The next morning, Junpei headed alone to the parking lot where the betting matches were being held.
He didn’t forget to change out of his uniform and into plain clothes, either. If anyone found out he was a student from Jujutsu High, that would be a problem.
When he reached the entrance, two rough-looking men smoking cigarettes blocked his way.
"Hey, kid. This isn’t a place for you to be hanging around."
"Turn around. I’ll count to three. Pick anything else, and I’ll beat you myself."
Of the two, the one in a suit took out his phone and started doing something on it, while the one in a sleeveless shirt puffed himself up in an intimidating manner and strode toward Junpei.
Junpei casually glanced at the CCTV camera overhead, then answered the man without a trace of concern.
"I heard there’s a betting match here. I need money."
Whoosh!
Apparently the threat to hit him wasn’t a lie, because the man threw a punch in an instant.
To ordinary eyes it would have been a frightening speed and force, but to Junpei it only looked slow and weak.
The man’s huge hand came right up to Junpei’s unmoving face, kicking up a gust of wind.
"Rule one. ‘Do not mention the betting match club.’ Answer me. Who told you? Then I’ll hit you."
So it’s a fight club. Pretty romantic.
Were they borrowing the setup from that old classic film exactly as it was?
Junpei smiled faintly, snatched the cigarette from the man’s mouth, and took a deep drag.
Hoo—
Smoke blew straight into the man’s face, who was still dazed from having his cigarette stolen in a blink.
Even though it must have stung his eyes, he stubbornly kept them wide open. Seeing that, Junpei continued in a smooth, teasing tone.
If he was going to play the loyal gatekeeper from the movie, then Junpei would just go along with the concept.
"You’ve got good training. Your hand manners are awful, though."
"Answer the question. Before I really start hitting you."
"I don’t know the name. I just overheard some drunk guy bragging at a pub about making a ton of money."
It was better to say it like this than to make up some half-baked excuse and raise suspicion.
The crowd here seemed pretty large, and it was obvious secrecy wasn’t something they were guarding all that fiercely.
If it were, they wouldn’t be able to bring in new fighters.
"I’m confident in my skills. I guarantee I’ll be a lot more interesting than the other trash."
"And why should I believe you?"
"Want to throw down right here and now?"
Just as the mood was turning uglier, the man in the suit standing behind them stepped in to stop it.
"That’s enough. The boss gave the okay. We’re putting him in today’s seed slot."
"......."
"Ha. Knew it."
The sleeveless man withdrew his fist and stepped back the moment he heard permission had been granted.
He looked like the sort who should have been angry, but his loyalty seemed to be on another level.
"Come here by 7 p.m. today. You might puke, so don’t eat dinner."
"We’ll see about that."
Junpei shrugged and ground out the cigarette with his tongue, leaving only the filter.
He spat out the tobacco ash with a thick gob of phlegm, then left the gatekeepers behind and returned to his hotel room.
"Ugh, I thought I was going to die from how cringe that was."
He had deliberately acted like a third-rate punk to lower Hakari’s guard.
If he acted too clueless, they’d send him away. If he seemed too sharp, they’d decide he was someone they couldn’t afford to let slip through their fingers.
He was so unused to putting on that trashy tough-guy act that it felt like he was dying of embarrassment.
Anyway, the first step of the plan had gone smoothly, so all he had to do now was wait until night.
-------------------------------------
After night fell, the sleeveless man from earlier came to greet Junpei in the fighters’ waiting room.
Now that Junpei had officially become a fighter, he must have decided there was no need to stay on guard, because his attitude had softened considerably.
"There are two rules. ‘Don’t run away.’ And ‘don’t use your technique.’"
"In other words, fight like a non-sorcerer?"
"Good, you catch on fast. Most of the customers are non-sorcerers, and the ones who can’t be seen. If the match can’t be seen, it’s no fun."
"What do you mean, don’t run away?"
"Fight within the range of what can be seen."
"Thorough, aren’t you."
"It’s business."
