Shinobu Kocho returned to the courtyard with the Master's authorization.
As soon as she reached the entrance, she saw Yoriichi packing.
Aside from his Corps uniform and the bare hilt at his waist, there was something new on him now—
A lightweight yet sturdy wooden box, strapped securely to his back.
"You brought your little sister out?" Shinobu asked.
Her gaze softened as she looked at the box.
Not long ago, she had harbored intense hostility toward that sister—after all, she was a demon—and had nearly killed her on the spot.
But after spending this time together, Shinobu had to admit it: this truly was an unbelievable pair of siblings.
"…Mm."
Yoriichi tilted his head slightly, listening to the steady breathing coming from within the box. His eyes grew unusually gentle.
"If we're traveling far, I can't leave her here alone. And… the hot springs there might help her recover her strength."
"What a responsible big brother," Shinobu said with a light laugh, not objecting at all. "Then bring her along. Though the road ahead… you'll be carrying a box while being carried yourself. That sounds rather exhausting."
She glanced meaningfully toward the courtyard gate.
Several members of the Kakushi stepped inside on cue, dressed in black uniforms. In their hands were thick black blindfolds, specialized earplugs, and even medicinal sachets meant to block scent.
"Tanjiro-sama, Shinobu-sama—pardon us," the leading Kakushi said with a respectful bow. "By the village's iron rule, the journey there requires sealing the five senses, and we must carry you in relay. Even Hashira are no exception."
"I understand. Begin," Yoriichi said without resistance, calmly closing his eyes.
But when the Kakushi stepped forward to wrap the cloth around him, Yoriichi shifted slightly and placed a steady, gentle hand against the wooden box on his back.
"Wait," he said—his voice warm, yet carrying an undeniable authority. "This box must stay on my back. Even with my senses sealed, I will not let go of it."
The Kakushi members exchanged troubled looks.
"Tanjiro-sama… we will be sprinting with you on our backs in relay. With that heavy box as well, we're afraid—"
"It will be fine," Yoriichi replied evenly. "I'll adjust my breathing and center of gravity, matching the carrier's steps and rise and fall completely. That way, it won't create additional burden for him."
Shinobu watched in silence for a moment. Seeing that the Kakushi were still hesitating, she smiled and said softly, "Do as he says… that box holds his most important family."
With the Insect Hashira's confirmation, the Kakushi no longer hesitated. They fitted blindfolds and earplugs onto both of them.
"Then, we depart."
At the Kakushi's low call, Yoriichi felt himself lifted—firmly, securely—onto someone's back.
Shinobu followed close behind, guided by a female Kakushi operative, and the two of them vanished into the mountain forest under the deepening dusk.
…
In his ears, the wind screamed through the mountains. At his nose, the scent of grass and trees shifted again and again.
For most people, it would have been an unnerving trip—bereft of sensation, wholly dependent on others.
But for Yoriichi, closing his eyes made memories sealed for four hundred years flare back into vivid life.
The sound of the wind here… it's just like back then.
He thought quietly.
Four hundred years ago, he had walked a route much like this.
Back then, the Swordsmith Village had been on another ridge, but the same hidden sorrow—the secrecy born of surviving the demons' hunt—had remained unchanged across the centuries.
"Tanjiro-kun?"
During a pause between carriers, Shinobu—also being carried—spoke softly beside him.
Yoriichi returned to himself and answered, "What is it?"
"…Are you sad?" Shinobu's voice held gentle concern.
As a Hashira, her sensitivity to aura was razor sharp.
And in that brief instant just earlier, she had sensed something faint from the boy beside her—something like a sorrow buried deep in the heart.
Yoriichi fell silent for a moment, then shook his head.
"I just think… humans are truly remarkable."
"Huh?" Shinobu blinked.
"Even when facing darkness that powerful… even when every generation must endure partings and sacrifices… the will to protect something—" his voice remained calm, yet carried weight, "—it never goes out. Like sparks from a forge."
Why would he suddenly say something like that…? Shinobu paused, but in these circumstances there was no room to press further. She kept quiet.
The long, monotonous relay passed with unnatural solemnity, time slipping away faster than it should have.
No one knew how long it was.
Then a dense sulfur smell, mixed with a wave of scalding heat, rolled over them.
"My lords—we have arrived."
When the blindfolds were removed, even Shinobu—well-traveled and hard to surprise—narrowed her eyes.
Before them lay a village nestled in a裂缝-like cleft between mountains.
Countless massive waterwheels turned in the stream, providing endless power to the forging furnaces.
The air reeked of scorched metal. From every direction came the heavy, rhythmic clang of hammering.
But the moment they stepped into the village—before the blindfold cloth had even fully come off—Yoriichi felt an eruption of intense killing intent from the woods to the side.
