What is it that defines a "person"?
There are many different views, but if one were to name the single trait almost all scholars agree on, it would be "reason."
To define oneself through cold logic, to think and act. To weigh profit and loss, establish principles, and lead the individual or the community to a better place. That is reason.
Among all living things on Earth, humans possess the most superior reason, and thus "people" can reign as the lords of all creation.
In that sense, the current Tsukumo Yuki could be said to no longer fit that definition.
-Bang! Bang! Bang!
Before she went berserk, she was violent, but at least there had been a minimum of form to it.
Now that she had thrown off her restraints, she simply attacked everything she could see, however she pleased.
There was not a shred of reason to be found in the sight of her screaming in anguish and wildly swinging Garuda around.
Kusakabe, barely slipping past several barrages, panted harshly.
'This is actually harder to get close to....'
If you play games at all, you probably know this much.
Boss monsters having a berserk pattern from phase 3 onward is just "common sense."
As if it had sensed that rude thought, a whip came flying toward Kusakabe at just that moment, and he threw himself aside to barely avoid it, breaking into a cold sweat.
'So she thinks everyone except herself is an enemy. She can't distinguish friend from foe—no, she won't. She's lost all restraint in her movements.'
Like a wounded beast. Easier to deal with, but that only meant the danger had increased.
At this point, that was no longer a sorcerer or anything of the sort, just a rampaging god of destruction who had lost her mind.
Since it was impossible to understand her actions rationally, unlike before when they had fought by throwing out moves and weighing profit and loss, now they had to clash with pure force.
In the end, it had to be left to Hakari, who could keep fighting even after taking hits.
"I’m counting on you!"
There was only one thing he had to do now: buy Hakari the opening to close in.
No matter how immortal he was, if a blind strike caught him wrong in the head, death could come in an instant.
As long as he could shorten the distance, she wouldn’t be able to use the whip, so baiting her into missing was what he had to do.
Kusakabe closed his eyes and sheathed his sword, then took the posture he knew best.
Iaijutsu - Evening Moon
With his right hand gripping the hilt, he quietly waited for the attack to come.
It was practically the same as saying, Please kill me, but there was no helping it.
With Todo, who had handled evasion and tactical exchanges, already down, there was no one else who could do it.
'Ah, seriously. I don't want to do this. I really don't....'
He had never felt the sorrow of being a sorcerer this keenly, but he still had to do it.
Clenching his eyes shut, Kusakabe squeezed out the last of his remaining cursed energy, deployed a simple domain, and at the same time shot a thick killing intent toward Tsukumo.
-Crackle!
"!!"
She had lost her reason, but her beastlike instincts remained intact.
The moment she sensed the killing intent and found Kusakabe, Tsukumo's face twisted into a demon's snarl.
Grinding her teeth with a harsh grit, her arm writhed like a snake and Garuda shot out violently.
-Whoosh!
Direct, but fast and heavy.
As that mountain-like force came flying in, the air trembled and his skin prickled.
Kusakabe swallowed all of that pressure down and did not take his eyes off Garuda until it was fully within range.
Even now, his instincts were warning him to run.
Why are you still here? Why are you trying this hard?
Questions Kusakabe himself could not answer clearly.
'Why, I wonder.'
His little sister would not want him dead, and neither would his already-dead nephew.
Mr. Yaga, who had once helped him, wouldn't scold him much even if he ran away here.
But he might be a little sad.
'That's the kind of thing you're supposed to not know.'
He was simply moving because his body told him to.
He had always been that way.
Even while grumbling with his mouth, once he was given work, he always did it earnestly, and people around him had praised him for it.
He had even laughed a little at the way people who knew nothing of his nature went around calling him kind and reliable as they pleased.
He had always been a coward, a loser who was desperate to run away.
He had never wanted to become a grade 1 sorcerer. He only swung a sword because he wanted to survive and had no choice but to provide for his family, and somewhere along the way he turned out to have talent.
If someone said, "What talent? You don't even have a technique," he wouldn't have much to say, but that was how it looked to him.
'If I were really kind, I wouldn't have done that crap in Shibuya.'
It was something he still regretted.
Why did I waste my time back then? If I had been just a little braver, even a diligent guy like Nanami wouldn't have died.
