Twenty days after the Hashira Meeting, night fell.
Behind Giyu Tomioka's estate, by the waterfall in the mountain.
The clash of blades shattered the stillness of the night. Two figures crossed and parted again and again, their movements harmonious and restrained, like perfect reflections of one another.
Moonlight shimmered in the rushing cascade, scattering like broken silver in every direction and dampening the hem of Sui's dark blue skirt.
Giyu Tomioka's blade cut through the mist, its deep blue steel sweeping forward like an oncoming tide.
The forms of Water Breathing seemed to transform into a torrent beneath the waterfall.
"Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide."
Giyu swung. Sui moved faster, evading the blow with ease, but in the next instant his blade slashed low at her legs, and then he appeared behind her in a flash.
As Sui kept dodging, the space available to her narrowed bit by bit, while the momentum of Striking Tide only grew stronger.
It was a relentless barrage, one flowing strike after another, like waves pounding the shore.
"Water Breathing, Seventh Form: Drop Ripple Thrust."
Sui spoke softly.
At last, there was no room left to evade. She raised her sword and thrust forward.
The tip of her blade touched the oncoming Striking Tide. In the next heartbeat, a flat ripple spread between them like circles widening across the surface of a lake, dissolving the force of the attack.
Giyu remained expressionless, as though he had expected nothing less.
"Water Breathing, Tenth Form: Constant Flux."
His voice was colder than the mountain stream.
Yet Sui moved even faster than he did.
"Water Breathing, Tenth Form: Constant Flux."
The roaring waterfall fell into eerie silence. Countless droplets hung suspended in the air, catching the moonlight like scattered silver stars. The two struck at once, their blades stirring the vapor as they spun. The severed waterfall rose into the air, transforming into two raging water dragons.
It was a scene straight out of an ukiyo-e painting.
Blade met blade. With every collision, the dragons grew stronger.
Again and again they clashed, each impact building toward the final, decisive blow.
Then the girl suddenly retreated with closed eyes, her steps trailing winding streaks of water. At that moment, she shook her blade.
In the midst of a technique that should have required continual accumulation, she had cut the process off midway.
Giyu looked up, and his pupils contracted.
He saw strange ripples running along her blade, a new frequency born from fusing the violence of Thunder Breathing into Water Breathing.
Her dark red sword split the suspended droplets.
Sui spun, her blade carving a full moon wrapped in the shape of a dragon, slashing straight toward Giyu's brow.
Giyu changed forms.
His sword moved with calm precision, bringing down the dragon gathered from the final culmination of Constant Flux.
It was a collision like a tidal wave crashing into another tidal wave. Even water striking water roared like thunder.
The waterfall that had been severed crashed back down. Droplets exploded upward and fell again. Amid moonlight and shadow, the two water dragons tore into one another and vanished. Both fighters landed at the same time.
The crows observing from the training grounds took flight in alarm, their feathers scattering—only to be shredded into dust by the force of the sword aura before they could touch the ground.
Giyu stared at the moisture beading along Sui's blade and finally spoke the first true words he had said to her that night.
"You rewrote the form."
It was not a question, but a statement.
Sui gently wiped the droplets from her sword. The Constant Flux that should have unfolded according to strict sequence had been interrupted halfway through, yet the final damage it produced was no less than the original finishing strike.
Had she truly attempted to match Giyu by using Constant Flux head-on, the result would only have been her defeat. She was still forcing herself to use Water Breathing as it was, and yet with that single critical shake of the blade, she had managed to fight him to a standstill within one form.
Giyu sheathed his sword.
"You pass."
…
Twenty days earlier, Sui had not returned to Osaka. Instead, she had gone straight to Tomioka Giyu's estate to begin training in Water Breathing.
It had been a grueling process. When she first tried to adapt to Water Breathing's rhythm, she had nearly suffocated. It felt less like breathing and more like drowning.
Merely acclimating herself to its breathing pattern had taken her a full ten days.
Yet once she had adapted to the rhythm, reproducing the forms themselves became easy for her.
Just as when she had first learned Thunder Breathing, she was able to imitate them with startling speed.
At times, she could even engage Giyu in battles that mirrored him exactly—like tonight, where she had managed a draw without him resorting to his unique final form.
Sui was using the fusion method recorded by Crimson Moon Princess to select the parts of Water Breathing that aligned with the original source breathing. She was not trying to fully master and comprehend Water Breathing itself. That was the difference between her and the Water Hashira: she was studying only to produce an answer, while he was a scholar who spent his life exploring a single field, never believing there was any final answer at all.
If Sui were truly forced to rely on Water Breathing in actual battle, she probably could not even bring out half the strength she wielded with Thunder Breathing.
What suited a person best was always what mattered most.
Rengoku Shinjuro truly had possessed terrifyingly sharp insight. He had seen through Sui's nature at a glance.
"Your forms are all defensive in character, aren't they, Tomioka-san?" Sui said softly as they sat in a pavilion behind the mountain after training. Giyu stared out into the distance, lost in thought.
"Yes."
"So your final form… was that one you created yourself?" she asked.
"Yes."
Sui could read what he was thinking.
He believed his training was inadequate. That his teaching was clumsy. That his own strength was lacking, and that he was wholly unfit to serve as her instructor in Water Breathing.
"Tomioka-san, you don't need to be so hard on yourself. You've done more than enough in your mastery of Water Breathing." Sui propped her chin on her hands and smiled faintly. "What I want to ask you about is the process of creating a final form. Thunder Breathing has no final form, but sooner or later I'll encounter demons more formidable than any before. There will come a time when the forms that exist now won't be enough."
"And forms can be passed down. As long as the method remains, then if someone suited to it appears in the future, it can be brought forth again."
"So you mean… Nagi." Giyu lifted his face toward the sky. "I think a final form is something tied to the individual. My teacher, Urokodaki, had no such final form. If Sui-san wants to create the final form of Thunder Breathing, then perhaps you should first think about what kind of technique you yourself need, and from there refine the existing forms."
Then, as if suddenly realizing something, he added, "It's like the fusion method you're using to extract from the five base breaths. Creating a final form is the process of choosing what belongs to you from within all the forms of a breathing style, and deciding what to favor."
"Tomorrow you'll be leaving," he said. "Your training in Water Breathing is complete."
"I know."
"May I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"You're already very strong, Sui-san. What kind of form are you still seeking?" he asked. "For you, even the First Form of Thunder Breathing is enough to force me to use Nagi to defend against it… The strike you delivered in the kabuki theater was truly extraordinary."
Sui thought for a moment before answering with something so abstract she never expected him to understand.
"I suppose… I want a form that feels like witnessing a miracle. Like seeing a god."
"All right. I understand."
To her surprise, Giyu nodded.
"If it's a god, then perhaps the form should bear a god's name."
"I haven't even created it yet, and you're already thinking that far ahead?" Sui laughed.
"Is that so…"
The man lapsed into silence again, and the pavilion grew quiet.
"It won't take long for you," Sui heard him murmur at last. "You and Sabito… both of you had more talent than I do. If I could do it, then for people like you, it would come easily."
Join here to read ahead.
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