Demon Slayer : The Silent Journey

Chapter 23: Thunder Breathing

[Seiji's POV]

Thunder Breathing was fast.

Fighting was like a conversation, where me and my opponent exchanged words in the language of the body.

With my eyes, I was able to perceive and most of the time, predict the movement/words of my opponents.

Movement has patterns, actions tell the past and the future.

But all of these went down the drain when I went against a Thunder Breather for the first time. I was caught completely off guard due to the sheer speed at which Jigoro moved.

It was like arguing with a rapper.

I could see his future, I could predict him and I know how to reply as well but my body was too slow to react. In the end, I find myself dead every single time.

"You....saw me." Jigoro said from behind me but I did not know because my eyes were fixated on the residual lighting which was the aftermath of his attack.

Eventually, I turned towards him with wide eyes and an open mouth.

"That was way too fast." I said. If he was still that fast now, I could only imagine how much faster he would be in his prime.

It was a humbling experience, to know that there were people other than Muzan who could pose such a great threat to me. I was sure that if he attacked me from behind, my head would roll off with ease

I would have no time to react.

"Stop acting surprised like I was the one who just did an impossible feat!!" Jigoro yelled and point his finger at me.

I tilted my head.

"You, you, your eyes followed me! How is that even possible!!" he said, "That was the first form of Thunder Breathing and it was supposed to be the fastest form."

"I don't understand. If you know that my eyes followed you, it means that you can also see me while moving at such speed right?" I asked.

"No! Everything was over in an instant for me. But I have fought for more than four decades and I have performed the first form of Thunder Breathing thousands of times. The one I executed just now was different, I could feel your eyes on my body. It was a feeling I had never experienced before." he said with sweat falling off his face.

"Yeah, well." I scratched my cheek, "I told you I have very special eyes."

"No, you said you have special eyes which allowed you to read people's lips even though you are deaf. You never told me anything about being able to see someone move at the speed of sound!!" he said.

"This changes a lot of things, no, this changes everything!! hahahahaha!!" he said and started laughing.

Should I be concerned that he was this happy in our first training session?

"Kid, I will turn you into the strongest Thunder Breath user in the history of demon slaying. Hahahahahaha!!"

And so my training began after Jigoro demonstrated Thunder Breathing to me.

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(Two weeks later)

Perfect movement. It was the ability I gained after many years of constant training. It allows me to move my body perfectly, engaging only the necessary muscle group in my movement to conserve energy. Couples with motor skills so incredible that each move I made was with extreme precision.

This skill allows me to change my movement midway like someone changing the meaning of a sentence even after already saying the first words of the sentence.

Even though I had no superhuman stregth like Gyomei or Mitsuri, I was able to accomplish feats of stregth equal to them by having perfect control of my body and the force it generated.

But Thunder Breathing was kind of opposite to that.

'You have to use every fibre of muscle in your leg to explode out in an instant. Utilize all your strength in one moment.' that was the concept Jigoro gave me.

To be completely honest, that was a stupid way to fight. It was also the major downside of Thunder Breathing.

I could not stress enough how much injury that could cause. Even if you were not injured, your body would fatigue extremely quickly and you will find yourself unable to fight for long.

In a battle of attrition, Thunder Breathing was the worst while Water Breathing was the best. That's what Jigoro told me.

Honestly, the more I learned about Water Breathing, the more I wondered if I should've started out with Water Breathing. It seemed to match my style perfeclty.

Instead, I seem to start from Breathing Styles completely opposite to my nature. Fire Breathing and Thunder Breathing.

It was fine though. They were both powerful breathing styles and my goal was to learn all of the five major breathing styles anyway so we will get to Water Breathing soon.

I would learn all of the five major breathing styles and finally create my own, taking the best out of every style and creating the ultimate Breathing Technique. That was the end goal.

And I will ruin Muzan Kibutsuji's whole career with said style.

Anyways, we are straying from the topic.

Thunder Breathing, although a direct contrast to my style of fighting proved to be not so difficult to learn. It took me two times longer than learning Flame Breathing but in the end, I think I was able to at least get the hang of all six forms.

Learning the unique pattern of Thunder Breathing was not difficult with my eyes. I basically did the same thing I did with Rengoku, I copied the breathing patterns of Master Jigoro.