The fact that Panda, who had been naively used, still treated him the same as always only made it hurt more.
But precisely because of that, because he was a coward who had spent his whole life running away.
He could not back down any further.
At the very least, he wanted to prove himself without regret, even if only at the end.
"I’m a grade 1 sorcerer, Atsuya Kusakabeeee!!!"
While he was lost in those thoughts, Garuda had already reached point-blank range.
Without hesitation, Kusakabe drew his sword.
-Shing!
More focused than ever before, he suddenly felt time slow down.
Seven years. The time it had taken him to reach grade 1 with a body that had no technique.
The training he had repeated over those long years finally shone.
Draw the sword, and swing it.
That simple, almost absurdly concise motion had become a weapon that could cut down anyone.
From the moment he decided to keep moving forward, his efforts had never betrayed him.
The resolve not to retreat even one step from the moment he drew his sword became a [bond], and
the instant his original execution program, which cut down everything that entered range, activated,
Iaijutsu
Kusakabe realized he had broken through his limits.
-Clang!
The sword that should have snapped caught the mountain and instead let its force slide away.
The subtle art of using softness to overcome hardness unfolded perfectly, and the directionless power came crashing down.
Beyond the gleaming blade, his companions' shocked faces were reflected.
A realm that seemed like something forever beyond his reach. Briefly, he had touched it.
He could feel the bones in his right arm twisting from the backlash, but pain was nothing compared to this joy.
Before the sense of omnipotence in his hand slipped away, he wanted to help even a little more.
-Papapapaat!!
Kusakabe's flurry of strikes lashed out at Garuda, which had been driven into the ground.
Not a single person present could keep up with his attack.
Garuda's body was sliced into pieces and sent flying through the air, and Kusakabe had already resheathed his sword.
That speed was
even beyond Maki at the time of the Zenin clan's destruction.
"....!"
"Nice work, old man!"
-Pow!
From here on out, it was Hakari's solo stage.
A fist came flying straight for his face.
This one, guard with the left hand up.
-Thud!
Oops. The whole arm got blown off.
Well, whatever. I'll return the favor.
-Pow!
With his left hand, already healed, once more!
-Pow!
-Crunch!
Huh. His leg got broken by a low kick.
This is bad. I can't even grab that heavy old lady now... no, fake-out.
He pretended to fall and used the momentum to headbutt her.
-Bang!
-Boom!
What the fuck.
My spine got wrecked.
He countered a headbutt with a knee strike? What kind of absurd reaction speed was that?
"Y-you monster!"
"Who are you calling a monster, you special-grade monster lady."
Once the distance opened up, Hakari casually shoved his slithering innards back into his abdomen.
For him, it was meant to make regeneration a little easier, but it was not a pleasant sight.
Anyone would be horrified to see their intestines stuffed back into their belly and the abdomen immediately regenerating afterward.
Much less Tsukumo, who had been the one punching him directly.
A brawl where defense had been completely abandoned.
The exchange of one blow for another, tangled together, was bizarrely turning into a contest where Tsukumo's destructive power was being overwhelmed by Hakari's recovery.
As long as his head wasn't destroyed, he could recover as much as he wanted.
Thanks to that, now that the fight had reached a lull, Tsukumo was the only one hurting.
"Haaah! Hah, hah...!"
Todo, Kusakabe, and Hakari too.
After repeated battles and spending every move they had, Tsukumo's end was approaching.
Even if she used Reverse Cursed Technique, she couldn't keep up with Hakari's recovery, and most of her cursed energy was already spent.
Garuda, which had handled long-range combat, had been smashed by Kusakabe.
"Aaaaaah!!"
-Whoosh, whoosh!
Now all she could do was swing her feet and fists and throw herself at her opponent.
The offense and defense reignited, and Tsukumo's high kick shattered Hakari's arm.
-Crack!
"!!"
"Looks like your output's starting to drop, huh?"
The attack ended at bones being crushed instead of bursting into sprays of blood.
Smirking darkly, Hakari swung his broken arm as it was.
By the time Tsukumo's vision was filled with his fist, his arm had already regenerated.
-Thud!
It hurt.
A blow that made her mind go hazy.
