Véro was at the site of the Final Selection of the 1st District of the Demon Slayer Corps, having been brought there by James and Sanemi earlier. As she stood in a group of about 22 teenagers and young adults, many of them noticed her for her unusual (for Japan) appearance. It was the first time any of them had ever seen a foreigner, much less a black person, and she could feel their stares aimed at her. "I doubt any of them mean it out of malice," she thought to herself. "They've probably never seen anyone but other Orientals, much less a Negro. Well, quarter-Negro, but still. If I saw a man with purple or green skin, I'd probably stare, too."
A girl about her age with an eyepatch and black hair came up to her, asking her, "Hello. What's your name? You don't look like you're from around here. Were you a coal miner or coal seller?"
Véro could not help but stifle a laugh. "Coal miner or coal seller," she thought to herself. "That's a new one." "No, I don't mine coal," she explained to her. "My name is Véronique Renaud, or just Véro. I'm from Canada. My skin is naturally brown-ish in color. I'm quarter-black."
"Black?" It was clear she was lost, and was also not trying to sound rude. "I… I'm sorry I assumed, young lady."
"You're fine," she assured her. "We're called black by others. Either that, or Negro. There's other words, but they aren't too nice to use to refer to us. Quarter-black means that one of my grandparents was black, in this case my grandmother, and my grandfather and my father were not."
"Ah, I see," she replied, bowing to her. "My name is Sotozaki Chiyo. Unfortunately, my family wasn't as unique as your's."
Véro, not wanting Chiyo to feel bad, assured her, "Don't say that. Honestly, there's so much more to my family than that. I'm sure your's is interesting, too."
"Perhaps they were," Chiyo replied before pointing to her eyepatch. "Then a demon did this to me. Personally, the loss of my right eye isn't the biggest deal to me. It was the loss of my parents and my other three siblings. That's why I'm here. I want to protect other families and bring justice to demons who kill innocent people. The one who killed everyone in my house is still out there. I survived by pure fucking luck."
Véro was saddened by her story, but also knew that far too many people in the corps had similar stories as well. "I'm sorry to hear that. I shouldn't have assumed."
Chiyo, flustered, assured her, "No, no, no, you're cool! Look, we both assumed wrong things about the other, okay? I called you a coal miner, and you thought my family was still alive. We're both even."
"You're right," Véro replied with a nod. "I guess we are. Are you ready to slay some demons?"
"I'm ready to give these fuckers what for," Chiyo replied with determination in her voice.
…
Meanwhile, at the Butterfly Estate, Tanjiro had completed a second round of injections into Nezuko using James' blood in the late evening, deciding to try doing it on his own to see what would happen. "Okay, Nezuko," he told her. "Good girl… You took those needles like a champ."
"Mmmm," Nezuko happily replied.
"When I get more blood from James-san," Tanjiro explained to her. "We'll do more. With this, you'll be able to return to what you were before all this happened, albeit still as a demon for now." Tanjiro thought to himself as he wrapped up the used needles, "I know I said I wanted her to be human again, but… James proves that there are good ones out there, and that new foreigner the Oyakata-sama met with puts any doubts to rest about it, or at least he should. If Nezuko can't turn back into a human, then I at least want her to be like James-san and Anula-san. She would be as close to normal as can be."
"Hmmm mmmmm," Nezuko said to her brother as she patted his head, wanting to comfort him. She then held her index finger up as if to tell him to wait before reaching behind her head and undoing her muzzle, setting it down on the table, shocking Tanjiro. "Onii-ha… Me… I not care if human. I wahn to normah."
"Huh?" Tanjiro was stunned. "Wait, did you just read my mind, Nezuko?! You're saying that you just want to be normal, right?" Nezuko nodded. "No shit… I was thinking the exact same thing…"
"Noh shit," Nezuko innocently replied, causing Tanjiro to panic.
"Nezuko, no! That's a bad word!"
"Noh shit," she repeated as she stood up. "Noh shit!"
Zenitsu, passing by the room, heard Nezuko blurt out profanity and immediately ran into the room. "Nezuko-chan?! What's wrong?!" When he realized she did not have a muzzle on, he smiled and gleefully told her, "Your muzzle is off! You look so beautiful without it, Nezuko-chan!"
Nezuko happily replied, "Noh shit!"
Zenitsu joined in with, "No shit is right!"
Inosuke, having heard the commotion, walked into the room in his bed clothes without his boar's head mask, scratching his head. Deeply confused, he asked them all, "What the fuck?"
Tanjiro yelled out, "INOSUKE, NO-"
"What de fuck!" Nezuko now began to repeat Inosuke. "What de fuck! What de fuck!"
Inosuke, still confused, asked Tanjiro, "Kentaro, why is your sister without a muzzle and why is she yelling swear words?"
"It's fucking Tanjiro," he replied with a hint of fury in his voice. "And I was giving her some of James-san's blood when I accidentally said 'no shit' in front of her!"
Aoi then ran into the room and yelled in, "EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!" She was clearly frustrated with the commotion going on in the room, and wanted them to all quiet down. "Seriously, what the Hell is going on here?! Whatever it is, be quieter!"
Nezuko immediately shut up, thinking she did something wrong. "Me? Wrong? What…" As she began to cry, Zenitsu and Tanjiro immediately went to her to comfort her. "What me?" Tears fell from her eyes and onto her haori.
Aoi, feeling bad, also walked up to her. "No no no, please, Nezuko-chan. Don't cry."
"Don't start crying, Nezuko-chan," Zenitsu begged of her. "You're gonna make me cry, too!"
