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Chapter 100: Justice
The morning after the casino incident.
"Good morning, Ryuu."
"Good morning to you, Mr. Sawada."
Keeping his promise, Tsuna arrived at the Hostess of Fertility's inner courtyard. Ryuu was already there, wooden sword in hand, stretching and warming up for their spar. Hearing his voice, she lowered her stance and turned to face him.
"I apologize for calling you out so early. Because of my shifts at the tavern, early morning is the only free time I have," Ryuu said.
"No, it's completely fine."
"If we might skip the pleasantries, shall we begin?"
"I'm ready when you are."
Knowing her time before her shift was limited, Tsuna didn't waste a second. He pulled the mittens bearing the number 27 from his pocket and slipped them on.
"…Come at me whenever you're ready."
A brilliant Sky Flame ignited on Tsuna's forehead, his eyes shifting to a deep, intense orange. The 27 mittens transformed into his black metal X-Gloves. His shift into Hyper Dying Will Mode was complete.
No openings… Ryuu dropped her stance, gripping her wooden sword tightly as she searched for a weak point. But Tsuna's stance was flawless. She couldn't find a single viable angle of attack, leaving her rooted in place.
Then I'll just have to force one open!! Realizing a waiting game would get her nowhere, Ryuu kicked off the dirt. In a flash of terrifying speed, she closed the distance instantly, launching a godspeed thrust with her wooden sword straight at his chest. Tsuna calmly sidestepped, letting the tip breeze past him.
Now!! Ryuu wasn't the least bit surprised he had dodged. Without missing a beat, she reversed her grip on the sword and, without even turning around, launched a vicious backward thrust.
"!?"
Tsuna reached to catch it, but Ryuu checked the strike a hairsbreadth from his palm. As Tsuna's eyes widened in surprise, Ryuu used the momentum to spin counter-clockwise, whipping the reverse-gripped sword toward his head in a blinding horizontal sweep.
…She's good. With the wooden blade hurtling toward his face at breakneck speed, Tsuna threw a sharp left uppercut, striking the flat of the blade and forcibly deflecting Ryuu's strike upward.
Impressive. Riding the recoil of the deflection, Ryuu seamlessly transitioned into a backflip, throwing a brutal somersault kick aimed squarely at Tsuna's jaw. Tsuna leaned back, letting her boot cut cleanly through the air millimeters from his chin.
He's gone… But when Ryuu landed and looked forward, Tsuna had vanished.
Behind me!! Ryuu spun around, gripping the wooden sword with both hands, and unleashed a massive horizontal sweep from left to right. Tsuna backflipped gracefully over the incoming blade.
To single-handedly annihilate the Evilus… she's incredibly experienced in real combat, Tsuna analyzed mid-air.
When Tsuna had leaned back to dodge her somersault kick, his vision had been forced upward. Ryuu had instantly exploited that microsecond blind spot to flank him. Even though she had retired from adventuring, the sheer number of life-or-death battles she had fought to systematically eliminate her targets shone through in her flawless, lethal combat flow.
As Tsuna flipped backward, Ryuu didn't lose a shred of momentum. She charged forward, pivoting perfectly, and unleashed the full, unbridled power of her Agility Status. Her speed exploded, rocketing her right into Tsuna's personal space faster than the eye could track.
I've got you!! Aiming for Tsuna's left leg right before he hit the ground, Ryuu swung her wooden sword upward in a devastating diagonal slash.
The moment just before landing is the most vulnerable point for any fighter in the air. By holding back her true top speed until this exact instant, Ryuu had completely caught him off guard.
An illusion!? But the moment Ryuu's blade struck Tsuna's leg, his body instantly dispersed into mist. She realized she had just cleaved through a phantom. Because Tsuna had relied purely on physical evasion until now, she had subconsciously dropped her guard against his illusions.
He cast it then!! When Tsuna had backflipped to dodge her previous horizontal sweep, he had cast a Mist illusion of himself before she had even finished turning around. While leaving the phantom in plain sight, the real Tsuna had used his flames to propel himself higher into the air. He had deliberately shown her a vulnerable landing target to bait out her ultimate, decisive strike.
"Match over."
A hand gently tapped the back of her neck. Ryuu froze, feeling the phantom heat of Tsuna's hand poised for a lethal chop. Admitting total defeat, the tension drained from her shoulders.
"I yield…"
"Sorry for using a skill on you, Ryuu."
"We never established a rule forbidding skills. Furthermore, I was fully aware that you were capable of casting illusions, Mr. Sawada, yet I allowed myself to forget it in the heat of battle… Thanks to you, I was able to recognize my own immaturity. I have nothing but gratitude for this lesson."
Tsuna apologized for using an illusion without warning, but Ryuu didn't mind in the slightest.
"It was exactly as I hoped. Inviting you was the right decision."
Until now, she had always trained alone, constantly feeling a lingering sense of dissatisfaction. Being able to go all out against a vastly superior opponent, even for a short time, left her feeling incredibly refreshed.
"Have you really just been training by yourself this whole time?"
"Yes. Though I retired from adventuring, I am still a wanted fugitive… Even if I hide my identity, there is no absolute guarantee I won't be discovered."
