The first thread of the conversation began with a rather random topic.
"Junpei. If I told you that by doing one thing for one hour a day, you could make ten million yen a month, would you believe me?"
Hakari tossed out the absurd claim with a perfectly straight face.
But his eyes were serious, as if he genuinely expected an answer.
Junpei thought for a moment about how to respond, then gave the textbook reply.
"That would depend on what the job is."
"But if you want to know what that ‘one thing’ is, you’d have to buy the information for two hundred thousand yen."
"Uh... then I don’t think I’d believe it."
Spend two hundred thousand yen just to learn how to make one million yen. It was an obvious scam.
Seeing the expected reaction, Hakari continued in a relaxed tone.
"Right. Exactly as you said, it’s a classic scam. What people call a ‘success hustle’—pretending to be rich so you can sell other people the method for becoming rich."
"If they were really rich in the first place, why would they need to make money off that?"
"You’d be surprised how many people get fooled because they don’t understand something that simple."
Why was that?
"It’s all because of ‘heat.’"
"Heat?"
"The heat both the scammer and the victim share—the heat of ‘I’m going to change my life.’"
So that was what this was about.
"That heat makes people get carried away and ruin their judgment. But without heat, humans couldn’t even fall in love once."
Guts, recklessness, or a fighting spirit.
The surge of emotion that blooms when you’re ready to stake something.
That was what Hakari called ‘heat.’
"I love ‘heat.’"
"Ah. I see."
Junpei had heard enough of that grand theory about ‘heat.’
So what was he supposed to do with it?
Hakari grinned at Junpei, who was getting impatient for the point, and crossed his legs the other way.
"Do you know what a more direct exchange of ‘heat’ is?"
The hint was already there.
The spectators betting money on the matches held here were all staking something, whether they won or lost.
And Hakari himself was the one writing the script.
The real keyword wasn’t ‘fight.’ It was ‘bet.’
".....Gambling?"
"Heh-heh. You know a thing or two, huh?"
Junpei didn’t feel pleased at all to be validated.
His mind was already packed with one thought: when was this guy going to get to the point?
Hakari, completely unaware of Junpei’s impatience, rambled on for a long time, and Junpei, drained, listened with one ear and let it out the other.
"Anyway, I need a good piece on the board."
To summarize Hakari’s rambling, it was something like this:
He was a hopeless dopamine addict who wanted to grow this fight club and have its existence officially recognized someday.
Now that curses were surfacing and Headquarters was stumbling around like an idiot, this was the perfect chance to expand the business and change the jujutsu regulations, so he wanted Junpei’s cooperation.
That was the gist of it.
'He’s been cut off from the jujutsu world, so he doesn’t know what’s going on now.'
As for abolishing the regulations, that was easy enough.
Headquarters had already been wiped out, and Yaga and Gakuganji had taken their place.
The Three Great Families were all under the conservative side’s control too, so Hakari’s request wasn’t really a problem.
If he would just help bring the Culling Game to a close, there was no reason not to grant a favor like that.
"Junpei. Why don’t you get swept up in my ‘heat’?"
"Hmm....."
Seeing the bright, sparkling look in Hakari’s eyes, Junpei’s tension eased.
He’d thought the man would be eccentric, but he seemed a lot more innocent than expected.
Setting aside the fact that he was a gambling addict.
'If it’s now, he’ll probably listen.'
All right. Time to be honest.
"Boss. There’s something I need to tell you straight."
"Hm?"
"The truth is, I’m..."
A student from Jujutsu High, and your junior.
I’ve come to ask for your help because a never-before-seen terrorist attack called the Culling Game is happening right now.
There have been all kinds of things going on, but the higher-ups have been wiped out, so once this is over, I’ll do whatever you want.
—He was about to say exactly that when Hakari’s phone rang.
Ding-diri-ding-ding~
Junpei shut his mouth with obvious disappointment just as the words he’d been about to say were cut off, and after glancing at the phone for a moment, Hakari seemed to confirm something and let out a snort.
