Chapter 404: Slashing
The following day.
[Metropolitan Police Department — Exclusive Training Grounds]
This facility usually served as the dojo for the MPD's Judo department, but it
was occasionally requisitioned by other divisions for large-scale events. Today
was one of those days.
Following the restructuring of the Secret Service Division (Missou-ka),
Superintendent Haru Takeyama had organized a joint training session to foster
cooperation between the elite shadow unit and the standard Judo department. To
provide high-level technical insight, Takeyama had reached out to three martial
arts legends: [THE SAINT OF WAR] Gouki Shibukawa, [THE CORD-CUTTER] Kosho
Shinogi, and [THE SOUL COMBATANT] Ren Shiroki.
All three had accepted. For a warrior, a technical demonstration (Enbu) was a
chance to sharpen the mind through teaching, and the paycheck from the MPD
didn't hurt, either.
Inspector Morio Sonoda and the Head of the Secret Service Division, Takumi
Manabe, sat at the front of their respective squads, watching in respectful
silence.
Ren Shiroki took the floor first. He demonstrated a series of high-speed entries
designed to neutralize armed suspects, focusing heavily on footwork and
[NEUTRAL] spacing. His movements were practical and stripped of all cinematic
fluff.
Then, it was Kosho Shinogi's turn. He requested several basketballs.
First, Kosho dropped into a deep horse-stance, placing a single basketball on
the floor. He stacked his palms on top of the sphere.
"HAH!!"
With a sharp grunt, Kosho drove his weight downward. A dull BOOM echoed as the
basketball imploded instantly, the reinforced rubber bursting under the
concentrated torque of his palms.
Zip!
Kosho snapped back to his feet, arms raised at shoulder height, palms open. It
was a terrifyingly focused posture. Around him, three officers stood roughly
three paces away, each holding a basketball. On his signal, they launched the
balls at him—one high, one mid, one low.
Whish—!
Facing the projectiles flying from three different trajectories, Kosho's
expression didn't flicker. He was treating the leather spheres as if they were
three simultaneous assassins.
He dug his right foot into the floor, twisting his hips to generate a whirlwind
of force. His hands and his left leg blurred—three separate motions that looked
like three distinct gusts of wind cutting through the air.
Shick-shick-shick! Pop-pop-pop!
The three basketballs were "slashed" simultaneously. Deep, surgical gashes
appeared on each one as they whistled past. Deflated and lifeless, they thudded
onto the floor.
Kosho didn't reset his stance. He gave a silent nod to a member of the Judo
department who was standing nearby, holding a single sheet of thin white paper
by its top two corners.
Gulp.
The officer swallowed hard, his hands trembling as he felt the "Sharpness"
radiating from Kosho's aura.
Zip!
Kosho's feet scuffed the floor. His left hand swept through the air in a
horizontal arc. For a micro-second, the observers' eyes were caught by a flash
of reflected light, as if a blade had been drawn in the dim room.
Shick—!
By the time the crowd blinked, the bottom half of the paper was already drifting
toward the floor. The cut was a perfectly straight line, smoother than if it had
been severed by a laser.
"Phew..."
Kosho exhaled a cloud of hot air, his hands returning to his sides. demo over.
As Kosho prepared to step off the mats, Gouki Shibukawa stood up. The "Master"
gave a mischievous, toothy grin and suddenly whipped a long towel toward Kosho's
face, intending to blind him.
"—"
Kosho accepted the "Challenge." His hand snapped upward, fingers locked into a
rigid blade. He performed a vertical downward chop, splitting the soft,
resilient fabric of the towel in two.
Zip!
The towel fell in two neat halves. Kosho caught one in his left hand and used
the base of his right palm to swat the other half toward Ren Shiroki. Ren caught
it and draped it over his shoulder with a grin.
Kosho looked at the piece of towel in his hand. The edge was clean, with zero
fraying—a result better than any pair of scissors could achieve.
"Heh... Shibukawa-sensei, you really have a mean streak," Kosho noted, wiping
the sweat from his neck.
"What?! Me?!" Shibukawa put his hands on his hips, looking like a victim. "Kid,
you're the one who shattered my high-grade prosthetic eye during the tournament!
I'm still sore about that bill!"
He was referring to the Maximum Tournament match where Kosho had used the
[EYE-SOCKET CRUSH] to break Shibukawa's glass eye. Since Shibukawa had lost his
real eye years ago to Yanagi Ryuko, it was a heavy hit.
Of course, the 75-year-old master was only teasing. He didn't live his life as
an "Elder"; he lived it as a "Combatant." To treat him with the fragility of an
old man was the only way to truly offend him.
"Alright, alright! My turn!" Shibukawa patted his trousers and waddled into the
center of the ring, gesturing for Kosho to make way for the Aiki demonstration.
Ren and Kosho retreated to the sidelines, joining the officers of the Secret
Service and Judo departments. Both men were watching Shibukawa intently, picking
up micro-nuances from the old master's movements.
On the other side of the circle, Takumi Manabe was appraising the three
warriors.
