Gintoki remembered the words he had forced out of Zenin Ogi after knocking him down.
“Do you still remember my mother’s name?”
That man’s eyes were full of humiliation and resentment, along with a faint greed and fear toward his power, but his mouth still answered coldly, “I never remembered it from the start.”
The answer to this question was finally learned from Zenin Ogi’s legal wife.
That dignified woman called out to him.
Even though she already knew the fact that her husband had suffered a crushing defeat, and also knew that this gekokujou duel would make his position in the clan plummet, she still answered his question.
“Her name is Haruko.”
‘Haruko, huh.’
‘It feels like a name with a very “weather onee-san” vibe.
Today’s weather is clear enough to make people feel happy, and tomorrow’s sun will rise as usual.
A bright sunny day that treats everyone equally.’
‘I really hope she can bloom that beautifully under those ginkgo leaves.’
“What a good name.”
‘Haruko, not Zenin Ogi’s concubine, and not Zenin Gintoki’s mother.
Just Haruko.
I hope she can live on that brightly.’
But Gintoki’s life was still dim and lightless.
Ever since he grasped his Cursed Technique, trained with it for a long time, and even became able to crush the Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer Zenin Ogi, regular physical training no longer worked for him.
However, Gintoki’s Cursed Technique was still not enough to let him enter the Zenin Clan’s elite unit, the Hei Unit, so he could only get stuck in the middle, neither high nor low.
He became a Yorozuya that anyone could assign tasks to.
Wasn’t this still his old job!!
“Ah, I seriously can’t take this anymore. If I have to take missions, I’d rather take normal missions like finding little cats and dogs. Do you know what missions I’m taking? It’s completely main plot after main plot. If you expanded them, they could support most of this novel’s length. Why are they all battle arcs!”
“Just making even 1 second of that animation already takes everything! If it’s all battles, no matter what company makes it, they’ll definitely go bankrupt, except MAPPA.”
“Wait, Gin-san really does seem to have been sold from Sunrise to MAPPA. Is this the root of all suffering!”
While Gintoki muttered nonstop, his hands did not dare stop moving for even a moment.
As long as he dared to relax his guard for even 1 instant, the sharp blade in the young Tyrant of Heavenly Restriction’s hand would pierce through his body without hesitation and hang him up like a lamb skewer.
‘This bastard will definitely do that, right!
Does he seriously want Gin-san’s life?
Where the hell did I offend him, aaaah!!’
“You really are after my life, right!”
However, even this kind of dangerous training counted as daily leisure for Gintoki.
From this, you could see just how badly he had been squeezed dry.
It was the battlefield against Cursed Spirits, the battlefield against Curse Users, endless battlefields.
It was so frequent that even though deep down, Gintoki still had a deep-rooted fear of ghosts, he had already gotten used to Cursed Spirits.
But when he had not clearly told them apart yet, getting startled was just human nature.
By comparison, training with Toji was instead nothing more than daily routine.
The Tyrant of Heavenly Restriction’s strength lay in talent, in other words, instinct.
That was an innate talent, and a battle instinct granted by heaven.
Because of that, even without guidance from a famous teacher, Toji could rely on instinct while figuring things out on his own and notice the fighting style that suited him best.
The rhythm of breathing, the strength of force, reaction speed in battle, and the most convenient and effective ways to attack.
And also, how to capture his prey.
But only this last point kept hitting walls when it came to Gintoki.
Even though Gintoki was clearly a Jujutsu Sorcerer, he had also somehow mastered the battle skills that suited him best without a teacher.
While both of them forgot this was only a spar, they tore into each other’s flesh like beasts.
Fight, tear apart, and devour everything along with his body, using that flesh and blood to moisten a throat dried out by battle.
When Toji reached the peak of physical combat that ordinary people and Jujutsu Sorcerers alike could never catch up to, he looked down at Gintoki, trying to see unwillingness on his face.
But what entered his eyes was only blazing fighting spirit.
It was as if Gintoki had poured all his usual energy into this moment, gathering it into a desire for battle strong enough to burn them both to ashes.
He was adapting.
At an unbelievable speed, he was adapting to the strength and speed granted by Heavenly Restriction.
Even if his weak body dragged him down, even if he was knocked down again and again, he stood up again and again.
The Zenin Clan…
no, why did this kind of person exist in this world?
Toji did not know whether he was smiling, but from the bottom of his heart, he wanted to laugh.
“Hey, hey, wasn’t your setting supposed to be that cool, ruthless, slightly bad-boy type? For a second, I thought you got possessed. Are you really okay? Don’t tell me you were possessed or possessed someone else? So scary.”
“No.” Never mind.
He did not want to laugh anymore.
Maybe because Toji was a whole head taller than Gintoki, he would sometimes intermittently feel the responsibility that came with their age gap.
In the end, this was the real daily leisure, right?
Though what he was actually aiming for was Gintoki’s wallet.
Toji had started taking jobs several years ago.
Even though the jujutsu world completely looked down on Heavenly Restriction that specialized in physical combat, he could accept piles of commissions on the black market and earn a fortune.
But.
That’s right, there was a sad “but” here.
The money that entered Toji’s hands was like flowing water.
It only stayed in his hands for a short moment before immediately betraying the hope he poured into every betting ticket and slipping into someone else’s pocket instead.
Once money was spent, it entered someone else’s pocket.
This was the truth.
Money used for gambling would not bring in new money.
It would only make money decrease.
The process was just a formality.
So under these circumstances.
Forget a 6-year-old kid, even if it was money in the hands of a 2-month-old baby, he would take it without any pressure.
Gambling?
How could he let a kid play?
Of course Toji would lead the charge with money for 2 people.
“Hah? Stop bragging. Saying you’ll 100 percent take me to earn big money? That’s definitely a scam, a scam! Once you hand over your money, you hand over your fate too. In the end—money is life! Gin-san won’t entrust his life to someone else. Move. Where’s the pachinko!”
That was exactly it.
Toji was only 13 right now, and before this, he had even pretended to treat Gintoki to strawberry parfait and buy Jump manga for him.
In the end, this time, he finally showed his true colors and exposed his real goal.
Only to find out this brat knew pachinko even better than him.
Then what the hell was there to gamble!
Toji grabbed Gintoki’s still-baby-fat face.
His eyes instantly turned fierce.
“Where the hell did you learn all this messy crap?”
Gintoki glared back without backing down at all.
“Don’t even think about tearing apart Gin-san’s bond with pachinko. That’s something already carved deep into a samurai’s soul. Even if I forget everything else, I’ll definitely never forget pachinko.”
Happy reading!