Icy snowflakes landed on his eyelids, bringing a biting chill.
The instant consciousness returned, instincts honed by years of walking the line between life and death seized control of his body.
"Whoosh!"
Giyu Tomioka's eyes snapped open. His body sprang up like a steel spring compressed to its limit.
He adjusted his posture midair. When he landed, his feet sank deep into the snow, and the Nichirin Blade in his hand—glinting with a frigid sheen—pointed straight at the boy sitting not far away.
"Who the hell are you?!"
Giyu barked the question, but the hand gripping his hilt was slick with cold sweat.
That moment of darkness—just a heartbeat ago—still made his skin crawl.
Speed he couldn't comprehend. Powerlessness, like staring down a natural disaster.
His gaze sharpened, brimming with vigilance, as he pressed on. "What do you want? Are you working with the demons too?"
Yet in the face of the Water Hashira's killing intent and the blade trained on him, the boy remained unnervingly calm.
He sat on the broken threshold, a length of bamboo in his hands, carving away at it. At the questioning, he merely lifted his head slightly.
"My name is Tanjiro Kamado."
His voice was steady, without the slightest ripple. Those clear, dark-red eyes looked quietly into Giyu's as he said, "I only want to protect my family."
Giyu's grip on his sword hesitated.
There was no bloodlust.
Not even a trace of fighting spirit.
The boy who had just dropped a Hashira in a single strike—using nothing but a rusty axe—now looked like an ordinary mountain woodcutter.
"You…" Giyu swallowed, his throat bobbing, and finally couldn't stop himself. "What did you use just now?"
Tanjiro paused his hands, as if thinking back, then asked instead, "And you? That blue current you swung just now… what was that?"
Giyu froze.
"You've never even heard of it?" disbelief flashed across his face. "That was Water Breathing—one of the foundational sword arts the Demon Slayer Corps uses to kill demons. You have skills like that, and you don't even know Breathing Techniques?"
"Water Breathing… I see."
Tanjiro murmured the term under his breath. Understanding flickered in his eyes—then quickly gave way to a faint disappointment.
"No wonder…"
"No wonder what?" Giyu frowned.
Tanjiro looked at him with the seriousness of someone discussing an academic point. "You had a chance in that strike."
Giyu blinked. "What?"
"When you used that technique you called 'Water Breathing,' if you hadn't added that unnecessary spin—if you'd simply carried the motion through and chopped straight down—your blade might have been able to touch her."
As he spoke, he made a simple demonstration with the firewood axe in his hand. "Why did you leap and rotate your body? To build centrifugal force? Or to… leave yourself room to defend?"
"But when you face a truly powerful demon, defending only means you'll be forced to take hits. That's not how Breathing Techniques are meant to be used."
That short sentence hit Giyu like a thunderbolt. His pupils constricted hard.
Water Breathing: Second Form — Water Wheel.
A technique that uses the body's rotation to generate tremendous momentum—enough to sever even a demon's hardened neck.
And the circular cutting arc doubles as protection, guarding the user's body from surprise attacks even while attacking.
It was a "perfect" technique—passed down for centuries, tested and refined by countless lives.
Yet from this boy's mouth, it became… "unnecessary."
"Water's nature should be 'flow' and 'change,'" Tanjiro said evenly. "No matter what shape the container takes, water fills it completely. No matter what the enemy does, water moves with it—soft overcoming hard."
"But in the sword form you used just now, I didn't see 'flow.' I only saw 'rigidity'… and 'fear.'"
Tanjiro rose and walked up to Giyu. He didn't even spare a glance for the Nichirin Blade pointed at him—he simply continued, calm as ever.
"With each generation, it seems the essence of 'water' has changed… To survive against demons, the original fluid offense gradually turned into conservative defense."
"Some movements are simply too excessive."
"If it were truly 'water,' at that distance, you wouldn't need to spin at all."
Clang.
Giyu's Nichirin Blade drooped against his will.
He stared at the boy as though stunned.
If anyone else had said this, he would have scoffed—written it off as ignorant nonsense.
But the one saying it had just shown him, with a rusty axe, what "speed beyond comprehension" looked like.
"So my swordsmanship… is defense soaked in fear?" Giyu muttered.
"Yes. If you weren't afraid—if you had enough confidence—then at that distance, a direct downward cut following the line of motion would be the fastest path."
Tanjiro lifted one finger and traced a straight line through the air.
"Why spin? Because you wanted leverage. Because you wanted your blade to guard your body. Because somewhere deep down, you believed that if you didn't defend, you would die."
"With each generation… it seems that the once-fluid 'water' has become 'defense' that exists just to scrape by."
Boom—!
It was as if thunder exploded beside Giyu's ear. His mind went blank.
He wanted to shout back, to refute this boy's absurdity—tell him this was the crystallization of every Water Hashira's blood and toil.
But the instincts of a top-tier swordsman replayed that exchange again and again in his head, mercilessly.
If he hadn't spun—if he'd chopped straight down instead…
Yes.
It would have been faster.
Faster by two breaths.
And those two breaths were exactly what allowed this boy to close the distance.
…There was the stench of weakness in his technique.
The wind and snow seemed to swell.
The two of them faced each other in the snow, locked in a dead silence.
Giyu stood rigid, his hand trembling faintly.
A long time passed.
Click.
A soft sound.
Giyu slowly sheathed his Nichirin Blade.
"You…" His voice came out hoarse. "Where did you learn this? Who's your master?"
Tanjiro shook his head and did not answer.
He turned back to Nezuko, gently placed the bamboo muzzle he had just finished carving into her mouth, and tied it in place.
"That isn't important."
He lifted his still-unconscious sister onto his back, then looked over his shoulder at the still-dazed Giyu.
"What matters is—since you know about Breathing Techniques—can you tell me where I can find a way to turn a demon back into a human?"
Turn a demon… back into a human?
At that question, Giyu's eyes sharpened, the doubt he'd been drowning in snapping into focus.
In all his years with the Demon Slayer Corps, he had never heard of such a thing.
A demon was a demon—an evil that had to be beheaded.
But looking at the boy carrying his demon sister, the words "absolutely impossible" stuck in Giyu's throat.
So young—yet possessing an astonishing talent for the sword…
Maybe… he really could break the rules.
Giyu fell silent for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind.
"This is no small matter. It could overturn centuries of what the Demon Slayer Corps believes… I can't give you an answer myself."
He raised his head, his expression complicated as he looked at the boy. "I need to report this to our master."
"Our master?" Tanjiro repeated the unfamiliar title.
Giyu nodded slowly. His face became solemn—reverent, as if even speaking the name could be an offense.
"He leads the Demon Slayer Corps… and is revered by every swordsman as a father."
The blizzard howled, but Giyu's voice carried cleanly through the wind.
"Kagaya Ubuyashiki."
-------
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