Chapter 158: The Tokito Brothers' Shock
"I just got a little carried away for a moment, didn't I? Besides..."
Akira tried to offer a casual excuse, flashing a placating smile, but the words died in his throat the moment Kochou Shinobu shot him a single, freezing glare.
"I specifically asked Himejima about the incident," she said, her voice dangerously sweet. "And according to him, your performance out there didn't look like a 'momentary impulse' at all. It looked quite deliberate."
Even though her vivid purple eyes looked as if they wanted to bore several bloody holes straight through his skull, her hands told a completely different story. Shinobu's slender fingers moved with practiced, careful care, wrapping the fresh bandages as gently as humanly possible to spare him any unnecessary pain.
Akira caught the conflicting swirl of deep-seated anger and raw heartache in her gaze. Beneath that fierce facade, the unmistakable shadows of exhaustion lingered around her eyes, only showing when her guard slipped for a fraction of a second. Recognizing the toll his recklessness had taken on her, he wisely snapped his mouth shut and let her work in peace.
Shortly after Shinobu finished applying the ice packs and securing the last of the bandages, the sliding door rattled open. Tsuyuri Kanao and Kanroji Mitsuri arrived together, their arms laden with fresh supplies and warm food, finally allowing a reluctant Shinobu to step away and get some much-needed rest.
Over the next couple of days, Kanae and Makomo also managed to carve out time from their own hectic schedules to visit his bedside, filling the sterile medical room with soft laughter and gentle scoldings.
Watching this endless parade of beautiful, distinctly unique girls rotating shifts to pamper and care for Akira left the observing Tokito brothers completely dumbfounded.
"Is this... situation with your senior brother actually normal?" Tokito Yuichiro muttered, poking Agatsuma Zenitsu in the ribs during a brief lull in their hellish training regimen.
Ever since the blond boy had joined their sessions, Yuichiro felt as though he had finally found a kindred spirit. Zenitsu was the only person in the entire compound who would openly complain alongside him, loudly protesting that this absurd training intensity wasn't treating them like human beings at all.
Before Zenitsu arrived, suffering alongside those two relentless workaholics had frequently made Yuichiro question his own sanity. He had begun to wonder if his own mindset was defective, or if his younger brother and Kamado Tanjirou just had a few screws loose in their heads.
Now, with Zenitsu echoing his exact grievances, Yuichiro was finally certain that he wasn't the problem. Those two were just absolute freaks of nature.
Case in point: even though they were officially on a designated break, Tanjirou and Muichiro were currently off to the side, performing hundreds of unweighted swings with their wooden swords. They actually had the audacity to call this 'relaxing.'
Yuichiro sighed, feeling entirely out of place simply because he possessed basic common sense. Beside him, Zenitsu nodded in deep, exhausted agreement.
"Handsome looks, overwhelming strength, a solid personality, plus a bunch of coincidental, highly romantic events like saving their lives in the nick of time..." Zenitsu began counting off on his bruised fingers, listing the key points he had painstakingly summarized from observing Akira over the years.
Zenitsu thought back to his younger, far more naive days. He had once been swindled out of his entire life savings by a girl he thought would marry him, only to turn around and find his senior brother casually surrounded by a flock of gorgeous women.
From that day forward, Akira had been elevated to the status of an absolute Divine Being in Zenitsu's tear-filled eyes.
Granted, their master, Kuwajima Jigorō, had once chased Akira across three mountains with a wooden cane after discovering his multi-timing antics. That terrifying spectacle had prompted Zenitsu to silently scrap any plans of imitating his senior's exact lifestyle. He figured that finding just one excellent, loving girl to start a family with would be more than enough for his fragile heart.
Still, that didn't stop the blond from silently studying Akira's traits, desperate to analyze the secret formula behind his immense popularity. Zenitsu reasoned that if he could just learn a fraction of that effortless charm, his own future love life would be completely sorted out.
"With all those advantages stacked together, plus a healthy dose of luck, it makes sense that there are multiple girls hovering around him, right?" Zenitsu muttered, his shoulders slumping. "Although, it is still incredibly enviable..."
Zenitsu let out a long, pathetic sigh, completely failing to notice the dark, twisted aura radiating from the boy beside him. Yuichiro's face was gradually contorting into something unrecognizable, warped by pure, unadulterated, bare-faced jealousy.
"Well, even though there are quite a few girls around Akira-san, he treats every single one of them incredibly well."
Tanjirou had finally finished his 'relaxing' routine and walked over to join the conversation, wiping sweat from his brow. "They all live together as a family. They're happy, healthy, and harmonious. Being able to achieve that kind of peace is more than enough, right?"
