I had definitely sensed that something was off.
Like all the other bodyguards escorting the mafia boss’s daughter getting killed.
Or Kurapika suddenly running around like he was fucking busy.
So I had already been quietly looking for a chance to make a run for it, figuring something would blow up today or tomorrow.
Two billion?
The tutoring was already over.
All that remained was guarding the mafia boss’s daughter, but the auction looked like the kind of place people went to die, no matter how I looked at it, so I told her to go home.
Which meant that if I could just make it through tonight, the job would effectively be over.
Yeah. I just had to make it through tonight.
"What’s this? You move pretty well. I was planning to blow your head apart."
Fuuuuuck.
**
"How long are you going to do nothing but dodge?!"
I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked.
I have the absolute worst matchup against this fucking bastard.
What I’m least confident in is close combat against some asshole who has gone all-in on Enhancement.
I have an affinity for Enhancement too, but close-quarters combat inevitably turns into a contest of toughness using aura.
And this gorilla bastard in front of me is tougher than a tank, at least where durability is concerned.
Meanwhile, my defense is paper-thin.
It was obvious he had come to catch Kurapika, but I had no idea where Kurapika was right now.
That guy fucking runs around everywhere. How would I know?
And even if I did know, who knew what kind of butterfly effect telling him would cause?
So this was what I got for keeping my mouth shut.
"Fuck!"
This crazy bastard.
If you put all your points into strength and defense, shouldn’t you be slow?
I had packed my legs full of aura, but I couldn’t widen the distance at all.
Just dodging his attacks was already pushing me to my limit.
If all he did was throw punches, it might have been one thing, but every time his fists smashed through walls, I had to dodge the fragments flying everywhere too. It was driving me insane.
How the hell did even the debris have aura in it?
If one of those hit me wrong, I was dead on the spot.
What was the point of having [Money-Disappearing Alchemy] (I am bone of my coin)?
I needed an opening to use it. I told you, this bastard was fast as hell.
On top of that, the space was fucking cramped, making it hard to aim. And it was a long-range technique to begin with.
...Fuck, should I just fire it point-blank anyway?
But why did it feel like it still wouldn’t leave so much as a scratch on him?
He’d probably just say, "That tickles," then grab me in a bear hug and snap my spine.
That was how much aura this animal bastard had, just judging by what I could see.
He was just absurdly strong based on sheer physical specs. There was no answer to that.
I didn’t even have time to think anymore.
I just had to make the best possible choice every moment and move.
Upper right. Duck and evade.
Lower left. This was a feint. If I dodged, I’d be in his blind spot.
A kick sweeping along the floor. This bastard only used instant-kill moves. It was a fake, but blocking was impossible, so I’d just redirect it.
Straight at my head. This was... fuck, just dodge it somehow!
"Urgh!"
"You fucking rat!"
I barely avoided it by twisting my head hard enough to nearly dislocate my neck.
But the floor shattered.
We fell to the floor below along with the rubble that had broken apart into pieces.
"Aaaah!"
Fuck. Sorry.
Still, you weren’t buried beneath the rubble, so once we’re gone, go back to whatever you were doing.
If you’re alive by then.
The city was the worst possible place to fight this cocksucker. Too many civilians unrelated to the mission would die.
At this rate, the casualty count would just keep rising for no reason.
I didn’t even know how many guests were staying at the hotel...
Guess I had no choice.
Even as I was still falling, I quickly undid my tie with one hand.
Then I wrapped it around the forearm of the bastard as he threw another punch.
Tying a knot was probably too much. I’d just reinforce it with Nen.
"Hm?"
There was nowhere to get a running start, so while holding the tie, I stomped hard on this animal bastard’s gut and leapt, spinning around toward his back.
For just an instant, I entered his blind spot.
And the punch he had thrown, bound by my tie, was now awkwardly heading toward the wall, packed full of aura.
Was this around the twentieth floor?
What else could I do?
If we kept fighting like this, the entire hotel was going to collapse.
Civilians dying would be bad enough, but I didn’t want to die that way either.
Then I had to smash through the wall and get outside.
I aimed at his back.
It was fucking broad, so wherever I shot him, he’d get pushed just fine.
"I am bone of my coin ([Money-Disappearing Alchemy])."
"Uoooooh!!!"
Like a boat with a motor engine attached, he and I charged toward the wall.
I didn’t have to worry about dodging, so I put all my aura into power. Thank fuck it worked.
Still, I knew he would be tough, but he really was only getting pushed back.
I had expected to shatter at least one or two of his vertebrae.
As expected, taking this bastard head-on was impossible.
With a huge crash, the hotel’s outer wall gave way, and we began to fall through the air.
"You bastard... that stings!"
This was random, but I finally remembered.
This bastard’s name.
They say the brain works faster when you’re in danger. Maybe this was one of those moments.
Because the instant I remembered his name, his fist came flying at my temple.
Yeah. Uvogin.
This bastard was definitely named Uvogin.
Fuck. You had to be kidding me.
Wasn’t turning your body in midair cheating?
I had even tied up his arm.
"[Big Bang Impact]!!"
In that single instant—
A truly unbelievable sonic boom rang out through Yorknew’s night sky.
It was loud enough that everyone sleeping on the outskirts of the city had probably woken up.
No one would have believed that sound had come from a single person’s fist.
Not unless they had experienced it firsthand, like I had.
"Aaaaaargh!!!"
"Hahaha! I finally landed one!"
