When the [Domain Expansion] collapsed and Hakari appeared, the first thing Todo and Kusakabe threw at him was not a warm greeting, nor thanks for saving them, but complaints.
"Where the hell have you been?!"
"You’re late, you mustached bastard!"
"Uh... no, that’s not it."
Two days.
They had finally met after a full two days.
He wanted to ask where the hell he’d been hiding that not even a glimpse of him had shown up.
The resentment over having to face a special-grade with only two people because the plan had gone sideways outweighed any sense of relief at seeing him.
"Tch, what am I supposed to do about being thrown in with no information?"
Hakari, who had gone out of his way to save them only to get cursed at, looked a little put out.
Then someone should have at least told him the rules of the barrier. Was it his fault he’d been split off and lost like a stray?
He didn’t bother arguing, since they looked like hell, but he did have something to say about it.
They’d had plenty of problems on their side too.
And there was still something more urgent than that.
"Save the chatter for later, right now...!"
Hakari pushed off the ground and lunged at Tsukumo with a movement far too nimble for his build.
Her [Domain Expansion] had just collapsed.
Which meant this was the chance, now that her technique was overheated.
"I have to wear her down before her technique recovers."
He didn’t think he could finish her off in this round.
His technique was specialized for long fights, not exceptional in raw attack power, so he couldn’t expect one huge finishing blow.
His goal was to shave off as much as possible while she was exposed, and carry that luck until the battle was over.
"Tch!"
-Whoooosh!
As the huge fist came flying in, Tsukumo slipped aside while grabbing his arm.
Running until her technique recovered would be the best option, but would Todo just stand there and watch that happen?
Rather than show her back, it was better to figure out the ability of Hakari, whose information they still didn’t know.
-Clack!
Pressing close with a hand on his shoulder, she drove a knee into him.
It didn’t carry any mass, but it landed squarely in his solar plexus.
When she followed up with an elbow, aiming to smash down on his back, Hakari’s body, which had seemed stiff, suddenly jolted.
"...?"
-Whirl!
Hakari wrapped his arms around Tsukumo’s waist and tore himself backward from the clinch.
As the two of them crashed onto the ground together, the impact ran through their tangled bodies, and Hakari reacted faster.
Ignoring the brief sting of pain that vanished almost immediately, he climbed on top of Tsukumo and took mount, then clenched his fist and brought it down like a hammer.
-Smack!
Tsukumo raised her arm to block, grimacing at the rough pain radiating from the impact point.
"What the hell kind of guy is this?"
The near-infinite amount of cursed energy pouring out of him from earlier. He was used to pain, and on top of that he had a cursed energy trait that made defense impossible.
From what she’d roughly figured out through the exchange of blows, he was the type to trust his durability, tank attacks, and keep charging.
It was a brutally dumb kind of toughness, completely different from her own style.
-Bang! Bang! Bang!
Hakari’s hammering kept coming down.
His already high output, combined with his tough body and the bonus-state cursed energy, made it infuriatingly heavy.
One more beating like this and her arm would be wrecked.
-Thump!
Tsukumo drew in a breath and quickly snapped her hips up into a bridge.
The lower body pinning her wobbled, Hakari’s posture destabilized for a split second, and she grabbed the back of his neck and used the rebound to flip him over.
After confirming that he’d fallen headfirst, Tsukumo rose again and tried to create distance, but Hakari’s bonus mode still wasn’t over.
Without the slightest hesitation, he got back up and threw a punch, his body spotless with not a single wound on it.
-Pow!
Tsukumo’s head snapped back from the clean hit she hadn’t had time to defend against.
Spitting blood from her split lip, she twisted her body and sent a back kick toward Hakari’s head.
The blow struck dead on at his temple and shook his brain.
She’d thought he’d black out, but again he only rolled his eyes for a moment before recovering and charging back in.
-Bam!
The hurriedly thrown straight punches crossed, and cross counters landed on both their faces.
After staggering for a moment, the two of them crashed back together and continued the exchange.
-Tap, whoosh, pow!
Unlike her, who was beginning to stagger from the damage piling up, Hakari boasted absurd recovery speed.
Tsukumo, who was starting to read the rhythm and hold back from reckless attacks, was driven forward by him with nothing but sheer durability.
As if blocking wasn’t even an option, no matter how powerful the strike coming at him was, he never so much as blinked, silently took it, and immediately answered with a counter.
When she’d been in a close-quarters fight with Todo earlier, she’d been the one applying pressure, but now the roles had reversed.
"This toughness is insane. No, can you even call this toughness?"
No matter how strong a person was, getting punched in the face would usually make them flinch.
But Hakari’s way of fighting seemed to ignore even that basic common sense.
The damage was definitely going through, but strangely, there was almost no gap between the hit and the counter.
Then there was only one possibility.
"Reverse Cursed Technique."
He recovered the damage with Reverse Cursed Technique the instant he took it, almost completely ignoring the impact.
That was the only explanation.
