The morning of day seven dawned.
Todo and Kusakabe, who had gotten up early, washed up, ate a quick meal, and began their search.
Now that daylight had come and the curses weren’t running wild, it seemed like they might be able to range farther this time.
"We should be able to cover everything by today. Since we can’t contact each other separately, let’s all gather back here by 2 p.m."
"Understood. If either of us finds any trace of the teacher, let’s come back immediately."
The players other than the rankers didn’t require much caution, and in any case, this wasn’t anyone’s territory.
They had stayed together in case something unexpected happened, but for now, splitting up would be more efficient.
It would be great if phones actually worked properly in times like this, but it didn’t seem like things would go that easily.
"Anyway, see you later. Take care of yourself."
"You too, Teacher Kusakabe."
After exchanging farewells, the two men set off in different directions.
Todo headed south, toward Nakano. Kusakabe headed north, toward the edge of the barrier.
Unaware that this path they had chosen without much thought might represent their future, they simply kept walking aimlessly.
Nothing.
"Teacher, what the hell kind of hellish slog is this?"
About four hours after the search began.
Even after scouring every inch with his eyes wide open, he still hadn’t found so much as a single strand of Tsukumo Yuki’s hair.
He had finally escaped five days of hardship and thought he might actually get something done, but the search still showed no sign of progress.
Todo could feel all too painfully today that being motivated did not necessarily lead to good results.
"If we’ve searched this much, shouldn’t something have turned up by now?"
He checked every building in sight, abandoned houses, basements, even the stalls of public toilets, but it was all useless.
Compared to the effort he’d put in, the results were miserable, and it felt like his spirit was breaking.
Todo kicked a stone lying by the roadside in irritation, then sat down and covered his face with both hands.
He’d been mocking Kusakabe as a whiner, but the truth was that Todo himself had grown deeply sick of life inside this Culling Game.
Everything was in terrible shape, and even the comrades he trusted were not people he could simply meet whenever he wanted.
With the main mission of finding Tsukumo also going nowhere, the mental strain on him was enormous.
'Will I even be able to meet the teacher before the Culling Game ends?'
At this rate, gathering 1,000 points and having the Angel remove the barrier would probably be faster than finding his teacher.
There was no reason for them to wait around until he and Kusakabe found Tsukumo.
-Our mission is only to keep them in check.
What Kusakabe had said was right.
To Jujutsu High, Tsukumo Yuki was certainly an annoying factor, but she wasn’t indispensable to the plan like the Angel, nor was she someone who absolutely had to be killed like Kenjaku.
As long as they weren’t interrupted midway, the Culling Game would end as it was, and his teacher, having lost her purpose, would surely vanish without a trace. There was no reason for Jujutsu High to send out a search party and accept casualties just to chase her down.
He couldn’t be certain, but for some reason Todo had the feeling that if that happened, he would never meet his teacher again.
"I really don’t like that."
At the very least, if he could talk to her.
He wanted to ask why she had made that choice, whether he had never even been in her sights.
He wanted to meet her. Even knowing that if he didn’t get a proper answer, he would have no choice but to fight her then and there.
But could he really become her enemy?
He couldn’t rule out the worst possibility.
And even if they fought, what would remain?
Only the cold corpse of his teacher, along with the faint relief that the enemy’s strength had been reduced by even a little.
Whether he could bear that weight was still another matter.
Once, he had apparently lectured the traitor Mechamaru with a smug air of superiority.
The worst kind of person was an indecisive one, he had said. What could a guy with no clear taste in women possibly accomplish? He had talked big, and now he himself was in the most indecisive state of all.
Someone might comfort him by saying that his situation made it unavoidable, but that didn’t seem likely to help much.
As his thoughts kept spiraling and he was just about to start doubting even the work he was doing now-
'I should... rest a little.'
He needed to clear his head.
Todo, calming the confusion in his heart, took a deep breath.
As the unpleasant, sticky feeling began to fade a little, he opened the pendant hanging around his neck.
"Brother, show me the way. Where should I go?"
Inside it was a photo of Yuji and the tall idol Takada-chan.
The madness of turning a photo he didn’t even know when he’d taken into a pendant and treasuring it carefully.
If the person himself had seen it, he would have been horrified and recoiled, but unfortunately, he was currently sleeping peacefully in his neutral-zone lodging, enjoying a late morning lie-in.
And then,
What filled Todo’s vision in that moment was
the "nonexistent" Itadori Yuji.
-Brother, are you planning to disappoint me?
"Brother...?!"
Whether it was a miracle or Todo, cornered mentally, was seeing an illusion, an answer came back.
Itadori Yuji, who came running like a tiger toward Todo as he was lost in self-reflection, immediately raised his right hand and slapped him across the face.
