Chapter 63: I Am Leaving
It was noon, and the blazing sun in the sky was pouring its golden radiance onto the earth without reservation.
Deep inside the cave, a campfire was blazing fiercely.
The orange-red flames licked the dry firewood continuously, emitting a crackling sound.
In front of the campfire, Kanae Kocho sat in an extremely elegant posture.
Her fair, slender hands held a perfectly rounded rice ball, which she chewed in small bites.
Her movements were very light; even while eating, she exuded the upbringing of a well-bred young lady.
At this moment, Tatsu was sitting cross-legged opposite Kanae with no regard for his image.
He was also taking large bites of the seaweed-wrapped rice ball in his hand.
In his other hand, he was casually toying with a nichirin sword.
It was a blade that exuded a sharp, fierce aura.
The blade had green patterns, and the guard was shaped like an eight-pointed star.
This was none other than the sword belonging to the current Wind Hashira, Sanemi Shinazugawa.
Kanae swallowed the food in her mouth and gently wiped the corner of her lips with the white handkerchief she carried.
Her gentle eyes turned towards Tatsu, lingering on the green nichirin sword for a moment, before she tilted her head slightly and spoke softly with a hint of worry in her tone:
"Tatsu, isn't it a bit inappropriate for you to take Sanemi's nichirin sword? You know what Sanemi's personality is like; that sword is as important to him as his own life. If he wakes up and finds his nichirin sword missing, he will definitely be furious. He already harbors great hostility toward demons, and doing this will likely only deepen his misunderstanding of you."
There was no hint of reproach in Kanae's words, only overwhelming concern.
She understood Sanemi Shinazugawa too well.
That man, covered in scars and with a temper as explosive as thunder, might look fierce and ruthless to everyone—especially his hatred for demons—but Kanae knew that deep down, Sanemi hid a gentleness and sorrow that most people could not imagine.
The reason he hunted demons so frantically was because he had lost too much, and because he wanted to protect his only younger brother.
Kanae did not want the conflict between Tatsu and Sanemi to become irreconcilable; she sincerely hoped that these two people she cared about could one day set aside their prejudices against each other.
Hearing Kanae's words, Tatsu swallowed the last bite of the rice ball and even stuck out his tongue to lick the rice grains from the corner of his mouth.
He raised the green nichirin sword before his eyes, carefully examining the exquisite green patterns on the blade by the light of the campfire.
"Kanae, that's not right of you to say."
Tatsu curled his lips into a smile, his gaze meeting Kanae's through the dancing firelight. "You have to remember, I am a demon. Facing a Wind Hashira who was going crazy trying to chop off my head, I didn't even kill him; I just took his nichirin sword as a trophy. If you think about it, he should be thanking me for showing mercy. Besides..."
At this point, Tatsu shrugged helplessly. He flicked the blade lightly with his finger, producing a crisp "humming" sound, and continued to explain: "I have no choice in this matter, either. You've seen it too; as the enemies I encounter get stronger, relying solely on my demon body puts me at a disadvantage when facing those top-tier swordsmen or the Twelve Kizuki I might encounter in the future. I just happen to need a handy weapon. This sword of the Wind Hashira is indeed of good quality; it's perfect for self-defense. If nothing else, that guy Sanemi can just apply for another one from the Swordsmith Village. He's a Hashira, after all; the people at the Swordsmith Village will surely forge him a better one immediately."
He had not killed Sanemi Shinazugawa solely out of respect for Kanae, and because of his own remaining baseline of humanity.
Listening to Tatsu's somewhat sophistical yet very realistic argument, Kanae couldn't help but sigh softly.
She knew that Tatsu was speaking the truth. In this cruel world, survival was the first rule. As a demon, the fact that Tatsu had never eaten a human and had even trusted her repeatedly was, in itself, a miracle.
She did not dwell on this issue any longer, but instead shifted the topic to a question that had been circling in her mind.
"Alright, since you've already taken it, I will explain it to Sanemi on your behalf if there is an opportunity in the future."
Kanae leaned forward slightly, the firelight casting a softer glow on her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled with intense curiosity and confusion. "However, Tatsu, I am really curious. When we fought Sanemi earlier, even with the two of us working together, we could barely maintain a stalemate against him. But..."
