Chapter 157: Old Loli Teases Naughty Sukuna (Patreon)

"Coming at me together?"

The curl at the corner of Ryomen Sukuna's mouth stretched wider, savage light flickering to life in his eyes.

That look—like something regarding ants underfoot...

No one had ever dared to hold him in such contempt!

"A mere shikigami, and yet such big talk.

"Let's see exactly how much you're worth, dog, now that you've got a collar on!"

Ryomen Sukuna grinned viciously and raised both hands, pointing one at the larger Mahoraga and one at the smaller, then curled his fingers.

"Dismantle!"

Two invisible slashes tore through the air, pouring boundless destructive force toward their respective targets.

Whoosh—!

Bang!

The two utterly different sounds rang out almost simultaneously.

Not far away, the original Mahoraga let out a roar as a deep gash of flesh and blood opened from its chest to its left shoulder.

Blood sprayed out, and its massive upper body nearly split diagonally in two from the blow.

On the other side, though, the scene was bizarre.

The slash carved a massive horizontal gash clean through half of the still-intact commercial building standing behind Mahoraga.

The sound of snapping rebar went on and on, and every glass curtain wall shattered at once, cascading down like a downpour.

But strangely, the cut left a small gap unbroken in the middle.

That negligible little stretch happened to be exactly the width of Mahoraga's body.

Looking closely, one could see a thin, long wound had opened at her waist, threads of blood seeping out.

The Dismantle that could slice a building in half had only managed to break her skin.

The smile on Ryomen Sukuna's face receded slightly, and both pairs of his eyes swept rapidly over the two Mahoragas.

The two bursts of Dismantle he'd just used had carried identical output of cursed energy.

For such a lopsided difference in effect to appear, there was only one possibility—

Hidden beneath that petite frame was a bodily toughness far beyond terrifying, one that surpassed even the original.

"Just as I thought..."

Ryomen Sukuna stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.

"Never judge by appearances."

Still, once he understood the truth of it, a defense at this level would only cost him a bit more effort to cut through with Cleave.

In the space of a single flashing thought, the scene before Ryomen Sukuna's eyes suddenly blurred out of alignment for an instant.

Fast!

Faster than the limits of visual perception!

That small white figure had already closed the distance and was right in front of him—the ground she had just stepped off radiated outward in a burst of shattered fragments, debris only now catching up enough to spray into the air.

And right before his eyes, a demon-slaying blade glowing white was already crashing down onto his head with terrifying momentum.

Red light blazed in Ryomen Sukuna's eyes—he had absolute confidence in his close combat.

Rather than retreat, he pressed forward, confidently raising his right arm.

Dense cursed energy gathered on the surface of his arm, countless tiny slashes forming an impenetrable barrier.

Ryomen Sukuna tried to take the blow head-on in the crudest, simplest way, meaning to gauge his opponent's true weight.

Shhk—

There was none of the clash of metal he'd expected—only a smoothness like a paper cutter gliding across a sheet.

The next moment, Ryomen Sukuna could no longer feel the lower half of his right forearm.

The severed forearm hit the ground and bounced up slightly, the cut smooth as a mirror, blood gushing out only after the fact.

A single sword stroke had taken his elbow clean off!

"...?"

Staring at his own bare elbow stump, Ryomen Sukuna froze for a rare moment.

Before he could recover from the shock of having his arm severed, a rumbling, earth-shaking tremor came closing in from behind.

The original Mahoraga, its chest wound already healed thanks to its formidable regenerative power, had crushed the ground beneath it and was charging forward with a roar.

In its chaotic instincts, Mahoraga—sharing the same origin yet not truly itself—registered as the greatest threat in that moment.

Facing the colossal shape barreling at her from behind, Mahoraga didn't even turn her head.

Her left shoulder dipped slightly, and with a twist of her waist she swung her elbow backward with an almost casual motion.

BOOM!!!

The air itself seemed to be vacuumed out by that single elbow strike—the instant it made contact with the original Mahoraga's body, a visible shockwave of white air exploded outward from the point of impact.

