Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Episode 5: My Own Steel

As dawn breaks on Mount Fujikasane, only four swordsmen—Tanjiro, a boy with a scarred forehead, a boy with wild hair and three scars on his face, a girl with white-and-pink hair in braids, and another boy with a buzz cut—emerge alive from the seven-day Final Selection battle against demons.

Guides in black uniforms greet them, explain the Demon Slayer Corps structure, and issue each a black reinforced uniform designed to withstand demon claws and fangs, along with a Kasugai Crow as a messenger for mission assignments.

The group is then presented with various ore lumps to select for forging their Nichirin swords, which change color based on the wielder; unsure how to choose, Tanjiro uses his keen sense of smell to sniff and pick a specific lump first.

A brief flashback recaps the prior battle's end: the Hand Demon, a massive multi-armed monster with a history of killing 50 Demon Slayers including seven with wisteria-patterned haori, recognizes Tanjiro's scent as resembling his former master Sakonji Urokodaki before Tanjiro severs its head; in its dying moments shown in stark black-and-white, the demon recalls being a terrified child turned by a different demon, yearning to hold his big brother's hand one last time—Tanjiro, sensing its anguish despite his anger, gently takes the demon's hand as it crumbles to ash with tears on its face.

At an unknown location, a man receives word from a Kasugai Crow that five survived Final Selection (noting the discrepancy from the four shown) and muses on their potential as Demon Slayers.

Tanjiro reunites emotionally with his master Sakonji Urokodaki and his demon sister Nezuko, now in a bamboo muzzle, sharing a tearful group hug before parting.

Tanjiro's Kasugai Crow arrives, assigning his first mission: head northwest to a town where young girls have been vanishing, with the latest victim, a girl named Satoko, taken from her fiancé Kazumi in the night.

Tanjiro dons his uniform, receives his black Nichirin sword—considered rare and unlucky—and a special Cloud Mist Pine box to carry Nezuko safely, then travels to the town.

In the town, Kazumi explains Satoko's abduction; Tanjiro detects a demon scent and tracks it as another girl is snatched at night by a demon that liquifies into mud to slip through a door's gap.

Tanjiro pursues, unable to see the invisible demon, but stabs the ground to rescue the girl and returns her to Kazumi before confronting the foe.

The demon reforms, splitting into three bodies, mocks the group by claiming it ate Satoko, and overwhelms Tanjiro in combat as Kazumi despairs; Nezuko emerges from the box to aid her brother, surprising the demon that a demon and swordsman are fighting together.