Chapter 208: Young Man, Don't Act Cool
A long time passed, and the heavy rain showed no signs of stopping.
The relentless downpour battered the courtyard, washing over the lone figure that had previously been dancing through the storm. Now, Akira stood completely motionless in the mud, his Nichirin Blade lowered by his side.
From the dry safety of the porch, Kanae, Shinobu, and the others exchanged uncertain glances. Their eyes were filled with a mix of confusion and lingering awe, entirely unsure of what he was doing. Since his grueling sword practice had come to a halt, logic dictated that he should return to the house, dry off, and take a hot bath to stave off the biting cold.
Yet, remembering the deep, almost ethereal state Akira had slipped into during his training, none of the girls dared to call out. They held their breath, terrified that even a single word might shatter his hard-earned martial enlightenment.
In truth, it wasn't that Akira didn't want to seek shelter from the freezing rain. His body was simply pushed to its absolute limit. His muscles screamed in exhaustion, forcing him to stand rooted to the spot just to catch his breath.
Through his deep immersion into the raw, violent rules of nature's lightning, he had successfully conceptualized a brand-new technique. It was a devastating move that smoothly fused the other nine forms of Thunder Breathing, elevating them to an entirely new echelon of power. Within the framework of this singular strike, he had managed to recreate a genuine fraction of natural lightning's apocalyptic might.
But there was a fatal limitation. Even while maintaining the heightened perception of the Transparent World, Akira realized he could not fully execute the attack.
To force a mortal vessel to bear the catastrophic power of heaven and earth—even just a tiny sliver of it—demanded a terrifying toll. Based on his internal calculations, bringing this ultimate technique to fruition required the physical enhancements of the Demon Slayer Mark. Or rather, the sheer stress of executing the move would naturally force the Mark to awaken.
The real reason he had frozen in place was the sudden, jarring realization that his heart rate and core body temperature had violently spiked. He had unknowingly breached the critical threshold required to manifest the Mark. In the dramatic terms of old cultivation tales, he had accidentally started merging with the Dao while merely trying to comprehend it.
And yet, despite pushing his body to the absolute brink, the technique remained incomplete.
It was glaringly obvious: without fully awakening the Demon Slayer Mark, using this move in actual combat was impossible. But correspondingly, if he ever did unleash it, the destructive yield would be nothing short of legendary.
"Hehehe..."
A low, intermittent chuckle suddenly drifted through the curtain of rain.
On the porch, the young women stiffened, peering suspiciously at the drenched figure.
"Hia... hia... hia... Hahahaha!"
Akira's laughter grew louder, echoing with an unbridled, almost manic edge. Kanae blinked in alarm, while Shinobu frowned, genuinely wondering if the sheer physical strain had finally caused his brain to snap.
"I, this grand Daoist, have succeeded!" Akira declared to the empty courtyard.
Hearing this bizarre proclamation, the collective worry in the girls' eyes instantly morphed into deadpan speechlessness.
They watched as Akira dramatically raised his Nichirin Blade, pointing the steel tip directly toward the rolling thunderclouds. Striking a pose as if challenging the very heavens—his inner chuunibyou flaring up with a vengeance—he roared over the storm, "I shall, with thunder, shatter the darkness!"
CRACKLE.
As if the heavens themselves were directly responding to his provocation, a blinding, incandescent pillar of lightning tore down from the black clouds. The sheer brilliance of the flash illuminated the entire estate in a stark, ghostly white.
And the exact landing point of that heavenly wrath...
...was the very tip of the Nichirin Blade Akira was holding high in the air.
BZZZZT!
Akira's entire body locked up rigid as a board, and he instantly collapsed face-first into the mud, dropping completely stiff.
His final fading thought before the lights went out: 'Damn heavens... you have no martial ethics, launching a sneak attack. I was careless, I didn't dodge...'
"Akira!"
A chorus of terrified screams shattered the quiet. Abandoning all hesitation, the young women threw themselves into the torrential rain. Mud splashed against their clothes as they desperately grabbed Akira's twitching, smoking body and hauled him back onto the wooden floor of the porch.
Seeing that his pupils were already showing signs of dilation, Shinobu's medical instincts took over. "Lay him flat! Start chest compressions, now!" she ordered, her voice cracking with panic as they scrambled to perform emergency CPR.
