Plant Breathing

Plant Breathing is a Breathing style based on Flower, Sound, and Insect Breathing. Its main focus is combining high accuracy, split-second reactions with poison and explosives. It can be used with a specially modified katana with a hollow blade to store poison, which can double as an explosive. Its creator underwent training from Shinobu Kocho to learn how to trigger chemical reactions in a practical way. He also learned from Tengen Uzui on how to make explosives.

Japanese translation: Shokobutsu no Kokyu.

## Forms

Plant Breathing has eight forms:

-First Form: Grass blade. The user decapitates the opponent by swinging their katana upwards and then sideways.

Second Form: Springtime Bloom. User slashes opponent and then performs a front flip while swinging the sword in order to land a momentum-assisted attack.

Third Form: Tangling Vines. User moves clockwise around their opponent so quickly that they are impossible to hit, while slashing once every time they take a step. This move allows the user to keep the opponent from moving.

Fourth Form: Autumn Leafshed. User slashes 10 times in a downward “X” shape before slashing sideways to behead the opponent. User will also release minor doses of poison with each strike and strikes a metal plate worn on the arm to ignite the poison on the final attack, causing a chain reaction explosion, effectively blowing the opponent to pieces.

Fifth Form: Vibrant Fields. User slashes opponent in a dash attack and poisons or blows up the opponent.

Sixth Form: Righteous Thorns. User stabs opponent to inject poison.

Seventh Form: Rose Born of Heat. User sets off three explosions and slashes opponent.

Eighth Form: Sunflower. User releases all remaining poison stored in the blade by swinging it in a circle motion and adding “petals” while moving so fast that the released poison doesn’t have time to hit the ground. The user then ignites it all at once, causing a massive explosion in the shape of a giant spinning sunflower. This form will almost always seriously injure the user unintentionally, so Rokusa almost never uses it.

## Creation

Rokusa Chickafuji created plant breathing after his family was slain by a demon. He was saved by Kanae and Shinobu Kocho and decided he wanted to fight like they did, "Such a violent way to kill, and yet so elegant." Rokusa did as much research on breathing styles as possible and ended up creating Plant Breathing to mimic the behavior of plants, since before joining the slayers Rokusa was a skilled botanist. He modeled the actual striking technique after existing breathing techniques and rearranged them in order to have different specialties and strengths.

## User Requirements

In order to use Plant Breathing, one must have above average physical strength in order to deliver strikes effectively. They must also be extremely fast so they can use forms like Vibrant Fields or Sunflower. Plant Breathing also requires high endurance and pain tolerance, since the third form can be extremely tiring, as well as the risk of injuring oneself whenever setting off an explosion. Users must also be very aware of their surroundings at all times during a battle, as one stray spark could start a massive fire, or one stray drop of poison falling into the water could potentially ruin the ecosystem. Plant Breathing is very complex and would not be advisable for newbie slayers.