Competition and Progress Together

Morning came especially early on Mount Sagiri. Before dawn, Moyu was awakened by Sakonji Urokodaki's voice.

"Get up. Training starts in fifteen minutes."

Moyu struggled out of his bedding, every muscle in his body protesting. A night of regulating his breathing with the Breathing Style had eased much of the soreness, but exhaustion still ran deep in his bones. He looked across at Tanjiro and saw that the boy had already put away his bedding and was carefully adjusting Nezuko's sleeping position inside her wooden box.

"Good morning, Moyu," Tanjiro said with a warm smile, as if he hadn't been the one kneeling and pleading the day before.

That's Tanjiro's resilience for you, Moyu thought with a sigh. He smiled back. "Morning. Ready? I hear the training is going to be twice as hard."

Tanjiro's expression turned serious. "No matter how difficult it is, I'll keep going. For Nezuko."

When the two came outside, Urokodaki was already standing in the middle of the clearing. The morning mist had yet to lift, making his figure look even more mysterious in the haze.

"Starting today, you'll do the same training," Urokodaki's voice carried through the mist. "But I'll adjust it to suit your individual strengths and weaknesses. Tanjiro, your sense of smell is exceptionally keen. That's both a strength and a weakness—rely on it too much, and you'll neglect your other senses. Moyu, your eyes can see too much, but your body can't keep up with them."

He had hit the nail on the head. Moyu had to admire the former Water Hashira's insight.

"So Tanjiro's training will include blindfolded exercises to develop his other senses. Moyu's training will focus on physical coordination, so his body can act on the information his eyes pick up."

Training began with a weighted run up the mountain. Unlike yesterday, Tanjiro joined him this time. Each carrying a round boulder, they started running uphill.

Moyu soon noticed what made Tanjiro special. His steps were unusually steady, and though his breathing rhythm was unrefined, it had a style of its own. Through the Six Eyes, Moyu could see that the energy flowing through Tanjiro's body had a peculiar rhythm, subtly resonating with the surrounding environment.

"Don't get distracted," Urokodaki called from behind them. "Focus on your own breathing."

Moyu collected himself and focused on his breathing rhythm. Inhale for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Gradually, he felt the faint trace of Cursed Energy inside him begin to circulate with his breathing. With each cycle, the soreness in his muscles eased a little.

By the third round trip, Tanjiro was panting, sweat soaking his forehead. But he didn't stop. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.

"Tanjiro, watch your breathing rhythm!" Moyu couldn't help calling out. "Your exhalations are too short. You're not making enough use of your oxygen."

Tanjiro paused in surprise, then adjusted his breathing. After a few cycles, his complexion visibly improved.

"Thanks, Moyu," Tanjiro said as he ran. "You know so much."

"I can just see some things other people can't," Moyu said vaguely.

The morning's wooden-post training was even more grueling. Tanjiro had to wear a blindfold and move across posts of uneven heights using only his hearing and touch. On his first attempt, he fell seven times.

"Don't rely on what your eyes have already seen," Urokodaki instructed. "Imagine you're a drop of water, flowing along the grain of the wood."

Tanjiro took a deep breath and climbed back onto the posts. This time, he slowed down, placing each step carefully. After his third fall, he finally managed to make a full circuit.

Moyu's training was the opposite. He had to move between the posts as fast as possible while striking the stones Urokodaki threw with a wooden sword. The Six Eyes could clearly track every stone, but his body was always a few tenths of a second too slow to react.

"Your thoughts are three beats ahead of your body." Urokodaki kept throwing stones. "Let your body move first, and let your thoughts follow."

It went against Moyu's instincts. But he tried it anyway—the instant he saw a stone, he swung without thinking. The first time, his wooden sword missed. The second, it grazed the edge. On the tenth try, he finally hit one.

"That's it." Urokodaki gave him a rare word of approval. "Keep going until you hit every single one."

At the midday break, the two slumped beneath the eaves, too tired even to talk. Urokodaki brought out two bowls of wild vegetable porridge and a few rice balls, a simple but nutritious meal.

"Moyu," Tanjiro asked as he ate, "have your eyes... always been like that?"

"More or less." Moyu chose his words carefully. "But they only fully awakened recently. I can see a lot of... troublesome things."