As he explained the rules at a reasonable pace, the man led Junpei to the arena.
On the way down the stairs, Junpei casually tested him.
"What kind of person is the boss?"
"Curious? You’ll know when you meet him."
"How do I meet him?"
"There are two kinds of matches. ‘Unscripted matches,’ like today’s tournament. And ‘scripted matches,’ where the boss personally sets the stage."
"Oh."
"If you make a good impression here, you might get a nice offer. Scripted matches are usually bigger and pay better, after all."
Just as expected.
If he performed well here, he could meet Hakari directly and receive an offer to become a fighter.
Having gotten the confirmation he wanted, Junpei smiled darkly to himself.
When he opened the door and stepped inside, a hollow arena came into view.
The second floor had been torn open and converted into spectator seating, while matches were held on the first floor.
Junpei stepped out onto a spot marked crudely in chalk, and the man behind him pointed to the opposite side.
"That’s your opponent."
"Pfft."
"Don’t laugh. He’s monstrously strong, believe it or not."
It wasn’t that. Something else was funny.
Seeing the exact kind of guy you’d expect from a talent scout made laughter come naturally.
Right after the match resumed, the announcer with the shiny bald head appeared and pumped up the crowd in a booming voice.
"All right, tonight starts now! The full-on fight club tournament! Your live commentator, the one and only John Barbie, will be bringing it to you!"
As the two fighters walked through the passage and emerged into the ring, the announcer pointed at them one by one and rattled off the scripted lines he had prepared in advance.
"And now, let me introduce today’s delightful matchup! A sudden assassin! Trouble on top of trouble!"
He didn’t hesitate to make sexual harassment jokes or insult people’s parents when the mood struck. A cold-blooded sociopath, Junpeeeeeee Yoshinooooo!!!
Standing panda. Sitting panda. Walking panda. A real panda!! Pa!! N!! Da!!
"Now, both fighters greet each other, and the audience places your bets!"
"Hi, I’m Panda."
"Yeah, I’m a sociopathic sexual-harassment dead-parent-joke guy."
After the betting ended, Panda and Junpei exchanged a greeting and glove touch, then returned to their positions and settled into stance.
And watching all this from the monitoring room were two men.
"...I can feel the heat dying down."
"Why, Kin-chan?"
A voice that, at first glance, could easily be mistaken for a woman’s.
The man called Kin-chan lost interest in the monitors, lay back on the sofa, and looked bored.
The person pressed up against his side, impossible to tell whether they were male or female, tickled his chin.
"Luck is only fun when it’s tested. A bet where the winner is obvious from the start isn’t interesting. There aren’t many sorcerers without a proper background who are strong enough to beat Panda."
Panda’s strength sat somewhere between grade two and semi-grade one.
For a nobody sorcerer who hadn’t even entered Jujutsu High, that would be a tall order.
He had thought another piece of bait had just been added to the lineup again, but the opinion of the lover sitting beside him was a little different.
"Doesn’t seem that way to me."
"Huh?"
When he looked back at the monitor, an unexpected scene was unfolding.
Fwap-fwap-fwap!
Thud! Thud!
Panda and Junpei were exchanging blows at incredible speed.
Even though the match was limited to hand-to-hand combat, both of them were confident in reinforcing their bodies, so it had turned into a pretty exciting bout.
Of course, that was only possible because both of them were in on the act.
Tap!
Junpei deflected Panda’s straight punch, drove in with a deep kick, then nimbly somersaulted forward to press the attack.
When the flashy, acrobatic movements came out, the audience heated up and roared in delight.
Not missing the momentum, the two of them kept escalating with flying kicks, capoeira techniques, and even springing off pillars to move through the air in three dimensions.
"Ooooh?! This is definitely the best bout of my live-commentary career! And I’ve only been doing this for about half a month so far~!!!"
Clack! Thud!!
Just as they were starting to run out of ideas for new moves, Panda signaled Junpei to finish it.
Junpei mentally shouted okay, kicked off the ground, and spun in midair.
Smack!!