Smack!
The stinging pain jolted him awake in an instant.
Todo trembled all over and rubbed his reddening cheek.
But the murkiness clouding his eyes had already turned clear.
-Brother.
"What is it, Brother."
-Are you still confused? Are you afraid to face the results of the choice you made?
"No. I decided long ago that I would accept the results of my choice. I’m not afraid of the future that’s coming!"
-Then what are you afraid of?
"Until now, I’ve never had a single doubt about the things I believed were right. But this time is different. No matter how things turn out, will there be any meaning in what I do? That’s what I’m afraid of. I may even get to meet the teacher. But even if I do, I’m afraid that if either the teacher or I dies, it’ll all be a meaningless death."
Even in death, resolve does not disappear. Passing on the burden of fallen comrades is what sorcerers do.
But if that resolve wavers, and even the road ahead is meaningless, then what waits at the end?
Todo wanted the Brother before his eyes to answer that.
Yuji let out a sigh, then this time slapped Todo’s cheek hard with his left hand.
Smack!
With the increased force, blood began streaming from Todo’s nose.
It should have hurt, but he silently endured the pain and didn’t even let out a groan. No, rather, he accepted the violence with a joyful heart.
He couldn’t afford to look pathetic at a crucial moment.
Pleased with his composed bearing, Yuji gave a small smile and patted his shoulder.
-Meaning isn’t something you decide, Todo.
"I don’t decide it...?"
-There may be times when what you do still has no meaning. Feeling afraid and ashamed of that is natural. We’re probably nothing more than one gear in some enormous machine.
But still,
you have to keep rowing.
"Why?"
-Because nobody starts doing something while thinking about its meaning from the beginning. Even if judgment only comes after hundreds or thousands of years, you can’t stop. That’s the best we can do for those who are gone, and for the comrades who remain.
"....!"
-You’re sitting there alone, moping over something like this. That’s not like you, Brother. How long are you going to keep sitting there?
Right.
This pathetic whining wasn’t like him.
Since when had he started charging in while worrying about every little thing?
Meaning didn’t matter anymore. He already had the courage to face it, so there was no reason to hesitate.
Just do it. Whatever it was, do it.
And after that, no matter what happened, he would be prepared to take responsibility for the outcome.
"Thanks, Brother! Because of you, I realized what I need to do!"
-Haha, I knew it. That’s my Brother.
"No matter how long it takes, no matter how far I have to go, I’m finding the teacher! I’m finding her first!"
-Do your best. Then I’ll be off now......
As Todo got back to his feet, Yuji’s apparition finished its role and turned into light, flying up into the sky.
Closing his eyes and pressing his lips to the pendant, Todo offered deep gratitude to his Brother in his heart.
For the sake of the brother who had guided this foolish man once again, he could fall and rise again as many times as it took.
"I’ve seen some insane bastards in my time."
It was then that a voice muttered from somewhere nearby.
Todo’s nerves, already on edge for some time, didn’t miss even the smallest sound.
After pretending not to hear it for a moment, he whipped his head around and locked eyes with the suspicious man watching from a distance.
"Damn it...!"
Detected by a moment’s mistake, the suspicious man immediately turned and fled.
He might have been just another unrelated player, but Todo’s instincts were screaming that this guy was suspicious.
He was fast, probably a pretty capable fighter. But once he’d been spotted, there was no escaping Todo.
Estimating the distance to the enemy, Todo scooped up a handful of stones with both hands and, after a slight pause, hurled them one after another.
Whoosh! Whir! Whoosh!
The stones, adjusted with finely controlled cursed energy, flew in a linked chain along a fixed trajectory.
After finishing the throw, Todo clapped his hands just as the last stone neared the limit of his technique’s range.
A technique that could change the position of objects imbued with cursed energy within a certain range.
For utility, there was nothing that could match it, and Todo’s identity, triggered by applause, activated.
[Boogie Woogie]
Clap clap clap clap clap!!
Each time he clapped, his body shifted through the air, closing the distance in an instant.
The sight of him suddenly appearing in the sky in a stiff, rigid posture, while his eyes stayed fixed and only his hands moved rapidly to activate the technique, was deeply bizarre.
Madly clapping as he crossed space was like a scene from a horror movie, or like watching a video someone had deliberately edited.
But bizarre and ridiculous as it looked, its effect was undeniable.
"Got you!"
"Tch!"
Before long, Todo had reached right in front of his target and could see what he was wearing.
The heart-shaped nipple patches stuck to his muscular upper body were striking.
And with makeup on top of that, his tastes clearly weren’t exactly ordinary.
And then,
'This guy’s strong, isn’t he?'
He was strong.
