"Mr. Suzuki, are you going to the village today?"
"No, I'm going to an open area in the wilderness to practice my techniques."
"Then let's go together. I feel like my body has mostly recovered. If I don't do some rehabilitative exercises, my limbs will feel weak."
Suzuki Makoto nodded. The other's body was indeed no longer in serious condition. It seemed there was something special about the hot springs in the Swordsmith Village.
"Then let's go together—once your body is fully recovered, I'll teach you something new."
"Okay!"
Tanjiro Kamado, full of fighting spirit, began to eat his breakfast, just as Mitsuri Kanroji walked in, yawning.
"Good morning, Mr. Suzuki. Good morning, Tanjiro. Good morning, Nezuko."
"Good morning."
"Good morning, Lady Kanroji!"
"Mmph!"
Nezuko Kamado clearly adored this older sister. The moment she saw Mitsuri, she left her brother and threw herself into Mitsuri's arms, making the girl giggle happily.
And then, for the first time, Suzuki Makoto witnessed her appetite.
Truly a woman worthy of such muscles.
The man marveled inwardly. This was the purest sense of power!
The two finished their meal early, said goodbye to the Love Hashira, and headed towards an open area outside the village specifically used for practice and sparring.
"Mr. Suzuki, is it really okay for Lady Kanroji to eat that much? She ate just as much for lunch and dinner yesterday."
Tanjiro Kamado certainly remembered what Master Urokodaki had once said: for children like them, the amount they could eat at this stage determined how much stronger they could become. Mitsuri Kanroji was probably the strongest girl he had ever met.
"If you had muscles as pure as hers, you'd have to eat that much too."
"Huh? Are Lady Kanroji's muscles really that strong?"
"Very strong. About eight times stronger than yours, I'd say."
"Whaaat?!!"
Amid their casual conversation, the two stopped walking. Tanjiro began to run and stretch, doing some rehabilitative exercises, while Suzuki Makoto continued to ponder other shortcuts to produce a Crimson Red Blade.
From yesterday to now, he had tried all the other Breathing Styles, only to find that brute force was the most effective—all you had to do was use enough strength.
But this kind of grip strength was easy for someone like Mitsuri Kanroji to achieve, but not so much for others.
He wondered if there might be another way...
"Can you please not hit it so violently this time? It's about to break!"
"Impossible. Only real combat will allow me to continue growing. Besides, I just switched Breathing Styles and I desperately need combat training."
"Then I'm not giving you the key!"
"Tokito? Are you here for the hot springs too?"
Muichiro Tokito, who had been expressionless and was about to snatch the key, paused and turned his head, a slight smile appearing on his face.
"Mr. Suzuki? Perfect. With you here, I won't need this."
Suzuki Makoto sized up the six-armed doll before him, feeling a sense of strangeness.
How could a mere doll make him feel a suppressed power within it?
"You said you need this for combat training. Does that mean it can move?"
"It can. I've used it before. Its techniques are ancient, but very peculiar."
Whoa, it can really move?! What kind of tech tree are they on here!
"Could you... activate it? I'd really like to see."
Muichiro Tokito turned his head again, staring at the little boy with the Hyottoko mask.
"This guy listens to you. If you promise me you'll stop him from breaking the mechanical doll again, I'll agree."
"Tokito-kun has me as a sparring partner, so he shouldn't need this doll anymore. It's me who wants to see the doll now—I promise you, I won't let it sustain any more damage."
The boy hesitated for a moment. Seeing that Muichiro Tokito didn't object, he relaxed a little, took out the key, and began to activate the doll.
"May I ask why this doll has six arms?"
"This is a mechanical doll made by my ancestors. It's based on a real samurai who once existed, but that samurai's techniques and movements could only be replicated on the doll by using six arms and six swords."
"What's his name?"
"I don't know the samurai's name, but this doll is called [Yoriichi Type Zero]."
Yoriichi?
Yoriichi Tsugikuni?
Suzuki Makoto looked at the already damaged face, drew his sword, and began to focus on defending against its attacks.
These techniques were not the Sun Breathing, but they were certainly wondrous enough. After all, being able to operate six arms as if they were a single entity was proof enough of what the boy said—that the techniques of a single swordsman with two hands could only be fully replicated with six swords.
But if that was all, it shouldn't have given him that feeling.
The doll had already completed a full cycle of its techniques, but Suzuki Makoto still hadn't noticed anything special. So, he shifted his attention from the doll's movements to the doll itself.
Soon, he discovered a clue.
Suzuki Makoto parried the doll's assault with his blade, then gently tapped a spot with his hilt. The doll trembled for a moment and instantly shut down.
The boy rushed over, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that only the switch had been turned off.
"This doll seems to have something extra hidden inside it, which is slightly offsetting its center of gravity. When reflected in its actual movements, it causes slight deviations when performing certain techniques. It's just that no one who knew these techniques was around before, so the problem was never discovered."
Suzuki Makoto pointed out the problem.
Kotetsu looked at Suzuki Makoto blankly, not understanding what he meant at all.
"You must have a way to open this doll for maintenance, right? Just take out whatever is inside."
"Only my father knew how to maintain it... but he passed away suddenly. I... I—I don't have a talent for making automatons."
The boy slumped to his knees, his voice filled with dejection.
"You can't even open its torso?"
"Just break it, then."
"Absolutely not! This is what my father left me!"
"Alright, alright—it's open."
"Huh?!"
Kotetsu almost leaped off the ground, staring dumbfounded as Suzuki Makoto removed the back panel.
"How... how did you do that?!"
"The mortise and tenon joints were a bit too obvious. Plus, during its design, it's clear no one ever considered having this doll actually fight. It was made purely to preserve the swordsman's techniques, so there was no deliberate effort to avoid or hide the riveted points."
Suzuki Makoto set down the back panel and reached in to take out the object that shouldn't have been inside the doll.
A sword, wrapped in cloth strips, deeply embedded in the doll's central axis.
____
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