Frieren: — Chapter 87 - The Pure Love War God Must Ride the Pure Love Train

In hot-blooded shounen manga, the tradition since time immemorial is simple: fight for a bit, then cut to another angle.

So,

The outcome of Himmel's battle with Mahito will be set aside for now.

The fight inside the curtain continues.

Domain Expansion.

Using cursed energy to manifest an innate domain into reality, imbuing it with a cursed technique, completing the construction.

Inside the domain, the user gains powerful buffs. And everything lands.

The conditions required to open a domain are:

[Cursed Energy]

[Barrier Technique]

[Cursed Technique Application]

In other words...

[The strength of a domain is determined by all three.]

[And regrettably.]

[At this moment, Hakari Kinji is slightly weaker than Jogo across all three dimensions.]

[More critically: in order to keep Okkotsu outside the range of the domain clash, Hakari fell behind Jogo by a single instant in barrier formation speed.]

[The result... what should have been a standoff became a one-sided erosion.]

"Humans always fear death. They never find the courage to abandon themselves or their companions."

"To walk without fearing death,to live inside and out in perfect unity for a single purpose, "

Jogo's voice dropped low. "That is the true essence of curses. Something you fakes will never have."

"Senior Hakari!"

The lost domain clash dropped the entire battlefield into the mouth of a volcano.

Hakari's body ignited instantly. He didn't scream, but he couldn't hold on either. He went down face-first, limp, powerless.

This was normal.

If anything, the average sorcerer would be vaporized the moment they stepped into Jogo's domain. No trace left. Nothing.

Hakari survived this long because he was good, good enough to have the cursed energy reserves to resist.

But only for a little longer.

Jogo turned to look at Okkotsu.

(This kid, though...)

(Why is this kid...)

"You— you!"

Seeing Hakari fall, Okkotsu,who'd seemed almost timid just moments ago, had completely changed.

His pupils shook. His features hardened, carved several times deeper than before. Something ferocious surfaced.

"I'm going to kill you!"

(Why is this kid still standing there talking tough to me!)

Jogo's giant eye twitched.

Could it be,

BANG!

He surged forward. Cursed energy coiled around the blade as it cut straight for Jogo's throat.

"You... without even opening a domain, you have infinite cursed energy?"

The aura was terrifying. The speed was not. In Jogo's eyes, it was pathetically slow.

The domain amplified everything. He raised his palm without thinking and caught the blade. A sharp crack, and the slash stopped dead.

[YOU!]

Rika lunged to break the attack, clawing for Jogo, but the rush was all instinct, no form. Jogo sidestepped without effort and drove his palm into Okkotsu's stomach.

"Guh—"

Something like a jet of air blasted out from Okkotsu's back in a spike. He went flying, blade and all, and hit the crimson volcanic rock wall.

His body stuck there. The heat made him sizzle.

Jogo looked at him and spat.

"Infinite cursed energy, and you can't even control the output. It's a complete mess. Nowhere close to that gambling brat."

After a moment, the gravity still active inside the domain peeled Okkotsu off the wall. He hit the ground with a wet thud.

His back was cooked.

His internal organs had been completely shattered by that one strike.

Breathing was difficult.

He tried to get up. He could only get his elbows under him, arch his back, strain to drag his legs beneath his body, try to push himself upright.

But his condition was failing. The heat was getting in. Blood started spraying from every pore, then evaporated almost instantly.

[Yuta! Yuta!]

Rika was frantic.

Her fear for Okkotsu had swallowed her hatred for Jogo entirely. She circled him, hands hovering, not knowing where to touch him.

There was nowhere to touch that would help.

Jogo watched coldly. It bored him.

(Come to think of it... Kenjaku mentioned this kid hasn't been involved in jujutsu for long.)

He thought back to Okkotsu managing to trade a few blows at the start. Not bad, actually.

In Jogo's memory, the list of sorcerers who could survive even a single exchange with him was very short.

Add to that: Okkotsu is human. At his age, with no developed technique, he's running on raw infinite cursed energy. And Orimoto Rika, in a way, she's the same kind of thing as Jogo himself...

"...Be proud."

Something like empathy stirred. Jogo let out a rough sigh, then opened his mouth, though he couldn't have said why.

"You two... are fairly strong."

At those words.

Okkotsu Yuta.

