22:07.
Somewhere in Shibuya, on a building rooftop.
Blood and screams raged in every direction, and someone’s laughter rang out high and clear, mocking the pitiful lives of the living.
Under a nightscape where even the moonlight looked eerily warped,
Boom!
the fists of two men collided.
------------------------------
Pshhk!
From the tail of Hwangban, a poisonous thorn shot out and flew toward Toji.
As if defying the expectation that the drill-fast thorn would pierce straight through him, Toji’s hand snatched the side of it out of the air.
Junpei shuddered at that superhuman dynamic vision and reaction speed.
He had seen Hwangban’s thorns dodged or blocked before, but he had never seen anyone casually catch one like that.
“Heh.”
Bang!
Toji twirled the thorn in his hand like a knife, then kicked off the ground at incredible speed and charged Junpei.
Too fast to follow with the naked eye. But he wasn’t going to be helpless this time.
Instead of trying to track Toji’s blurry afterimage, Junpei chose to trust his other senses.
“The tremor in the ground, the flow of the air, the sound of his footfalls.”
He gave up on visual tracking and used all of that as the basis for predicting the next attack.
It was a new way of fighting he had learned while training in close combat with Maki, Panda, Yuji, and the others—making his body react before his brain even had time to think.
His cursed-energy-enhanced senses rang the alarm in his instincts under his control, and his body moved naturally as it struck out.
Thud!
A punch packed with extreme recoil. But the force inside it was nothing to laugh at.
The counter that used the enemy’s own speed against him slammed into Toji’s chest.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
At the same time, the thorn in Toji’s right hand slashed Junpei’s body several times over.
“What...!”
Watching Toji get driven back by the impact, Junpei let out a low groan.
Even while taking his attack, Toji had managed to thread a razor-sharp strike precisely between the gaps in his armor.
Junpei was lucky he’d recalled the cursed energy that formed the thorn; otherwise, he would have been stabbed deep enough to interfere with his movement.
This was the most alien opponent he had faced so far.
He had no cursed energy at all, yet he was faster and heavier than Yuji. It was almost like a perfected version of Maki.
He was the kind of opponent who made you tense up, knowing that if he had been holding a cursed tool instead of fighting bare-handed, one of your limbs could be gone in the blink of an eye.
The good news was that with zero cursed energy, he couldn’t deal major damage to a shikigami without a cursed tool.
The only kind of strike he could use was completely shut down by Hwangban.
It was the perfect matchup.
“And he knows it too.”
From the moment his first attack was blocked by Hwangban, the man had taken a passive stance until Junpei brought out another shikigami.
Toji had become a slaughter doll with no intelligence and no will to flee, but that didn’t mean he was some beast that charged in without thinking.
He would hold his breath until an opponent he couldn’t normally beat exposed an opening, then bite down all at once.
It was the fighting instinct Toji had deliberately ignored when he was alive as a sorcerer killer, and after death it functioned as pure instinct left in the body that had been recreated.
Before long, Toji had gotten back up and closed in again, his fists battering Junpei’s body from all sides.
The rapid blows that had driven Ino Takuma to the brink of death slammed against Black Scale’s surface, sending the impact through to the flesh beneath.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He staggered for a moment at the unexpected force, but it was fine.
Expanded Technique: Fortress. The soft body of Hwangban layered beneath Black Scale absorbed the impact and protected its master’s body.
Toji’s strength and speed were above Junpei’s, but in close-range striking, Junpei had the clear advantage.
All he had to do now was beat the other man down before he ran out of cursed energy!
“Come on in!!”
“Kihit.”
At Junpei’s shout, the two men’s brawl began in earnest.
Crack!
Pang!
Junpei’s sudden leg kick flew toward Toji’s shin.
Toji could have dodged, but having spotted the opening up top, he had no intention of backing off. He checked the kick by raising his leg, then drove a right straight into Junpei’s face.
Still no damage. The follow-up attack unfolded in a smooth, flowing motion.
