“You, go down the mountain.”
Sakonji Urokodaki wore his tengu mask, his voice deliberately cold.
At his feet, the dark-haired young man Shinsuke was clutching at his trouser leg, his handsome face written all over with pitiful desperation.
“No, Master!” (╥﹏╥)
He dragged out the syllables, his eyes rimmed red.
“Don’t leave me behind!”
“I am not your master.”
Urokodaki pulled free of Shinsuke’s grip and turned to leave.
“Eight months, and you can’t even find the door to Breathing, let alone enter it, and I have never taken on a student with so little talent.”
Those words stung, but they were the truth.
Eight months had passed, and Shinsuke still couldn’t feel so much as a trace of Total Concentration from Water Breathing.
Every training session ended with him breathing wrong, then coughing like a man with consumption.
“But Master, I have rare blood!
If I go down the mountain, I’m basically delivering myself as takeout for demons, top-grade sashimi platter, the premium kind, and can you really bring yourself to do that?”
Those words made Urokodaki’s feet stop.
That was true.
The rare-blood constitution was an absolute feast for demons.
Especially since this kid’s rare blood was rare even among rare blood.
Eating him alone was roughly equal to eating a hundred ordinary people.
If he went unnoticed it was one thing, but once discovered, not a single demon would ever let him go.
If someone with this kind of constitution went wandering down the mountain on their own, this foolish kid probably wouldn’t last long.
“There’s a village at the foot of the mountain, I’ll find you a place to stay.” Urokodaki’s tone softened just a fraction.
“If something happens, I’ll come.”
“But what if you come too late?
What if the demon launches a blitz attack?
What if…”
“No what-ifs.”
“There are!
There are what-ifs!”
Shinsuke executed a textbook sliding kneel and grabbed Urokodaki’s left leg again, the motion so practiced it was almost heartbreaking.
“Master, just let me stay with you!
I’ll pour your tea, fan you, rub your back, knead your legs, and I can tell jokes too!
Once upon a time there was a mountain, and on the mountain was a temple, and in the temple was a little monk telling a story to an old monk.”
“Enough.” A vein twitched at Urokodaki’s temple.
“In these eight months you’ve broken three of my teacups and burned the rice five times, so who exactly is serving whom?
Let go.”
“I won’t!”
“Release me!”
“I refuse!”
…
In the sky, the setting sun dyed the clouds the color of oranges.
Urokodaki stood still, his tengu mask gazing into the distance, his entire presence radiating the energy of a man who was very, very tired.
Shinsuke crouched three meters behind him, chin resting in both palms, smiling happily.
If he had a tail, it would probably be wagging so fast it left afterimages.
Failed again.
Over these eight months, the number of times Urokodaki had tried to send him away was staggering.
But it couldn’t hold a candle to Shinsuke’s own staggering thickness of skin.
Not once had it ever worked.
“I’m going to pick someone up.” Urokodaki spoke at last, in the tone of a man who had accepted his fate.
“I’m coming too!” (◕ᴗ◕✿)
“You are not coming.”
“Then I’ll sneak along!”
The veins on Urokodaki’s forehead instantly tightened into a sharp grid, and he finally drew a deep, long-suffering breath.
Shinsuke knew that breath all too well.
Whenever Urokodaki found him annoying and wanted some peace and quiet, he would take that deep breath, and then whoosh, he’d be gone.
Water Breathing, Art of Vanishing!
Sure enough, the next second Urokodaki became a blur of dark blue-black and shot down the mountain path.
Gone again!
“Master, not this trick again!” [○･｀Д´･○]
Shinsuke leapt to his feet and sprinted after him.
“You can’t shake me off!”
Over eight months, he hadn’t gotten any further with Breathing, but he had built up a solid physical foundation.
Now he could run a hundred meters in under nine seconds.
His long jump cleared nine meters.
For someone who had transmigrated into this world, developing a body like this was genuinely beyond what he had expected.
It was as though from the moment he arrived in this world, some invisible current of energy had been slowly reshaping his constitution, bit by bit.
That was also part of why he kept grinding at Breathing: ‘I think I can do this, I can’t yet, but someday I will.’
