It took six long months for Kanae to deem Reiji ready for the Final Selection.

When it came time to leave, Reiji spent what little money he had left on a proper meal from the nearby town and left for Mount Fujikasane with Kanae by his side.

After climbing a long set of stairs for an hour, he came across a shrine covered in wisteria flowers that kept the demons further above the mountain confined there. All around him were at least twenty young men and women around his age or even younger, all armed with a nichirin katana of their own.

Kanae had a mix of nostalgia and sadness on her transparent face. This must've been a familiar sight to her, and she probably knew that not everyone around them right now would survive to leave the mountain.

Under a large torii gate stood the two hosts of the event.

Both of them looked like little girls far too young to have anything to do with demon slaying. They wore matching purple kimonos with green sashes and each held a paper lantern in their hand. One had white hair while the other black, both styled in the same short hime cut decorated by wisteria flowers.

They were, without a doubt, the creepiest kids Reiji had ever seen in his life-and that was counting all the literal ghosts he's met.

Besides looking like they came straight out of a horror illustration, the karma in their souls was all over the damn place. Small children were naturally innocent by virtue of them just not knowing any better. It was difficult for them to build up any significant amount of evil karma unless they deliberately engaged in something truly heinous.

These two children had evil karma practically strangling them from within. But at the same time, he could tell that it didn't belong to them. The evil karma's 'colour', for lack of a better term, was far too different from the rest of their soul.

Like a painting touched up with new brushstrokes that were just a few shades off from the original. A foreign substance that was not meant to be there but can no longer come off.

It might've been evil karma inherited from their ancestors. Reiji had seen such cases before back at his old temple and has even conducted cleansing rituals for those afflicted with it. But if that was the case, then it must've been the most severe instance of a karma curse in existence.

When enough candidates had gathered at the shrine, the two creepy, karma-cursed children spoke to the candidates in perfect unison.

"Good evening." Their small monotonous voices, amplified by each other, reverberated through the cold mountain air to catch everyone's attention. "Tonight, you've come to enter the Demon Slayer Corps' Final Selection. Thank you all for being here."

Once all eyes were on them, each of the children took turns speaking, starting with the one with white hair.

"Here on Mount Fujikasane, there are several demons that were captured alive by demon slayer swordsmen. They are kept here for the event."

"The wisteria blossoms keep them from leaving," continued her black-haired twin. "They bloom here year-round, and cover everything from the base to halfway to the top."

"But the wisteria ends here," continued the white-haired girl. "So demons abound from this point on. And they're very hungry."

The black-haired twin then gave the simple but nonetheless difficult conditions for their success.

"In order to complete final selection, you must: survive for seven days beyond the wisteria's protection."

The two hosts ended their explanation by speaking in unison once more, adding more weight to their combined words.

"Now, your trial begins."

The hosts bowed politely to the candidates, whose souls light up with fear and trepidation despite the strong fronts most of them managed to keep up.

"This feels so wrong on so many levels," Reiji muttered to himself before taking a step forward anyways. "These demons were human once. They deserve to die with dignity instead of being kept here like wild game."

"I wholeheartedly agree," said Kanae, who walked beside him into the lion's maw. "So let's put them out of their misery, shall we?"

Reiji dashed between the trees of the demon-infested forest, hand gripping the handle of his bamboo sword cane sheathed in his sash.

The smart thing would be to play defensively. Head east as soon as possible, where the sunlight will hit first when daybreak and avoid any unnecessary confrontation-which should be easy enough with his ability to spot souls glowing through the trees and thicket.

But a demon left alive could easily kill another candidate, and it would be a mercy to end their pitiful existence here anyways.

Killing them shouldn't be the means to an end, but a responsibility.

Reiji spotted the black stained soul of a demon mulling about through the thicket. He drew his sword from its bamboo scabbard and sprinted towards it until he could see the demon, who looked like a bald man with pale grey skin and a long tongue that licked at the air like a snake tasting the wind for signs of prey.

No time to waste. The longer this man lives as a demon, the more years in hell he'll accumulate through evil karma before reincarnation. Better to slay him now and save him a few centuries of torment.