Nezuko then looked at him and stopped her crying. "Cry… Wah…" She then hugged him, saying, "Aaah… Pretty flower…"
Zenitsu began to bleed from his nose as he internally began to panic. Nezuko was actually engaging in physical contact with her, something he never thought possible. "This is amazing…" He tried to contain his excitement so as to not startle her. "I can't believe it…"
Inosuke yelled to him, "Monitsu, your nose!"
Aoi quickly snapped, "Quiet the fuck down, Inosuke!" She then turned to Tanjiro, asking him, "Why is your sister out of her muzzle?"
"I gave her more injections of James' blood," Tanjiro explained to her, not wanting to get in trouble. "She took it off on her own and spoke to me."
"I see," Aoi replied as she looked at her. "I see…" She then noticed Inosuke attempting to climb up the walls and onto the ceiling, shocking her. "Inosuke, what the fuck?! What are you doing?!"
"I got bored just standing around here," he told her. "So I'm gonna try climbing around. I do it a lot at night to calm myself down." He was surprisingly not shouting, and indeed seemed relatively calm, or at least, relatively calm for a person like him. "It brings me inner peace, Aoi-chan."
Zenitsu immediately looked up at Inosuke on the ceiling, amazed at how smart Inosuke sounded. "That is by far the most unexpected thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth, Inosuke. You even got Aoi's name right."
Inosuke, slightly pissed off by the remark, replied somewhat harshly, "What the fuck does that mean, Zenkotsu?!"
"Well," Aoi told herself. "That explains those weird climbing noises I sometimes hear at night."
…
Later that night, Véro and Chiyo were together in the forest, looking out for any demons that lurked inside. The forest was thick with vegetation, and the two could barely see around them in the darkness. "Wait," Chiyo then stopped Véro. "Did you hear that?"
Véro then heard a set of footsteps behind them. "Behind us," she whispered. "Get ready." She then quickly used a free hand to draw a revolver from her belt and fired two shots in quick succession at their target behind them, finding that a demon was trying to sneak up on them. "Got 'em!"
"Your bullets won't do a thing," the demon replied to them as his arm began to try to heal. "I can just hea-" Then, his arm stopped healing. "Wait, what the fuck? Agh, why does it hurt?!" He began feeling a searing pain up and down what was left of his arm as well as in his right shoulder.
"Breath of Wind," Véro then said as she holstered her revolver, having fired poisoned bullets. "First Form…" She then charged at the demon and unleashed a torrent of slashes with her sword, slicing the demon several times before landing a blow on its neck. "Dust Whirlwind Cutter!" As she stood in front of the demon, he fell to the ground as his head rolled towards her and began to dissipate into the air. As the body itself also began to disappear, she told Chiyo, "What Breath Style do you know?"
"The Breath of Thunder," Chiyo replied. "I was taught it by Kuwajima Jigoro, the former Thunder Pillar, and another one of his students named Enoshima Kaigaku."
"I know a guy who was taught by Kuwajima-sama as well," Véro replied to her as she wiped her sword with a cloth. "Does the name Agatsuma Zenitsu ring a bell?"
"Kuwajima-sama mentioned him," Chiyo remarked. "Enoshima-san didn't like him too much, but Kuwajima-sama told me that he trusts Agatsuma-san more than Enoshima-san when it comes to their personal motivations." She then readied her sword. "According to him, Enoshima-san couldn't master the first form of the Breath of Thunder, but Agatsuma-san could, despite him otherwise being weaker. Anyway, I hear someone else coming." She addresses whoever was walking towards them from the darkness. "Who is it?! We're armed and we aren't afraid to attack!"
"It's just me," then said another slayer trainee from the darkness. "No need to be alarmed." He appeared to be confident and having a good time despite the challenging road ahead for the next week. "How many kills are you guys up to?"
"I got my first one," Véro remarked. "Chiyo hasn't had any yet."
"I got two already," the young man replied. "With an assist on a third."
"No fucking way," Chiyo replied in disbelief. "Two direct and one assist already?!"
Suddenly, the young man fell to the ground after a long tentacle with what appeared to be claws at its end struck him and went right through his chest, splattering Chiyo and Véro with his blood and spilling his guts on the ground. He screamed as he coughed up blood, "Fuck!" He then fell to the ground after the tentacle was ripped out of him, dead of blood loss in seconds.
"Holy fucking shit!" Chiyo then found the cause, a demon who possessed a third arm in the form of a long tentacle. "He just fucking killed him!" She then looked to the demon who did it and spat at him, "Come on, asshole! Fight me!"
"As you wish," the demon sinisterly replied before launching its tentacle at her. She quickly slashed it with her sword, temporarily cutting it off as Véro stepped forward to battle the tentacle so Chiyo could focus on the demon himself. "Take this, humans!"
"I'll take his third arm," Véro told her. "Go for the kill!" She then spat at the demon in Québécois French, "Esti de câlice de tabarnak, va t'en, ostie de démon!"
"Got it," Chiyo replied before taking a deep breath. "Breath of Thunder, First Form…" She then dashed to the demon with lightning-fast speed, striking it down with a single slash to the neck. "THUNDERCLAP AND FLASH!" As his head flew into the sky, his body went limp, as did his tentacle, and Véro stood back as it dissipated into the air.
"Nice job," Véro congratulated her. "That was pretty cool!"
"Why thank you," she replied with a bow. "I sure showed him what for." She then turned to the dead young man whom the demon had struck down before them. "It sucks he got to him before we could kill him. Fucker got him before he even had a chance to react. How cruel."
"You're right about that," Véro replied. "It is fucking cruel."
