Perhaps begging for help from the first person he met was a not a good idea. On one hand, he was pretty strong and very quiet (his voice was pleasant as well, even if he only spoke when prompted), and he didn't seem to mind his clinging, Zenitsu's only complaint was that he was clearly insane! Upon hearing a demon approaching, Zenitsu was quick to run away. Much to his horror, Tanjiro did the opposite he would run to kill the said demon and when he fought he sounded

'T-t-this guy he is more scarier then the demons here !!! Just now when he drew his sword he sounded like a hurricane and wildfire mixed together...' Zenitsu shivered as Tanjiro killed five demons at once

He several more hours passed before the sun finally began to rise, before Zenitsu could begin to relax, he heard an alarming noise. Some sort of cocky laugh. He had heard that same kind of laugh from the demon when they found him alone plenty of times(he made a mental note to visit the local shrine and thank the gods for keeping him alive), . It was so noisy that Tanjiro heard it as well. he made a move to go and see what it was, but hadn't made it far when Zenitsu yanked him back with jittery hands.

"WAIT! We don't know what that was! It can't be a demon, not in the daytime."

"It was likely a selection candidate."

"What human being would cackle like that in a situation like this?!"

"Perhaps to celebrate making it through the night."

Unfortunately, Zenitsu's curiosity ended up getting the better of him, and the two of them set off towards the sound.

Things had been going better than expected for Genya. He had only run into three demon on this night, and it had been fairly easy to deal with them but things took a turn for the worst. He sat down, hoping to get a few moments of rest as the sun rose, when he was suddenly disturbed.

an infuriated shriek drew his attention. There was a crazed boy in a boar mask twisting his head around in desperate search. His dual swords had crooked, serrated edges, sharp points

The sight was so absurd that Genya couldn't bring himself to look away. He heard a voice to his right,

Genya looked back at the boar– it was looking at him? How had it known he was here? His train of thought was cut off when the boar started laughing, "A NEW CHALLENGER!! YOU DARE FACE THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN?" Before Genya had a chance to respond, the boar rushed towards him.

A sword clashed the two chipped blades blocking them

Genya blinked in surprise as a boy wearing blue, cloud-patterned samue-styled kimono and a hand-carved fox mask appeared in front of him

The boar whipped his head up, grinning as he raised his other hand to gesture wildly. "YOU! You're strong! Beating you will prove my strength!"

From the corner of his eye, Genya could see a girl wearing a pink haori staring at him with her dark lilac eyes

"Attacking your fellow slayers is against corps rules." The fox mask boy replied

While ever of them were distracted, Zenitsu searched for a place to hide. Past the cover of the shrubbery, he could hear their voices.

"Lower your weapon," Tanjiro warned but the boy in the boar head burst out laughing.

"Why would I do THAT?!

"Aren't you part of the Demon Slayer Corp? it's taboo for us to fight each other without provocation" Tanjiro lectured Inosuke completely forgetting for a moment that they are not officially members of the corps (yet)

"I suppose we'll just have to fight barehanded then," Inosuke said.

"What! No, did you not listen to a word future me said," Tanjiro asked.

"Even without weapons I would still beat you into the ground! What difference does it make?"

Tanjiro didn't get these people. One of them came to a survival test only to run away, and the other wanted him to fight him bare-handed!

"Wait w-"

At that moment Boar Boy tossed his swords to the side, he jumped straight at Tanjiro who dogged to the side with

"What the hell is going on " Genya asked to no one in perticular as Boar Boy continued his attack

Zenitsu had no doubt that Tanjiro could kill any demon on the mountain, but the boy he was facing was human, so he was unwilling to break the rules and defend herself properly. Zenitsu was far more willing to break these rules...well more like tried desperately to convince himself to step out and help. He should be able to, there were no horrifying monsters involved. That was always his excuse, that any sane person would cower in that face of such terrifying creatures, but that didn't apply here. There was no excuse for his cowardice, but by the time he realized this, the sound of the fight had faded into background noise.

In fact, he could hardly hear them at all anymore.

Without giving it any more thought, Zenitsu jumped out from his hiding spot. Just as he feared, neither of them were in sight. How long had he waited?! Now Tanjiro was alone with some crazy person, and Zenitsu was all alone again.

He was safe, it was daytime. There were no demons, no Gramps to drag him off to train and no boar-headed crazy people to try and kill him. But that wouldn't be the case soon. If he was still alone when the sun set, he would be doomed. The instant that thought crossed Zenitsu's mind, he began to stumble through the underbrush searching desperately.

"That was exhausting " Tanjiro sighed as he rested ironically the hardest part of the test was dealing with a fellow candidate they fought for a an hour or two (mostly Tanjiro dodging the attacks) before he knocked out the boy with a headbutt

"I hope he is alright" Tanjiro winced remembering the crunching sound he heard when his forehead made contact with the boar boy's forehead.

He checked the boy with the transparent world only a minor concussion nothing too serious Tanjiro breathed a sigh of relief.

He decided to stay by his side mainly because he felt horrible for leaving someone on the ground in the middle of a demon mountain, he sat beside him

Zenitsu's stuttering voice interrupted his thoughts "How long are we gonna stand here!" met with silence, Zenitsu tried again. "If we don't keep MOVING, a DEMON might find us or worse! MULTIPLE demons! We don't need to worry about that PSYCHO with the boar head!!"

"There is that boar head !" a girl shouted

"get that bastard !!!" a boy yelled

This was going to be a long day

Tanjiro soon found out that Inosuke (the boar boy) had a unique way of making friends

half of candidates rushed yelling about how they wanted to kill him and the other half stopped them yelling that they wanted to kill Inosuke first and the first half should back off

It didn't help that Inosuke regained consciousness and loudly proclaimed that it's their fault for being so weak in the first place

'H-h-he beat up all of them " Zenitsu shivered behind a bush as Tanjiro sat down after knocking out 18 candidates (including Inosuke again)

For once they slept without a care in the world at night

The previous night through seventh nights were silent and almost relaxing for Tanjiro mainly because there were no demons left apparently in trying to survive (and also rescuing and helping others) he accidentally killed most of the demons in the mountain

Tanjiro could not smell any demons

Zenitsu confirmed that he could not hear any demons

Inosuke loudly shouted about his Seventh Form: Spatial Awareness how great it is and how all demons are dead

Genya got into fist fights with Inosuke when they crossed paths and he confirmed that he did not encountered demons

A young girl wearing a pink haori flipped a coin and told them that she didn't see any demon

The rest were just glad that they didn't have to fight anymore demons and that crazy boar guy(Inosuke decided to only fight Tanjiro to prove himself)

The final selection was over