Just from the aura he gave off, he seemed to be at the upper end of Grade 1.
An opponent whose victory or defeat couldn’t be guaranteed if they fought right now.
Why hadn’t a guy like this become known anywhere inside the Culling Game?
'Suspicious. And somehow he looks familiar...'
The man called Laru, looking at the brooding Todo with a troubled expression, gritted his teeth.
'Damn it, I shouldn’t have been seen.'
It had been caused by coming out to gather supplies at a bad time.
As Todo and Kusakabe had expected, their current base was located not far from here.
Since Tsukumo couldn’t appear openly, Laru handled outside activity for her, and of all times, it had overlapped with the moment Todo was searching nearby.
Since he’d been discovered first, he’d planned to hide and wait until Todo left, but the problem was the shocking scene that followed.
"Brother...!"
Smack! Smack!
Laru was horrified by the sight of Todo talking to empty air and slapping his own cheeks in self-harm.
He knew from what Tsukumo had told him that Todo was an unusual human being, but he hadn’t expected him to be that much of a lunatic.
Honestly, he really did look like someone suffering from a mental illness.
Overwhelmed by madness beyond anything he’d imagined, he’d blurted out a remark without being able to stop himself.
Regret was useless now.
It had already happened, and from here on he needed to figure out how to deal with the man in front of him.
'Running won’t help because of that spatial movement. I need to get as far away as possible from the direction Tsukumo is in.'
Their strength was almost even.
If he couldn’t settle the fight easily, then he’d have to pretend to fight while moving away from the hideout.
He didn’t expect much, but maybe there was a chance they could talk it out.
"Hey, why are you following me?"
"Hm? Well, you ran away first."
"....?"
Seeing the puzzled expression, it was clear he wasn’t teasing him but genuinely thought that.
Laru was already seeing darkness.
Shaking his head, he raised both hands to show he had no intention of fighting.
"Uh, how should I put this. I was watching you in secret, sure, but I wasn’t looking to pick a fight. I don’t even like fighting. Why don’t we just go our separate ways?"
"That depends on what kind of person you are."
"I don’t really like men who talk vaguely."
"Hmm...."
The more they exchanged words, the more familiar Todo seemed to become.
Tilting his head, Todo asked the usual question.
It was the way he evaluated people whenever he met them.
"What type of woman do you like?"
"I’m gay, though?"
"I don’t care if it’s a man, so hurry up. I’m pretty open-minded about that sort of thing."
Even though he wasn’t being chased by anything, Todo looked extremely impatient.
He had the air of someone who would never back down until Laru answered the question.
Experiencing firsthand the persistence he’d only heard about, the pressure was no joke.
As Laru was thinking he might as well give some half-assed answer, someone flashed through his mind.
Geto Suguru.
His former boss, now dead and gone.
The man he had secretly loved and wanted to make into a king.
Though he had been killed by a friend and his body desecrated, it seemed his feelings for him had not disappeared.
Unlike Laru’s conscious thought process, his mouth opened on its own.
"A sharp handsome guy with long hair that suits him."
".....!!"
It was vague enough, and yet it was enough to make the target come to mind.
Todo’s aura turned vicious in an instant.
'Ah, shit.'
He shouldn’t have said that.
"You were Geto Suguru’s companion, weren’t you?"
"......"
"I heard about it. When he declared war on Tokyo, there was a bizarre man with his shirt off standing beside him. Was that you?"
If he knew that much, then there was no point in talking.
"Looks like... we can’t solve this with conversation."
"Right. But remember this: I’m not doing this because you were Geto Suguru’s companion."
"Then what is it for?"
Was it because he was connected to Kenjaku, who had taken over Geto Suguru’s body?
Or because his instincts were screaming that this guy might know Tsukumo Yuki’s whereabouts?
Both were wrong.
"The answer is that your taste is boring."
"....!"
Apparently he couldn’t possibly swallow that insult, because Laru’s expression hardened.
The two men faced off, drawing up all their cursed energy.
They had come this far; no more words were needed.
[Heart Catch]
A giant hand appeared in the air and flew toward Todo.
The source of Laru’s many abilities, and a being almost like his own clone.
It could exert considerable physical force, and unlike a shikigami, it could be resummoned as often as needed.
Whoosh!
The hand charged forward at high speed with a sharp cutting sound.
Even as the outstretched palm approached with the force to crush him, Todo simply waited.
And then, just as the clenched hand completely covered Todo’s body, the right palm he had extended touched the apparition.
Smack!
A small but distinct clap rang out, and the turn changed.
Before long, Todo was standing behind Laru, his eyes glowing red.
"What...!"
"Too bad. Bad matchup."
Baaang!
Todo’s powerful punch landed cleanly.
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