Meanwhile, Akira felt his consciousness go entirely blank. The pain vanished, replaced by a strange, weightless sensation. He felt incredibly light, his spirit slowly lifting out of his physical form, drifting higher and higher toward some hazy, unknown destination in the sky.
But halfway up the metaphorical stairway to heaven, a heavy boot suddenly slammed squarely into his face, kicking him right out of the air.
Wham!
"I've only been gone for a few days, and you're already rushing down here to bother me?" Kanzaki Keizan's gruff, unmistakable voice echoed in the void.
After a sickening sensation of free-fall, Akira felt the solid, grounding touch of wooden floorboards against his back. Urgent, tearful voices flooded into his ears.
His consciousness snapped back into his body. His vision swam with blurry colors before slowly coming into focus. The first things he saw were the anxious, beautiful faces of the girls leaning over him, their eyes red-rimmed and streaked with fresh tears.
"He's awake!" someone cried out—he was still too dazed to tell who.
Memory flooded back. The rain. The sword. The dramatic quote. The lightning strike.
He also realized that the ethereal sensation of floating into the sky had literally been his soul leaving his body, only for his grumpy old grandfather to kick him back into the world of the living halfway to the afterlife.
Feeling a deep mix of lingering fear and utter embarrassment, Akira coughed, managing a weak smile. "I'm sorry. I really made you worry."
"Thank the gods you're still alive," Shinobu breathed out, her hands still trembling against his chest. Slipping right back into her role as a doctor, she quickly asked, "Where does it hurt? Do you feel numb anywhere?"
They had been frantically taking turns performing CPR and hadn't even had a second to assess his specific burns or injuries.
Perhaps it was her question that finally reconnected his pain receptors. A wave of agonizing soreness erupted across his entire body, forcing a sharp gasp through his teeth.
"Everything hurts," Akira admitted, wincing. "But the internal injuries shouldn't be serious. I just need to rest for a bit."
Activating the Transparent World, he carefully scanned his own internal structure. It was incredibly easy for him to diagnose his exact condition. Although he had taken a direct hit from a lightning bolt, the current had grounded out through his body in a fraction of a second. The vast majority of his muscle tissues hadn't even registered the electrocution before it was over. There was minor cellular damage, but with his monstrous vitality, it would heal in no time.
The only real danger was that the massive voltage had passed directly through his heart, throwing it into sudden cardiac arrest. If the girls hadn't immediately shocked his heart back into a rhythm with CPR, things would have ended very badly.
Even now, feeling the strength returning to his limbs, Akira realized he could move freely. Not wanting to lie on the hard floor any longer, he braced his hands and sat up.
Because they had been in such a rush to save him, Kanae and the others had dropped him right on the floor of the main hall closest to the courtyard. Moving his stiff joints, Akira slowly pushed himself up until he was standing straight.
Seeing him back on his feet, looking relatively normal save for the soot and mud, the young women finally let out a collective sigh of relief.
However, Shinobu wasn't about to take his word for it. For safety's sake, they forcefully dragged him to the infirmary for a complete check-up.
The final medical conclusion could basically be summarized as: The hem of his clothes got a little dirty.
The lightning had essentially passed right through him, leaving almost no trace. With Akira's current absurd physique, if they had waited even a day to examine him, the microscopic internal burns left by the current would have completely vanished.
Sitting on the examination bed, Akira grabbed a hand mirror and let out a massive sigh of relief. He stared at his reflection, noting that his hair was still as dark as ink.
Thank god. He hadn't been struck by lightning and magically turned into a blonde like Zenitsu had in the original timeline. It wasn't that he hated the color yellow, he just felt that sporting bright blonde hair gave off an incredibly weird vibe he wanted no part of.
Speaking of Zenitsu, the timeline had shifted significantly because of Akira's strict oversight. Although the cowardly boy still constantly whined and cried about the grueling training tasks Kuwajima assigned him, he never actually dared to slack off or run away. Because of that discipline, Zenitsu never experienced the fateful event of hiding in a tree during a storm and getting struck by lightning.
Ironically, Akira, the reliable senior brother, had ended up taking the lightning strike in his place.
Of course, after Akira had personally dragged Zenitsu over to the Stone Hashira, Gyoumei, for some "special training," Zenitsu had immediately realized how incredibly gentle and humane Grandpa Kuwajima's regimen truly was.
Akira: "You brat, do you want some extra training?"
Zenitsu:!!!∑(ﾟДﾟノ)ノ
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