The moonlight behind the mountain was cold and white, coating the enormous boulder-so thick it would take three people to encircle it-with a blue-gray glaze.
Yaha stood two steps from the rock, his right hand tucked casually into his pocket and his left index finger slightly raised.
He stared at the natural crack along the top of the boulder, his eyelids half lowered.
Back at the Tomioka house, his Cursed Technique had erupted indiscriminately in a blind rage. Its cutting range had been completely uncontrollable, even tearing through the frozen ground more than three meters away.
That had been two years ago.
Over those two years, he had only tested it secretly a few times late at night, always choosing the most secluded corner behind the mountain.
Too much power was a problem of its own. He had to give this human body time to adjust to the King of Curses' edge.
"Let's test the precision."
Yaha murmured those words, tracing an extremely short, casual arc through the air with his index finger.
Not a sound.
Not even the wind stirred.
Without any warning, a watermelon-sized piece of stone slid off the boulder's upper right corner and landed in a pile of dead leaves with a dull thud.
The cut surface reflected the moonlight like a mirror.
Yaha stepped forward and brushed his fingertip across it. It was so smooth that he felt no resistance at all.
"Three inches deep, half an inch off. A little too much force."
He returned to his original spot and raised his index finger again.
A swipe.
Another piece of stone fell. It was a size smaller than the last, its cut surface still as flat as a mirror.
"Four-tenths of an inch off."
The third attempt.
"Three-tenths."
Yaha stood there with one hand in his pocket, as though fiddling with some boring toy. With every tiny flick of his index finger, another smooth piece of stone peeled silently off the boulder.
The rubble piled higher and higher at his feet.
On the eleventh attempt, he stopped.
The final cut had followed his chosen line all the way through, without deviating even a millimeter.
"Not bad. My current limit is probably fifteen meters, with precise control within five."
Yaha flexed his slightly sore finger joints.
The moon had shifted half a fist's width across the sky. He yawned, turned, and headed back along the mountain path.
When he reached the bamboo grove halfway down the mountain, he stopped.
In the clearing at the far end of the grove, a thin figure was swinging a sword like mad.
It was Giyu.
His wooden sword chopped down, pulled back, then chopped down again.
His form had long since fallen apart. The muscles in his right arm bulged at unnatural angles beneath the moonlight, clearly straining to squeeze out brute force far beyond his body's limits.
His breathing was heavy and ragged, like a broken bellows.
Yaha leaned against a thick bamboo stalk and watched for a while.
Giyu's footing grew increasingly unsteady. On the thirty-seventh downward swing, his knees suddenly buckled, and he nearly pitched face-first into the mud.
He braced his wooden sword against the ground, took several gasping breaths, then gritted his teeth and tried to raise it again.
"Hey."
Yaha spoke in a lazy drawl.
Giyu froze. He turned his head, sweat dripping from his forehead down his chin. The moonlight picked out every bloodshot vein in his eyes.
"How many sets have you done?"
"Three hundred and eight." Giyu's voice sounded as hoarse as if he had swallowed a handful of sand.
"Three hundred and eight." Yaha scoffed. "Who are you trying to beat? The air, or that pitiful little scrap of pride?"
Giyu said nothing. Biting hard into his lip, he stubbornly raised his sword.
Yaha pushed away from the bamboo and sauntered over to Giyu in three steps. His left hand remained in his pocket as he reached out with his right, lightly pressing down on the back of the wooden blade just as it was about to descend.
Giyu pushed down hard.
It wouldn't budge.
That hand, which seemed to be exerting hardly any force, was like an iron mountain cast onto the back of his blade.
"Let go," Giyu said sullenly.
"The web of your right hand has already split open."
Giyu glanced down. Sure enough, dark red blood seeped from the skin between his thumb and forefinger. The skin, soaked white with sweat, had peeled back to expose raw red flesh.
He looked away, tightened both hands around the hilt, and kept pushing down.
"Let go, Yaha."