Kanae paused, the unbelievable scene that had occurred not long ago flashing through her mind. That man who looked sickly and as if he might collapse at any moment—Tanjuro—had simply stood by and spoken a few words to Tatsu in a voice so calm it was devoid of any ripples.
To her, those words had sounded like mist and clouds, filled with profound philosophical meaning. Yet, after hearing them, Tatsu's entire aura had undergone an earth-shattering transformation in an instant.
"But how did you suddenly become so strong just because Tanjuro said a few words to you?"
There was a hint of undisguised amazement in Kanae's tone. "At that moment, all your presence vanished without a trace, as if you had merged with the surrounding air. Then, you just swung your sword casually; the movement looked so slow, yet it was so unavoidable. How on earth did you manage to knock out a full-strength Sanemi with just a single strike from the back of your blade?"
Kanae's question was only natural. As the Flower Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, she was proficient in Flower Breathing and had been through countless battles, reaching a very high level of understanding in martial arts. But that strike from Tatsu had completely exceeded the scope of her cognition. It was not a crushing of power, nor a surpassing of speed, but an absolute crushing in terms of realm. She was desperate to understand what kind of world Tatsu had stepped into.
Looking at Kanae's inquisitive eyes and listening to her rapid-fire questions, Tatsu couldn't help but smile slightly. He held the green nichirin sword with one hand and slowly placed it horizontally across his knees.
"Kanae, you ask what I have realized?" "Tanjuro's words helped me push open a door. A door leading to the highest realm of martial arts. I have realized the 'Transparent World'."
"Transparent World?" Kanae opened her cherry lips slightly, repeating the term that was completely foreign to her.
"That's right, the Transparent World." Tatsu nodded. "At that moment, when I completely let go of my desire to win, let go of my anger at Sanemi's attack, and completely merged my body and mind with this world, a marvelous transformation occurred before my eyes. After I opened the Transparent World, this world in my eyes was no longer the one covered by appearances that we usually see."
As he spoke, Tatsu stood up slowly. Carrying the nichirin sword, he walked to an open space beside the campfire.
"When the Transparent World is opened, the world is transparent in my eyes."
"I can see through everything about my opponent. It's not prediction, but truly'seeing'. I can see through the opponent's body structure, see the arrangement of bones beneath their flesh, see the contraction and relaxation of their muscles, see the speed of blood flow in their veins, and even see the flow of air when they breathe into their lungs. The moment the opponent's brain sends an attack command to their body and their muscles begin to build strength, I have already seen the movement they are about to make."
"Because I see through everything, the opponent's attack looks like a clumsy performance slowed down countless times in my eyes. I don't need to forcefully resist Sanemi's Wind Breathing; I only need to strike the weakest point of his attack—the moment when his old force has just faded and his new force has not yet been generated, when there is a gap in his muscle coordination—and gently tap the nerve node on his neck with the back of the blade. Naturally, he will faint due to the instantaneous overload of his nervous system."
In order to let Kanae understand this mysterious realm more intuitively, Tatsu decided to demonstrate it himself. When it comes to martial arts, a thousand words of explanation are often not as profound as the shock of seeing it with one's own eyes.
"No matter how much I say, it's not as good as seeing it for yourself. Kanae, let me demonstrate it for you."
As he spoke, Tatsu bent down slightly and picked up a fist-sized stone from the uneven ground at his feet.
This stone had been in the damp cave for years, covered in a thin layer of moss on the surface, and its texture was extremely hard.
Kanae sat upright where she was, her back straight. Hearing that Tatsu was going to demonstrate, her expression became extremely serious.
She clasped her hands together on her knees, her beautiful eyes fixed on Tatsu without blinking.
"Alright, Tatsu, please let me witness this 'Transparent World' you speak of."
As soon as she finished speaking, Tatsu slowly closed his eyes. The air in the cave seemed to solidify in that instant. The crackling sound of the burning campfire seemed to fade away, and the sound of dripping water was infinitely elongated.
Tatsu began to adjust his breathing, no longer the rough panting of a demon, but a breathing frequency that was extremely long and almost nonexistent.