Every surviving pane of glass curtain wall along the entire street shattered under the blast, and the original Mahoraga was sent flying backward several times faster than it had come.

"Hahahaha!"

Watching this, the fervor in Ryomen Sukuna's eyes climbed to its peak.

White smoke billowed from the stump at his elbow, and the Reverse Cursed Technique reshaped bone, muscle, and skin in the blink of an eye.

Then, clenching his fist with that newly regrown arm, Ryomen Sukuna slammed a punch straight at the side of Mahoraga's face.

Facing this heavy punch, Mahoraga displayed reaction speed even more terrifying than Ryomen Sukuna's own.

She turned her body slightly to the side and gently pushed the back of her right hand against the side of his fist.

A feather's touch redirecting a thousand pounds.

With just the lightest brush of her palm, the girl deflected Ryomen Sukuna's raging force off into empty air.

Immediately after, Mahoraga twisted her wrist with the momentum and hooked it around Ryomen Sukuna's own wrist.

Using his forward momentum against him, she yanked backward hard, closing the distance between them to zero in an instant.

The moment Ryomen Sukuna felt his balance falter, before he could pull his arm back, Mahoraga's small hand was already pressed firmly against his face.

In the next instant, force enough to move mountains erupted.

Bang—!

With a single arm, Mahoraga drove Ryomen Sukuna's head straight into the pavement.

The ground instantly cracked open in countless fissures, debris flying in every direction, rattling and clattering off the sheet metal of nearby cars.

But that was only the beginning.

Mahoraga bent her knees and pushed forward, driving Ryomen Sukuna forward across the ruined street at a dead sprint.

The solid road surface split apart like tofu beneath the back of Ryomen Sukuna's skull, carving a hundred-meter-long trench right through the streets of Shibuya, debris and broken water pipes brutally flung to either side.

The violent friction and impact left Ryomen Sukuna with a long-forgotten wave of dizziness, but his combat instincts remained razor sharp.

Pinned down and unable to lift his head during the mad dash, Ryomen Sukuna finally found the smallest opening.

He raised both hands and clamped them tightly around Mahoraga's arm.

"Cleave!"

A lethal slash erupted at point-blank range.

Shk-shk-shk—

The slender, lotus-root-white arm Mahoraga had been using to pin him down was sliced into a dozen pieces in an instant, flesh, blood, and bone scattering through the air.

Freed from the pressure of her arm, Ryomen Sukuna took the opening to sweep her legs out and force her back, then flipped up and away, putting some distance between them.

Mahoraga came to a stop and glanced at her now-empty right shoulder.

Then she gave the still-bleeding stump a light shake.

Within a single breath, her body was completely whole again.

She slowly lifted her head, her focus still locked on Ryomen Sukuna.

No more words were needed.

The two of them shattered the pavement beneath their feet at the same instant, colliding with a thunderous crash right in the center of the already-devastated intersection.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

One large, one small silhouette engaged in the rawest kind of close-quarters brawl across the streets of Shibuya.

Fists blurred past each other, and the dull thuds of flesh striking flesh blended into one continuous roar, every exchange accompanied by shockwaves powerful enough to peel up the asphalt.

In the midst of this ultra-high-speed exchange of blows, Ryomen Sukuna spared no cursed energy at all, releasing burst after burst of Dismantle in rapid succession.

With the two combatants at the center, a sky full of invisible blades spread outward indiscriminately.

The slashes, sharp enough to cut through metal and jade, could only leave shallow scratches on Mahoraga's skin—wounds that healed almost before they could even bleed, thanks to her monstrous regeneration.

But those same slashes became a death sentence for the surrounding buildings.

Rumble—

A twenty-story building that had once been a luxury hotel was severed clean through the middle by a crisscross of stray slashes; the upper half tilted slowly under gravity's pull before finally collapsing in an earth-shaking crash, throwing up a cloud of dust that blotted out the sky.