"Give me a reason."
"I'm still nowhere near good enough!" Giyu suddenly growled, his eyes reddening. "I'm not as talented as Sabito, and I'm not like you... If I don't train, how am I supposed to kill demons?"
Yaha looked at him without letting go.
"If you think you're not as good as Sabito, I'll be generous today and tell you a cruel truth."
Giyu lifted his eyes.
"You really aren't as good as him," Yaha said coldly. "You're physically weaker, your reactions are half a beat slower, and your explosive strength is seventy percent of his at best. In a real fight, he'd disarm you in three moves."
The strength drained from Giyu's hands at once, and his wooden sword drooped limply at his side.
He lowered his head, his shoulders trembling slightly.
"But."
Yaha released the blade, curled his finger, and flicked Giyu hard on the forehead.
Smack!
Giyu covered his reddened forehead and looked up in shock.
"You have one strength Sabito couldn't learn in eight lifetimes." Yaha looked down at him. "Your breathing foundation is as steady as a rock."
Giyu stared blankly.
"Sabito's breathing is fast and fierce. It's suited to unleashing a lot of power in a short burst. But he can't rein it in. When he fought me today, his breathing fell apart after his third move."
Yaha yawned and patted Giyu on the shoulder.
"You're different. Your breathing is naturally slow and deep. I heard you swinging your sword on the sidelines today. You take almost two seconds longer between breaths than Sabito, but every breath goes deeper. I doubt even the old man has noticed that talent."
Giyu's brows drew together, as though he was struggling to digest those words.
"Don't push yourself into being an idiot. Training until your hands rot won't help you kill demons." Yaha turned toward their lodgings. "You're a lot stronger than you think. You're just too stupid to see it."
"Wait!"
Giyu called after him.
Yaha didn't stop, only tilting his head slightly.
"Why were you behind the mountain alone in the middle of the night?"
"Taking a shit."
Giyu fell silent.
"Worry about yourself, my stone-faced big brother. Hurry back and get some sleep. If Sabito finds out tomorrow that you secretly trained until midnight, he'll start competing with you like a rabid dog again."
Yaha waved a hand, and his figure soon vanished into the shadows of the bamboo grove.
Giyu stood alone in the clearing, looking down at the blood on the web of his hand.
He stood there for a long time before tucking his wooden sword back into his belt. He took a deep breath, then tried slowly exhaling in a rhythm completely different from his usual one.
The breath was long and deep.
Like a pool of still, deep water.
Early the next morning.
At the first hint of dawn, Sabito headed up the mountain with his wooden sword resting on his shoulder.
He was in the habit of running the mountain path alone before sunrise to warm up.
Halfway through his run, he stopped.
A dozen or so pieces of rubble lay scattered in the grass beside the path. Mount Sagiri had plenty of loose stones, so that was nothing unusual.
But after running past them, he abruptly backed up two steps.
He crouched and picked up one of the pieces.
Its broken face reflected a fine sheen in the morning light. It was as smooth as tofu sliced in an instant by the sharpest blade in the world.
Sabito turned and picked up another piece.
Exactly the same.
He shot to his feet and looked around. In the grass, beside the tree roots, at the foot of that enormous boulder-everywhere lay fragments with cut surfaces so smooth they sent a chill down his spine.
And several corners at the top of the boulder looked as though something utterly terrifying had sheared them clean off.
The sun rose over the mountaintop, casting its light across those fresh cuts until they shone a blinding white.
Sabito clutched the stone tightly, his mind buzzing.
At that very instant, an image sliced into his mind without warning.
Yesterday afternoon, amid the swirling snow, Yaha had leaned against that old pine tree, lazily raised his right index finger, and drawn a casual line through the icy air.
"Even ten thousand swings of a sword... can't match a single finger."
Sabito's pupils contracted sharply.
An uncontrollable chill shot from his tailbone to the back of his head. As he stared at the wreckage scattered across the ground, the hand holding the stone began to tremble against his will.
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