The road from Tokyo to Itabashi.
"I wish Tsukumo were here. I really don’t want to go all the way to Nakano again."
"We’ll just have to hope we get lucky. If not, there’s nothing for it."
As Kusakabe muttered in a voice full of complaints, Todo answered without a care.
He’d had to listen to every last one of this guy’s gripes and whines for five straight days.
It would have been understandable if he’d gotten irritated, but Todo was naturally the easygoing type, and he’d gotten so used to it that he didn’t even think about it anymore.
"Even if he talks like that, he’s not going to run away."
There was no need to try to shut up someone who was working honestly.
"You just had a very insolent thought, didn’t you."
"I didn’t say anything."
"...Forget it."
Kusakabe shook his head and said nothing for a while.
An awkward silence hung between them, but Todo actually found it more comfortable that way.
He had worked a few missions with Kusakabe before, but since they belonged to different schools, they rarely had reason to see each other. They’d only gotten a little closer because they’d been stuck together since entering the [Culling Game], and he had no desire to become any closer than that.
The biggest reason was that his taste in women didn’t even clear the passing mark.
"At least he’s better than that bastard Okkotsu."
The moment Todo’s thoughts went that far, he shuddered.
"What’s wrong?"
"Nothing."
Kusakabe’s tastes were certainly vague and hard to pin down, but they were still better than Okkotsu’s.
Okkotsu had the worst sexual preferences of anyone he had ever met.
No matter how strong he was or how outstanding his character might be, Todo didn’t even want to breathe the same air as a guy with the bizarre fetish of getting aroused by curses.
There had been more to the fighting spirit he’d shown toward Okkotsu during the exchange event than just a desire to test strength.
"This guy’s lost in his delusions again."
Watching Todo drift off into thought, Kusakabe let out a sigh inwardly.
Todo didn’t know it, but he was the type whose thoughts showed up on his face immediately.
The foam of disgust and anger spilling from between his unfocused eyes and tightly pressed lips, even his clenched fists trembling.
Anyone could see he was expressing hatred and fury toward something.
"The kid’s solid enough... but when I see stuff like this, I kind of get why Utahime freaks out over him so much."
Once, during a staff dinner, Utahime had gotten drunk and complained about her life being miserable because of two men.
When he’d grabbed her and asked who she meant, the names Gojo and Todo had come flying out immediately.
He hadn’t understood it back then, but now he was feeling it so strongly it made his teeth ache.
Manly, strong, and quick-witted to boot. And if the taste matched, he could even be generous.
Leave out the stubbornness and delusion sickness, and he was practically the ideal partner.
It was just that those two flaws were so overwhelming.
"Who the hell asks their boss about his taste in women?"
There was one right here.
Right in front of him.
As he looked at him with a pitiful expression, Todo soon snapped back to his senses.
"What?"
"Nothing."
After that evasive answer, silence settled over them once more.
The two of them walked on without speaking, each reaching a similar but opposite conclusion.
"Delusional bastard."
"Habitual slacker syndrome whiner."
Todo Aoi and Kusakabe Atsuya.
They were problem children, but the strongest... no, just problem children.
-------------------------------------
It was all well and good that they’d made it to Itabashi with such confidence, but the most important part—the search itself—wasn’t going nearly as well as they’d hoped.
They combed through the area within about one or two kilometers of the center, but found nothing of significance.
The search, which had started in the early evening and dragged on until late at night, ended only in disappointment.
"A total bust."
"She didn’t leave even a trace behind."
Tsukumo Yuki was thorough.
Unlike her usual self—someone who liked to show herself off and carried herself with confidence—she had focused on erasing every trace so obsessively it bordered on a grim fixation.
Even the motorcycle she always rode probably hadn’t been brought along because it would stand out.
It was getting hard to believe this was really the teacher he knew.
"But if it’s this clean..."
"Then it means there’s something there, on the other hand."
The one bit of good news was that because she had erased her traces so cleanly, it had become a clue in itself.
There weren’t that many places inside this [Culling Game] where Tsukumo could hide without drawing attention.
It was possible she had stayed put in one place for all five days, but there was almost no way to stock up on supplies without antagonizing the players.
"Could she have an ally?"
"I can’t deny it, but at the very least it wouldn’t be Kenjaku. That much is certain."
"Tengen said the same thing, but... just now you said she wasn’t the Tsukumo you knew, didn’t you?"
Kusakabe objected, but Todo’s gaze didn’t waver.
"No matter how big the event, a person’s nature doesn’t change that easily. Especially someone with a strong personality like my teacher. I’ve watched her at my side for years, so I know that better than anyone."
