Chapter 64: The Coordination of Aoi Todo and Itadori
Clap.
The sound was sharp enough to cut through the chaos.
Hanami's body jerked.
One moment it was bracing itself, cursed energy gathering in the seeds blooming from its arm. The next, the world lurched sideways.
Its footing changed.
Its angle changed.
Its sense of direction broke for the smallest fraction of a second.
And in battle, that was enough.
Yuji Itadori appeared behind it like he'd been there all along.
He didn't waste the opening. He didn't speak. He just drove his fist forward with everything he had.
"Black Flash!"
His knuckles buried themselves in Hanami's back.
A violent distortion rippled through the air on impact. Black sparks tore outward. The sound came a heartbeat later, a heavy, warped blast that kicked up dirt, shredded grass, and sent Hanami hurtling across the clearing like a boulder launched from a siege engine.
Its body smashed through one tree, then another, then a third.
The last trunk cracked down the middle before Hanami finally dug its feet into the ground and stopped.
Purple blood spilled from its mouth.
Its branches twitched.
For the first time since it entered the exchange event grounds, its face showed something close to confusion.
What...?
It had watched the vessel. Measured him. Counted the rhythm of his approach. The position he should have been in.
But that clap had broken the whole sequence.
Clap.
Hanami's pupils tightened.
Its battered body froze for a beat as space slipped again.
Aoi Todo stood in front of it now, tall and broad and grinning like a lunatic who had finally found the right kind of music.
"Right here, Special Grade."
There was something horribly bright in his eyes.
"Boogie Woogie."
Clap.
The sound cracked again.
And this time Hanami's fear sharpened.
Todo vanished.
Yami took his place.
There was no hesitation. No pause. No moment of adjustment.
He was simply there, inside killing range, Shiranui already half-drawn.
Hanami saw the blade and understood at once: if that slash landed cleanly, it would not be a wound. It would be an ending.
"Sun Breathing..."
Yami's voice was quiet.
"First Form: Dance."
The slash traced a burning arc across Hanami's chest.
Red flashed.
Then the pain came.
Hanami staggered back with a shriek that barely sounded human. The bark-like armor covering its torso split open, and the wound did not close. Not even a little. The flesh around the cut blackened, curled, and smoked as if the blade had left a piece of the sun behind inside its body.
It clutched at its chest and retreated on instinct.
Impossible.
It had already grasped the basics of Todo's cursed technique. Position swapping was simple in principle. Brutal in practice, yes, but still readable.
Yet Yami had swung before the exchange even seemed complete.
No startled breath. No delay. No wasted movement.
As if he'd known exactly where Todo would place him.
As if the swap itself were just another beat in a rhythm only he could hear.
Todo threw his head back and laughed.
"That's it, my brother! That's exactly it!"
Yuji landed, rolled, and popped back to his feet with wide eyes and a grin he couldn't hide.
"Yami, that was insane."
Yami flicked the dark blood from Shiranui's edge and settled back into stance.
"Don't get careless," he said. "It hasn't broken yet."
He was right.
Hanami's breathing had roughened. Its movements were no longer as smooth. But the core of its presence was still there. Still heavy. Still dangerous.
And now it was learning.
That was the troubling part.
It understood Todo's clap was the real trigger.
It understood Yuji's Black Flash could injure it even without a blade.
And it understood, more clearly than anything else, that Yami was the one it had to kill first.
Hanami lowered its wounded arm. Its voice entered their minds like a cold thorn.
"You fight like vermin swarming over a corpse."
The soil trembled.
Roots erupted from below in a frenzy. Not one or two. Hundreds. Thick as pillars, sharp as spears, writhing through the field from every direction.
Todo's grin widened.
"This level?"
He clapped.
Yuji and Yami switched places.
The roots that had surged toward Yami speared empty air. In that same instant, Yami appeared between them, body already turning, Shiranui flowing with him.
"Water Breathing, Third Form: Flowing Dance."
He moved through the storm like water slipping through a broken gate.
Nothing about it looked forced. He never seemed to dodge at the last second. His feet simply found the only path that existed, and his blade carved out the rest. Every cut severed a root. Every severed root shriveled, browned, and collapsed into brittle ash before it could regenerate.
Yuji saw the opening and leaped.
"Divergent Fist!"
His punch crashed into Hanami's shoulder.
The first impact made it grunt. The second, delayed pulse of force jolted its upper body half a beat later and ruined its attempt to counter.
That was all Todo needed.
Clap.
A seed vanished from Hanami's palm and appeared in Todo's hand.
Todo himself appeared above Hanami's shoulders.
"Got you."
He slammed his elbow down with savage force.
Hanami's knees buckled.
The earth beneath its feet cratered.
"Yami!"
Todo barked the name like a signal flare.
By then Yami was already moving.
He drew one deep breath.
Thunder and sun answered together.
His heartbeat hammered once—hard, violent, absolute.
Golden arcs crackled over his frame, then darkened into a deeper crimson glow that rode the edge of his blade.
This was no ordinary draw.
The pressure gathering around him made Yuji's skin crawl and Todo's eyes light up.
"Total Concentration..."
Yami's gaze locked on the exact point where Hanami's cursed energy pooled beneath the wound in its torso.
"Thunder Breathing, First Form..."
His body lowered.
The world narrowed.
"Thunderclap and Flash."
He vanished.
Not fast.
Gone.
A red line tore through the space between them.
Hanami felt it before it saw it—a piercing force that split its body and the air around it at the same time. Then the sound hit, a brutal sonic crack that blew loose bark off the trees and sent the remaining roots writhing backward.
Blood sprayed from Hanami's chest.
A fist-sized hole had been punched clean through the center of its torso.
Not quite the core. It had twisted just enough, moved it just far enough, to survive.
But only just.
Hanami stumbled back in disbelief, one hand pressed to the ruin in its chest.
Its defense had failed.
Its cursed energy reinforcement had failed.
The natural abundance in its body, the strength that made most sorcerers feel small and temporary, had failed.
Against a human with no cursed energy.
Yami landed behind it and slowly returned Shiranui to its sheath.
His breathing had grown rougher. The strain of Hekishin showed in the fine tremor running through his fingers.
But when he lifted his head again, something in him had shifted.
The world had changed.
The wind through the leaves became visible.
The pulse of blood in Hanami's body became visible.
The churn and direction of cursed energy under bark, skin, and bone became visible.
Even Todo's restless heartbeat nearby struck him with perfect clarity, loud as a festival drum.
A familiar chime rang deep in his mind.
[Ding.]
[Synchronization increased.]
[Current synchronization: 20%.]
[New ability unlocked: Transparent World (Initial Awakening).]
Yami's eyes sharpened.
The red in them thinned into something clearer, colder, deeper.
Hanami looked back at him and felt its chest tighten.
No.
Not its chest.
Its soul.
Because the boy standing there no longer seemed merely dangerous. He seemed precise in a way that made escape itself feel doubtful.
.....
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