Chapter 146: The Luminary Hashira's Wednesdays
Kozura Yuhito had initially assumed that Natsuya was brushing him off.
He bowed repeatedly, words tumbling out in a panic. "I am so sorry, Lord
Luminary! I spoke out of turn! Your time is far too precious to—wait, what?!"
Wait. What did he just say?
He agreed to teach me?!
Still unable to believe his ears, Yuhito asked tentatively, "Um... Lord
Luminary, you truly mean... you'll instruct me?"
Natsuya glanced at him, repeating himself with casual indifference: "I said yes.
Next Wednesday. Come to the Karakura Pavilion in Sendai."
His tone was as light as if he were scheduling an afternoon tea.
Yuhito stood frozen, a tidal wave of sheer euphoria washing over him.
The new Luminary Hashira... is far more approachable than I ever dared to
imagine!
A few days later.
Approaching his destination with something akin to religious pilgrimage, Kozura
Yuhito stepped into the beating heart of Sendai.
Following the route provided by the Kakushi liaison, he wove through several
quiet backalleys before turning onto a grand avenue.
His footsteps halted on their own.
Rising before him was an estate that had clearly undergone a radical structural
and visual overhaul. It lacked the brooding, heavy dark timbers and sweeping
eaves traditional to samurai manors, nor did it mimic the red-brick spires
favored by wealthy Westernized merchants.
It was... strikingly minimalist. Clean, stark white walls with sharp geometric
lines. Under the morning sun, it carried the austere, pristine atmosphere of a
secluded mountain shrine.
The young Slayer couldn't identify the architectural school; to him, it simply
looked foreign.
Only the massive, gilded wooden plaque hanging beside the front gate offered a
grounding touch of familiarity:
[Special Service Section 9 · Sendai Branch Kendo Dojo]
It really is a dojo.
Taking a deep, grounding breath, Yuhito pushed the heavy gate open.
Then, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Across the sprawling courtyard, over a dozen Demon Slayers were actively
sparring with wooden swords!
Most were mid-tier ranks, ranging from Kanoto to Hinoto, and one was even a
Kinoto (Rank 2) veteran. The air was thick with the scent of pine resin,
stinging sweat, the sharp whistling of wooden blades slicing through wind,
and...
Wait... is that the smell of hot, savory broth?
I'm not the only one receiving instruction?!
Overcome by a sudden wave of humble awe, the boy dropped into a crisp,
ninety-degree bow toward the master of the house.
"Kozura Yuhito, reporting for instruction under Lord Luminary!"
Across the courtyard, Natsuya was clad in his custom Demon Slayer uniform
beneath his pristine white haori. He was currently demonstrating counter-tactics
against a dummy to several gathered Slayers.
"...So against splitting-type anomalies, brute-forcing the clones is a waste of
stamina. You track the biological feedback back to the root node, or you bypass
the guard with a localized shockwave."
Hearing the shout, Natsuya paused and glanced over his shoulder.
"Ah. Sand Fox."
He gestured with a wooden blade. "Head over to the shed on the left and grab
your weighted vest and practice sword. Once this seminar wraps up, jump into the
sparring rotation."
Several nearby Slayers briefly glanced at Yuhito, their eyes scanning him for a
second before snapping straight back to Natsuya. Clearly, they were thoroughly
accustomed to new arrivals joining the fray.
Once his demonstration finished, Natsuya clapped his hands.
"Alright, break off into pairs and drill the kinetic angles I just showed you."
"If you catch a stray hit and start bleeding, line up by the veranda. I'll do a
medical pass in an hour."
"The kitchen is stocked with stamina-recovery meal sets. Take what you need, eat
until your hunger bar is topped off."
He paused, sweeping his eyes over the panting swordsmen, and added:
"And watch your hydration. The tea room on the eastern corridor has cold water
and freshly brewed pour-over coffee."
Every detail was planned with algorithmic precision.
Walking over to Yuhito, Natsuya handed him a small wooden tag engraved with
strange foreign lettering and numbers: [B-017].
"Lord Luminary, this is...?"
"Your party tag. Assigned based on baseline stats, form progression, and
mechanical bottlenecks," Natsuya explained smoothly. "You're in Group B. Primary
focus: foundational conditioning and breathing alignment."
Turning back to the yard, Natsuya projected his voice across the courtyard:
"Anyone without an active deployment order this afternoon, strap on an extra
five kilos and keep grinding!"
"Group A: stamina drills and coordinated raid tactics this afternoon. Standard
rules: either you coordinate your frames and knock me off my feet, or I floor
every single one of you one by one."
"Group B: until Group A's session finishes, execute Routine Three of the
standardized physical set. Later, I'll manually debug your breathing cycles
one-on-one."
"Group C: iron posts."
"Until your wooden sword can project enough focused force to shatter the raw egg
suspended inside the hollow core without cracking the iron shell, you don't move
to the next tier."
