The Breathing Styles.
They are the primary techniques that demon slayers use in their fight against the progenitor of demons, Muzan Kibutsuji.
Originally, there was only one breathing: the Sun Breathing.
The creator of this style was named Yoriichi Tsugikuni, but he was never able to pass it on to others.
Was it out of distrust toward his loved ones? Or simply fear that others might abuse this power? No. Yoriichi was a man too gentle and too confident in his own strength to fear those two options.
The reason was both funny and sad.
No one was capable of breathing like him, nor of wielding their blade with the same skill.
This is how the other breathing styles were born.
A degeneration of the original style.
The techniques taught by Yoriichi are: the Flame, Water, Wind, Stone, and Thunder styles.
They are also "considered" the most powerful and were named the fundamental styles.
Even though they were created due to the weakness of ordinary mortals and their lack of talent, these five styles remain formidable.
In every generation, there has always been a Hashira from one of these five fundamental styles.
Ogai Rin is the Thunder Hashira of this generation.
"H-how, a woman…" Akaza didn't have time to finish his sentence before another punch came dangerously close to his jaw.
The air vibrated with the sound of thunder, accompanied by the shockwave that Rin's fist provoked.
The ground wasn't spared either. A small crevasse formed under the impact, a consequence of the force exerted by Rin's legs during the execution of her technique.
All the elemental manifestations produced by the breathing styles are in reality nothing more than visual illusions… with one exception.
The Thunder style.
Users of Thunder Breathing imitate lightning with such precision that they make the air vibrate when they prepare to employ a technique, producing sounds of deafening intensity.
This detail alone is enough to evoke thunder every time they spring into action.
At that moment, Mugen sketched a relieved smile upon seeing Akaza being hurled back once again.
'Rin is certainly the fastest woman this earth has ever known,' he thought to himself.
Fortunately for Mugen, the ice demon wasn't there to read his thoughts. Otherwise, he wouldn't have hesitated to smack him on the head with his fan.
The young delinquent had just done what every reader dreads in a story.
He had just raised a flag.
"Haha… I see. You're a warrior before you're a woman. At the very least, I can't consider such a brute as a creature to cherish or protect," declared Akaza as he emerged from the rubble.
His jaw regenerated before their eyes, and the damage caused by the impact against the monastery walls vanished almost instantly.
The regeneration speed of an Upper Moon was a terrifying phenomenon, which neither Rin nor Mugen had yet had the opportunity to observe fully.
Rin doesn't know Doma's true nature, but Mugen does.
He has never seen Doma bleed, except during demonstrations related to his training. Those wounds were deliberate and relatively light.
Thus, Akaza's regeneration speed surprised him somewhat.
"Who're you calling a brute?" replied Rin, furrowing her delicate eyebrows while cracking the knuckles of her hands.
The woman's golden eyes left no doubt about her intentions: she wanted to reduce Akaza to crumbs.
But the demon welcomed this rage with a wide smile.
"You should feel proud rather than upset, since I acknowledge your strength," he said, resuming his combat stance.
"Even though I respect women, I despise weakness and the weak. It would really be a shame if I had to kill you here, since you combine two things I appreciate," Akaza expressed in an honest tone.
"I know! Why not become a demon? That way, I wouldn't have to choose between my principles and my master's orders," he proposed after a small flex.
However, Akaza activated his Blood Demon Art barely after finishing his words.
Why? Rin had attacked him again in the middle of the conversation.
"Tss… missed—" In turn, Rin didn't finish her train of thought.
Akaza launched a punch coated in his shockwave power, but Rin deflected it with a fluid motion of her forearm and grabbed the top of the demon's clothing.
Akaza fell victim to a perfectly executed judo throw (ippon).
A dull thud echoed through the monastery, while the ground cracked under the impact of the demon's back.
Rin wanted to immediately follow up with a rain of punches on Akaza's face, but she had underestimated her opponent's regeneration and reaction speed.
Akaza tilted his head to dodge the first blow, as if the impact on his back had left him unfazed.
Yet Rin could have sworn she heard his spine crack under the impact against the ground.
After this dodge, the demon's counterattack came immediately.
A kick covered in a blue glow was launched toward Rin, while her eyes were wide from the failure of her attack chain.
"*Cough*… shit!" She had blocked the blow, but her forearm had suffered.
'If I didn't have my forearm guards…' she thought before interrupting her line of thinking.
The result was clear and predictable: Akaza could have broken her arm with one hit, or worse.
