Seven months. The once scrawny Taka had begun to grow robust, his height also shooting up a notch.
His swinging movements, from the initial stiffness and clumsiness, had become smooth and swift, each cleave carrying a sharp whistling sound.
Although still far from reaching the level of the tearing storm Tetsushin had demonstrated, that sense of power and stability was no longer what it used to be.
The next day, Taka, following Tetsushin's instructions, arrived at the foot of the most precipitous peak in Hayama.
"Wind is formless and without substance, gathering and dispersing erratically! Don't try to fight it. Feel its flow, its power!"
"Merge with it! A swordsman of Wind Breathing cannot fear the wind! Be as free as the wind, as penetrating as the wind, as... everything-destroying as the wind!"
The wind here was even more violent, like an invisible giant hand, tearing at one's body. A single misstep could send one tumbling off a cliff.
"Your foundation is solid. It's time to begin the [Total Concentration Breathing] training..."
"Total Concentration Breathing requires you to further strengthen the breathing method I taught you before. Expand your lungs, deliver oxygen to every blood vessel in your body, accelerate your blood circulation and heartbeat!"
"This way, your body temperature will rise rapidly, your bones and muscles will become blazing hot, allowing you, with a human body, to gain power as strong as a demon's!"
Tetsushin stood at the foot of the peak, his expression serious. "Taka.... From today on, you will climb to the summit with your bare hands every day! There, you will practice Total Concentration Breathing and your daily sword forms, then climb back down!"
"When you can accomplish all of this within two hours, come find me!"
"With the resolve to face death, do your best."
Tetsushin gave no further instructions, leaving Taka alone.
He believed that even if by himself, this boy's heart would ignite with flames, urging him to complete his training.
Initially, the greatest difficulty was climbing the peak in the fierce wind.
The howling gale could at any moment blow him off the mountainside as he climbed, smashing him into pulp, but after gradually familiarizing himself with the mountain path, this on the contrary became the simplest task.
The fierce wind at the summit rushed into his mouth and nose. The thin oxygen made even breathing extremely difficult, let alone maintaining Total Concentration Breathing.
His body was blown unsteady, each swing of the sword exceptionally difficult, his movements severely distorted.
But he didn't retreat. Instead, facing the wind, he breathed even more deeply and absorbedly, adjusting his center of gravity and points of power application even more precisely.
He struggled in the fierce wind, like a lone wolf battling in a storm, blown staggering again and again, yet steadying himself again and again, swinging the wooden sword imbued with an unyielding will.
The training time was continuously compressed, until he could accomplish all of this in about an hour.
Several months passed. Taka's skin was tanned rough and dark by the mountain wind, but his gaze grew even more sharp, like a blade honed by wind and frost.
His movement on the summit became increasingly stable, his swinging movements gradually able to remain smooth even in the fierce wind, and he could even vaguely use the wind's force to adjust his attacking angles.
When he appeared before Tetsushin, the latter had no intention of personally verifying whether Taka could do it. Instead, he took him to the rear mountain of Hayama, a secluded training ground.
Here, ancient trees touched the sky, with lush branches and leaves, dim light, seeming both quiet and dangerous.
For the next year, apart from Rika, who came and went from the rear mountain daily, and Tetsushin, who occasionally emerged from the rear mountain to instruct other disciples, no one saw Taka again.
The four seasons of Hayama, in Taka's eyes, were reduced to only the different winds of the training ground:
The gentle breeze of spring carrying the scent of new buds, the hot, dry blast of summer-
The desolate wind of autumn rolling fallen leaves, the biting, face-cutting cold wind of winter.
Taka's body was long since covered with scars.
There were blue and purple bruises left from wooden sword sparring, wounds from climbing rock faces cut by sharp stones, marks from branches scratching him as he wove through the dense forest, and countless bandages from tendon, even bone, injuries sustained by forcibly breaking through his limits time and again.
Old scars had not yet completely faded before new scars covered them.
These marks covering his body were proof of his desperate pursuit of power.
Time flew by, summers and winters passed.
Counting it up, Taka had spent a full two years in Hayama, this place where Wind Breathing was passed down.
Under Tetsushin's strict, almost cruel guidance, Taka's physical qualities were pushed to the limits of an ordinary person. His once thin frame was covered with tough and resilient muscles, lines smooth yet bursting with power, every fiber of muscle concealing the power of the wind.
More importantly, he had finally begun to systematically learn the sword forms of Wind Breathing.
From the First Form to the Ninth Form, Tetsushin demonstrated their usage and insights to Taka.
Taka learned quickly. His bodily instincts seemed inborn to match the wildness and variability of the wind. Although his power was insufficient, he had already grasped the basic momentum and essentials… only tempering remained.
His sword techniques lacked Tetsushin's harmonious and flawless master's demeanor, but were filled with primitive wildness, carrying savage vitality, like a hurricane suddenly sweeping across the wilderness, defying all reason.
Besides this, Tetsushin noticed that when Taka devoted himself wholeheartedly to the sword forms of Wind Breathing, there was always a faint, elusive power about him, as if it might surge forth at any moment....
'Was it the natural breathing used when he killed the demon?' Tetsushin wasn't certain.
Furthermore, no matter how strong his body became, how skilled his swordsmanship grew, the light in those eyes never changed.
Although when facing Tetsushin, who taught him skills, and Rika, who had always been gently kind to him, that gaze would soften somewhat, carrying a kind of almost clumsy sense of trust, at any other time, his gaze was cold and distant.
Like a ferocious beast temporarily taken in, even if well-fed and with sharpened claws and fangs, it had never truly let down its vigilance towards its surroundings.
Tetsushin saw all of this.
He had experienced countless life-and-death battles and taught all kinds of disciples. He knew well that powerful strength, without a matching state of mind to guide it, could easily slide into a dangerous abyss.
Tetsushin often sat alone in the secluded spots of the rear mountain, watching Taka's solitary figure swinging his sword, silent.
He admitted he was not good at those delicate counselings and spiritual soothing. What he could give Taka was only the strictest training, the most solid skills, and almost harsh demands.
He believed in strict teachers producing outstanding students, in steel only being made after being tempered a thousand times.
Moreover, this child's feeling reminded him of a student.
Compared to that child, Taka didn't even have final protection or bonds. He truly was a worrisome fellow.
"Was my choice wrong..." Tetsushin would occasionally ask himself this. "Did I focus too much on tempering his body while neglecting the emptiness in his heart? Like this, after gaining even greater power, might he on the contrary lose his direction...."
This thought, like a thorn, lodged in the old man's heart, lingering for a long time.
Until one day not long after, the tranquillity of Hayama was shattered by a familiar and somewhat rough sound of footsteps.
The newcomer was tall and robust, wearing the dark green uniform of the Demon Slayer Corps, casually draped with an open white haori on which was written in thick ink a huge and ferocious character [Kill], as if intending to crush every demon under this killing intent.
He had unruly silver-white short hair, and several deep scars lay across his face. The one slanting from his forehead to his cheek added to his fierce aura.
Most striking were his eyes, as sharp as a bird of prey, gleaming with almost manic fighting spirit and undisguised edge, as if ready to devour someone at any moment.
His whole body emanated an invisible, suffocating sense of pressure.
It was a terrifying aura honed only through countless life-and-death struggles, bathed in the blood of demons.
The current Wind Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps… Shinazugawa Sanemi.