Training, Demonstration, and Parting!

Mount Sagiri

At the first hint of dawn, the wooden door creaked open.

Kanae sleepily poked her head out from under the covers and saw Giyu standing in the doorway, his white haori glowing faintly in the morning mist.

He was already fully dressed, his hair perfectly neat.

"Time to get up."

Giyu's voice was calm.

Shinobu rolled over in bed and buried her face in her pillow:

"Five more minutes..."

Giyu said nothing. He simply entered the room and stood beside the bed.

The silent pressure forced Shinobu to open her eyes and meet his ice-blue gaze.

"Training."

Shinobu groaned, but climbed out of bed.

This was already the fifth day.

The sisters had grown used to Giyu waking them every morning, to standing in the courtyard at six sharp to hear Master Urokodaki assign their training, and to the increasingly devious traps and stricter time limits.

"Return before seven forty-five today."

Urokodaki stood beneath the eaves, his Tengu Mask hiding his expression, but his voice held an uncompromising severity.

"Five more traps have been added, and they're better hidden."

Kanae took a deep breath.

Shinobu muttered under her breath:

"This is going to kill us..."

"If you can't do it, you can give up."

Urokodaki spoke calmly. "The Demon Slayer Corps has no need for swordsmen who can't even manage this much."

Both sisters straightened their backs at once.

"We can do it!"

"Then get going."

Urokodaki turned and headed inside. "Giyu, swordsmanship training as usual."

Giyu waited at the training ground with three wooden swords in hand.

When the sisters came running back, gasping for breath, it was exactly seven forty-four.

"Rest for five minutes."

Giyu handed them a water flask.

The sisters took it and drank in small sips.

Giyu stood beside them, looking at the distant mountains, his thoughts unknown.

"Senior Giyu,"

Shinobu couldn't help asking, "When you were training, did you have to run the mountain trails too?"

"Yes."

"And avoid traps?"

"Mm."

"Then... what was your fastest time?"

Giyu turned and looked at Shinobu with his ice-blue eyes.

Shinobu suddenly regretted asking... She felt like she was challenging him.

"Six o'clock sharp."

The flask nearly fell from Shinobu's hand.

"S-six o'clock?!"

Her voice rose in pitch.

"We only set out at six!"

"I set out at five,"

Giyu said calmly.

"Two laps."

Shinobu's mouth hung open, and for a long moment she couldn't speak. Kanae was stunned too.

That meant covering twice the distance that now took them nearly two hours in a single hour, while avoiding more traps that were even harder to deal with.

"Break's over. Training starts now."

The sisters threw themselves into swordsmanship training with particular determination that day.

Shinobu practically lunged at him, her wooden sword whistling through the air.

Kanae abandoned her usual caution as well, attacking from every angle.

Both sisters were fired up!!

They knew the gap between them was enormous, but they wanted their senior to see that they were improving, at least.

Giyu was the same as ever.

He barely moved, merely raising his hands, turning sideways, blocking, and counterattacking.

"Clack... clack... clack!"

The wooden sword seemed alive in his hands, every clash striking the sisters precisely where it was hardest for them to handle!

But today, Kanae noticed some details she hadn't noticed before.

Giyu's eyes, for instance.

His ice-blue eyes narrowed slightly during training, his gaze fixed on their movements.

He seemed to anticipate their next moves from those subtle changes.

Then there was his breathing.

No matter how fierce the sisters' attacks were, Giyu's breathing remained steady and deep.

Its rhythm was unusual: his inhalations were long and deep, his exhalations short and forceful, as though his whole body moved to the rhythm of his breath.

"Stop."

Giyu suddenly spoke.

The sisters stopped and looked at him, panting.

"You're copying my movements."

There was no telling from Giyu's tone whether it was praise or criticism.

Kanae blushed.

She had indeed been secretly studying Giyu's stance, trying to imitate his steady posture.

"That's wrong."

Giyu walked over to her and lightly tapped her shoulder with his wooden sword.

"Your shoulders are too tense... your breathing is uneven... and you're looking too close."

He walked over to Shinobu next:

"You too! You're so focused on speed that you've forgotten to breathe! The bigger your movements, the bigger your openings."

The sisters lowered their heads.

"But... you've improved."

Kanae snapped her head up, and Shinobu's eyes widened.

Giyu had already turned and was walking toward the weapon rack.

"We'll continue tomorrow."

Though he had said only a few brief words, the sisters exchanged a glance and saw the joy in each other's eyes.

They had been acknowledged.

Even if only a little.

On the evening of the seventh day, a Kasugai Crow arrived.

It was a Kasugai Crow with dark purple feathers, and when it landed on the old pine tree, the entire tree shook.

It cried at the top of its lungs:

"Water Hashira, Giyu Tomioka! Hashira Meeting at Oyakata-sama's residence before noon tomorrow! New member joining! Do not be late! Caw!"

