Chapter 183: I've Made It, Old Dao
Breakfast finally concluded in a rather peculiar atmosphere.
Whether the morning miso soup was simply too hot or the rice too delicious, Akira spent the entire meal wearing a strained, grimacing expression.
It definitely wasn't because Makomo's slender fingers had been secretly pinching the soft flesh of his waist beneath the table the entire time. Absolutely not.
In truth, it didn't even hurt. Makomo was just flustered and a little annoyed, her grip lacking any real malice or force. Akira's exaggerated flinching was half playing along to soothe her embarrassment, and half a deliberate tactic to draw everyone's curious glances away from her flushed cheeks.
Once the plates were cleared and the girls began to disperse, Makomo lingered behind. Her small hand slipped under his uniform jacket, gently rubbing the exact spot on his waist she had been pinching, her eyes checking his expression to ensure she hadn't accidentally bruised him.
Before she could pull away and leave, Akira seized the moment. Taking advantage of the empty dining room, he caught her by the waist, pulled her flush against his chest, and planted a swift, deep kiss on her lips. He let her go just as her face erupted into a fresh shade of crimson, leaving her sputtering as he strolled away.
Stepping out into the crisp morning air, Akira headed toward his usual training grounds behind the Butterfly Mansion.
After experiencing Makomo's gentle comfort the previous night, his steps felt noticeably lighter. It wasn't that his heavy burdens had magically vanished, but rather that the very foundation of his mindset had shifted.
Sometimes, a deep mental breakthrough required nothing more than that.
A reliable embrace in the dark. The quiet surrender of emptying one's mind and body. Letting a wave of bone-deep exhaustion wash over him, only to be drawn out and chased away by the warmth of someone who loved him—that was all it took to realign his fractured spirit.
Standing in the center of the dirt courtyard, Akira felt an unmatched stillness settle over his heart.
Muzan's looming threat still cast a shadow over the world. The terrifying gap in sheer power between the Demon Slayer Corps and the Progenitor of Demons remained a daunting reality. Yet, the suffocating anxiety that usually clawed at Akira's chest had evaporated.
He couldn't entirely pinpoint the exact mechanics of this change. He only knew that a quiet, unshakeable confidence had taken root in his core.
He still fully intended to stand at the vanguard, shouldering the deadliest risks to shield his family from harm.
He still refused to slacken his relentless training, burning with the need to master the Transparent World as quickly as humanly possible.
On the surface, nothing had changed.
Except now, when the weight of the world threatened to crush his spine, he knew he could simply lean back into the arms of the women waiting for him.
That option had always existed, patiently waiting in the background, yet his stubborn subconscious had completely blinded him to it. What Makomo had done last night was force him to finally open his eyes and acknowledge that safety net.
It was a subtle shift in perspective, yet it clicked perfectly into place, becoming the final, missing puzzle piece of his mental fortitude.
Drawing his wooden training sword, Akira settled into his stance. He flowed through his usual forms, transitioning smoothly from basic, sweeping slashes to complex, high-speed strikes infused with his Breathing Technique. The familiar rhythm of the blade cutting through the air grounded him.
Almost instantly, he slipped into the first layer of the Transparent World. His consciousness turned inward, 'seeing' the complex flow of his own muscles, the steady pump of his blood, and the expansion of his lungs.
Without pausing his fluid movements, he gently pushed that internal perception outward.
He had attempted this exact transition countless times over the past year. Every previous attempt had ended in frustration—a fleeting sense of progress immediately followed by a wall he couldn't climb, leaving the world beyond his own skin blurry and out of reach.
But this time, as his awareness expanded, it simply flowed.
There was no violent clash of energy, no stubborn bottleneck to shatter. The transition was as natural as breathing, as if his senses were always meant to unfurl across the courtyard.
Perhaps this was exactly why Tanjuro had spoken of this final step—the bridge from the inner self to the outer world—with such casual lightness when describing his own mastery of the Transparent World.
Because once the mind was ready, the body simply followed.
Akira had just been trapped in his own head.
Carrying nearly two decades of memories from a past life, combined with years of bitter, solitary survival in this one, his mental age far exceeded his peers. He was mature, calculating, and fiercely independent.