The only thing I struggled with was the concept of Thunder Breathing itself which contradicted my style of fighting.

"Get ready." Jigoro said and I nodded.

I crouched down and lowered my centre of gravity as much as I could. I folded the muscles on my legs and tensed them, ready to explode out like a spring.

My head was tucked under to avoid air resistance as I took a deep breath. Blue lighting came alive around me and the air vibrated from the strength coursing through my legs.

"Thunder Breathing : First Form."

"Thunderclap and Flash."

It took me quite some time but I finally understood the concept.

Thunder Breathing itself was based on the principle of 'Impulse'. The first form of Thunder Breathing was the best example of it.

Impulse refers to the impact force exerted upon a surface in a specific amount of time. The lower the amount of time needed to deliver the force, the higher is the impact.

Now imagine you push someone with 100 newtons of force slowly over a large period of time, they will probably not feel much. But if you push them with the same force within a millisecond, they will fall and you will likely break thier ribs.

In the same manner, with Thunder Breathing, you apply all of the force your leg can generate on the ground in a short amount of time. This allows you to explode out at incredible speed over a short distance.

The keyword being a short distance, around ten meters. If you want to go further, you will have to execute the technique more than once which Zenitsu did in the series.

Anyway, I pushed myself off the ground with all of the strength my leg could produce in the span of one fickle moment. I engaged every fibre of my muscles and perfect movement allowed me to accomplish such feat.

Then I blitz towards the stick Jigoro held on top of his head. The sound of my leg pushing me off the ground rumbled like thunder. In an instant, I cut the stick in half and appeared right behind him.

I released steam for breath while I slowly sheathed the sword on the side of my waist.

"Incredible," Jigoro whispers in awe.

The first form of Thudner Breathing was the most important form. It encapsulates the very principle of Thunder Breathing so if you master the first form, you master the rest of the forms.

The power behind the rest of the forms also depend on how well you mastered the first form.

"I am happy to hear that." I said with a twitching face because my legs felt like buckling and falling on the ground. They were fatigued beyond belief.

And it was not just because of one attack either, I have been in constant training for over two weeks.

"You mastered it." Jigoro said while looking at the bisected stick in his hand. Then he turned to look at me.

"You mastered Thunder Breathing in two weeks. That is an incredible feat which I don't think I will ever see again in my life," he said but ultimately, a smile crept up to his face.

"I am glad to have witnessed it." He said and looked at the rising sun in the distance.

"I think if anyone is going to end this war and kill the Demon King, it will be you Seiji." he said.

"I am truly glad to have been a part of it." he said as tears pooled in his eyes.

I gave him a bow.

"Thank you for all your teachings, master." I said with sincerity. I could not hear my own voice but I hoped my voice reflected my feeling.

"I have nothing more to teach you. From here on out, it is entirely up to you on how you will advance your skills." he said.

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"Goodbye young man, I guess this is where we part." Jigoro said with his back facing me as he walked away.

The sun was slowly climbing towards the peak of the sky. He waved his hand as goodbye.

"Thank you for all you have done for me!! I hope we meet again gramps!!" I yelled out which was very out of character but I had to because he was walking further and further away from me.

"Hahahaha, no. Thank you Seiji!!" he said and turned to face me again.

The smile on his face matched the brightness of the sun above him. I could not point it out but his smile was so much more brighter than when we first met.

"Thank you for giving this old man hope again!!" he said and started laughing.

I got lost in thought.

..

I see. So that's what it was.

His smile had hope in them now.

He never truly believed that the war between demons and humans would end soon but after seeing my talents and training me for two weeks, that outlook has changed.

Now he had genuine hope that it would be over soon. He believed that I would be the one to finally put an end to the demons.

I inspired such hope in him.

I felt my breath hitched while looking at his disappearing figure.

Hope was such a powerful thing. It was hope that made me persist through the difficult times in my life. When I lost all of my family, my hearing and when I was in a completely different world, hope was the only thing that drove me towards tomorrow.

Hope that things will be better. Hope that i will find a family or love again.

I hoped I would be happy again tomorrow, just as I was yesterday.

That's why everyone keeps fighting every day, isn't it?

Hope.

I will create a better future for this world with my blade.

I swear.

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