walk steady on this cruel world's path

By: Aviantei

[Shibuya Operation – Story Storm]

Part One:

"In Time, the Storm Will Come"

Allow me to share a list with you of my least favorite things:

The feeling you get when you know you're about to sneeze, but your nose just won't do it.

Cats with attitude.

The smell of steamed tomatoes (makes me nauseous every time).

People who are rude to you and conveniently forget the fact when there's something in it for them.

Waking up one morning to realize you're not in your bed at home, but instead in Japan of a hundred some years ago with much more limited conveniences of life and absolutely no internet.

To be fair, the last one does sound kind of petty, and no doubt a bit like First World Problems. But as cool as hell as time travel may be theoretically, it's nowhere near as enjoyable when it happens absolutely with no fucking warning and you don't even know if it's possible to get back. So, yeah, maybe I deserve at least a little bit of sympathy? You know, for getting displaced from my life for what? The lulz?

I have no idea, and I still haven't been able to figure anything out. So, I did the only thing that I could do and just rolled with it. If nothing else, understanding and speaking Japanese was a Thing I Could Do Now, which was great, because I didn't fancy flaunting my status as a very obvious foreigner in a Japan that had been heavily isolationist under a century ago. I mean, I wasn't much better off with no home or family to speak of, but at least I didn't look too obviously scrappy, and there were enough people who needed help and weren't too fussy that I could earn a few coins for food.

I would live.

Maybe one day I would make it back home.

Maybe one day I would die here.

Who the fuck even knew?

I sure as hell didn't.

"You. Child."

The words were directed at me, and I looked up from my oh so important task of carrying out some spare stock for one of the merchants that had set up shop. I didn't want to dally too much, since I'd been promised meat as payment for the day, but I did have to pause. Not many people called me child—boy or girl were much more common, and they cropped up in roughly equal frequencies, like the people saying them were guessing on a multiple choice question they didn't know the answer to but hoped that probability would serve them well, without ever considering the right answer was None of the Above.

But this person. They had called me Child. Which didn't necessarily mean anything, but it was still a nice change of pace.

So I gave them my attention.

As I would learn later, he was a short man, his back stooped with age and his hair washed out to pristine white. His moustache and eyebrows were bushy, and wrinkles decorated his face as if someone had carefully drawn on the lines with a thick pencil. A jagged scar ran underneath his left eye, and his right leg below the knee was mostly peg rather than flesh and blood. His kimono was a yellow brown color with white triangles dancing along the fabric. Those beady black eyes stared at me, as if he could see that I was an anomaly that didn't belong in this time.

"Child," he said once more, "would you like to have a more reliable roof over your head?"

I almost dropped the wares I'd been carrying, but I thankfully didn't. Get any of this supply dirty and I'd be lucky if I wasn't the one strung up for sale the next day. Looking back, I definitely feel guilty for thinking this, but my twenty-first century instincts told me that accepting the offer of shelter from some random old man was probably not the best option for my continued health and mental well-being.

My newly forming Taishō Era sensibilities told me to get a grip and take the opportunity to maybe have access to an actual fucking bath for once. Ah, wait, maybe that was actually my First World Problems issue cropping up again?

The old man continued to see right through me, my feelings of hesitance and temptation probably painfully obvious. "I've seen you around the market looking for work almost every day," he said, by some way of explanation. "I think you're worth much more than that."

"And how do I know this isn't some scheme to turn me into a sex slave or some bullshit?"

Sometimes I was impressed that I had the vocabulary to sass off that much in a language I'd never spoken until, like, two months ago, but I guessed it was part of the time travel package. Given the whole culture of respecting one's elders, I could also probably stand to watch it, but I had limits. Being a street rat was way preferable to getting used for someone's sick and distasteful pleasures.

No matter what my social standing was, I could at least hold onto my pride—as difficult as that may be if I were starving out on the side of the road, but that didn't seem to be an immediate danger.

The old man, who had every single right to be pissed at my blatant disrespect, laughed once and then grinned. "I suppose you don't, child," he said, "but I'm going to teach you how to use a sword, so you'll be able to do something about it if you end up in trouble for accepting this old man's offer."

Well then.

On one hand, not needing to potentially defend myself from trouble.

On the other hand, learning to use a fucking sword.

"Well, when you put it like that," I said, glancing once more at the load in my hands and the stall I was supposed to be taking it to. "Maybe we can talk when I'm done working for the day? I mean, sounds badass and all, but I got promised meat for this shift, and, I'll be real, I haven't had any protein in ages—"

"I'll feed you. You need some meat on your bones if you're going to have the muscle to perform this style properly."