Her head snapped back and her focus vanished from her eyes, but she recovered and lunged again.
A telephone punch thrown with her right arm, bent to its limit and swung with all her strength.
-Whoosh!
"You seem to be under some misunderstanding. I'm not some ape who doesn't know what evasion is."
The punch, stretched out in a wide arc, cut through empty air.
The reason he had taken those hits before was because he needed to time a counterattack; he could avoid a blatantly obvious strike like that any time.
Hakari twisted his head and slipped the attack with a weave, then his rear hand slammed into Tsukumo's jaw.
-Thud!
'Ah....'
-Crack!
Then Hakari's dropkick landed, sending Tsukumo flying backward to roll across the ground.
As she miserably tried to push herself up with a hand on the dirt, a soccer kick slammed into her abdomen.
-Thwack, thwack, thwack!
Each time the kicks landed, her body was pitifully sent flying through the air.
It was a miserable sight, unworthy of the title of the first special grade.
Her body and mind both in tatters, she screamed inwardly in anguish.
Why.
Why am I.
Why am I the only one.
I didn't want to end up like this either.
I didn't want to betray the good.
I didn't want to kill my old comrades.
I didn't want to cross that line.
The first emotion that surfaced in her mind, pushed to its limit, was resentment.
She resented this merciless world that had driven her into such a situation.
She despised Tengen, the root of it all, and Kenjaku, who had disguised his malice as help and lured her in with his devilish tongue.
But more than all of that, what she resented most was herself, for clinging to her stubbornness until she had finally gone mad.
I chose this.
To inherit Geto's dream and create a world without curses.
But before that, did everything I had done even leave me any choice?
"I...! I....!"
-Pow!
"Ghk?!"
Her movements surged again as she unleashed a final burst of flame.
Enduring Hakari's punches with sheer malice, she pressed her body fully against his so he could not escape and wrapped him up tight.
When she locked her legs around his waist, a rough groan escaped Hakari's mouth.
As she pinned down the struggling man and raised a fist to crush his head,
-Snap!
he was already gone.
She lifted her head in stunned disbelief and met Todo's eyes.
"You... your cursed energy... ran out...."
"Sorry. That was a lie. This is the last one."
The final Boogie Woogie he had saved until the very limit.
"And this is the real last one."
-Snap!
Once again their positions were switched, and the pain of being pierced straight through the body crashed over her.
-Squelch!
It was no illusion.
A sharp blade had pierced through her back and come out through her chest.
Strength drained from her body, which had already reached its limit, and a bitter taste rose all the way to her throat.
"Cough!"
"Sorry about this."
Kusakabe's voice came from the left, where he had switched his sword to his left hand.
Her consciousness dimmed, and when the blade was pulled free, blood spurted from the wound in sharp bursts.
It was a fatal wound that even Reverse Cursed Technique could not heal.
The sensation of hot, blazing life spilling out washed over her.
-Drip, drip
It hurts.
It hurts so much it feels like I’m going to die.
Was this pain too, the result of my choice?
Being chosen as Tengen's star plasma vessel, and Zenin Toji dying.
Was that it? Was I never able to become a better me?
Geto.
I wonder what you would say to me if you were still alive.
Would you have mocked me, the one who corrupted you, or would you have smiled and comforted me like the kind person you were at the beginning?
The me who caused your death, the me who failed and lost, the reason for living is,
As her thoughts reached that point, her mind could no longer endure and collapsed.
Even as she sank completely into darkness in her final moments, she could not forgive it.
This world that creates curses, Tengen, and herself.
'The path I chose.'
If that was how it ended.
Then I'll struggle until the very end.
-------------------------------------
Just as Kusakabe was about to finish off the fallen Tsukumo Yuki, he was forced to step back from a chilling sensation.
-Wooooooom....
"What...!"
The final technique, one that could be called the extreme form of BOM-BA-YE.
A power so dangerous that even she had only conceived of it and never actually used it.
By imposing the maximum possible mass upon herself, she generated a darkness that swallowed everything—
A black hole.
GAR-GAN-TUA (death star)
Enormous gravity erupted around Tsukumo, and everyone present sensed death.
There was no escaping that ominously spreading darkness.
The violently rippling air felt like it was issuing them a death sentence.