With his straightforward and pure mindset, Tanjirou didn't really grasp the scandalous nuances of two-timing. He only knew what his keen sense of smell told him: whenever those girls were near Akira, the warmth, affection, and deep concern they radiated were entirely genuine. In Tanjirou's earnest view, as long as everyone involved was living happily and without conflict, the actual number of partners didn't matter in the slightest.
Muichiro blinked lazily. He looked at his older brother, whose facial expressions were rapidly spiraling out of control, and then glanced at Tanjirou and Zenitsu, who seemed to accept Akira's bizarre domestic situation as a fundamental law of nature. For a long moment, the Mist Hashira didn't know whose side to take.
Being the most detached and simple-minded of the entire group, he couldn't even fathom what the core point of this discussion was. Unable to understand the strange complexities of romance, Muichiro simply chose to remain silent, staring blankly at a passing cloud.
Back in the medical ward, Akira remained completely unaware of the private gossip session taking place among the four youngsters. Even if he had heard them, he wouldn't have cared.
He had never once tried to hide or cover up his relationships. Among the recovering slayers in the Medical Department, there were plenty of jealous whispers and envious glares. As long as the idle chatter didn't cross any major lines, Akira couldn't be bothered to waste his energy on them.
They could call him a playboy or a scoundrel all they wanted; those insults bounced right off his thick skin. However, if anyone ever dared to speak a single foul word about his girls, Akira would personally invite them to go swinging from the nearest tall tree. As for whether the rope would be tied around their waist or their neck—well, that would naturally depend on the severity of the insult.
, while Akira might turn a blind eye to insults directed at himself, the Butterfly Mansion's head doctor was far less forgiving. He couldn't guarantee that those loose-lipped patients wouldn't suddenly experience severe, excruciating pain during their routine treatments—pain that could have easily been alleviated, or perhaps mysterious new cramps that intensified with every dose of medicine.
If asked, Shinobu would merely smile her sweet, terrifying smile and claim absolute ignorance.
Regardless of the rumors, Akira had much more pressing matters to deal with. Having just regained enough mobility to leave his bed, he was immediately confronted with a massive headache of a problem.
Mitsuri and Kanao had both requested to join Himejima Gyoumei's brutal Stone Hashira training.
Regarding Mitsuri, Akira wasn't entirely opposed. He had originally planned to put the Love Hashira through some appropriate high-intensity conditioning anyway. Physical fitness and raw muscle density were the most critical foundations for a martial artist, and given her unique muscle composition, pushing her limits was perfectly fine. Joining Himejima's camp merely advanced his existing timeline for her.
Kanao, however, was a completely different story. Looking at the small, quiet girl standing stubbornly before him, Akira genuinely wondered if the originally obedient and well-behaved child had been swapped out by a mischievous imp. She was actually digging her heels in and causing trouble.
"Kanao," Akira sighed, rubbing his temples. "You haven't learned any Breathing Style, and you don't need to participate in frontline combat. If you just want to exercise and stay fit, using the training equipment here at the Butterfly Mansion is more than enough. There is absolutely no need for you to subject yourself to Himejima's hellish regimen—"
"I do know a Breathing Style..."
Akira's persuasive lecture was instantly choked back by Kanao's soft, barely audible murmur.
He lowered his head slightly, trying to read her expression. Kanao's wide, lilac eyes subconsciously darted away for a fraction of a second, intimidated by his focus, before she forced herself to look back up. She stared straight into Akira's eyes with an uncharacteristic, fiery stubbornness.
A heavy silence stretched between them. It took a few seconds for Akira's brain to fully process her words.
"No, wait a minute..." His eyes widened in disbelief. "You know a Breathing Style?!"
He leaned forward, his calm demeanor cracking. "Who did you learn it from? When did this happen? How come I didn't know anything about this?" A swarm of invisible question marks practically buzzed around his head.
Ever since he had rescued Kanao from the slums and brought her home, she had only interacted with the residents of the Butterfly Mansion and, occasionally, the Kamado family. And her total time spent with Tanjirou and Nezuko wasn't even that significant.
So, when and where had this quiet, sheltered girl secretly mastered a superhuman swordsmanship style?
"When you were giving special training to Kanae-nee-san," Kanao mumbled, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. "I watched from the side. And... just like that, I learned Flower Breathing. I originally wanted to learn your Thunder Breathing, Akira-nii, but after trying for a while in secret, I couldn't figure it out..."
"That's okay, Thunder Breathing is notoriously hard on the legs anyway—" Akira caught himself, shaking his head rapidly. "No, wait, that's not the point!"
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