I paused for all of half a second, rushed over to drop off the stock, dipped into an apologetic bow, and went.

I am happy to report that my decision did not lead to me becoming a sex slave or anything else of the sort. It was exactly as the old man had said: he wanted to teach me how to use a sword.

Apologies, I should probably be a little bit more specific: He wanted to teach me how to use a magic sword, because this was not just Taishō Era Japan, but Fantasy Taishō Era Japan. Getting to learn how to use a normal sword? Cool. Getting to learn how to use a magic sword?

Fucking. Metal.

Of course, never having touched anything like magic powers or whatever you would classify this as, it wasn't an easy process. I'd grown up in a perfectly boring and normal twenty-first century. Aside from my lack of physical training making it hell to build up the muscles even needed to pick up a proper blade, I had to get past my mental block that magic powers only existed in fiction. It was an utter bitch, and I spent months trying to get the stance right, trying to get the breathing down, trying to not make an utter fool of myself so that my newfound Sensei wouldn't get sick of me and kick me back out on the street.

Was the setup as comfortable as my modern life had spoiled me with? No, and I don't think I would ever forgive the Universe for dumping me somewhere where air conditioning didn't exist. But it wasn't awful, either. You could live comfortably, and I was plenty grateful for new clothes, regular meals, and the safety of a roof, even if the payment of unrelenting sword practice was sometimes the fucking Worst.

Sensei never gave up on me and my pitiful attempts to learn his technique, but he wasn't nice about it, either. Fail too many times, and I'd get a ranting scolding. Mouth off enough, and there was a smack or a hit with the cane waiting in it for me. Complain about training too much, and I was sure to get a heavy enough workload that I couldn't even think a complaint, let alone voice one.

I considered leaving every now and then. But this life was the closest one I had to stability after getting torn out of my own time period, so I put up with it. Not just because of the security of having a home, but because whenever that old man drew his blade and demonstrated his technique, his steady and powerful breaths manifesting trails of sparking lightning that followed his movements, I was in awe of the technique, and I wanted to someday be able to pull off that level of grace and power myself.

I wanted to be able to create that level of beauty, to turn wielding a sword into an absolute artform.

My Sensei's name was Kuwajima Jigorō, and, though it meant nothing to me at the time, he was the man who had once held the esteemed title of Roaring Hashira.

"Sensei, what are you training me to do?"

It had been six months since Sensei had taken me in. At this point, I'd gotten a decent handle on the basic swordplay techniques, and I'd put on some muscle. The belly fat that I'd let build up through idle snacking and weekends sprawled on the couch in what felt like another life had all but melted away, and I was even starting to form abs. I'd been practicing Total Concentration breathing, and I felt something closer to Zen or whatever when I did so, but I hadn't been able to produce a single spark, let alone the arcs of crackling electricity that Sensei did.

Yes, waiting six months to ask exactly what I was training to do was too long, thanks, I know, but better late than never, yeah?

Sensei took his sweet time chewing through the bite of food he'd been on, though he gave me a long look that suggested that he was thinking I'd taken my sweet time asking what might be considered an essential question. "I'm an old man, Child. I've needed a successor to my sword style for some time." He paused, taking a drink, but I didn't push him to go faster. I still had bruises from the last smack down I'd received, and I at least liked to be fully healed before poking at a tiger with a stick. "Not that you'd be my first pupil. But none of my other students ever went as far as I'd hoped, so I'm trying again."

"And you really think I can handle that?" My shoddy performance thus far was seriously suggesting otherwise, Sensei.

"It's possible. But it's not like I'm going to place all my bets on you." Was I supposed to feel annoyed by that statement or relieved? I was making decent progress for someone who had never touched a sword before in my life, but I didn't want to bear the burden of carrying a sword technique's entire lineage on my shoulders—how long was life expectancy in the 1910s again? Not as bad as, like, Feudal Era, sure, but what if Sensei croaked before I could even do anything about it? "If I find someone else suitable to learning my technique, I'll teach them. But for now, you're the only one I've got, so you better not slack off on your training!"

"Hey, if I don't make it, you only have yourself to blame for picking up some random kid as your successor."

And there were the chopsticks launched across the room. I'd misjudged what was going to get tossed at me, so I had a fresh stinging spot on my forehead that definitely was going to bruise. I wouldn't be surprised if I had a headache before I went to bed, but at least there wasn't any blood.