Using the momentum of his body tipping backward, Junpei’s high kick grazed Toji’s chin and passed by.
Bang!
“Ghk!”
As Junpei rolled across the ground, Toji followed with a heavy stomp to his ankle.
It was meant to take away his mobility, but it only backfired.
Pshhk!
Junpei instantly canceled Hwangban’s summon and transformed Black Scale into a thornlike shape, stabbing Toji’s foot.
It was an attack inspired by the transformation Mahito had shown at Satozakura High School before.
Toji yanked his foot back at the sharp, piercing sensation, but Junpei’s poison had already entered his body.
“Got you! It went in clean!”
Toji had already made contact with Black Scale and Hwangban several times.
And now the poison had been properly injected. Unless he was some special case like Yuji, poison had to work.
Junpei thought Toji would stiffen and collapse within seconds, but then—
Clang!
Toji’s powerful soccer kick slammed into Junpei’s abdomen while he was off guard.
“Kheh!!”
Junpei had been in the middle of releasing Hwangban to transform it, and the sensation of his organs twisting made his face contort.
Breathing was hard, and the sour metallic taste rising from deep in his gut meant something had definitely been crushed.
Junpei spat out the blood filling his mouth and staggered to his feet.
“I definitely got him...”
The poison had gone in properly. Even a monster like Todo would be out of commission for half a day.
And yet an attack at a speed the eye couldn’t follow had come flying in, carrying the same force as before, with no sign of any impairment at all.
Then there was only one conclusion.
“A Heavenly Restriction... so poison doesn’t work on you either...?”
“......”
He hadn’t realized it because poison had worked on Maki, who was a similar case.
Maybe it did work, but not enough to stop a body like that.
He regretted not accounting for the worst-case scenario before moving.
He’d been caught once, so he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
But now that he knew his poison didn’t work well on the other side, the odds had become nearly even.
If this dragged on in a stalemate where neither could land a fatal blow, he would be at a disadvantage because his cursed energy would run out first.
Unless he drained the other man’s stamina before that happened, it didn’t look like this superhuman would go down before him.
Think. Think harder.
How could he beat this man?
How could he shut down that absurd physical ability...?
“Ah!”
Junpei grinned wickedly as a brilliant idea struck him.
This would work. He could do it.
Sensing something ominous, Toji charged again, but Junpei moved faster.
Riding Hwangban upward, Junpei climbed to a height Toji couldn’t reach and waved at him.
People learn techniques to beat opponents they can’t defeat.
But if the strong use the same techniques, or if their strength is so unreasonable that techniques don’t work... then maybe running away is also a weak person’s technique?
“I just have to run away~ Bye♡”
“.....”
Junpei’s cheerful wave receded farther and farther away.
For a slaughter doll, an enemy running away—especially one he had been fighting—was incomprehensible.
Toji’s face twisted as he planted his foot in that strange stance and began loading power into his leg.
Bang!
He kicked off so hard that a massive crater formed on the rooftop, launching himself into the air.
Then, using the air he had caught as a “surface,” he kicked off again and again, racing after Junpei as he flew away.
The physical gift Heavenly Restriction had given him in exchange for taking away cursed energy made comic-book-style air steps possible.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Each time Toji kicked off, the air burst with a popping sound and his body blurred forward.
The distance between him and Junpei, which had seemed impossible to close, shrank rapidly.
“This is insane...”
Junpei froze with his mouth open, unable even to think about running at the surreal sight that might as well have been transcendental.
Now the distance between them was about one meter. Close enough to reach with a single hand.
At that moment, Toji instinctively became certain of victory.
But had he not expected this too?
Just before Toji’s hand could land, Junpei canceled Hwangban and leapt down toward him instead.
“Hwangban!”
A jellyfish of a size incomparable to anything so far appeared, summoned by hand signs and incantation.
The place where it was summoned, wrapping around the two men suspended in the air, was...
“!!”
“You won’t be able to rampage in here.”