"Ghost Breathing, First Rite." Reiji expunged the air inside his lungs as he dashed at the demon. Spectral hands and faces crawled along his blade in his mind's eye, all eager to cleanse themselves of their grudge against the demon. "Midnight Apparition."

The demon didn't have time to notice Reiji.

One second Reiji was running. In the next, he was already past the demon, whose head flew several feet away with a face of mild bewilderment.

The demon's soul was immediately plunged into hell, the weight of his evil karma denying him the privilege of lingering on the mortal world for even a second longer than needed.

Reiji allowed his lungs to fill with air again and swiped off what little blood clung to his blade.

Kanae clasped her hands together in a soft prayer for the slain demon, and Reiji followed suit.

"May his soul find peace," said Kanae before turning to him with a soft smile. "You did a good thing, Reiji. Also, I must say I'm impressed. It's one thing seeing you train in the breathing style, but it's another thing seeing it in action. I could hardly see you, and my eyes are amazing!"

"Glad I didn't disappoint, sensei." Reiji's tone was teasing and sincere in equal measure. "I was honestly a little concerned about trying this out in the field, but I think I'll be fine."

Ghost Breathing, an original creation of Reiji, shared little resemblance to the other breathing styles save for a few cues borrowed from Kanae's Flower Breathing. Most of it was based on his own meditative breathing, rigorously supplemented with demon slayer techniques until it could function as one of their breathing styles.

In addition to the borderline superhuman physique common to all Total Concentration Breathing Styles, his Ghost Breathing had an extra trick up its sleeve.

When the human body realises it's about to die, there is a moment when it becomes capable of truly astounding feats. The mind becomes more lucid as it searches itself for ways to avoid death while the body is flooded with chemicals that allow it to be far stronger and faster than in everyday life.

By diverting blood to a specific part of his brain, Reiji was able to deceive his own body into thinking that it was about to die. It allowed him to fight with the razor-sharp instincts and surging strength of someone on the brink of death even when his body was still perfectly healthy and his mind completely calm.

This faux near-death state required him to expunge air from his lungs and hold his breath to maintain. While in it, he could move and strike so fast that it seemed as though he vanished in and out of existence, leaving phantasmic afterimages behind him as he did.

Ghost Breathing walked a tightrope where one wrong move could spell the end. Each time he executed a rite, it swung him towards death only for him to inhale once again and pull him back up to the land of the living.

Luckily for Reiji, he was no stranger to straddling the line between life and death.

Half a dozen demons honed in on Reiji's position.

His eyes darted around him, their true gaze hidden by his basket hat. Sin-stained souls approached him from shadows and treetops thinking that darkness and leaves were enough to hide them from him.

Reiji sucked in a deep breath that engorged every vein in his body and brain with oxygenated blood. The demons lunged towards him with claws extended from every direction above and around him.

"Fourth Rite." A puff of breath expunged from his lungs and he vanished on the spot to appear behind an already beheaded demon. "Drowning Souls in the Sanzu River."

More puffs of breath shot out from Reiji's lungs. With each exhaled gust of air, he vanished into thin air only to reappear somewhere else with another demon's severed head flying behind him.

By the time all the air in his lungs had expired, so did the demons.

"Six surges for my fourth rite before I run out of air." Reiji sucked in a deep breath, taking note of his current limitations as dissolving heads fell around him. "Got to work on that."

"You seem to be doing well so far though," said Kanae with a smile beside him. "I might not have to possess you at all if you keep this up."

Reiji returned her smile, but it quickly vanished when he heard the sound of claws clashing against steel in the distance.

"Someone's in danger."

Reiji sprinted towards the commotion, sword still drawn and slightly bloody from his last fight. Several corrupted souls glowed through the thicket for him to see, all surrounding one pure soul with significantly less evil karma staining it.

Upon reaching the scene he found a single girl struggling to hold off five demons by herself. She looked like a foreigner, with long golden hair tied in a ponytail and pale blue eyes wide with panic. A gold talisman he vaguely remembered was called a crucifix around her neck over her blue double-breasted suit.

Her right hand had been injured, and she clumsily held her green-bladed katana in her left to defend herself.