"It would do you good to tame that mouth of yours," Sensei said, and I very pointedly shoved a bite of rice in my mouth so I wouldn't stick my tongue out at him. I didn't feel like throwing up my dinner after getting put through an extra round of training. "You may be rough in skill, but I wouldn't have decided to train you if I thought you couldn't handle it. So keep putting in the work, and you will see results, Rairi."

I shifted a bit, feeling awkward at the name that had become mine. Since I hadn't provided one, Sensei had assumed I didn't have one, and so he'd picked out one, made with the kanji for thunder and gallant. Not exactly subtle in his expectations for me.

I didn't mind my new name. It was much better than running around with a super inconspicuous Western name, plus it could even be unisex, which was a nice touch. But whenever Sensei actually used it over the usual moniker of "child," that tended to mean he was serious.

He thought I was a worthwhile apprentice, for all my failings. He actually expected something of me.

"I understand, Sensei." If he was going to place his expectations on me, I'd do my best to not completely let him down.

Despite my show of sincerity, Sensei snorted. I scowled at him in record time. "That's better," he said. "Whenever you get all subservient, something's wrong with you." Grumbling under my breath, I slurped up the last of my miso soup as Sensei continued to cackle at my expense. "But aside from just passing down the Thunder Breathing style, I do want you to use that power for good—so you can fight demons."

I didn't spit up my soup at Sensei, though I came close. Coughing to clear out my throat, I spluttered for words, trying to find any trace of a joke on Sensei's face, since he was a bit of a wily prankster at times. But, nope, he was completely serious. I didn't know what I had been expecting—this was Fantasy Taishō Era Japan, after all—but I'd never once heard anyone at the market talk like demons were anything more than the usual superstition. Japan was on the verge of its own industrial revolution; the more technology we humans made, the less we believed in myths of the world.

So I'm learning how to use a magic sword to fight demons? Cool, I guess?

I might have been in the slightest bit of denial at the prospect.

"Of course, if you're going to do that, you'll need to improve your skills far more than you have now," Sensei continued, very much ignoring the fact that I was gaping at him, my dinner wholly abandoned at that point. "If you progress far enough, I'll send you to test to join the Demon Slayer Corps. But you don't need to worry about any of that until you've completed your base apprenticeship and can at least perform one of the Thunder Breathing forms."

Still processing all the information, I nodded. So, in theory, if I never progressed, I wouldn't have to go do something as clearly dangerous as fighting demons. On the other hand, if I never progressed, Sensei would know something was up. And it wasn't like I was against the concept, really.

Future me can worry about that whenever Sensei thinks I actually qualify to test or whatever.

Within the next two months, winter approached, which brought a whole new yearning for modern conveniences. But at least all the layers on kimonos made them warm, plus we had fire, and general training tended to keep me moving. Where Sensei lived, winter was a bit milder than my old home, so that helped out, too. I'd survive.

Again, much better to deal with some snow with a roof over my head than without.

That winter, Sensei also picked up another apprentice.

The boy's name was Kaigaku, and he'd been living on the streets before Sensei brought him home. As expected from his living circumstances, he had a vaguely bony look to him but still had formed some muscle, and he had gladly accepted the opportunity to grow stronger by becoming one of Sensei's apprentices. His black hair didn't quite reach to his shoulders, and his eyes were a turquoise color that I might have questioned for his supposedly Japanese genes if it weren't for the whole Fantasy Taishō Era thing.

And so, I gained a kōhai.

A stubborn, stubborn kōhai.

"Spar with me!"

It was the usual afternoon sparring request—as if getting pushed through training with Sensei wasn't enough. Kaigaku had made it very clear that he wanted to get stronger, and I'd easily become a target to be his first rival. After all, surpass your senpai and you were obviously getting better, right?

I sighed and turned around, reaching for the bokuto at my waist. We sometimes handled actual blades in practice, but Sensei had insisted on the wooden substitutes for sparring for now, since we weren't yet skilled enough to not accidentally cut someone's hand off in the process. I wouldn't say I was a master by any means with only eight months of training under my belt, but I at least wasn't one to go down without a fight. If Kaigaku lost any respect that he had for me as a senpai, I had the feeling that he'd become an even bigger pain in my ass.

If he ultimately improved and surpassed me to become Sensei's successor, fine. But for now—

"Ready to lose again?" I asked, getting into stance. Kaigaku clicked his tongue, not immediately taking the bait for once. Instead, he also readied himself, while Sensei sat on the porch, watching us from the sidelines. So long as his pupils could keep up with their later training, he didn't care how bad we knocked each other around in practice.

