Frieren: Himmel — Chapter 186 - The Strongest Battle Scars, Etched into Ikebukuro

Shhh.

Wind swept fine sand across the ground. It pattered against pant legs in faint, soft taps.

Himmel faced the two Mahoraga.

The Dharma Wheel turning above their heads.

The cross at his back.

Neither side moved first.

Himmel was thinking.

Just as Itadori and the others had mentioned, Himmel and Gojo Satoru were supposed to arrive here right after resolving the Aichi Barrier. In theory, they should have returned to Tokyo together.

But something had happened on the way. They'd separated. Gojo Satoru went elsewhere, and Himmel came back alone.

Hard to say whether that was good or bad.

No one had imagined that Tokyo, right now, would have turned into this kind of hellhole.

(Mahoraga... I've heard the rough intel, but the real thing is far stronger than I expected. Is it because they've been adapting for so long?)

(Either way, I won't know until I try.)

(I need to wrap this up fast and check on Gojo's end...)

[Clunk]

Himmel moved first. The [cross] at his back rotated.

Then he launched.

[!]

The speed was something else entirely. It eclipsed everyone who'd fought on this battlefield before him. Both Mahoraga froze, unable to react.

The blue phantom arrived between them.

Shadow and form vanished together. A stream of light slashed from top to bottom, tearing through both bodies at once.

.BOOM!——!.

The air itself shrieked from the speed of the swing. The blade energy passed through flesh like a sickle wind, burst out from behind the Mahoraga, and sheared through the atmosphere beyond.

SPLURT!

The image seemed to skip a frame. The Mahoraga were still standing exactly where they'd been, as if struck by something invisible. Their bodies stiffened. Jolted. Then twisted and bent backward.

Diagonal wounds split across their torsos. Crimson erupted from the gashes in thick, arcing sprays, blood fountains spattering everything in reach.

THUD! THUD!

Both Mahoraga dropped to their knees at the same time.

The damage was not equal.

Number Two had half its body slide clean off. The torso separated into two pieces.

Number One only half-knelt. Its chest cavity was carved completely open. There were organs inside — something vaguely resembling human viscera, but they didn't seem to serve any real function. They were just there. Blood poured from the wound and spread in a dark pool across the ground.

BANG!

Himmel didn't stop. He shifted his weight forward, leg swinging through the air like a thunderclap, and drove a kick into the crumpling Number One.

THUD! THUD!

The already-split body had nothing left to give. What had been barely holding together came apart entirely. The upper half broke the sound barrier on its way up and blasted into the sky.

The scene was obscene in its violence.

The sorcerers watching from the edge of the battlefield had their jaws hanging.

In their eyes, the fighters who'd gone before were already exceptional, Hishari, Kinji, Miguel, Itadori, Kusakabe. Every one of them was elite among Grade 1 sorcerers. And Mahoraga had shown real adaptability. The fights had been fierce and brilliant.

But they didn't understand.

[That was not the true nature of Mahoraga.]

[Mahoraga's strength lies in its continuously evolving adaptability, and in the fact that unless the damage is enough to obliterate it entirely, it cannot be killed.]

[The warriors before had only ever existed as stalling devices.]

[They...]

[had never truly forced Mahoraga to fight at full power.]

Squelch... squelch squelch.

New tissue spread rapidly. Bone knit to bone. Flesh sutured and sealed. In seconds, both Mahoraga were whole again.

From that exchange, Himmel understood two things.

(First, whether it's me or Itadori, Mahoraga only targets external threats. They've realized they can't subjugate each other, since the other one has the same adaptability. So they're using fights against outsiders to acquire new combat methods instead.)

(Second, Mahoraga Number One has adapted to slashing, but it hasn't reached full immunity yet.)

Which made sense, when he thought about it.

If a few slashes were enough to adapt to every slash in existence, then would holding a lighter near Mahoraga let it adapt to the temperature of the sun?

The adaptation didn't work that way. What Mahoraga had fully adapted to was the specific concept: slashing at Sukuna's output specifications. And from that foundation, the adaptation extended outward.

Say the upper limit of Sukuna's slashes was 100. Once the adaptation completed, any damage below 100 would be ignored entirely. Even damage above 100 would still be reduced by a set ratio, because Mahoraga had gained the [Slashing Resistance] status.

