Que Yin.
One of the Three Souls and Seven Po of the human body—the one that governs sorrow.
Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, resentment, fear, love, loathing, desire—the seven emotions, also the seven po.
Using a specific emotion as a medium, a cursed poison could be administered to directly damage the soul that governed it. That was Que Yin's cursed technique.
The more fragile the emotion, the easier it was to curse. Even though Mechamaru was Semi-Grade 1 in strength, the moment he'd set foot in this district he'd been infected alongside those pleasure-seeking Grade 3 sorcerers—already terminally ill.
The toxin had simply been accumulating inside him. Que Yin had never triggered it, letting everyone believe Mechamaru was fine—which meant he'd be sent into combat.
Then, at the critical moment, detonating all the poison at once would upend the entire battle.
Que Yin understood those foolish sorcerers well enough. They'd never abandon a comrade. That made Mechamaru dead weight.
And that was exactly what happened—
Mechamaru froze in midair. A beat of hesitation.
Hanami seized the opening. His right hand shot up to the arm Mechamaru had pressed against his head, twisted it into a lock, and rode the downward momentum. Hanami torqued his body in midair, borrowing force a second time, and flipped on top of Mechamaru.
His left hand rose high. Black cursed energy gathered around it, the dark markings writhing as though alive—surging with terrifying force and speed, hurtling down toward Mechamaru's still-vacant eyes.
"Kokichi!"
Todo clapped. He swapped with Mechamaru instantly, meeting Hanami's full-power blow head-on. No time to think—he poured every drop of cursed energy into his arms and crossed them over his chest.
BOOM—
Like a thunderbolt cracking across the heavens.
The curtain of rain was cleaved open by the sheer force, carving a vast pocket of dead air.
That thunderbolt slammed into Todo's chest with devastating power, churning his organs. It drove him straight down, his body cratering through layer after layer of stone before a shockwave blasted outward.
Hanami landed on his chest, cursed energy pooling in his fist once more—another punch incoming.
Todo coughed up a mouthful of blood. He made the call without hesitation—another clap.
Hanami's fist hammered down—and was caught by a large, pale-pink cat. It tilted its head at Hanami, vertical pupils dilating slightly.
Crack.
Fire. Explosion. Climbing up Hanami's left arm. His limb disintegrated piece by piece—first skin peeling away in a thin sheet, then flesh rupturing and crumbling, then bone blasted to ash. He shattered like a porcelain doll dropped on stone, fracturing outward from the break.
In a flash, Hanami reacted. He grabbed his own ruined left wrist, squeezed, and tore—flesh ripped, bone separated. Before the explosion could spread to the rest of his body, he wrenched his left hand clean off. He held the mangled limb for an instant before it crumbled to ash in his grip.
"Finally got up close, Hanami."
A calm voice rose from beneath him.
It sent a chill down Hanami's spine.
"My shikigami is called Killer Queen. It can turn anything it touches into a bomb.
But it can only create one bomb at a time. The next can't be made until the previous one detonates."
Revealing One's Hand. His cursed energy doubled.
Nanami Kira rose slowly to his feet. Behind him, his shikigami stood close—a sleek, athletic silhouette. Black gloves printed with skull emblems covered its hands. Crimson vertical pupils gazed sidelong, locked on Hanami's eyes.
ゴゴゴゴ
The next instant, Killer Queen was in Hanami's face. The skull-emblazoned fist ballooned in Hanami's vision. He didn't dare block it—dragging his broken body, he twisted right to dodge Killer Queen's strike.
The fist grazed Hanami's cheek. He could smell the deathly chill radiating from the skull. Then the punch swept sideways and connected with one of Hanami's branch-antlers.
BOOM—
Explosion.
Two blood-red fireworks erupted from Hanami's head. His vision drowned in crimson, the world doubling and tripling. Killer Queen seized the instant of disorientation and vanished from his sight.
All that remained in Hanami's blurred vision was an onslaught of fists—each one trailing afterimages, each skull grinning, shrieking, smashing into his body.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Explosion after explosion bloomed across Hanami's frame. First his arms—bright red blood spraying in scarlet ripples through the air.
Then his torso—detonating inch by inch from the inside, like timber riddled with termites: the surface intact, the interior a honeycomb of ruin.
Then his trunk—swelling grotesquely, like an over-inflated balloon on the verge of bursting into a cloud of blood mist.
"Reverse Cursed Technique!"
At the brink of annihilation, Hanami mobilized every last drop of cursed energy and activated RCT. Worthy of his Special Grade title—the surging energy flooded his entire body in an instant, smothering the unexploded bombs.
Simultaneously, he rocketed backward. His one saving grace: Killer Queen was slower than him and couldn't operate beyond five meters of its user. Without that limitation, he'd never have escaped.
