Three years later.
The first year, Emiko couldn't hold her breath for more than ten seconds without coughing.
She practiced every morning before dawn and every night after the stars appeared. Mika was patient — impossibly patient — correcting her stance, adjusting her grip, repeating the same instructions until they became muscle memory.
"Inhale like the tide coming in. Hold. Release like water over stone."
Emiko's lungs burned. Her legs ached. Some nights she collapsed onto her futon without eating, too exhausted to lift her chopsticks.
But she never stopped.
---
The second year, her body began to remember what her mind was still learning.
She could move through the forms without thinking — the constant flow, the shifting stance, the strike that followed breath instead of thought. Mika started sparring with her using wooden practice swords.
"Again," Mika would say after knocking Emiko to the ground.
And Emiko would rise. Again. And again.
One afternoon, she landed a hit on Mika's shoulder. Just a tap. Not enough to hurt.
But Mika smiled. "Good."
That night, Emiko sat beneath the same stars where she'd taken her first breath. Her body was sore. Her hands were calloused. But something in her chest felt different — not stronger, exactly. Steadier.
She closed her eyes and breathed.
Not Water Breathing. The other one. The one she never practiced in front of Mika.
Deeper. Slower.
The universe whispered back.
---
The third year, something shifted.
Emiko could feel the difference now — the way Water Breathing flowed around obstacles, adaptable and relentless. Mika had taught her well. But the other breathing style... it didn't flow.
It expanded.
Like she was drawing the stars themselves into her lungs. Like her chest was a quiet room where infinity curled up and rested.
She never mentioned it to Mika. Not out of fear. Not out of shame.
Just... privacy.
Some things are too personal to share. Even with a mother who beheaded a demon's ally to save her daughter.
---
But some nights, lying beneath the stars after training, Emiko felt the weight of that solitude.
Even though Riku was gone. Even though her mother loved her. Even though she had survived.
She wished, just once, that someone else could understand the gift she held in her hands.
A sibling. A guide. A stranger who simply saw her.
No one came.
So Emiko closed her eyes and breathed anyway.
---
"You're ready," Mika said one evening.
They were sitting on the engawa, watching the sunset bleed orange and pink across the sky. Emiko's wooden sword rested beside her. Her hands no longer trembled.
"For what?"
"Final Selection."
Emiko's heart clenched. She'd known this day would come. She'd been training for it for three years. But hearing the words out loud made it real.
"How do you know I'm ready?"
Mika turned to look at her. Really look at her. The way she had that first night in the shrine — seeing not just her daughter, but the person she was becoming.
"Because you stopped asking if you were."
---
That night, Emiko couldn't sleep.
She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, and practiced her breathing. Water first — steady, controlled, familiar.
Then the other one.
The quiet room inside her chest opened its doors. The universe flowed in.
And for the first time, Emiko didn't feel alone.
She felt prepared.