A Day in the Life of Yoshimori

A Day in the Life of Yoshimori (良守な日々, Yoshimori na Hibi) is the 8th episode of the Kekkaishi anime adapted by Sunrise.

Summary
The episode begins with Yoshimori in the back yard of his home training with, what looks like, a big boulder. He uses a stopwatch to time himself as he uses a Kekkai to lift the boulder up. Within his big Kekkai, he makes a smaller one. His objective is to catch the boulder with his Kekkai without it breaking. The Kekkai breaks and he reminds himself to get stronger. Shigemori walks outside to assess him, impressed that he's training (for once). Shigemori brags about how he split two of those training boulders when he was Yoshimori's age, which shocked Yoshimori. To himself, Shigemori teases Yoshimori, explaining to himself that those boulders have a core made of iron, rendering them unbreakable. Confidently, Yoshimori says that he'll break three of them in one month.

That night, Madarao wakes up and leaves his doghouse, enjoying the night and wonders where Yoshimori is. He notices that the lights are on in the dojo and investigates, finding Yoshimori training inside. When He makes a Kekkai doesn't go on the square picture on the cloth, because it is too big, Madarao lectures about how Kekkai can be used for more than surrounding. He also tells Yoshimori to work on his skill so he can beat Tokine's technique. Yoshimori promises himself to be stronger so he can protect Tokine.

As the night shift for Yoshimori and Tokine start, Yoshimori is tired from his training all day. Tokine tells him that he looks tired, but he assures her that he's all right. Behind then, Hakubi and Madarao angrily growl at each other. As he tells her that she'll see when he gets better from his training, he doesn't notice and illegally parked car in the street and smashes into it, falling backwards. Tokine, teasingly, makes fun of him.

They find a small Ayakashi, Hiwatari, jumping from tree to tree, then they notice that whenever it sets foot on the ground, a batch of ice forms on it, which Yoshimori slips on. When Tokine runs ahead of him, she seems to have lost sight of it. Without warning, Yoshimori springs into action, running past Tokine angrily, feeling angry that he fell for a "trap." Yoshimori catches up to it, and tried many times to capture it but fails every time. Yoshimori uses a bigger Kekkai to stop the Ayakashi. He succeeds, but Hiwatari turns around and starts to shoot small ice particles at Yoshimori. Instinctively, Yoshimori creates a Kekkai around himself and Madarao. The shards are weak and just bounce off his Kekkai. Hiwatari curls the top of his five tails and starts to create a larger ice particle, and shoots it at Yoshimori's Kekkai, specifically aimed at his head. Once it goes through the Kekkai, Yoshimori is stunned at Hiwatari's precision and power.

Before Yoshimori can do anything else, Hiwatari runs away. Tokine follows the small batches of ice on the ground to catch up with him. She jumps on top of a tree for a bird's eye view, and to try to catch Hiwatari off guard. When she gets up, she notices Hiwatari's target: the pool of water. Once Hiwatari goes out in the open, Tokine successfully captures it, surprising Yoshimori. For a second time, the Ayakashi uses an ice shard to put a hole in the Kekkai and get away. Hiwatari successfully gets into the pool and freezes it, rendering it impossible to find under the ice. When Yoshimori walks on to the ice, the Ayakashi tries to attack him from under the ice, but fails. He knows that the only way to get Hiwatari out of the ice is to make it mad, so he kicks the ice. Yoshimori walks around the pool, breaking the ice with Kekkai to make Hiwatari even more angry. Tokine watches from the fence, analyzing Yoshimori's strategy, and comes up with one of her own. She pulls one of her kunai from her holster and waits for Hiwatari to get out of the ice. Hiwatari jumps from under the ice and begins to make another particle. Tokine launches her kunai at it, and is successfully is hitting Hiwatari. However, this only angers it more. Hiwatari blows out a stream of ice that hits Tokine and freezes her legs to the ground so she can't move. Yoshimori intervenes when it forms another particle and kneels in front of her, forming multiple Kekkai around them. But even a triple Kekkai can't stop it.

The Kekkai break all at once, and he creates another. Before he can make another one, Tokine grabs his hand and tells him to concentrate with her. Hiwatari shoots another ice shard at them, but instead of going through the Kekkai, it backfires and bounces off it, breaking into small pieces and going back towards him. When he's hit, he falls and disappears. The ice in the pool slowly goes away.

Walking home, Yoshimori is carrying her on his back with his Shakujo under her for support, making sure she doesn't have frost bite. He pushes her up more so her arms droop in front of him. He dwells on how wrong he was when his triple Kekkai failed to block the ice. Both of them promise themselves that they will get stronger. Back at home, they both train in their own training dojo. Yoshimori pushes on his small Kekkai with his foot, which disappears easily. At the end of the day, Tokine has stacked multiple Kekkai together. Outside, Yoshimori practices with the boulder again. He picks it up with one Kekkai and launches it in the air, but his plan backfires when the boulder comes back down too fast and lands on his Kekkai, causing it to explode. However, the boulder breaks in the process. the impact from the fallen boulder cause the ground to jump, which caused everyone doing something on the lot to jump. Shigemori ran outside to see what happened, and was stunned when he saw the broken boulder and the crater created by it. He quickly scolds Yoshimori for making a mess and not using a Kekkai so he wouldn't bother the neighbors. Yoshimori is stunned to see the iron core of the rock.