Time returns to Mount Fujikasane. The Final Selection has already begun.
All prospective swordsmen participating in this selection crossed through the mountain gate, advancing toward the depths of Mount Fujikasane.
Among them, naturally including the Tsugikuni Mitsuba upon whom the Demon Slayer Corps placed great hopes.
Tsugikuni Mitsuba was originally a street urchin. It was only through a chance encounter with former Water Hashira Urokodaki Sakonji that she finally learned her true identity.
So it turned out her ancestors were actually the legendary Original Breathing Style swordsman of the Demon Slayer Corps.
So it turned out she possessed peerless talent, a natural-born demon slayer.
Facing the request from the leader and everyone in the Demon Slayer Corps hoping she would stay, Tsugikuni Mitsuba agreed without hesitation.
There were no excessive reasons. She simply felt this was what she ought to do.
Since she was a descendant of the Original Breathing Style swordsman, since she possessed this talent, then naturally she should strive to make this world a better place.
She would become a demon slayer rivaling her ancestor, and would lead everyone to together defeat that legendary Demon King and slay him!
And the first step of all this would begin with this Final Selection!
Alright, everything above was a fabricated personal introduction.
Next, it's time to speak some truth.
She, "Tsugikuni Mitsuba," originally had no name of her own.
On the surface, she was the descendant of the Original Breathing Style swordsman with peerless talent, the star of hope upon whom the Demon Slayer Corps placed great expectations.
But in reality, she was a human incarnation controlled by the most powerful and terrifying "Karma Demon" Upper Rank One among the Twelve Kizuki!
Yes!
The star of hope of the Demon Slayer Corps, the legendary descendant of the Original Breathing Style swordsman, was actually the human body of Upper Rank One of the Twelve Kizuki!
This body indeed flowed with Tsugikuni family blood, but the true "her" had no Breathing Style talent whatsoever.
She should have frozen to death in that night's cold wind. It was Tsugikuni Mitsuba's whim that granted her these talents and past she never had, granted her this new name, making her become Tsugikuni Mitsuba's substitute in the Demon Slayer Corps.
Relying on that black mandala flower buried within her body, the will of Tsugikuni Mitsuba—whose main body was far away in the Infinity Castle—was currently controlling everything about this body.
[Yes yes, a star of hope should look like a star of hope.]
[Over four hundred years, and this is also my first time participating in the demon slayers' Final Selection. Let me think, in that case...]
"Urk! Save me, save me!"
"Damn it! I'm not participating in the selection anymore! Let me out! Hurry and let me out!"
Controlling this body, looking at that prospective swordsman about to be killed by a demon not far away, Mitsuba had a very good idea in her heart.
[Then let's rarely be a good child and save all these poor little ones!]
The prospective swordsmen participating in the Final Selection, the vast majority were facing demons for the first time.
No matter how many times they trained before, only when they truly faced demons for the first time, battling this inhuman creature, could they personally experience that completely different sense of oppression they brought.
Among them, many could hardly withstand that instinctive fear in their hearts, ultimately meeting tragic deaths.
This was also why the survival rate of the annual Final Selection was so low.
This was wrong.
Mitsuba made this judgment according to a "good child's" way of thinking.
This selection mechanism was too cruel, filled with trampling upon life.
Everyone could clearly design more scientific selection methods—why insist on choosing this bloody approach?
Regardless, she couldn't sit by and watch this happen before her eyes without acting.
She would save everyone in this selection.
Because she had this ability, so she must do so!
The Child of Destiny should be this just and kind!
Blazing flames ignited on the blade. Sun Breathing techniques casually swung out. With just a light slash, Mitsuba beheaded that demon.
[Oh my, so that's how it is. So this is the feeling of using Breathing Styles to slay demons?]
[Completely different from the sensation of cutting people—none of that soft-yet-hard feeling. It's like using a hot knife to cut butter. The overall feeling is quite smooth, and the hand-feel is surprisingly good...]
Yes, Sun Breathing.
Through the manipulation of karma, besides adding "peerless sword technique talent" to this human body, Mitsuba also added "perfect compatibility with Sun Breathing."
This was necessary.
As the "Child of Destiny," how could one not know the Original Breathing Style?
Perhaps some would worry about this. The Demon Slayer Corps had not known of the Original Breathing Style for hundreds of years.
Her and Doma's little game this time had brought the Original Breathing Style back to the Demon Slayer Corps—wasn't this indirectly strengthening the Demon Slayer Corps' power?
To this, Mitsuba must seriously reply—
Yes, it would strengthen them.
Roughly from the "one" of the past several hundred years to about "ten."
Increased tenfold, quite impressive right?
Incidentally, in Mitsuba's eyes, her own combat power was at least over ten thousand.
In the hearts of almost all demon slayers, there existed an unrealistic fantasy. They always subconsciously believed—
The Original Breathing Style was very strong, and far stronger than all other Breathing Styles at that.
In that distant Sengoku period, the reason the Sengoku Hashira could drive that legendary Demon King to desperate straits was because they mastered the Original Breathing Style at that time, and so on...
This way of thinking was greatly mistaken.
As the existence who understood Sun Breathing most thoroughly in the world today, Mitsuba could tell everyone with absolute certainty.
In the purpose of slaying demons, Sun Breathing was indeed stronger than other Breathing Styles.
But this strength was limited.
It fell far short of those demon slayers' fantasies—that just learning Sun Breathing would instantly cause strength to skyrocket, then punching the Demon King and kicking Upper Ranks and so on...
Such unrealistic things would only happen in dreams.
That truly powerful existence was never Sun Breathing.
But her elder brother Yoriichi.