Chapter 12: Shaking the Old Man with Monstrous Talent
During lunch, Jigoro Kuwajima kept making small, fretful noises, his gaze periodically darting toward Kanzaki Akira. The boy, for his part, was left utterly bewildered by the old man's strange behavior.
After a few more minutes of the intermittent grumbling, Akira could no longer ignore it. He set his chopsticks down. "I have to say, if your nose or throat is bothering you, perhaps we should skip practice this afternoon and see a doctor."
"Hah? You just said 'skip practice,' didn't you?"
The words had barely left Akira's mouth when Kuwajima's wrinkled, scarred face suddenly thrust forward, coming so close that Akira nearly choked on his mouthful of rice.
Gently pushing the old man's face back a bit, Akira finally connected the dots. Kuwajima's odd behavior all morning, the constant sighs, the pointed stares—it all clicked into place.
"You've been trying to figure out how to talk me out of this since the moment I woke up, haven't you?"
"Hmph." Seeing that he'd been found out, Kuwajima admitted it with a frank grunt. Ever since he'd first laid eyes on Akira in the Corps' medical ward, the thought of dissuading him had never left his mind, a fact he'd never bothered to hide.
"Stubborn old man," Akira muttered under his breath before returning to his meal. As long as Kuwajima wasn't physically unwell, nothing else mattered. Quitting was out of the question. Only by mastering a Breathing Style as quickly as possible could he ever truly feel secure.
In a few months, he had to pay his respects at Kanzaki Keizan's grave, a solemn duty he had performed every year for as long as he could remember. Yesterday, on the way to Peach Mountain, Akira had specifically asked the coachman to consult a map, confirming the distance between Kuwajima's home and the burial site.
It was a significant journey, one that would require him to stay overnight on the road.
Thinking back, he realized how lucky he'd been before his memories returned. He had lived close to the grave and rarely needed to spend a night away from home. If he had, he might have awakened to the harsh realities of this world at a much younger, more vulnerable age. Now that he knew of the existence of demons, the thought of venturing out without any means of self-preservation left a cold knot of anxiety in his stomach.
And so, he set a small goal for himself: master the fundamentals in two months, achieve a working proficiency in another three, and only then would he prepare to make his annual pilgrimage.
While contemplating these short-term objectives, a question surfaced in his mind. He looked up from his bowl. "By the way, when is the Demon Slayer Corps' Final Selection held this year?"
Ubuyashiki Kagaya had mentioned it was an annual event, but he hadn't specified the exact date.
"You're still thinking of participating in the selection this year?!" Kuwajima's reaction was explosive, as if he'd been physically startled. He lunged forward, nearly spraying spittle into Akira's rice bowl. "I advise you to abandon that thought immediately! I will never agree to let you go this year!"
Fortunately, Akira's visual acuity was sharp enough to anticipate the trajectory of the airborne droplets, allowing him to shield his lunch just in time.
'Using my Super Vision for something like this… I truly am a clever little devil,' he thought with a flicker of amusement.
Yes, Super Vision was the name Akira had given his golden finger. It couldn't be helped; across two lifetimes, he'd never spent much time on academics, so his naming sense was characterized by a certain blunt simplicity.
"I never said I was participating this year," Akira said calmly, waiting for the old man's agitation to subside. "I just remembered the topic and asked out of curiosity."
"Just forget about this year entirely," Kuwajima huffed, his tone still indignant. "The Final Selection is next month. Even with your talent, don't even dream of meeting the requirements in just one month."
"Oh, alright then." Akira nodded. He hadn't expected to become an official Demon Slayer this year anyway. His physical foundation still needed significant work; it would take time to recover from over a decade of malnourishment.
Being able to catch Kuwajima's Nichirin Blade was one thing, but wielding a sword in a life-or-death battle was another matter entirely. The difference in the strength required was immense, especially when his future enemies would be demons, creatures whose physical prowess far surpassed that of any human.
Not everyone was like Himejima Gyomei, a man who, even after years of malnutrition, could still beat a demon to a pulp with his bare hands all night long. A man who, after a period of proper training, could swing his chained flail and axe with such terrifying force that he resembled a living weapon of war.
After they finished lunch, Kuwajima unceremoniously flipped Akira over and pinned him to the floor.
Don't misunderstand; it wasn't that the old man had developed some strange fixation on the boy, whose features had grown considerably more handsome with better living conditions. This was purely practical. He was going to massage Akira's leg muscles.
After all, the boy had been standing in a horse stance all morning. The afternoon was scheduled for basic sword forms. How could he possibly learn anything if his legs were trembling uncontrollably?