"Ave Maria, piena di grazia, il Signore è con te," muttered the girl to herself in a language Reiji didn't recognise, her bloody right hand clutching her crucifix. "Tu sei benedetta fra le donne, e benedetto è il frutto del tuo seno, Gesù. Santa Maria, Madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori, adesso e nell'ora della nostra morte. Amen."

One especially large demon lunged at her from behind without her noticing.

Reiji leapt into the air, sword held high, and aimed his fall towards the offending demon.

"Ghost Breathing, Sixth Rite." A gust of air shot from his lungs the moment he swung his sword downwards, instantly propelling him and the blade straight to the ground through the demon's neck like a guillotine. "Cursed Grudge."

The golden-haired girl let out a small yelp of surprise and turned to look at him. In doing so, she blinded herself to another demon swinging a clawed hand at the back of her head.

"Third Rite." Reiji made a swift, soundless dash that instantly ended with him in a low stance below the demon about to kill her. "Bump in the Dark."

He swung his sword upwards from the demon's blind spot, severing his hand before he could touch the girl. The demon stumbled back screaming, bumping into several other hungry demons as he did.

"Second Rite: Ghastly Wail."

Reiji's blade whizzed through the air in a curving horizontal slash. It moved so fast that it released a shrill sound like a shrieking spirit that soon became lost in the actual shrieks of several beheaded demons.

The heads hit the ground and quickly dissolved into ashes, their expressions all a mix of shock and horror.

With no more demons around, Reiji swiped the blood off his sword and turned to the golden haired girl. "You alright here?"

The girl let out a loud sigh of relief. Her bloody right hand still clutched as she fell to her knees with her eyes glistening with tears.

"Grazie!" said the girl in between her heaving breaths. "Pensavo che sarei morto!"

"Easy there." Reiji raised an open palm to calm her down. "Do you speak Japanese?"

The girl paused for a moment. Her mouth was open, but it seemed her mind struggled to find the right words.

"Y-yes," she said in shaky Japanese after a few moments. "I speak little Japanese."

"Good, that's good," said Reiji gently. "I'm Reiji Shiki. What's your name?"

"Luciana Luttazzi," said the girl, speaking far too fast for him to catch anything.

Reiji blinked at her. Kanae tilted her head at the girl who couldn't see her.

"Such an odd name," said Kanae. "Do all foreigners have such hard to pronounce names?"

"I'm sorry, can you please repeat that?" Reiji asked.

"Luciana Luttazzi!" the girl repeated as she got back to her feet. She sounded much more cheerful now that the danger had passed but didn't slow down her speech. "Piacere! Uh, p-pleased to meet you!"

Reiji blinked at her again, having caught only a couple syllables of the name she gave him.

"I-I'll just call you Lulu if that's alright."

Lulu beamed at him.

"Nessun problema!" She held up her bloody hand in an odd gesture where her index finger and thumb touched while her other fingers pointed upwards. "Lulu is fine, Signore Rei!"

Reiji was about to correct her before stopping himself. If she was alright with him only using a single repeated syllable of her name, he had no right to complain about her forgetting the 'Ji' and adding whatever the hell 'Signore' meant.

"Right, guess I'm Signore Rei now," Reiji muttered to himself, causing Kanae to chuckle beside him.

Blood suddenly spurted from a cut on Lulu's injured hand as she held it up in that weird gesture, much of which splattered against the face of Reiji's basket hat.

"Ah! Mi dispiace!" Lulu shouted in her native tongue before switching to much less fluent Japanese. "Um, I'm so sorry!"

"It's fine." Reiji wiped the blood off his basket mask's eye holes with the sleeve of his black monk's kimono. "You should probably deal with that injury though. Come on, let's get moving. Your blood will attract demons if you stay in place for too long."

"R-Right!" Lulu nodded. "Andiamo!"

Reiji dashed through the forest with Lulu beside him. She was surprisingly light on her feet, able to easily keep up with him as he hopped over logs and rivers.

They reached a small clearing just as the sun rose, bathing them both in light.

"We made it." Lulu let out a grateful sigh and sheathed her sword with some effort. "Gra-I mean, thank you, Signore Rei."

