In His Place

Chapter 5

 I can't help but smile when I see my mentor's face, even if he almost made me choke to death. "Hey, Mr. Kushu! How have you been?"

"Same as always," the man says, tightening his ponytail and walking by me and Shinazugawa so he can unlock his cabin door.

"Who's he?" Kushu asks. He doesn't even look at Shinazugawa, but it's apparent who he's speaking of.

"This is Sanemi Shinazugawa. He wants to be a demon slayer," I smile, proudly introducing my newest acquaintance. Shinazugawa nods, looking up at the tall man.

Kushu nods back. "Nice to meet ya, but I ain't training stupid fuckin' kids anymore," he says, opening the door for us.

"Come on, really?!" I say, sounding annoyingly heartbroken. "I thought you were the last Wind Breathing mentor left! It's gonna die out without you!"

"So be it," Kushu huffs, letting out a strong stream of smoke from his nostrils. "Most of my students are horrible anyway. 98% of them died at the final selection." The man looks at me with a glare. "Honestly, I was surprised you didn't die too, Kumeno."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" I yell, sounding like an exasperated child.

"I mean that you were one bruise away from death," Kushu scoffs. "My old ass crow had to come and tell me that 'hey, one of your students is still at the final selection. He's alive and all but can't move for shit. Have fun.'" My mentor ignores my glare as he continues the story, "I was tempted to leave you behind, but realized it was a miracle you survived in the first place. So, I decided to drag you back here." The man lets out a light-hearted scoff as he concludes my embarrassing tale. I can feel the sassy stares from both him and Shinazugawa boring into my soul.

"Okay, I get it! I was weak back then, so what?! You can still train Shinazugawa!" I grumble.

Kushu takes another large inhale of his cigar, letting dark smoke stream from his nostrils. "Y'know what? I'm feeling generous." I begin to get excited as he takes a challenging step closer to me. "IF you can beat me in a sparring match."

My face immediately darkened, "Hah?"

Kushu chuckles at my confused sound, "Oh, come on, Kumeno. You don't think you can beat an old man with a smoking addiction, one eye, and one arm, do ya?" He sneers, trying to make this sound easy for me.

"Okay, but you know it's not that simple. Stop taunting me!" I growl angrily, hating how easily he can get under my skin.

I knew that Kushu had a lot going against him, but he could still beat my ass within seconds. He's told me multiple stories about demons finding his cabin and how easily he could fend them off. I involuntarily gulp while recalling the details of those stories and the cocky tone in which Kushu narrated them to me.

Kushu laughs heartily as he hears my gulp and complaints. "Come on, pussy," he nods, grabbing a training sword from the rack by the door.

I let out a long, exaggerated sigh as I picked up the other training sword. I couldn't get out of this now, not even if I wanted to. Why did my mentor have so much bloodlust towards his students? At least that means he hasn't changed since I last saw him.

I glare back at Shinazugawa, who has been silently watching the whole ordeal. I point two fingers at him. "You owe me," I say simply, slouching dramatically as I walk outside.

Shinazugawa gives me a small shrug as he walks outside to watch the chaos.

——————————-————————————-

Right as I step back outside, a shiver runs through my body. When did it get so cold? The wind flutters my dark, short hair, making me shudder again. I've never been good in the cold, but cold plus an ass-beating is too much.