The moon hung like a silver sickle over Orario, casting long, sharp shadows across the flagstones of the Hostess of Fertility's backyard.
It was an hour past closing, and the usual cacophony of drunken adventurers had faded into a heavy, expectant silence.
The air was crisp, scented with the fading warmth of Mama Mia's signature stew and the sharp, metallic tang of the practice blades leaned against the stone well.
Shirou Emiya stood at the center of the clearing, his posture relaxed but his presence undeniable. Opposite him stood two of the most dangerous women in the city: Ryuu Lion, the "Gale," and Anya Fromel, the "Vana Alfi."
Both were Level 4 veterans, individuals whose physical capabilities bordered on the divine. Yet, in this makeshift dojo, the hierarchy of Falna meant nothing. Here, Shirou was the Master.
"Breathing isn't just about oxygen," Shirou began, his voice cutting through the evening chill. He held a simple wooden bokken, but he held it with the reverence one might accord a holy relic.
"It's about the flow of energy—Prana—and how it synchronizes with the rhythm of your heart. Ryuu-san, Anya-san, your Falna gives you the vessel of a hero. These Styles? They are the fuel that turns that vessel into a sun."
Shirou turned his attention to Ryuu first. The elf stood with her characteristic poise, her back straight and her eyes—sharp as a hawk's—tracking the slight shift in Shirou's weight.
"Ryuu-san, your movements are already like the breeze—precise, swift, and ethereal," Shirou explained. "But a breeze can be deflected. Wind Breathing isn't about changing who you are; it's about becoming the storm itself. It is a purely offensive discipline. It uses rotational power to create 'slashes of air' that extend your reach far beyond the length of your steel."
Shirou took a breath. It wasn't the shallow gasp of a tired man, but a deep, lung-expanding draw that seemed to pull the very atmosphere into his core.
"Wind Breathing, First Form: Dust Whirlwind Cutter."
He moved. To the untrained eye, he simply vanished. To Ryuu and Anya, he became a low-dashing cyclone. Shirou didn't just strike the training dummy; he spiraled around it, his wooden blade leaving a trail of whistling air that physically pushed the grass outward in a perfect circle.
"The secret is the 'short-sharp' intake," Shirou said, stepping back as if he hadn't just crossed twenty feet in a heartbeat.
"Compress the air in your lungs until it feels like it's going to burst, then release it through your limbs."
Ryuu stepped forward, her brow furrowed in concentration. She mimicked the pattern. Her elven lungs, accustomed to the thin, high-altitude air of the forests, were a natural fit for the technique. As she inhaled, her chest expanded with a painful creak of leather armor.
She swung.
Whish.
The sound was different. It wasn't the hum of a sword; it was the shriek of a gale.
"I feel... the air resistance vanishing," Ryuu whispered, staring at her trembling hands. "It's as if the world is moving out of my way. The atmosphere isn't an obstacle anymore; it's a propellant."
The Wild and the Primal: Beast Breathing
Anya was already fidgeting, her tail twitching with a manic, impatient energy. She found the technical explanations boring, but the sight of Shirou's speed had ignited a fire in her cat-girl instincts.
"Anya-san," Shirou said, turning to her. "You don't need the 'elegance' of the elf. Your greatest weapon is the wildness inside you. Beast Breathing was created by someone who lived among wolves and boars. It's erratic, unpredictable, and utilizes your racial flexibility in ways the Guild's training manuals would call 'impossible.'"
He lowered his center of gravity until he was almost crouching on all fours.
"Seventh Form: Spatial Awareness."
Shirou's breathing changed. It became a ragged, rhythmic vibration. He closed his eyes. Anya, thinking to test him, lunged forward with a practice swing.
Without opening his eyes, Shirou stepped an inch to the left, the blade missing his ear by a hair's breadth. He didn't just see her; he felt her through the displacement of the air.
"It utilizes the skin as a sensory organ," Shirou explained. "By vibrating the breath, you turn your body into a sonar. You'll feel the enemy's killing intent before they even move."
Anya didn't need to be told twice. She dropped low, her pupils slitting into thin needles. She took to the primal rhythm like a fish to water.