"Like what?"

"Like a special flow of energy in your body." Moyu decided to reveal a little. "It's not quite like a Breathing Style. It's more like... the rhythm of a dance."

Tanjiro's eyes widened. "That's Hinokami Kagura! It's a kagura dance passed down through my family for generations. Even when Father was gravely ill, he could dance it in the snow all night..."

His voice faded, and he was clearly reminded of his departed family.

Moyu patted him on the shoulder. "That's the source of your power. Maybe you could try incorporating that dance into your Breathing Style."

His words awakened something in Tanjiro. He nodded thoughtfully. "Father said the kagura dance was a prayer to Lord Fire God... Maybe there really is something special about it."

For the afternoon's wood-chopping exercise, Urokodaki raised the difficulty—the logs had to be split at a designated point with a single axe strike, without the slightest deviation.

Tanjiro succeeded only three times out of ten, but he adjusted his stance after every failure and kept trying. Moyu's Six Eyes let him see the grain and weak points of the wood, giving him a seventy percent success rate, but Urokodaki demanded one hundred percent.

"A demon's neck won't wait for you to find the best angle," Urokodaki said coldly. "You have to be able to cut it through from any angle."

Moyu closed his eyes and turned the Six Eyes inward. He observed how his muscles exerted force and analyzed the transfer of energy with each swing of the axe. Gradually, he found the trick—not using brute strength, but letting his breathing drive the power of his whole body and making a slight adjustment to the angle the instant the axe blade touched the wood.

On the hundredth swing, he succeeded.

On the two hundredth, he succeeded.

On the three hundredth, he succeeded.

When Moyu had precisely split the wood a hundred times in a row, Urokodaki called a halt to his training.

"Tanjiro, keep going. Moyu, come with me."

Moyu followed Urokodaki to the waterfall. The water still rushed on relentlessly, its crashing roar deafening.

"Today's goal isn't to cut through the waterfall," Urokodaki said. "It's to hold your wooden sword in the flow for three seconds."

That sounded harder than cutting through it. Cutting through required only a momentary burst of power, while holding the sword there meant continuously resisting the force of the water.

Wooden sword in hand, Moyu stood before the waterfall. With his Six Eyes fully active, he analyzed every path the water took, every eddy, and every shift in force.

On his first attempt, the wooden sword was swept aside the moment he put it into the flow.

On the second, he adjusted the angle and thrust it in against the current. He held it there for one second.

On the third, he channeled his Breathing Style energy into his arm. The wooden sword stayed in the water for two seconds, but his arm muscles began to tremble violently.

"Stop," Urokodaki said suddenly. "You're using brute force to fight nature. The essence of Water Breathing isn't resistance. It's yielding."

"Yielding?" Moyu didn't understand.

"Feel the flow of the water, find its rhythm, and become part of it." Urokodaki walked over to him and drew his Nichirin Blade. "Watch closely."

His blade flashed.

With no earth-shaking display, the blade slipped gently into the waterfall. Strangely, the water didn't sweep it aside. Instead, it seemed to be guided by the blade, splitting around its edge as it poured down. The blade was in the water, and the water flowed around it, the two forming a harmonious balance.

"Three seconds, five seconds, ten seconds..." Urokodaki calmly withdrew his blade. "That's yielding."

Moyu was stunned. He had seen this in the anime, but only by witnessing it firsthand could he appreciate its intricacy.

He tried again. This time, instead of thinking about resisting, he used his Six Eyes to carefully observe the water's inner rhythm. Water wasn't a solid sheet. It was made up of countless droplets, each with tiny gaps and patterns of movement.

Find that rhythm. Become part of it.

The wooden sword slowly reached out. The instant it touched the water, Moyu turned his wrist slightly, vibrating the blade at a particular frequency.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds!

The wooden sword stayed in the water for three seconds. Though it trembled nonstop, he had done it!

"Very good." Urokodaki nodded. "We'll continue tomorrow. The goal is ten seconds."

When they returned to the clearing, Tanjiro was still practicing chopping wood. His success rate had risen to fifty percent, and each swing of his axe had grown steadier.

"Tanjiro, stop," Urokodaki said. "Today I'll teach you the First Form: Water Surface Slash."

