Zenitsu Agatsuma

The yellow-haired boy from the road turns out to be a Demon Slayer, and his sparrow pleads for Tanjiro to intervene. Tanjiro pulls the boy away from the girl he is pestering, and the two recognize each other from Final Selection. The girl makes clear she only spoke to the stranger out of pity and storms off, leaving him heartbroken.

The boy introduces himself as Zenitsu Agatsuma and immediately begs Tanjiro to protect him, lamenting his own weakness and his harsh training under a master who once rescued him from debt. Tanjiro shares his lunch and urges him to cause less grief for his sparrow.

Together they reach Tanjiro's assigned site, a mansion deep in a forested mountain. Tanjiro detects the smell of blood while Zenitsu picks up a strange sound. They find two terrified children at the treeline who explain that their older brother was abducted in the night and taken inside. Tanjiro promises to rescue him. Moments later a gravely wounded man crashes out of a window, and a strange demonic noise erupts from within the house.

Tanjiro is reunited with Zenitsu Agatsuma, a fellow Demon Slayer from Final Selection.

The pair travel to Tanjiro's next mission, a mansion set in a mountain forest.

Tanjiro meets the siblings Shoichi and Teruko and pledges to save their kidnapped brother as a wounded man falls from the house.

This chapter opens the Tsuzumi Mansion Arc and appears in Volume 3. It was adapted as part of the eleventh anime episode. It introduces Zenitsu as a permanent member of Tanjiro's group and sets the stage for the battle against the drum demon Kyogai.