"It's fine." Reiji found a rock to sit on and pulled out a purple pouch embroidered with a butterfly from his kimono. "Let me see that hand now, Lulu."

"Oh, of course!" Lulu crouched in front of him and lent him her injured hand. "Thank you so much, Signore Rei."

"Don't worry about it."

The injury to her hand was bad, but not immediately dangerous. He used some medicine Shinobu had given him before he left Butterfly Mansion to disinfect the gash on her hand before wrapping it up in bandages. Aside from a pained grunt when he popped her dislocated pinky back into place, Lulu made no complaints as he treated her.

"There," said Reiji. "You won't be holding a sword in that hand anytime soon, but you won't need to amputate either."

"It fine!" said Lulu cheerfully. "I prefer left hand anyways."

Reiji and Kanae both blinked at her.

"You're left handed?"

"Sì!" said Lulu, which Reiji could only assume meant yes. "But I also good with both hands!"

Reiji recalled how clumsily Lulu had wielded her katana back when she was fending off demons by herself. Katanas were usually wielded in two hands to maximise their effectiveness, but even so, she should've been able to hold it in her dominant hand with a bit more finesse.

Lulu had looked like a rank amateur with the katana when she was fighting. Sure, she was fast and obviously strong to have been able to block the demons' attacks with one hand, but her actual skill as a swordswoman was far too lacking.

"Such an odd girl," said Kanae, bending down to look the oblivious Lulu in the eye. "I can sense that she's strong. She's even somewhat mastered Total Concentration Breathing, Constant. But her swordsmanship is rusty at best."

'How the hell did this girl pass cultivation training?' Reiji thought to himself. There was no way he could just let this little sacrificial lamb go now knowing that she likely wouldn't survive.

"Maybe you should stick with me for the rest of the Final Selection," said Reiji. "Safety in numbers and whatnot."

Lulu's eyes lit up and she nodded so quickly that Reiji thought her head might fall off.

"Sì! Good idea! I no let you down!"

The two of them made use of daylight to find a stream. Seven days was far too long to go without water. They could survive without drinking for three days tops, assuming dehydration didn't make them an easy meal for demons beforehand.

Food was another issue, though a far less pressing one. Reiji had the foresight to pack some dried meat and nuts in his pack beforehand. If they can supplement it with food foraged during the day, he should have no trouble staying full even when sharing with Lulu.

Conversation was a tad difficult at first, but Lulu's cheery demeanour made up for her somewhat shoddy Japanese.

From what Reiji gathered, she was the daughter of a Catholic missionary. Her family had come all the way to Japan from Italy to spread the word of God.

Apparently, God decided to reward their faith by sending a demon to slaughter their entire congregation. Lulu, the only survivor, saw her survival as a sign from above that she needed to help rid the world of demons.

"That make you mi guardian angel, eh Signore Rei?" said Lulu after recalling her story. "May I know why you became slayer?"

"I joined because of a friend." Reiji glanced at Kanae, who only smiled at him. "We should forage for food while we walk. Stay vigilant around the thickets. There could be demons hiding in the shadows there."

Reiji and Lulu each kept an eye out for anything edible as they walked through the thick forest. Every now and then Reiji would glance back at Lulu or call out for her to make sure she didn't wander too far away.

At one point he climbed a tree to nick some unattended eggs from its nest. Once he was firmly back on the ground, he glanced at Lulu just in time to see her pluck and eat a round black berry from a magenta coloured stem.

"Wait!" Reiji appeared in front of Lulu in an instant and slammed his fist straight into her stomach. Her pale blue eyes bulged in surprise while her cheeks puffed up with puckered lips. "Those are pokeberries! Poisonous! Spit them out now!"

Upon hearing the word 'poisonous', Lulu stopped resisting his punch and allowed the half-chewed pokeberries to shoot out of her mouth onto the forest floor. A short stream of purplish vomit followed, and she started bowing to him repeatedly while speaking in her native tongue.

"Mi dispiace, mi dispiace, mi dispiace, mi dispia-" She stopped halfway through the last word. Her face turned green and she fell to her knees spewing more purplish vomit.

Reiji rubbed her back while she got it all out of her system.

"Let's stop foraging for now and focus on finding a stream," he said, prompting her to nod with poisonous purple juice dripping from her chin.

