Wind, huh?
I see.
Kinoshita steadied himself and looked not too far away—the familiar scent in his nose meant he hadn’t actually left that variety show set at all.
“What the hell? Viewers are gonna hate it if you use this kind of scene transition, you know?”
There it is.
Takaba’s scent.
Behind me?
Kinoshita turned around.
On the roof of this nearly 50-meter-tall building, Takaba’s head loomed exactly like the Colossal Titan peering over Wall Maria.
His massive hands gripped the edge of the roof as his eyes locked onto Kinoshita.
“What the hell! You’ve been pulling out stuff that’s gonna get us sued in court since earlier!”
Kinoshita stomped the ground.
Two steel cables shot from his waist and anchored into Takaba’s shoulders, and propelled by a burst of pressurized gas, his body launched into the air.
Kinoshita spun mid-air, spiraling like a sawblade as he sliced straight through the nape of Takaba’s neck.
As a chunk of nape flesh went flying, Takaba’s body burst free from the back of the neck.
“Copyrights are just optional suggestions for variety shows anyway!”
Bang!
Kinoshita felt his mid-air ODM gear maneuver violently smash into a wall.
His vision went black, and when he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a hospital bed.
An unfamiliar ceiling…
“Hey, are you awake! Patient! Hang in there!! Don’t fall asleep!!!”
First, cold metal objects pressed firmly against Kinoshita’s chest.
Then, an electrical current far stronger than anything Hajime Kashimo had output violently exploded through Kinoshita’s body.
Bzzzt-zzzt-zzzt-zzzt!!!
Kinoshita instinctively tried to activate Nue’s technique, but the moment he initiated it, he immediately realized something—the lightning on his body seemed to still be drawn away by a lightning rod.
The penetrating electricity coursed back and forth through Kinoshita.
Under the influence of Takaba’s technique, Kinoshita’s electrified silhouette even flashed with a cartoonish x-ray effect, revealing his flashing skeleton.
Kinoshita had no choice but to rapidly run his Reverse Cursed Technique, quickly restoring his charred body.
“You’re a total quack,” Kinoshita puffed out a breath of gray smoke, propping himself up to look at Takaba.
“Sorry, my bad.” Takaba bowed deeply, then sheepishly patted the defibrillator paddles in his hands.
“It’s his first day on the job; he doesn’t know his own strength yet.”
“That’s entirely because you cranked up the voltage!”
“We apologize for the negative experience. Would a 500-yen discount voucher be an acceptable compensation?”
“Absolutely not! I paid good money to have my life saved here!”
Hahahahahaha~
“What the hell! I almost just died back there!”
Kinoshita marched up and slapped Takaba hard on the shoulder.
“But you’re not dead, are you! That proves the medical treatment was a resounding success!”
“Hah? My fists are about to stop caring who they hit!”
“Then that makes you a violent patient! I’m calling the cops!”
Takaba dodged Kinoshita’s rapid punches while pantomiming making a phone call.
“Freeze! Police!”
Hearing a voice from behind, Kinoshita instinctively turned around.
The person who arrived was none other than Takaba himself!
“Isn’t this just you again?”
“No, no, no. That just now was Doctor Takaba. I am Officer Fumihiko!”
Takaba blew a whistle and pointed his index finger at Kinoshita.
“You’re a suspect in a medical disturbance incident. You’re coming with us to the station!”
“Eh! If you can catch me, I’ll turn myself in!”
Just as Takaba stepped forward, Kinoshita immediately bolted toward the other side of the stage.
“Stop right there!”
As Kinoshita disappeared off the far end of the stage, Takaba quickly chased after him.
Just as Takaba also vanished off-stage, the “people” in the audience erupted into deafening applause.
As the curtains drew back once more, the two appeared before the center microphone, dressed in their tailored suits again.
“That was really fun! But it looks like it’s about to end.”
Kinoshita clapped his hands, looking at Takaba beside him.
“It was fun… If you were my comedy partner, maybe I wouldn’t have been such a failure?”
Takaba smiled as he sat down on a chair that had just popped into existence.
“You’re really interesting, you know. If you just keep this up, it’s not like nobody will ever watch you, right?”
“No… no need to flatter me. Before I ran into you, I was just a washed-up comedian. I know my own skill level better than anyone.”
“…If a person only cares about being funny, they won’t become washed up. But if a person thinks they are washed up, then they truly are.”
“Is that so.”
Hearing Kinoshita’s words, Takaba recalled his past.
“Someone else once told me…”
“There are only two kinds of people who can maintain their popularity forever: those who think they are funny, and those who are funny.”
Takaba fell silent for a moment.
He looked up—the variety show stage around them melted away like snow.
The two of them were simply sitting on chairs right in the middle of a major street.
A touch of melancholy had crept onto Takaba’s face. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“Which kind of person do you think I am?”
“You have the potential to be both. That’s my answer.”
“I see… That’s exactly the same as not saying anything at all, you jerk!!”
“Regardless, I stand by my thoughts. You’re a really fun guy.”
Kinoshita stood up and stretched lazily.
“Let’s fight again sometime. Fight me with everything you’ve got, with the absolute goal of beating me.”
Takaba looked up.
“If you can beat me, or even fight me to a draw next time, I’ll be your partner and do comedy with you.”
“Alright!”
Takaba nodded, raising a fist.
“It’s a promise!”
Kinoshita first checked the flow of his cursed energy and the Ten Shadows shikigami techniques.
Good.
Now that he was out from under the influence of the Comedian technique, everything had returned to normal.
“It’s a promise.”
Shibuya.
As Naoya Zen’in’s rapid assault came to a brief pause, Choso and Itadori exchanged glances.
“What the hell? I thought you guys would be total scrubs. Guess I underestimated you.”
Naoya looked down at the two of them, momentarily unable to comprehend the situation.
Sukuna’s vessel, he could understand.
But who was the guy next to him who didn’t even look like a modern person?
Looks like I’ll have to end this quickly.
Meanwhile, Itadori and Choso, conversing silently through their eyes, had also processed the relevant information.
Having roughly deduced that Naoya’s speed was a byproduct of his cursed technique, the two used this brief respite to figure out how to handle the next phase of the fight.
But in a single instant, all of them sensed it—a violently turbulent, incredibly dense aura of cursed energy had suddenly appeared.
What’s going on?
All three of them could feel the sheer “cursed energy volume” of the newcomer.
And Yuji Itadori, specifically, felt it: a cursed energy even denser than Satoru Gojo’s, and far more chilling and sinister than Gojo’s ever was.
Just as the three of them looked toward the source of the cursed energy in utter disbelief, a massive white hand unclasped the person it was gripping.
“Thanks, Rika.”
Before the giant white hand fully retracted, a low, feminine voice drifted over to the three of them.
“One… two, three… Ah, so it’s not just you here, Yuji Itadori.”