In rough terms:

[D(x) = x (initial contact); D(x) = 0 (x ≤ A₀K) (adaptation complete, output below threshold); D(x) = λ(x − A₀K) (x > A₀K) (output above threshold)]

(Something like that.)

Himmel turned this over, one hand on his chin.

He was currently running the [Mage] state. It didn't give him quite the same clarity as when Frieren's soul descended after a full passive cycle, but his thinking did shift toward something resembling hers.

(One more thing to factor in.)

(Namely, when Mahoraga faces an attack type it's already adapted to significantly...)

[Clunk]

(Its adaptation speed gets faster.)

"As expected."

He watched the Dharma Wheel turning above Mahoraga Number One's head. The hypothesis confirmed itself.

Mahoraga had only ever adapted to the slashes of a seven-finger Sukuna, but that had already built up substantial resistance.

So.

[Even Himmel's slashes would be adapted to, and quickly.]

Then the question was,

(With the output I can put into a slash right now... even going all out, can I actually kill Mahoraga?)

Himmel stared at Mahoraga. Mahoraga answered with a flash of white teeth.

(No. But right now, )

BANG!

Himmel dropped out of Number One's field of vision.

From Number Two's perspective, the space in front of it had been empty. No footstep. No wind. And then Himmel was simply there, nailed into position before its eyes like he'd always been standing there.

[!]

Startled, Mahoraga moved to counterattack.

Whoosh,

The straight punch slid past as Himmel tilted his head. He answered with a slash.

"Flash Sky Strike!"

No hesitation at all.

The highest output his current [Mage] state could produce, driven into this one strike.

No waste.

No doubt.

That decisiveness, that was the Hero Himmel.

BOOM!.

The blade's edge opened, and a pillar of light erupted from the ground upward. A dazzling column swept along the arc of the swing, from bottom to top. The sky cracked in response, and a wall of radiance swallowed heaven and earth whole.

A direct hit would kill Mahoraga. No question.

Kill Number Two first. Its slashing resistance was lower. That was the move.

The judgment made by Himmel's own resolve, refined by Frieren's clarity of thought. It could not be wrong.

And yet.

Mahoraga's own judgment exceeded what Himmel had anticipated.

"Huh?!"

Even at that speed, Mahoraga Number Two had wrenched itself half an inch sideways in the final instant. Just enough to keep a piece of itself intact.

That reaction speed. That was,

[Prayer Song]

Enhancement through rhythm, applied to physical performance. Number Two hadn't fought Sukuna the way Number One had. It hadn't built slashing resistance. But it had gained something else, a combat method of its own.

It had barely, barely survived the strike.

Himmel's brow creased. He pressed forward immediately, going for the finish.

But Mahoraga Number One was already behind him.

"Get out of the way."

Annoyed, he abandoned the follow-up slash and threw a punch backward instead.

He knew Number One's resistance to fists was still low.

BAM!

The iron fist tore through the air and connected with Mahoraga's face. The fleshy, elastic little wings on its cheeks compressed inward as the flesh cratered under the impact.

The force sent shockwaves rolling outward in every direction. Mahoraga's toes left the ground. Air currents swept it backward, tumbling through the air.

Himmel was already turning to slash before it landed.

But in that one instant,

[Clunk]

Number Two had adapted a little more.

The clean, decisive slash failed to sever it completely. Number Two still had one foot. It grew back the rest immediately, then launched a front kick straight at Himmel, forcing him to pull his blade back and block across his body.

BOOM!.

The impact drove his feet into the ground. His stance held, but he was still grinding backward, friction tearing two long, straight furrows into the earth.

He was just gathering his force to push back,

BANG! BANG!

Mahoraga appeared on two sides at once, one ahead and one behind, moving with absolute conviction.

One swinging a blade down in a chop. One driving a fist up in a hammer strike.

[All of Mahoraga's action principles are the instinct to [complete the subjugation].]

[Having recognized that Himmel was the greatest obstacle to that instinct, and that letting Himmel kill Number Two would end the subjugation entirely, the Mahoraga had, compared to every fight before this one, developed a new willingness to cooperate with each other.]

[Remove the obstacle in front of them. That had become their shared consensus.]

[Two against one.]

[An unprecedented state of affairs.]

And in the 9 minutes that followed...

[The Strongest Battle Scars]

[Would be etched into Ikebukuro.]