10 Mount Natagumo (1) - 9

After finishing up my business in Asakusa, I was actually given two requests at the same time, and the nice thing was, they coincided with each other.

It was kinda surprising that a lot of the interests of the demon slayers and the interests of Muzan coincided.

Like, right now, I had been tasked by the demon slayer corps to go and clear Mt. Natagumo of some demons.

Coincidentally, as I had killed Rui earlier, Muzan had no more use for the "family" living there so he had politely asked me to kill them once he learned of the mission that the Demon Slayer Corps had given me.

You might be wondering how he knew this, but, like, imagine it like this: I was a kid in college who had left his small hometown to see the world. Of course I would be communicating with my parents what I was doing.

So, every two weeks or so, I would send Muzan a letter, and, surprisingly, unlike how he talked in real life, he was just like a father worrying for their kid in his letters, making me feel all warm inside when I read them.

Of course, the Kioshi personality was hating this, but my original one was extremely grateful to Muzan as he had treated me like his actual son after he adopted me, unlike my biological parents in my last life who barely spent a second at home every year, always somewhere on their "business trips".

Anyways, I was currently running towards Mt. Natagumo right now, but, there was something on my mind.

You see, the crow had told me to meet up with Tanjiro, Yasu, and Zenitsu to clear the mountain, but, I knew it wasn't the correct time to see her again, so I suppressed the desires of Kioshi.

I planned on doing the whole thing myself.

But then, I stopped this line of thought, as I remembered something from the cannon.

'Actually, it might be better if I let things play out like they did in the anime, I want to go tag along with Tanjiro and meet the hashira. I want to see just how powerful they are.'

Obviously, if I killed all the hashira, then the DSC would fall soon afterwards.

With that, I would complete one of my objectives, so, I now changed my plan to following Tanjiro from a distance to help him at the last second, and then be called with him to the Hashira meeting.

I mean, my original self was actually hoping that Yasu would be hurt somewhere on the mountain, so that it was just me, Tanjiro, and Nezuko at the meeting.

Of course, Kioshi was appalled at the idea, but that personality couldn't do anything, for now...

Anyways, with this new plan in my mind, I continued on running towards Mt. Natagumo.

...

Arriving at the base of the mountain, I waited for Tanjiro, Yasu, and Zenitsu to arrive.

Leaning against a tree whilst standing, I hugged my chokuto whilst keeping my left hand placed around the middle of it. Then, I closed my eyes and decided to sleep the time away.

The time passed away like nothing, before I heard a movement.

Swiftly opening my eyes, I was met with the image of four demon slayers pointing their swords at me.

All it took to defuse the situation was me pointing at the crow on my shoulder, before it squawked out.

"Caw! Tanjiro, Yasu, Inosuke, and Zenitsu, this is Nameless, the fifth demon slayer that will help you on this mission."

'Oh, I totally forgot about that guy joining their group after that trippy house arc.'

I bowed to them with my chokuto still in my left hand.

Seeing this, they resheathed their katanas and similarly bowed back to me, well, all of them except for the beast girl.

"Caw! Also, Nameless here chooses to be mute, so please, don't ask him any questions or anything."

Hearing this, Yasu's eyes widened, but, remembering that the crow said that I was choosing not to talk, instead of being able to communicate with parchment like she did with Tanjiro and the others, combined with the fact that she saw my dried up husk, she immediately suppressed her hopes.

Seeing that I wouldn't talk with them, Tanjiro also said nothing and just motioned to me to follow him and their group.

So, we started our climb up the mountain.

...

At some point, we lost Zenitsu, and, well, for all I cared, that scaredy cat could just die.

He was my least favorite character in the whole series and had caused me to drop the anime because I just couldn't deal with his dumbness a second time.

Well, we went through the order of events in the cannon, with first, fighting the marionettes, and then, with 4 of us, we were able to easily defeat the "doll".

I mean, during this entire time, I still hadn't used any special techniques yet, and continued to use my chokuto with only one hand, fighting in a complex pattern, but always returning my chokuto to its sheathe before the sheathe could fall to the ground.

Needless to say, the others had been really impressed by the way I used my chokuto with only one hand, but what can I say? I've been training my butt off for the past few years, so I should at least gain some recognition for it.

Anyways, after we defeated the doll, Inosuke did the thing where she threw Tanjiro up into the air, and, instead of doing nothing, I started running under Tanjiro, following his falling figure to the place he would land, leaving both Yasu and Inosuke behind.

On a tree, I watched as Tanjiro decapitated the mother demon, and watched the whole emotional scene and stuff with a bored expression.

This was just to confirm the path that the story was taking, as I needed this arc to be the final arc that actually followed the cannon.

Well, afterwards, I "stumbled" onto Tanjiro, and we walked back to the group.

But then, we were confronted by the father demon.

Another battle ensued, and we were losing.

Well, if I had actually tried and used something other than my pure physical power, then I, single-handedly, could have defeated the demon.

Well, the events of the cannon happened, and Tanjiro was once again thrown away.

Keeping with my character, I just took off in the direction that Tanjiro had gone without notifying the other two or anything, letting Yasu and Inosuke handle it themselves until Giyu came.

Jumping from tree to tree, I finally saw the scene that I was waiting for.

There, Rui was in the middle of cutting his sister up with Tanjiro watching.

From the darkness of the trees, I smiled, as it was about time that I started interfering.