The only thing that bothered her was that even after she’d shaken his brain hard enough to knock him out, he’d come back at her.
"You can recover your brain in that short a time? While also fighting with cursed energy reinforcement?"
She couldn’t do that.
In her entire life, she had only seen one person reach that level.
And if that one person was Gojo Satoru, then this was practically the realm of impossibility...
No.
It didn’t matter.
If he could recover, then she just had to crush him with even greater force.
She’d stalled long enough.
-Crash!
Tsukumo and Hakari’s outstretched fists slammed into each other, producing a tremendous sound.
Too loud for it to be just bare flesh colliding.
Even Todo and Kusakabe, who had been watching while recovering their strength, could tell at once that this was no ordinary situation.
-Boom!
Unlike Tsukumo’s fist, which was still intact aside from a little skin being scraped off, Hakari’s left arm, which had taken the attack head-on, exploded without a trace.
"...!"
"His technique recovered!"
Hakari, flung back by the shockwave, clenched his teeth, and the left arm that had vanished under full-auto Reverse Cursed Technique was restored in an instant.
But that regeneration was the last of it.
The 4 minutes and 11 seconds, shorter than expected, passed, and Hakari’s bonus time came to an end.
The silence that replaced the lively music settled in, and Tsukumo was the first to speak.
"It’s full-auto Reverse Cursed Technique, isn’t it?"
"Lady, you’ve got a sharp eye. How’d you figure it out?"
"Your infinite cursed energy disappeared. Normally, your body wouldn’t be able to withstand that much cursed energy, but you were different."
Your brain learned Reverse Cursed Technique automatically to keep your body going.
And while that bizarre buff state lasted, you left the activation to your unconscious mind.
"So it has to activate faster than other sorcerers’ Reverse Cursed Technique. Since you use it unconsciously, you can still use it even if your consciousness gets blown away."
"I didn’t even use [Coffin], and you figured that out? Guess a special-grade is a special-grade."
"Well, it looks impossible now."
Summoning Garuda and wrapping it around her right hand, Tsukumo slammed the ground once.
That abnormal recovery from earlier was probably only possible in that state.
Even if it wasn’t, she could just blow apart his whole body with overwhelming mass.
"I’ll finish this quickly. You won’t feel any pain."
"We’ll see."
Even in this desperate situation, Hakari still hadn’t lost his composure.
Something was off.
"Aoi’s almost done too, and Kusakabe should be reaching his limit... alone?"
"You still have a trump card left?"
"I haven’t shown all my cards yet."
Seed money is a gambler’s lifeline, after all.
Hakari laughed inwardly and let out a relieved breath as he recalled the dangerous moment from earlier.
"If the bonus round had ended a little earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to recover my left arm."
Tsukumo might see it differently, but for him there was no better news than that.
Without a left arm, he couldn’t make the hand sign. It had been close, but in the end things had gone exactly the way he wanted.
He could feel the goddess of victory smiling on him.
His right hand formed a circle and flipped over.
Under it, his left hand extended to support it, forming the sign.
"[Domain Expansion]."
"...!!"
[Coffin]
A barrier with no harmful effect, but with overwhelmingly strong activation speed and pushback.
As soon as the barrier spread and the stage appeared, Tsukumo, who had been about to take a ready stance, gave up on activating her simple domain.
And then, information about the technique was revealed in her mind.
"This is... so that’s it. That invincible mode from just now was a bonus gained from hitting the jackpot on the previous roulette!"
The secret of full-auto Reverse Cursed Technique was finally solved, but one question remained.
To obtain the bonus mode, it was essential to expand the domain and spin the roulette. Had he fought someone before coming here?
She couldn’t measure the exact time, but considering how long the bonus mode had lasted, somewhere not too far away...
Before she could resolve that question, one line struck her mind like a blow.
"Probability shift initiated!"
"!!!"
Probability shift.
An event that occurs when an odd-numbered jackpot hits on the previous roulette, allowing an almost guaranteed jackpot to be drawn.
And once one jackpot is drawn, the odds of hitting another rise exponentially after that.
In other words, from now on, except for the opening gap when he expands his domain,
he could keep maintaining his invincible mode.
"I have to kill him before he hits the jackpot again!"
-Whirl!
She imbued Garuda in her hand with mass and swung it at Hakari.
An attack thrown with every intention of killing him outright.
Before the whip could fully reach Hakari, a clap sounded from somewhere.
-Clap!
-KWA-GWA-GWAANG!
The whip, having missed its original target, smashed the pachinko machines instead.
Calmly assessing the situation, she realized at once that Hakari and her positions had been swapped.
Tsukumo, unable to kill him in one blow, ground her teeth in surging rage.
"Aoi!!!"
"Hey, I can hear you just fine without you yelling, so keep it down, teacher."
Todo, who had been dragged into the [Domain Expansion], was scratching his ear atop a pachinko machine some distance away.
While she was distracted by him, she heard a ping and a bead flew toward the back of her head.