Nearby office towers, elevated highways, billboards—all of it came apart under the wild, indiscriminately spreading slashes.

Shibuya's once-elegant, staggered skyline was being violently rewritten, turned into a flat wasteland.

Just as the two of them were locked in an inextricable clash, another roar rang out from deep within the rubble.

The original Mahoraga clawed its way up from the debris once more, pushing through the storm of slashes filling the sky, doggedly closing in on Mahoraga.

This time, Ryomen Sukuna sharply sensed something was off.

The scattered slashes landing on the original Mahoraga had at first been able to cut through its flesh, but as it drew steadily closer, the effect on it was diminishing at an alarming rate.

After blocking one of Mahoraga's viciously angled kicks, Ryomen Sukuna deliberately used the momentum to slide back several dozen meters, pulling out of the melee.

"Interesting."

He narrowed his eyes, deciding to watch from a distance first and see just what was going on.

The original Mahoraga clasped both hands together as if wielding a great hammer, and brought them crashing down onto Mahoraga with the weight of a mountain.

Had that blow landed true, its impact would have rivaled a steel coil dropping from the sky.

Mahoraga casually raised her left hand and caught the original Mahoraga's clasped hands, steadying them without effort.

The ground beneath her feet showed not a single crack from that immense force—every ounce of power and impact seemed to dissolve into nothing the instant it made contact.

At the same time, her right hand had already balled into a fist, and with strength terrifying enough to level an entire street, she drove it into the original Mahoraga's stomach.

Bang!

Another heavy, muffled boom rang out.

But unlike the last time, when it had been sent flying outright, this time the original Mahoraga's feet seemed rooted to the ground, standing firm.

Of course, that wasn't without a price.

A massive hole had been punched clean through its stomach—one could see straight through it to the street scene behind.

Watching from a distance, a flash of sudden understanding crossed Ryomen Sukuna's eyes.

"So that's how it is..."

Though he still couldn't be entirely certain of the exact mechanism, from this brief exchange and observation, it seemed this shikigami grew stronger continuously in battle.

Being of the same origin, this little shikigami couldn't possibly be unaware of the mechanism.

Which meant—

She was deliberately allowing the other shikigami to grow stronger?

Heh. What an arrogant little thing.

……………

The rooftop of the Cerulean Tower.

A cold wind, carrying the scent of dust from the distance, brushed gently across Uchiha Ayato's cheek.

He stood at the edge of the rooftop, his Mangekyou Sharingan slowly turning in the night, taking in every detail of the battle that had already reduced a huge swath of Shibuya to ruin.

"Interesting, so very interesting..."

Watching Mahoraga's effortless, at-ease fighting stance, Uchiha Ayato's smile carried a knowing edge.

"That girl's evolved even further than I expected—she's even picked up a taste for mind games."

"Poor Ryomen Sukuna~"

"The insufferable King of Curses, being toyed with in the palm of a shikigami's hand."

He shook his head slightly, his voice full of something like wistful admiration.

Slashes were the technique Mahoraga had adapted to earliest, and she'd long since worked out the perfect countermeasure for them.

In theory, no matter how much power Ryomen Sukuna poured into it, his slashes could never actually harm Mahoraga.

She probably knew that revealing this outright would strip Ryomen Sukuna of any hope of victory—so she'd deliberately let herself take a small wound whenever facing his slashes.

It had worked.

Ryomen Sukuna, in all likelihood, had already been thrown off by appearances.

This Mahoraga really was sharp.

"Hey now..."

"Isn't that a bit much, what you just said?"

A woman's voice, tinged with a hint of indignation, spoke up from beside Uchiha Ayato.

Now that her stage of the mission was complete, she should have already left—but somehow, as if compelled by some strange impulse, she'd circled back and ended up standing beside the black-haired boy again.

Yorozu crossed her arms over her chest, fingers tapping absently against her forearm.

Following Uchiha Ayato's gaze, she too took in the hellish scene below.

"I'll admit, that shikigami of yours is absurdly strong."

