"Yes... Yes, that's it."
"I guess there's still a flicker of hope for you lot."
Bushido-sensei paced through the rows of students, his single eye scanning the rhythm of their chests. Yorimitsu focused on the specific sequence of inhales and exhales.
Dum…Dumm…
"Woah... this is incredible," he thought, his eyes snapping open. "I can feel my Reiryoku being channelled with greater speed now. My recovery time... It's increasing at an Incredible rate. This old man is the real deal." He stood up, his body feeling lighter, the leaden weight of the word finally manageable.
Before Yorimitsu could fully savour the feeling, Bushido-sensei was in his space. With a speed that blurred the air, the one-armed man reached out and clamped his fingers around Yorimitsu's wrist, feeling the thrum of his pulse.
"You're quite good, ha?" Bushido tilted his head, a childlike curiosity in his eye. "I wonder if he can actually learn it..." He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "Minamoto. Come to my hut later tonight. I want to show you something."
"What—?" Yorimitsu's eyes bulged.
"Don't look so surprised. It will be something... very helpful to you." Bushido offered a rare, jagged smile that looked entirely out of place on his scarred face. He let go of Yorimitsu's hand and moved on, correcting the postures of the other students. Aside from Yorimitsu, only Watanabe and Mai had already grasped the basics of the technique.
"Master Bushido..."
A soft, rhythmic voice drifted across the training ground. A young monk approached, his hands tucked deep into his flowing sleeves. His gait was strange; he glided across the dirt, his feet never rising above his heels, as if he were sliding on ice.
"What is it now?" Bushido barked, clearly annoyed by the interruption.
The monk didn't speak. He stopped several paces away and bowed low, holding a single, high-quality piece of rice paper above his head with both hands.
"Oh? A summons from..."
Bushido yanked the paper away with his one hand. With a dexterous flick of his fingers, he managed to break the wax seal and unfurl the scroll. His expression, which had been bored and irritable, suddenly sharpened into a mask of cold focus.
"Mmmm... I see. This is faster than I anticipated," Bushido-sensei muttered, his gaze finally rising from the scroll. "I knew it was coming, but this fast? Tch. Well, it matters not."
He turned to the students, who were still struggling to maintain the correct Breathing. "Listen up! This is a direct mandate from Fujiwara. People have been vanishing from the villages in the North-South outskirts of Heian-kyō. You will be heading there in two days."
As he spoke, he tightened his grip on the scroll. Without a spark or a flint, the paper suddenly combusted, turning into a brilliant pillar of orange flame that consumed the message in seconds.
"Two days... it's moving too fast," Yorimitsu thought, his mind racing through his own secret preparations. "I haven't even managed to form a bond with Dōjigiri in all my attempts. And there's the matter of the spy... I had Inoue possess him, but I can't be certain the connection held."
He glanced sideways at Watanabe no Tsuna, noticing for the first time a slight tremor in the stoic warrior's hand.
"For this mission, I will divide you into groups," Bushido's voice boomed. "Minamoto! Minakaze! Both of you, step forward!"
Yorimitsu and Namikaze no Mai approached the instructor. Mai's gaze was a weighted glare so sharp it felt like a blade against Yorimitsu's skin.
"No matter how many times I see you, the anger in me swells," Yorimitsu thought, "I will crush you and your family this time, I will not forgive all that you did."
Bushido-sensei didn't seem to notice the killing intent between the two boys, or maybe he just didn't care. He reached into his robes and produced two heavy wooden plaques, handing one to each.
"Each of you will choose individuals to follow you," Bushido said, a huge, jagged smile stretching across his face. "You'll lead your own squads. There is no better way to gain experience than to be thrown directly into the mouth of the beast."
The moment the command was given, the courtyard turned into a frantic scramble. More than half of the students, mostly those from the minor noble houses, rushed toward Namikaze no Mai, seeking the safety of numbers and the prestige of the Namikaze name.
"Hahahaha! Oh man," Bushido-sensei roared, leaning back as he watched the crowd desert the Minamoto heir. "Even after that display at the entrance exam, it seems very few people have any trust in your abilities, eh, boy?"
Yorimitsu stood his ground, his expression unreadable as he surveyed the five figures who remained by his side.
"Tch... it doesn't matter," he thought, his gaze drifting toward Watanabe no Tsuna. A soft smile touched his lips. "I have the only one I truly wanted anyway." Beside Tsuna stood Omaru, Gabimaru, and Okostu, each a formidable talent in their own right. But it was the fifth member that gave Yorimitsu pause: a shy-looking boy from the Taira clan named Wabonoske, whose gaze shifted nervously toward the ground.
"Taira no Wabonoske? This is the first time I've noticed him..."
"Listen, Minamoto," Bushido-sensei said, his voice dropping an octave. "You can just give up. With a team that small, there is no way you can complete—"
"No. It's fine. I will do it," Yorimitsu cut through, his voice echoing with a cold, absolute certainty.
"Hahhahaha! I like you even more now!" Bushido laughed, his single eye glinting with manic delight. "Not like all these cowards!"
The noble students surrounding Mai shot daggers at the instructor, their faces flushing with indignation at being called cowards by a man with one arm.
"Oh! If stares could kill!" Bushido laughed even louder, stepping away from the group. "You will receive your briefing soon. Prepare accordingly. You will receive no help from the Academy once you step past those gates."
With a sudden burst of speed, the instructor vanished, his silhouette blurring into the distance until he was nothing more than a speck against the treeline.
As the dust settled, the low whispers of the nearby servants began to drift across the training ground.
"Is it really okay for Bushido-sensei to talk to the clans like that?" one whispered, clutching a broom. "What if they seek revenge for losing face?"
"They can't do a thing," an older servant hissed back, eyes wide with reverence. "Despite how he looks now, Master Bushido was once Number Five in all of Nihon."
"What? Really? How come I've never heard of him?"
"Of course, you wouldn't know him now. But ten years ago, the battlefields shook when he arrived. They used to call him the Lightning Blade God... Raijin."
Yorimitsu's ears perked instantly at the mention of the name. Raijin.