"I'm so bored~!! You so weak Sabito.. can't even last longer than five minutes... You need to exercise more! And you Tanjiro! Your sword swings are too sloppy! One hundred more!"
Kiyomi whined as she somehow managed to twirl her wooden katana with one finger while watching Tanjiro swing a wooden practice katana and Sabito lying on the ground, twiching.
Tanjiro gasped in pain as his expression turned pale.
"One... One-hundred?!?"
"Now its five hundred!" Kiyomi immediately rebutted.
Tanjiro swallowed the words stuck inside his throat and resisted the urge to cry his eye balls out.
'Where is my usual gentle and considerate nee-san!'
Tanjiro's training was still quite humane, but we really can't say the same for Sabito.
First is because Kiyomi's words were just too... easy to misunderstand.
Both mental and physical damage?
Complete annilhlation!
Sabito's face twiched along with the rest of his body frantically as he complained to himself in his mind.
After Tanjiro finished swinging his sword five hundred times, Kiyomi clapped her hands and announced:
"Okay! You can go rest for a while Sabito, I'm going to start correcting Tanjiro's posture. And then after that we will let him rest for a while and then you guys can start your daily sparring."
Tanjiro took a standard military posture that was taught to him by Kiyomi and stood beside her as he waited for her instructions despite his almost disabled arms.
However, only he'll be able to understand the pain of having to torture himself without the ability to refute anything his sister asks of him.
On one hand, he gets inhumane physical torture handed to him by himself.
On the other hand, he get inhuman physical torture of another level handed to him by his sister.
The thing is that at least he has some control over his pace of training when torturing himself.
So... I think you know what to choose.
After walking over to a spot where there was shade and also enough space to practice sword swinging, Kiyomi started correcting Tanjiro's stance.
"First of all, squat down a little more! Your center of balance isn't strong enough! I can probably push you down with a single palm strike of mine!"
"Second of all, you're holding the handle wrong!!"
Kiyomi took Tanjiro's hands with a serious expression and commented while doing so:
"You need to grip near the bottom and the top of the handle respectively for maximum leverage and control of the katana. The tighter your hold is the less control you have of the katanas movement, so the hold should be flexible according to the situation. An important thing to remember is that you must never ever lose control of a blade when cutting!"
"There! Now use some time practicing this grip so that you are sure to hold it not too tight and not too loosely. Give me fifty sword swings! The correct way. Otherwise... hmph!"
...
The sun started to set after a long and grueling training for both Tanjiro and Sabito.
And they both got more friendlier to each other as they started walking back to the wooden house together.
"Did you know? Your sister is very famous in the demon slayer corps. Her students gave her a nickname, the 'Two-Faced Poison Wisteria'. They were all very resentful of her at first, but they became respectful the moment they started their final selection."
Sabito wanted to talk about the major achievements of Kiyomi, as he knew from his previous conversations with Tanjiro that he only saw her as a very 'Kind, considerate and delicate girl who is the best at everything'.
Of course, Tanjiro's definition of "everything" is what a normal girl can and would learn to do during the Taisho period - Sewing, cooking, taking care of children, playing music, dancing, among other skills.
"Poisonous Wisteria? Isn't wisteria non-poisonous?"
Tanjiro asked doubtfully.
He had contacted this kind of flowers before that was given to him by one of the kind villagers he had helped before the attack of Muzan.
Though he lost the flower very soon after he aqcuired it.
"Wisteria is indeed non-poisonous for humans, but it is deadly for the weaker demons. It had no effect on demons who have a higher concentration of Muzan's blood."
Sabito continued after he jumped across the somewhat strong flowing river currents by stepping on small protruding stones.
Tanjiro barely made it as he almost slipped on one of the rocks and fell to the river currents.
"But the reason her students called her Poisonous is because of her vicious training methods."
Sabito turned his head to look into Tanjiro's curious eyes.
"I don't think I need to explain that to you?"
Tanjiro shook his head knowingly.
Sabito resumed.
"But she was also called Wisteria because every single one of her students, except for some unfortunate few, survived the final selection and even the worst of them were reached the Kanoe Rank in less than a few months."
"I'll talk to you more about the Demon Slayer Corps structure when you break that boulder. You only need to know that to achieve the Kanoe Rank in less than a few months is something almost impossible."
"But she was called Wisteria because all of her students and herself were like wisteria. All deadly to the demons."
"Of course, there was another reason she was called wisteria. Because of her beauty and, which you should also already know."
Tanjiro nodded unconsciously.
"And two-faced...."
Sabito paused for a moment.
"Her usual personality and her personality when she is acting as the instructor is like completely opposite, so yeah.. two-faced. Almost everyone in the slayer corps know her name, even the new comers."
Tanjiro felt amazed at how amazing his sister is, its like opening up a entire new world to him, since Kiyomi had already broken many of his perception of what is normal.
"Wait.. why would the new demon slayers know her too?"
Sabito had a hint of laughter on his face, like somebody who knew some secret.
"The veterans of the corps who saw Kiyomi in person were captivated. So much that when they lead the newcomers after their newcomer solo adaptation mission, they would tell stories of her during their mission.
"And the newcomers usually are extremely interested, and it just sort of became a tradition for the veterans of the corps to popularize science to the newcomers. Even though Kiyomi was only in the Slayer Corps for like... half a year now.."
Sabito just finished telling Tanjiro about this one story as they arrived at the wooden house, full of the heavenly aroma of food.
Opening the door, Sabito walked in first and set down his katana by the shoe rack.
Tanjiro followed as they both took of their shoes and switched to something cleaner.
Sabito went to his room to change a set of clothing as Tanjiro went to the bathroom to wash his hands.
Urokodaki's house has been enlarged, by the request of Kiyomi, though unknown when, but she did.
As Tanjiro walked into the kitchen to greet Kiyomi, a man holding a few wet sets of Kiyomi's clothing in both of his hands with an expressionless face.
Tanjiro stared in confusion as he didn't smell anything from the man, but then his confusion turned into shock, and from shock back into confusion.
"Who are you?!"