Using the principle of [Light], Junpei had “overlaid” Hwangban over the space where Toji and he overlapped.
The massive body of Hwangban shrank, narrowing the space around them.
Now the inner cavity they stood in was about the size of a one-room apartment.
Inside this space, there was no need to worry about blindside attacks coming from outside his field of vision.
The soft floor meant Toji couldn’t move the way he had before.
And the poison secreted inside Hwangban would drift through the room’s air until he went down.
From the moment he had charged into the air, where movement was restricted.
From the moment he entered this soft, jellylike prison.
The one holding the advantage was not Toji, but Junpei.
Shurururuk...
The tentacles sprouting from the ceiling burrowed through the gaps in Junpei’s Black Scale armor and formed a new shape.
The warrior in black full-body armor, connected to the ceiling, looked like a murder machine from some cyberpunk world, dragging cables all over the place.
Now that he had dragged his opponent into his own environment, Junpei prepared for the final close-range exchange.
“Let’s beat the hell out of each other till the very end!”
“Kruuugh!”
Junpei’s fist, protected by several layers, collided with Toji’s bare fist.
Bang!
Right now.
There was no room in his head for what came after, or for the identity of the opponent in front of him.
Only the mindset of a fighter determined to crush the enemy before him.
Smack!
Toji must have realized he had nowhere left to retreat, because he threw his punches with even more ferocious momentum than before.
A stance that ignored defense and evasion entirely, focused only on offense.
Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The merciless exchange continued, neither man caring for his own body.
Even as their ribs cracked and the organs injured earlier throbbed with pain, neither of them stopped.
Toji had landed far more effective hits so far, thanks to the impossible gap in physical ability, but...
Wobble
“Finally!”
The fine poison mist scattered through Hwangban’s interior.
The poison from Black Scale, driven into the skin every time it touched flesh.
Poison that had accumulated inside the body again and again, now synergizing and beginning to eat away at the Heavenly Restriction body.
“...!”
Black spots flickered faintly across Toji’s body, dragging him into a swamp of deadly venom.
Clutching his body, which no longer functioned properly, Toji desperately kept charging at the opponent in front of him, but his body, having absorbed more poison than it could neutralize, was reaching its limit.
By contrast, Junpei’s concentration, forged through repeated battles against strong opponents, had reached its peak.
“One hit. I’ll end it with just one hit!”
Toji’s fist had lost even more of its earlier momentum.
Junpei’s fist flew in, packed with ominous cursed energy.
The two fists crossed, and black flames burst from one of them.
[Black Flash]
Boom!
Two-point-five times the usual power.
Junpei’s black fist, wrapped in black flame, shone at Toji’s solar plexus and sent him flying.
“Cough!”
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Toji bounced around inside Hwangban’s soft interior, and the blood he coughed up smeared the surroundings.
Collapsed, Toji only convulsed intermittently and showed no sign of getting back up.
“Haa...”
As Junpei finally relaxed, he released Hwangban and summoned Hwangban again, and Toji’s unconscious body fell from the high-rise.
After confirming that Toji hit the ground and did not rise again, Junpei let out a victorious roar.
“Waaahhh!!”
Then he coughed up blood and collapsed across Hwangban at the same time.
Excluding the attacks he had blocked or dodged, there had only been one effective hit he had taken.
Even that had been fatal.
Cough
Unable to move, clutching his burning insides, white lilies bloomed from his body.
The wringing sensation in his organs eased as they knit back together, and his body returned to normal.
“Nobara... thanks.”
Thinking of the lover who must have sent him cursed energy from far away, Junpei smiled weakly.
Having once again remembered what he was fighting for, he rode Hwangban toward Shibuya Station.
Zenin Toji versus Yoshino Junpei.
The winner was Yoshino Junpei.
----------------------------------
22:10.
Underground, first floor of Tokyo Metro Shibuya Station.
“You...!”
“Found you.”
The one who blocked Yuji as he entered the concourse was...
“Sorry, Jogo, but I think I won~”
Mahito.
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