Takako Uro.
105 points held.
Former captain of the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad, the assassination unit directly under the Fujiwara.
She possessed a [technique] that manipulated the "sky."
These were the facts that described the woman who had been granted a second life.
They were not the sort of information she would ever reveal herself, and most of it had been scraped together from records left behind in history.
Even though she had been a member of an assassination unit that handled work in the shadows, the very fact that she was recorded at all spoke to her strength and influence.
And yet none of that information dealt with her "life."
No matter how much one gathered fragmentary technique data, appearance, background, or achievements, it still would not become her "life."
And the fact that even that much had mostly gone unrecorded made it possible to imagine the sorrow of a woman named Takako Uro.
Takako Uro had been born in the Heian era as the daughter of a poor farming family.
The first child thrown carelessly into an age of chaos, where curses and curse users ran rampant and poor harvests and exploitation ruled the land.
The fourth child, born out of necessity to increase labor, had not even been blessed at the moment of birth.
Without even receiving a proper name, she was called things like "hey," "you," and "fourth one" as she scraped by for five years. Then, little by little, as her head grew harder, the child came to realize she was different from others.
The child could see things her parents and older brothers, mere commoners, could not.
Compared to adults whose hearts had gone dull, children are sensitive to malice. She soon realized that these "friends" visible only to her were not especially friendly.
Most of them were low-grade husks that could not do much harm to humans, but some of those that occasionally met the girl’s eyes were different.
An unknown terror, sly and full of malice.
The ominous maw hidden in the abyss was clearly staring straight at the girl.
The girl ran to her parents at once, crying as she told them what she had seen, but the exhausted couple, worn down by the struggle to survive, found the child unsettling and ignored her.
And that night, a curse that had secretly followed the girl slaughtered every member of the household.
Cries begging to be saved, blood splattering in every direction.
The girl, buried beneath a mountain of entrails, could only tremble as she watched the whole massacre.
If the [technique] carved into her body had not activated in time, she too would not have escaped death.
What saved her from the curse baring its hideous teeth and flailing her tiny hands in desperate resistance was a nameless sorcerer who happened to pass by.
Just before the girl was eaten, the sorcerer kicked the door open and smashed the curse to pieces with a single gesture.
Even now, she still remembered it vividly: the time of dawn, when the sun was rising.
The girl, draped in rags soaked through with her family’s blood, welcomed the morning safely.
The only survivor wept softly in front of the family’s corpses, now so mangled they could no longer be recognized.
Was it fortunate in misfortune? The sorcerer who saved her was, for that era when normal people were rare among sorcerers, a fairly kind one.
Though he could not take her in personally, he helped her gather the bodies of her family and gave her half the money he had on hand, along with a few words of advice she would need to survive.
Watching the sorcerer’s back as he vanished as abruptly as he had come, the girl unknowingly came to hold a feeling of "admiration" deep in her heart.
But the story does not end there.
How wonderful it would have been if this had been a moral tale ending with, "The girl became a renowned sorcerer and lived happily ever after."
Once the money the sorcerer had given her ran out, the girl was alone again.
The gaze of the sun hanging overhead protected her during the day, but it could not guard her from the threats that came at night.
Once the light disappeared beyond the horizon, the evil that had not been able to act beneath it turned its eyes on the helpless girl.
Pedophiles, human traffickers, and all manner of criminals, curses hunting for prey, and sometimes even curse users who had learned the taste of human blood.
In that hellscape covered in thick darkness, the girl had to struggle desperately to survive.
Fortunately, the girl had talent, and luck as well.
A mutation born among utterly ordinary commoners.
As she continued training, groping her way through the few words of advice the sorcerer had left behind, her talent bloomed in an instant.
With each horrible memory that piled up one by one, she grew stronger and more ruthless, and by the time she was only twelve, there was nothing in the area that could harm her.
She was no longer afraid of the night.
The darkness fused to her body had become more familiar than the warmth of the sun by day.
