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Yoriichi's calm voice carried across the training hall.
"Looks like I have no choice but to get serious."
His feet shifted. In the next instant he drifted forward several meters, no flashy Sun Breathing forms, no special breathing rhythm. Just the same steady pace he always used. Yet the golden-red aura swirling around him burned brighter, hotter, like a miniature sun rising right inside the room.
Saeko's eyes blazed with pure battle lust.
"I've been waiting for this!"
She spun Reizan once in her grip. The killing intent she'd forged from a million zombies poured down the blade like a living, venomous serpent. Then she stomped hard. An invisible shockwave exploded outward, threatening to crack the floor itself.
This time she didn't just swing.
Her figure blurred. Blade shadows overlapped in impossible layers. Dozens of strikes launched in a single heartbeat, every one drenched in the blood-soaked killing intent of the apocalypse. Fast. Brutal. Absolute. No mercy left.
Against anyone else that combo would have turned them into hamburger.
Yoriichi's eyes flashed with approval.
He lifted his wrist. The Nichirin Blade seemed to come alive on its own. No complex forms. Just simple, clean blocks. Yet those ordinary movements dismantled Saeko's storm of slashes one by one. Golden-red flames flowed along the steel, dispersing her killing intent on contact, melting it, compressing it, forging it tighter, denser, more real. Exactly like hammering raw steel into a perfect blade.
He was keeping his promise. He really was using himself as her whetstone.
Saeko felt the shock deep in her bones.
She'd carried quiet pride into this fight, even against the strongest swordsman in history. She'd dismissed his offer to help her grow. That pride came from carving through a million zombies and the fact that, in pure sword skill, she had finally pulled ahead of Shuya this past year. In her heart only Shuya-kouhai was the strongest. So she'd planned to enjoy the fight, use almost no Nen, just pure sword and killing intent.
But every one of her proud techniques was being casually dismantled like a child's toy. Worse, each block sent an irresistible force rushing up her blade, washing over her killing intent, stripping away the wild, almost illusory edge and leaving it sharper, heavier, more solid.
Yoriichi spoke quietly, almost kindly.
"I don't know how you condensed that killing intent, but condensed isn't the same as solid. At the start it gives you an advantage. Over time the opponent sees the cracks. Chase raw power alone and you'll end up exactly where my brother Michikatsu is now—miserable and broken."
His wrist dropped. The flames vanished. The Nichirin Blade returned to its plain form. Then he raised it again and brought it down in one casual, almost lazy arc. No roaring flames. No dramatic aura. Just a simple swing, like a kid cutting weeds with a stick.
Saeko's skin crawled. Every hair stood on end.
The blade light reflected in her eyes. It looked slow, yet it sealed every escape route. As if the entire world had narrowed to this single cut. If she couldn't stop it—
She would die.
Her pupils shrank to pinpoints.
No.
I still have to walk beside Shuya-kouhai until the end of time.
I refuse to fall here!
Shuya watched from the sidelines, completely focused.
Yoriichi was the undisputed ceiling of this world. His swordsmanship made every Hashira look like amateurs. No flashy tricks, no showing off—just pure, perfect sword logic in every motion. Shuya admitted he'd fallen into the usual isekai trap of underestimating the locals. With only this level of skill, even he might lose unless he brute-forced it with two years of apocalypse-level Nen.
He was already ready to step in the moment Saeko couldn't handle it.
He knew his senpai. She had her own pride in the blade. She would try to answer with only Reizan and her killing intent. He respected that choice. But emotionally, strategically, he could not lose her. If she started to fail, he would move.
As the blade light closed in, Saeko felt Shuya's gaze on her back—his worry, his absolute refusal to let her die.
In that instant her heart went perfectly still.
Two years of memories with him flashed through her mind like film frames.
When had she fallen for Shuya-kouhai?
The endless kendo-club companionship?
Or the contract night when he looked her in the eye and told her to entrust her future to him?
Maybe both.
She exhaled slowly, then her gaze sharpened to a razor edge.
No matter what, as long as Shuya-kouhai stands behind me, I will not lose.
Anything in my way—
Even a god, I'll cut it down for him!!
Her grip tightened on Reizan.
At that moment her killing intent underwent a complete transformation. The bloody red of slaughter shifted into a deep, regal purple—the exact color of Reizan itself. Hers alone. She poured every last drop of that intent into the blade. Reizan drank it greedily, devouring the massive wave of purple killing intent.
Then she swung.
One light, almost casual slash.
The blade light reflected Yoriichi's figure.
This was the ultimate, sublime strike.
The single most beautiful cut she had ever made in her life.
Clang!
The Nichirin Blade snapped cleanly in two.
Yoriichi's smiling face appeared right in front of her.
"Not bad. A perfect slash."
The warm, satisfied smile was still on his lips when his figure dissolved into smoke and vanished. He never asked their names. He arrived without warning. He left the same way.
Thank you, Yoriichi-san.
Saeko watched the last wisp disappear, gratitude flooding her chest. Then she turned to the man standing behind her, her face breaking into a radiant, brilliant smile.
"Shuya-kouhai… I did it!"
Not just defeating Yoriichi with one stunning strike.
She had finally digested the killing intent forged from a million zombies and made it completely, truly her own.
A brand-new Nen ability.