Insect Breathing

The **Insect Breathing** *(Muchi no Kokyu)* is a Breathing Style branching from the Flower Breathing.

## **Overview:**

Insect Breathing is a Breathing Style that mimics insects, specifically their lethal stings and movements, and replicates it with user's movements, techniques and abilities. All of the original techniques and forms include stabbing, thrusting, and making shallow cuts with a specially coated/made sword to inflict multiple wounds onto the intended target in order to inject various lethal wisteria-based poisons into them, while newer techniques are more varied.

This Breathing Style is the personal creation of Shinobu Tomioka, who designed it to compensate for her lack of physical strength to behead higher ranked demons. As she gained disciples, she adapted the techniques to fit a wider range of Slayers.

The Insect Breathing can be used both with a needle-shaped sword, or a regular katana. Techniques vary between the two weapons.

## **Known Techniques:**

The Insect Breathing has a total of twelve techniques. Four of them are designed to be used by a needle-sword, and are entirely and solely used by Shinobu Tomioka, while the remaining eight are used by the trainees at the Insect Sect.

### **Needle Sword:**

* **Dance of the Butterfly: Caprice** *(Cho no Mai: Tawamure)* - The user leaps into the air and charges towards the opponent and stings them multiple times with their blade to inject poison.

* **Dance of the Bee Sting: True Flutter** *(Hoga no Mai: Manabiki)* - The user dashes at their target at blinding speeds and uses the momentum of their speed to strengthen a single thrust into their opponent and inject poison into them.

* **Dance of the Dragonfly: Compound Eye Hexagon** *(Seirei no Mai: Fukugan Rokkaku)* - A six strike attack with which the user aims to strike and inject their target with multiple doses of poison at the target's weak spots (such as the neck, heart, torso, etc.) in order to kill them with a large dose of poison.

* **Dance of the Centipede: Hundred-Legged Zigzag** *(Goko no Mai: Hyakusoku Jabara)* - An attack with which the user uses their full speed to run a zigzag pattern that confuses their opponent in order to create an opening for them to directly stab their opponent's neck and inject poison to kill them, with the stab's force and power being further enhanced by the momentum of their speed.

### **Regular Katana:**

* **First Dance: Butterfly Dance** *(Ichi no Mai: Cho no Mai)* - The user leaps into the air, dashing forward, and if they are close to their target, they’ll jab or slash at them

* **Second Dance: Bee Flutter** *(Ni no Mai: Hoga Manabiki)* - The user dashes at incredible speeds to perform one powerful jab, aimed at a weak spot.

* **Third Dance: Compound Eye Hexagon** *(San no Mai: Fukugan Rokkaku)* - The user slashes six times in a vaguely hexagonal shape against the opponent.

* **Fourth Dance: Hundred-Legged Zigzag** *(Shi no Mai: Hyakusoku Jabara)* - The user runs in a zigzag pattern at max speeds, aiming to find an opening to decapitate the opponent swiftly

* **Fifth Dance: Hundred Mosquitoes** *(Go no Mai: Hyaku Ka)* - The user jabs extremely quickly in countless areas of the opponent’s body.

* **Sixth Dance: Bullet Rend** *(Roku no Mai: Dangan Sakeru)* - The user changes ground quickly, building up momentum to perform a single dashing jab that aims to decapitate the foe

* **Seventh Dance: Beetle Shield** *(Shichi no Mai: Kabutomushi)* - The user changes to a low stance, defending all incoming attacks. Depending on the situation, the user may also protect someone else.

* **Eighth Dance: Blinding Moths** *(Hachi no Mai: Momoku Ka)* - The user aims to slash the foe’s eyes, blinding them temporarily, and even stunning them

## **Trivia:**

* The Insect Breathing remains as the Breathing Style with the furthest distance to the Sun Breathing, with no parallel to it in terms of branching.