Chapter 160: Kusanagi VS Twin-Wings Sword Style!
Blood burst from Kurogane Ouma's back.
He staggered forward and nearly fell to the ground.
"Ouma?!"
Strangely, even though Ouma was the one who had been struck, Amane looked even more shocked than he did.
"Why? How is that possible? That attack shouldn't have hit him..."
He irritably grabbed his blond hair, completely unable to understand what had just happened.
"Hey, brat. Calm down."
Tatara Yui dragged a chainsaw taller than herself and blocked Touka's attack while silently cursing their employer for giving her such unreliable teammates.
'What kind of weirdos did they put on this mission with me?'
A clown whose personality and appearance were equally bizarre.
A lunatic who thought only about fighting.
A perverted woman who cared about nothing except painting.
A brat with an unstable resolve.
And even a full-blown chuunibyou.
'I'm definitely checking who my teammates are before accepting the next job.'
...
Drip—Drip—
Ouma watched the blood flowing down his back and dripping onto the ground.
Visible shock appeared across his face.
He had seen that technique before.
There was absolutely no chance he had mistaken it.
"Twin-Wings Sword Style..."
Murmuring the technique's name, Ouma smiled.
It was a smile Ikki had never seen before.
In his memories, his older brother always wore a cold, emotionless expression.
Yet now, Ouma's smile was wild and arrogant.
It was almost as though—An ambitious man had finally discovered the thing he had spent his entire life searching for.
Alongside that smile, an enormous nodachi appeared in Ouma's right hand, far longer than Ikki's [Intetsu].
It was his Device, [Ryuuzume].
As a natural-interference-type Device, it granted him the power to manipulate wind.
"I apologize for underestimating you earlier..."
Ouma spoke while grabbing the upper half of his kimono with his left hand.
"[Tenryuu Armor]—release."
In the next instant, a storm exploded from his body.
Invisible shockwaves slammed into everyone nearby, tearing apart the ground and uprooting the surrounding trees.
When the storm finally subsided, everyone from Hagun stared in disbelief.
Everyone except Shiro, who had already expected it.
Ouma's body was covered in thousands upon thousands of scars.
Slashes.
Tears.
Stab wounds.
Gunshot wounds.
Scrapes and impact scars.
Layer upon layer had been carved into Ouma's flesh.
Those wounds silently narrated the path he had walked.
With regeneration pod technology so advanced, ordinary battles should never leave scars like these.
Only endless combat without even enough time to heal before the previous wounds scarred over could leave a body covered in such horrifying marks.
For an instant, everyone felt as though they could see it.
A lone figure standing in the center of hell.
A man who had endured countless battles and suffered countless wounds, yet still stood upon a mountain of corpses amid a sea of blood.
'Can a human really train like this?'
Similar thoughts appeared in the minds of Hagun's representatives.
"Ouma... After leaving home... what exactly did you do...?"
Ikki stared at the older brother who seemed both familiar and completely foreign.
Among people their age, Ikki's training was already so harsh that ordinary people could never hope to imitate it.
Yet compared to Ouma, his efforts suddenly seemed insignificant.
"Shut up. I severed my relationship with the Kurogane Family long ago."
"Don't address me as though we're close."
Ouma coldly rebuked Ikki before turning toward the white figure standing before him.
For a moment, he seemed to return to the most miserable moment of his life.
Back then, another figure dressed in white had saved him using the exact same swordsmanship.
"When I was young, I participated in a tournament held by my family."
"The first time I won, I was incredibly happy."
"From that day onward, I began wondering just how exhilarating it would be to become the strongest person in the world."
Perhaps the overlapping white figures reminded him of the past.
Or perhaps he wanted Shiro to understand that he should not hold back in the coming battle.
Either way, Ouma began recounting his history.
"During my final year of elementary school, I conquered the U-12 World Tournament hosted by the League."
"But instead of feeling satisfied, the result disgusted me."
"Childish."
"That was the only thought I had after becoming champion."
"A competition where everyone struck each other with the backs of their blades could never push me beyond my limits."
Just as Ikki had described, Ouma was a man who lived solely to become stronger.
He had never cared about titles such as world champion.
All he wanted was greater growth through battle.
He wanted to break through his limits and transform.