The name saved in the contact list was Kirara.
"Junpei. Want something to drink?"
"...Then I’ll take something decent."
"Okay. You an alcohol guy, or a soda guy?"
"Soda. Do you have zero cola?"
"Sure do. But you don’t like alcohol?"
"It tastes bad."
From where he sat, Hakari pulled out chilled cola, beer, and a glass, then poured drinks for himself and Junpei.
Junpei cautiously spoke to Hakari, who was gulping down his drink with an unreadable expression.
"Um, about what I was going to say earlier—"
"Ah, that. You don’t need to say it."
Hakari waved a hand, and a dangerous smile appeared on his face.
"I think I already know."
Junpei sensed something was wrong and tried to spring up, but a glass flew straight into his face.
Crash!
"Senpai! Wait, let me explain...!"
"So you weren’t even trying to hide it anymore?"
Clink!
The moment he dodged the glass, a red bead shot toward his face.
Junpei ducked just in time, and Hakari’s kick came crashing down over his head.
Thud!
"I’m sorry for lying, but I was going to tell you myself!"
"And why would I care?"
No matter how much Junpei protested, Hakari kept attacking without pause.
Heavy, powerful blows grazed Junpei’s body, and each time, he grimaced at the inexplicable pain.
'What the hell is this? It hurts like I got scraped with sandpaper!'
"A call from Kirara’s number means an emergency."
Bam!
Hakari’s straight punch smashed through Junpei’s guard and sent him flying backward.
Crash!
Junpei smashed through the door with his back and tumbled out onto the rooftop, only then realizing why this was happening.
"Sorry, Junpei....."
"Junpei, you lied to me?"
"Panda senpai?"
The rooftop wasn’t just Junpei and Hakari.
Panda, flattened under several cars, apologized with an awkward expression.
"I was on standby in case anything unexpected happened, but then..."
Panda had come snooping around for no reason, only to be spotted by Kirara and end up triggering the whole mess.
At that ridiculous bit of sabotage, Junpei covered his face in despair.
"Now that I think about it, it was weird. Panda showed up, and the very next day you came looking for me."
"You were a spy from Jujutsu High?"
Hakari and Kirara pressed Junpei with faces full of betrayal.
He understood why they felt cheated, but he had plenty to say too.
'I was going to tell you in the first place!'
The moment he tried to be honest, he got caught.
It was like studying for four hours straight, finally about to take a break, and then your mom walked in and asked, "What are you doing not studying?"
Junpei let out a sigh and made one last attempt to defend himself.
"I’m sorry for lying. But I absolutely didn’t come here with any bad intentions. I came to ask for your help."
"Ha. I wondered what you were going to say."
"There’s a massive terrorist attack happening in Tokyo right now. We need Hakari senpai’s help."
"That’s your own fault, isn’t it? You ditched us first."
"The higher-ups have all been killed. Yaga principal and Gakuganji principal are filling in for them now."
At that bombshell, Hakari and Kirara’s eyes widened.
"You killed off all those old fossils?"
"How am I supposed to believe that? No, more importantly, why?"
If they wanted to know why, there was a lot to say.
Gojo Satoru had been sealed, Kenjaku had seized the opening and swallowed the higher-ups, and he’d issued extermination orders to stir up internal conflict...
In a situation this urgent, no one would listen if he tried to explain everything in detail.
Junpei’s brain spun at top speed, trying to figure out how to make it land, and produced the most condensed summary possible.
"While Gojo-sensei was sealed, a lunatic curse user who’s been alive for a thousand years took over the higher-ups."
"........"
Their stares were sharp.
It was the look you’d give a patient who’d just escaped a mental ward.
Cold sweat ran down Junpei’s forehead.
'I’m screwed.'
Far from being convinced, they were clearly treating him like he was spouting nonsense just to mess with them.
"Gojo Satoru sealed? A sorcerer from a thousand years ago? Are you kidding me?"
"You don’t believe it either, do you?"
"No, I’m serious!"