Natsuya had split the Slayers into three distinct brackets.
Group A was the "Raid Team"—high Power Levels or veterans with extensive combat
logs. Their curriculum focused on mutual defense, target hand-offs, and building
psychological resistance against "Hashira-tier" pressure, ensuring that if they
ran into a Lower Moon in the field, they wouldn't wipe on the opening frame.
Group B consisted of Slayers with solid potential whose baseline attributes were
lagging or whose Breathing execution had developed bad mechanical habits.
Natsuya used high-intensity sparring and conditioning to push their [Body] and
[Tech] stats while manually patching their breathing nodes.
He had always found it strange: the Cultivators across Japan were undeniably
skilled, yet every year they sent candidates into the field who could barely
maintain a clean breathing cycle.
He wasn't writing custom derivative styles for these guys—that was too much of a
dev load. For the average Slayer, pushing their standard style to Constant was a
hundred times more practical than trying to homebrew an unfinished form.
As for Group C?
Natsuya internally designated them the "Baby Bracket." Slayers whose total stat
allocation was bottom-tier across the board. For them, fancy sword logic was
useless; they just needed to survive the stat-checks through brutal physical
conditioning.
On top of the tiered drills, Natsuya held regular theory lectures, breaking down
the mechanical logic of various Blood Demon Arts and detailing general
counter-strategies for handling supernatural abilities.
"YES, LORD LUMINARY! I WILL GIVE IT EVERYTHING I HAVE!"
Yuhito clutched the wooden tag, nodding with feverish intensity.
He quickly fell in with the rhythm of this bizarre "Training Day."
These sessions were fixed on Wednesdays. Occasionally, a crow would deliver a
notice that Monday or Friday would also host a session.
However, one rule was absolute:
On weekends, the gates of the Karakura Pavilion were bolted shut.
(A pro gamer respects the downtime).
Over the following weeks, Yuhito realized the training intensity was
astronomical. It bordered on sadistic.
Yet what shocked him even more was Natsuya's encyclopedic mastery.
Whether it was standard Water Breathing, the raging strikes of Flame, the
gale-force cuts of Wind, or even the rare, heavy foundations of Stone and
Thunder... the Luminary Hashira understood them all. Every kinetic flaw, every
microscopic hiccup in a lung's expansion was pointed out with pinpoint accuracy.
And balancing that terrifying strictness was a logistical support system that
far exceeded standard Corps provisions.
The "Stamina Recovery Meals" and "Energy Tonics" Natsuya prepared were
mind-boggling. They should have tasted like bitter health sludge, yet anyone who
tasted them agreed: calling them "healthy" felt like an insult to their
exquisite flavor. A stray cat that wandered into the yard and licked a dropped
scrap would probably feel its agility stat jump.
Then there was the medical wing on the side corridor.
Any sprains, concussions, or broken bones sustained during the brutal sparring
were treated by Natsuya himself. The recovery speed defied all known medical
logic.
Every Slayer in the pavilion could feel their Power Level climbing steadily, day
by day.
Just... who is the Luminary Hashira really?
During a break between sets, a Hinoto-rank swordsman from Akita Prefecture sat
beside Yuhito, sipping water.
"It's hell on the muscles, but by the gods, it works!"
"I hear Slayers from Yamagata and Aomori are finding excuses to clear their
schedules just to catch a Wednesday session here..."
The swordsman chuckled. "Lord Kokonoe is an absolute eccentric."
He paused, his smile softening with genuine warmth. "The best kind of eccentric,
though."
Yuhito followed his gaze. In the golden glow of the setting sun, Natsuya was
kneeling in the dirt beside a bruised recruit, carefully securing a splint. The
hem of his pristine white haori trailed in the dust, completely forgotten.
His fingers moved with calm, unbroken precision.
Having spent time under his roof, Yuhito understood what the other Slayer meant
by "eccentric."
Natsuya frequently muttered bizarre phrases under his breath—complaining about
"patch notes," "clearing daily quests," or wondering if "brewing tea counted as
a Life Skill."
Yet he treated everyone with the exact same weight.
Whether you were a veteran Kinoto or a green recruit at the bottom of the
ladder, he offered the exact same surgical corrections, the exact same gourmet
meals, and the exact same unhesitating care when you were bleeding.
He held no arrogance. No divine detachment.
He simply... treated every single person standing in that yard like a human
being worth saving.
Yuhito turned back to the swordsman from Akita, a proud smile gracing his face.
"Yeah."
"He really is... the kind of Senior everyone dreams of following."
[The Luminary Hashira's Wednesdays.]
Like a mountain stream surging after the spring thaw, the legend spread across
the northern provinces, becoming a sacred, grueling training ground that every
Slayer in the North feared, loved, and desperately hungered to reach.
☆☆☆
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