He had no way to attack the soul. He couldn't hurt Killer Queen.
Must create distance... Hanami's mind raced as branch-woven spheres materialized around him. Retreating step by step, he hurled the deadly orbs one after another.
Each green sphere was nearly a meter across—a massive cannonball packed with kinetic force. Every pass through the air generated a sonic boom.
Now the sky was raining artillery on Nanami Kira, each sphere trailing heavy afterimages like comets plummeting toward him.
Kira looked up at the falling stars and frowned. Killer Queen appeared in front of him.
Black-gloved hands brushed the edge of a green sphere—and the instant they made contact, the cursed technique activated. The horrifying projectiles were reduced to ash.
They kept falling. They kept burning.
The meteor-shower assault went on and on. Dust surged in wave after wave from the ground. By the time the last star fell, Hanami's silhouette was gone.
Then, faint voices drifted into his ears:
'Sorrow.'
A rasping old man's voice.
'Fear.'
Low and guttural, like a serpent's hiss.
'Love.'
Sultry, dripping with temptation.
'Desire.'
A voice like a demon's.
The voices flooded Kira's mind. Emotions bloomed chaotically inside him—tangled, intertwined, pulling his soul into tremors.
Just now, four curse users had poisoned him simultaneously. Even with Nanami Kira's steady, iron-willed composure, a single instant of disorientation and confusion was unavoidable.
And in that instant, Hanami burst from the darkness—right in Kira's face. Black cursed energy screamed and howled around his fist, carrying bone-chilling force. This was every ounce of cursed energy Hanami had left. His absolute peak.
Nanami Kira, you've lost.
Your body can't survive this blow. Even if Todo swaps positions—whether it's the crippled Todo himself or the unconscious Mechamaru—anyone who takes this hit dies.
And Devourer's evolution was moments from completion. Hanami could feel it—just an instant ago, the cursed energy pulsing from the nightclub had more than doubled.
That terrifying energy bore down with crushing weight, like storm clouds ready to flatten a fortress, like ocean waves stretching for ten thousand leagues.
Once Devourer's ascension was complete, he could slaughter everyone—the sorcerers outside included. Every last human.
And Hanami would become a Sage in death.
This second was short. This second was eternal. Every motion in perfect clarity, every motion in agonizing slow motion.
Hanami watched Nanami Kira raise his head slightly. His lips moved, forming silent words. Those eyes—still so calm. That infuriating calm. That spine-chilling calm.
Clap.
The sound came from behind him.
The second passed.
BOOM!
Hanami's blow landed true. Every drop of cursed energy erupted—black as ink, vivid as blood.
Radiating outward from the impact, ring after ring of craters splintered into existence. The very earth shook, shattering the city-wide storm into nothing.
Hanami stared in disbelief at what was in front of him.
What he'd struck wasn't Kira. It wasn't Todo. It wasn't even Mechamaru.
It was a small blue tank.
Perched atop the tank was an enormous skull. Red light pulsed in its hollow sockets, boring into Hanami's eyes. A voice like a dead man's crept from its ragged vocal cords:
"Look at me."
"Look at me."
The explosion climbed up Hanami's arm. Rising flames swallowed his head.
One final thought flickered through his mind:
Where is Nanami Kira?
Hazy, drifting. Hazy, drifting. Nanami Kira surfaced from the fog of churning emotions. He slapped his own cheeks, driving the haze out of his skull.
He scanned his surroundings. A lavish hall. Ukiyo-e murals on the walls. Enormous Torch Dragons crawling across the vaulted ceiling.
And beside him—a massive black coffin, radiating a pressure terrifying enough to warp reality itself, as if every shadow in the world had gathered here.
He'd sent out his companion shikigami, Sheer Heart Attack, long ago. And they really were a genuine infiltration squad.
The one doing the infiltrating just wasn't Kira's team—it was Sheer Heart Attack. Kira and the others had been the decoys, drawing the guards' attention.
Same role as the sorcerers fighting outside.
Sheer Heart Attack had extreme long-range endurance and, as a companion cursed spirit, gave off virtually no cursed energy signature—the perfect choice.
Kira's plan had always been this:
They'd draw the guards' attention. Meanwhile, Sheer Heart Attack would slip into the nightclub.
Then, using Todo's technique, Kira would swap positions with Sheer Heart Attack—leaving behind the nearly indestructible companion shikigami to handle the enemy while Kira himself went to eliminate the curse.
Nanami Kira leaned against the back of the coffin, straightened his disheveled tie, bent down, and knocked on the lid.
"Hello."
"Hey bro, you in there?"
He was nothing if not polite.