before closing his eyes, deciding to rely on his sense to pick.

His nose soon caught a scent of an ore that seemed to stand out from the rest.

"I choose this one." Tanjiro said as he grabbed his chosen ore.

"Huh… I wonder what that piece of rock smells like."

"You probably can't tell the difference to other rocks… same as we all are." Laxus replied to Natsu's inquiry, making the young man huff in denial. "To be able to tell the difference just like that… his sense of smell clearly isn't just better than normal."

The scene changed to that of a Kasugai Crow, who stood on the hand of a man who was dressed in a white cloak.

"As many as five of them managed to survive, huh? Excellent. The number of my children has increased again. I wonder what kind of swordsmen they'll become."

"Huh? Who the hell is this!?" Natsu couldn't help but ask, looking confusedly at the man who sat facing away from the scene, making them unable to see his face. At the same time, however, the fire dragon slayer couldn't help but get a somewhat familiar feeling from him, one that reminded him greatly of Makarov.

"Could it be that… this is the master of the Demon Slayer Corps.?" Mira decided to take a while to guess, but many nodded their heads to her in agreement, finding themselves thinking the same thing.

"Interesting… I wonder what kind of a person he is." Makarov found himself saying with a smile, as he already had a good feeling about him.

The man already appeared to care greatly for the members of his organization.

"His voice is so smooth and warm, don't you think?" Lisanna asked her sister, who beamed at her and nodded her head back in response.

The scene then changed once again, becoming that of the road leading back to Urokodaki's house. It was already dusk and Tanjiro was trying his best to march his way back into Mt. Sagiri, appearing to be in an exhausted state and having to use a stick to support himself as he traversed.

"Man, can the corps at least like… sends someone to take Tanjiro back?" Gray asked in slight annoyance "He survived for 7 days in a forest full of demons after all."

"Well, at the very least he can still walk." Erza answered with a shrug "He looked fine earlier, but I guess his tiredness finally caught up to him."

"Sorry, Nezuko." Tanjiro uttered. "I never got to ask them... how to turn a demon back into a human."

"Oh…" The mage of Fairy Tail exclaimed and looked on worriedly as Tanjiro fell on the ground.

"I wanna go home as soon as possible, but my whole body hurts. Even my uniform feels heavy.'

"Come on Tanjiro-kun, stand up." Mira whispered in a low tone as she put her hands together "Nezuko-chan is waiting for you at home. You can't just give up now that you have acquired the means to look for a cure for her."

"Man, does this man really have to live on a mountain?" Natsu grumbled with his arms crossed on his chest "Climbing his way up is gonna be a pain."

Soon, however, the Kamado boy slowly picked himself up, using his stick to push himself to his feet before resuming his journey, walking at a slower pace on the path that led back to Mt. Sagiri. The sun, however, soon began to set over the horizon as Tanjiro continued to make his way back to Urokodaki's home.

"Hey Mira, do you think that Nezuko has woken up?" Erza asked, turning her head to look at her best friend, who then had a look of curiosity.

"Oh yeah, now that you mentioned it…" Mira said with a nod of her head, reminding everyone of the fact that Nezuko had slept for 2 years for the entire duration of Tanjiro's training under Urokodaki. "I honestly don't know, but if she's waking up then I think now is the time for her to do so."

"Let's wait and see." Makarov said with a smile "I have a feeling that she has woken up from her slumber."

"I... made it." Tanjiro said in an exhausted voice as he stood looking at Urokodaki's home. "Nezuko... Mr. Urokodaki..."

Before he could take another step, Tanjiro widened his eyes when the front door of Urokodaki's house was kicked down, with Nezuko herself emerging and walking out to look at her brother like nothing had happened.

"YEAHHH!" The whole Fairy Tail guild cheered at the emergence of Nezuko, crying out loudly while clapping their hands as Tanjiro dropped his stick and ran over to his sister, who also ran toward him.

The older Kamado's exhaustion soon caught up to him again, making the boy fall flat on his face. The moment that he was able to push himself up, however, Nezuko tackled him, and wrapped her arms around his head, hugging him tightly.

Tanjiro clutched onto Nezuko and cried. "Why... Why'd you fall asleep all of a sudden? Never waking up once! I was worried you were going to die, you know?!" He sniffed.

Urokodaki, who was out picking up logs nearby, spotted the Kamado hugging each other and stopped, dropping everything in his hands before walking toward them and wrapping his own arms around them to hug them both.

"You came back to us alive." He said, with tears pouring down visibly from the side of his mask.

