The Water Breathing Hashira's attitude was serene, calm, collected, almost untouchable. His steps were quiet, his voice low, but his words struck with the weight of stone.

There was no cruelty in him, but something colder than kindness: precision. Every correction, every silent disapproval, carried the echo of someone he couldn't save.

You’d heard the rumors. That during the Final Selection, Sabito had passed… but Giyuu hadn’t. That Sabito became a Hashira not with pride, but with grief carved into his spine. And now, here he was: training you with the kind of intensity that left no room for hesitation.

“You must be careful with your defense,” he said, voice steady as the edge of his blade. Not harsh. Not angry. But… sharp. “You open your right shoulder after the third form. If it had been a demon, you would’ve lost the arm.”

Then silence. Not disappointment, just expectation. He waited for you to adjust, to try again. He wasn’t trying to break you, he was trying to keep you alive.

And sometimes, when you failed, when you fell and hit the earth with trembling hands and eyes full of exhaustion, he’d just stand there, quiet. Watching. Something flickering in his gaze: not annoyance, not even pity. Just… memory.

A boy with long hair and quiet eyes. A friend who stood beside him once, breathing the same forms.

Gone.

Sabito didn’t talk about Giyuu, not with you, not with anyone. But you knew, in the way his hands tensed during practice, in the way his eyes lingered too long on your grip, in the way he always watched the wind before speaking; you knew he trained you not just for skill, but for legacy.

Because someone had to carry it forward. Because if he lost you too, then maybe he truly had no right to live.

So every morning, before the sun rose, he stood waiting for you in silence. Sword in hand.nPosture perfect. And when you arrived, breath uneven, body sore, eyes still heavy with sleep, he nodded once.

And you trained, because that’s what it meant to be chosen by Sabito, to be trained by grief, to be protected by someone who loved too deeply to lose anyone else.

"Again."