When she utilized the Third Form: Palpate and Devour, she didn't strike like a duelist. She lunged with a jagged ferocity, her wooden sword tearing through the air with the sound of a predator's claw.
"Nya! It's like I have whiskers all over my body!" Anya laughed, her speed doubling as she lunged at a training dummy. She wasn't just hitting it; she was hunting it. Her movements became a blur of grey fur and whistling wood, her tail acting as a literal rudder for her mid-air shifts.
From the second-floor balcony, tucked away in the shadows of the eaves, Syr Flova—or rather, the goddess Freya—watched the scene.
She rested her chin on a delicate hand, her silver eyes glowing with a faint, divine luminescence. She didn't see three people training. She saw souls being rewritten.
'He is reshaping them,' she mused, a small, dangerous smile playing on her lips. 'Ryuu is no longer the "Gale" trapped in a cage of her own justice and guilt; she is becoming a force of nature that scours the earth. And Anya... she is shedding the civilized layers of a waitress and returning to the primal goddess of the hunt she was always meant to be.'
Her gaze shifted to Shirou. He was the most fascinating of all—a "Falna-less" boy who possessed no status, no magic, and no divine favor, yet he was casually teaching Level 4 veterans how to redefine the very concept of power.
"You really are a dangerous treasure, Shirou-kun," she whispered into the night. "To think, you offer the strength of the gods through nothing more than the air we breathe. I wonder... if I taught you the the core of divine, would you even be able to die? Or would you simply transcend us all?"
The training continued for hours. Shirou was relentless. He pushed them through the Total Concentration exercises, forcing them to maintain the breathing patterns while performing grueling physical tasks.
"Again!" he shouted as Ryuu stumbled. "The Wind doesn't stop because it's tired! If you stop breathing, you're just a girl with a sword. Keep the rhythm!"
Ryuu's lungs felt like they were filled with molten lead. Her vision was blurring at the edges, a green haze beginning to manifest around her blade—a physical manifestation of the sheer friction she was generating.
She gritted her teeth, the pride of the Astraea Familia flickering in her eyes. She wouldn't let a boy—a human—outlast her.
Beside her, Anya was a mess of sweat and fur. Her "Beast" state was mentally taxing, requiring her to process thousands of tiny sensory inputs from the air around her.
Every time she breathed, she felt the pulse of the city, the scurrying of rats in the cellar, the heartbeat of the goddess on the balcony. It was overwhelming, but it was exhilarating.
"I can... I can see the weak points!" Anya yelped, her wooden sword snapping out to strike the dummy exactly where the wood grain was weakest. The dummy shattered.
By the time the moon began to set, both women were drenched in sweat, their chests heaving in a way that no Falna-driven leveling had ever caused. This wasn't the fatigue of the body; it was the fatigue of the soul being forced to operate at 100% capacity.
Shirou stood before them, remarkably composed, though a thin sheen of sweat covered his own brow.
"You both did well," he said, offering a small, wistful smile. "But this is just the beginning. The goal isn't to use these forms when you fight. The goal is Total Concentration: Constant."
"Constant?" Ryuu asked, her voice raspy.
"You must breathe this way every second of every day," Shirou said firmly. "When you eat, when you work at the pub, even when you sleep. It must become as natural to you as your heartbeat."
"In my sleep?!" Anya collapsed onto the grass, her tail limp. "That's cheating, nya! How am I supposed to dream about fish if I'm busy breathing like a monster?"
"It's how you become a Hero," Shirou replied, his eyes looking toward the distant Tower of Babel. "Heroes don't have 'off' buttons. The world doesn't wait for you to be ready."
Ryuu looked at her hands. They were steady now. The green haze had faded, but the feeling remained—a sense of lightness, of being untethered from the world's friction. She looked at Shirou and gave a solemn, respectful bow. "Thank you, Shirou. I... I see the path now."
As they walked back toward the warm lights of the tavern, the "Gale" and the "Storm" moved with a new kind of grace. They weren't just Level 4s anymore. They were something else—something Orario wasn't prepared for.
And in the shadows of the balcony, a goddess began to plan how to keep her new treasure from ever leaving her sight.