That was when the "family" came looking for her after hearing rumors about her.
No matter how strong or talented she was, it was impossible to beat professional sorcerers trained under the support of the "family."
The defeated girl, bound and restrained, was soon dragged before the one called the "important person."
To the wounded girl, still growling, the "important person" extended a hand full of warmth.
-Be my dagger.
A proposal that was, in truth, no different from a threat disguised as an invitation.
She had no choice. Be buried here and now, or bend her pride and go under them.
And the girl still longed for the gentle light.
-I’ll be counting on you from now on.
From that day on, the nameless girl became a member of the assassination unit.
"Don’t be ridiculous! Don’t be ridiculous! To give up however you want now, I won’t allow it!"
When Higuruma gave up on the fight and collapsed, Uro began to thrash in a wreck of a face.
She alone could not defeat Yoshino.
The moment Higuruma retired, her defeat was all but certain.
"That was the promise!"
She felt like grabbing Higuruma by the collar while he lay there so calmly.
We agreed to ally and survive together.
Why are you the only one giving up?
"Get up! Get up and fight already!"
What am I supposed to do now, alone?
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
"Sorry. The request ends here. I can’t fight anymore."
"Aaaagh!! Higurumaaa!!!!"
As Higuruma bitterly announced the end of their alliance, Uro tore at her hair in agony.
She had even thrown away her pride in standing alone and reached out a hand, only to be met with betrayal at the decisive moment.
All that remained for her now was a body that would die and disappear, and the handful of points that would soon be taken from her.
'You... it’s because of you.'
The target of her lost, aimless hatred was Junpei.
A guy born in peaceful modern times, who seemed to have everything without lacking a thing.
It had been the same in her previous life.
What always blocked her path were the powerful of the established order.
Rulers of the bright world who roamed under the sun without hesitation and easily manipulated others with a single gesture.
And yet those same people found her, who could not even step out from beyond the sun, disgusting, kept her in check, and in the end betrayed and killed her.
-You do not need to become someone. It is enough that you exist as yourself.
-You wretched thing. How dare a filthy assassin like you wish for a complete life.
Two-faced pigs who were skilled at lying and did not want to share even a handful of what they had.
In the past it had been the "family," and now it was the boy standing before her.....
He was blocking her path.
Her resentment exploded.
"Who the hell are you!! To stand in my way!!!"
-Tap!
Uro caught the empty air with both hands, twisted her arms with all her strength, and leaped.
"It’s always been guys like you! Treating me like a monster, keeping me from stepping into the light!"
"I don’t know what happened to you before, but that doesn’t justify what you’ve done in here."
"And how are you any better than me?!"
-Thwack!
Releasing the empty air she had pulled in, Uro spun and slammed both palms into Junpei’s fist.
Then the countless hands and feet that came flying in crossed paths and aimed at each other.
As the distortion she had been using for defense stopped working, an uppercut that slipped through the opening smashed into Uro’s jaw.
Staggering back, Uro began to scream like a madwoman.
"How are you different from what you’re doing to me? What’s wrong with crushing other people to achieve your goal! That’s only natural! I’m the same, and you’re the same, just like those damn blood relatives did to me!"
"Do you not know how sad it is to think that way is natural?"
"Ha! A young master born in modern times, raised on hot meals your parents set out for you. How long are you going to keep spouting soft nonsense!!"
The two collided once more.
After several exchanges, the one sent flying again by a blow was Uro.
-Thwack!
"Hah, hah...."
"Please stop now. The winner and loser have already been decided."
"Shut up...!! I’m not done yet!"
Again.
-Whap!
Again.
-Smack!
"Ghk...."
"Please, just stop...."
"That look...."
"What?"
As the fight continued, Junpei’s gaze changed from one looking at an enemy to one looking at a pitiful weakling.
For Uro, that was unbearably humiliating.