After a bit of walking with Lulu clutching her stomach the entire time, they finally came across a deep stream with fast running water.

"We should try to sleep here during the day," said Reiji. "Wash the poison and vomit out your mouth but don't swallow. We should boil the water before drinking. I'll make the fire."

"Grazie, Signore Rei." Lulu crouched beside the river to rinse her mouth and wash her pale face.

While she was doing that, Reiji piled up some sticks into the shape of a simple campfire that he lit with a piece of flint. Within seconds, the fire crackled to life.

Reiji set down his pack. He pulled out a couple tin cups for boiling water and some dried meat. It wasn't much, but should become far more filling they boiled it in water to make soup.

"Hey, you can eat meat, right Lulu?" Reiji asked.

When she didn't respond, he turned around to find her passed out and floating face-first down the river.

"Lulu!"

Reiji jumped into the water after her.

'Nevermind the cultivation training, how the hell did this girl survive life for so long?!' Reiji thought as he swam downstream towards Lulu's unconscious body. He made it to her just as the air bubbles around her started to sputter out and dragged her to shore.

Ten minutes later, they were both huddled around the campfire drying themselves over a tin pot of boiling soup.

"Mi dispiace." Lulu let out a sneeze that shot mucus straight into the fire. "I-I sorry."

"It's…fine," Reiji lied.

'This girl is not fit to be a demon slayer,' he thought to himself. 'I should recommend her to be a support member like Aoi-san at Butterfly Mansion once this is finished.'

Kanae looked at Lulu with a furrowed brow and unsure frown that probably meant she shared similar sentiments.

When the soup was ready, Reiji scooped Lulu her portion for her so that she wouldn't accidentally burn herself or something. He was probably being overcautious, but at this point he wouldn't be surprised if she accidentally drowned in the soup pot.

"Grazie," said Lulu as she took the little tin cup from him.

Reiji nodded and took off his basket hat to eat. His soup barely had time to touch his lips before he heard Lulu choking on hers.

"Che bell'uomo!" she gagged out between coughs.

"Are you alright there?" Reiji stared blankly at her with deadpan black eyes. "Do you need me to spoon feed you or something? Because I'm afraid I don't have any spoons. Just chopsticks."

A sudden fever turned Lulu's face red and she violently shook her head.

"N-no! It nothing! Thank you for the meal!"

Lulu ended up eating her soup far too fast. She choked on some boiled jerky inside it and needed Reiji to hand her a cup of sterilised river water to force it down.

The rest of the Final Selection went by in a blur.

As expected, there were plenty of restless spirits like Kanae haunting Mount Fujikasane, but Reiji didn't have the chance to speak with any of them with Lulu following him around.

His original plan was to actively hunt as many demons as he could each night, but since taking Lulu in he was far too busy trying to make sure she doesn't get herself killed. For better or worse, he decided that the survival of this hopeless, still living girl was more important than any unfinished business the restless spirits may have had.

A good dozen or so of them were wearing fox masks for some reason. If Reiji had to guess, the masks were probably supposed to be good luck charms of some sort. Though considering the fate of their wearers, they must've been pretty shit at their job.

By the time the seven days were up, Reiji and Lulu both had a cold and were shivering like wet dogs as they made their way back to the shrine to be ordained as official demon slayers.

"It seems the quality of the cultivation training has gone drastically down since I was alive," said Kanae upon seeing the completely empty shrine grounds. Sadness, disapproval, and disappointment tinged her soul. "They're probably focusing on quantity over quality to quickly fill the ranks now. The poor souls must've been like lambs to the slaughter."

Of the over twenty candidates that entered the Final Selection, only Reiji and Lulu survived. Had things gone down a little different, Reiji could've very well been standing there alone.

"Welcome back, everyone," said a familiar pair of monotonous voices.

The same creepy children who explained the rules of the Final Selection now greeted them once more.

"And congratulations," said the white haired girl.

"We're pleased to see you're safe," added her black haired twin.

