Chapter 340: The Death of Kazuhiro Mitogawa
Inside the Spirit-Locking Array, thunderous explosions rang out incessantly.
Hikigaya Hachiman, bolstered by the Hinokami Kagura (Sun Breathing), launched a relentless charge toward the Nine-Tailed Fox. Having noted in their previous clash that the Ghost-Slaying Blade dealt massive damage to it, the Nine-Tailed Fox frowned as it saw Hachiman rushing in once more. It gathered two orbs of energy in its palms, hurled them at Hachiman, and then leaped back to widen the distance again.
"What is wrong with this guy?"
After fighting for this long, the Nine-Tailed Fox was no longer as confident as it had been before the engagement. Although it held a level suppression over Hachiman, the actual power gap between them didn't seem obvious at all. Furthermore, the blade in Hachiman's hand exerted a powerful restraining effect on it, making it wonder if the weapon had been specifically forged to hunt its kind.
In that brief moment of distraction, a vast "Spirit Stream" surged toward it.
"What?!"
Sensing the massive fluctuation of spiritual energy, the Nine-Tailed Fox looked up in shock. After fighting for so long, how could Hikigaya Hachiman still have such a deep reservoir of power?
However, what the Nine-Tailed Fox didn't expect was that this was only the beginning.
As a skill that had been with him since he first became an Exorcist, the Spirit Stream technique had been developed and modified by Hachiman through countless battles. Previously, due to its extreme energy consumption, Hachiman was reluctant to use it before obtaining the Holy Grail fragments—his world-sized power source. Now, with effectively infinite spiritual energy, he no longer feared being drained dry by the modified technique.
Moreover, on his way here, he had already integrated the Sessho-seki obtained from Kagura Tsuchimiya. With the dual self-healing buffs of the Sessho-seki and Avalon (The Distant Ideal Land), he didn't need to worry about his body breaking down from overexertion.
The silver spiritual energy swept across the ground like a tidal wave, pouncing toward the Fox. For the first time in battle, the Nine-Tailed Fox found itself being suppressed by sheer quantity of energy. It decisively shifted from its human form into its true self.
With a deafening roar, a white fox over thirty meters tall, wreathed in pitch-black malice and sporting nine tails, appeared before Hachiman. Following the transformation, the previously "vast" Spirit Stream suddenly looked like a tiny splash in front of it. The Fox raised its front right paw and slammed it into the earth.
The ground shattered and shook violently. The forward momentum of the Spirit Stream was halted instantly, but as Hachiman pushed harder, more energy poured from his body. In
seconds, the volume of the Spirit Stream expanded several times over! Under Hachiman's control, the stream branched out into several tributaries, attacking the Nine-Tailed Fox from multiple directions.
Faced with the siege, the Fox's black aura erupted, and countless black tentacles grew from its body to tangle with the silver streams...
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"We meet again."
While the Nine-Tailed Fox was occupied with the Spirit Stream, Hachiman—splitting his focus—had already arrived in front of Kazuhiro Mitogawa.
"I didn't think you'd still have energy to spare in this situation..." Mitogawa looked at Hachiman with a complex expression. He had assumed that with the Nine-Tailed Fox present, Hachiman wouldn't have time to bother with him. But the result was...
"Energy to spare? How could I have such a thing?" Hachiman let out a cold snort. Fighting a Ghost God as a Ghost Emperor left no room for such luxuries.
"Then why?"
"Why am I coming for you even though I'm using everything I have against that guy?" Hachiman tightened his grip on the Ghost-Slaying Blade, his eyes gradually filling with murderous intent. "Smart, capable at chores, occasionally mischievous but always reliable in a crisis, and a cute sister who always likes to cling to me... Komachi, whom I haven't even had the heart to scold once since she was little... you actually dared to hurt her?!"
At that, Hachiman could no longer restrain his fury. He flashed in front of Mitogawa and delivered a heavy left hook straight to his face!
Bang!
The fist slammed into Mitogawa's cheek with a massive sound, accompanied by the distinct crack of bone.
"Cough, cough..." Mitogawa tumbled several times across the ground before stumbling to his feet. He tried to speak, but a metallic taste filled his throat. He spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with several teeth.
"I have to escape..." Mitogawa felt a surge of regret. He hadn't expected Hachiman to be this terrifying when his "reverse scale" (his sister) was touched. Had he known it would end like this, he would never have agreed to the Nine-Tailed Fox's terrible suggestion to target Komachi.
However, it was too late. The Nine-Tailed Fox seemed delayed by the Spirit Stream. On his own, he was no match for a berserk Hachiman.
"Butterflies..." Mitogawa muttered. At his call, a small blue orb appeared in the empty air. As the orb unfolded, a massive swarm of butterflies with intricate patterns scattered, dancing around the two.
"An illusion?" Hachiman continued to close in. Suddenly, the scene before him began to warp. Without hesitation, he slashed at the void. The sword energy passed through, turning countless butterflies into powder.
With the destruction of the swarm forming the illusion, Mitogawa's construct failed. His figure, which had been standing a few meters away, faded, while his true self appeared in the sky, being carried away by a cluster of butterflies.