"Aw…" the mages of Fairy Tail cooed at the wholesome, heartwarming scene between the two siblings, with the girls sobbing quietly.

"Natsu, are you crying?" Happy asked, looking at her best friend who was trying to hold back his tears.

"No I am not!" Of course, the pink haired boy tried to put up a tough front and denied it, but anyone could tell that even Natsu could not hold himself back from seeing such a scene, something that they could not make fun of him for.

"I see. You killed that morphed demon." Urokodaki asked while sitting across Tanjiro. The scene had changed to that inside of his house, with the teacher and student sitting with each other beside the fire.

"Yes." Tanjiro replied.

"At last. I'm truly impressed that you made it back."

"I feel that knowing the demon is slain puts his Urokodaki at ease." Mira said softly while looking at the masked old man on the screen, as he looked down for a moment before continuing to speak to Tanjiro "That demon killed so many of his students. It must have been hard for him."

"No wonder why he did not want to send Tanjiro to the Final Selection." Erza acknowledged with a nod, with Natsu, who got angry at Urokodaki earlier for not wanting to send Tanjiro to the final exam to become a demon slayer, staring longingly at the old man.

"Yes." Tanjiro answered with a small nod, looking much better than before with his forehead bandaged up.

"There are several kinds of demons." The senile demon slayer then explained "The demons who use a special spell called the Blood Demon Art possess supernatural abilities. You may have to fight those demons, as well, from now on. And battling them will be far more difficult than anything you've known until now. Even so, Tanjiro, I'm sure you will be fine."

"You bet that he will." Natsu grinned and punched his fist in excitement "Tanjiro will beat every demon and cure his sister. I am willing to bet my life on it."

"Hoh! You sure you want to do that, flame brain?" Gray asked with a small smirk, causing Natsu to snap his head to the side to glare at him, but the annoyed look on his face soon turned into a wide grin when his rival continued "You can count me in on that bet too."

"Heh!"

"So blood demon art…" Mira wondered while tapping her chin thoughtfully "I wonder if Nezuko can use such power too."

"If she can, then she could surely aid her brother in his fight against other demons." Erza added.

"I think that Nezuko's not like the other demons. Do you think it could be that Whatchamacallit Art?" Tanjiro then asked.

"Whatchamacallit!?" Natsu asked in confusion, while the rest of the guild could only laugh in amusement at Tanjiro.

"No, I don't think so." Urokodaki shook his head and explained his thoughts. "I wouldn't call that an example of the Blood Demon Art. I'm just guessing here but it could be that Nezuko's recovering her strength by sleeping instead of consuming human flesh."

"Which is a good thing, you know." Gray said with his face turning slightly green "You guys remember what Urokodaki told Tanjiro to do if Nezuko ever eats a human?"

"Kill his own sister and then kill himself with disembowelment?" Lucy asked with a forced smile.

"Luckily she doesn't seem to be a normal demon… she just needs to sleep to regain her strength." Mira pointed out with an assuring smile, though she was worried with how long Nezuko had to sleep to regain her strength. The girl had slept for almost 2 years after only a single fight with the demon, after all.

Scene changed, with the words '15 DAYS LATER' appearing on the screen for a quick second before fading away, leaving the recording to show the path leading to Urokodaki's house, where a man wearing a straw hat with bells hanging from it was walking. The man also appeared to be carrying a box wrapped neatly in cloth on his back.

"Ohh!" Natsu exclaimed while grinning excitedly. It wasn't that hard for him to figure out what it was based on its length as well as the timestamp of how many days had passed. "Is that what I think it is?"

"It must be Tanjiro's demon slayer sword. His nichirin sword." Erza nodded her head in confirmation, as the other members of Fairy Tail straightened themselves up on their seats, waiting expectedly to see Tanjiro's demon slayer blade.

The man then stopped in front of Tanjiro, who exited Urokodaki's house and stood formally before him, before speaking up for the first time to the young boy in a calming, soothing tone.

"My name is Haganezuka. I have forged Tanjiro Kamado's sword and I am here to deliver it." Haganezuka introduced himself.

"Wow, so he's a weaponsmith. Erza, did your weaponsmiths deliver your swords to you too?" Levy asked in interest, looking at the most well-known sword user of their guild, who crossed her arms on her breastplate and tilted her head to the side for a moment before answering.

"Mine did not. I had to go to their workshops to order and receive my weapons once they were done." The scarlet haired young woman then added with a curious look on her face "However, I have heard of weaponsmiths who take it upon themselves to deliver their crafts straight to their customers, but they are usually the most passionate ones… this guy, he doesn't look like it at all. He's rather calm, I must say." Erza finished, gesturing her head to Tanjiro's weaponsmith, who sat down and started unwrapping the box from the covering cloth.

