Three months passed before I understood how far a warning could travel.
Kanae began walking through the eastern garden again, slowly at first, with Shinobu beside her and a physician never far away. Her breathing still caught in cold air, and she had been forbidden from taking missions until her lungs recovered properly.
She complained about this with a smile.
Shinobu complained about her complaining without smiling at all.
The Corps changed too. Reports concerning demons who used cold, mist, or airborne Blood Demon Arts were marked differently. Slayers were warned against inhaling near unfamiliar techniques, and no Hashira was to pursue Doma alone.
Upper Two now had a name, a face, and known abilities.
Ruka Rengoku remained at the estate for several weeks after the Hashira meeting. The physicians had found her illness early enough to begin treatment before it grew severe. Recovery was uncertain and slow, but she was eating better by the time she returned home.
Kyojuro sent me a letter afterward.
Most of the characters were written with enough force to scar the paper beneath them.
He thanked me three times, explained that his mother was following the physician’s instructions, and ended by promising to become strong enough that no one in his family would ever need to worry again.
Senjuro had added a smaller note beneath it.
Brother is still speaking loudly near Mother’s room. We are working on that.
I laughed when I read it.
A year earlier, I might have folded the letter away before anyone saw my expression. This time, I carried it to my sisters and read it aloud.
Hinaki decided Kyojuro sounded wonderful.
Kuina wanted to know whether he could shout loudly enough to defeat a demon.
Nichika suggested that perhaps demons simply left because they did not want to listen.
Kanata considered the matter and said, “It might work on weaker demons.”
The letter stayed on the shelf beside my bed.
Proof that something had changed.
My own training continued.
Thunder Breathing was still difficult, though it no longer felt foreign.
Shihan stood across from me in the garden while I held my wooden sword low near my hip. My legs were bent, weight resting forward without tipping me off balance.
“Again,” he said. “You are gathering too much tension in your shoulders. Thunder begins below the waist. Your arms only carry what the legs create.”
“I know.”
“You know so many things. It is unfortunate that your body still needs reminding.”
I drew in a controlled breath, letting it settle through my chest and abdomen. My legs tightened without locking.
Then I moved.
One fast step.
One cut.
The wooden sword split the air with a low sound before I stopped near the stone lantern.
Shihan studied the line of my shoulders and the placement of my rear foot.
“Closer.”
I turned back toward him. “Closer to the First Form?”
“Closer to performing the preparation without falling over afterward.”
“That was less encouraging than it began.”
“It was exactly as encouraging as you deserved.”
I grinned as I returned to my starting position.
Thunder Breathing had risen quickly after the first few levels. Breath Control gave me the rhythm. Body Control helped me place tension where it belonged. Footwork kept the sudden movements from breaking my balance, while Physical Conditioning allowed me to repeat the exercise long enough to learn from it.
The system treated those foundations like roads already built.
Thunder Breathing only had to travel across them.
Thunder Breathing Lv. 17 → Lv. 18
Breath Control Lv. 43 → Lv. 44
Later that morning, my Swordsmanship crossed another threshold.
Swordsmanship Lv. 29 → Lv. 30
Tier Advancement
Intermediate → Advanced
Tier Trait Unlocked: Integrated Sword Movement
Description: Swordsmanship represents the user’s practical understanding of sword handling, grip, cutting lines, posture, timing, distance, defense, and weapon awareness.
At the Advanced tier, familiar sword movements can be adjusted during execution according to distance, terrain, posture, and target movement. Footwork, breathing, grip, and body alignment function together with reduced conscious effort.
Intermediate Tier Effect: Sword Attack Effectiveness
Effect:Sword Attack Effectiveness increases by+1% per Swordsmanship level above Lv. 9.
Current Effect: Sword Attack Effectiveness +21%
Advanced Tier Effect: Critical Opportunity Conversion
Effect:Critical Opportunity Conversion increases by+1% for every two Swordsmanship levels beginning at Lv. 30.
