{{Eternal flames, a love that never ends}}

~ Chapter 4 ~

After a while of asking their search for a slayer who wanted a Tsugoku lead them to Sanemi Shinazugawa, the wind hashira.
"Get rid of that rusty piece of junk and then I'll let you try fight me. I only acknowledge the strong, if you land a single hit on me I'll take you in."

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Sanemi's p.o.v

This boy. There's a fighting spirit inside of him I know it. He may seem calm but there's anger burning up inside him.. I can tell. Rengoku's Tsugoku Kuma smiled at him. They must've brought him here.

"Actually, I'll probably kill you with a real sword. Here," I tossed a wooden sword at him, he caught it. "Get ready." The two followed me inside.
"Who even forged that sword? It's frail it'll break in one hit." This riled him up. I could tell.

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Astrea's p.o.v

The sword forged by my Bestfriend Miyamoto..it isn't bad at all. He's saying this to make me angry so why? Why am I letting it get to me? I missed Miyamoto, that's why.. he forged this sword for me to protect them..and the one time I would've used it.. I wasn't there to save them.

We got to where the battle would be held, Kuma sat on the side to watch. I got into a stance, leaving near to no openings for Sanemi. He was shocked, visibly until he declared the fight had began I saw the muscle contractions and blood flow inside of the hashira as I dodged an attack that came towards me with blinding speed.

I saw Kuma was slightly worried. But tried not to pay to much attention to them on the side and to my opponent in front of me.  After a few minutes the battle escalated with me hitting the hashira's blade upwards and a sound came from my mouth as I breathed. Later this would be known as a form of the sun breathing called "Fake rainbow". The form let me use high-speed twists and rotations to create after images. Then I used "Solar Heat Haze".  This form created a strike that starts with a charge then a horizontal slash seemingly covered in haze seems as if it misses though, it does hit. And I spoke the words that Kuma was ecstatic to hear..
"I win."

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Kuma's p.o.v

He did it! He'd won! This was amazing!
"Astrea!! You did it, you won!!" I smiled at him, jumping from my seat to congratulate.

"I'll take you in then. You've been promising.  We'll see how long you last." I heard Sanemi say as Astrea bowed to me as a thank you.
I saw Sanemi scoffed as he got up, declining Astrea's help. "You got lucky. Training with me won't be a piece of cake." Sanemi tossed Astrea a nicely forged sword, not a nichirin blade but it would do until final selection.

I left then, the first thing I did when I got back was make myself some Udon, I hadn't eaten well in a few days so this was a nice treat for me. I wondered how long it would take to train Astrea, he was skilled and it was quite obvious. Sanemi is a strong hashira..this is going to go well I know it. I smiled to myself as I called Rengoku to the kitchen for some food.

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