It wasn’t as if I had let my guard down.
Even while being forced into a disadvantageous close-range fight, I hadn’t allowed him to land a single hit.
I had even forced the fight into the air, even if only for the duration of our fall.
And yet my arm was broken.
"You fucking, goddamn, cock-sucking bastard!"
If I hadn’t shoved my arm in the way before his fist reached my temple, I would have died once right there.
It hurt like fucking hell.
My body had gotten used to all kinds of torture in the Zoldyck Family, but this bastard beating the shit out of me with Nen was on a whole different level.
It felt like he had beaten my soul to a pulp.
"You won’t do if you can’t even withstand that much. That was only twenty percent of my full power."
This fucking bastard.
That had output on par with a one-million-Jenny [Meso Explosion], and that was only twenty percent?
Then to compete with his full power, did I have to blow five million Jenny on every punch?
And whether it would actually hurt him was a separate issue? Fuck, that was expensive.
What an absurdly unfair bastard.
Why the fuck was he using someone else’s ultimate move as a basic attack?
Even as he fell through the air, he wore a relaxed smile.
Yeah, of course he was relaxed.
I couldn’t imagine Uvogin dying from falling from here either.
So let’s go high enough that we’ll die if we fall together.
"[Meso Explosion Mild] ([Firework Coins])...!"
What I needed was propulsion.
If I spent too much money, the explosion would damage the surrounding buildings.
And I wouldn’t make it out unharmed at this distance either.
So I settled on one hundred and fifty thousand Jenny.
It was the same technique, but because the amount was lower, it took less time to create and its destructive power was nothing compared to before.
Instead, I made a lot of them and fired them off.
My affinity for Emission was eighty percent.
If I filled the coins I had made with Emission-type aura and fired them, I could launch almost anything into the sky as though I were shooting fireworks.
The problem was this piggin bastard’s weight.
He had reinforced his entire body with aura, so he was fucking heavy.
It took nearly ten at a time just to rise one meter.
Fucking gravity...!
If it weren’t for you, Newton, I would’ve reached the atmosphere ages ago.
I cursed some scientist who may or may not even exist in this world as I flew higher, and higher still, alongside Uvogin.
How high had we gone?
By the time Yorknew’s lights resembled moonlight, I stopped my fireworks among the clouds.
"Hey, are you trying to commit suicide together?"
My ass. I didn’t have the slightest intention of dying. And neither did this bastard.
Even for Nen users, this was a height where falling would be fatal. But that was only if you crash-landed without anything to break your fall.
With Uvogin’s [Big Bang Impact] or my coins, we could land safely.
And naturally, if we wanted that level of precise Nen control, there couldn’t be anyone interfering with us.
So only one of us would leave here alive.
And it would be me.
"You’re a funny one. Did it never occur to you that I could kill you while we were going up?"
"Says the guy who happily followed me up because he was excited to see what I was going to do."
If he had wanted to kill me, he would have gone for a follow-up when my arm broke.
Of course, I wouldn’t have just sat there either.
"Excited, huh... Is that what I looked like?"
Uvogin gave a small snort, then opened his eyes wide and hardened his expression.
"Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m looking for the chain user right now. I let you bring me all the way up here because I thought you might be leading me to where he was."
"But now that I look at it, that doesn’t seem to be the case."
"Then I have no business with you. Die."
That was seriously fucking terrifying. If you had no business with me, just let me live.
I had just thrown money into thin air so innocent bystanders wouldn’t get killed.
"I appreciate you lifting me into the air. Whenever I threw a punch, the ground beneath me would break, so I’ve never been able to use my full power."
"Same goes for me."
That was gratitude I really didn’t want to receive.
I had just removed his shackles for no reason.
But what could I do? If I used a big technique too, the surroundings would get fucked.
In the end, this had been an inevitable battlefield, the only place where both of us could unleash our full strength.
"If the boss and the others were nearby, they would inevitably get caught up in it. So you’ll probably be the first and last person I use this technique on, brat. Be honored."
I didn’t know whether he was bluffing, but if his goal was to scare me, he had succeeded.
Fuck, if you had a technique like that, use it in the original story. Or keep it sealed forever.
Why the fuck were you pulling this shit when fighting me?
"Two hundred percent..."
Aura gathered around his fist. Its density was absurd, as if everything he had done so far had been children’s play.
Of course, I wouldn’t lose either. I had to live.
"One billion Jenny."
I didn’t even think about saving money.
It was the amount I had calculated, even as my arm was breaking, that could reach his heart.
And one billion was my limit anyway, given my total aura capacity.
"[Star Extinction]."
The aura around him swelled large enough to illuminate everything around us. It was like the sun had risen amid the clouds.
If we had fought on the ground, Yorknew might have become a city found only in history books.
But as money melted out of my bank account, golden aura compressed around the coin in my hand as well.
A contest of power against power.
There was nowhere to run.
Only one of us would survive.
"[Cosmic Impact]."
"[Meso Explosion] ([Exploding Autumn Leaves])."
That day, two suns rose in Yorknew’s night sky.
**
One figure fell limply toward the ground.
The other was flung even higher into the air than before by the recoil of the explosion.
One toward the sky. One toward the ground.
The two of them had reached positions that clearly showed the victor and the defeated.
What fell to the ground was a corpse too mangled to recognize.
What remained suspended in the sky was a spider-shaped tattoo that had not been erased even by the burns.
Uvogin VS Gotoh.
Winner: Uvogin.
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