AI Model: gemini-3.0-flash
When Tatsu opened his eyes again, the world in his sight had completely changed.
The originally dim cave lost its color,
transforming into a three-dimensional scroll composed of countless lines and flows of energy.
He looked at the stone in his hand; it was no longer a piece of hard, dead matter. He saw the textures inside the stone,
the sedimentary structure of the rock layers, and even the most fragile crystalline connection points within it.
Without any movement to build up strength,
Tatsu simply raised his right hand holding the sword casually.
The green nichirin sword traced an extremely natural arc through the air, as if it were a masterpiece of nature itself.
The blade sliced lightly into the hard stone.
There were no sparks from metal striking stone, no sound of impact, and he didn't even feel a hint of resistance.
The nichirin sword was like cutting through soft tofu, following the most fragile texture structure inside the stone,
completing hundreds or thousands of cuts in an instant with an incredible high-frequency vibration.
"Rustle, rustle, rustle..."
Under Kanae's shocked gaze, the hard stone held in Tatsu's hand
did not shatter into several pieces, but instead turned directly into a mass of extremely fine gray powder in Tatsu's hand.
The powder trickled through Tatsu's fingers like an hourglass,
swept up in mid-air by the rising hot air from the campfire, forming a tiny cloud of dust.
"This... how is this possible..."
Kanae couldn't help but let out a cry of surprise.
She told herself that if she were to use a Flower Breathing strike, shattering this stone would be easy,
but to do it like Tatsu, without making any sound,
and using a sharp blade to completely "deconstruct" the stone into powder along its internal structure,
that was absolutely impossible to achieve.
This required power control to reach an extremely abnormal, meticulous level.
Tatsu maintained his posture at the end of the swing, his heart filled with a sense of clear pleasure.
This was the charm of the Transparent World; the essence of all things had nowhere to hide before his eyes.
He subconsciously raised his head, wanting to see the expression of admiration and shock on Kanae's face.
However, at that moment,
Tatsu forgot one crucial thing—he hadn't deactivated the Transparent World yet!
When he raised his head and his gaze fell on Kanae across the campfire,
the X-ray vision ability of the Transparent World was still operating at full power.
The first thing that entered Tatsu's sight was not Kanae's gentle and beautiful face, nor that gorgeous butterfly Haori.
In his vision, the fibers of Kanae's outer clothing instantly became transparent.
He saw Kanae's tough lungs rising and falling rhythmically with her Breathing Style,
he saw her powerfully beating heart pumping blood full of vitality,
and he saw her perfectly symmetrical skeleton and muscle lines.
But the vision of the Transparent World was not fixed at the deepest level;
as Tatsu's focus changed, the depth of the X-ray vision fluctuated in an instant.
Just as his vision contracted outward from the organs and muscles,
in that extremely brief moment before returning to normal vision,
his gaze pierced through the thick black uniform of the Demon Slayer Corps, through the lining,
and happened to freeze on Kanae's most intimate clothing.
It was... a touch of extremely bright purple, full of mature feminine charm.
It was a purple undergarment adorned with delicate lace edges.
The purple fabric tightly wrapped around Kanae's proud and elastic soft curves, which were usually hidden strictly by her loose uniform.
Tatsu could even see the slight deformation on the lace edges caused by her breathing,
as well as the blood-pumping, charming cleavage partially visible beneath the purple fabric.
The air seemed to suddenly stop flowing at this moment.
"Boom!"
As a demon, Tatsu's blood, which should have been cold,
actually rushed to his head at this moment like an ignited powder keg.
A most primitive sense of heat belonging to an adult male instantly spread throughout his body.
"What am I looking at!!"
Almost out of an instinctive reaction, Tatsu hurriedly cut off the perception of the Transparent World within a thousandth of a second.
The X-ray image before him instantly vanished, and the world regained its color and substance.
Kanae was still sitting there properly, wearing her tightly wrapped black uniform and butterfly Haori,
looking at the suddenly frozen Tatsu with a gaze full of wonder.
Tatsu felt his cheeks starting to heat up uncontrollably, and even the tips of his ears turned red.
As a demon, he actually felt embarrassed and guilty because he saw a girl's intimate clothing.
