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knock, knock.
kazemi awoke in a sweat, eyes darting around the room.
"..."
tanned hands clenched the silk material of the futon tightly, sweat dripping down her face like rain. her breathing remained erratic.
it took a while to zone in. she looked around the room, slowly realizing where she was. thin fingers slowly loosened their grip on the silk, before letting go entirely. after another minute or two of gathering herself, the kinoe slowly stood up.
knock, knock.
someone was outside the door. with every second, she regained composure, until her expression was neutral. the maroon-haired girl advanced to the sliding door, before opening it, peaking her head out.
chikafuji.
"kazemi, your sword's done! i also repolished the hilt!" the swordsmith walked in, quickly running to hug her. strong arms wrapped around her figure, squeezing her tight. a classic greeting of the swordsmith.
chikafuji set the katana down on a nearby table, then began to ramble, still crushing his self-proclaimed daughter.
"y'know, the ore for your sword is pretty hard to find! that variant of crimson iron sand is only found in one submerged cave near nagasaki. you're the only one with it! there was another slayer, but... y'know."
chikafuji's babbling slowly gets tuned out. after a while of him talking about his friends, his son, and the process of polishing, he finally leaves. kazemi stares at the patterned floors for a while.
she's perfectly healthy, but she feels oddly ill. her throat feels like it's bubbling with acid to the brim, and she feels cold. unbelievably cold, even though her temporary room is practically in front of the hot springs. maybe she should tell shinobu. maybe she should return to the butterfly estate.
"..."
with a quiet exhale, she decides that she'll stay in this village for a few more weeks. she needs to be stronger, if she wants to ever amount to something.
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the first week was agility. if she wanted to be better, she had to work on agility. her agility was mostly untrained. being light meant that it came naturally, but that wasn't enough. she had to move like water, smooth and without any halt. dormant, yet awake all the same. somewhat like shinobu.
agility training included parkour. the thick conifers and verdure surrounding the village were perfect. she trained quite well for the first week, and once it was the last day, she felt much more confident in delivering faster attacks. walking lighter was a great habit.
the second week was strength. building strength didn't exactly mean muscle, because her body didn't hold muscle too well, and using her breathing style to the best extent also meant remaining lightweight. she just needed fundamentals, such as core strength and grip strength. she found her hands slipping from the katana sometimes, which wasn't a good habit.
total concentration breathing naturally built your core. kazemi had mastered that already. she just needed to build her core with certain exercises on the side. as for grip strength, she helped chikafuji for a week in mending swords. chikafuji was ecstatic.
by the end of that week, she had minor burns on her hands, but after briefly leaving the village for a mission, she found that her hands handled the blade much better, and releasing attacks now had much less of a cooldown. it was perfect.
her last week there, the third week, was unique. she was going to create a seventh breathing form of sea breathing. this week was the hardest. creating a new and equally potent attack was difficult to visualize. it took all the training of the past weeks combined to execute it.
from swinging her sword underwater, to chopping up dozens of dummies in various ways, she'd finally reached the last step. to test in on a demon. and now it was time.
she finally felt it. the presence of a demon behind her. she'd lured it properly. and now, it was creeping closer, unknowing to what it was about to face.
the demon was right behind her, about to swing its scythe hands, before noticing something. the girl was gone.
"huh... food..." the abomination slurred pitifully, looking around stupidly. and then, it looked down, reflexes too slow to do anything aside from staring at the whirling, turquoise blur.
'seventh form,'
'heart of the sea.'
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the first person to notice the maroon tuft of hair approaching the estate was aoi. she stared, scrutinizing the figure for a second, before finally realizing that it really was her. she turned around and ran outside in a fit.
"EVERYONE, KAZEMI!"
the next few minutes could only be described as absolute chaos. aoi hugged her into oblivion, but nearly died when she was crushed in response. since when was kazemi that strong!?
she had to wheeze out a gargled "let go..." for the 14 year old to notice.
once the black haired helper recovered, she immediately started reprimanding kazemi for just running off almost a month ago.
the caterpillar triplets dragged kanao, smiling ear-to-ear. kanao subtly lit up, walking over to kazemi.
"shinobu's gone on a mission! we'll send her a note right now," aoi says, already handing a note to one of the crows.
the rest of the afternoon was interrogation, hugging, and of course-lots and lots of dorayaki with extra red bean paste, just for the special girl.
no one was alert enough to notice the flashy figure entering their vicinity. the day was about to go incredibly downhill.
as kazemi chatted with kanao about swallowtail butterflies, the tsuguko had to leave for a bit to help the caterpillar triplets for something. kazemi remained in the garden, staring quietly at a butterfly that landed on her finger. its feet were oddly ticklish. she learned somewhere that's how they taste different types of flora.
"..."
she should really visit ubuyashiki's koi fish pond again soon. she missed that place.
as she pondered on what to do for the next while, muscular arms suddenly swept her up like a sack of potatoes.
"wha-"
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TELL A FRIEND TO TELL A FRIEND SHES BAAACK
hiiiii i hope i can update this regularly now hegefgeh
i missed this book sm im so happy i can update now. will probably update once or twice a week for the rest of july and august :)
my writing style might've changed a bit, so sorry bout that
