Chapter 6: Six Years |
Six years slipped by in the blink of an eye.
Makomo spent those years training with tireless diligence, growing into a young woman of sixteen. As for Yeruashi, he chose to "skip" this period of time, so to speak.
Spending years in complete seclusion wasn't the best idea; such a lifestyle would eventually strip away his humanity.
But.
Instead of simply ignoring the passage of time, he returned to the worlds of Bleach and Fairy Tail. He placed them, along with the Demon Slayer world, into a special container he dubbed the World Gourd.
Naturally, Yeruashi's intention was to gather all the worlds he had experienced into one place, but... a certain bald man who was obsessed with supermarket sales was more than capable of shattering the World Gourd. For now, he had to set that grand ambition aside.
It went without saying that the inhabitants of these realms were completely unaware that their entire worlds had been plucked from the boundless universe and tucked away into an independent dimension.
In a green meadow within that same familiar gorge, Makomo stood alone.
The years had transformed her from a child into a beautiful young woman, though she retained a certain delicate grace. She stood just over five feet tall, and her slender frame made her look deceptively fragile.
The steel column was just as worn as her sword, covered in countless dents and scars from a relentless barrage of strikes.
"I can do it!" Makomo declared, her determined gaze fixed on the pillar. She tightened her fingers around the wooden hilt.
Her large eyes shimmered with absolute focus and resolve.
This was yet another test from her teacher.
Yeruashi had left her a supply of food and vanished nearly six years ago, once she had mastered the fundamentals of kenjutsu.
Since then, he had only appeared in the gorge sporadically. He had presented her with this steel pillar about six months ago.
According to the terms of the trial, she was required to slice through the steel with nothing but her wooden sword. Only then would her solitary training end, and she would be allowed to leave the gorge.
In the beginning, the isolation hadn't bothered her in the least. But as she grew older, the longing to see the world beyond the cliffs intensified.
She poured every ounce of her spirit into the task, pushing herself harder than ever to pass her teacher's test.
But the challenge was far from simple.
How could a simple piece of wood ever hope to cleave through tempered steel?
Even after half a year of effort, she had yet to succeed, having managed only to leave shallow marks on the metal surface...
She took her stance before the column.
Slowly, she let her eyelids flutter shut.
In her mind's eye, a single scene played out—a memory she had replayed thousands of times over the years.
She remembered her teacher's hands wrapping over hers, guiding her grip on the wooden sword before delivering a perfectly fluid strike.
The edge of the blade had aligned perfectly with the trajectory of the swing, creating a flawless attack without a single tremor or deviation.
If one were to capture that moment with a high-speed camera and magnify it a thousand times, the alignment would still be mathematically perfect.
That absolute synchronization of vectors had compressed the air itself, creating a lethal, long-range shockwave.
'Just one movement...'
'Just one movement...'
'Just one movement!'
Makomo tirelessly visualized the strike, replaying the motion over and over until it was etched into her very soul.
Finally.
She snapped her eyes open.
Her gaze was crystal clear and vacant of stray emotion, as still as the surface of a mountain lake.
Then.
Whoosh!
She drew the blade back slowly before bringing it down in a violent blur.
This time, Makomo succeeded in compressing the air with the wooden edge, almost perfectly replicating Yeruashi's demonstration. But instead of flying forward as a projectile, the compressed air clung to the wooden blade, augmenting the strike as it slammed into the steel.
Crack!
The sound of splintering wood filled the air.
But it was immediately followed by the sharp, resonant ring of steel being sliced.
The wooden sword snapped in two, but the broken edge bit deep into the steel pillar, nearly shearing it apart. Only a sliver of metal on the opposite side held the two pieces together.
"I did it!" Makomo cried out, her joy momentarily eclipsed by disbelief. She blinked, her voice dropping to a hesitant whisper. "I... I really did it?"
The steel pillar was almost cut in half—but that was the point. It was almost.
Before she could even think of a follow-up, the steel groaned under its own weight. The top half tilted slowly before sliding off the jagged cut and crashing into the grass.
"Yes! Yes! I did it!" Her hesitant whisper exploded back into a triumphant shout as she threw her arms toward the sky.
Makomo danced around the severed pillar in a fit of pure elation. Only when her excitement began to ebb did she look down at the shattered remains of her sword and the fallen steel.
Joy was slowly replaced by a profound sense of shock.
Heavens...
She had actually cut through steel with a wooden sword.
To think of how fragile wood was compared to steel. What kind of sheer power was required to achieve such a feat? And now, that power belonged to her.
And then...
"Congratulations," Yeruashi's voice drifted from behind her.
Makomo jumped, startled by the sudden intrusion, but she spun around with a radiant smile. "Teacher!"
"You've done well. You have officially taken your first true step onto the path of swordsmanship. Keep practicing, or perhaps take a walk if you've grown bored of this place..." Yeruashi said softly, a faint smile playing on his lips as he watched her celebrate.
Girls her age were typically restless and full of life. With her newfound strength came a surge of confidence, so it was only natural that she would want to see the world beyond the gorge.
"Thank you, Teacher! Thank you for your guidance!" the girl said, bowing deeply while holding the broken hilt of her sword level with her head.
Yeruashi smiled, stepped forward, and took the broken weapon, examining it with a casual air.
Makomo straightened up and stood at attention, waiting for him to speak.
After a moment, he spun the wooden hilt in his palm and said, "From this day forward, there are few people in this entire world who can claim to be stronger than you."
Makomo shuddered at his words.
'Only a handful? Am I really that strong?'
It was hardly surprising that a girl who had spent six years training in total isolation had no benchmark for her own abilities. She was genuinely stunned that her teacher considered her powerful.
"You are strong, have no doubt about that," Yeruashi said, his smile turning thin and serious. "But do not let arrogance take root. You are still very, very far from the true peak of the sword."
With those words...
He delivered a casual, backhanded swing with the broken wooden hilt.
The wind died.
All sound vanished.
It felt as if the entire world had been frozen in time.
Makomo squinted, her head turning slowly as she followed the direction of the strike. Her clear eyes nearly bulged out of her head in sheer terror.
There!
The familiar landscape had been rewritten. It looked like a canvas where an artist had dragged a massive brush soaked in black ink through the center. A bottomless, pitch-black abyss had split the earth in two, stretching all the way to the horizon!
"This is..." Makomo's voice failed her.
After his praise, she had secretly wondered if she was finally beginning to understand the essence of his art.
She had wondered if she was finally closing the gap between them.
After all, she had cut steel with wood!
But now... she realized she was nothing more than a frog that had hopped out of a well for a single second, only to be blinded by the vast, incomprehensible scale of the world.
A heavy silence hung over the gorge.
By the time Makomo finally gathered her wits and recovered from the shock, Yeruashi was long gone. Only the dark, silent canyon carving its way toward the horizon remained, a terrifying proof that what she had seen was real.