HITOSHIREZU ¦ m. tokito

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        start!
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⌈     ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Яд / yad

      1:35 ───ㅇ───── 3:47
             ⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻
      volυмe : ▁▂▃▄▅▆▇▉                     ⌋

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   ➸ AS YOU WERE A NEW slayer who recently passed the final selection, the sudden announcement of the hashiras training the corps was a shocker.

   "you kidding me right now?" said your older brother, sanemi shinazugawa. you sat on a comfortable bench as he trained those who had already passed tengen, muichiro, mitsuri, and obanai. "come on! you all can last longer than that!" the wood on his sword was slowly starting to chip, so he changed techniques.

   how did they even get past the others' training with this level of skill? you thought, shaking your head in disapproval. your katana was on the bench, and you stood up. "sanemi, i think i gotta head to the training now."

   "oh, right," he said, pausing for a moment. his eyes instantly softened, if that were possible for a man who was ruthlessly training slayers. "good luck."

   "have fun with the trainees!" you exclaimed, running off to another spot in the butterfly estate. you were met with dozens of shirtless mizunotos. blood rushed to your cheeks slightly. i was not informed of this!

   "hey, new kid!" tengen yelled, gesturing for you to come over. "you gotta take your haori off. it's gonna be hot."

   with a nod, you pulled off your [favorite color] haori with [second favorite color] star patterns on it. "your uniform shirt, too."

what?

"but i'm just wearing..."

"do you want to collapse from heat stroke?"

   he has a point. with hesitation, you removed your uniform, revealing a thick layer of bandages. you stepped out to the field. funnily enough, tengen would wack the slayers with a stick if they didn't atone to the rules. you started running.

   a few slayers gawked at you as you ran ahead of them, and you waved to a familiar boar-masked boy. "[name]!" he yelled. "wanna race?"

   "you're on!" you yelled back, and you two sped across the field with determination. you could feel your stamina slowly draining. beads of sweat ran down your face. you finished right after inosuke passed through the finish line. "you're kidding me right now."

"yeah! i won, [name]! i won!" said the boar-head, nearly tackling you.

"get off me!"

just then, uzui announced lunch break.

"if you don't finish all the food, we'll be doing extra drills."

it's safe to say that the threat worked on everyone.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

   "up that... mountain?" you whispered to yourself in horror. who thought this a good idea? would you even have enough stamina to keep on going?

   you stretched before starting momentarily. as long as i keep a steady pace... i think i should be fine. kicking your legs off the start, you did a light jog. you glanced around for any shortcuts.

   "the trick to having good stamina is always knowing your endpoint and full capability. going past the limit is never good unless you find a shortcut," said a nineteen-year-old sanemi.