"KAMADO TANJIRO!! You bastard who broke my blade—YOUR LIFE IS MINE!!"
Two cleavers, flashing cold light, tore through the air straight for Yoriichi's face.
"Watch out!" The Kakushi carrying him went weak in the legs and collapsed straight onto the ground.
Yoriichi merely turned his head slightly and shifted his body back by half an inch.
The cleavers brushed past the tip of his nose and slammed into a tree trunk behind him.
"Haganezuka-san," Yoriichi said, lifting his blindfold and looking at the man in the fire-mask. His tone was steady. "That sword shattered because it couldn't withstand the heat I released. I did not destroy it intentionally."
"Shut up! That was my child—my life's work!" Haganezuka yanked two more cleavers from his clothes and swung them wildly. "I'll bite the flesh off your cheeks! I'll chop you into mince!"
Faced with a swordsmith who had completely lost his reason, Yoriichi could only sigh inwardly, weaving aside again and again as cleavers hacked toward him.
"Miss Shinobu… what should we do?" he asked, glancing over in the middle of his evasions.
But Shinobu only covered her mouth and laughed lightly.
"My, my… so even a swordsman who can drive back an Upper Rank can't handle an enraged swordsmith."
Then she tilted her head, voice teasing. "If you call me 'Sister Shinobu,' I might consider saving you."
Yoriichi hesitated, then shook his head.
"No need… Haganezuka-san simply loves his swords too much. I understand that kind of pure devotion."
"I think once he tires himself out, it will be fine."
Fortunately, the farce did not last long.
As his strikes kept missing, the swordsmith's temper seemed to hit a boiling point.
Just as Haganezuka hiked up his sleeves as if to get serious, an old, commanding voice rang out sharply at the village entrance.
"Enough, Hotaru! Don't disgrace yourself in front of guests!"
The instant the words fell, Haganezuka's ferocious momentum evaporated. His movements froze in midair.
Yoriichi turned his head and saw it—an elderly, short-statured man in a mask, somehow already standing at the far end of the street.
"Village Chief!" Swordsmiths all around bowed.
The man addressed as the chief—Tecchin Tecchikawahara—walked over with hands clasped behind his back. He rapped Haganezuka hard on the head, then lifted his face and examined Yoriichi through the mask.
After a brief moment, the old chief—who had seen countless prodigies—seemed to catch his breath.
In his eyes, the boy before him did not resemble a fifteen-year-old at all.
He was like a blazing sun fallen into the mortal world—bottomless and unfathomable, yet warm as jade.
"So that's it… No wonder the boy went mad," the chief said slowly, nodding. "Kamado-dono, I don't believe this is an issue of craftsmanship. The truth is… the swords of this era simply cannot bear the purity of the 'breath' inside you."
Pure breath…?
A flicker of surprise crossed Shinobu's violet eyes. She studied the boy again, unable to help herself.
She knew Tanjiro was strong—but to hear the chief, of all people, declare that Nichirin blades themselves were too fragile…
That exceeded even her understanding of what "strong" meant.
Before Yoriichi could respond, the chief continued, "You needn't admit or deny anything. Though I'm old and my eyes are failing, my sense for 'qi' has not left me."
As he spoke, his gaze angled toward the deep mountains beyond the village.
"If you want a blade worthy of you… perhaps only that 'mechanical doll,' sealed away for four hundred years, will do."
"A mechanical doll…?" Shinobu repeated, curiosity immediately rising. "What is that?"
And at the very moment the chief said "doll," Yoriichi's breathing wavered—so subtly it was nearly imperceptible.
"…Hm?" Shinobu noticed at once and looked over. "Do you… know what he's talking about?"
Yoriichi did not answer. He seemed to sink into a distant, unending recollection.
"Hey… Tanjiro-kun?"
Shinobu raised a slender, pale hand and waved it gently in front of his face.
"Hey… Tanjiiiro~~"
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
When Yoriichi finally came back to himself, a delicate, pretty face was right up close.
Shinobu leaned forward slightly, chin lifted, violet eyes full of suspicion.
"What is it…?" Yoriichi murmured, still half dazed.
"I'm the one who should be asking that," Shinobu said, straightening and tilting her head as she studied him. "The moment you heard 'doll,' you went absent. Don't tell me you know what it is…?"
"But that doesn't make sense. You shouldn't have been to the Swordsmith Village before."
After a beat, she added, half accusing, half playful, "Unless you've been sneaking in here secretly?"
Yoriichi shook his head.
"You misunderstand. I was only thinking… why would a mechanical doll have anything to do with a sword?"
Shinobu didn't press the point. She tapped a finger to her lips, thoughtful.
"Hm… you're right. Why would a doll connect to a sword?"
