Thunder cracked, then died. In the space between flash and dark, both figures vanished from the coffee table.
The wind stilled and the rain came down in sheets. A pale pink shadow splashed vivid color across the room—the color of flame, deep red at its core and fringed with cool blue. The hues spread through the room in an instant, as if painted by a reckless brush.
The explosions were silent. Every object Killer Queen's fingertip grazed—the wooden coffee table, the ceramic teapot, the gently rippling teacup—became a bomb, hurled one after another at the enemy ahead.
Contact bombs.
None hit their mark. They smashed into the walls instead, detonating in brilliant bursts—like firework after firework blooming against a night sky, staining the entire room in lethal romance.
BOOM—
Dodging those deadly blossoms, Hasegawa Kaede circled behind Kira in the blink of an eye.
He knew full well that Kira's Heavenly Restriction left him cursed energy-rich but technique-barren. His physical body was his greatest vulnerability.
Before the fireworks on the walls had even faded, Kaede closed the distance. Withered, yellowed finger-guards raked across Kira's neck, drawing a fine spray of blood.
"Brother!"
Todo instinctively channeled his cursed energy to swap positions—but his reserves were already spent. The mere attempt sent his consciousness blurring into fog.
He crumpled to the floor, eyelids growing heavier by the second.
Seeing he'd failed to finish the job, Kaede—wearing Gakuganji's aged body—swept aside the hem of his kimono and reached for his waist in a quick-draw motion, slowly producing...
A bass guitar?
Over the past ten days of possession, Kaede had gradually adapted to Gakuganji's body and could now access a portion of the old man's jujutsu.
The bass wailed. Sound waves shuddered through the air, and cursed energy rode those vibrations outward—shattering the window frame, letting the rain pour in; shattering the raindrops themselves into fluttering shards.
Even the floorboards split along the path of the melody, crack after crack tearing open, racing toward Kira in the blink of an eye.
"Killer Queen."
A flash of pink. In the blur of crossing bodies, Killer Queen had already positioned itself in front of Kira, its black skull-gloved arms crossed over its chest.
The next instant, the sound wave hit. A storm of wood splinters slammed into Killer Queen's body.
Through the sonic barrage—not a scratch.
It wasn't a soul-level attack. But Kira showed no sign of complacency. Everything Kaede had used so far—Gakuganji's jujutsu and physical combat—was manageable.
What was dangerous was the innate technique he still hadn't revealed.
"Hasegawa Kaede. If I'm not mistaken, the sorcerers outside will be back any minute now. Fifteen minutes at most."
"Give it up. The place is swarming with sorcerers."
"All I have to do is kill you within those fifteen minutes."
Kaede tilted his head.
"Funny. I was thinking the exact same thing."
Leaning against Killer Queen's back, Kira let a faint smile cross his face:
"I also have to kill you within these last fifteen minutes."
"All that dodging just now—weaving around all those bombs—you must be hot. Working up a sweat?"
BOOM—
"Eyes on me!"
Another explosion!
A tiny tank punched clean through Kaede's arm. Click—then it detonated, and in a shower of sparks the arm still clutching the bass guitar flew skyward.
The sonic barrage filling the room cut off instantly. Rain, wind, and thunder flooded back into his ears.
Killer Queen's bombs could damage the soul.
Before Kaede could react, Killer Queen was already in his face. Kira's calm voice came from behind:
"My shikigami is called Killer Queen. It can turn anything it touches into a bomb. The drawback is that it can only make one bomb at a time—the next can't be made until the previous one detonates."
Revealing a cursed technique amplified its cursed energy output.
Showing his hand—and doubling down.
The pink cat's hands swept upward, fingertips a hair's breadth from Kaede's cheek—
"I am the Ming Hun—the Life Soul, one of the Three Souls. My technique is Balance. I can briefly merge other Souls and Spirits into a single body. Like this."
Revealing a cursed technique amplified its cursed energy output.
He was doubling down too?
In an instant the world shifted. Yin surged upward, yang plummeted. The room plunged into a frozen abyss—or the cold void of deep space.
Shadow after shadow slithered in through the windows, streams converging into an ocean, all flowing into Kaede's hands.
One, two, three... six shadows in total. The Devourer, Feidu, Chuhui from the Seven Spirits—and Tai Guang from the Three Souls—all poured into Kaede's hands.
In a single heartbeat his cursed energy skyrocketed past Grade 1's ceiling, and he became a genuine Special Grade curse user.
Black Flash.
Black fire flickered. On that one-in-a-thousand chance, the goddess of fate rolled her dice.
The black flames favored him. They gathered in Kaede's palm and hammered toward Killer Queen's abdomen.
And with the Que Yin Spirit infused into the strike, the blow was elevated to the soul level.
Killer Queen barely managed a backhand block. The berserk cursed energy punched straight through its body. The Que Yin Spirit shattered and dissolved on impact, but the fragments of its broken soul—the boundless sorrow, the curse-poison that gnawed at the spirit—flooded into Killer Queen with the strike.
None of it happened.
Where Kaede's palm had landed, something hard stood between it and Killer Queen's chest.
A small blue tank.
Sheer Heart Attack.
In the split second before impact, the pink cat snatched the little tank and held it against its own chest like a shield.
Every ounce of cursed energy discharged into Sheer Heart Attack. The shattered soul fragments burrowed savagely into its body, dealing catastrophic damage—
A hairline crack appeared on the tank's shell.
Seven Spirits and you think you can one-shot me?
One Sheer Heart Attack, and then—
Bomb.
Killer Queen reached for Kaede's one remaining arm.
Let the bomb show begin.