Current Effect: Critical Opportunity Conversion +1%
Critical Opportunity Conversion improves the user’s ability to exploit an existing weakness or opening. It does not create openings, ignore defense, or replace the physical ability required to complete the attack.
The next cut felt different only because I understood it differently.
My foot settled. My hips turned. My hands followed without pulling the rest of me out of place.
Shihan made me repeat it twelve more times before acknowledging anything.
“Your sword and feet are arguing less.”
“That is your way of saying I improved?”
“It is my way of saying they have stopped embarrassing each other.”
By then, my current goals had become clearer.
Advance Thunder Breathing without rushing toward the forms.
Build enough strength and endurance that the technique would not damage my body.
Improve Meditation until stillness felt less like unused time.
Learn enough from Father to understand the Corps as people rather than names in reports.
And keep my free stat points untouched.
Kenji’s advice from the reincarnation office remained with me. Natural growth first. Saved points for emergencies, weaknesses, or walls that effort alone could not cross.
My status reflected the months of work.
Status
Name: Ubuyashiki Haruya
Title: Ubuyashiki Heir
Race: Human
Age: 6 Years
Level: 6
Condition: Healthy
HP: 510/510
Unspent Stat Points: 30
Strength: 51
Agility: 53
Endurance: 51
Intelligence: 61
Wisdom: 57
Charisma: 34
Luck: 35
Body Control Lv. 52, Advanced
Observe Lv. 62, Master
Speech Lv. 43, Advanced
Reading Lv. 42, Advanced
Foresight Lv. 3, Beginner
Administration Lv. 24, Intermediate
Leadership Lv. 22, Intermediate
Physical Conditioning Lv. 45, Advanced
Breath Control Lv. 44, Advanced
Swordsmanship Lv. 30, Advanced
Footwork Lv. 36, Advanced
Etiquette Lv. 29, Intermediate
Calligraphy Lv. 23, Intermediate
Arithmetic Lv. 24, Intermediate
Meditation Lv. 8, Beginner
Thunder Breathing Lv. 18, Intermediate
There were still many things I could not do.
The numbers made that clearer rather than hiding it.
I was stronger than an ordinary child. I was not ready to fight a demon. My sword technique had become Advanced, but it had never been tested against someone trying to kill me. Thunder Breathing was growing, yet I could not perform even its First Form properly.
That did not discourage me.
It gave the road a shape.
A week later, Foresight gave me another direction.
The premonition came during sleep, though it was quieter than the dream about Kanae.
I saw a hand moving across paper.
An intricate circle emerged beneath the brush, layered with interwoven forms and repeating motifs. Within its design, a pair of earrings took shape, followed by a demon’s eyes, and finally the faint suggestion of a mountain path seen only once.
Each image faded before it could be finished.
When I woke, the feeling remained.
Draw what you cannot afford to forget.
System Notification
Skill Updated: Foresight Lv. 3 → Lv. 6
That afternoon, I gathered paper, charcoal, and four sisters who immediately misunderstood the purpose.
“You should draw me first,” Hinaki said, sitting with her back painfully straight. “I can remain still longer than everyone else.”
Kuina dropped onto the cushion beside her. “You moved while saying that.”
“I was preparing to be still.”
Nichika picked up a charcoal stick and examined it. “We could draw Haruya instead. He always makes the same serious face during lessons.”
“I do not.”
Kanata looked at me. “You do.”
I sat across from them and placed the paper between us. “We are starting with simple objects. Cups, leaves, maybe the lantern outside.”
Hinaki’s posture collapsed. “That is much less interesting than me.”
“Cups complain less.”
“They also have no personality.”
Nichika had already begun drawing.
I leaned over her page. “What is that?”
“You.”
The drawing was a circle with dark hair, two enormous eyebrows, and a wooden sword larger than the body.
Kuina stared at it, then at me. “It looks exactly like him.”
“The sword is taller than I am.”
“That is how important it is to you,” Nichika explained.
I should have corrected her.