With decades of martial arts experience, Kuwajima had developed his own set of muscle-relaxing massage techniques. Though the process was intensely sore, it was brutally effective. In less than an hour, Akira felt eighty to ninety percent of the strength return to his legs, allowing him to stand ready for the afternoon's instruction.
"Brat, watch closely," Kuwajima commanded, gripping a wooden sword. He settled into a low stance, and in an instant, the entire atmosphere around him shifted. The gentle, grumpy old man vanished, replaced by a master swordsman.
"Thunder Breathing, Second Form: Inadama!"
A low rumble, like distant thunder, echoed in the air. A flash of lightning-fast movement erupted from his position. Five distinct streaks of light shot out from the tip of his wooden sword, leaving five scorched, fan-shaped marks seared into the ground before him.
Akira's eyes widened in pure astonishment.
His Super Vision allowed him to perceive every minute detail of Kuwajima's movements, but it was precisely because he saw everything so clearly that his shock was so deep. It wasn't just that Kuwajima's speed had compressed what should have been a five-strike combination into five nearly simultaneous slashes. It was because he had seen it, undeniably—a genuine spark of electricity crackling along the wooden blade.
'Wait, wasn't this supposed to be a special effect?' Akira questioned silently, but there was no one to answer him.
The surprise, however, was immediately consumed by a wave of pure, unadulterated delight. There was no other reason for it—it was cool. Unbelievably, impossibly cool.
In that moment, Akira's determination to learn a Breathing Style solidified from firm resolve into unshakeable conviction.
Kuwajima sighed internally. 'I should have held back… When did trying to talk someone out of this become harder than encouraging them to learn?'
Given his condition, having only recently recovered from serious injuries, executing a move of that magnitude was taxing. He had intended to display a high-level technique to make Akira shrink back from the difficulty. Instead, he had put too much force into it and ignited an even greater fire in the boy's heart.
Just as Kuwajima was concocting the next phase of his dissuasion plan, Akira had already picked up his own wooden sword and begun to move.
His eyes were slightly closed, his mind replaying every detail of Kuwajima's demonstration, breaking down each component. Then, with the wooden sword in hand, he began to imitate and correct the motions. Soon, apart from the much slower speed, he was perfectly replicating the form Kuwajima had just displayed.
Kuwajima, who had just finalized his next discouraging speech, snapped back to reality and saw this scene unfold. He was left completely dumbfounded.
To have become a Hashira meant that Kuwajima's own talent for the sword was already exceptional. Yet, the boy standing before him had managed to reproduce the movements of Thunder Breathing's Second Form after seeing it demonstrated only once.
He hadn't even needed Kuwajima to slow down the movements for him.
At that moment, Jigoro Kuwajima witnessed the terrifying reality of a true prodigy for the first time. His desire to talk Akira out of this path was severely shaken. He began to wonder if his well-intentioned dissuasion was not a protection, but a hindrance to a talent the likes of which he had never seen.
But he soon had no time for such thoughts.
Because after repeatedly confirming the correctness of the movements, Akira actually began to imitate Kuwajima's breathing rhythm from the demonstration. He was attempting to use Total Concentration Breathing to execute the high-difficulty sword form.
The result was instantaneous and disastrous. The world immediately went black for Akira, and his entire body went rigid, falling straight backward like a felled tree.
"You brat!" Seeing Akira attempt to mimic Total Concentration Breathing on his very first day, Kuwajima was so frightened that he instinctively used a burst of his own Breathing Technique to close the distance in a flash, catching the boy just before he hit the ground.
He caught Akira's stiffening body and quickly patted his chest and back a few times, helping him force the air back into his lungs.
"Hah—Hoo—"
After panting heavily for a long moment, Akira, who had nearly suffocated himself with a single attempt, finally recovered. For a terrifying instant, he thought he was going to die, and he could have sworn he'd seen the faint, beckoning image of Kanzaki Keizan waving at him from the afterlife.
"Trying to use Total Concentration Breathing on your first day learning a Breathing Style—why don't you just fly straight to heaven!"
"Ouch! That hurts, that hurts!"
Seeing that Akira was truly alright, Kuwajima's frayed nerves gave way to a surge of temper. He raised the wooden sword in his hand and brought it down on Akira's backside repeatedly, though after the first sharp sting, he clearly held back his strength.
Once the old man stopped, Akira retorted indignantly, "This accident should be your fault! You were just supposed to be demonstrating a move, but you went and used Total Concentration Breathing!"
"I did that to show you the true power of Thunder Breathing!" Kuwajima shouted back.
If one were to ignore his flushed face and the way his eyes darted away, Akira might have actually believed him.
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