"Oh, I see." Levy and other members of Fairy Tail nodded their heads in understanding.

"Um, I'm Tanjiro Kamado. Please come inside." Tanjiro gestured after bowing his head politely to the man, but Haganezuka appeared to be ignoring his offer. "

This is the Nichirin Sword and I forged it."

"Please, come in so I can serve you two some te-." Tanjiro tried to offer him some hospitality in confusion, but the man simply continued to ignore him and went on explaining about how he forged the swords.

"I take back my words." Erza said with a serious look on her face, realizing something wasn't right with the weaponsmith and his calm demeanor.

"Yeah… why do I have a feeling that this weaponsmith is a ticking time bomb?" Gray couldn't help but ask with a nervous laugh.

"The materials for a Nichirin Sword can be obtained from the mountain closest to the sun." Haganezuka explained with one finger pointing to the sun "Scarlet Crimson Iron Sand and Scarlet Crimson Ore. These produce steel that can absorb sunlight."

"Oh, no wonder why the Nichirin sword can be used to slay a demon and other normal weapons cannot." Mira said with her eyes widening in realization.

"Yes, the sword is more or less weaponized sunlight, made into the form of a blade." Makarov said with an interested look on his face, nodding his head to Mira in confirmation.

"But why is it also called Color Changing Swords?" Natsu asked in curiosity "That scared face asshole called the swords that, right?"

"I believe we will know soon enough." Makarov said, smiling to the most explosive individual of his guild.

"Wow, is that right?" Tanjiro said, trying to sound interested.

"Mt Yoko is bathed in sunlight all day long, you see. Never a cloud in the sky, nor any rain."

"Wow, that sounds so nice." Lucy couldn't help but say "Don't get me wrong, I don't hate rain… but a mountain where it's always sunny, it sounds amazing, doesn't it?" She asked, making some other girls smile and agree with her.

"There he goes again never listening to what the others say..." Urokodaki commented from inside the house, with Nezuko hiding from the sun under a thick layer of blanket.

Then suddenly, Haganezuka snapped his head around and looked at Tanjiro, revealing the mask that he wore to him.

"GAHH! That one creepy mask!" Natsu exclaimed in shock, crying out in surprise at the same time as Tanjiro. Around the guild, many also felt the same, being startled by the suddenness as well as the design of the mask the weaponsmith was wearing.

"Hmm, so another person who conceals his face under a mask like Urokodaki… I wonder if it is just a thing of their world, or it has something to do with them being members of the Demon Slayer Corps…" Makarov said.

"Hey, you're a Child of Brightness, aren't you?" Haganezuka suddenly asked, leaning his face closer to Tanjiro "Now that's what I call lucky."

"Oh no, I'm the son of Tanjuro and Kie." Tanjiro answered honestly.

"That's not what we meant." They said.

"See how your hair and eyes are a reddish color? When a kid like you is born into a family that works with fire, it's considered lucky and a cause for celebration." Haganezuka pointed at Tanjiro's forehead before pushing his finger into his cheek, causing the boy to lean his head back in discomfort.

"Hmm… interesting." Makarov muttered while rubbing his chin thoughtfully, wondering if it had anything to do with how special both Tanjiro and Nezuko, who had the same hair color as her brother, seemed to be.

Tanjiro also did not mention it to Haganezuka, but he came from a family that sold coals for a living, and coals were also closely related to fire, so there's no way that the weaponsmith could have made it up.

"Is that right? I had no idea." Tanjiro replied to him with a muffled voice.

Taking his hand back, Haganezuka then said, gesturing his head to the sword lying in the opened box "There's a good chance that this sword will turn red."

"Oh! So it seems the Nichirin swords will change their colors based on their wielders then." Levy pointed out interestingly, having never heard or read about a sword in their world that reacted in such a way before.

"With red being the best color." Erza nodded her head in confirmation. "I wonder if the color of the sword represents the strength of its wielder… or it relies on another factor for its color, like their swordsmanship, or personalities."

"Wait… now that you mention it… isn't Tomioka's sword a deep blue color?" Mira asked, recalling the Kamado siblings' encounter with the former student of Urokodaki, making Erza widen her eyes in realization before nodding her head to her best friend.

"Blue is the color of water… and Tomioka was also a student of Urokodaki, which means he might be using the Water Breathing technique just like Tanjiro." Erza said "So does that mean the blue color of his blade represents his 'water' fighting style?"