The face he barely managed to lift wore an expression like this:

Eyes blown wide. Whites dominating. Pupils shrunk to points. The frame seemed to zoom in and distort, making his eyes look almost like a dead fish's.

(What... what is this guy even saying?)

How can he hurt people like it's nothing?

Curse users, sorcerers, cursed spirits, for Okkotsu, all of it was still a world too far away to touch.

He didn't understand any of it.

All he understood was that this thing across from him was muttering things that made no sense, and that right now, he was furious. Genuinely, completely furious.

His fingers scraped through the hardened crust of hot rock beneath him with a CRUNCH. Shaking, he pushed his upper body off the ground.

"Hmm?"

Jogo actually stepped back half a pace.

"You— why can you still move?!"

He doesn't have a domain. He can't.

No domain. No Simple Domain.

Infinite cursed energy still has a fixed output rate. The damage had been stacking. The last strike punched straight through his defenses. So why, why was he getting up?!

This is a sure-hit, sure-kill domain!

No. Wait.

Jogo's understanding of humans was limited. Mostly because he didn't care to learn. But moments ago, Hakari's domain had force-fed him the entire plot of Private Railway Pure Love Train, and now he understood human emotion at least a little bit.

Could it be,

"You. Are you close with that gambling brat?"

Jogo had barely gotten a grasp on that intense human emotional bond.

It happened not only between men and women, but between people of the same sex too, something apparently called "friendship."

And for something as abstract as that, humans could briefly push themselves past what they should physically be capable of.

"No." Okkotsu's words came out slurred.

"What?"

Jogo couldn't believe it.

"Not close? Then what are you fighting for!"

But Okkotsu was doing it anyway, staggering upright, swaying, finally planting his feet.

"We're really... not that close. We were even arguing before this fight..."

Their relationship isn't good.

He's looked down on.

But Okkotsu Yuta had made it to today by holding onto one thing: the hope of connecting with other people.

[Hakari Kinji had slowed his barrier formation by a single instant,deliberately, to keep Okkotsu outside the domain clash's range.]

[Okkotsu, who had received basic jujutsu instruction from Kenjaku, could see it for what it was.]

Even if they weren't close.

Even if that gesture came from nothing more than a sorcerer's reflex, the smallest professional kindness.

Okkotsu Yuta was the type who would give his life covering the retreat for people like Manami, people he'd known for three days.

Watching Hakari burn, watching him go down near death for the sake of protecting him,

The only thing left in the boy's mind was one thing, repeating.

[Kill him]

[Kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him,, ]

[No.]

Calm down.

The noise layered across his thoughts went silent.

(The priority right now is getting Senior Hakari out of here...)

Okkotsu's expression was something beyond ferocious.

(But how?)

The truth was, he didn't even know why he could still move.

(Is it... Rika?)

She was half his size, and she was wrapped around him. He looked at her. Tears were leaking from the gaps in her crab-gill head, steady and silent and endless.

[Cursed Technique]

He remembered something Gojo Satoru had told him once, one of his two teachers.

His cursed technique was supposed to be terrifying. He had never used it himself.

[The awakening conditions are different for everyone.]

[A lot of sorcerers from non-hereditary families, wild talents, don't unlock their techniques until their lives are on the line. Yuta, you might be that type.]

He'd held onto those words. He held onto the words of everyone who was kind to him.

The pressure of life.

(Figure it out. Now.)

A powerful enemy.

(Figure it out.)

A sorcerer's growth is never linear.

(NOW.)

Beneath an expressionless face: cold thought. Pressure turned entirely inward.

[And under that crushing weight.]

[Okkotsu Yuta......]

There.

[Touched the core of his own cursed technique.]

Its effect,

"Domain Expansion."

Head down.

His spiky hair, soaked and matted with blood, drooped at the tips. It made him look like he was scowling in the dark.

In the center of Jogo's completely stupefied stare, Okkotsu raised both palms to face each other. Thumbs hooked inward.

"Idle Death Gamble."

Jogo: This kid! Again!

Okkotsu Yuta, his cursed technique is:

[Unconditional Copy]

At this moment, the pool of techniques available to him was almost nothing. He had one shot.

He made it on the first try.

And so,

[Kaze ga sotto machi wo wataru~~~~]

The train bell. The one that meant pure love.

[Rang out again,inside the volcano, wild and reckless and alive.]

➤ Next: Please, Hakari-senpai, Just Think of It as for My Sake — Use the Flame Fist o...