A 1080-degree spinning kick landed cleanly on Panda’s temple, bringing the show to an end.
"Kraaah!! What an incredible kick! That hurts too much! The Animal Protection Association won’t stand for this!"
He’s terrible at acting....
Having lost all fighting spirit, Panda rolled around on the floor and put on a truly awful performance, prompting the announcer to declare Junpei the winner.
"The winner!!! Yoshino~!!!"
"Waaaaaah!!!"
"......"
Junpei raised a fist with a sour expression and returned to his place, responding to the crowd’s cheers.
And then, just then, the guard watching the match outside the spectator area received a phone call.
"Yes, boss. What is it?"
"Once the tournament’s over, send Yoshino up to the rooftop."
"Huh?"
"He’s going all the way to the end anyway."
The guard nodded, and the man on the other end of the call laughed with obvious delight.
His eyes, which had been full of boredom, now glittered with a fresh dose of dopamine.
"That guy even moved in a flashy way on purpose to impress the customers. I think this is going to make a good script."
Curly hair dyed purple.
Eyebrows marked with scratches, and a sparse mustache.
And, befitting the boss of an organization, even a fur jacket thrown over a sleeveless shirt.
"I always told you. Heat is best when it’s hot.... or something like that."
A third-year at Jujutsu High.
Hakari Kinji.
"Don’t say that. It sounds stupid, okay?"
A third-year at Jujutsu High.
Hoshi Kirara.
Junpei had clearly left his mark on the two troublemakers who ruled the fight club.
He had the skill, and he had showmanship.
Before long, in Hakari’s mind, Yoshino Junpei had become less a stray sorcerer and more a potential jackpot.
"My chest is stirring in a pleasantly exciting way. The last time I felt this stirred up was after my ex-girlfriend started running up revolving debt all over the place."
"Stop talking about your ex already."
------------------------------------
Even after fighting Panda, Junpei fought several more matches.
He’d had some hopes, but apparently there wasn’t anyone stronger than Panda, because every opponent after that was a bore.
It was exhausting enough pretending to fight fiercely with flashy movements on purpose, and in the end he finished the final match with a single punch.
"Today’s tournament winner is! Yoshino Junpei!!!"
A fairly large amount of prize money was handed over, and once the match ended and all the spectators left, the guard approached him.
"Go upstairs. The boss will be waiting."
That was exactly what he wanted.
Junpei followed him into the elevator and headed up to the rooftop. When the doors opened and he stepped out, a face he had never seen before greeted him.
"Hi?"
"Hello."
"I’m Hoshi Kirara! Nice to meet you!"
So this was the other third-year Panda had mentioned.
Only then did Junpei understand why Panda had been saying such bizarre things.
"Jun-chan’s a first-year in high school, huh. You’re young."
"I repeated a year, so I’m technically a second-year by age."
"Kin-chan repeated a year in middle school too."
Long hair tied into a hime cut at the back, long eyelashes, delicate features, a narrow waist, and a chest and hips that stood out.
Hoshi Kirara looked exactly like a typical gyaru JK.
She looked female in every way, and if Junpei hadn’t already been told ahead of time by Panda that she was a man, he would have mistaken her too.
Uraume?
The white-haired monk who trailed around beside Sukuna like fish droppings overlaid itself with Kirara’s face in his mind.
Swallowing hard, Junpei crossed the rooftop with her and arrived in front of the monitoring room.
"Kin-chan’s in here. Have fun."
"Looks like you’re enjoying yourself."
"Hehe, of course. Kin-chan’s gotten heated up for the first time in ages. I really love a hot Kin-chan."
Kirara smiled with satisfaction, opened the doorknob, and ushered Junpei inside.
After waving goodbye, Kirara closed the door from the outside, and Junpei could no longer see her.
"Yo. You made it."
And then a voice called to Junpei from behind him.
When Junpei turned around, a rough-looking man with a weathered face appeared before him.
"Sit down first."
Hakari Kinji.
He had succeeded in getting a private audience with him.
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