He hurriedly looked away, not daring to look into Kanae's pure and innocent eyes again.
"Cough, cough... well..."
Tatsu's voice even stuttered slightly.
He didn't dare to dwell on that stunning touch of purple he had just seen,
so he quickly and awkwardly changed the subject, forcing himself to put on a calm and composed appearance.
Then, he stabbed the nichirin sword into the ground beside him, walked quickly back to the campfire to sit down, and said to Kanae in a formal tone:
"Kanae, how was it?
You've witnessed the power of the Transparent World, right?
As long as you master this, you can gain insight into your opponent's moves even when facing the strongest enemies.
Do you want to learn?
If you want to learn, for the sake of our friendship, I can teach you personally.
As long as you master the Transparent World, you'll have an extra trump card to save your life even if you encounter an Upper Rank Demon in the future."
In the original story, she died tragically because she encountered Upper Moon Two, Doma.
If she could learn the Transparent World, the chance of changing her fate would increase greatly.
Kanae didn't notice Tatsu's extremely brief "visual transgression" just now;
her mind was completely immersed in Tatsu's shocking strike from earlier.
Hearing Tatsu take the initiative to offer to teach her such a divine technique, which could be called the pinnacle of martial arts,
a hint of emotion flashed in Kanae's eyes.
She knew that in this martial arts world where sectarian prejudices ran deep,
any swordsman would treat a secret technique of this level as a closely guarded secret.
And Tatsu, a demon, was willing to teach her everything without reservation.
Kanae looked at Tatsu's slightly flustered yet sincere face,
and the corners of her mouth couldn't help but turn up,
blooming into a smile as pure and beautiful as a lily in spring.
"Tatsu, your strike just now was truly incredible."
Kanae praised him sincerely,
"I have never seen such exquisite skill.
Mr. Tanjuro is indeed a hidden master,
and you, who could grasp its secrets so quickly, are also a rare genius."
She first gave Tatsu a very high evaluation without stinting,
then she shook her head gently, her purple eyes shimmering with a firm yet slightly sad light.
"Thank you for your kindness, Tatsu.
I am truly happy to receive your promise to teach me the Transparent World."
Kanae's voice gradually lowered,
"But, I'm sorry, I can't learn this from you right now."
Tatsu was stunned. He leaned forward a bit anxiously and asked in confusion:
"Why? This is a life-saving secret technique!
Do you have any idea how terrifying the enemies you'll face in the future will be?"
Seeing Tatsu's anxious look, the tenderness in Kanae's heart grew even stronger.
She reached out her slender, fair hand across the campfire and smoothed Tatsu's furrowed brow.
She withdrew her smile slightly, replacing it with the fortitude belonging to the Flower Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps.
"Tatsu, you have become very, very strong now."
Kanae's tone carried the gratification of a mother watching her child grow up.
"You've mastered the Transparent World and have Mr. Sanemi's nichirin sword.
In this world, as long as you don't take the initiative to provoke that Muzan Kibutsuji,
you are fully capable of protecting yourself.
I no longer need to worry about you all the time."
Kanae stood up and gently patted the dust off her Haori.
At the cave entrance, a warm spring breeze blew in, lifting her long black hair and Haori.
"Tatsu, you know, I am a Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps."
Kanae turned around, her back to the blinding sunlight at the cave entrance.
Her face was hidden in the shadows, but her eyes were brighter than ever.
"On my shoulders, I carry the heavy responsibility of protecting humanity from being slaughtered by demons.
In every corner of this world, every day innocent people lose their lives because of demon attacks, and every day families are torn apart."
She turned her head and gave Tatsu one last deep look, her eyes containing too many emotions:
there was recognition of Tatsu's strength, and attachment to the time they had spent together,
but more than that, it was a resolve to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
"Besides, my sisters Shinobu and Kanao are still waiting for me, The Master is waiting for me,
and countless people who need me to save them are waiting for me."
"So, I have to go.
I must return to my own battlefield.
Tatsu, promise me, no matter how strong you become, please stick to the human bottom line in your heart.
I still believe that
one day, humans and demons can sit together and share delicious rice balls."
Loving Book So Far? Check Out 30+ Advanced Chapters At PA Treon
patreon.com/FictionOP