Back when I was just getting into both Demon Slayer and art in general, I thought it’d be cool to create a Breathing Style that was all about broad, sweeping attacks that would act as area denial for any encroaching demons. The fact that I made a style called ‘Plague Breathing’ during the first year of a pandemic is also very amusing~! Here’s the blurb I wrote elaborating on each kata!
Plague Breathing
Combination of Insect, Water, and Earth Breathing Techniques.
Plague Hashira: Shigekazu Sakaguchi
(Inspired by the two Japanese immunologists that studied the nature of apoptosis or the natural processes that lead to or signal cell death.)
Designed to meld the precision of toxins with the widespread effects of natural disasters, Plague Breathing diverges heavily from its Insect Breathing ancestor. It incorporates more insidious strikes, misdirection, and miasma that can do significant harm to both friend and foe. Practitioners of Plague Breathing must be mindful of that those around them are indeed fiends they wish to attack and usually act as the vanguard or rear guard to ensure their techniques aren’t swept afield of their comrades.
Shigekazu and the Demon Slayers he trains use two separate nichirin swords, an odachi to spread their viral influence and a porous shobu dagger to pacify active microbes and ‘immunize’ the areas where their techniques were utilized. This dagger can also aid in healing any humans caught in an ability’s influence but, as each poison is laced with at least some wisteria, the same cannot be said for repentant demons.
Plague Breathing swordsmen are encouraged to wear vented, wisteria-lined masks to train themselves to use small, short breaths rather than the deep inhales of other breathing techniques.
Number of Forms: 7
First Form: Delirium Tremens - Two rising slashes from the odachi angled towards the liver and nose. Even if this move fails to deliver decisive damage, the resulting intoxicant residue impairs the senses of most demons.
Second Form: Day Fever - A plunging attack that spreads a cresting wave of fast acting bacteria that, upon inhalation or injection, radiates intense heat likened to summer sunlight.
Third Form: Sundown Consumption - Taking advantage of the odachi’s favorable length, this whirling slash moves from opponent to opponent, striking their vitals with high loads of tubercle bacillus.
Fourth Form: Saint Vitus’ Demise - Obscuring themselves with speed and separate arced slashes to maneuver the opponent in position, four shanks from the shobu are applied to the elbows and knees in attempt to debilitate further retaliation as the underlying nerves misfire.
Fifth Form: Temperate Mania - After stabbing the shobu into the earth, several whirling dervish slashes are performed on the spot, fanning a virus that overloads a typical demon’s bloodlust, making them thirst for the blood of fellow demons.
Sixth Form: Tsubame Inanition - Three simultaneous strikes for the head and arms. These strikes are hemophilic and draw forth vast quantities of bloody from a demon’s body if it doesn’t kill them outright.
Seventh Form: Mortification - A two-hand lateral crescent strike with the strength to fell trees reserved for opponents with countermeasures to decapitation. Anything in its wake blackens and perishes, including flora. If not performed perfectly, this form can break or even shatter the user’s arms.
Zeroth Form: Snowcrest Air - Wicking the shobu on the wind, all active maladies, toxins, and miasmas shrivel and fall to the ground, radiating a menthol-petrichor odor. This form is often used in three ways: to clear an area for life to return to an oftentimes despoiled atmosphere, to aid a fellow demon slayer who was too close to a technique, and to help other practitioners of different breathing techniques to take longer and stronger breaths that empower their moves.