"That crazy woman is actually going to pull something like this!"
"Damn it all. Master!"
"Fuck.... I got in at the top?"
The bonus was still there, but even an immortal would not survive being sucked into that.
If that went off, the Culling Game would no longer be the problem—the Earth itself would be destroyed.
They had to stop it somehow.
But how?
They didn't even know how to stop it, and just approaching it would get them sucked in and disintegrated.
While everyone was in disarray, the first to move was someone no one had expected.
"What are you doin...."
"Please take care of my comrades—no, my family."
The man with the heart-shaped nipple patches charged toward the black hole without even giving anyone time to stop him.
'This is my fault.'
As he felt himself being dragged in by the immense gravity, Raru blamed himself inwardly.
He should have stopped her from the beginning.
No, even after that, he should have at least not betrayed her.
To him, Tsukumo Yuki ending up like this was his responsibility.
Even if he stopped her here, or even if he could stop her at all...
He could at least stay with her until the very last moment.
-Crack!
"...!"
The instant he entered the black hole, one leg was crushed by the gravity.
Grinding his teeth through the pain, he protected his body with cursed energy and headed toward the center where Tsukumo was.
Nothing could be seen because even light was being swallowed, but he could still clearly sense the presence of cursed energy.
'Just as I thought.'
She was alive.
Probably the moment she could no longer withstand her own mass and her body collapsed would be the moment the technique stopped.
If it were a real black hole, he should have been torn apart into atoms the instant he was sucked in.
It was quite difficult, but the fact that he could still move at all meant this was not a proper black hole.
Then his own technique should still work.
[Strength]
Heart and Body Control - Heart Catch
Summoning the illusion of a hand to seize her, Raru activated his final [bond].
The concept that holds the greatest value in jujutsu is "life."
An exchange made with that as the price can, at times, produce miracles.
Cutie Honey (look at me)
An additional effect of Heart and Body Control.
As the concept of completely drawing the opponent's attention to oneself was strengthened, the situation changed.
The black hole, which had been swelling as if it would swallow everything, soon began to compress instead, targeting Raru alone.
It was an absurd sight: power capable of destroying even a single star being taken on by one individual.
The black hole, now reduced to a size barely large enough for one person to fit inside, no longer destroyed everything on Earth—instead, it crushed the body of the man who loved her.
-Grind, grind, grind
From his feet to his legs, his torso, his arms.
Even as everything twisted and tore under the pressure, he remained composed and did not let out a single scream.
The price for performing a miracle had already caused his life to flicker out, and pain no longer held any fear for him.
Just before everything vanished for the last time, Raru called out to her in his heart.
'Tsukumo-chan.'
I'm sorry.
For not stopping you.
For making you choose this path.
So look at me.
Your sadness, anger, hatred, and all those negative things too,
I'll carry them away with the curse directed at you.
If we meet again over there,
then this time.....
"Let's be a real family."
-Crunch!
At last, his head was sucked into the black hole, and everything disappeared.
In the empty space left behind, only the bloodied Tsukumo remained collapsed.
"He... stopped it....."
They clutched their shocked chests and slowly approached Tsukumo.
They had thought she might spring back up and unleash another mass punch, or even use the black hole again, but that was needless worry.
Having unleashed her final technique without her wounds ever being healed, her body was already growing cold.
"....Ah.."
"Master....."
Her lips moved, mumbling words no one could understand, and the only names they could make out were two.
"Ge...to..."
"...Ra..ru....."
Her lips, as if trying to say something more, closed.
No more heartbeat could be heard.
Her once-brightly shining red eyes had gone cold and lost their light like hardened blood, and the end of that gaze was fixed on the star she had chased until death.
"Ugh... ngh...."
Todo, his face twisted with complicated feelings, finally could not hold back his tears and sank to the ground.
Kusakabe and Hakari, who had tried to comfort him, could not say a word in that atmosphere and simply turned their heads away.
They had known it would come to this.
They had sworn not to be swayed by private feelings anymore, to keep their eyes fixed only ahead.
So why.
Were they crying?
"Uhhhhh...."
The Tsukumo Yuki search mission, with all its noise and trouble.
What had felt like it would never end came to a close as a tragedy, leaving wounds in each of their hearts.
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