Yet, those same memories had forged an invisible wall between his soul and the world he now inhabited. A lingering sense of detachment had always haunted him.
As he gathered more people into his heart—Kanae, Shinobu, Makomo, Kanao, Mitsuri—that cold detachment had thinned, but it had never truly vanished.
Because of that lingering isolation, his subconscious had refused to fully anchor itself to this reality. It resisted truly integrating into the 'home' built by the people he cherished.
To his past self, a 'home'was an alien concept. He had fought alone, bled alone, and drifted through life without a tether. In that harsh mindset, a'home' wasn't a sanctuary; it was a heavy chain of responsibility.
He had been terrified of failing those responsibilities, and equally terrified of needing them.
Over a decade of living in this new world had taught him to fiercely love his new family, prompting him to hoard every ounce of danger to himself. He treated the girls like fragile treasures that needed absolute protection, refusing to let them suffer a single scratch, let alone lean on their strength.
It took the combined, stubborn efforts of the people around him to slowly chip away at that arrogant assumption. They had forced him to understand that a true home wasn't just something he protected—it was something that protected him back.
With that final realization, the last trace of his detachment dissolved. His heart found its true belonging.
And with absolute inner tranquility, his mind emptied completely, merging smoothly with the fabric of the world around him.
He 'saw' through it all.
This was the true world of the Transparent World.
It felt as though his consciousness had ascended to a divine vantage point. Without relying on his physical eyes or ears, the entire Butterfly Mansion unfolded before him in startling, absolute clarity.
Even if he were to be struck blind and deaf in this exact moment, he could perfectly map the auras, heartbeats, and precise movements of every living soul within the estate.
Across the compound, Kanao was quietly asking Kanae for guidance on her Breathing techniques, their wooden swords clashing in a light spar.
In another courtyard, Makomo moved in solitude, her brow furrowed as she tested the footwork for a new sword form she had conceptualized days ago but hadn't quite perfected.
Near the engawa, Mitsuri was running through the acrobatic motions of her Love Breathing, though she kept missing her tempo, her mind clearly spacing out as she replayed the strange, flirty tension from the breakfast table.
Inside the medical wards, Shinobu was a whirlwind of sharp efficiency. She marched down the aisles, checking bandages and mercilessly scolding a group of sheepish Demon Slayers who had dared to ignore her strict bed-rest orders.
Down the hall, the three little girls were buzzing around Aoi, their small hands full of fresh linens and medicine trays as they managed the daily nursing chores.
In the administrative wing, Hanako sat behind a desk, diligently sorting through a mountain of official Corps paperwork.
Meanwhile, Sawaki had just finished replacing a bloodied dressing for a critically injured patient. As he stepped out into the corridor overlooking the training grounds, he spotted Akira standing perfectly still in the dirt. Sawaki's jaw locked, his teeth grinding in mild, protective frustration at the sight of the boy who had claimed his daughters' hearts.
Akira's perception didn't stop at human auras. It bled into the environment itself.
He felt the structural integrity of the grass blades, the sap running through the ancient trees, the erratic flight paths of insects, and the slow drift of microscopic dust motes catching the morning sun.
With a mere shift in focus, the physical barriers of the world peeled away. He could see straight through the walls of the mansion. He could observe the internal mechanics of the people around him—the rhythmic contraction of their lungs, the rush of blood through their veins, the exact alignment of their skeletons.
It was entirely laid bare.
A sudden, wry comparison crossed his mind. This level of perception was practically identical to the 'Divine Sense' used by cultivators in the Xuanhuan novels from his past life.
Except, he was currently living in a world where individual power ceilings were relatively grounded.
Mastering the Transparent World here was the equivalent of a dimensional downgrade attack. It was like dropping an immortal cultivator straight into a street brawl of ordinary martial artists.
As he marveled at the sheer, overwhelming advantage of this new sight, another realization hit him like a ton of bricks.
A memory of his brutal training sessions with the Stone Hashira surfaced.
'Gyoumei definitely held back back then,'Akira thought, a dry, amused breath escaping his lips.'No, he didn't just go easy on me. He went easy on me to the scale of an entire ocean.'
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