Of course, the more important reason was unwillingness.
He had transmigrated into his favorite manga world, and he’d even brought a system with him.
Yet because he couldn’t use Breathing, the system had given him the bare minimum, language ability, and then stalled there, impossible to activate further.
On top of that, his Earth bloodline turned out to be rare blood, the rarest of the rare in this world.
Not only could he not be the system-wielding power-fantasy protagonist, he couldn’t even manage to be an ordinary, unremarkable person.
There was no one to complain to about this.
From the very moment he arrived, he had thought it through.
In a world overrun by demons, a rare-blood ordinary person who didn’t want to be eaten had exactly two ways to survive.
One was to become a powerhouse himself, and the other was to cling tightly to one.
Since he still couldn’t learn Breathing, becoming a powerhouse was off the table for now.
That left only one option, he had to, and absolutely must, hold tight to the thigh of the former Water Hashira, Sakonji Urokodaki.
Wherever he went, Shinsuke went.
He would never be left alone to become a demon’s meal.
Up ahead, Urokodaki glanced back at his “disciple” wheezing and puffing along behind him, and a quiet sigh escaped from beneath his mask.
He slowed his pace.
At the same time, several miles away…
The woods were lively.
Tanjiro, a boy with a scar on his forehead, and his sister Nezuko, who had just been turned into a demon, were in a fight against a demon.
Strictly speaking, it was two against one.
Nezuko was a demon now, but she fought on her brother’s side.
The Temple Demon was baffled.
He had been a demon for a good number of years, and he had never once seen a human and a demon fighting a demon together.
He had never seen a demon help a human!
It made him so furious that his head fell off, literally, kicked clean off by Nezuko.
Unfortunately, demon against demon drew no blood.
And Tanjiro had no Nichirin Blade in his hand.
So even though the Temple Demon had been split apart, he could still fight on two fronts with his head and body separated, and he drove the two of them into a ragged, desperate state.
Fortunately, the demon’s severed head, which had grown two hands from the neck stump, was pinned to a tree by Tanjiro’s hatchet.
The headless demon body, like a raging Xingtian, was finally hurled off a cliff by the two siblings in the narrowest of narrow escapes.
Now Tanjiro stood gripping his dagger in front of the severed head that sprouted hands from its neck, gasping for breath, his hands shaking.
Killing someone, no, killing a demon, required resolve too.
And just as Tanjiro was working himself through an internal pep talk…
A strong, large hand settled onto his shoulder without a sound.
Tanjiro startled and turned stiffly, and a flame-red tengu mask filled his vision.
“You can’t kill him with that.”
From beneath the tengu mask came a low voice that was somehow reassuring, and with those words, this fated pair of master and disciple was bound together for the first time.
Under normal circumstances, this was the point where Tanjiro would have faced Urokodaki’s first test for killing a demon.
Then everything would have proceeded along the world’s original course.
But…
The moment Shinsuke appeared at the top of the steps, panting and out of breath, everything…
changed.
Nezuko, who had been quietly standing in place, twitched her small nose sharply, twice.
Her pink eyes suddenly contracted, narrowing into vertical slits like a cat’s.
An overwhelmingly rich aroma, so thick it made her very soul cry out in longing, instantly shattered what little reason she had left.
The next second, a glistening thread of saliva drew two bright arcs through the air, and Nezuko vanished from where she stood.
“What the —”
Shinsuke didn’t finish the sentence before his whole body was tackled to the ground.
A small yet impossibly powerful body straddled his waist, a pink kimono brushing against his cheek.
Beneath his tengu mask, Urokodaki’s expression shifted violently.
“This is bad, he has rare blood!”
He spun around and gave chase without a second thought.
But was there still time…
Nezuko had already completed her motion, lunging down to bite, and Urokodaki’s heart sank.
This little female demon, who had been perfectly calm just moments ago, had clearly been unable to resist the pull of Shinsuke’s rare blood.
Now she had buried her face against his neck.
There was no saving this, blood had been drawn, she couldn’t be allowed to live.
