Chapter 7: Rin's Decision!
『ＲＹＯＮ』
Enjoy~~~
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Days passed in the blink of an eye, and Yukihara Rin was still on his way.
The wind toyed with Rin's long black hair as he walked down the winding path leading away from Mount Sagiri. Snow fell slowly, white flakes melting the moment they touched his face, which was warm from the improved blood circulation of his breathing techniques.
He felt light.
It wasn't just the physical lightness after shedding the training weights, but a lightness of spirit. He had succeeded. He had become strong. The System indicated that his strength had surpassed 100 points. He possessed two breathing techniques. He was, by all accounts, a walking "cheat code" in this world.
"Alright, next step," Rin muttered, pulling a small notebook from his inner pocket, where he had jotted down anime dates and events based on his memory. "I am now ten years and seven months old. Tanjiro starts his journey at age thirteen. This means, logically, I have two and a half years of 'free time' to prepare before the original plot begins."
He smiled confidently, drawing a checkmark next to the "Training" item.
"I'll pass the Final Selection, reach the rank of Mizunoto, then request a patrol area near Mount Kumotori where the Kamado family lives. I'll be their hidden guardian. I'll kill the demons around them, and when Muzan comes... well, maybe I can't kill him yet, but I can stall him until sunrise."
Everything seemed perfect. A foolproof plan from an expert "Otaku."
Rin reached a small village located at a major crossroads. The village was teeming with life despite the cold—vendors selling hot rice, transport carts, and children playing with snowballs.
Rin stopped in front of a shop selling old newspapers and magazines. A bold headline in a newspaper lying on the table caught his eye.
The headline wasn't what mattered; it was the date printed in the top corner.
[Date: February 15, 2nd Year of the Taisho Era (1913)]
Time stood still.
Rin stared at the date. He blinked several times, as if expecting the numbers to change.
"Taisho... Two?"
His mind began to race at a frantic pace, faster than any breathing technique.
"Wait. Taisho began in mid-1912. We are now at the beginning of 1913. Tanjiro was born around 1899..."
He performed the simple calculation he had ignored all along due to his arrogance and superficial knowledge of exact dates.
"1913 minus 1899 equals..."
His face went pale. The color drained from his cheeks.
"Fourteen years."
Tanjiro was now 13 and a half years old, nearing 14.
The events of the first episode... the massacre of the Kamado family... happened in the winter of 1912. This means that...
Precisely at the time Rin was bragging about breaking the boulder, or perhaps when he was inventing "Storm Breathing" and feeling proud of himself.
"No..."
Rin took a step back, bumping into a passerby.
"Watch it, little girl!" the man shouted, but Rin didn't hear him. He didn't even care that the man thought he was a girl.
A sharp ringing filled his ears.
All those plans. All that confidence that he was "ahead of time."
He was wrong. He was late.
While he was playing the hero in his imagination, Nezuko was turning into a demon. The mother was being killed while trying to protect her children. Tanjiro was carrying his sister through the snow, weeping tears of blood.
"It's too late..." Rin whispered in a broken voice. "They're dead. The story has already begun. Tanjiro is already training with Urokodaki..."
Rin felt a wave of intense nausea. He ran toward a side alley, leaning over to vomit, even though his stomach was empty.
The guilt was crushing.
"I could have saved them... if I had come a year earlier... if I hadn't wasted my time on theatrics... if..."
He leaned his back against the cold wall and slid down until he sat on the dirty ground. He pulled his knees to his chest like a small child—which, in reality, he was.
"I'm a failure. What kind of reincarnator am I? I have a system, knowledge of the future, and I still haven't changed anything except killing a few nobodies."
He held his hands up in front of his face. They were small, white, soft, and bright. They didn't look like they had been affected by Rin's serious training all this time; they looked like the hands of a small, weak girl.
He stared at them for a long time. Then, slowly, cold logic began to seep through the clouds of emotion.
"Wait a minute..."
He spoke in a calm voice, as if addressing someone else.
"Suppose I had known the correct date. Suppose I had gone to the Kamado house six months ago."
What would have happened?
Rin recalled his status six months ago.
He had good physical strength (35 points). He mastered Judo and Kendo.
But he didn't have a Nichirin sword. He hadn't mastered Breathing. He didn't know how to decapitate a demon so it wouldn't regenerate.
And who was his opponent?
An ordinary demon? No.
A Lower Moon? No.
It was Kibutsuji Muzan. The Demon King. The source of all calamities. The being who kills Hashira in the blink of an eye.
Rin imagined the scene:
Him, a ten-year-old child with a wooden sword, standing before Muzan on that snowy night.
"Get away from them!" he might scream bravely.
Muzan wouldn't even bother looking at him. Just a wave of his arm, and Rin would turn into a bloodstain on the wall next to Tanjiro's younger siblings.
"Heh..."
A bitter, mocking laugh escaped his throat.
"Save them? Me? What an arrogant fool I was."
He clenched his fist so hard his knuckles turned white.
"If I had gone there, I would have died with them. I wouldn't have changed a thing. I would have been just one more corpse for Tanjiro to bury the next morning."
Rin stood up slowly. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
The guilt didn't disappear, but it changed. It shifted from the guilt of "neglect" to the guilt of "weakness."
"Weakness is a sin," Rin whispered, his emerald eyes burning with a new, cold, and harsh light. "The only reason I was unable to change fate isn't the timing—it's because I was weak."
He opened the System window.
[Current Mission: Reach Mount Fujikasane for the Final Selection]
[Time remaining until the start of the test: 5 days]
"Alright. The past has been written in blood and it's over. The Kamado family is dead. Tanjiro is now living his own hell."
Rin tightened his sword belt (the basic Nichirin sword Urokodaki had given him for the test).