"That's so cool!" Natsu couldn't help but say, with Happy nodding his head alongside him in agreement "Where can I get one!? I wonder what color I am gonna get."

"Pink, probably." Gray said absentmindedly with a mocking sigh.

Soon after, Tanjiro had his swords in hand while sitting before his weaponsmith, who also had Urokodaki next to him. Even though his mask hid away his facial expressions, one could tell that he was also looking expectedly at his student.

"Come on, hurry up and draw it!" Haganezuka urged rather impatiently for Tanjiro to draw out the sword by doing some weird hand movements.

"This guy is so weird…" was the only thing Gray could say while looking at the way the masked weaponsmith was moving his hand.

"Does he really have to wear a mask and also a cloth like that… it makes him look like a weirdo, don't you think?" Lucy asked her friend Levy jokingly, who giggled softly before nodding her head in agreement.

"Nichirin Swords are also known as 'Color Changing Swords'." Haganezuka then went on to explain it to Tanjiro, who sat listening carefully to him. "They change color depending on the bearer."

Hearing this, the young man then unsheathed his sword and held their blade up, revealing a steel white color. However, the color soon changed, filling the blade from the handguard up to the tip.

After a moment, Tanjiro's Nichirin sword became completely black.

"Black!"

"Black!?" Natsu repeated in slight disappointment, having fully expected Tanjiro's blade to turn red just like Haganezuka had wanted it to, or deep blue like Tomioka since they had the same swordsmanship.

"Well… I guess the technique does not entirely affect the color of the blade then." Erza concluded. Like Natsu, she and many members of Fairy Tail, including Makarov himself, had expected Tanjiro's blade to turn red.

"So the sword turns black." Urokodaki said in a calm tone.

However, Haganezuka appeared to be shaking.

"Uh oh…" Gray muttered with a forced smile, eyeing warily at the way the weaponsmith was shaking in his spot.

To everyone that was watching, he clearly looked like a man who was about to explode in anger.

"Is it bad or something if it turns black?" Tanjiro nervously said. "Is it unlucky?"

"For both of your questions, no, not necessarily. But you don't see this pitch black too often."

Instantly after that, Haganezuka started twitching violently until he exploded in anger, throwing his arms in the air as he cried out.

"And I was so hoping I'd get to see a bright red sword! Dammit!" Haganezuka exclaimed before he shot up and threw himself at Tanjiro, who cried out in shock as he was tackled down by the weaponsmith.

"Ouch! Stop! Please calm down! How old do you think you are?!" Tanjiro said while being strangled by Haganezuka.

"Oi oi! What the hell are you doing!?" Natsu cried out in shock, while the other members of Fairy did not know whether to join Natsu or laugh at the weaponsmith's outburst, as the man was clearly incredibly passionate with his job, but got all of his hopes and expectation shot down almost instantly by the color of Tanjiro's sword.

"Well, at least we know that this man is very passionate about his works." Erza said with a sweat drop, feeling fortunate that none of the blacksmiths she had gone to in the past for her weapons were like him. She had met some extreme people before, but none had reacted in the same manner as Haganezuka.

"I'm thirty-seven." He said as he tightened his grip on Tanjiro, making the boy cry out in pain dramatically.

After a moment, however, Tanjiro's Kasugai Crow suddenly flew into the house and landed before him.

"Tanjiro Kamado! Here are your orders!" The Kasugai Crow spoke loudly.

"It talks?" Tanjiro asked in surprise before repelling off Haganezuka's arms to stand up.

"It talks!?" Natsu and Happy both exclaimed dramatically in surprise.

"Well, you talk." Gray decided to point out the obvious fact to Happy with a plain look, with the rest of Team Natsu and even some other members of Fairy Tail nodding their heads in agreement.

"That aside… it appears that Tanjiro-kun is getting his first mission." Mira stated, making Fairy Tail shift around in the seats in excitement, getting themselves ready for the adventure ahead of the Kamado siblings.

"Young girls have been vanishing there!" The Kasugai Crow continued while Tanjiro looked at it expectantly. "Night after night, young girls have been vanishing! Hunt down the demon lurking there and kill it. Tanjiro Kamado, prepare yourself well for this task! This is your first assignment as Demon Hunter!"

"My first... assignment..." Tanjiro muttered in amazement as he tightened his grip on his swords. It was the moment he had been waiting for, and training for.

"HELL YEAH!" Fairy Tail cheered, feeling the determination of Tanjiro as the scene finally faded to black.

End of Chapter 6