Chapter 129: Second Form
"Sound Breathing at Level 3, and your Thunder Breathing is quite polished. I'll
give you that."
Natsuya offered a shallow nod of acknowledgment. Then, for the first time in the
fight, he manually shifted his internal rhythm.
"You've put in the work, Tengen."
"But the warm-up ends here."
Since the Flashy Lord wanted to see the gap between himself and the
Hashira-tier, Natsuya—as a good friend—was obligated to educate... ahem, mentor
him properly.
Luminary Breathing began to circulate.
With a single inhale, the atmosphere around the boy shifted. It was as if he had
draped the night sky over his shoulders like a cloak. In Uzui's vision, a pool
of ink-black void began to bleed into the air around Natsuya. Deep blues and
pitch blacks swirled together, with faint, distant starlight flowing silently
within the aura.
Natsuya didn't use a named form. He simply stepped forward and threw a punch.
But in Uzui Tengen's perception, the pressure spiked ten-fold!
The boy's speed, power, and the sheer "Intent" behind every move had ascended to
a higher dimension. Uzui swung his twin blades frantically, trying to use the
high-frequency combos of Sound or the explosive bursts of Thunder to break
Natsuya's momentum.
He pushed his Total Concentration to the absolute limit.
And yet, he felt like he was trying to stop a moving mountain of reinforced
steel. Every impact numbed his arms, sending cracks through his "Perfect
Defense" rhythm.
"Are you kidding me—?!"
Sweat poured down Uzui's face, his mind racing. Natsuya... he wasn't being
serious until now? He was fighting me with just his base physical stats without
even using a Breathing Style?!
Sabito, watching from the riverbank, felt his pupils shrink. He had cooperated
with various Slayers and seen all the basic styles. He knew the traits of the
Big Five.
But Natsuya's current rhythm?
It wasn't Wind. It wasn't Thunder. It wasn't anything in the Corps' archives. It
felt like "Liquid Light"—a shimmering, celestial void.
So this is what Natsuya-aniki meant... walking his own path and creating his own
Breath.
Sabito's dynamic vision, which he took great pride in, struggled to track the
two blurs of light clashing in the center of the river. He could only see that
Uzui was being systematically dismantled.
BOOM!
Natsuya launched a simple, honest straight lunge. His steel-encased fist smashed
through Uzui's crossed-blade guard, followed by a side-kick that buried itself
into the ninja's abdomen.
Uzui let out a muffled grunt. His body arched like a shrimp as he was blasted
backward, skipping across the surface of the moonlit river like a flat stone
before sinking.
Natsuya reset his stance, his breathing perfectly steady. "Ready to log out?"
"Cough—not a chance!"
Uzui braced himself against the riverbed stones, stumbling back to his feet. His
guts were churning, and his breathing rhythm was temporarily glitched.
This doesn't make sense... Uzui thought. Kokonoe is leaner than me, shorter than
me... where the hell is he hiding that much kinetic energy?
If he were being suppressed by god-tier technique or speed, he wouldn't be
surprised. But that last hit? That was just pure, unreasonable, raw Power.
Is this kid one of those 'Muscle Density Monsters' from the legends? Like a 50x
multiplier build?
The ninja shook the thought away. Power doesn't matter if you can't hit me.
He had one last secret technique ready.
A burning light ignited in Uzui's eyes. He wiped the river water from his face
and grinned. "Natsuya... I've finally mapped your 旋律 (Melody)!"
Natsuya raised an eyebrow. "Melody?"
The next second, Uzui attacked again.
But this time, Natsuya felt a change. Uzui's evasion and parries became
predictive. He was micro-adjusting his position before Natsuya even committed to
a strike. He was neutralizing Natsuya's offense with significantly less effort
and better stamina efficiency.
He even had the spare frames to launch sharp counter-strikes, targeting the
exact moments when Natsuya's momentum was in its "Recovery Phase."
"Oh?" Natsuya mused.
