Previously
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"Babe, wait. I think I saw something."
Yoriichi-san? But with 6 arms?
3rd PERSON'S POV
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"What is that, Satoshi-kun?" Kanae asks him, but Satoshi doesn't hear her. Instead, he approaches the doll and takes a closer look.
"Satoshi-kun? Are you alright?" She calls him again, but still no response.
"Satoshi-kun? Hello? Moshi-moshi? Earth to Satoshi-kun." But still no response. She then taps his back and this finally catches his attention. "Oh! Sorry! I'm so sorry I didn't hear you." Satoshi finally says.
"Humph. I called you so many times but you didn't listen at all." She pouts.
"Sorry." He apologizes in a depressed tone.
"You have no idea how hurt I was."
"Sorry." He apologizes again but in a more depressed tone.
"Just kidding." She says with a smile and proceeds to give a peck on his cheeks.
"Ehh!! Huh!? Eeh!?" Satoshi is super confused.
"You look so cute. But anyways, what is this thing? It looks like a doll. And it even has the Hanafuda earrings." She asks him.
"This doll, if I'm not wrong, it's Yoriichi-san's doll. The facial features, the hair, the clothes, those earrings, all represents Yoriichi-san." He replies.
"Yoriichi-san? You mean the first swordsman who used breathes? The one you saw in your inherited memories?"
"Yeah, you are right. Wait! There's a keyhole over here." He notices the keyhole.
Before she could reply, someone, more like a young boy interrupts them.
"Who are you and what are two doing here?"
The two turns around to see a boy with
unruly black hair, worn tied up in a low ponytail.
He wears a striped yukata and a Hyottoko mask (with notable eyebrows) that fully conceals his face.
"Oh! Hello there. I'm Satoshi. Nice t-
He was cut off when the boy started shouting.
"EHHHHH!!! YOU EXACTLY LOOK LIKE THAT DOLL!?? ARE YOU HIS REINCARNATION OR SOMETHING?!?"
Kanae nervously smiles with closed eyes while sweatdropping. Satoshi replies, "No no. I'm not a reincarnation of Yoriichi-san. I just happen to know him without actually meeting him in real life."
"Yorichi-san? How did you know the name of this doll is Yorichi?" The kid asks.
"So this is a doll. And to answer your question, well, I don't know if you have heard about this thing called 'Inherited Memories', but that's how I saw him. By him, I mean Yoriichi Tsugikuni-san, the first swordsman who used a Breathing technique or the original breath." Satoshi replies.
"Inherited memories. I know what it is and if I'm not wrong, this original breath is the Breath Of Sun, correct?" The kid asks.
"Yeah, your right. The Breath of Sun, that's the original breath."
"By the way, what's your name?" Kanae asks the kid.
"I'm Koketsu. A ten year old boy pursuing to follow my father's footsteps." The kid replies.
"I'm Kanae Kocho, the current Flower Hashira. Nice to meet you."
"HUH!? YOU ARE A HASHIRA??!!!"
"Yeah, I am. And Satoshi-kun is also one." Kanae replies.
"Huh!?? Ehh!? You are a Hashira too?" The kid points at Satoshi and asks.
"Yeah, I'm the Sun Hashira." He replies with a smile.
"Sun Hashira? Does that mean you can the original breath?" The kid asks.
"Well, I can use the Breath of the Sun, but I wouldn't say I can use it precisely as Yoriichi-san. By the way, is this doll made for training or something?"
"Yes, it is. This doll is called Yorichi Zeroshiki. It was made during the sengoku era after the swordsman who you just mentioned."
"I see. And I'm assuming the reason why this thing has 6 arms is because without 6 arms, it can't mimic Yoriichi-san?"
The kid agrees. "Exactly. The swordsman of the original breath was so skilled that this doll was given 6 arms."
"So, is it working? I wanna go against it." Satoshi says.
"It is working and it needs this key to operate." Koketsu shows a key and replies.
"Alright then. Is it okay if I test the doll?" Satoshi asks.
"Well, I wanna see how you do against it. Just to let you know, no swordsman has ever manged to touch this doll." Koketsu replies.
He then goes to the doll and uses the key to turn it on. After that, the doll stands up.
"You ready? Just to let you know, I have set the level at the maximum, so it's going to be hard." The kid informs.
Satoshi unsheathes his blade and forms a stance. "Yeah, I'm ready."
And with that, the doll also takes a stance and in the blink of an eye, it dashes towards Satoshi.
This surprises Satoshi cause he was not expecting a doll to move really fast and smooth.
BREATH OF THE SUN
BURNING BONES, SUMMER SUN
Satoshi defends himself from it's attacks, by swinging his sword in a circular motion. Without wasting another second, Satoshi jumps up high in the air and as he falls down, he aims for the doll.
BREATH OF THE SUN
CLEAR BLUE SKY
As he falls down, he swings his sword 360° and slices two arms of the doll. Right after that, he dashes at the doll again.
BREATH OF THE SUN
SUNFLOWER THRUSTS
In the blink of an eye, he stabs the doll right in the chest multiple times breaking it open. But something unexpected happened.