Keeping a close eye on Kaigaku, I focused on my breathing, sinking into the rhythm needed for Total Concentration. Even if I had yet to pull off anything impressive with Thunder Breathing, I could at least enhance my body with the controlled blood flow. It might have been cheap to use it on Kaigaku, who was still getting the hang of it, but I'd never hear the end of his bitching if I didn't at least give it the best I had, so I went for it.

Eventually, we moved.

Real fights didn't have any hesitation, as Sensei had not so kindly informed us. If we hesitated to move, we were asking to get killed. You needed to move, react, and keep breathing. And while the stakes were way lower when you were just looking at two apprentices with bokuto in their hands, bad habits built in the early stages were the hardest to overcome.

Our practice swords slammed together with a loud thwack, and then we began the exchange of aiming for each other's weak points. To my chagrin, Kaigaku had a few centimeters on me despite being a year younger, so that gave him a bit of advantage in that regard—but if I was gonna bitch about that, there was no way I could handle going up against demons who were the embodiment of supernatural haxxor abilities.

Kaigaku was good. He was definitely improving in the short span of time he'd been in training, and I could see him catching up to me in time. I was agile and decent at assessing battle situations, but his blows had a certain power to them that I hadn't built up the muscle to pull off. He was also too stubborn to give up even when I got a good whack in on him, which meant our sparring matches could last for quite a while. It was good endurance training, sure, but it was also annoying that he wouldn't chill out for a few seconds.

Our current exchange pressed on, the fresh bruises from Kaigaku's strikes mingling with the injuries I'd gotten from Sensei's training earlier. I at least got a few hits in in return, but the ratio had been tipping in Kaigaku's favor lately, which was a sting on my own pride as a senpai.

Rairi, I reminded myself as I moved with the flow of battle. That's your name now. Gallant thunder—

Kaigaku shouted, his bokuto slamming into my side, and I gasped, my breathing hitching before it

snapped

into

place.

The rhythm of Total Concentration was an elusive thing that I'd only been able to manage in bits and pieces. But in that moment I felt it, the coursing of oxygen in my veins, everything synching up until that pure force snapped out of my body, the sound of lightning crackling as my bokuto lit up and smashed Kaigaku's weapon and my own to pieces.

[Author's Notes]

Hello, and welcome to this fic that decided to take over my brain for the last four and a half months at the end of 2020. After watching episodes on and off for a while, I finally finished the Kimetsu anime back in August, and I loved the series. I poked around with a concept for fun, and started reading through the manga once I realized I was gonna need big spoiler context to see my ideas for the fic through, which took me about three days, haha... And then when I had some ideas I figured I'd poke a bit at chapters now and then on the side just for fun.

I was wrong, and I drafted the whole fucking thing in the course of four months. So, uh, yeah, that's the story about how my original plan for this season of [Shibuya Operation - Story Storm] got completely kicked to the side in favor of this story. Whoops, and much apologies to those looking forward to Muse S3 (I'll finish writing it in 2021, I swear...)!

On that note, this story is being posted as part of the [Shibuya Operation - Story Storm] challenge, which is a multi-week, multi-chapter writing challenge. You can check out the forum for community, the rules, and other participating fics! We've been at this for a while, which is a lot of fun. For the purposes of walk steady, participation means that the first five chapters will be posted every other Saturday - and then the rest of the fic will follow suit, because aside from cleaning up the very messy fourth and fifth acts, the main storyline is complete. No hiatuses, just regular updates of my self-indulgent OC insert idea that I couldn't resist.

I'm also putting forth warnings here so you can all read safely: this fic will contain depictions of canon typical violence and gore, panic attacks, night terrors, character death, and mentions of self-harm and suicide. If you need more specific warnings, feel free to reach out to me, and I'll be glad to let you know what's coming when so you can take care of yourselves.

There will also be spoilers for both Mugen Train and the end of the manga eventually, but those will take a while. This is a semi-slow burn, after all.

Chapters have been betaed by the wonderful Punk Trash Noiz. Thanks much for your support, friend.

Well, I think that's all the specific things I need to say. I've been really excited about this fanfic, and I'm even more excited to finally be sharing it with a larger audience! I hope you enjoy Rairi's adventures with me.

Next time: get that boy some Respect Women Juice. Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[01.02.2020]