Chapter 41: Ten Thousand Swings X The Zoldyck Constitution
"A sword is an extension of the arm."
"Your stance is wrong. Straighten your back. Keep your eyes level with the tip of the blade."
"When you strike, channel your power through the edge. Maximize the force of the cut."
"Wrong. Higher. Your elbow is dropping."
"Eyes forward! You're exposing your chin."
"Straight down! You'll break the blade like that."
"One... again. Put some force into it."
"Two... again."
"Three... four... If you don't complete two thousand swings by sunset, you don't eat."
In a small clearing deep within Sagiri Mountain, Urokodaki tirelessly corrected Roy's form. After observing him for an hour, he set the day's task—two thousand swings—and then vanished.
The ghostly students watched from the trees. In their experience, a beginner who could manage a thousand swings without collapsing was a success. Two thousand... this was going to be brutal.
"Master is being hard on him," Makomo said, perched on a high branch, watching Roy practice his cuts with a focused intensity.
"It's not that," Sabito corrected her. "It's that Master has never had a student as gifted as him." Ten days to grasp the essence of Breathing... it was unheard of. He watched Roy's fluid, powerful movements, and for a split second, he saw an image of a young Giyu, another dark-haired boy with prodigious talent.
"How many swings could Giyu do when he started?" Makomo asked.
"Him?" Sabito chuckled. "He could barely manage eight hundred. Master had to physically guide his arms for the last two hundred." He paused, a nostalgic look in his eyes. "But he got stronger. At his peak, he completed three full sets of ten thousand swings in a single day. That was the day Master finally took him to the waterfall to begin his real training."
"Three sets? I only ever did two," Makomo pouted.
"And you were amazing," one of the other ghosts, Shinsuke, chimed in. "Fukuda here maxed out at eighteen hundred."
"Hey! And how many did you do?" Fukuda shot back, grabbing Shinsuke in a headlock. "Nineteen hundred? Don't act so high and mighty!" The two of them began to wrestle, a familiar, chaotic routine.
Sabito ignored them, his attention fixed on Roy. He was curious to see what this boy's limit would be.
I can't be worse than Tanjiro, Roy thought, his arms beginning to ache. In the original story, Tanjiro's first day had been fifteen hundred swings. Urokodaki had added five hundred to that. A clear test.
But two thousand was still too low. With a physique ten times that of a normal person, as long as his form was correct, he was confident he could complete a true "ten thousand swings."
The blade cut through the snow-filled air with a sharp whoosh. From morning to noon, and from noon to dusk, he didn't stop, pausing only for a quick drink of water and the two rice balls Urokodaki had left for him.
"Nine thousand one... nine thousand two..."
The easy confidence of the morning was gone. His arms were on fire, his chest heaving like a broken bellows.
The ghosts had fallen silent. "He's a monster," Shinsuke whispered, his earlier bravado gone. "He has to be a demon. He's trying to trick Master, and then he's going to eat his brain."
"Are you an idiot?!" Fukuda slapped him on the back of the head. "What demon can walk around in the daylight?!"
Even so... ten thousand swings on the first day... it was beyond belief.
Sabito stared, his mind reeling. He felt a tug on his sleeve. It was Makomo, her eyes shining. "We can be free," she whispered.
Free. The dream they had all been clinging to for so long.
"Yes," Sabito said, his voice thick with emotion. "We can."
In the clearing below, the boy gathered the last of his strength and took a final, decisive step forward. The blade descended.
SLICE!
The thick log split cleanly in two.
"Ten thousand."
[Notice: Swordsmanship +10]
A long, steamy breath plumed from his lips. Roy stood there, leaning on his sword, his bangs frosted with frozen sweat. He smiled. "Master," he called out to the empty woods. "Is dinner ready?"
A figure emerged from the deep mist behind him. Urokodaki stared at the boy's small, unyielding back for a long moment. "Tomorrow," he said, his voice a low rumble, "we'll add two thousand more."
He turned and walked away.
A low chuckle escaped Roy's lips. It grew into a full-throated, unrestrained laugh that echoed through the silent, misty mountains.
"Excellent!"
The sound startled a flock of birds from the trees. One particularly clumsy snow owl, in its panic, flew straight into a branch and knocked itself out cold.