"From what I can see so far, neither Sukuna's Dismantle nor his Cleave can deal it a fatal wound—but that just proves its defense and recovery are a pain to deal with."

"But still..."

She turned to look at Uchiha Ayato's absurdly handsome face.

"Sukuna is a monster with unrivaled combat talent and learning ability."

"Give him just a little more time to see through the mechanism, and who wins isn't set in stone at all."

"Even taking the most generous view, even if your shikigami currently has the upper hand, going by the exchange we just watched, it's what—sixty-forty at best?"

"How is that 'toying with him'?"

"Sixty-forty?"

Hearing her assessment, Uchiha Ayato broke into a strange, unsettling smile.

"Yorozu, do you honestly think this is sixty-forty?"

"To you, this might look like an evenly matched slaughter, a death duel where both sides are still probing each other's limits, but to me..."

"This is nothing more than an old man toying with a child."

"An old man toying with a child?"

Yorozu's expression grew even more confused.

"Are you saying that shikigami's real strength goes even further beyond what she's shown so far?"

"Of course. She's my own handiwork, after all, crafted with my own two hands."

Uchiha Ayato nodded.

"Ryomen Sukuna has no idea at all what kind of mindset his opponent is actually fighting him with."

"What looks like an even match right now is probably just her carrying out the instructions I gave her."

Yorozu fell into a brief silence.

Her instincts told her that this insufferable brat standing beside her was, in all likelihood, telling the truth.

"Anyway, forget about those two down there for now."

Changing the subject, Uchiha Ayato looked Yorozu over with obvious interest and spoke up.

"Speaking of which, why did you come find me at a time like this?"

"Watching Ryomen Sukuna get beaten down—don't you want to go help him out?"

He pointed down at the battlefield below, his tone teasing.

"That's the perfect chance to show off, isn't it~"

"Who knows, maybe a 'beauty saves the hero' routine would win you a big boost to his affection for you?"

At that, Yorozu pursed her lips and gave a cold snort.

"Save your sarcastic little jokes—I'm not that stupid."

"If I stepped in while Sukuna's actually enjoying the fight, he'd be the first one to cut me down."

"Besides..."

She spread both hands, the picture of someone who'd completely given up on the idea.

"What would I even do down there? Get beaten up alongside Sukuna?"

"Taking a beating for nothing, with zero benefit to show for it."

"I'd much rather stay up here and chat with you, you insufferable brat."

As she said this, Yorozu's gaze drifted back down to Mahoraga below, unmistakable wariness surfacing deep in her eyes.

"And besides..."

"I don't know why, but just looking at that shikigami of yours gives me goosebumps."

"That kind of inexplicable fear—it's like running into a natural predator."

Even as the two of them talked, the intensity of the battle below spiked once again.

Amid a series of thunderous booms, the battlefield of the lone fighter and his two shikigami shifted from the ground into midair, and the fight had escalated into using the surrounding environment as weapons.

Countless pieces of construction equipment, train carriages, even entire chunks of buildings now flew horizontally through the night sky like weightless building blocks.

The blazing light of cursed energy mixed with sparks from friction and collision, casting flickering light across most of Shibuya's night sky.

"Quite the show..."

Uchiha Ayato leisurely tilted his head back to admire the spectacular fireworks.

But in the next instant, his expression suddenly changed.

Near the low-altitude airspace over Shibuya, a passenger jet was circling.

Of all times for this—why the hell was there a plane flying overhead right now?

A single plane, of course, wouldn't normally be worth any attention at all.

What mattered was that Uchiha Ayato had sensed something aboard that plane that absolutely should not have been there at this moment.

That was...

A mark of the Flying Thunder God Cursed Technique.

The lazy indifference in Uchiha Ayato's eyes vanished instantly, completely.

There were only a handful of people he'd ever left that mark with. Saki and the others were all safely back at the Dai Ayato estate, and Soyo was likewise settled comfortably in her high-rise apartment overlooking the harbor.

Which meant the only person who could possibly be on that plane right now was...

Chihaya???