Just as Urokodaki drew the short Nichirin Blade he kept tucked at his lower back, prepared to end Nezuko’s life…
Shinsuke’s handsome face emerged from beside Nezuko.
The instant Urokodaki saw that face, his heart skipped half a beat, as though he’d been struck by lightning, and he froze where he stood.
What kind of expression was that?
Enjoyment?
Satisfaction?
Pure, unbothered bliss?
You little bastard, you’re being chewed on by a demon, and your face is doing the same thing it does when you’re sneaking a late-night snack?
And where are your hands?
She’s got her claws in your shoulders and you’re not even struggling, fine, but why in blazes do you have your hands on the girl demon’s rear end?
To be fair, the little female demon had a bamboo tube clamped in her mouth, so all her gnawing and nuzzling couldn’t get her jaws open, and it was less of a bite and more of a nuzzle.
Which explained why the kid’s face had that particular expression.
Of course, none of this was the real reason Urokodaki stopped.
Even if she couldn’t bite through, she was still a demon.
What truly startled him was the flush spreading across Shinsuke’s face.
That crimson color wasn’t blood, at least not blood spilled on the outside.
It was a flush radiating from somewhere deep within.
As a former Water Hashira, Urokodaki’s senses were razor sharp.
He clearly “heard” it.
Thud-thud!
Thud-thud!
Thud-thud!
Shinsuke’s heartbeat, pounding like a war drum.
The rush of blood coursing through his veins was audible like a current.
Along with it came a rise in body temperature.
Most striking of all was his breathing.
The frantic, ragged gasping from before had shifted, without anyone noticing when, into something deep, steady, full of rhythm and power.
Each inhale visibly swelled his chest.
With each exhale, something faintly like a pale pink stream of air seemed to drift from his mouth and nose.
Total Concentration Breathing?!
In that moment, Urokodaki’s grip on the blade loosened.
He remembered the past eight months, the way Shinsuke looked every time he practiced Breathing, that stubborn, unyielding gaze that refused to accept defeat.
This kid had dreamed of learning Breathing every single day.
Now the breakthrough was right in front of him.
He could not interfere.
“Nezuko!
Let go of him right now!”
Tanjiro finally snapped to his senses, belatedly, and screamed as he lunged forward.
Urokodaki caught him by the arm, clamped a hand over his mouth, and hoisted him off the ground.
“Mmph!
Mmph, mmph!”
Tanjiro’s eyes went wide, arms and legs thrashing.
“Don’t make a sound.” Urokodaki dropped his voice low, eyes fixed on the two figures tangled on the ground.
“Watch.”
Tanjiro followed his gaze.
In the darkness of the night, Shinsuke lay in the grass with Nezuko draped over him.
The boy’s eyes were shut, his expression one of someone savoring something, yet his breathing grew deeper and steadier with every passing moment.
With each breath, the pale pink current drifting from his mouth and nose grew more vivid, the color of early spring cherry blossoms, coiling softly around him and Nezuko.
“That is…” Tanjiro forgot to struggle.
Urokodaki said nothing, his lips pressed into a firm line beneath the mask.
That pale pink current was nothing like any of the five foundational Breathing Styles, and nothing like any derivative style he had ever encountered.
It resembled the current Love Hashira Mitsuri Kanroji’s Love Breathing, but it was not the same.
Urokodaki murmured before he could stop himself.
“This kid, in a moment of life and death, he actually invented his own Breathing Style?”
He watched Shinsuke’s breathing grow ever more settled.
He watched Nezuko, inhaling those pale pink wisps of air, gradually relax.
She even began, without quite realizing it, to rub her cheek gently against his jaw…
And Urokodaki thought to himself…
This troublemaking little nuisance he had taken in might, just possibly, be an extraordinary little monster.
Meanwhile, inside Shinsuke’s mind, a mechanical chime was blazing across his vision in a relentless flood:
[Host has been detected to have successfully mastered Breathing!]
[Conditions met!]
[System adapting, adaptation complete!]
[System activating, activation complete!]
[Welcome to the Harem Breathing Assist System!]
Shinsuke’s tightly closed eyelids snapped open.
Here it was.
His golden finger had finally…
come online.