Torn Between Worlds

Final Selection

She walked down the long dirt road without a care in the world. She had stopped in the Slayer Village to buy a snack for the trip for her and Gizmo and have been walking for the whole day. She sang some songs, twirled around and now she just walked, bored out of her mind. 

"Jeez how far away is this mountain..." she said to Gizmo who roared at her in response. 

Looking at the map she was given by her trainers, she should be hitting it any second now. Then she smelled it, the smell of Wisteria. She looked up to see steps going up towards a steep incline. "This must be it Gizmo," she said and he nudged her in response. The two climbed up the stairs and eventually reached the top. It turned into a flat paved surface and was gated like a shrine. In the middle were two little girls in matching kimonos and lanterns who looked identical, save for the white and black hair. On either side of them were more stairs but they were broken and in disrepair. When she came into full view with Gizmo by her side, the other participants looked in her direction. They glanced between her and the almost now seven hundred pound tiger that came up to the middle of her rib cage. As she looked around, she caught a glimpse of a familiar face and smiled, "Kanao!" 

The girl turned away from the butterfly she was playing with to smile at Yuki. She took out her coin and held it in her hand firmly. Although she didn't flip it around Yuki, she still liked to hold it. "Hello Yuki, I am happy to see you have made it this year," the girl said in her soft angelic voice. 

"Im glad youre here too! I hope we both make it," Yuki said in her cheerful voice. She noticed a few other faces she found worth remembering, like the boy in the boar mask who kept eyeballing Gizmo, the boy with the small mohawk that looked an awful lot like Sanemi with his scowl on his face, a boy trembling in fear in a corner with a yellow haori and then a boy with a fox mask on the side of his face. Everyone's attention was brought to the front by the two little girls, who Yuki now realized, we two of Oyakata-sama's children. 

In perfect synchrony, they began to speak, "Dearest participants, thank you for gathering here to join the Demon Slayer Corps. Final Selection test. Here on Mount Fujikasane, we have in captivity a lot of demons caught alive by our very own demon slayers. There is no way they can escape. That is due to the wisteria blossoms, which demons hate the most, bloom all year from the hillside to the foot of the mountain. But from this point onward, there will be no wisteria. Demons may appear. If you can survive for seven days in this place, you are qualified to be demon slayers and will pass Final Selection. Thus, we wish you all the best." 

The two children bowed and all of the slayers went running up the disheveled stairs to the top of the mountain. Yuki decided to walk in as if she were out on a moonlit stroll rather than try and race through like the rest of these idiots. They would all be out for shelter and water as well as demons. Yuki thought, if a demon wants me, he will find me and could have cared less about shelter or water. As long as Gizmo stayed by her side in the dark, she was perfectly fine. Yuki went a whole three days and nights without seeing a demon. She assumed they were either killed or has been feasting on the other slayers. She kept to herself, helping Gizmo hunt and sleep during the day with him in a tree. On the fourth day as she laid out on a tree branch with Gizmo laying on top of her from the waist down she heard someone calling up to her. 

"Hey! Tiger Girl!" the male voice said. 

She looked down at him with a yawn, "can I help you?" 

"Yeah! How is it you don't have a scratch on you? Do you have any medicinal balms?" said the boy with the fox mask.