A flash of lightning ripped through the dark clouds, bringing rain to Mt. Sagiri.
Haruto woke from his dream, his face cold and damp. He reached up and felt his face, covered in water.
He didn't know if it was tears shed in his sleep or rain pushed in through the window by the wind.
From the window, he could see the boys joyfully stripping off their shirts and running into the rain.
"They'll catch a cold, won't they?" he thought.
Then he suddenly realized that if he went back a few years, he would be the one laughing in the rain.
Realizing this, Haruto's face fell, refusing to admit that he was no longer considered a boy.
He reached out and propped open the window, then snuggled under his covers to watch the rain.
Today, he especially didn't feel like doing anything.
He didn't want to train, didn't want to think, didn't want to instruct his apprentices, didn't want to patrol… No, patrolling his jurisdiction was still necessary.
Raindrops pattered past his eyes, forming a continuous string of beads.
Haruto pulled his gaze from the running boys and looked at the incessant rain.
"Use your eyes to trace its shape."
He remembered Souma's words.
Demons, humans, lightning… and so, raindrops too.
He tried to use his vision to capture the traces of the falling raindrops, to lock onto their movements. This was not difficult for Haruto.
The trajectory of the rain was not hard to guess. He gradually became engrossed, feeling the raindrops slide down according to the path he prescribed… then, slow down… He felt like he was zoning out, not thinking of anything.
Miraculously, the strings of raindrops in his eyes genuinely began to slow down.
It was as if someone's hand on the other side of a screen had pressed a slow-motion button; everything before his eyes became sluggish and… clear.
"Is this Transparent World?"
He wasn't quite sure, because there was no living creature before him to verify if he could see through its biological structure.
But even if it wasn't Transparent World, he should have entered a magical new world… Just as he was thinking this, a raindrop suddenly landed on the window prop, changing its original trajectory.
The slow-motion effect before his eyes instantly vanished, and "whoosh!" the rain, blown by the wind, splashed all over his face.
"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey!"
Haruto wiped the rain from his face and reached out to close the window.
The white-haired man who danced with lightning in his mind had died, right in the Shinagawa pleasure district he was about to visit, leaving no corpse behind.
The demon who killed him was called Daki, Upper Rank Six of the Twelve Kizuki.
He wasn't surprised by dreaming of Souma, because a saying circulated in the Swordsmith Village.
What was inherited from ancestors was not only appearance and hair color, but also ancient traditions etched into the heart.
Normally, they would lie dormant in memory until a thread of memory was touched, and then these ancient traditions would surge forth.
Although Haruto always felt this saying was very mystical, since he encountered it, he had to admit that in a world with even demons, nothing was absolutely impossible… After the chilly autumn rain, time flew by.
When the first snow covered Mt. Sagiri, Haruto took Genya and Tanjirou to catch snow chickens to eat.
The snow chickens on the mountain were larger than quails, gathered in flocks, and when startled, they didn't flap their wings but scurried away like free-range chickens.
The meat of these chickens was very tender and had high nutritional value, which Haruto enjoyed.
He stood under a tree, watching the flock of snow chickens from a distance, holding his breath, and slowly raising the brass slingshot in his hand.
Gradually, the snow chickens in his line of sight began to move slowly.
No sooner said than done, Haruto quickly pulled back the slingshot and, before the slow-down effect had ended, fired three small stones.
"Thud!" The three stones hit the heads of three snow chickens almost simultaneously. They didn't even have time to flap their wings before their skulls were crushed, killing them instantly.
The remaining snow chickens, feeling their lives threatened, scurried away erratically.
"Hooray!"
Tanjirou exclaimed softly and ran forward, tossing the snow chickens into his basket. His basket already contained twenty to thirty dead snow chickens.
Genya gestured with his firearm at the distant flocks of birds, wondering if he could kill three with one shot.
The answer was yes, because he was holding a shotgun. If the snow chickens were clumped together, he could potentially hit not just three with one shot, but an entire covey.
But if he had to switch to a brass slingshot—he'd rather not.
"Little Transparent World used for hunting birds, hhh, truly a case of being pretty and getting away with it."
"Please repeat after me: Reject wild game, starting with me—oh, it's the Taisho era, then whatever."
"These little chicks, stewed into a soup, will surely be incredibly fragrant."
"Get some mushrooms and vermicelli, and stew a pot of chicken and mushroom stew… sigh, my mouth is watering."
"Stop talking, or my mouth will start watering too."
Seeing their bountiful harvest, Haruto patted Tanjirou's shoulder, and the three prepared to return home.
As they walked along the mountain path, Genya and Tanjirou exchanged glances, then Tanjirou spoke up, asking,
"Teacher, when can we participate in the Fujikasane Mountain Final Selection?"
Haruto calmly looked at them: "You won't get beaten up when fighting 'Number One'?"
"Sometimes we still do…"
"Has your swordsmanship been honed to its peak?"
"I wouldn't dare claim that…"
"Can you use the Breathing Technique for extended combat without feeling exhausted?"
"This…"
The boys' faces fell, and they lowered their heads dejectedly.
Behind them, where no one could see, Haruto wiped away a cold sweat.
"That was close, I almost gave myself away."
Luckily, they didn't know about his past, didn't know that Haruto had only learned five forms of Flame Breathing before daring to rush into Fujikasane Mountain.
The three questions just now were a temporary measure, especially the last one; fighting for extended periods using a Breathing Technique without effort was simply wishful thinking.
He would have to ask Sakonji Urokodaki later how to determine if they were ready for the Fujikasane Mountain Final Selection.
"Do you have nothing left to teach them?" Sakonji Urokodaki asked.
Haruto thought it over carefully. Leaving Genya aside, Tanjirou had already learned all the moves he understood except for "Star's Jest." He was now focused on studying Sun Breathing, so Haruto truly had nothing more to teach him.
So he nodded, and Sakonji Urokodaki also nodded.
"Leave them to me."
Haruto didn't know how Sabito and Giyuu went to Fujikasane Mountain, but he knew how Makomo passed Sakonji Urokodaki's final assessment… One morning, Haruto returned from patrolling down the mountain and saw Sabito in the clearing in front of the wooden hut.
And sitting under Sabito's backside, even larger and rounder than him—a giant boulder.
Memories from several years ago resurfaced. That's right, Makomo had split this boulder with a single strike back then, and only then was Sakonji Urokodaki allowed her to participate in the Fujikasane Mountain Final Selection.
Tanjirou and Genya, who came out after hearing Sakonji's requirement, fell into a long period of stunned silence.