I heard talking around me as I cracked my eyes open and tried to sit up only for a gentle hand to be placed on my shoulder stopping me from moving too much.
"Your awake Hikaru'' said a voice and I looked to see Tanjiro looking at me with an aura of gratefulness making me push his hand off my shoulder as I sat up hissing as the stitches on my chest pulled.
"Giyu did not inform me that you had been injured this much" Urokodaki said and I saw that he was stirring a pot of what I guessed was a stew.
"They are just wounds, they will heal given time" I said looking at the bandages.
"You ripped some of the stitches out but Urokodaki-san sewed you back up again....I couldn't bring myself to do it, not again" Tanjiro whispered, flooded with grief, sadness, pity and a bit of anger.
"Baka" I said, chopping his head with a scowl.
"I have told you that even if you were there, there was nothing that you would have been able to do. It was a miracle me and Nezuko managed to survive so I am glad that you weren't there because if you were we all would have died" I scowled him before turning to Urokodaki.
"Thank you for seeing to my wounds and giving me a place to rest, I will find a way to repay your kindness in some way" I said bowing my head slightly.
"Just rest up, even if you are wounded I will not make it easy for you while you are training" Urokodaki said, I guess while I was passed out he had decided to take us both on as students of his.
"I would never get stronger if you took it easy on me therefore I would prefer it if you didn't" I stated before we were handed bowls of stew that was rather good.
"Let's go" Urokodaki said after we had finished eating and I had dressed again since they had to take my shirt off so that they could get to my wounds. Nezuko was still asleep and would probably be asleep for a long time to come if her aura was anything to go by.
"Hey Urokodaki-sensei, can you tell me who is actually in charge of the demon slayer's?" I asked as we continued to walk up the mountain. I wanted to get a bit more background information about the organization that we were joining up with.
"The Demon Slayer Corps has around several hundred members. It's an organization unrecognized by the government, yet it's existed since ancient times and we continue to hunt demon today. But as for who's leading the Demon Slayer Corps, that remains a mystery" Urokodaki answered.
"Demons.... their food is humans. They kill humans and feed on them. No one knows when and where they first appeared. Their physical prowess is remarkable, wounds heal in the blink of an eye. Flesh is restored after being cut off and limbs can be newly regenerated with ease. Some demons can shape-shift, others have otherworldly powers. They can only be killed by sunlight or by decapitation with a special sword. The Demon Slayers battle the demons with their own mortal bodies. Since they're human, their wounds are slow to heal, and once lost their limbs don't grow back. Even so they battle the demons to protect other humans. If you continue you will be expected to do the same'' Urokodaki lectured and I couldn't help but be a little in awe of him.
"Does that mean you kill demons as well?" Tanjiro asked politely.
"I am a trainer. I literally train swordsmen. There are many trainers and each of them trains their pupils with their own regimen in their location. To join the Demon Slayer Corps, you both must survive the Final selection process held on Mt Fujikasane. Whether or not you're eligible for Final Selection is up to me" Urokodaki told us before he gestured for me to continue to follow him while Tanjiro was to go down the mountain from where we left him. Once more I was left in the mountains by myself and I had to make my way back down the mountain which I did though I busted my stitches open once again.
Each day, Tanjiro and I were led into the mountains and told to make it back down again which was getting easier each time that I did it. I couldn't explain it so that anyone else would understand it but it was like the traps had an aura themselves except it was the aura that Urokodaki had left behind. Because of this and my eyesight I was getting better and better at either avoiding the traps or dodging them though most of the days I returned covered in blood from ripping out stitches but I didn't care. I had to get stronger so that I could protect Nezuko and Tanjiro, I had to get stronger so that I could help turn Nezuko back into a human and I had to get stronger to stop that man that attacked us so that he wouldn't be able to disgrace anyone else like I had been. Even though I said I wanted to get stronger the traps were getting harder and harder, now instead of rocks being thrown it was knives being thrown, instead of empty pitfalls there were blades in them now, it was like Urokodaki really wanted to kill us.
I noticed that Tanjiro was writing a journal so that when Nezuko woke up he would be able to tell her all about what was happening which I thought was heartwarming. He had also been caught by me trying to get Urokodaki to give me a break so that my wounds could heal without me busting them open but I glared at him into submission. Once we had managed to make good time and miss most of the traps Urokodaki gave us swords to carry with us since we would need to get used to them. It was at this time that I asked Urokodaki if it would be alright for me to carry two swords, one in my hands that I would keep strapped to my hip when I didn't use it and the other across the small of my back. At the start he didn't want to agree with me carrying two swords so I took the sword that he gave me and the one that I had created before all of this happened up the mountain with me. I ended up with a lot more bruises and cuts but I didn't care because I had shown that I could descend the mountain with two swords. I got a lecture for that from Urokodaki because of it but in the end he agreed to allow me to carry two swords.
