Chapter 10: Flame Breathing
[Seiji's POV]
It was...
Beautiful.
I have to learn that.
Rengoku slowly sheathed his sword while releasing air from his lungs. I remained rooted in my place until he turned to me with his signature smile that burned even brighter than his flames.
"It's done my friend! Our night patrol was not a waste." he said and then followed up with a hearty laugh.
Meanwhile, I stared at him with a blank face but with many thoughts swirling in my mind. It was clearly stated that breathing styles could not actually achieve supernatural powers like encasing a sword with fire.
But I clearly saw it happen.
"Hey, did you see the flames?" I asked.
"Huh? What flames?" he tilted his head in confusion and that proved my suspicion that it was only me who could see the flames when he used his breathing.
"Do you mean my breathing style? I used flame breathing." he said and then his eyebrows lifted up, "Wait, how do you know what breathing style I used? I never told you."
So it was my eyes.
My eyes enabled me to see the effects of breathing when normal eyes couldn't. It was similar to how I was able to see the colours of gas in the atmosphere if I tried.
The transparent world was more than just having x-ray vision and better eyesight to me. I didn't know if it was the case for everyone else or if it was just me but I could see impossible colours. I could even ultraviolet rays, infrared, radiation etc.
My eyes allowed me to perceive the world as it truly was, without limitations.
"I have seen a flame-breathing user before." I lied but due to my perpetual flat tone, no one could tell.
"Oh I see! I wonder if it was my father that you saw or anyone else." he hummed to himself.
"Should we return? I feel like the sun is about to rise soon." he said. Seeing how the demon was wildly trying to run back to his hideout, it was safe to assume that the sun was rising soon.
"Yes." I said and we both returned to Mount Fujikasane.
My thoughts returned back to my eyes and what I could do with its capabilities. Being able to see breathing styles was quite an advantage, especially if you go up against another breath user.
It could tell me exactly what type of breathing they were using, when they were using it and even differentiate what form they were using over time. It was no different than a boxer telegraphing his opponent's move by looking at his shoulder.
If I could see breathing styles, then I must be able to see the blood demon art of demons as well. This could be an absolute game-changer.
When Tanjiro was fighting against the lower moon Yahaba and Susamaru, he was able to deflect thier attacks only when Tanjiro could see the arrow - thier blood demon art - with the help of Yushiro.
I smiled at the thought.
I just added a new vocabulary to my dictionary for the language of fighting.
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(The next day)
Our blades collided and released a spark of impact and friction. My eyes saw everything in detail, from the condition of both our swords to the vibrations released by them.
If I had ears, I would describe the vibration as the sound of steel clashing steel.
His nichirin blade was well-made but it couldn't compare to mine which was crafted by one of the greatest smiths in Japan. I could see that his sword did not get enough heat and hammering when it was made. It was made by a smith who put no effort or passion in its creation, it was just one amongst the mass-produced.
An ordinary nichiren blade. If my eyes were telling the turth, I could break it after a couple of well-placed strikes, exactly four inches below the tip.
The sword was not only ordinary but it had seen a lot of uses. The weakness at the tip told me that it was sharpened more times there - since that part of the sword was mainly used for slicing - and made it thinner than the rest.
We pushed each other away when there was no winner in the clash. It was just a split-second observation but I had already learned a way to win if this was a real battle.
"Hahahaha!! What a strange experience it is to fight against you." Rengoku said and gripped his sword tighter, "It feels like I am fighting against my own shadow."
We were currently engaged in a spar he initiated after we woke up from our morning sleep. He said he wanted to see how well he would fare against me and I was more than happy to talk with him, or should I say fight.
"Nevertheless, I wouldn't give up that easy," he said and pushed off the ground with such force that he disappeared to the untrained eyes.
Rengoku was a talented fighter. As the future Hashira, he was already a monster even before he became an official demon slayer.
It was just as you would expect, every Hashira was built different.
I took a step back to throw off his attack. He expected me to remain in place or charge at him for another clash so he was thrown off when I stepped back.
His sword came at me still but it was not at the correct distance and his body was leaning too much. He threw a flurry of slashes at me and I easily deflected them with minimal ease and a placid face.
He might be strong but he was still inexperience, especially when it came to fighting another swordsman.
He had trained all his life not to be a proper swordsman but to be a demon slayer. Therefore he was not familiar with fighting another swordsman, after all, you could count the number of demons using a sword with one hand.