There was no denying that Tsukumo Yuki had betrayed the jujutsu world and allied herself with Kenjaku.
But that didn’t mean she deeply empathized with Kenjaku.
Even if their final goals matched, there was no way she would approve of the sacrifices and chaos that came with the process.
Seeing Todo so resolute, Kusakabe suddenly became curious about what kind of person Tsukumo Yuki was.
Come to think of it, he didn’t know a single thing about her. He only knew she was the first special grade, that she was on very bad terms with the higher-ups, and that she wandered around overseas.
Anyway, since the goal was to "persuade" her, shouldn’t he know at least something about her?
"Sounds like you two were closer than I thought."
"Are you curious?"
"A little? If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. I’m not forcing you."
"It’s not that big a story. I just never had the chance to say it."
For a moment, Todo drifted into nostalgia and recalled an old story from his childhood.
Their first meeting, under the overpass.
Her sweat-damp face as she rode in on a motorcycle and lifted her helmet was truly memorable.
"I guess I was in fifth grade... We met by chance when I was a kid, and my teacher liked me enough to take me in as a disciple."
"What about you did she like?"
"She said she liked my spirit. I’d just beaten up a high schooler who’d picked a fight with me."
"...?"
He felt like he’d just heard something incredible.
Even if a sorcerer awakens their technique at age five or six, there’s no way a child who hasn’t been taught anything could skillfully fight like a sorcerer.
Besides, Todo’s [technique] was a classic trickster-type [technique] that put everything into mind games.
Beating up a high schooler meant little Todo had simply been insanely strong.
"If I saw a grade-schooler beating up a high schooler, I’d be shocked too."
"Anyway, that’s how I became her disciple and learned a lot of things. Cursed energy reinforcement, hand-to-hand combat, [simple domain]... I think I learned pretty much everything a normal sorcerer could learn."
"Early education is real, huh... That’s the kind of thing only people from the Three Great Families usually learn. You definitely got first grade when you were a first-year, right?"
"Yes."
"She’s a better teacher than I thought."
"I learned by getting hit, so I had no choice but to pick things up fast. I rebelled a lot when I was young, but now that I’m older, I think that was her own way of showing affection."
At least as far as Todo knew, she was a good person.
She didn’t bow her head to the rotten higher-ups, and she was a lively woman who dreamed of a world without curses.
She was an innocent, childlike person who could proudly put forward ideas everyone else would laugh at and shake their heads over.
He must have become her disciple because he fell for that side of her.
"If she showed affection a few more times, I feel like she’d end up looking like a rag."
"Still, I didn’t hate it. I learned so much while traveling with her. My teacher also taught me the mindset a sorcerer should have."
Even now, it still didn’t feel real that such a teacher had joined forces with Kenjaku.
Maybe somewhere deep down, he still believed in her.
He wanted to believe that his first love, the one who awakened his taste, wouldn’t fall that far.
"Wait, first love?"
"Ah, I didn’t mention it? My first love was my teacher."
?
"Hold on, hold on, that’s not the kind of feeling a disciple is supposed to have!"
A teacher-student romance sounded like the sort of forbidden content that should come with a warning label, and the age gap between them was seriously problematic too.
As far as he knew, Tsukumo Yuki was the first special grade. Her age was unknown, but if you went by when she became special grade, she had to be at least in her late thirties now.
Kusakabe yelled in horror and tried to object, but Todo didn’t care.
"Judging people by sexual preferences was something my teacher taught me too. After that, my standard became my teacher."
"You know this is getting more and more dangerous, right?"
"Since it’s come to this, Kusakabe-sensei, I’ll make it clear to you too. There are no bad people among those who like tall women with big asses!"
"Hey, why don’t we call it a night? It’s late anyway."
"I gave up on my feelings for my teacher a long time ago. That person has absolutely no interest in marriage or romance. As for me, Takada-chan is..."
"Haa...."
After that, Kusakabe had to endure a lecture on Todo’s theory of taste for more than two hours as punishment for running his mouth the wrong way.
He had no desire whatsoever to know when the tall idol Takada-chan first started getting famous, or what the secret to her height was, but he didn’t have the courage to stop the rant once it had already begun.
After talking to his heart’s content, Todo fell into a blissful deep sleep, while Kusakabe spent the whole night tormented by nightmares of a three-meter-tall Tsukumo Yuki.
Every time he woke up in the middle of it, he clenched his teeth and made a vow.
Never again,
never again would he bring up women’s tastes with Todo.
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