He was a handsome man in his early thirties, dressed in a sharp business suit.
He had a solid, athletic build and well-groomed hair, but his most striking
feature was a patch of long, natural hair growing from the bone beneath his left
eye, stretching toward his sideburn.
"So... these are 'Combatants'," Manabe sighed, his voice low. "Men, women, young
or old—every one of them is a unique predator. It's actually a bit terrifying."
He looked at the severed paper on the floor and spoke to Sonoda. "To be sharper
than a blade with nothing but a bare hand... martial artists are a biological
anomaly. They're more dangerous than a gunman, because no scanner can detect
their 'Lethality'."
"I honestly don't know... is this the age of technology? Or is it still the age
of the bare fist?"
Sonoda chuckled helplessly. "Manabe-kun, I heard your own hand-to-hand skills
are nothing to sneeze at?"
"I deal with high-level felons, sure," Manabe said, rubbing his stomach. "But
I'm a cop at the end of the day. I'm not chasing the 'Apex' like these freaks. I
can't compete with that level of obsession. God, I'm starving. I need lunch..."
The demonstration concluded with a formal salute from the officers. As the
departments began to disperse, the three legends stayed behind in the dojo with
Sonoda and Manabe.
After a few minutes of small talk, Kosho Shinogi turned to Ren.
"Ren. You and I are both chasing the same thing. We should help each other out.
You know what I'm getting at, right?"
Ren grinned. He had felt the "Technical Itch" vibrating off Kosho all morning.
"Basically, you're looking for a time and place to trade some real heat? Just
you and me?"
Ren raised an eyebrow. "Fine by me. When do we start?"
Kosho thinned his lips. "Let's use the Street Brawl rules. Anytime. Anywhere.
The second we lock eyes, the frames are live. How does that sound?"
Ren paused. The grin on his face slowly widened into a mask of pure, ecstatic
delight. His eyes crinkled.
"Nice. That's perfect!"
Now, we must emphasize a single, important fact: Dueling is illegal. Seriously.
Dueling is very illegal.
But fortunately, since no actual crimes were being committed in this moment,
Inspector Sonoda decided to look at the ceiling and hum a tune.
"Haha... yeah... look," Sonoda muttered, rubbing his temples. "Just... whatever
you do, please don't have a death match inside the precinct? Okay?"
He sounded like a parent pleading with two hyper-active toddlers. Ren and Kosho
laughed and promised not to make his life any harder.
Takumi Manabe sat cross-legged nearby, his elbow on his knee and his chin in his
palm.
"Well, as long as the Tokugawa family and the Kengan Association are providing
the backing, a little brawl isn't the end of the world," the Secret Service
chief complained. "Lately, all my division does is deal with the Ward. Things
are getting rowdy in The Inside."
"Some of the street gangs are getting restless. I can smell the malice leaking
out through the walls. It's only a matter of time before it affects the city's
stability."
Shibukawa laughed heartily. "Hahaha! Well, young man, isn't that exactly what
the MPD is paid to handle?"
"I suppose... though I'm so busy I haven't even had time for lunch. Excuse me."
Manabe sighed, pulling a small container from his gear bag. He fished out a
single egg.
Sonoda, feeling a bit more relaxed now, asked, "I heard you have a thing for
eggs, Manabe-kun?"
"Mm-hmm." Manabe nodded, holding up the shell. "Guess. Raw? Hard-boiled?
Soft-boiled? If you're right, I buy lunch. If not, it's on you."
"Easy," Sonoda said, noticing a trace of liquid in the container. "Raw!"
Manabe brought the egg to his lips, tilted his head back, and crushed the shell
with a sharp CRACK. He revealed the answer: Mao-zhuzi (A fertilized "hairy"
embryo).
The partially developed embryo, mixed with clear fluid, slid into Manabe's
mouth.
"—"
Manabe chewed with a look of pure bliss. The surrounding martial artists stood
in stunned silence, unable to even imagine the texture of what he was eating.
"Inspector Sonoda... you owe me lunch. Thank you."
It was Manabe's go-to method for discharging stress. Sonoda had walked right
into the trap and could only sigh at his thinning wallet. It seemed everyone in
the MPD leadership—Sonoda, Manabe, Iori—had developed their own bizarre coping
mechanisms for dealing with the world of monsters.
Two days later.
It was mid-afternoon. Ren was finishing his daily cardio, jogging back from a
high-altitude park toward the Hub.
Hah! Hah! Hah—
He maintained a steady rhythm, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about
what Kosho had said—that "something" they were both pursuing. He could feel it
in his gut, but he couldn't put it into words yet.
What is at the end of my 'Way'?
He realized that, as always, the answer would only be found in the frames of a
fight. He hadn't seen Kosho since the precinct, and he wondered how the
"Anytime, Anywhere" match would finally trigger.
I can't wait...
But today, there was another event that demanded his attention.
Mohammad Alai Jr. vs. [THE FANG OF METSUDO] Kanoh Agito.
The war was about to begin!
☆☆☆
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