Chapter 27: A Calculated Provocation
Kanzaki Akira's movements were slow at first, a deliberate and careful imitation of the forms Urokodaki Sakonji had just demonstrated. Yet even this measured pace was a lesson in itself, allowing Makomo and the others watching from the side to glean insights they had previously missed.
Then, Akira began to sync his motions with the rhythm of his breathing. His hands blurred, the wooden sword in his grasp accelerating until his entire figure seemed to warp and shimmer. Faint, illusory currents of blue began to trace the arc of his blade, clinging to him like a second skin.
By the third cycle, it was done. Akira had flawlessly replicated all ten forms of Water Breathing.
As the final movement settled, he slowly exhaled, his chest rising and falling in a steady, controlled rhythm. He turned to face Urokodaki, only to be met by three pairs of wide, unblinking eyes staring back at him.
"He just... he just watched once..." Sabito and Makomo murmured in unison, their voices hushed with disbelief. Only Giyuu remained outwardly impassive, the shock in his eyes a faint ripple that couldn't quite break the surface of his usual stagnant calm.
"Are you all alright?" Akira asked, stepping forward and waving a hand in front of their faces.
"We're fine..." Urokodaki was the first to recover. His vast life experience allowed him to quickly regain his composure, though his voice was still laced with a thread of pure astonishment.
"Speak for yourself," Makomo retorted, rolling her eyes as she, too, shook off the stupor. 'Why should I, a normal person, even try to compare myself to a monster?' she thought with a wry internal sigh.
Sabito was the last to snap out of it. He said nothing, but the look he fixed on Akira was no longer just one of surprise. It was a gaze filled with a firm, fervent fighting spirit, a silent promise of a challenge to come.
"Alright," Urokodaki announced, his voice drawing their attention. "I will now explain the key principles of Water Breathing and the deep essence it contains. All three of you, listen well. Reviewing these fundamentals will always yield new rewards."
"Water Breathing, its defining characteristic is its likeness to water..."
The entire morning passed under the weight of Urokodaki's teachings. Makomo, Sabito, and Giyuu had long ago committed the essentials to memory, but the lesson served as a valuable refresher. For Akira, it was the final piece of the puzzle, cementing the core principles in his mind.
After a simple lunch, the four of them found separate spaces in the clearing to practice their sword forms.
Akira watched Sabito and Giyuu training together, their wooden swords clashing in a familiar rhythm. An idea began to take shape in his mind—a plan to finally address the oppressive gloom that clung to Giyuu. If it was possible to help the boy break free from the shell he had built around himself, it was better to do it sooner rather than later. No one enjoyed facing that lifeless, empty expression day after day.
Frankly, Akira couldn't stand it.
With the rough outline of a plan formed, he walked toward the two boys.
"Sabito, how about a spar?"
"Huh?" Sabito looked up, his expression a mixture of confusion and surprise. Their strengths were clearly not on the same level; he couldn't imagine why Akira would seek him out for a match.
"No Breathing Techniques," Akira clarified, a faint challenge in his tone. "Just a pure contest of swordplay, using only the forms of Water Breathing. What do you say? Do you dare?"
"What's there to be afraid of? Bring it on!"
Any hesitation Sabito felt vanished at the words "do you dare?" He was at that spirited, fiery age where such a provocation was impossible to ignore.
In truth, for Akira, this kind of spar was all but meaningless. His vision was simply too powerful. Even against opponents of comparable overall strength, he could perceive the subtle flaws in their every move. The only difference was that a stronger opponent might have the speed and reflexes to react, to counter, and to avoid collapsing at the first exchange.
But Sabito had been learning the Breathing Styles for far too short a time. Despite his immense natural talent, the gap between him and Akira was, at this moment, an impassable chasm. For every single one of Sabito's attacks, Akira could see at least three or four clear opportunities to send the wooden sword flying from his hand.
However, Akira's purpose was not a simple spar. He was using his unique sight to guide Sabito, to subtly point out his flaws while searching for the right moment to draw Giyuu into the fray.
