On the ravaged street, dust and smoke hung like a heavy, gray curtain.
Toji stood on the edge of a crater, his chest heaving violently.
His tight black t-shirt was already soaked through with sweat and blood, clinging to muscles that looked as though they were forged from steel.
Even with a body gifted by the world's ultimate 'Heavenly Restriction,' the physical toll of such high-intensity, life-and-death combat had reached a staggering level.
Across from him.
The seance puppet named 'Zenin Toji' was currently stumbling to its feet from within a pile of rubble in an eerie fashion.
His chest was severely sunken, with pale white ribs visibly piercing through the skin.
His left arm hung uselessly at his side, and his right arm had been completely snapped in their previous clash.
But those dark, hollow eyes remained locked onto the real Toji, radiating a pure, animalistic madness and violence.
A body driven by the Seance Technique knew nothing of pain or fatigue.
As long as the technique was maintained and the physical information of the 'Heavenly Restriction' remained, this puppet would fight forever.
"No sense of pain... truly a troublesome thing."
The real Toji casually wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth, his gaze cooling from its previous fervor into something icy and profound.
"However..."
"A puppet is just a puppet in the end."
"Roar—!"
Pseudo-Toji let out another sub-human roar, lunging forward like a bolt of black lightning and leaving a trail of blurry afterimages in the air.
His attack followed no logic or strategy.
It was a primal, frenzied slaughter-charge, fueled entirely by the raw explosive power of that body.
Yet, against the real Toji—whose battle instincts had been honed through countless life-and-death struggles and carved into his very marrow—this singular, rigid method of attack was no different from a death wish.
"Too simple."
Toji's frame flickered slightly, dodging Pseudo-Toji's mountain-shattering sweep with an incredible, fluid precision.
Immediately after, he moved like a slippery fish, sticking close to the puppet's massive frame as he circled around to its back.
"Crack!"
Toji's arms clamped around the fake's neck like a pair of hydraulic iron pincers!
His finely-tuned muscles exploded with power as he twisted his hips violently to the right!
A hair-raising crack of snapping bone followed.
The Pseudo-Toji's thick cervical spine was snapped clean by the blow!
His entire head lolled at a grotesque angle, hanging limply against his right shoulder.
"It's over."
But in the next second, Toji's pupils suddenly constricted.
"Whoosh—!!"
Even with its head snapped and its spinal nerves completely destroyed, the body driven by the Seance Technique still didn't stop moving!
Pseudo-Toji's intact left hand reached back in a way that defied the limits of human joints, death-gripping Toji's arm.
Then, a final burst of frenzied, death-throe strength exploded!
"Bang!"
Pseudo-Toji actually threw the real Toji over his shoulder like a heavy sandbag!
Toji quickly adjusted his posture mid-air, kicking off a ruined wall to steady himself as he landed on the ground a dozen meters away.
"Tch..."
Toji shook his slightly numbed arm, a look of visible irritation flashing in his eyes as he watched the monster—head still dangling—try to walk toward him again.
"What a persistent puppet."
"I see. As long as the heart is still beating, the physical information of this body won't completely collapse."
Toji scanned his surroundings.
Then, he slowly leaned down and pulled a rusted steel rebar—over two meters long and sharp as a spear where it had snapped—from the rubble at his feet.
"I'd love to play with you a bit longer..."
Toji gripped the middle of the rebar with one hand and lowered his stance, settling into a textbook throwing posture.
"But the payment Yoru offered doesn't include babysitting a brainless puppet until dawn."
"Vrrr—!!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Toji moved.
He seemed to merge with the steel rod, transforming into a streak of crimson light that pierced the darkness in a moment of extreme compressed explosive force.
"Pfft!"
Without any resistance or suspense, the rusted rebar—boosted by Toji's terrifying physical strength—instantly impaled Pseudo-Toji's iron-hard chest.
The massive momentum carried Pseudo-Toji's hulking frame backward through the air.
"Bang!"
Pseudo-Toji was pinned ruthlessly to a remaining concrete wall!
"Guh... guh..."
Pseudo-Toji struggled manically, his hands clutching the steel rod that had skewered his heart, trying to pull it out.
But a pierced heart meant the functions of this body as a 'vessel' had come to a complete halt.
The Seance cursed energy that had been supporting the body finally began to collapse on a massive scale.
The 'Zenin Toji' physical information covering Jiro Awasaka's soul receded rapidly like an ebbing tide.
Pseudo-Toji's massive, knotted muscles began to wither like a deflating balloon.
Those dark, hollow eyes gradually regained their original murky, desperate light.
"No... Please..."
Jiro Awasaka's old, feeble voice finally emerged from the shrinking body.
His face was etched with extreme agony and the terror of death.
The real Toji slowly walked up to him.
He looked at the face that had reverted to a wretched old man; there was no trace of mercy in his gaze, only pure indifference.
"Since you chose this body..."
Toji slowly raised his right foot, aiming it at Jiro Awasaka's head.
"...then you should have been prepared to be consumed by it, you old geezer."
"Bang!"
Like a watermelon being smashed, a dull thud echoed as Toji's right foot crushed down.
Jiro Awasaka's body convulsed a few times before falling completely still.
The terrifying pressure that had loomed over the area vanished entirely into the air with the death of the seance user and his vessel.
The vessel's body, unable to withstand the backlash of the 'Heavenly Restriction' physical information, began to break down and dissolve at a visible rate.
In the end, all that remained was a puddle of blurred flesh and the rusted steel rod driven deep into the wall.
"Phew..."
Toji let out a long breath, leaning wearily against a nearby ruined wall.
He pulled a slightly crushed pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, and took a deep drag. The sharp sting of nicotine spread through his lungs, allowing his taut nerves to relax slightly.
Only then did he slowly turn his head to look nearby.
In a corner shrouded by shadows, a blood-covered boy was kneeling on the ground, clutching his broken ribs and watching Toji with a wary, complex gaze.
The boy was Megumi Fushiguro.
He was also Toji's only remaining bloodline in this world.
Their eyes met.
The surrounding air seemed to freeze solid in that moment.
The magnificent and bloody duel of tyrants had concluded, but the gears of fate between this father and son had only just begun to turn.