Hello everyone! And Happy New Years!
How are you all today? I hope you're all well. Anyways I have no idea when this will come out, but it's fine. And also thank you for all the love of support!
I'm honestly so overwhelmed with happiness at the thought of it, and I'm so grateful you all are here!
This also has a mention of SH too.
This chapter has a 2 year time skip, to around the final selection arc, Hanako is now 10 years old.
Enjoy!
~~~
It's been two years since the incident... the day she lost her family and her leg. She dreaded this day for the last 2 years, even more so as tonight is the night she'll be going to final selection. This is it, this is what she's been training for.
She stretched her arms and put her hair back in a low ponytail. She managed to see the list of participants, and Tanjiro was participating this year too. She needed to hide her identity, after all she didn't want to distract Tanjiro from the main goal, survival.
Thankfully she had gotten some scent packs. 'Raspberry lemons' was its scent, and she liked it. It just smelt homely in a way.
She was preparing herself, she had the sword, she had the scent packs, and she had her prosthetic leg securely attached. The only problem was her face, Tanjiro would probably recognise her. How in the world would she be able to pull that off? She needed some kind of mask to do that.
"Hanako." Giyuu's voice broke through her train of thought, probably a good thing too, she would've been late if she kept thinking and not moving.
"Yes?" She looked at him.
"I figured I should give you this." Giyuu reaches into his haori and pulled out a wooden fox mask.
'Well that's convenient.' Hanako thought as she took the mask.
"Thank you. But why is it a fox mask?" She asked with genuine interest, out of all the animals out there, he chose to have the mask be a fox.
'why is that?' She pondered, looking at the mask. It was painted white, with a rainbow painted on the upper left side of it, eyelashes and a small sun on the slower left cheek. She liked its design, it was unique.
"When I was a student, my teacher made me my own fox mask the day I went to final selection. I thought I should continue on the masked tradition." Giyuu explain calmly, yet
his tone remained unchanged in its cold ways.
"Ah. Well, thanks again!" She managed to put the mask on, she could see out of it, and that was one of the most important things to her tonight, keeping her identity hidden.
"Don't worry about it."
They then walked in silence. Giyuu was leading her to where final selection was, or at least a mile or two away from the bottom of the mountain.
"Final selection spans over several days, don't focus on only slaying demons. Your survival comes first, keep yourself safe and needs met, and descend down the mountain into the forest of wisteria trees. That will be the area where you start and finish in, make it there within the seven days, and you've passed final selection and therefore became a demon slayer." He explained to her.
She mentally noted that down, she had to focus on meeting her basic needs such as food, water, and shelter before hunting demons during the night. During the day she's be able to sleep and descend down the mountain. That made sense at least.
"Alright." Hanako quietly agreed, just to show that she was indeed listening to what was being said to her.
They walked somewhat close to the mountain until they came to a complete and utter stop.
Giyuu took a deep breath before turning to the young girl to his side. "This is as far as I can walk you, I can't run the risk of being found."
"That's ok, I understand." Hanako looked forward at the path she'll have to take. "I can do this, thank you for walking me here."
"It's alright."
Giyuu watched as Hanako kept walking towards the mountain where final selection was held. This would decide the whole corse of her future, it's worse because there's a possibility that she could be killed. He didn't want to see anybody else pass away prematurely, sending Hanako to such a dangerous event was definitely terrifying. He didn't actually want to sign her up, but there's just times where you have to face your fears.
He lingered there for a moment or two before going back the way he came. He walked thoughtless for ages, until one subject dominated his thoughts. Having to write a letter to Oyakata-Sama.
It was a stupid idea to pretend to be kidnapped by Muzan. The complications it would cause would be devastating if he told the truth. But an idea hit him... he didn't exactly need to tell the truth.
You don't exactly recover from trauma overnight. Yes it's an awful thing to lie about, but it won't hurt anybody, right?
On his way back to the place he was currently living in, he was thinking about what exactly to write to the master. It's like a million ideas popped right into his head, but none of them seemed good enough to execute.
Then it finally hit him, he'll just say something plain and simple. That's what he was after all, a plain and simple guy who gave plain and simple answers.
He wouldn't explain much, perhaps he'd say he managed to escape and during his recovery time he took in a student? Yeah, that seemed like the better choice. Besides, it won't kill anybody if he didn't tell the truth, right? Right?
Regardless, he decided he'll follow through with that plan. It was the easiest route to take, deceitful? Yes. But convenient? Also yes.
Finally, after hours of walking, he made it back to the place he's been calling home for the last two years. He carefully took off his footwear and placed them next to the door.