Tanjiro's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly put down the axe.

"Water Breathing, First Form is the most basic downward slash." Urokodaki demonstrated a simple movement—raising his sword overhead and slashing straight down. "But basic doesn't mean easy. This strike must be fast, precise, and steady, without any wasted movement."

Tanjiro carefully copied him, but his movements were stiff, and his breathing rhythm fell into disorder.

"Keep breathing. Don't stop," Urokodaki corrected him. "Let the blade move with your breath, and your breath move with your heart."

On the other side, Moyu was trying it too. With the aid of the Six Eyes, he could clearly see the path of the energy flowing through Urokodaki's body during the demonstration—breathing energy spread from his lungs, traveled through specific meridians to his arms, and gathered on the blade.

He copied that path and adjusted his breathing.

He swung.

The wooden sword cut through the air with a clear whistle. Though it was nowhere near as powerful as Urokodaki's, it had begun to take shape.

[Ding. Water Breathing, First Form initially mastered. Mastery: 20%]

[Reward: Gold coins ×100]

Moyu was delighted. The system had acknowledged it, which meant he was on the right track.

Seeing Moyu get the form roughly right on his first try, Tanjiro refused to be outdone and kept practicing. Though his movements were less precise than Moyu's, they had a unique sense of rhythm—the influence of Hinokami Kagura.

As the sky darkened, Urokodaki brought their first day of formal training to an end.

"Practice your Breathing Style on your own after dinner. Starting tomorrow, we'll add nighttime training—demons are most active at night, so you must get used to fighting in the dark."

Tanjiro ate an unusually large dinner. His body was rapidly adapting to the high-intensity training, and his appetite had grown accordingly.

"Moyu, do you think Nezuko... can become human again?" Tanjiro suddenly asked in a soft voice.

Moyu put down his bowl and chopsticks and looked at him earnestly. "I believe she can. There are so many incredible things in this world. Since demons can exist, there must be a way to turn them back into humans."

"Thank you." Tears glistened in Tanjiro's eyes. "Apart from Mr. Urokodaki, you're the first person to believe in Nezuko."

"I'm not the only one who believes," Moyu said. "More people will believe in the future. As long as you keep going."

Late that night, Moyu didn't go straight to sleep. He sat cross-legged in the room and opened the system interface.

After a day of training, his gold coins had increased by 150, bringing his total to 300. It still wasn't enough to redeem the "Breathing Style general enhancement," but he was getting close.

He decided not to redeem it yet and to keep training through his own efforts. He needed to save his gold coins for emergencies.

While practicing his Breathing Style, Moyu tried to develop the Six Eyes' abilities further. He discovered that if he could fuse that trace of Cursed Energy with his Breathing Style energy, the effect would multiply. But the two belonged to different systems, and the fusion process was exceptionally difficult.

System, is there a way to help fuse different energy systems? he asked inwardly.

[Analyzing... Recommended redemption: "Energy Coordination Basics" (200 gold coins). It can improve compatibility between different energy systems.]

Moyu looked at the price, then at his pitiful gold coin balance, and decided to wait a little longer.

A faint sound came from outside the window. Moyu opened his eyes and saw Tanjiro quietly leave the house and approach Nezuko's wooden box.

In the moonlight, Tanjiro gently opened the lid and stroked his sleeping sister's hair.

"Nezuko, I got a little stronger again today," he said softly. "I'll keep getting stronger, strong enough to protect you, strong enough to find a way to make you human again. So... wait for me."

Moyu watched the scene in silence. That was Tanjiro, the boy who always put his family first.

He thought of Tanjiro's ending in the original story—he had lost so much and endured so much, yet remained gentle.

Not this time. Moyu clenched his fist.

The Six Eyes glimmered faintly in the darkness, reflecting the figure of a boy protecting his sister and the vow in another boy's heart.

Changing fate starts here on Mount Sagiri.

In the distance, Sakonji Urokodaki stood before his house, watching his two disciples through a gap in the window. Beneath his Tengu Mask, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.

"Giyu brought some interesting children this time," he murmured to himself. "One can see the essence of things, and the other carries an ancient inheritance. Perhaps... they really can change something."

Moonlight poured like water over Mount Sagiri.