And precisely because of that, because neither was willing to give an inch on anything, the intensity of Tanjiro's training skyrocketed.
But Tanjiro wasn't the only one gaining something from all this.
Marcus was getting his share too. And not a small one.
Setting aside the obvious, the daily contact with Nezuko and Total Concentration Constant running at seventy percent more efficiency, which was giving his body a massive boost, there was an unexpected gain. Something not even Marcus himself had foreseen when this whole war started.
Stealth.
Because to truly mess with that nuisance with the super nose who stood between him and Nezuko, it wasn't enough to set up clever traps.
You had to place them without being detected. You had to move without being heard. You had to exist without being perceived.
So he asked Urokodaki to teach him his silent footwork. And not satisfied with that, he begged him to contact the Sound Pillar to get some basic ninja techniques.
All so he could torture Tanjiro better.
They say that when someone dedicates themselves to doing evil, they never get tired and nothing ever feels like too much effort... And it's absolutely true.
Generally, Marcus built the tools for the traps sitting next to Nezuko, absorbing her presence like a sponge. He only stepped away for an hour or two when he went up the mountain to install them. But he made the most of every one of those hours.
After a year of this obsessive routine, his trap setting skills had reached a level that bordered on artistic. But that was the least of it. What was truly impressive was everything else: his stealth, his agility, the way his body moved... everything had grown in a way that was frightening.
And to top it off, to deal with Tanjiro's damn nose that detected him from a distance, Marcus used his own Breath of Desire, which was also scent based, to develop the ability to erase his presence completely.
Put simply: when Marcus found himself in a moderately complex environment like a dense forest...
He was a damn ghost.
You couldn't see him. You couldn't hear him. You couldn't smell him.
He simply ceased to exist for anyone's senses.
Not even Urokodaki had imagined that delegating the trap work, a decision he had basically made to get a problem off his plate and have some peace, was going to produce such results.
Because without meaning to, by force, he had trained two lunatics.
One of them had an absurd reaction speed and evasion skills that already rivaled veteran hunters.
The other was worse... Much worse.
Before, Urokodaki was the only one on the mountain who walked without making a sound. His little secret pleasure. Every now and then he would appear behind someone and enjoy the startle.
Now it turned out Marcus did the same thing... To him.
Every so often, without warning, he would materialize beside him as if he had sprouted from thin air. Not a step. Not a creak. He simply appeared, and by the time Urokodaki realized it, he was already there, looking at him with a smile.
Thank goodness he had the heart of a warrior hardened by a thousand battles.
Because if he had had any heart problems... Marcus would have killed him from fright months ago.
And today, at last, the moment had arrived.
After saying, "I have nothing left to teach you," Urokodaki led both of them to a place where a colossal boulder rested, tied with a thick knot of rope.
"Tanjiro. If you can split this boulder, I will allow you to participate in the Final Selection."
Tanjiro stood there with his mouth open. Looking up. And further up... The boulder was enormous.
Absurdly enormous! A mass of stone that seemed to have been there since before names existed for things.
'Split... this? With my sword?'
While he was still processing the impossibility of what they were asking him, Urokodaki had already turned around toward Marcus.
"This year's Final Selection. Do you want to participate?"
"If you're going, start preparing."
?
Tanjiro blinked. The confusion wiped away the astonishment and replaced it with indignation. "Master! Why doesn't he have to split the boulder?"
"Do you think it's natural for this boulder to be so round?" Urokodaki answered immediately.
Tanjiro frowned. Round? What did it being round have to do with...?
But he didn't have much time to finish the thought.
Marcus was already at his side, patting him on the back with a radiant smile.
"My dear brother in law, your big brother carved this slash by slash." He gave him another pat, with affection. "You better appreciate it."
'Slash... by slash...?'
Tanjiro slowly turned his head toward the boulder. That smooth surface... That perfect roundness he had assumed was natural...
It wasn't natural.
Someone had cut it that way.
And that someone was standing next to him, giving him pats on the back.
Now he really looked at Marcus, perhaps for the first time in a long while, and in his eyes appeared something he couldn't hide, no matter how much he wanted to.
Awe.
Because he had always believed he was progressing fast. And it was true, he was. Urokodaki himself frequently said that Marcus was clumsy, that he didn't have as much talent as him. That even having started eight months earlier, the gap shouldn't be that big. And in fact, Marcus's traps couldn't hurt him anymore. He had been dodging every single one of them for weeks, without exception.
He had even noted it with a certain pride in his journal.
But this...
His test was to cut this boulder.
And Marcus... Marcus had already sculpted it.
The gap was big.
