10: Sagiri Mountains

Swoosh!!

Swoosh!!

The sound of clothes fluttering and snow being blown dang out throughout the empty cold forest.

Itsuki and urokodaki ran along a dirt path towards deep into the forest, after many twists and turns urokodaki finally started slowing down as they reached the foot of a mountain.

Along the way, itsuki and urokodaki has conversed a lot, urokodaki provided some basic demon slayer information to Itsuki, things like the ranks, the final selection and all of that good stuff, afterall he thought Itsuki didn't know much since he originated from a small town.

"Sagiri mountains" itsuki sighed in his head as he looked up ahead at the towering mountain peaks, covered in nothing but snow and ready to fall trees.

"This is where you will be staying for a while, until the final selection starts" urokodaki pointed ahead as they continued walking, they soon reached the small wooden building which he lived in.

A figure immediately caught itsuki's attention, a little girl with light pink eyes, she had a strange flute-like bamboo thing around her mouth, overall the little girl looked adorable and she sat on the steps and kicked the snow around.

Itsuki immediately knew who this was, Nezuko of course.

Seeing urokodaki come back, Nezuko happily jumped up and ran forward, but she slowed down while seeing the new face, she looked confused.

"This is itsuki, he will be staying with us and will go with your brother towards the final selection as well, he is nice don't worry" urokodaki introduced itsuki.

"There should be a spare haori in the storage room, Nezuko can show you the way" urokodaki said before shooting off into the distance.

Probably to see how Tanjiro was fucking up his training currently.

"Hey" itsuki waved at the confused little girl, she was adorable how she just stood there.

Nezuko waved back and tilted her head, she then ran into the building.

Itsuki followed behind her.

—-

Inside the building, it was small, but it could definitely fit itsuki, it wasn't like he would be here forever anyways.

"Nezuko show me the way to the uhh.. what was it called.. haori?" Itsuki said expressionlessly as he noticed Nezuko walking around the living room.

Ever since he unlocked his ice breathing, everything he said came out cold, it was hard to even smile, he definitely needed to work on that, It wouldn't feel good if he one day scared this little demon girl.

Nezuko raised and eyebrow before pulling me towards a certain room, after opening the wardrobe it was indeed filled with Haori's there were plenty of colors to choose from.

Itsuki thanked her before picking out a simple all black haori with some white design on it.

Black was his favorite color afterall.

Going to the bathroom he began to change, the black haori fit him perfectly, it even added a certain charm to him.

Itsuki definitely liked the new look.

"Why the f*ck am I so sleepy?" Itsuki didn't know where it came from, but he had a sudden feeling to fall asleep, probably due to his fight today.

He removed his clothes before returning to an empty bedroom and falling asleep nearly instantly, he was incredibly tired today.

——

A few hours went by slowly, by this time it was around the afternoon, the sun still hung high but was ready to start setting.

Itsuki slowly opened his eyes, after washing himself down in the bathroom he wore the black haori before leaving the bathroom.

The house was empty, even Nezuko was no where to be found.

"They are still outside?" Itsuki smiled, Tanjiro was really training his ass off.

"I should do the same, I have new things to work on afterall" closing the wooden door, itsuki shot in the direction where urokodaki went.

They could probably be anywhere, since Tanjiro was training all over the mountain.

After finding an empty field surrounded by bamboo, itsuki sat down in the lotus position, an iron katana appearing on his lap.

Psss!!

He released a breath of cold air each time he exhaled, he was in a meditating state of his ice breathing style.

The mountains were quiet and empty, with a very beautiful scenery, very much fitting itsuki's style, this place suited him very well.

[1st form: Ice Flow]

Itsuki clutched the hilt of his katana, instead of the usual icy membrane, it was now wrapped in a chilling frost mist.

Swoosh!!

With a heavy slash the winds parted as an illusionary sword aura was released, causing the ground below to enter a freezing point nearly instantly.

Boom!!

A group of bamboo were instantly sliced off, covered in chunks of ice.

"This form is very flexible, there is a lot I can do with it" itsuki said in a satisfied tone, his power was now no where near what it was a month ago, even the area he had slashes held the bone-chilling aura of ice for a good couple minutes.

Itsuki decided to continue his experiments, only by knowing his forms by hand could he come up with a unique fighting style that suited his ice breathing.

If urokodaki was here he would definitely have a headache, seeing how the perfect bamboo were now sliced off cleanly creating a whole path of broken ice sticks