So, even though he could have ended the match in a single move, Akira engaged Sabito in a careful back-and-forth.
To Giyuu, whose eyes couldn't discern the microscopic details, and to Makomo, who only felt that something about their exchange was strange, the fight was an odd but even one. Only the astute Urokodaki and Sabito himself recognized the truth: this was a display of Akira's unilateral dominance.
Every one of Akira's strikes landed precisely on a weak point in Sabito's form—a slightly over-extended elbow, a moment of imbalance, a telegraphing shoulder. Yet the force was always deliberately restrained, never enough to disarm him, but just enough to make him feel the error. It gave Sabito a chance to reflect, adjust, and attack again.
Once he realized Akira was guiding him, a look of gratitude flashed in Sabito's eyes, but it was quickly consumed by an even stronger fighting spirit. They were of a similar age—he was even a few months older—there was no reason for such a monumental gap to exist between them.
'Is there?' Makomo wondered from the sidelines, tilting her head.
After a long series of exchanges, just as Sabito's movements began to slow with fatigue, Akira saw his opening. A clean, sharp strike knocked the wooden sword from his hand, ending the spar. He needed Sabito to have some energy left for what was to come; he couldn't afford to exhaust him completely.
"Thank you," Sabito said, his gratitude sincere. He didn't make any grand declarations like, 'I'll definitely catch up to you.' The gap between them was currently too vast, so large that he felt a little embarrassed to even voice such a thought.
But in his heart, the determination to one day catch up to, and even surpass, Kanzaki Akira remained unshakable.
Akira knew what Sabito was thinking and could only offer a silent prayer that the boy wouldn't suffer too great a blow to his spirit in the future. He, better than anyone, understood what an almost unfair advantage his eyes were in this world, a world defined by the split-second decisions of close-quarters combat. Unless he faced an opponent with a crushing, generational gap in raw power, Akira could, at the very least, remain undefeated until his stamina gave out. In most cases, his chances of victory were overwhelmingly high.
It was only because this world still contained the Demon King, Muzan, and several Upper Rank demons who could indeed overwhelm him with sheer, impossible power that Akira felt the need to diligently improve his strength.
"Giyuu," Akira said, turning his attention to his true target. "You want to practice, too?"
Giyuu merely glanced at him, offering no reaction as he continued his solitary swings.
"Hey." Akira's voice took on a harder edge, a flicker of irritation entering his tone. "As a swordsman, do you not even have the courage to spar?"
Makomo, watching from a short distance away, felt a jolt of surprise. Although they hadn't spent much time together, the Kanzaki Akira she knew didn't seem like someone who would get angry so easily. In fact, before this moment, she had never seen him angry at all.
Urokodaki, however, whose senses could perceive the general flow of a person's emotions, saw at a glance that Akira was acting. A flicker of curiosity sparked within him. What was this boy planning?
Watching Akira approach, his posture radiating an aggressive energy, Giyuu finally stopped his practice. He stared at Akira for a long, silent moment, then, without a word of greeting, he lunged.
Clack!
With a single, crisp sound, the wooden sword in Giyuu's hand—the hand of the one who had attacked first—was struck cleanly from his grasp and sent clattering to the ground.
"Again," Akira said. His tone was low, his eyes carrying a heavy, demanding pressure.
Giyuu remained silent. He bent down, picked up his sword, and attacked again.
The result was no different. Even though Giyuu made slight adjustments to his angle of attack, he could not escape the fate of having his sword knocked away by a single, perfectly placed strike.
Sabito, standing nearby, watched with a thoughtful expression. As someone who had trained alongside Giyuu for years, he knew that while the boy's psychological state hindered his progress, his fundamental strength wasn't so far behind his own. To be defeated so easily could only mean one thing: Akira's purpose right now was not to spar. It was something else entirely.
While Sabito was lost in thought, Giyuu had already been defeated twice more. Facing Akira's still-cold command of "Again," a new emotion finally began to surface in his lifeless eyes. It was a faint, unfamiliar flicker named anger.
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