Since we were now working with swords after we descended the mountain we would do sword swings, Tanjiro would do 1,500 while I would top out at 2,000, 1,000 with the normal sword and 1,000 with my short sword.
"Katana's can break easily," Urokodaki said the next day while we held our swords and stood in front of three rolled up bundles of straw.
"If you swing vertically it is strong but if you try to attack horizontally it's weak so we should be looking at applying the strength along the blade right?" I asked while the other two looked at me.
"I was working towards being a blacksmith, remember? So I know alot about them" I shrugged towards their looks.
"Good, if either of you ever damage the blade, in other words, break it, I'll snap your bones as well" Urokodaki threatened, making me pale a little since I knew how easy it was to break a sword.
The next day after teaching us about how to apply the strength along the blade, Urokodaki taught us one on one about how to break our falls and get up quickly from any type of position. Tanjiro tried to use all his strength against Urokodaki with his sword but unfortunately for him even though Urokodaki was bare-handed and unarmed he still managed to throw him off his shoulders. I wasn't much better, Urokodaki was really strong so there was no way that we would be able to get a hit on him so easily.
"Total Concentration Breathing?" Tanjiro asked a few days later.
"That's right and I'm going to teach both of you all ten of the Water Breathing forms. Remember to take a long breath so the oxygen flows into every cell in your body. This will enhance your body's natural healing power and both stabilize and energize your spirit" Urokodaki explained.
"Relax your upper bodies while bracing your lower half," Urokodaki instructed.
"Right now breath" He said as we did what we were told. It was a lot like the breathing that I had done to try and slow the blood flow on the night that we had been attacked.
"Wrong" Urokodaki scowled as he hit both of us in the stomach, making us both cry out. I was glad that my rib was healed from being broken now but that said nothing about the cut that was sure to be bleeding. In the last week we had been able to take the stitches out since it had healed enough but I could tell it was going to leave a horrendous scar from all of the stitches that had been ripped out and times I had reopened the wound. Not only that but it was a wide wound to begin with.
"Next forms" He said, knocking me out of my thoughts.
"Right! Like this?" Tanjiro asked while doing a weird pose making me blink a little.
"Wrong!" Urokodaki said.
"Like this?" Tanjiro asked.
"Wrong!" Urokodaki once more said. This went on for another two poses before Urokodaki slammed his hand into Tanjiro's stomach over and over with a scowl behind his mask. Next was my turn and I got in trouble and a hand slammed into my chest a lot for not bracing my chest.
"Next, become one with the water" Urokodaki instructed while we stood at a rock peak that was over a large body of water that a waterfall was running into.
"Get in there" Urokodaki said before kicking both me and Tanjiro off the edge. Tanjiro tried to run on the air while I tried to flap my arms to try and keep myself up. Unfortunately neither of them worked as we both fell into the water. After that he had us standing under the waterfall and I felt like I was going to be crushed under the water of the water slamming into us. Both me and Tanjiro ended up slammed onto the rocks we were standing on but we continued to try and fight against the water.
Soon it had been six months since we had started to train under Urokodaki and Nezuko had yet to wake up even once. Urokodaki summoned a doctor and had him examine her but he had found nothing wrong. I could tell that there was nothing wrong with Nezuko because her aura was just as bright as before and wasn't fading like someone who was dying. I tried to comfort Tanjiro with this information which led to Urokodaki knowing about how I could see people's auras. It was no longer just aura's of emotions either, I had realised with all the training in the mountains that my eyesight had gotten better and I could now see a distinct colour around each person. Urokodaki had a blue-silver colour while Tanjiro had a dark red colour and Nezuko had a pink aura that was clouded by black because of her being a demon. Another thing I realised is that if they touched something such as Urokodaki setting up the traps they were lit up with the colour I now associated with him, like it was marked by him. I was lucky that I was finding different ways to see the traps since Urokodaki was sending us higher and higher into the mountains meaning that we were in even more danger then before but we kept on fighting and training, we had to unless we wanted to die.
"I have nothing more to teach you,'' Urokodaki said one day after we had descended the mountain. It had been a year since we had begun training under him.
"The rest is up to the both of you, whether or not you can improve to the next level" Urokodaki said.
"Come with me" He instructed and led us into a clearing as it started to snow. In that clearing was a giant boulder with a thick piece of rope around it with pieces of paper attached to it.
"Tanjiro, if you can slice this boulder, I will allow you to enter the final selection. Hikaru you will have a boulder to slice as well. It is this way" said Urokodaki.
"Urokodaki-san, please wait" Tanjiro called out but I just looked at him with a smile before following him to another clearing that held just as giant a boulder as the other one.
Once there Urokodaki left me as well as I stared at the boulder and walked up to it placing my hand on it. Grabbing my normal lengthened sword out I tried to hit the boulder to break it but all that happened was pain through my whole body from being bounced back.
