Kanzaki Kumo's special training

Early the next morning, Kanzaki Kumo and Makomo stood facing each other in the Butterfly Mansion's small courtyard.

Both held a wooden sword.

"Come on, let me see how much you've improved over the past six months."

Although they had kept in touch by letter over those six months, they had only met three times, and none of those visits had been long. Kanzaki Kumo therefore had no idea exactly how strong Makomo had become; all he had learned from their chats over the past few days was that she had just become a Tsuchinoto swordsman.

"Here I come, then."

"Water Breathing, Third Form: Flowing Dance!"

Makomo still opened with the Third Form, her strongest form. As a girl, she was naturally weaker than boys in terms of strength, so her fighting tended to emphasize agility and technique.

But this fighting style struggled against enemies with tremendous endurance. After all, a demon only needed to protect its neck, whereas Makomo, as a human, had far too many vulnerable spots where a hit could seriously injure her, and her stamina was also more easily exhausted.

Her recent severe injuries had come after her prolonged attacks failed to finish the demon and her teammate was also seriously wounded. She had taken a gamble, deliberately leaving an opening to create a chance to behead it.

In the end, she had naturally succeeded in killing the demon, or she would not have been here.

As for her teammate, they had breathed their last while the Kakushi were taking them to the Butterfly Mansion.

The shock of losing her teammate, her doubts about her own strength, and the news that Kanzaki Kumo had become a Hashira-the combined impact of all three had given Makomo that intense sense of unease, to the point that she had planned such a nasty prank.

Risking one's life to create an opportunity for a beheading, as Makomo had done, was hardly rare in the Demon Slayer Corps. Most members who did so ended in failure, or used their own lives to create a chance for their teammates to behead the demon.

Instead, people like Kanzaki Kumo, who could dispatch their opponents cleanly on every mission, were exceedingly rare. Even swordsmen like that could usually only defeat their opponents quickly at the beginning. As their ranks rose and the opponents they encountered grew stronger, it became difficult to finish things so cleanly.

In recent decades, the Demon Slayer Corps had produced only two people like Kanzaki Kumo, who had all but instantly killed their opponents all the way to becoming a Hashira. The previous one was Gyomei Himejima.

Even the former Water Hashira, Sakonji Urokodaki, the former Rumble Hashira, Jigoro Kuwajima, and the current Flame Hashira, Shinjuro Rengoku, had endured one life-or-death battle after another in the later stages before becoming Hashira.

Precisely because of this, Kanzaki Kumo himself felt little about the rank of Hashira, but the higher other swordsmen rose, the more they understood just how much that rank meant.

In particular, the two recent figures who had become Hashira in less than a year were privately revered like gods by the swordsmen.

Otherwise, Makomo would not have feared that Kanzaki Kumo would become lofty and distant, someone she no longer knew.

Because, in her understanding, Hashira were inherently lofty figures.

"Water Breathing, Ninth Form: Splashing Water Flow!"

"Tenth Form: Constant Flux!"

Because her opponent was Kanzaki Kumo, a Hashira, Makomo held nothing back, even using the Tenth Form, the most offensively powerful form in Water Breathing.

"No more, no more..." After fighting Kanzaki Kumo for over half an hour, Makomo stood where she was, somewhat breathless, waving her hand at him repeatedly.

Only after facing Kanzaki Kumo directly for the first time did Makomo understand his strength. Over the past half hour or so, she had used everything she had, yet had failed to touch even the hem of his clothes and had thoroughly exhausted herself in the process.

After all, she had only just recovered from severe injuries, and her stamina had yet to return to its best.

"Your fighting already centers on agility. You're supposed to use nimble maneuvering to wear down your enemy and even create an opportunity to behead them. You can't be giving out after so little time." Kanzaki Kumo did not indulge Makomo.

At Makomo's current level, she would be doomed if she encountered any Lower Rank. Even some demons with more troublesome Blood Demon Arts could take her life.

Thus, Kanzaki Kumo had already decided to "detain" her at the Butterfly Mansion until she met his requirements. As for the missions that should have been assigned to her, at worst, he would put in a little extra effort and take care of them along the way during his nighttime patrols.

"You're already very proficient at using Water Breathing, but your biggest problem is that you always unconsciously imitate Urokodaki's movements."

"Every swordsman differs in strength, speed, flexibility, and even height and weight. Only by making small adjustments to a Breathing Style's Sword Form movements to suit yourself best can you bring out the forms' power more effectively."

"If necessary, you can even create your own forms, or go a step further and create your own Breathing Style. Only what suits you is best."

This was the principle Kanzaki Kumo had always upheld, so he had already been deliberately making small adjustments to his movements while learning Thunder Breathing. With the help of his eyes, such things did not take very long.

Before extensive training could build muscle memory, he had "tailored" the movements of every form to himself. Later, he had reviewed them and made further adjustments through battle after battle.

This process was normally a necessary part of a swordsman's improvement, but Kanzaki Kumo had used his eyes to shorten the time it took enormously.

What Kanzaki Kumo would do next was use his eyes to point out the openings in Makomo's movements and the places that clearly "didn't fit," allowing her to make targeted adjustments.

However, Makomo would have to work out the specific adjustments herself.

It was like choosing clothes: to find out whether something suited you, you simply had to try it on yourself. To find out whether the movements of a sword technique suited you, you simply had to practice them and see whether anything felt awkward when exerting force.

In battle, any point where force could not be exerted smoothly would become an opening.

After deciding on the direction of the training ahead, Kanzaki Kumo put it into practice.

Although Makomo voiced her reluctance, she fought Kanzaki Kumo seriously. He repeatedly pointed out the shortcomings in her forms, and she tried to improve her movements and the way she exerted force bit by bit until they suited her.

The morning passed before they knew it.

"Kanzaki-kun, Makomo, come eat."

Only when Kanae came to call them for lunch did they stop.

"That's it for this morning's swordsmanship training. This afternoon, we'll work on stamina and reactions. When you sleep tonight, I'll have someone watch over you the whole time. The moment your Total Concentration Breathing stops, they'll wake you."

Makomo could already maintain Total Concentration Breathing while awake, so she no longer needed separate daytime training for it. What she needed next was to be rewarded with a round of "get up and go back to sleep" whenever her Total Concentration Breathing stopped at night, so she could master Total Concentration: Constant more quickly.

Back then, Kuwajima had put Kanzaki Kumo through the wringer too. For some time to come, Makomo would also have to undergo this training.

Makomo was already panting with exhaustion, the hair at her forehead soaked with sweat and stuck to her skin. Yet the almost visibly apparent progress from a morning's training made her eyes shine even brighter.

"Yes! Teacher Kanzaki!" Makomo stood perfectly straight as she answered Kanzaki Kumo, then winked at him.

"You..." Kanzaki Kumo reached out and tapped Makomo's forehead, unable to hold back a laugh.

When he had first gone to Mount Sagiri, he had joked around with Makomo in a similar way.

Before he knew it, more than six months had passed...