Chapter 120: Clash × Eye That Shatters Delusion
Clang.
The short blade met the Nichirin Blade.
Roy's forearm corded with veins as he drove his sword down.
Power surged from the short blade into the Nichirin steel and crashed straight into Giyu Tomioka's arm.
A flicker passed through Giyu's cool eyes. His elbow bent under the force. He had not expected Roy's strength to be this overwhelming.
It was in no way inferior to the demons he had fought. In fact… it surpassed them.
A tall figure flashed through his mind: the Stone Hashira, Gyomei Himejima, the man who could beat a demon to death with raw strength alone.
"Water Breathing, Sixth Form: Whirlpool."
Against brute force, there were only two clean answers. One, crush it with greater brute force. Two… do what Giyu chose.
He let his shoulder drop and slipped half a step aside, yielding the line and allowing Roy's pressure to roll the Nichirin Blade toward the ground. Then he slid his body along the short blade, showering sparks, and spun a stream of water up toward Roy's neck.
"Senior Giyu is spooked," Makomo whispered, eyes wide. "He did not expect Eiichiro to be that strong."
"That is not fear. That is experience," Sabito said, rubbing his thumb along his hilt. He had seen all of it—the way Giyu shed the force and drew back was smooth, almost reflexive. "Before Breathing Styles, humans could not fight demons head-on."
"So learning to shed force and use theirs against them was the standard way to fight demons."
"Giyu is smart. The instant he realized he could not match Eiichiro in strength, he changed tactics and avoided the edge. That is what a proper Hashira does."
Steel flashed white. The light was so fierce it stung the eyes.
Roy felt the danger and threw his head back. The Nichirin Blade shaved past the tip of his nose. The water slash that followed tore the air and howled into the forest, severing a thick cypress trunk in one clean cut.
"Senior Giyu, I am on your side!" Shinsuke had been sprawled on that very cypress watching the fight. When the arc of blade light came his way, his soul nearly left his body. He launched himself to another tree and latched onto Fukuda.
"Get off me," Fukuda snarled, hooking two fingers into Shinsuke's nose and choking him out in a neat grappling hold. Then he looked up.
Clang, clang, clang.
In the time it took to breathe a handful of times, Roy had closed and was trading blows with Giyu, short blade against Nichirin steel.
Sparks sprayed. Metal rang without pause. Giyu's heart climbed into his throat. He had not believed the boy could match his tempo.
This was clearly beyond a "beginner's" level.
"Water Breathing, Second Form: Water Wheel."
Roy slid in close again. Giyu twisted his wrist, reversed his grip, and ripped the blade up in a rising circle. A ring of water slashed around him, forcing Roy back. In that instant of space, Giyu drew a breath so deep his chest swelled.
His presence changed.
"Total Concentration Constant."
Oxygen rushed through his lungs and into his blood. Heart and lungs pushed into overdrive. His pulse hammered, beating twice as hard in the space of a second.
Giyu became a machine wound tight to the limit, body running at full strain.
The biggest gap between a Hashira and an ordinary Corps member was simple. Could you maintain Total Concentration Breathing twenty-four hours a day without breaking?
It tested heart and lungs, yes—but even more, it tested resolve.
Sabito narrowed his eyes. "Giyu is serious now."
"Eiichiro just pushed him that far," Makomo said, ripples flickering in her gaze as she watched the boy below. "He is several years younger, and yet he can match Senior Giyu beat for beat without falling behind."
"Senior Giyu has no choice but to fight at his limit."
Monstrous strength. A body far beyond normal. A reaction speed and battlefield sense that were off the charts—and he was still this young. As Makomo had said, Giyu did not know what Gyomei had been like at that age. He only knew that he himself, at Eiichiro's years, could not have stood where this boy did.
Hiss.
Giyu leveled his Nichirin Blade. A white serpent of breath streamed from his nose.
His figure blurred.
"Water Breathing, Seventh Form: Drop Ripple Thrust."
He had used the move before, but under Total Concentration Constant, it was a different technique altogether.
A cold light lunged straight for Roy's face. Giyu moved like a ghost, slipping into the split-second blind spot in Roy's vision and closing the distance.
That was the speed and awareness Total Concentration granted him.
"He is much faster this time," Roy thought. "Looks like a trip to the Butterfly Mansion to speed up work on my own Total Concentration Constant would not be a bad idea."
The point of the blade glinted inches away.
Two suns flared to life in Roy's pupils. He looked at Giyu with utter calm.
Giyu froze for a heartbeat. Before he could understand what had happened, the thrust he had launched—along with the world around him—slowed to a crawl. Outside, it looked as if he had suddenly stopped mid-strike.
"What is going on?"
"Why did Senior Giyu stop?"
"Is he afraid of hurting Eiichiro?"
Shinsuke and Fukuda had been watching the fight closely. They felt the shift and stopped grappling, flashing up to perch on the treetops, staring down from above.
Across the waterfall, on the tall birch, Sabito and Makomo both leaned forward, equally at a loss.
Sabito's brows drew tight. Nothing about Giyu's posture suggested pulling his hand back. Another heartbeat—
Roy's Eye That Shatters Delusion flared. In that frozen instant, he read the line of Giyu's thrust and stepped aside, letting the Nichirin Blade bite only empty air and plunge into the waterfall behind him.
Ripples shimmered.
When Giyu came back to himself, his body had already carried him under the falls. His sword was buried in the rock. Water crashed over his head, soaking him to the bone.
He did not care. He let the torrent pound his shoulders and turned his head. In his cool eyes, ripples rose and broke.
"Is that a sword art you created yourself?" he asked.
"Or is it… the Transparent World?"
His gaze burned.
Sadly for him, it was neither.
Roy's thoughts drifted back to that snowy New Year night, sharing tea with his father, Tanjuro. "It is something my father taught me," he answered honestly.
Giyu's eyes sharpened. "Your father is a swordsman too?"
To slow an opponent's movement and read their path before they executed it—someone who could wield that kind of technique was no nameless hermit.
"But I remember hearing that your father was just a charcoal seller," Makomo said, scratching her head as she tried to recall. "Did Tanjiro lie to me? Is he actually a powerful swordsman hiding in the mountains? Or like Master, a retired Hashira?"
Sabito folded his arms and frowned, saying nothing. His instincts screamed that Tanjiro Kamado was not the lying type.
"Maybe there is more to the story," he said at last.
He fixed his gaze on Roy.
The boy's fingers brushed his hanafuda earrings. He raised his blade again and swung for Giyu.
He smiled lightly. "No. He is just an ordinary father."
"Other than his weak health, he is no different from yours, from mine, from his, from anyone's."