Maybe because it was her last shred of pride, she did not cry, but the fact that the person she had fought with her life on the line was pitying her tormented her.
You.
What do you know that you pity me?
You can’t understand me, and you have no intention of saving me.
Who the hell are you......!
"Don’t look at me like that!!"
Uro shouted at the top of her lungs and rushed at Junpei with the last of her strength.
And the result did not change.
-Smack!
Harsh reality.
Even if she squeezed out her last strength with desperate resolve, even if she unleashed her rage against the enemy with all her passion,
no miracle occurred in which she suddenly awakened and brought down the enemy before her in a single blow.
The boy who was almost the only one in the world who fit that case stood before her eyes, but she would probably never know that fact in her entire life.
"Khh...."
".....Let’s end this here."
When Uro lost the ability to continue fighting, the domain was dispelled.
At the same time, Higuruma’s [technique] was released, and the confiscated [technique] returned.
Junpei let out a bitter sigh and manipulated Mappari, gripping the tentacle as he prepared the final blow.
Guān
Even pushed this far, she still would not give up.
A will to live so strong it exceeded imagination.
As long as she did not abandon her inferiority complex, he would never be able to understand her, not even over the course of a lifetime.
'If the last digit is a multiple of five, then did it only kill sorcerers?'
He did not know the reason, but maybe it was because of pride.
In any case, with his final courtesy in mind, he decided to end it all at once, without pain.
Killing someone who wanted to live that badly was not something Junpei could do lightly.
"No... nooo... I don’t want to die....!!"
"....I’m sorry."
Just as the sharp spikes were about to plunge down over the girl crawling forward while wailing,
-Thud!
"....!!"
"You...!"
"H... Higuruma...?"
The lawyer who had been lying there until then stepped in.
As the price of throwing himself in her place, a huge spike had burst through the center of his suit.
"Why....?"
"Sorry, Uro. For not keeping my promise."
Bleeding from the pierced heart, Higuruma smiled with a sad expression.
Uro’s yellow eyes trembled violently.
"I’m a failed lawyer. No, maybe I was the moment I set foot in here...."
"Why, why did you get in the way...! We were both going to die anyway...!"
"Well.... Why, I wonder. I don’t really know either."
With his eyes closed, Higuruma casually made something up.
Even so, he had already found the answer in his heart.
I wanted to die.
When I peeled back the darkness, the pain I had tried so hard to forget came flooding in.
The prosecutor and judge I had beaten to death,
the countless players I had killed, crying that they wanted to live.
And that weakness you showed at the end.
I had no right to judge anyone.
I was arrogant.
I’m only receiving the price for that now.
"Now I.... have become a human being who can’t even find a reason to live...."
Blood tears rolled down from Higuruma’s eyes.
After coughing up a clot of blood from his mouth, he painfully turned his body and looked at Junpei.
Perhaps he had not expected this either, because his expression had frozen like stone.
"Yoshino.... even before entering the Culling Game.... have you ever.... killed someone by your own will?"
"......Yes."
"I see...."
It must have felt terrible.
Sorry for making you feel it again.
Still, if there was weakness in him.
"I have one last... request."
"What request?"
Higuruma’s gaze turned to the trembling Uro.
"Let this woman.... accept death on her own."
"....!!"
"No matter how much less than a beast a person may be.... they still have the right to want to live...."
He could feel his ragged breathing growing weaker.
He did not have much time left before death.
Even in that moment, this strange lawyer was handing over an incomprehensible request while sacrificing his own life in her place.
Junpei could not refuse.
"....All right."
"...Good...."
-That’s enough.
With those final words, Higuruma’s head drooped and did not rise again.
On his faintly open eyes, a calm smile rested on his lips.
At the end of life, it was the joy of having found the brilliance he had been searching for all along.
{Player Ranking}
1st.
[Yoshino Junpei-425 points]
2nd.
[Kashimo Hajime-420 points]
3rd.
[Takako Uro-105 points]
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