Instead, I laughed hard enough that Mother looked in from the next room.
She took in the charcoal, the scattered paper, and the drawing of my eyebrows.
“I see the lesson is progressing.”
“I am being insulted through art.”
Mother examined Nichika’s work. “The resemblance is strong.”
I looked at her. “Mother.”
Her smile remained perfectly calm.
We spent the afternoon drawing leaves, cups, one another, and eventually the garden lantern. My first attempts were stiff. I drew what I thought an object should look like instead of what was in front of me.
Observe helped when I stopped assuming.
A cup was not two straight sides and a curved handle. One edge looked shorter because of the angle. Light made the rim brighter on one side. The shadow beneath it leaned away from the window.
The system appeared after my sixth attempt.
Skill Awakened: Drawing Lv. 1
Description:A visual expression skill representing the user’s ability to reproduce people, objects, environments, symbols, and imagined scenes through lines, shapes, proportion, perspective, shading, and visual memory. Accuracy depends on observation, hand control, memory, available tools, practice, and subject complexity. Current level permits only simple forms and rough representations.
By the end of the week, Drawing reached Level 8.
My sisters improved too, though Nichika continued adding unreasonable eyebrows to every portrait of me.
I began keeping a small book of images.
Doma’s fans.
His eyes.
The shape of Kanae’s haori in the dream.
The hanafuda earrings described in the reincarnation office.
Mountain slopes beneath snow.
I did not know which details would matter later.
Drawing gave them somewhere to remain.
The news about the Kamado family arrived two days later.
Father called me to his room shortly before dinner. Mother was already there, holding a report with several marked pages.
I sat across from them, trying not to read their expressions before they spoke.
Father noticed anyway.
“You may breathe, Haruya. The news is good.”
I released the breath I had been holding.
“They were found?”
Mother handed me the report. “A wisteria house contact located a charcoal-selling family in the mountains of northern Tokyo.”
I read the names slowly.
Kie Kamado.
Tanjiro.
Nezuko.
Takeo.
Hanako.
Shigeru.
Rokuta.
Their father, Tanjuro, had died from illness. The eldest son now helped support the household. He wore hanafuda earrings and was known in nearby villages for his strong sense of smell and honest nature.
The family performed a ceremonial dance each year.
Hinokami Kagura.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
Alive.
They were still alive.
Father watched me carefully. “Is this the family from your premonition?”
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Mother sat closer. “The report says they are poor, but cared for. No immediate danger was found around their home.”
“That does not mean the danger is gone.”
“No,” Father said. “It means we still have time to choose how we approach them.”
I looked down at the list of children.
“Can we bring them here?”
“We can offer protection,” Father replied. “We cannot force an innocent family to abandon their home because of a warning they do not understand.”
Mother added, “A trusted representative will visit them openly. We can offer work, medical support, and safer lodging through a wisteria house. If they agree, we will bring them closer.”
“And if they refuse?”
Father’s expression remained gentle.
“Then we place watchers in the region and prepare a safe route away from the mountain. Protection does not always require possession.”
I thought about that.
My first instinct was still to gather everyone behind walls and keep them where I could see them.
Father understood people better.
“They should be told demons are real,” I said.
“Yes,” he answered. “Carefully. We will not leave them ignorant of the danger.”
I looked at the report again.
Tanjiro was a name now attached to a home, a mother, and five siblings. He was no longer a future swordsman spoken about by souls waiting to reincarnate.
He was a boy carrying charcoal down a mountain because his family needed food.
Mother rested her hand over mine.
“You look relieved.”
“I am.”
“Only relieved?”
I smiled a little.
“No. I want to meet them.”
Father’s eyes warmed. “I thought you might.”
Outside, my sisters were arguing about whose drawing would be displayed near the dining room. Their voices carried through the hall, bright and familiar.
Somewhere far away, another family was preparing for evening.
This time, we had found them before the blood in the snow.
The future had moved again.
And for once, it had moved toward us.