She casually swept her hand and knocked the pathetic attack away, then swung Garuda with enough force to wipe out the entire area nearby.
-KWA-AAAAANG!!
A huge crater formed around her as she spun in a wide circle.
Even so, the rich action kept progressing steadily.
"Rich!"
5-5. Odd jackpot chance.
Unlike Tsukumo’s increasingly frantic mind, his head was still turning cold and clear.
"Aoi is basically done for. I guess you could call that his last burst. Judging by the cursed energy he has left, he probably doesn’t have many more uses of Boogie Woogie left."
Then keep pressing until she can’t dodge.
He swung the whip at Hakari again, but with another clap like before, their positions were switched.
This time he traded places with Todo, and she immediately recalled Garuda, rolled it up into a ball, and kicked it.
METEO-RO(Starfall)
The attack with the greatest power and range among her standard moves flew toward Hakari.
And at the same time, she threw herself into the area the attack would cover.
A vicious tactic that left no escape whether she switched with Tsukumo or Hakari.
The only choice left to the man standing farthest away was one.
-Clap!
-KWA-AANG!
As expected, Garuda and Todo swapped positions, and the ball smashed into the wrong place.
"Ghk, my cursed energy...!"
-Smack!
Apparently truly out of cursed energy now, Todo collapsed with a groan.
Tsukumo casually kicked him away and poured mass into her right hand, then drove it toward Hakari.
Just before the rich action ended, her fist slammed into Hakari’s abdomen.
-Crash!
"Cough!"
His side exploded open and he spat blood, collapsing.
It looked like the winner had been decided... but...
"Continue..!"
-Ping!
[Ishouen]
The only defensive production he could use went off, reducing the damage he took.
And then, as the rich action fully ended, the number that rose up was...
5-5-5.
"...Damn it."
Oohatari. Guaranteed odd jackpot.
As Hakari hit the jackpot, the stage ended and the [Domain Expansion] was released.
Back in the original location again, Hakari’s body overflowed with infinite cursed energy.
-VAI, VAI, VAI, VAAAIIII!!!
Music thundered out, announcing the momentum of victory.
But Tsukumo only found that lively melody unpleasant.
"How? How did you hit an odd jackpot before that?"
"Ah. I had two people helping me."
Two people?
No way.
Tsukumo turned around and met the eyes of an ally she had almost forgotten.
And beside him, the eyes of a timid-looking man with an exotic face.
"Ohhh, a strong woman..! Perfect material..!"
The man with the G-pen was babbling something weird, but she ignored it. Her attention was focused entirely elsewhere now.
"...Raru."
"I’m sorry, Tsukumo. But I..."
Raru.
In his eyes, apology and resolve, and a swirl of many other emotions, were churning together.
Just moments ago, right before Hakari intruded into the [Domain Expansion].
He had used that mysterious man and Raru’s cooperation to spin the roulette in succession and hit the jackpot first.
To seize luck before anyone else in this fight could.
Raru, she had a rough idea what he was thinking.
He had long been uneasy about cooperating with Kenjaku, and he often showed concern over how much she herself had changed.
Probably to stop her before she went too far.
And there was also the matter of the survival of the families Kusakabe had brought up earlier.
He was kind, so she couldn’t say she didn’t understand...
But,
but...
"You’re... leaving me too."
I’m.
I’m completely alone now.
In this cold world where no one understands or believes in me, my dream, or my atonement.
Alone.
"Hh..."
It feels like my heart is being torn apart.
It hurts so much.
It hurts, and I’m confused.
"Tsukumo, now..."
"Shut up..."
"Let’s stop this."
"Shut up, shut uuuuup!!!!"
I don’t need anything anymore.
Not comrades to share the burden with, not old ties, nothing. Cut it all off.
Just break everything as my heart allows,
and everything that led me to this cruel fate, just...
"I hate it all...! Tengen, Kenjaku, all of you sorcerers too!"
-Crash! Bang! Bang!
"Whoa!!"
"Hey, you two get out of the way! Don’t get in my way!"
"One bastard after another, all of them just me, me...!"
If there is a god, I feel like stabbing him.
"Die, all of youuuuu!!"
Through the disheveled gold hair, Tsukumo’s red eyes gleamed.
Right before her mind collapsed, she went berserk and transformed completely into an embodiment of destruction.
At this point, forget persuasion—it was questionable whether words could even get through to her properly anymore.
"She’s completely lost it."
"Yeah, looks that way."
Kusakabe, the least battered among them, clicked his tongue and walked up beside Hakari.
"Old man, aren’t you going to rest?"
"The students are fighting. Feels wrong to just stand by and do nothing."
"If you get killed by a stray shot, I’m not taking responsibility. Find your own way to live."
"Listen to the way you talk to a teacher..."
With a shrug, the two of them took their stances and faced Tsukumo.
There had been a lot of noise and a lot of trouble, but somehow they had made it this far.
They weren’t going to fall here for nothing.
"Dieeeee!!!"
"No thanks!!!!"
The final round of the long, long battle begins.
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