Then her eyes sparkled as a new idea seized her.
"Could it be a trial up ahead? Like—there are dolls hidden all through the ravine, and we have to fight our way through them like in a storybook, and only after passing the test do we get the peerless blade?"
As she spoke, she even made a playful little sword-swinging gesture.
"That sounds fun, doesn't it, Tanjiro-kun?"
Yoriichi stared for a moment, then said quietly, "No… I think only the picture in your head is fun."
That doll existed for one reason only—
To commemorate someone who had vanished into the river of time.
…Nothing more.
…
After taking their leave of the old chief, the two of them headed deeper into the forest.
As they went farther, the hammering of the forges faded away, replaced by a deathlike silence between the trees and the scent of wild plants in the air.
"The 'secret weapon' he mentioned is really in a place like this?" Shinobu asked, brushing aside a drooping branch. She looked around, puzzled. "It feels like this area's been abandoned for a long time…"
Before she could finish, Yoriichi—walking ahead—stopped abruptly.
"Tanjiro-kun?"
He didn't answer.
He simply stood there, gaze passing through layers of shadowed leaves to settle on a clearing half swallowed by weeds.
Following his line of sight, Shinobu looked as well.
In the next instant, her pupils tightened.
Beneath a massive ancient tree, a figure stood—silent and unmoving.
It was a mechanical doll, one that looked strange even to an untrained eye.
Its armor had long since rotted and weathered away. Its face had been eroded by time.
But the most unsettling thing was this—
On either side of its body, six arms were attached in neat alignment.
"What… is that?" Shinobu frowned instinctively, a wave of physical discomfort rising. "A doll with six arms?"
Yet when she focused again—when she truly saw the doll's face—an unnamed chill turned into shock.
Though the paint had peeled away in blotches, though a crack ran along its left cheek, the brows, the contours, the flame-like mark at the forehead—
The doll's face bore an eerie resemblance to the boy standing beside her.
"This is…" Shinobu snapped her head toward Yoriichi, her mind briefly blank.
Even with the fractured face, the spirit in its features overlapped with his—like something reaching across time.
Could it be… his ancestor?
Yoriichi said nothing.
He only stared at the doll, and in those dark red eyes—usually calm as a still pond—there churned something like dust that had pierced four hundred years.
It's done! Yoriichi! Look! It's done!
In his memory, that friend—face blackened with soot, always exploding in rage whenever he couldn't forge a satisfactory blade—seemed to appear again, pointing at the newly finished doll and laughing triumphantly.
To recreate your movements, I nearly blew my own head apart thinking! Your swordsmanship is too fast—inhumanly fast. Two hands aren't enough! It has to be six! Even if it looks like some monster with a thousand arms, it has to have six arms just to barely keep up with your motions!
Well? This is the strongest doll—Yoriichi Type Zero! With it, even if you die, your swordsmanship can be passed on! Hahahaha!
In that memory, the man looked at the friend who had gone nearly mad to preserve his technique.
In his eyes lay a faint sorrow—and an endless gentleness.
…You worked hard.
He spoke softly, smiling with warmth.
I'm not a god. I'm not worth this. I'm just… an ordinary man who can't leave anything behind, who can't protect anything…
Idiot! Don't say something so gloomy! his friend stomped in fury.
You're the sun! How could the sun leave no trace?!
Don't worry. I'll restore your sword techniques with everything I have…
"Tanjiro-kun?"
A soft call—like a blade—sliced the yellowed memory cleanly in two.
Yoriichi jolted back to the present.
The forge fire was gone.
That laughing friend had long since turned to bones beneath the earth.
All that remained before him was a lonely wooden puppet, standing through wind and rain for four hundred years, its surface cracked and blackened with age.
It was no longer "the strongest doll."
It was only a solitary watcher—waiting in endless years for a master who would never return.
"…Are you crying?" Shinobu asked, stunned.
The boy's face remained expressionless.
And yet in those dark red eyes was a bleakness so suffocating it stole her breath.
It was not the sorrow of a fifteen-year-old.
It was the sorrow of an ancient soul that had watched seas change into fields—only to end up alone.
Yoriichi raised a hand and touched the corner of his eye. There was indeed a cool trace there.
"No… Just dust in my eye."
He looked again at the doll called Yoriichi Type Zero, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a gentle curve.
A reunion across four hundred years.
The wind swept through the trees, lifting dry leaves into a soft, rustling hiss.
And with it came the quiet whisper in his heart.
"…Long time no see."
....
My Patreon : patreon/RuneA
If you want to read the novel in advance, you can subscribe for early access. I also have many more novels in my collection that you might be interested in
I upload ten novels a day, with 3 to 4 chapters per title depending on the length. If you're following a particular series, please wait your turn a little
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it