"So I abandoned the Kurogane name and left the League."
Ouma discarded all the prestige that the Kurogane Family had given him.
He concealed his identity and threw himself into genuine battlefields.
Sometimes, he fought in slums.
Sometimes, underground arenas.
Sometimes, battlefields filled with gunfire.
For his dream, Ouma repeatedly entered these "real battlefields" and studied every life-or-death fight.
Watching his own technique steadily improve filled him with satisfaction.
He believed that if he continued down that path, he would eventually become the strongest knight in the world.
Until—
"[Tyrant]."
Ouma spoke the title of Rebellion's leader.
"I encountered him during one of my battles."
"I was still inexperienced back then, so naturally, he defeated me with ease."
"No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn't even touch the edge of his clothes."
"If [Twin-Wings] hadn't saved me in the end, I probably would've died there..."
Silence spread across the battlefield.
Ouma described the event casually.
Yet the trembling hand gripping his Device revealed the despair he had experienced back then.
It was the despair of watching an entire lifetime of martial arts shattered by someone with a casual wave of their hand.
"After that, I finally understood."
"No matter how many battlefields I conquered, I was still nothing more than a frog in a well before the true monsters of this world."
"Even if I continued fighting as I had before, I would never reach the summit."
"If ordinary training could no longer take me any farther... then I would pursue evolution."
Just as Shiro had said, the true purpose of [Tenryuu Armor] was never defense.
It constantly compressed Ouma's bones during everyday life, forcing his body to evolve.
Just as ancient marine animals had developed limbs to survive on land, Ouma used the same principle to temper his flesh.
Even when that pressure nearly crushed him to death at the beginning, he never stopped.
"Eventually, I succeeded."
"Through constant battle and the pressure of the wind, my body finally evolved."
"When that wind could no longer place any burden upon me, my flesh truly became [Steel]."
Ouma gripped [Ryuuzume] with both hands.
The surrounding wind slowly began gathering toward him.
"But it still isn't enough."
"This pressure still isn't enough to let me reach that realm."
Most of Hagun's representatives looked confused.
To them, Ouma was already absurdly powerful.
Yet he still seemed to be chasing some mysterious [realm].
What kind of realm could possibly drive someone to such extremes?
Only Shiro and Stella, who already knew about it, understood.
Kurogane Ouma wanted to become a [Desperado].
And he was willing to pay any price to reach that realm.
"So I began searching for opponents."
"Not battles where I held some disadvantage."
"I wanted something like what happened back then."
"An opponent I couldn't touch no matter how much strength I used."
"Overwhelming power."
"Absolute domination with no path of retreat."
Fighting spirit blazed around Ouma, seemingly threatening to devour everyone before him.
Even the surrounding air became thick beneath its pressure.
"Then one day, I heard about two people possessing the greatest magic power in the world."
"I assumed you were merely staying at Hagun and playing childish games with Ikki."
"But I never expected one of you to be strong enough to wield that person's swordsmanship."
At this point, Ouma no longer cared about the League.
He no longer cared about the commission given to him by that man either.
There was only one thing he wanted.
To continue evolving.
And eventually—Become a Desperado.
"So I apologize for underestimating you."
"And from this point onward, if you fail to defeat me, I will kill everyone here."
With that threat as his final declaration, the battlefield erupted.
Trees knocked down by the release of [Tenryuu Armor], shattered stones, and surrounding rubble were swept into endless winds and crushed apart.
Everything compressed around Ouma's blade.
Again.
And again.
Until a fifty-meter sword of raging wind took shape.
Then—
Screeeeech—!!!
The airflow surrounding the massive blade instantly exceeded the speed of sound, producing an ear-piercing shriek.
Powerful compression waves formed around it.
Temperature, pressure, and density all rose dramatically.
Anything struck by that blade would suffer unimaginable physical destruction alongside extreme thermal damage.
And because the shockwave propagated almost instantly, avoiding it was nearly impossible unless the target could also move beyond the speed of sound.
This was Kurogane Ouma's Noble Art.
"[Kusanagi]—!!!"
The fifty-meter sword of wind descended toward Shiro.
"I see..."
Shiro quietly watched the enormous blade approach.
Ouma's fighting spirit had already been conveyed through his words.
Shiro could tell he was completely serious.