"You're damn tough for a woman!!" The demon immediately chained attacks, but Rin decided not to back down.
That wasn't her style.
"Blood Demon Art: Disorder!"
(Image)
"Thunder Breathing Style — Fourth Form: Distant Thunder!"
Unlike Kaigaku in the future, Rin didn't rush toward her opponent with a barrage of sword strikes.
She used her attacks armed with her slashing knuckle-dusters, successively striking her opponent's assaults.
(Image)
As for Akaza, he unleashed a rain of shockwaves toward the monster disguised as a woman.
"How long, huh? Your pathetic human body can't hold out unlike your will! Come on, Rin-san, accept and become a demon!" he launched, while the outbursts from the two fighters destroyed their surroundings and put their bodies through hell.
No, Akaza's body recovered almost instantly with each impact inflicted by the Nichirin knuckle-dusters.
However, the situation was different for his opponent.
Rin's mortality was becoming evident.
Even though her fighting style was bold and she excelled in controlling the explosiveness of her breathing style, she remained human.
The abnormal strength of Doma's descendants had been weakened after several marriages with humans. That's why Doma's descendants were no longer as exceptionally powerful as the first generation of Ogai Mori.
They retained the curse of Muzan's human descendants, but lost part of their superhuman aspect.
Yet Rin didn't lower her arms despite her body battered by Akaza's attacks.
On the contrary, her will raged even more, as if offended by the demon's words.
Akaza didn't know it, but he had triggered the divine complex of a woman who had stayed at the top of her generation for too long.
"Who decided that my body is my limit? Who decided that a woman couldn't be the strongest in the Ogai clan? Who decided that I'd lose in an endurance contest against a demon?" Rin's voice showed no sign of exhaustion or suffering despite the internal damage caused by Akaza's shockwaves.
She even sketched a smile at her opponent.
"No one! Damn it, who the hell do you take me for!!!" Immediately, the combative aura perceived by Akaza rose like lightning in a stormy sky of despair.
Mugen was about to set an ambush on Akaza, but noticed that Rin's words weren't addressed only to the demon.
She was talking to him too.
Ogai Rin had never asked for anyone's help in her life and needed no one.
If she encountered an obstacle? She'd simply destroy it. If it couldn't be destroyed by force? She'd outsmart it. What? Outsmarting wasn't her strong suit? Then Rin would give everything.
That's why she wasn't afraid, and this mindset prevented her from meeting the requirements to unlock her demon slayer mark.
For a human body to reach the demon slayer mark, it must be aware of possible death.
Only then can it achieve a heart rate above 200 bpm and a body temperature above 39° Celsius.
Rin's problem was that she had never considered death or defeat during this fight, nor in any other.
She judged herself too strong for that.
Defeat and fear didn't exist in her dictionary.
This indomitable will caused several waves in Akaza's heart, for the demon could perceive not only Rin's fighting spirit, but also something else:
A feminine and unknown silhouette, overlapping with Rin's.
A woman weaker than him, but emanating extraordinary strength and observing him with gentle eyes.
"It's like at the festival… h… her name is…" Akaza was distracted, as he recalled a distant memory.
The demon's emotions were chaotic, as if he blamed himself for something he couldn't clearly remember.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the time to doubt or rethink the past.
Rin attacked!
"Thunder Breathing Style — Seventh Form: Thunder Beast Winged Thunder!"
The speed of her attack was such that the friction burned the ground and damaged the top of her clothing.
Due to her extreme concentration during her attack, Rin didn't notice the damage to her clothes.
"I've got you, huh?!" The moment Rin's fist was about to hit Akaza, she struck Doma's head full force!
From everyone's point of view, Doma's smiling head surged out of nowhere in the space.
"D-did I kill Onii-san?" she muttered, but a strange vision revealed itself to Akaza and Rin after the dust from the impact's fallout settled.
"Not bad, but Heracles hits harder."
***
Author's Note:
Would Akaza have won without Doma? The answer is yes and no.
He could potentially have won, since he could have withstood his head bursting from Rin's blow and regenerated.
But Mugen would have intervened and stalled (waiting for sunrise), so Mugen couldn't have obeyed Rin's wishes (which would have created a 2 vs 1).
The woman would have taken that very badly.
Bonus info: Akaza was serious toward the end of the fight. He really wanted to recruit Rin and not kill her (he was also fighting her with all his abilities, unlike his fight against Mugen).