In his HUD, he saw Uzui's [Tech] stat slowly ticking upward with a temporary
"In-Combat Buff." It wasn't a standard Total Concentration burst.
It feels like Aizen's 'Sen-no-Sen'... but different.
No, it's not an advance prediction based on kinetic logic. It's...
Back-patterning?
It was as if Uzui had memorized Natsuya's "Command List." The moment Natsuya
showed the first frame of a starting move, Uzui would "Guess" the entire combo
and react accordingly.
"Tengen, this move... it's pretty interesting."
After having two more strikes "safely" parried, Natsuya asked, "This isn't a
standard Thunder Breathing form, is it?"
Seeing that he had finally flipped the script, the ninja roared with laughter.
"This is Lord Uzui's unique ultimate! 譜面 (Musical Score)!"
"As long as I have this 'Score' active, even you, Natsuya, can be beaten!"
I see, Natsuya thought. The 'Musical Score' mechanic.
Uzui was translating his opponent's combat habits and tempo into a "Rhythm/Beat"
that he could analyze and memorize. He was basically playing a Rhythm Game to
compensate for his lack of reaction speed. By "Back-patterning" the fight, he
could attack during the rests in the melody.
This Flashy Brother is a high-level OSU player at heart, Natsuya smirked.
The mechanic was a pain, but the counter-play was obvious to a Pro. The ability
had a glaring flaw: it could only predict known, repetitive melodies.
The same move won't work on a Saint... er, a Rhythm Gamer twice.
But what if every move was a brand-new composition? The "Musical Score" would
just be a wall of static.
I haven't even used a single Luminary Form yet, Natsuya realized. How can you
score a masterpiece you've never heard?
Natsuya hesitated for a second. He considered drawing his "Western Nichirin
Blade"—the Colt M1903—to show him what ** American Breathing** felt like. But
seeing Uzui's total commitment and his "Final Stand" eyes, Natsuya felt a rare
twinge of "Gamer Respect." He decided to use a real sword form.
"A Musical Score, huh? Not bad."
Natsuya shifted his grip on Uni-Maru, holding it with both hands. He raised the
blade horizontally over his shoulder.
His breathing rhythm underwent a transformation.
The starry sky was slowly consumed by a brilliant silver radiance, turning the
deep void of the night into something crystal clear and ethereal.
His sword movement became circular and fluid. He wasn't swinging a blade; it
looked as if he were using the edge as a brush to paint a lonely, solitary moon
upon the surface of an infinite ocean.
It was a continuous, tidal-like series of curved slashes.
Blade-light like the tide. Moonlight as its shadow.
"Well then, Tengen... try and score this melody."
[Luminary Breathing]
In that instant, Uzui and Sabito felt as if they were standing at the edge of
the world, watching a pristine moon rise from the heart of a gargantuan tide.
The endless waves crashed against the moon, shattering the light into a billion
shimmering fragments.
Each fragment was a razor-sharp blade of light.
"Second Form: Lunar Monday — RISING WITH THE TIDE!"
Uzui's pupils shrank!
His [Musical Score] and his shinobi instincts were screaming "Danger" in a
cacophony of alarms. But the feedback he got wasn't a predictable sequence; it
was a tidal wave of overlapping, chaotic "noise" with no discernible pattern.
He tried to parry, but his twin blades were swallowed by the ocean of slashes.
Every bit of technique and prediction was deleted by the seamless,
all-encompassing moonlight.
BOOM!
Uzui was sent flying again.
This time, his dual cleavers nearly spun out of his hands as he crashed onto the
riverbank, landing flat on his back. The "Flashy" composure was gone, replaced
by pure awe and a blank, dazed expression.
That swordplay... it's like the moon itself...
So refined. So perfect.
So it wasn't just raw Strength after all.
He stared up at the moon in the sky, then at Natsuya standing on the bank,
sheathing his sword with a click. Uzui finally bared his teeth and let out a
soft, wheezing laugh.
"Cough... haha... damn... Lord Uzui has no complaints about losing that one..."
☆☆☆
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