He found his way over to his room, and sat on his desk. Slowly, he pulled out some paper and a pen, and started writing.
He didn't exactly take notice to what was being written until he re-read what he'd wrote. He'd gotten all the main points, escaping, meeting a doctor (Taioshi) and taking in a student.
He knew everyone will be expecting to see scars and that, and scars? Well he had a lot of them.
He had a few scars from battles or getting hurt in general, and ones where he'd lost other kinds of battles. Each scar was slightly different, and that's how he could tell them a part. Some were ridged, some were inconsistent in shape and size, and the others were clean and hidden.
He slowly sketched those hidden scars with his finger, the latest ones were just over 2 years old. Those were hidden strategically from those prying eyes, only managing to slip out slightly from his sleeves rarely.
He shook his head to clear those thoughts and to get back on track on the task at hand, writing this letter. It took a few tries, mainly due to spelling mistakes. But finally after a good few tries, he finally got it perfect enough.
He carefully folded up the letter and put it in an envelope, which he'd sealed with a wax melt.
He stared at the letter for a while, his mind had started to flood with a mountain of thoughts. It felt as if everything in the world had just become a thought in his head all at the same time.
He took a deep breath in before placing it on his desk to send first thing in the morning.
~~~
The hours flew by faster than he could register them in his head. He sent his letter at the first hint of daylight, and now he already had a response.
He sat in the grass for a while, staring if it. Unsure do what to think or do. The training dummies were all scattered around him, some in tact, some with severed limbs. To anybody peeking in, it would be a spooky sight.
Giyuu stared at the letter for a long time, his head full but he thought of nothing. His hands were an earthquake as he made the decision to open the letter, and it felt like old wounds were opening back up.
With a deep breath, he finally opened the letter and read its contents.
He read for what felt like forever, but in reality it was probably only took five minutes. His eyes traced the ink on the paper, but his brain took quite a few reads to finally process every word as it was delicately written.
The Master was understanding, and more than gleeful at Giyuu's 'return', but he wanted to meet up with him.
Giyuu didn't want to go, even though he knew he'd be welcomed back with (mostly) open arms by his fellow Hashira and the Master, but he was terrified incase the others somehow found out that he had lied.
His face didn't show it, but his heart was pounding from the hundreds of thousands of possibilities that could happen.
But then...
He spotted some gentle flowers sprouting in his garden. He went over and sat on his knees, inhaling the soothing scent they released. They were gentle, calming like. The flowers were like something you'd find in a priest's garden because they were so pure.
He'd planted them with Hanako when he first arrived here with her, a "get to know you" activity as she called it. If Hanako became a demon slayer and decided to retire, she'd be quite a good florist.
He sat with the flowers for a long while, just absorbing their soothing scent as they soaked in the sunlight. Life is beautiful... sometimes.
It had been the first time in a while where his thoughts weren't focused on someone being found, or being exposed as a liar. He felt somewhat at peace.
'I wonder how Hanako is doing.' Giyuu was still very much worried for his student, just praying that she'd return alive.
~~~
Surviving by herself was harder than she thought, she dreaded sundown, it meant the end of her resting period and the beginning of the demons mass hunt.
It had felt like blood had been splattered in every single corner of the condemned forest, smelt like it too.
Many of the contestants had died already, merciless slaughter. But she was still alive, and she was proud of that.
Hanako kept descending down the mountain, she managed to sleep earlier, and that felt amazing. Considering she hadn't been sleeping a lot.
A few demons had targeted her already, probably because of the leg. They thought she was weak, but she wasn't. She was strong.
The scent packs she had in her did lure demons to her, but she managed to fight them off. Her main goals were to survive final selection and make sure her older brother didn't find out she was here.
In any spare time she had, she prayed. She prayed for her safety, the safety of others, but most importantly she prayed for the safety of Tanjiro. One of the Kamado siblings had to make it out of here, and if it were up to Hanako, she'd make sure it was her brother that survived.
Thankfully she managed to keep her fox mask on too, and avoid Tanjiro at the same time. Any distractions at this point could mean your death in this place, and it was torture.
She did her best, she needed to survive this. She needed to come back and prove her strength, and most importantly, she didn't want to make Mr. Tomioka to be sad if she died. So she had to live, and she was determined to make it happen!
~~~
Hello again, yes I know. I haven't posted another chapter of this story since last year (at the time do writing this). I just lost motivation, but I think it's back now. So, yay!
Next chapter is gonna focus on the last night of final selection, which I hope will be fun. I really only write when I have the time and motivation to do so
Anyways, have a good one! - Enna