Chapter 173 - Todo and Naoya

Tokyo No. 2 Colony, an abandoned commercial street in Shinjuku. Naoya walked ahead, kicking an empty can out of the way, face twisted with irritation.

"Damn it, I can't believe I got separated from that Itadori brat!"

The more Naoya thought about it, the angrier he got. Before they'd entered the Colony, Toji-sensei had spelled it out plain and simple: whoever racked up the most points would be the MVP of this Culling Game special training session. This was the perfect chance to stomp Itadori into the dirt and lock down the top senior disciple position for good.

But the moment they'd stepped in, Itadori got randomly teleported somewhere, and Naoya ended up grouped with this freak Aoi Todo, a man whose brain held nothing but muscles and "best friends."

Todo walked a few paces behind, adjusting the mechanical metronome strapped to his left arm as he moved, not paying Naoya any attention whatsoever.

"Hey, can you pick up the pace?" Naoya whipped around and snapped. "I have to collect more points than that Itadori idiot! The top senior disciple position is mine and mine alone!"

The words hadn't even finished leaving Naoya's mouth when a woman came stumbling and crashing around the corner ahead. She had almost nothing left on her but a few scraps of cloth, pale skin exposed to the open air from nearly every angle. She was strikingly seductive, and right now her face was streaked with terrified tears, like something was chasing her.

"Save me!"

The moment the woman spotted Naoya, her eyes lit up. She lurched forward like grabbing a lifeline and threw her whole body against Naoya's chest. The distance between them vanished in an instant. She buried her face there, and the terror in her eyes evaporated without a trace. In its place: a thin, viper-like smirk of satisfaction. Stupid man.

The moment she pressed against a body, her technique, Bone Corrosion, would dissolve the target's internal organs in an instant. She'd been running this trick for a while now. More than a dozen idiots who fancied themselves heroes, all dead, and she'd stacked up a clean eighty points doing it. This pretty boy looked like a complete rookie.

One second. That was all it would take for every one of his organs to turn to blood. The tips of her fingers began to flare with purple Cursed Energy.

"Get off me."

Naoya's face was pure disgust. Without a second thought, Naoya's right fist drove straight into the bridge of her nose.

THUD!

The woman spun through the air like a top, three full rotations, then flew backward more than ten meters. Naoya brushed off one sleeve, expression sour. What the hell does this thing think it's doing, jumping on me? Naoya was wearing Toji-sensei's signature Will of Fire green bodysuit today. Had to beg for ages just to get it.

If it ended up reeking of that woman's cheap perfume, how would Naoya face Master Toji when he got back? This was a battle garb meant only for the honest sweat of men. Out in the rubble, the woman forced herself painfully to her feet. Completely dumbfounded.

Is this man out of his mind? Seeing a poor, helpless woman, and the first instinct is a punch to the face? The pain nearly made her lose control on the spot, but then she spotted Aoi Todo standing behind Naoya, and she held herself together. The big one looked slow. A wall of thick muscle, simple eyes. He'd definitely fall for it.

The woman covered her face, eyes brimming with tears, and turned her gaze toward Todo. Her voice came out so soft it could almost drip.

"Big brother..."

She pointed at Naoya, trembling with aggrieved little sobs.

"Why would your companion be so brutal to a helpless woman? I was just in danger and wanted to ask for help..."

Come on. Start a fight. Hurry. If the big one felt sympathy and turned against his partner, there'd be an opening. She could drain both of them dry in one shot. Todo stopped walking. He turned around and looked down at the woman in the rubble from his full height. His gaze sharpened with sudden, intense focus. The woman's heart leapt. He took the bait.

She made herself look even more vulnerable, squeezed out whatever appeal she had left, and waited for the hand reaching down to help her up. Todo stroked his chin and studied her from head to toe for a full five seconds.

"No good."

Todo shook his head. The tone was soaked in regret, and undisguised contempt.

"I don't go for girls this frail. The backside is too flat as well. Completely outside my aesthetic."

The air went dead silent. Naoya rolled eyes beside him. This freak's focus is always on the most revolting things. The woman's expression froze completely. Tears were still spinning in her eyes, but her face had already started to contort. What does that mean?

She had roamed the Heian era for a thousand years. Countless nobles and officials had thrown their entire fortunes for even a glimpse of her favor. And today, in this place, one punched her without the slightest hesitation, and the other sat there and seriously critiqued the shape of her backside?! An absolute humiliation.

"You two..."

The coy sweetness drained out of her voice entirely, replaced by something hoarse and raw. Her bones began to crack and pop. The pale skin blanketed itself in dark greenish-black scales, and her eyes shifted into an eerie, deep crimson. Ferocious Special Grade Cursed Energy swept the entire street like a storm. Every window along the block shattered at once. She was done pretending.

She was going to chew these two oblivious men alive and grind their bones to powder piece by piece.

"DIE!"

The woman shrieked and charged at Todo. Since you think my backside is flat, I'll tear your mouth off first. Her fingernails shot out half a meter, shimmering with a venomous glow, moving so fast they left afterimages trailing in the air.

"Oh? Turns out it's a big fish?"

Naoya's eyes lit up. Kogane hadn't announced a point value yet, but Naoya could feel the Cursed Energy rolling off this woman, extraordinarily dense. Kill her, and the gap between Naoya and Itadori would blow wide open in a single stroke.

"Don't touch her — she's my prey!"

Naoya roared, and green steam erupted from every inch of the body in an instant.

"Eight Gates — Gate of Life, open!"

