He turned back and kept walking.
"Otherwise..."
His voice drifted over lazily.
"People will dislike you."
Meanwhile, in some nameless woods-
Giyu Tomioka, who was resting with his eyes closed against an old pine, suddenly shuddered without warning.
"Ah-choo-!!!"
An earth-shaking sneeze erupted.
It was so powerful that it shook a few pine needles loose from the tree against his back.
Giyu Tomioka: "Hmm...?"
He abruptly opened his equally emotionless, dead-fish eyes and reflexively rubbed his finely shaped yet equally expressionless nose.
A rare trace of pure bewilderment and confusion appeared on his icy face.
"...Did I catch a chill?"
He looked up at the sunlight filtering through the branches, which had already begun to carry some warmth. "That shouldn't be..."
When the focus returned to this side, Muichiro Tokito slowly lowered the knife-hand strike that had stopped in midair.
That strange sensation of being blocked had barely stirred his heart. After all, the man before him was the Void Hashira, so his reputation surely wasn't empty...
His icy blue-green eyes focused again on Kirishima Bupai's seemingly unguarded back.
Though his gaze remained cold, it now held a pure desire to fight.
His thin lips parted, his voice still cool and level, but carrying unprecedented seriousness. "Then..."
"Please..."
"Train with me."
The instant his words fell, the rock beneath his feet cracked inch by inch, and his whole body exploded forward like a spring compressed to its limit.
There was no flashy technique name, only the purest thrust, embodying the essence of Mist Breathing.
As thick mist swept forth, Muichiro became a blue-green arrow of light that tore through the dawn, shooting straight at the center of Kirishima Bupai's back.
He was serious about this strike, and his speed was far more than twice what it had been.
Faced