If Shiro failed to defeat him here, Ouma would no longer care about Akatsuki Academy's objectives.
He really would kill everyone from Hagun.
So there was nothing more to say.
All emotion vanished from Shiro's golden eyes.
They gradually became nothing more than objects that reflected light.
Without even creating a vibration, the sword in his hand silently moved.
Swordsmanship—[Twin-Wings Sword Style].
A blade of absolute silence that wasted not even the smallest trace of energy during its swing.
A figure not even two meters tall swung his sword toward a fifty-meter monstrosity.
The image should have looked ridiculous.
Yet nobody laughed.
Because what followed was the true climax of their confrontation.
The screaming storm blade collided with the silent sword.
Boom—!!!
The enormous wind blade was split cleanly in half.
It instantly collapsed and transformed into a violent hurricane that expanded outward with Shiro and Ouma at its center.
"This is way too ridiculous!!!"
Amid the raging winds, Tomaru Renren clung to Touka's arm while Touka used electromagnetic force to anchor herself firmly to the ground.
Everyone else caught in the aftermath also stopped fighting and used everything they had to protect themselves.
After all, this was one of the strongest Noble Arts possessed by an A-Rank knight.
Even its aftershock carried the destructive force of a passing tornado.
Meanwhile, at the eye of the storm—
Using his powerful body and the effects of [Unbound], Shiro cut through the giant wind blade and transformed into a streak of white light heading directly toward Ouma.
Whoosh! Whoosh—!
Two vacuum slashes tore through the center of the storm toward Shiro at the speed of rifle bullets.
Shiro saw their trajectories with his naked eyes.
He did not even bother dodging.
Two casual swings shattered both attacks.
And waiting beyond them was—Ouma, already standing in place and fully prepared.
He had known from the start that [Kusanagi] alone would never injure Shiro.
Immediately after unleashing it, Ouma retreated and used [Vacuum Wave] as a feint.
His true goal was to seize the instant when Shiro's previous force had ended and his next movement had yet to begin.
Ouma held [Ryuuzume] in his right hand.
His empty left hand tightened into a fist.
It was a sword art passed down through the Kurogane Family since the age of samurai, known as a swordsmanship created to protect the nation.
"[Kyokujitsu Isshin-ryuu: Gō no Kiwami—Honoikazuchi]!!!"
The moment [Ryuuzume] blocked Shiro's sword, Ouma's left fist struck the back of his own blade like a bolt of lightning.
With Shiro's body suspended in midair, there was no way he could withstand the resulting impact.
Once the blow launched him away, Ouma would immediately unleash [Kusanagi] again—
Crack—
Just as Ouma planned his next move, a crisp sound entered his ears.
Crack, crack, crack—
In the next instant, countless spiderweb-like fractures spread across [Ryuuzume].
"It's probably better not to casually clash with someone before understanding their ability."
"What?!"
"You're my enemy."
"Do you really expect me to stand here like an idiot and explain my ability to you?"
Floating in midair, Shiro answered with obvious exasperation.
He genuinely respected Ouma's determination.
That was why he had used both Twin-Wings Sword Style and his own Blazer ability in succession for the first time in a while.
However, Shiro's ability was simply too effective against anyone encountering it for the first time.
Apart from world-class opponents like Edelweiss, almost nobody could immediately understand his power and counter it by wrapping magic around their blade.
In truth, Shiro had not placed much magic around his own sword this time.
After cutting apart Ouma's enormous wind blade, almost none remained.
It should not have been enough to damage [Ryuuzume] this severely.
Unfortunately for Ouma, the tremendous force generated by [Kyokujitsu Isshin-ryuu: Gō no Kiwami—Honoikazuchi] had delivered the final blow to his own Device.
Now Shiro only needed one casual slash.
[Ryuuzume] would shatter.
Even if Ouma endured the pain of a broken Device through sheer willpower and remained conscious, he would have almost no combat strength left.
His luck truly was terrible.
Shiro had even wanted to test the new technique he had previously used against Touka on him.
"It's over... Hm?"
Buzz—
Just as Shiro prepared to sever Ouma's Device and end the battle—A terrifying Sword Intent suddenly erupted from the distant mountains.
Shiro immediately turned toward its source.
…
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