Giyu was helping Urokodaki gather medicinal herbs that had been left out to dry.

He looked up as the Kasugai Crow flapped its wings and flew away, leaving a few feathers drifting slowly down.

The courtyard fell quiet for a moment.

"You're leaving?"

Urokodaki set down his bamboo sieve and dusted off his hands.

"Mm! I'll leave before dawn."

Shinobu was practicing her sword swings, and her movements faltered when she heard that.

Kanae stopped too and turned to look at Giyu.

"Mr. Giyu... how long will you be gone?" Shinobu asked quietly.

"I might have a mission afterward. I'm not sure."

Another silence followed.

The setting sun stretched the three of their shadows long.

Urokodaki suddenly said:

"Before it gets dark, Giyu, show them Water Breathing."

Giyu looked at his master.

"I shouldn't have let them encounter a Breathing Style so early."

Urokodaki walked to the edge of the training ground, his hands tucked into his sleeves.

"But your Water Breathing has already surpassed mine. Let them see what a true Breathing Style looks like—and give them a goal to aim for."

He turned to the Kocho Sisters, his voice growing serious:

"Watch closely. How much you can remember depends on your own fortune."

Kanae and Shinobu hurriedly put down their wooden swords and retreated to the edge of the field, staring at Giyu without blinking.

Giyu was silent for a moment, then walked to the center of the training ground.

The evening light slanted down, edging his white haori in gold.

He slowly drew Azure Tide.

Clang!

The moment the blade left its sheath, the pale blue watery glow shimmering along it made the sisters hold their breath.

"Water Breathing,"

Giyu said softly, as if speaking to himself,

"First Form: Water Surface Slash!"

He moved.

A flash of steel swept past so quickly that it left only a thin azure line.

By the time the sisters could see clearly, the sword was back in its sheath, and a sapling as thick as a wrist at the edge of the field slowly toppled, its cut surface smooth as a mirror.

Kanae's eyes went wide.

She hadn't even seen how Giyu drew his sword... She had only seen a flash, and the tree was severed.

"Second Form: Water Wheel!"

Giyu's figure spun.

His flashing blade drew a perfect circle around him, sweeping fallen leaves into it and reducing them to powder in an instant.

"Third Form: Flowing Dance."

His movements suddenly accelerated.

One moment he was on the left, the next he was on the right, and the next he was back in the middle.

Afterimages crisscrossed the field, impossible to tell from the real thing.

Kanae strained to see, but her eyes couldn't keep up at all.

"Fourth Form: Striking Tide."

His sword movements changed!

From light and agile, they grew heavy, advancing in successive waves like the sea.

The air compressed with a low rumble, and the shock wave swept up the fallen leaves at the edge of the field, spreading them outward like a real tide.

"Fifth Form: Blessed Rain After the Drought."

"Sixth Form: Twisting Whirlpool."

The spinning returned. Giyu's figure became a tornado, his flashing blade surging forward like a spiraling torrent.

Wherever it passed, deep furrows were plowed into the ground, and dust and broken stones were swept into the air, only to be shredded by the flashing blade.

"Seventh Form: Drop Ripple Thrust."

"Eighth Form: Waterfall Basin."

His sword shifted into a downward slash.

Gripping it with both hands, Giyu slowly pressed it down from above his head!

It was very slow, but every inch carried immense force.

Before the blade even touched the ground, a shallow pit had already appeared beneath it, cracks spreading outward like a spiderweb.

"Ninth Form: Splashing Water Flow, Turbulent."

His body rose into the air once more.

Giyu leaped, his blade flashing down like flying spray, covering the entire training ground.

Dozens of slashes, then hundreds, fell at once from every angle and height.

The twilight was cut to pieces, and the world seemed to become a kaleidoscope.

Finally—

"Tenth Form: Constant Flux."

Everything slowed.

Giyu moved slowly across the training ground, his sword flowing on and on like a great river.

No bursts of force, no pauses, only an eternal flow.

Traces of the earlier techniques flickered in and out of sight within it, yet they had become one.

The blade traced one final arc, then slowly came to rest.

Giyu sheathed his sword.

Silence filled the training ground.

The sun had sunk completely below the horizon, leaving only a streak of dark red in the sky.

Giyu stood there, his white haori still conspicuous in the dusk.

His breathing was steady, and there wasn't a single drop of sweat on his forehead, as though that astonishing demonstration had taken no effort at all.

Kanae's breathing, however, grew quick.

She looked at Giyu, then at the training ground... the severed trees, the furrowed earth, the pierced leaves, the craters blasted into the ground...

Was this Water Breathing?

Was this the Breathing Style they were going to learn?

Shinobu was already speechless.

She stared blankly at Giyu, then at her sister, her eyes full of shock.

