The end of special training

After lunch, Kanzaki Kumo and Makomo sat across from each other at a small table, with six empty cups lined up on it.

"Reaction training is simple. See this row of cups in front of us? I'll pick up any one of them at any moment. Your job is to hold it down before I lift it all the way up."

"To make it easier, I'll only use one hand. If you succeed ten times in a row, you'll pass my training. If you fail, every ten failures will earn you a flick on the forehead."

The exercise was largely a recreation of a training method Kanzaki Kumo remembered from the original story, except he had changed the penalty from splashing tea out of the cups to flicking foreheads.

After all, it was winter. Getting tea splashed on you could leave you chilled after a while.

"Are the rules clear?"

"Yes. Let's begin."

Makomo nodded earnestly. Since she already favored an agile approach, she was fairly confident in her reflexes.

Unfortunately, what followed dealt her a harsh slap in the face.

Kanzaki Kumo never reached straight for a particular cup. Whenever Makomo identified his target and prepared to intercept him, his hand would swiftly change direction and pick up another cup.

This repeated until she soon reached ten failures.

"Bring your head here." Kanzaki Kumo ignored Makomo's attempt to look cute, simply keeping the fingers of one hand curled, ready to flick.

"Ooh..."

Makomo closed her eyes in resignation and leaned her head forward slightly.

Pop.

The sound was crisp. You could tell just by listening that it was a fine head.

Kanzaki Kumo made the quip to himself.

"Ow, ow..."

Holding her forehead, Makomo glared at Kanzaki Kumo with puffed cheeks.

"We agreed on this beforehand. If you don't want to get flicked, concentrate. Here, slow reflexes only earn you a flick on the forehead. Once you're back on the battlefield, the price of failing to react won't be so simple."

"It's not like I don't know that... Hmph, again!"

Makomo went at it fiercely.

A few minutes later, Makomo was holding her forehead and whimpering again.

"It's definitely red now. You couldn't even go a little easier... No, I want to add another rule. If I pass the training, I get to give you all these forehead flicks back!"

"Sure."

"Uh..."

Kanzaki Kumo agreed so readily that Makomo found herself at a loss for words. He was helping her train, after all. Wasn't she being a little unreasonable?

With that thought, Makomo glanced at Kanzaki Kumo again. She saw neither impatience nor dislike in his eyes. His gaze was as calm as ever, with a gentleness that others rarely got to see.

"All right, let's continue." Kanzaki Kumo's soft call brought Makomo back to her senses.

As far as Kanzaki Kumo was concerned, as long as Makomo trained properly and reduced her chances of being injured or even killed in the future, a few flicks on the forehead were no big deal. It was just playing around.

"Okay."

Another few minutes passed.

Pop.

"Ouch! Again!"

The hour-long reaction training ended with Makomo having received six flicks on the forehead.

Reaction training shouldn't go on for too long, so physical conditioning came next.

The exercises were simple too: long-distance running, frog jumps, push-ups, sit-ups, and other basic exercises, only with the intensity increased just a tiny bit.

Makomo: A tiny bit?

Kanzaki Kumo: A billion tiny bits.

For example, when Makomo did push-ups, Kanzaki Kumo put Kanao on her back. While Makomo did her push-ups, Kanzaki Kumo taught Kanao to speak.

And when she did long-distance running or frog jumps, Kanzaki Kumo personally strapped a pair of custom-made sandbags to Makomo's lower legs as weights.

They alternated between several exercises, with brief breaks in between.

By the end of the afternoon, Makomo had to lean against Kanae's shoulder even to eat dinner.

Shinobu Kocho finally got the chance she had been longing for to feed Kanao, too.

That evening, Kanao once again ate in Kanzaki Kumo's arms while Shinobu Kocho sat beside them, feeding her nonstop. Kanao's little cheeks were stuffed even fuller than the previous night, until Kanzaki Kumo could no longer stand watching and stopped Shinobu Kocho.

At bedtime, Kanae, whose daily duties were relatively light, volunteered to supervise Makomo.

First, under Kanzaki Kumo's supervision, Makomo demonstrated Water Breathing's Total Concentration Breathing state for Kanae. Only after making sure Kanae had memorized it did Makomo return to her room to sleep, and Kanzaki Kumo went out on patrol with peace of mind.

Perhaps because she was so tired from the day, Makomo experienced nearly ten rounds of "wake up and go back to sleep" that night. Toward the end, even Kanae could barely bring herself to wake her, but because of Makomo's insistence and Kanzaki Kumo's instructions, she still woke her whenever she noticed a clear change in Makomo's breathing.

Another half month passed in this orderly routine.

The only thing worth mentioning was probably Kanao.

The little girl was a bit too attached to Kanzaki Kumo.

On her first night at the Butterfly Mansion, the Kocho Sisters had slept with her, keeping her protected between them in the middle of the bed, and nothing had happened.

But ever since Kanae had gone to supervise Makomo's Breathing Style training, Kanao would quietly climb out of bed after Shinobu Kocho fell asleep, slip into Kanzaki Kumo's room, and burrow into those familiar, warm arms to sleep.

Since Kanzaki Kumo trained Makomo during the day and spent half the night out on patrol, he slept rather deeply and didn't notice the little one who had appeared in his arms.

It wasn't until early the next morning, when the noise of Shinobu Kocho searching everywhere for Kanao woke him, that he realized something was weighing on his chest. Before his mind had even cleared, Shinobu Kocho had pushed open his door.

If Kanzaki Kumo hadn't been in the habit of sleeping with his clothes on, and Kanao hadn't been fully clothed as well, he wouldn't have known how to explain it.

Afterward, Kanzaki Kumo tried talking Kanao out of it, but it did little good. Shinobu Kocho couldn't keep watch over Kanao alone either, so in the end, they could only let her be. She was still young, after all, and didn't understand anything, so nothing would happen.

Once Makomo's training ended, Kanae and Shinobu Kocho would surely be able to keep an eye on her together.

And so, half a month passed, and Makomo finally completed her training successfully.

Although Makomo had complained about Kanzaki Kumo plenty over those days, she hadn't slacked off in her training at all. In fact, Kanzaki Kumo never had to worry about whether she was training enough, but rather whether she would push herself so hard that she damaged her body.

Kanzaki Kumo had also asked Zemu and his wife to prepare special medicinal meals to nourish Makomo as part of her daily diet.

Through this training, her physical conditioning, reflexes, swordsmanship, and Breathing Style had all improved to varying degrees. She had gained a great deal, and by Kanzaki Kumo's estimate, Makomo could now defeat most Kinoe Swordsmen.

Kanzaki Kumo's eyes deserved much of the credit for such noticeable progress in so short a time.

Now, it was difficult to see traces of Sakonji Urokodaki in Makomo's swordsmanship. She had successfully made Water Breathing's sword techniques truly her own. Beyond honing them in actual combat, her next steps would be to try developing new forms and flexibly combining existing ones.

Those were things Kanzaki Kumo couldn't teach her.

And so, this special training was declared complete after Makomo gave Kanzaki Kumo three consecutive flicks on the forehead.

"Is your head made of iron? My fingers hurt from flicking it," Makomo complained as she rubbed her fingers.

"I was born this way. How is that my fault?" Kanzaki Kumo spread his hands with a smile.

"All right. Remember to keep yourself safe on your missions from now on. I hope the next time I see you here, it'll be because you've found time to visit me at the Butterfly Mansion, not because you've been injured and carried here."

"Yes, I will."