Even as he thumped his chest in frustration, Kirara and Hakari had already stopped listening.
"What a disappointment, Junpei. I thought you were an interesting guy, but you’re just a crazy bastard after all."
With a stiff expression, Hakari yanked off the fur jacket he’d been wearing.
Cracking his joints with a rough krrk, he fully settled into a fighting stance.
"There’s a limit to how much you can toy with people. Who do you think you’re making a fool of?"
"Everything I said is true. Give me a little more time and I can explain it properly..."
"No."
I feel better if I beat you up right now.
Whether what you said is true or not doesn’t matter.
"Because my ‘heat’ has gone cold!"
"Listen to me, damn it!!!"
As Junpei screamed, Hakari charged.
With communication completely off the table, there was no room left for compromise.
As Junpei raised his cursed energy, Hakari’s dropkick exploded toward him.
Whoosh
"Huh?"
The dropkick Junpei thought had landed sliced through empty air, and Hakari, suspended in the wrong timing, took a fist straight to the stomach.
The full-force blow slammed him into the ground.
Boom!
"Cough!"
Power enough to crack the concrete floor.
Hakari’s body locked up from the suffocating pain.
"Kin-chan!"
Just as Junpei was about to follow up and fully suppress Hakari, his own body was suddenly flung away.
No matter how he tried to resist, it didn’t work at all.
'So this is the force Panda senpai was talking about.'
It didn’t feel like direct control so much as being dragged along by some kind of ‘rule.’
This must be Kirara’s technique.
"Don’t go near Kin-chan!"
With Kirara’s sharp shout behind them, the cars floating in the air all shot toward Junpei at once.
Panda had probably been hit by that too.
The technique was likely about ‘repelling’ and ‘attracting.’
'I don’t know how it works, but it doesn’t matter.'
There was no need to overthink it while fighting.
Seeing that the technique wasn’t built for combat, its user’s raw strength probably wasn’t anything special compared to Hakari’s.
Deciding to deal with the annoying Kirara first, Junpei partially manifested Black Scale on his right arm and threw a punch at the incoming cars.
"Hup!"
KRA-KA-KA-KABOOM!
The scales trembled and tore apart the cars coming for him.
With a single punch, the car bodies were smashed to pieces and shards of glass sprayed everywhere.
"Wh...!"
Fip!
A thin poison needle shot into the back of Kirara’s neck.
Before Kirara could even say anything, the toxin took effect and they collapsed unconscious.
It was only a paralyzing poison, so there was no need to worry about killing them.
"Hah. Is that really all you’ve got?"
Kirara was out, but the time they’d bought gave Hakari enough breathing room to recover.
Junpei strode toward Hakari, who was laughing with an incredulous expression, with a murderous aura about him.
"I didn’t want to do this either. So why didn’t you just listen?"
"I kept telling you. My ‘heat’ had gone cold."
The moment Junpei’s other purpose was exposed, he lost Hakari’s trust.
And words from someone who’s lost trust have no heat, no matter what they are.
They’re just empty, like the life of a pachinko addict who’s dumped his entire fortune into roulette and is now screaming at the void.
"So if you want to convince me, you’ll have to prove it some other way."
Hakari wiped the blood from his mouth and formed hand signs with his right and left hands.
The opponent was definitely strong.
What he’d shown in the tournament was only the tip of the iceberg.
Just what he’d displayed so far included poison, shikigami, and high-level cursed energy reinforcement, and who knew what else he had.
But if Junpei backed down here, the name of a gambler would be disgraced.
"Domain Expansion."
No matter how strong the opponent was.
He would seize luck through skill and prove it.
[Coffin of the Iron Mountain]
With Hakari at the center, a barrier spread and the domain unfolded.
Its speed was even greater than Mahito’s in Shibuya.
That wasn’t the only thing that made Hakari special.
The moment the domain’s ‘rules’ entered Junpei’s head, he gave up on activating his own simple domain.
"This is...!"
"Now, let’s keep it going!"
Another kind of ‘heat’ began to wrap around the two men.
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