"Oh, right… But the War Game was broadcasted all over the city. Weren't you worried your cover would be blown?"
"There was no issue. Lord Hermes handled the details flawlessly behind the scenes."
"I see."
"The only one who might have noticed was that man… But since he has been arrested, my identity remains safe."
"You mean Terry?"
"Yes. But Terry is a fake name. That man's true name is Ted. He was one of the criminals the Astrea Familia rounded up back when we were still active in Orario."
"…Then why was he running a casino? Wasn't he arrested?"
"In the very end, Ted groveled and begged Lady Astrea to save him. And Lady Astrea listened to his pleas. I believe she truly wanted to believe he could change his ways."
"But instead of turning over a new leaf, he went right back to committing crimes."
"…Yes."
"Your patron Goddess sounds like a deeply compassionate person."
To offer a second chance to a scumbag like Ted, Tsuna genuinely felt that Astrea was a remarkably noble deity.
"She is. Lady Astrea is an incredibly kind, dignified Goddess. All of us loved her like a mother."
... Hearing Ryuu describe Astrea's character, something didn't sit right with Tsuna.
"Ryuu. Were you really excommunicated?"
"Excuse me?"
"Based on everything you've told me, I just can't imagine Astrea kicking you out of her Familia."
"I was a dependent of the Goddess of Justice, yet I chose the path of revenge and slaughter. It is only natural I was excommunicated. Furthermore, Lady Astrea told me herself: Cast aside your justice. Lady Astrea was deeply disappointed in me…"
"If she's the kind of Goddess who could forgive a man like Ted and give him a second chance, I refuse to believe she'd banish you for something like that. Astrea knows better than anyone that the Evilus drove you down the path of revenge."
Ted had committed his crimes purely to satisfy his own selfish greed. But Ryuu hadn't sought revenge because she wanted to. The atrocities committed by the Evilus had broken her, forcing that bloody path upon her. Astrea had tried to forgive Ted, believing in his potential for good despite his malicious intent.
Ryuu's vengeance, on the other hand, had not been born of malice, but from the profound grief of losing those she loved. Vengeance could never be called the right path, but at its very core, Ryuu's actions had stemmed from a pure, desperate love for her comrades. Tsuna fundamentally refused to believe that Astrea would look at that devotion and feel disappointment.
"Even if that were true, I no longer have the right to speak of justice… No… ever since that day, my justice died…"
"…You just lost sight of it because of your revenge. I know it's still there. I know your justice."
"Eh…!?"
Ryuu's depressed, downcast expression vanished, replaced by wide-eyed shock as Tsuna casually declared he knew the justice she thought she had lost forever.
"You charged right into that casino to save Anna. And you risked blowing your cover entirely just to help us during the War Game."
"That was…"
"If you hadn't decided to go save her, Ted wouldn't have been arrested, and Anna and the others would still be trapped."
If Syr hadn't crushed Ted at poker, he wouldn't have revealed his true colors—but none of that would have happened if Ryuu hadn't resolved to rescue Anna in the first place.
"My plan during the War Game only succeeded because you joined the fight. You held off half the Apollo Familia entirely on your own and took down a huge chunk of their forces. Because you were there, we won the game, and Daphne and the others who hated Apollo were finally freed from his control."
Tsuna's strategy had relied heavily on Ryuu. Without her, it would have failed spectacularly.
"You saw it yourself. You saw everyone smiling."
The joyous smiles of Bell and the Hestia Familia when they won, and the profound relief of the Apollo members who had finally been liberated.
"You lost your friends, exacted revenge on the Evilus, and became a wanted fugitive. You claim to have lost your justice, yet you never stopped protecting the weak. And because of you, people were saved. I don't care what anyone else says—that is your justice. Am I wrong?"
"Ah…"
Ryuu was completely speechless. Fat, heavy tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over her cheeks.
"W-Whoa, what's wrong!? Are you okay!?"
Never in a million years did Tsuna expect the stoic elf to start crying. He panicked instantly, waving his hands in a fluster.
"I apologize… I am just so happy…"
"H-Happy…?"
"I truly believed… that my justice was gone forever…"
Ever since that horrific day, a heavy, suffocating knot of guilt had festered deep within Ryuu's heart. Even with Mia and Syr's constant support, the knot had refused to untangle. But Tsuna's words had reached straight into her soul, melting that frozen guilt away. He was like a vast, endless sky, accepting and embracing everything she was.
"Thank you, Tsuna. For helping me find my justice again."
"!?"
Ryuu wiped her tears away and thanked him, dropping his honorific entirely. The smile she gave him was so impossibly bright, so incredibly beautiful, that Tsuna's face instantly flushed beet red.
"Mr. Sawada?"
"S-Sorry… It's just, that's the first time I've ever seen you smile like that… It kind of caught me off guard…!?"
"!?"
Realizing she had just bared her heart with such a vulnerable, radiant smile, Ryuu's own face flushed a brilliant shade of crimson.
"S-Sorry for talking so much… S-Should we get back to sparring…?"
"Y-Yes…!!"
And so, surrounded by a thoroughly awkward, deeply embarrassing atmosphere, their morning training resumed.
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