The time rewinds slightly to the moment when Yuki Tsukumo and Toji Fushiguro were descending into the depths to perform the merger ritual between the Star Plasma Vessel and Tengen.
At that exact same moment, a warning from a spirit Suguru Geto had attached to them reached the ears of Satoru Gojo and Naoya Zen'in. Naoya had been scouring his family's archives with Mai Zen'in for information regarding the predecessor organization of "Q" following a request from Masamichi Yaga, while Gojo had been doing much the same elsewhere.
'Things have taken a turn for the worse! Explosions caused by cursed energy have occurred at the Shinkansen stations in Shin-Aomori, Morioka, Sendai, Tokyo, Shinagawa, Nagoya, Kyoto, Shin-Osaka, Hiroshima, and Kagoshima-Chuo! This is... indiscriminate terrorism!!!'
Immediately after the spirit conveyed Geto's voice, the errand-boy Kiyotaka Ijichi at the Gojo estate and the attentive, devoted Mai Zen'in at the Zen'in estate turned on their televisions to verify the report via an NHK emergency bulletin.
The moment they saw the scrolling text at the top of the screen, which matched Geto's report word for word, Naoya and Gojo reached the exact same conclusion.
Gojo, who was capable of transporting others, would rush to Tokyo to dispatch the Special Grades to various locations. In the meantime, Naoya would rush to Kyoto.
An instant later, the two Special Grades vanished from their respective spots. It was only moments after that when a commercial broadcast camera in the Kansai region caught a glimpse of Naoya at the chaotic Kyoto Station.
Appearing at the exploding and burning Kyoto Station, Naoya stood before the military-clad figures—presumably Bitz—who were ruthlessly exercising their techniques against civilians. With a demonic expression, Naoya made a "camera" gesture with his fingers while releasing a concentration of cursed energy so high it was described as hideous, activating his barrier technique.
"A phantom lamp reflects a single night's silhouette... Technique activation. The Fourth Wall."
In an instant, a barrier resembling a stage curtain completely enveloped the area around Kyoto Station, and every cursed energy reaction within was illuminated as if by a spotlight.
Most of them were citizens fleeing in panic. Naoya's first priority was their evacuation.
Running at ultra-high speeds, he used Projection Sorcery to turn the citizens into film frames one after another, carrying them outside the barrier.
This rescue drama, performed in the blink of an eye, was reminiscent of the American comic book hero "The Flash," but compared to the number of people who should have been there, those saved were far too few. Even as he stepped across a carpet of entrails and bloody vomit to rescue the few survivors, the faint lights of the spotlights were extinguished one by one by the ongoing bombardment.
After he had finished carrying the 289 survivors within his reach outside the barrier, the Bitz looked down from the sky at Naoya, who now stood with a void of expression, their faces twisted into smirks.
"Are you finished with the tedious task of lugging humans around, Original? Oh my, oh my? You look pale. Are you perhaps feeling unwell?"
"Well, of course. I liked the kimono I was wearing today, you know? And now it's covered in blood."
Naoya muttered as he scratched his head, only to realize his hand was also covered in blood. He let out a long, heavy sigh.
The next instant, Naoya vanished and fell upon the Bitz who had spoken so mockingly, tearing its body into pieces with sheer, brutal strength.
"Whatever. I'm already dirty, so it doesn't matter if I get a bit more filth on me. You've probably got some regeneration function anyway, right? But I'm not letting you use it. Just die already."
As he spoke, Naoya poured a "dense cursed energy," dark and murky, into the Bitz that was attempting to regenerate from its shattered flesh. Because the human body is essentially a type of domain, tearing it apart made it easier to interfere with its interior. In that moment, Naoya exercised his Recording My Technique upon the Bitz.
However, this was a version released with ultra-high output—a "Secret Art" that Naoya had never shown anyone.
The maximum output of Recording My Technique. Its target was...
"I can even control the self-destruction function of cells. Haven't you ever heard of apoptosis?"
"Guh, ga...!"
At Naoya's feet, the single Bitz unit suffered a failure in regeneration, its cell membranes collapsing as it dissolved away.
Seeing that death, the other Bitz units were instantly gripped by tension. They prepared to attack Naoya using a technique newly added to their upgraded models.
" " " "Convergence... Piercing Blood!" " " "
"Quite versatile, aren't you? Using something like that. The kids from the Kamo family would be furious. In your case, you use it without worrying about your remaining ammunition because of your regeneration."
"As expected of the Original! You don't even seem like you'll be hit! But!"
The blood scattered by the Bitz suddenly "exploded." Like a fuel-air bomb, the surrounding oxygen was instantly consumed, and the Kyoto Station building finally succumbed to the detonation, beginning its collapse.
It was a scorching, oxygen-free void that no ordinary living creature could ever survive.
In the rain of rubble, Zen'in Naoya's body was incinerated... or so it should have been.
A naked body leaped out from the flames, completely unscathed. For Naoya, who treated being engulfed in fire as part of his daily ascetic training—literally a walk in the park—the heat covering his body and the vacuum of the space were no obstacle at all.
"Are you some kind of monster!?"
Naoya responded to the shouting Bitz with a powerful spear-hand strike. While crushing its heart, he forced cellular collapse via Recording My Technique. By throwing the dying corpse, he shot down another unit that was trying to fly away to create distance.
As Naoya raced at the speed of sound to finish off the unit that hit the ground, the Bitz switched to an attack using "gravity."
It was a gravity-control technique derived from their mother-body. Usually used as an aid for flight, it could be used as a technique to manipulate super-gravity when operated with a Cursed Technique Reversal.
...But.
Naoya, who somehow supported a body that instantaneously reached several tons in weight and continued to run, crushed the head of the downed Bitz with a stomp that utilized his own weight. He then channeled Recording My Technique through his foot, causing the entity's entire body to collapse.
He had imposed ten Vows upon himself for over twenty years. To a body that had constantly been subjected to such trials, the shackles of gravity could no longer hope to be effective.
[ILLUSTRATION DISPLAYED]
"Like that would work, you morons! I don't know how many of you are left, but I'm going to slaughter every last one of you!"
"You monster! All units, scatter! He's just a human! Crush him with a saturation attack!"
The Bitz, who had been the hunters until moments ago, roared in panic as they recklessly bombed and burned the surroundings. Amidst the destruction, a blue flash of light blew everything aside, taking down the Bitz one by one.
After a while...
The curtain rose to reveal the ruins of what used to be Kyoto Station. Within the wreckage, only one person remained—a young man standing stark naked.
"I wonder what happened to the other places... I suppose Hiroshima is the closest."
No one was there to see him mutter those words before vanishing, leaving only a flash of blue light behind.
In his wake, there were only countless corpses scattered across the ground.
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