Everything felt like a blurred, static-heavy dream. The last thing you vividly remembered was the blue light of your phone screen as you scrolled through TikTok in the comfort of your bedroom. But the soft pillows and familiar walls were gone.

Now, you were standing in the middle of a dense forest. The air was sharper here—crisp, cold, and smelling of damp earth and pine needles. You weren't sure how you had crossed the boundary between reality and fiction, but as you pushed through the thicket, the "unfamiliar" scenery began to feel hauntingly recognizable.

A rhythmic, metallic clack echoed through the trees.

You followed the sound until you reached a clearing. There, bathed in the dappled sunlight, was a boy with deep red hair and a scarred forehead. He was swinging a katana with desperate, grueling focus, aiming for a massive boulder that seemed impossible to break. You froze. It was Tanjiro Kamado.

"So, this is where I am," you whispered to yourself, tucked behind the safety of a cedar tree. "The Sagiri Mountain arc..."

You watched from the shadows for a while, witnessing the brutal training session. You saw the masked figure, Sabito, appear like a ghost to "torment" Tanjiro with relentless strikes. While the scene was legendary in the anime, watching it in person was... well, a bit tedious once the initial shock wore off. The pacing of the "plot" felt much slower when you were actually living in it.

"Jeez, at this rate, we’ll be here all night," you thought, a restless energy bubbling up in your chest. "The story needs to move, man."

As soon as Sabito vanished back into the mist, you decided to make your move. You stepped out from behind the tree, your modern sneakers crunching loudly on the fallen leaves.

Tanjiro spun around, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His eyes widened as he took you in, his hand still gripping the hilt of his sword.

"Uh... hello?" he stammered, his protective instincts immediately kicking in. "What are you doing here? It’s dangerous to be wandering through these woods alone... there are things out here that you don't want to meet."

Even exhausted and battered, his first thought was your safety. "Classic Tanjiro," you thought. "He really is the kindest protagonist."

He tilted his head, looking at you with a mix of confusion and awe. To him, you were an anomaly. Your clothes were made of strange, vibrant fabrics he had never seen, and your hair and overall "vibe" felt entirely alien to the Taisho era. But more than that, it was your scent. You didn't smell like a demon, yet you didn't smell like any human from this world. You smelled like a place that shouldn't exist.

"Who... what are you?" he asked softly, his nose twitching as he tried to decipher the mystery of your arrival.