"Still trying to run?"
The spectral fire on the Ghost-Slaying Blade suddenly expanded. Mitogawa, already in the air, suddenly felt his connection to every butterfly sent to block Hachiman vanish. Terrified, he could only urge the butterflies beneath him to flap harder to get as far away as possible.
But in the next second, a silver chain coiled around his right leg.
"What?" Mitogawa looked down to see what was binding him. A massive force yanked the chain, dragging him from the heights back down to the ground!
"Wait! I have important intel! Spare my life and I'll tell you!" Pulled back to the earth, Mitogawa instinctively tried to turn into butterflies to flee. But the cold edge of the Ghost-Slaying Blade against his neck and the searing heat of the spectral fire made him drop the idea instantly. He raised his hands in surrender.
"Intel?" Hachiman looked at him with a strange expression.
"Yes, about that guy. You already know it's a Ghost God, right? It's planning an attack. If it succeeds, an entire city's worth of people will die. I can give you the details, but in exchange..."
"Exchange a whole city's lives for yours?" Hachiman interrupted.
"Exactly." Mitogawa nodded, waiting tensely for an answer. In truth, he felt somewhat relieved. Since Hachiman was an Exorcist, it was his duty to protect the people of Japan. Trading one life for a city's worth of safety seemed like a deal anyone would accept without thinking. Besides, he had only knocked Hachiman's sister unconscious; things hadn't reached the absolute worst-case scenario yet. Therefore...
"Eh?"
Just as Mitogawa confidently expected Hachiman to accept, his vision began to spin.
"Unfortunately for you... to me, even if the people of this entire island died, they wouldn't be as important as Komachi."
Wiping the blood from his blade, Hachiman looked at Mitogawa's severed head on the ground and shook his head. While he was a "good person" who would help those in need within reason, that only applied to normal circumstances. The moment Mitogawa laid hands on someone he cared about, the death sentence had already been passed.
"Am I... dying again?" Mitogawa's head rolled a few times before stopping against a rock. As his vision blurred, a feeling of indignation rose in his mind. Why was he dying? The Sessho-seki was embedded in his right eye. Even if his head were cut off, his body should have regrown. And his butterflies... he had ordered them to attack from behind during the talk. Why didn't they listen?
"Oh? Is he dead already?"
"?!" A voice rang out from nearby. Both Hachiman and the fading consciousness of Mitogawa were jolted.
"Save me!" Seeing the Nine-Tailed Fox approach, Mitogawa cried out for help.
"How stupid." The Nine-Tailed Fox, looking completely unscathed as if it hadn't even been in a fight, looked down at Mitogawa with pity.
"What?" Mitogawa was stunned. What did it mean? Weren't they allies? Furthermore, only he could create the puppets the Fox needed. Even if it planned to "kill the donkey once the grinding is done," it should have waited until all four puppets were finished!
"The puppets I need have always been just two. I never needed four." Seeing that Mitogawa still hadn't figured it out, the Fox laid everything bare.
"What do you gain from my death?" Hearing that the Fox only needed two puppets yet forced him to make more, Mitogawa finally understood he was being played. He just didn't understand what he had that was worth the scheme.
"My power, of course. You really are a fool. I suppose you're just a brat after all. Did you think I wouldn't act while you wandered around in front of me with my power core?" The Fox grabbed Mitogawa by his hair, lifted the head, and pulled back the long hair covering his right eye to reveal the fist-sized Sessho-seki.
"What a waste to have my power used so crudely by you! But no matter, it's returning to its rightful owner now!" With that, the Fox's nails sharpened into claws and plunged into Mitogawa's eye socket. Amidst a blood-curdling scream, the Fox ripped out the bloody Sessho-seki!
With the stone gone, Mitogawa's life force vanished completely. The Fox tossed the useless head aside and turned to face Hachiman, who had been watching since it appeared.
"Well then, little Exorcist, how about letting me out?"
"What do you think?" Hachiman raised his blade, taking a combat stance. Seeing his refusal, the Fox sighed and pressed the Sessho-seki into its own chest, merging with it.
"I only pretended to be held back by you earlier because I wanted to use your hand to kill that idiot. Did you really think an Emperor-tier could truly stand against a God-tier?"
As its voice fell, a titanic wave of malice erupted from the Fox, turning into a literal black liquid that began corroding the surrounding land.
"The space is becoming unstable?" Hachiman felt the barriers of the pocket dimension—which hadn't fully detached from the main world—begin to shake under the black liquid's influence. He hadn't pulled Komachi and Totsuka into the array for their safety. If the Fox broke free, the battlefield would merge back into the main world, and they would be caught right in the center!
He couldn't let this continue! Hachiman summoned the Spirit Stream once more to lunge at the Fox.
"This move again!" The Fox sneered and sent the black liquid forward to meet it. Just as the black and silver powers collided, a golden light suddenly dawned in the sky.
The Nine-Tailed Fox's expression changed instantly. It threw a punch to shatter a weak point in the spatial barrier and dove into the spatial turbulence.
In the next second, a golden figure slowly descended from the sky...