"I'm so sorry about the short notice, Kanzaki-chan," he apologized again, grabbing the bags she handed him as she packed up her gear with ruthless efficiency. She wasted no time in entrusting the cooking to Kocho-san's young helpers, following him without hesitation at the sight of his grave face.
"No need to apologize, Murata-san. I told you to pick me up if you needed and had no other choice," she replied distractedly, scanning the medicine cabinet for the tinctures she had prepared a few days earlier, pocketing a few bottles. From what Murata had told her, the people of the Water Domain actually didn't seem to have any choice but to call on her.
"Are you sure it's not going to be a problem for you with your Hashira ? I know how much you care about your place here...If it endangers you in any way, we can find something else."
Aoi paused for a moment, her lips pursed. On the one hand, she understood Murata's concern for her, but on the other hand...
"I have the deepest respect for Kocho-san and her work," she began in a deliberately slow voice, organizing her last bag. "And I will be eternally grateful for her help and the place she has given me within her Mansion and her pack."
Raising her head, she looked Murata in the eyes. And she had terribly blue eyes, Kanzaki Aoi. Frank and true eyes, which hid behind them a young woman as strong as she was fragile. Though years had passed since they first met, Murata remembered the first look they had exchanged.
She had grown up a lot since then.
"But Kocho-san, just like the rest of the Corps, surely knows. Water Breathing users..."
"...stick together," he finished for her with a slight smile.
When Yosuke was still just a young boy with hands still stained with the blood of a family he couldn't save, his Cultivator took him for a walk, the day before his departure to go to the Final Selection. Once at the top of the mountain at the foot of which he had trained Yosuke for three long, grueling years, he had sat him down for a cup of tea and a discussion that, almost a decade later, still lingered in his memory.
"Water Breathing is often underestimated among our peers. It is the style considered the easiest to learn, which among the five major styles makes it the most common. Our style is not nearly as powerful as Flames, destructive as Wind, efficient as Stone, expeditious as Thunder."
He had fallen silent and for a moment he had seemed to Murata so much older than his age.
"But there is one thing you must understand, Yosuke : our strength, to us, Water Breathing users, lies in our adaptability. We are the best team players, the ones able to sneak into all positions, to cover all blind spots. We are buffers, blending beautifully with the other Breathing styles."
"A single drop of water doesn't do much, but it doesn't take much for a drop to become a stream, a stream to become a river, and a river to become an ocean," he found himself muttering distractedly, as Kanzaki wrote a note to her Alpha, in neat calligraphy despite her haste.
When it came to teamwork within the Demon Slayer Corps, of course secondary dynamics came into play. The most common build was that of a basic pack, with a lead Alpha followed by Betas and Omegas. In rare cases, the leader happened to be an Omega, or a Beta, but this mostly happened for reasons of rank rather than dynamics.
But on closer inspection... Well, most of these leaders were Water Breathing Style users.
However, the position of Water Breathing users within the Corps had been quite ambivalent for a few years now. It had started when Urokodaki-san had retired, leaving his place to his chosen successor, Tomioka Giyuu, and it had only deepened when a new generation of Hashira had begun to replace the old one.