They then calmly explained that each of them will now have their measurements taken for their uniforms and their ranks engraved at the back of their hands. Said ranks, from lowest to highest, being Mizunoto, Mizunoe, Kanoto, Kanoe, Tsuchinoto, Tsuchinoe, Hinoto, Hinoe, Kinoto, and finally Kinoe.

The rank of hashira wasn't mentioned, either because it wasn't written into their clearly rehearsed speech or they just didn't expect them to live long enough to reach it.

"They say the exact same thing every time, don't they?" Kanae mused to herself beside Reiji. "It was a different set of twins when I had my Final Selection, but they said almost the exact same thing as these two."

The white haired girl clapped her hands, and squawking crows swooped down from the skies. Lulu winced in surprise when one of them perched on her shoulder while Reiji was too tired to give any sort of reaction when he felt something land on his basket hat.

"Now that you're both demon slayers, you must each be assigned your own kasugai crow," said the white haired girl. "To facilitate communication between you and the corps."

"Well that's convenient." Reiji held his hand above his head, allowing the crow on his hat to perch on his finger. He held his crow in front of him to find that it was an albino, with snow white feathers and pinkish red eyes. "Huh. Neat. What am I supposed to call you?"

"Oyuki!" squawked the albino crow in a vaguely feminine voice. "Pleased to meet you!"

"Caspita!" Lulu held her hand over her mouth and stared at her own black crow. "Crows speak?!"

"Eyup!" squawked Lulu's crow. "I'm Arisu!"

"N-Nice meet you, Arisu!" said Lulu, beaming at her crow despite her runny nose and puffy eyes. "Let's get much along!"

Reiji shared in her surprise for a whole two seconds before he realised that he's seen already far weirder shit than talking crows and will probably continue to in the future. He had Oyuki perch on his shoulder as he listened to the rest of the creepy child hosts' speech.

The two child hosts pulled a silk blanket off a table to show them a large selection of raw ore.

"Now the time has come," said the white-haired girl. "Please select an ore to use for your sword. The steel that you will use to protect yourself and annihilate countless demons will be that of your own choosing."

Reiji stared at the collection, unable to tell any of them apart from each other.

"This is more for ceremony than anything else," said Kanae, pulling him from his thoughts. "Your first sword will probably get damaged and need to be replaced at some point anyhow. Whichever ore you pick, the swordsmiths will make sure you have an excellent katana all the same!"

"I guess I'll go with this one then." Reiji grabbed the nearest ore without giving the matter further thought.

Lulu eyed the ores nervously before taking a few tentative steps to the child hosts.

"Mi scusi," she said nervously. "May I make request?"

"What is it, miss?" the children asked in unison.

Lulu pulled out a piece of paper from her suit and gave it a once over before sighing in relief. She must've been worried that it'd become illegible after her nearly deadly dip.

"Please give this to swordsmith?" Lulu handed the slightly water-damaged paper to the twins, who each held one side of the paper as they read.

"...Okay, please choose your ores," said the children once they finished reading.

"Grazie mille!" said Lulu with a big smile before handing them two of the chunkiest ores on display. "Here you go!"

Reiji asked, raising an eyebrow at her behind his basket hat.

"Two ores?" he asked.

"Ah, it nothing." Lulu sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "I just-"

The sudden sneeze stopped her mid-sentence, and Reiji had to jump backwards to avoid being in range of her spittle.

"We should probably find a doctor." Reiji wiped his own runny nose under his basket hat. "I happen to know one that might let us stay until our swords are finished. You want to join me?"

"That be great!" said Lulu. "Thank so much Signore Rei!"

"It's no problem at all," Reiji assured her. "Just let me know if you ever need a break, and go easy on that right hand, alright?"

Lulu trailed behind Reiji like a lost puppy as he made for Butterfly Mansion. He was already thinking of an excuse to give Shinobu for going straight to Final Selection without coming to her first.

Reiji didn't know why, but something told him that that conversation was going to be much more terrifying than every night he spent on Mount Fujikasane combined.

Taisho Era Secret!

Reiji Shiki's name is spelled with the kanji 零児 (Rei-Ji|Nothing, Child) and 屍鬼 (Shi-kii|Corpse Ghost). This isn't actually his birth name, but the name given to him by the temple he was sent to at seven years old. He can no longer remember his birth name.