He had more experience fighting demons who mostly used thier bare hands, claws or other weapons which was rarely a sword.
On the other hand, I was a master of kendo which was a discipline restricted to only fighting other swordsman. So he could not compare to me when fighting each other.
There were levels to these things.
But then he was physically stronger than me because of his age. He was one year older than me and that might not seem much when you were an adult, but it made a huge difference when you were in your teens. It was a time when your body developed the most so one year allowed Rengoku to be much stronger than me.
But in the end, the sheer difference in our overall combat power boiled down to my special eyes.
Now imagine this.
Imagine you were seeing the world and everything in slow motion. Imagine your eyes had the ability to zoom in and observe every little detail of the world. Imagine you had x-ray vision and you could see your opponent's muscles so you could predict his every movement. You know his body better than him.
And then imagine your opponent talking to you every moment of the fight. He tells you his every plan, and every course of his action. Not only that, he tells you about his fighting style and how he had trained and more. He tells you about how he feels, what he thinks and even things he did not know himself.
Of course, he was not actually talking but actions speak louder than words.
That was my world. A transparent world where you could see everything.
That was what it felt like to be me.
To me, fighting was not fast, fighting was not violence.
It was a conversation, and if it got tough, a debate.
My opponent said things with his action and I replied with my own action. Every movement held meaning and we exchanged them, we matched them.
"Flame breathing : First form."
"Unknowing Fire."
Rengoku never opened his mouth but he said that. I knew because the pattern of his breaths, the expansion of his lungs, the grip on his swords, and everything else matched what he did last night.
He released fire from his mouth and his sword caught on fire. That was another giveaway.
It seemed he had finally decided to add a new word to our fight. I smiled because the conversation was getting quite dull so it was a pleasant change.
I tightened the grip on my sword and took a deep breath as well. Then I utilized my own incomplete version of a breathing style that boosted my physical stats to the limit.
"Steroid breathing."
His burning sword came at me faster and more intense than ever before. Maybe it was because of the visual but I felt heat coming from him.
Our swords became blurs of images and we exchanged lethal blows at each other. The ground underneath us shook and we stirred up dust that covered the entire vicinity.
I could break his sword but I decided not to be an asshole. His attack hesitated when the dust blinded his vision. He still knew where I was and where to strike but without his full vision, he was afraid of accidently hurting me.
So his sword faltered.
What a nice ass dude.
I swept his feet off the ground with the blunt side of my sword and he fell on his back. When the dust settled, he was on the ground and my sword was pointing at his neck.
"I guess I lost." he said but still smiled like a winner.
"You hesitated. I told you I have good eyes, I could see through the dust." I said.
"And I could not. Winning was not worth even a small chance of harming my friend." he said.
He sure knows how to take the joy out of winning. Now I couldn't even gloat about my victory.
I offered him a hand before pulling him up to his feet. I helped him clean the dust off his haori before he started laughing.
"You are quite amazing my deaf friend. But I can't help but notice your horrendous breathing form. Tell me, who taught you that?" He said and patted me on the back.
"No one. I made it myself."
"Aha!! No wonder it's so horrible." he laughed.
"Hey, I worked hard on it."
"I don't mean to discard your effort Seiji-san. But you missed the fundamentals of breathing styles itself." he said.
"If you truly did not have anyone to teach you, how about I teach you my breathing style?" he said with a wide grin on his face and eyes shining with excitement.
I was honestly not prepared for such a statement. I was already trying to copy his breathing style but it would be even better if he could teach me.
But why would he? I thought he would be a bit more reserved with spreading the flame breathing. Was he okay with offering such power to a random stranger he met a few days ago?
"Why?" I couldn't help but ask. If it was me, I wouldn't go around teaching every random bloke I see. Just look at what happened to someone like Keigaku when they got power.
"Why not? You are my friend." he said.
It was strange how such a simple answer like 'Why not' could make so much sense when said by the right person.
Rengoku was not like me.
He did not have an evil bone in his body so thoughts like mine never even crossed his mind. It was honestly a stupid naivety in a world of evil and demons.
But I couldn't help but be captivated by such innocent naivety.
"Right." I said.
Friends huh.
I smiled.
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[IMAGE of MC]
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Author : If you guys are wondering, yes his eyes are way more special than normal transparent world. He just haven't realized it yet.
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