"I won't waste time crying over what I couldn't change. I'll focus on what I can change now."
Rengoku Kyojuro. Shinobu. And all the people who will die because of demons.
"Tanjiro will train for two years. That means I'll precede him into the Corps by two full years."
His smile widened, but it wasn't the smile of a child. It was the smile of a wolf.
"Two years... enough time to climb the ladder. Enough time to become a Hashira. And enough time to make demons fear the name 'Yukihara Rin'."
He stepped out of the alley and returned to the main road. His steps were heavier, steadier. The childhood that remained inside him died in that alley along with his vomit.
What remained now was only "Yukihara Rin," the Demon Slayer.
...
Five days later.
Mount Fujikasane.
The scene was breathtaking. The mountainside was covered in Wisteria trees that bloomed all year round, forming a purple curtain that prevented demons from escaping. The scent was strong, sweet, and soothing.
At the tall Torii gate leading to the gathering area, there were about twenty teenagers.
Most were fifteen or sixteen. They held their swords nervously, their faces pale, some trembling with fear.
Amidst this gathering of teenagers and young adults, there was one anomaly.
A child.
A small child no taller than a meter and a quarter.
With long, soft black hair, beautiful features that would make girls envious, and a simple black haori.
He stood there in total calm, eyes closed, hands clasped behind his head in relaxation.
"Hey, look at that..." one examinee whispered to his friend. "Is that a kid? Did he lose his mother?"
"Maybe he came to say goodbye to his brother? There's no way he's participating in the test. The demons will eat him as a snack."
"Poor kid... this place is terrifying even for adults."
Rin heard every word thanks to his enhanced senses (Level 40), but he didn't open his eyes.
"A snack..." he thought mockingly. "I wonder who will be the meal tonight."
The twins (the daughters of the Corps leader) appeared with their pale faces and strange hair, one with white hair and the other with black.
"Welcome everyone... Thank you for attending the Final Selection tonight."
They spoke in unison, eerie and monotonous.
"On this mountain, demons captured alive by the Corps' swordsmen have been imprisoned. They cannot leave because of the Wisteria flowers surrounding the foot of the mountain."
"However..."
"From this point forward, there are no Wisteria flowers. The demons are hungry, and they are waiting."
"The condition for success is to stay alive for seven days."
"Now... begin."
The moment the sentence ended, the examinees hesitated. Fear paralyzed their feet. Who wanted to be the first to enter the darkness?
Suddenly, a small shadow moved.
Rin walked past the twins with confident, swift steps, without looking at them.
He was the first to cross the flower line. The first to enter hell.
"Wait, kid! You'll get killed!" one of the kinder examinees shouted, trying to stop him.
Rin paused for a moment and turned halfway.
His emerald eyes opened in the darkness, glowing with a faint, terrifying light.
"Worry about yourself, brother," he said in a calm voice that was audible to everyone. "For I am not locked in here with the demons..."
He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and flashed a smile that made the blood freeze in the veins of those who saw it.
"...The demons are locked in here with me."
Rin vanished into the darkness of the forest with a speed that made it seem as if he had evaporated.
...
The First Night.
The forest was suffocatingly dark. The rustling of trees sounded like the whispers of demons.
Rin was walking openly, not sneaking. He wanted them to come.
"Human flesh! Fresh human flesh!"
Two demons jumped from the bushes, salivating.
"It's just a kid! What luck!"
Rin didn't stop walking.
"Analysis: Low-rank demons. Not worth Thunder Breathing."
He drew his sword slowly.
"Water Breathing... First Form: Surface Slash."
It was a simple movement. A swift, precise strike.
But with Rin's strength (101), the thrust turned into a cannonball.
The sword pierced the neck of the first demon and obliterated it completely before it even touched the ground.
The second demon froze. "W-what?"
Before he could realize the situation, Rin had already spun.
"Second Form: Water Wheel."
A vertical spinning jump in the air, his sword drawing a perfect circle of water.
The second demon's head flew off and rolled at Rin's feet.
Rin flicked the blood off his blade with a swift motion and returned the sword to its scabbard with a satisfying click.
"Too weak," he muttered boredly.
"Where is the big demon? The Hand Demon who killed Sabito and Makomo?"
Rin remembered the story. The Hand Demon usually appears to Urokodaki's disciples because he recognizes their masks.
Rin touched the mask Urokodaki had given him, tied to the side of his waist (he wasn't wearing it on his face). It was a white fox mask with an angry expression and blue lines resembling lightning.
"I'll find you," Rin said to the darkness. "Tanjiro will need to kill you to end the cycle of fear and free his friends' souls. But... should I leave him for you?"
He thought for a moment.
"Tanjiro will come in two years. During those two years, this monster will eat dozens of other examinees."
He remembered the faces of the terrified teenagers at the gate.
"No."
Rin made up his mind.
"Change history? So be it. I'll cut off that ugly hand tonight. Tanjiro is a hero; he'll find another way to become strong without needing to kill this thing. As for the souls that would be eaten in the next two years... they are my responsibility."
[Secret Mission (Self-Activated): Purge of Fujikasane]
[Objective: Kill the Hand Demon.]
[Expected Benefits: Freeing the souls of Sabito and Makomo early + Saving 50+ future examinees.]
[Reward: 5 random stat points, Rank C+ Lucky Box]
Rin took off running into the forest, deliberately releasing his full combat aura like a beacon screaming at every demon on the mountain: "Come and try to eat me if you can!"
Somewhere deep in the forest, a massive demon with multiple arms slowly opened its yellow eyes.
"Hehehe... the scent of a new little fox. And a scent... so delicious."
Tonight, Mount Fujikasane would witness something it hadn't seen in decades. Not a test of survival, but a massacre... from one side.
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End of Chapter Seven.