Marcus was very satisfied with Tanjiro's face. That expression of awe, of wounded pride mixed with respect... was priceless.
Though on the inside he understood perfectly what was going on. It was personalized teaching from Urokodaki.
His First Form was pure brute force. Splitting a boulder would have been ridiculously easy for him and he wouldn't have learned a thing. What he lacked was versatility and control.
That's why Urokodaki had ordered him to carve.
Cut after cut, forcing him to master the sword with a finesse his natural style didn't have.
On the other hand, Tanjiro's Water Breathing was the exact opposite: fluid, versatile, adaptable like water itself. But it lacked that crushing blow, that demolishing impact capable of breaking through the immovable.
That's why his test was to split.
Each test attacked exactly the other's weakness.
The old man knew what he was doing.
Ruffling Tanjiro's hair with affection, earning himself a grunt of protest, he turned toward Urokodaki.
"Master, this year I won't participate in the Final Selection. I'll wait until next year. If Tanjiro manages to split the boulder, we'll go together." And he added: "...That way I can keep an eye on him while I'm at it."
"Who... who needs someone to keep an eye on them...?"
Tanjiro lowered his head, lips pressed tight. But inside, somewhere he would never admit, something warm settled in his chest.
Marcus's words sounded simple. Tanjiro didn't catch what they really meant.
But Urokodaki naturally did.
Giving Marcus a piercing look, he replied:
"As you wish."
And he left. With his shoulders a little more sunken than usual.
"...What's wrong with the master?" Tanjiro frowned, sniffing. "I sense... a very strong sadness in him."
"..."
Marcus watched Urokodaki's solitary silhouette walking away. He observed it for a moment and then, as if he needed to shake something off, he turned and kicked Tanjiro in the ass.
"Start splitting that boulder already! If in a year you hold up my Final Selection, I'll split you instead!"
And without waiting for an answer, he left too.
"..."
"...If you don't want to tell me, then don't tell me, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO KICK ME!"
Rubbing his butt with a grimace, Tanjiro glared at Marcus's back disappearing between the trees, and when he turned back toward the boulder, the irritation slowly faded.
'If he was able to carve it... then splitting it had to be possible.'
His confidence went up a few notches.
'I won't take a year! I'll show him I can cut it in a month!'
He breathed deep. Planted his feet. Raised the sword above his head with both hands, concentrated everything he had into a single point.
And cut.
CLANG
...The boulder didn't budge.
But the counterimpact was another story.
The vibration traveled back through the blade, climbed up the handle, devoured his arms, rattled his shoulders, shot through his torso, and reached the soles of his feet.
His entire body shuddered like a guitar string.
Letting go of his sword, Tanjiro stood staring at his palms.
Red, numb, and tingling with a pain that wouldn't go away.
"How... how is anyone supposed to split this...?"
He swallowed hard.
"The master... he didn't trick me... did he?"
Leaving Tanjiro with the boulder, a fight that would most likely last an entire year, Marcus headed down the mountain.
The first thing he did was stop by the cabin where Urokodaki lived alone. He prepared his food, left it ready, and then returned to the room he shared with Tanjiro and Nezuko.
He sat down next to her. Carefully, he lifted her head and rested it on his legs. He closed his eyes and began executing the breathing technique at full throttle.
In theory, the breathing technique had to be combined with physical training to achieve its best effect.
But after a year of practice, he had discovered something.
Training with just the breathing alone was already inferior to combined training. But even exercising near Nezuko, the results didn't compare to touching her directly.
With Nezuko resting in his arms, the efficiency shot up to seventy percent above normal.
Far above any physical training session.
And in theory, if he could do physical exercise while maintaining contact with her... that would be the absolute peak.
But that would have to wait until Nezuko woke up someday. He had his lines, and using a sleeping girl as a dumbbell was on the other side of all of them.
...
At noon, after cooking and bringing the master his food, the aroma took care of the rest.
Tanjiro appeared coming down the mountain on his own, guided by his nose, as always. He walked into the cabin, saw Nezuko resting on Marcus's lap...
And said nothing.
A year ago, that sight would have made him explode.
But after twelve months of living together, months in which Marcus had been crossing his boundaries one by one, pushing each line one centimeter further every day... this was no longer enough to set off the alarm. The siscon radar had been forcefully recalibrated.
He sat down to eat without comment.
The two of them devoured the food in a silence that would have been unthinkable a year ago. And when the plates were empty, Marcus stared hard at Tanjiro.
"It's time to bathe Nezuko."
Tanjiro's hand, which was about to serve himself another bowl, stopped.
________
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