Urokodaki clapped slowly.

"Very good."

His voice held unmistakable pride as he said,

"This is Water Breathing."

He turned to the Kocho Sisters, his gaze as sharp as a blade beneath the Tengu Mask:

"Did you see it clearly? This is the path you must follow."

"It's not about swinging your swords a thousand times or running a few laps along the mountain trails... In the end, you must reach this level."

Kanae nodded hard, so hard that her vision went black for a moment.

But she didn't care.

The images from moments ago were still replaying in her mind!

Those flowing flashes of the blade, those precise movements, that level where breath and sword became one.

She wanted to reach it.

Even if she had to swing her sword a million times, even if she had to run ten thousand laps along the mountain trails.

She wanted to stand there like Giyu and cut through the darkness with Water Breathing.

Shinobu came back to her senses too.

Her little hand clutched her sister's sleeve tightly, her eyes shining.

"I want to learn."

She spoke quietly, but firmly,

"I want to become even stronger than Mr. Giyu."

Giyu glanced at her but said nothing.

But Kanae saw the corner of his mouth lift ever so slightly.

Dinner that evening was especially lavish.

Urokodaki cooked personally, preparing a whole tableful of dishes.

At the center stood a large pot of steaming salmon and daikon, simmered until tender and flavorful in a rich, milky-white broth.

Giyu sat at the table, and his eyes lit up when he saw the pot of salmon and daikon.

Kanae noticed his pupils widen slightly, his lips purse unconsciously, and his fingers tighten around his chopsticks.

Then Urokodaki served him a large, brimming bowl.

Giyu accepted it and looked down at its contents.

Milky-white broth, tender pink salmon, translucent chunks of daikon.

He picked up a spoon, scooped up some broth, blew on it carefully, and brought it to his lips.

Then Kanae saw a side of Giyu she had never seen before.

His eyes narrowed with satisfaction, and the corners of his mouth rose uncontrollably into an unmistakable smile.

He even swayed gently without realizing it, like a cat that had gotten a delicious dried fish.

"Delicious!!!!"

Shinobu's chopsticks clattered onto the table.

Kanae froze too.

What had Giyu been like in the seven days they had known him?

The supervisor who woke them every morning with an expressionless face;

The instructor who precisely struck at every opening they left on the training ground;

The Water Hashira whose presence was so imposing when he demonstrated a Breathing Style that they didn't dare look straight at him.

But now, this... this boy whose eyes lit up and whose lips curved into a smile, his whole demeanor softening over a bowl of salmon and daikon—

Was this really the same person?

Urokodaki watched his disciple, the corners of his mouth lifting beneath his mask:

"Eat slowly. No one's going to take it from you."

Giyu nodded, but the spoon in his hand didn't stop.

He ate with complete focus, savoring every bite as though he were eating something especially precious.

Kanae suddenly felt like laughing.

So senior brother Giyu had this side to him too!

At that moment, he seemed to be neither a towering Hashira nor a swordsman of the Demon Slayer Corps, but simply a thirteen-year-old boy who loved good food.

She made a mental note:

Salmon and daikon could make senior brother Giyu happy.

Shinobu made a note of it too.

Watching Giyu eat, she suddenly felt that this senior brother, who always wore a cold expression, was actually... rather cute.

The atmosphere at that meal was especially warm.

In the courtyard after dinner, the night deepened.

Giyu had finished packing!

There wasn't much to pack, really, just a few changes of clothes and some medicine for injuries...

He stood in the middle of the courtyard and looked at Urokodaki.

"Master, I'm leaving."

Urokodaki nodded:

"Take care on the road! After the meeting, if you still have time..."

"I'll come back," Giyu said.

Then he turned to the Kocho Sisters.

"Train hard and don't slack off!"

"We definitely won't!"

Shinobu said loudly, "When you come back, I'll have made lots of progress!"

Kanae said softly, "Have a safe journey, senior brother Giyu."

Giyu looked at them for a few seconds, then nodded.

"Mm."

He turned and walked into the night.

His white haori glimmered faintly in the moonlight, like a stream of flowing water.

His footsteps were light, almost silent, and he soon disappeared along the path down the mountain.

The courtyard fell quiet.

Urokodaki stood there for a while, then turned back toward the house:

"Get to bed early! Training is at five thirty tomorrow morning, as usual."

"Yes, sir!"

They didn't return to their room right away. Instead, they stood beneath the eaves, looking in the direction Giyu had gone.

The moon was round and bright, illuminating the mountain path clearly.

But the white figure was already out of sight.

"Sister,"

Shinobu asked softly, "Senior brother Giyu... he'll come back, won't he?"

"He will."

Kanae spoke firmly. "He said he'd come back, so he definitely will."

She tightened her grip on her younger sister's hand.

"Before he comes back, we have to get stronger. We can't let him down!"