A blade that's surpassed time has appeared.
"What's that?" Kanae asks.
"It's a sword. And it seems like I have seen it before." Satoshi says.
"Hey Koketsu, is it okay if I check out the sword?" Satoshi asks.
"You are first to not only touch the doll but also break it, therefore you can have that sword." Koketsu replies.
"Thank you." He then takes out the sword. Both Kanae and Koketsu are super excited to see how the blade looks.
Satoshi slowly takes out the blade from the scabbard only to see that it's rusted.
"Oh c'mon. Are you kidding me? Aghhh! Wait!! I know this sword!" Satoshi suddenly exclaims. He then fully takes out the sword.
"No way. No way. This sword."
"Satoshi-kun? Is it what I think it is?"
"Yes, babe. It is."
"What are you two talking about?" The kid asks.
Satoshi explains, "This sword. It belongs to Yoriichi-san. I have seen Yoriichi-san's sword a few times when he was asked to perform the dance and that's how I can recognise it. But if I remember, his sword was bright red but this is black."
Suddenly, the 400 year old rusted black sword slowly starts changing color. The three's eyes widens and observes the rusted sword slowly turning into bright crimson red.
"It's color changed." The kid says.
"Yeah, it did. But what about it's rust?"
Kanae questions.
"Don't worry about that. We can go to the most skilled bladesmith of this village, the chief." The kid says.
"Alright. But what about the doll? It's broken." Satoshi asks to which Koketsu replies, "Don't worry about that, my father says he can fix it."
"I see. Then, I shall be going to the chief now." Satoshi says.
And with that, Kanae and Satoshi goes to meet the chief.
On their way to the chief, Satoshi suggests something. "Hey babe, if the doll gets fixed, I think it would be a great if you and the others could train with it."
Kanae replies, "I was thinking about that as well, but from what I saw, you easily defeated the doll."
Satoshi chuckles hearing that. "Well, to be honest, that doll, even though it was set at the maximum level, it was not that difficult. If I would have to rank it, then, if Kokushibo is level 100, then that doll would be around 20 at maximum."
"It was that weak, despite having 6 arms?" Kanae asks.
"Yeah. It's leagues below Yoriichi-san. I mean Yoriichi-san was able to one shot Muzan, so if that doll was really at Yoriichi-san's level, then, they would have used it to fight demons."
"Yeah, that's right. Well, you just gave Kokushibo and that doll levels, so if you had to give yourself a level, what would it be?" Kanae asks.
"Hmmm. Well, I'm going to be honest. If base Kokushibo is level 100, then I would give myself like a 95 at maximum as of now. But when my demon slayer mark starts glowing, I would give myself a 120 maybe, but that changes when Kokushibo switches to his long sword form or his battle form. That form is terrifying and I would give it maybe a 140. But these levels are just assumptions. It can be wrong."
"How about Doma?"
"That rainbow eyed perv. Well, from what I know, I'm stronger than him. I would give him like a 70 or something."
"I see. Then, how about me?" Kanae asks.
"Well, I would be able to tell after seeing you in a battle." Satoshi says.
"But you have seen me battle."
"Yes, I have but I haven't seen you using the breath of SunFlower in a battle, so...." He shrugs his shoulders.
"Understandable. Anyways, we are here."
"Yup, we are here."
They then enter the chief's house.
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After explaining about what happened to the chief, he accepts to help him by fixing the sword, but they were also told that it would take a few weeks to fix the sword.
The two then returns back to where the rest are.
3 DAYS LATER
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The doll has been fixed and Koketsu's father allowed the demon slayers, that is Tanjiro, Genya, Mui-kun, Mitsuri and Kanae to train with it. As the training started, all of them had zero to little difficulties defeating the doll.
After a week, Satoshi and Kanae visited the chief to see how the sword was doing and this time, the chief said that he would take one more week.
Kanae, Mui-kun and Mitsuri also got new swords made for them while they were at the swordsmith village. Meanwhile Satoshi was about to get Yoriichi's sword while having his own sword at the same time.
6 DAYS LATER
AT THE HOTSPRING
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A weird pot can be seen on the ground near the hotspring. And a curious man sees the pot on the ground. He approaches the pot to take a proper look but as soon as he touched the sword, he was sucked into it and after a while, only his clothes and his mask was spitted out from the pot. And right after that happened, a mysterious creature, more like a demon comes out of the pot. This demon takes the form of a pale white, abstracted, grotesque humanoid figure with an upper torso that has no arms and has multiple infant-like hands that line his back.
He also has large green mouths displacing the position of where one would expect eyes, and his actual eyes are located vertically from one another on his face; one eye appearing in the constantly open bottom mouth and the other is seated at the center of his forehead. As UPPER MOON 5, the Kanji for Upper Rank is engraved on his forehead eye and the kanji for FIVE is engraved on his mouth eye.
WHAT THE HECK IS AN UPPER RANK DEMON DOING HERE OUT OF ALL PLACES!!??
To be continued...........
1900 words.