"That won't do, that won't do at all. His skin is tougher than this boulder" I whispered tracing the scars that now decorated my face. Just like the large scar on my chest, the wounds on my face had scared me pretty badly as well from all the times I had busted them open but I didn't care about that. Running my hands through my hair I closed my eyes so that the pain I was feeling wouldn't show in my eyes, even after a year my hair was barely touching my shoulders reminding me of the disgrace that I had brought on myself.
"If I want to be able to kill the demon I am after, cutting this boulder won't help me..... So instead I'll cut the boulder without touching it" I swore to myself.
Days passed and I continued to train. I would ask Urokodaki to continue to set up traps in the mountain for me but instead of going straight down the mountain I would zigzag down it. I meditated under the waterfall and continued to swim in the lake that it connected to while holding my breath for as long as I could. I would also continue to swing my sword but this time I swung it for 2,000 swings for each sword and finally I worked on my flexibility and strength. Unlike most of the people that I had been around I could bend my body in ways that seemed impossible but that didn't stop me. It also didn't stop me from doing sit-ups, pull ups and doing one handed push ups with my body in the air instead of on the ground. After I finished my normal workout I would then stand in front of the boulder and swing my sword repeatedly like I was striking the boulder but without actually touching it. I was determined that the strength behind my sword would be enough to break the boulder without me having to touch it.
Six months passed and even with all the training that I was doing I hadn't managed to break the boulder, I had left marks but that was it. Tanjiro wasn't doing much better either so we both continued to push ourselves to the limit trying to break the boulder. At the end of one of these days I sensed a presence making me look up to see a boy around my age sitting on the boulder that I was to cut. He had light orange shoulder length hair, a fox mask on that had a large scar like mark on the right side of it and finally a familiar checkered patterned kimono under a white hiori. I knew who he was, Tanjiro had mentioned to me about how yesterday he had an encounter with a boy who he was told was named Sabito and a girl who was called Makoma.
"So are you here to beat me up as well and lecture me while I am at it?" I asked, looking at him.
"So that pathetic excuse of a man told you about me" said Sabito and I could tell that he wasn't being mean or anything, he was simply stating what he believed to be true about Tanjiro.
"Yes he told me about you, though he never told me that I would be talking to a spirit or ghost or whatever you want to call it" I said and I could tell from the flare of his aura that I caught him by surprise.
"How do you know? Not even your friend realized with his sense of smell" Sabito said.
"Because all living beings had aura's of emotions and a colour that belongs to only them. You don't have a colour that belongs to you and your aura of emotion is dull, like it is fading away which it is seeing as you are already dead" I said.
"So you know.....Tell me why are you wasting time? You could easily break this boulder unlike the other one yet you refuse to even place your blade on it" Sabito said jumping down from the boulder.
"Simple, I know how tough demons' skin can be," I said once more, tracing the scars on my face.
"Just cutting this boulder will not make me strong enough to cut through the demon's neck that I'm after so if I can cut through the boulder without touching it and then I continue to grow stronger. The next time I meet him I will be able to take his head" I said and I could tell he was smiling.
"Very well, in that case I will help you train since Makamo is training the idiot," Sabito said.
"Be prepared because I am not going to let up even if you are crying" Sabito gleefully announced.
What he said was true, day after day he would help with my training and wouldn't let me stop until I physically couldn't stand anymore. There was even a day when my muscles were so sore that Tanjiro had to unclench the blade in my hand since my fingers wouldn't let it go. It was also around this time I asked Urokodaki to be able to set up a small space for me to make a make-shift blacksmith shop that I continued to make trinkets and small swords at that I would be able to sell if we ever passed Urokodaki's test and then the Final Selection. I also dug out my charcoal and paper and made a picture of Tanjiro's family and gave it to him so that he would always remember them.
Another six months passed with Sabito training me and me continuing on not only being a blacksmith but also mixing up different elixirs that I had read about when Urokodaki gave me a book about them when I told him of my interest in medicine.
"Hikaru" said Sabito as I approached the boulder.
"I know" I said before I breathed in deep to use total concentration breathing before I swung my sword. The strength of my blade and power behind it sent a strike straight to the boulder and cut straight threw it and the ground below it as well. The crack in the ground stretched towards the trees behind the boulder making my eyes widened a little, I didn't think that I had that much strength but I guess I did.
"Hikaru" Sabito called and I turned to see that he didn't have his mask on this time. His purple-grey eyes shone sadly and I saw a scar on his face that was as bad as mine were, the scar that was on his mask.
"It's time for you to go isn't it?" I asked him and got a nod in return.
"You know even if you now have scars, even if your hair was cut, you still have a right to the Akatsuki name" Sabito said before disappearing, probably to challenge Tanjiro to their monthly fight. Reaching up to my hair I smiled sadly, it was passed my shoulders now by a few inches pulled back in a messy ponytail and as much as I wanted to believe Sabito's words I still could not bare the Akatsuki name even if I wanted to.