Furious vital force surged skyward and blasted the surrounding debris off the ground. At the same moment, Naoya activated the clan technique.

"Projection Sorcery!"

Twenty-four frames per second. Amplified by the Eight Gates' physical enhancement, Projection Sorcery's speed hit a threshold it had never reached before. The woman registered nothing but a flash of green. Where did he go? She hadn't tracked the movement at all when a killing pain tore through her abdomen. Naoya's knee had already slammed hard into her stomach.

BOOM!

The woman retched a mouthful of sour bile, her body launched into the air like a cannonball. Too fast. What kind of speed was this? In midair, the woman furiously circulated her Cursed Energy, trying to stabilize and counterattack. But she never got the chance to touch the ground.

"Click."

A crisp mechanical beat rang out. Aoi Todo struck the metronome mounted on his left arm with his one remaining right hand. Boogie Woogie, activated. The woman in midair instantly swapped positions with a chunk of flying rubble by the roadside. Her vision lurched, and she was standing directly in front of Aoi Todo. Todo's right arm muscle surged, black Cursed Energy sparks crackling wildly at the fist.

"Black Flash!"

No preamble. A clean, full-weight punch straight into the woman's face.

CRACK!

The bridge of her nose shattered completely. The hard cyan scales crushed outright. Her whole body was driven toward the ground at even greater speed.

"Click."

The metronome again. Naoya appeared directly below her plummeting trajectory.

"Not bad, muscle freak." Naoya sneered.

The right leg rose high like a battle axe, green steam gathering on it until it condensed into something almost solid and radiant.

"Ultimate Youthful Invincible Overhead Chop!"

THUD!

The axe kick landed squarely on the woman's spine. The road surface collapsed. The woman was driven straight down into the underground pipes, and a column of water and debris erupted more than ten meters into the air. The woman lay at the bottom of the crater, an unknowable number of bones broken throughout her body. Her mind had gone completely blank. What are these two?

One with speed that defied comprehension. One who swapped positions without any logic or warning. Her technique required physical contact to activate. But against these two, she couldn't so much as graze the hem of their clothes before getting knocked around like a ball. She couldn't keep fighting. She had to run.

Through the searing pain, the woman bit down hard on the tip of her tongue and began to activate the blood-sacrifice technique, the one that burned through lifespan itself.

"Click."

That relentless beat again. Aoi Todo appeared at the bottom of the crater. One foot came down on the woman's wrist, and the fingers she had just begun forming her seal with were ground to fragments.

"Fleeing from the trials of youth," Todo said, his tone utterly solemn, "is the most shameless act of all."

The woman fell into despair.

She glared up at Todo, her voice a shrill wail. "Do you two have any idea what it means to show a woman some mercy?! I am a woman!"

"A woman?"

Todo let out a scornful laugh. "On the battlefield, there are only opponents. And besides — that withered figure of yours doesn't stir a single drop of pity in me."

To hell with withered! The woman's rage burst out in a mouthful of black blood.

"Move aside, Todo! That kill is mine!"

Naoya's furious roar came from above. Vital force pushed to its absolute limit. The body became a green meteor, right fist trailing a screaming tear through the air, driving straight down into the crater below. Todo's eye twitched. The metronome struck immediately, swapping with a rock some distance away.

BOOM!

Naoya's fist came down on the woman's chest without holding a single thing back. The terrifying physical shockwave punched straight through her body in an instant, turning her heart and every internal organ into a mist of blood. Along with the entire underground pipe, that single punch blasted out a crater ten meters across. The woman's eyes bulged wide, and all life left them completely.

Until the moment she died, she never understood it. The seductive charm she'd relied on for a thousand years. The Special Grade power she'd always been so proud of. Against these two men, she hadn't been able to use a single bit of it. The green steam slowly dissipated. Naoya stood at the bottom of the crater, breathing in ragged gasps. Kogane's flat, emotionless announcement rang out.

"Player Naoya Zenin has eliminated a player and obtained eighty points. Current total: eighty points."

Naoya froze for half a second. Then erupted. Eighty points! This woman was worth eighty points! Naoya leapt out of the crater, shook the blood off both hands, and pulled up Kogane's panel.

"You see that? Eighty points!"

The laugh that came out was loud and obnoxious and aimed squarely at Todo.

"That Itadori idiot is probably still out there playing in the dirt with low-grade curses! With eighty points in the bag, I'm locked in at the top of the leaderboard! The top senior disciple position belongs to none other than Naoya Zenin!"

Already playing out the scene in vivid detail, Itadori seeing the point rankings, dropping to both knees, calling out "Senior."

When that happened, Naoya was going to double Itadori's daily frog-jump laps around Mount Fuji. Straight to twenty-five thousand. Todo walked over. One look at Naoya's frenzy, and Todo shook his head slowly.

"You pitiful creature."

Naoya's laughter cut off dead. "Who are you calling pitiful?"

"My best friend Itadori," Todo said, lifting his gaze toward somewhere distant, "possesses a height of soul and tenacity that no ordinary person can come close to. At this very moment, he is out there somewhere, shedding blood to protect civilians."

Todo's eyes shimmered with genuine, moved tears.

"And you — you stand here gloating over a mere eighty points. That kind of shallow vision is exactly why you will never surpass my best friend."

The vein in Naoya's forehead pulsed hard.

"Shut your mouth, you backside-obsessed freak! I'm the strongest one here!"

"I'm going to slaughter every single person in this Colony right now and rack up a thousand points — then let's hear what you have to say!"

➤ Next: Alliance of Five Special Grades