Scum

Masamichi Yaga turned his attention back to the field.

Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto had already taken their places in the center, facing each other about three meters apart.

Sunlight shone down from overhead, casting their shadows onto the sand, one crooked and languid, the other straight and serious.

Satoru Gojo raised a hand and pushed his sunglasses up, fully revealing his pale blue eyes.

At this distance, the Six Eyes saw straight through Suguru Geto.

Steady cursed energy, well-defined muscles, an even breathing rhythm, and eyes that, though gentle, never stopped observing him.

He tilted his head at Suguru Geto, his tone breezy. "Cursed Spirit Manipulation, right? Not using any cursed spirits?"

Suguru Geto took off his jacket, folded it neatly, and walked to the edge of the field to place it on his schoolbag. His movements were unhurried, every step meticulous.

He returned to the center and loosened his wrists. "The teacher said we're testing hand-to-hand combat."

"You're pretty obedient." Satoru Gojo grinned, showing a row of white teeth.

"We should still follow the ground rules." Suguru Geto's tone was neither meek nor arrogant. He settled into position and lightly ground his toe against the sand, testing the firmness of the ground.

"A model student." Satoru Gojo drew out the final syllable.

He kept both hands in his pockets, his posture loose, his weight resting entirely on one leg. He looked wide open.

But Suguru Geto knew that was only how it looked. "I love messing with model students."

Suguru Geto smiled gently. It was no different from his usual smile, his lips curving softly, his eyes narrowing slightly.

But a closer look would have revealed something in his eyes that was rarely there.

Not anger, but anticipation.

The restrained anticipation of one genius facing another.

"Then I might have to disappoint you."

The moment the words fell, both of them moved.

Satoru Gojo was fast. So fast that the only person present who could follow his movements completely was Shoko, crouching beside Yan Si and him.

Shoko wasn't relying on her eyes, but on her keen perception of the flow of cursed energy.

The white figure was in front of Suguru Geto almost the instant he moved. The three meters between them were like a crumpled sheet of paper, compressed to nothing in the blink of an eye.

His fist didn't come flying in from any particular angle. It simply appeared inside Suguru Geto's guard, skipping every movement in between.

The fist cut through the air with a faint whistle.

Suguru Geto didn't meet it head-on.

He turned sideways, his footwork steady, the sand rasping beneath his soles.

As he drew his body back slightly, he raised his arm, precisely catching Satoru Gojo's second sweeping strike with the outside of his forearm.

Their arms collided in midair with a dull thud, a conversation between bone and bone, solid and heavy, the impact driving each of them half a step back.

Yes, Satoru Gojo hadn't activated Limitless.

Satoru Gojo raised an eyebrow, his eyes brightening behind his sunglasses. He hadn't put his full strength into that punch, but he hadn't held back much either.

Suguru Geto had blocked it and smoothly parried the next sweep, which meant his foundation in hand-to-hand combat was far stronger than Gojo had expected, perhaps even stronger than his own.

Satoru Gojo's strengths lay in his reaction speed and control over cursed energy.

Satoru Gojo offered sincere praise. "Not bad."

Suguru Geto didn't answer. He had no intention of chatting with Satoru Gojo during this test.

He lifted his leg and swept his shin toward Satoru Gojo's lower body, the rush of his kick stirring the sand into a golden haze.

Satoru Gojo leaned back to avoid it, bending his body at an unnatural angle.

His waist seemed boneless, his upper body almost parallel to the ground, yet he remained perfectly steady.

He landed lightly, too, his toes touching the sand almost without a sound.

His hand-to-hand combat followed no conventional pattern. No single school could fully encompass his movements.

Instead, he relied on the precise assessments afforded by the Six Eyes to choose the best option at every instant, freely piecing together a style of movement that belonged to him alone.

He looked careless, but every step put him in the most troublesome position possible.

Suguru Geto was the exact opposite. His movements were solid, clean, and steady.

Every defense seemed calculated in advance.

Not calculated with his eyes, but more through experience and judgment.

He never overreached in his counterattacks, pulling back exactly when he should. He wasn't desperate to prove anything just because his opponent was Satoru Gojo.

He didn't have Satoru Gojo's overwhelming air of innate talent, but he was exceptionally patient and judged things accurately. Several times, just when Satoru Gojo thought he had fooled him, he seized the tiny openings left by his opponent's overconfidence.

Once, his palm even brushed the hem of Satoru Gojo's clothes.

Satoru Gojo twisted sideways and dodged, but in that instant, his eyebrow rose again.

Suguru Geto really was good at hand-to-hand combat.

Without the Six Eyes, Satoru Gojo might actually have taken a few punches.

At the edge of the field, Yan Si enthusiastically cracked sunflower seeds.

The duel held his attention so completely that he couldn't look away. "Whoa~"

With his vision magnified a hundredfold, he could see both of them perfectly clearly.

This was far better than the crappy special effects in the movies he used to watch.

Shoko stood beside him, chewing sunflower kernels. Her voice was slightly muffled when she spoke, but her tone remained as detached as ever. "Who do you think will win?"

"How would I know?" Yan Si propped up his chin and tapped his cheek twice.

His purple eyes narrowed slightly. "The Six Eyes' ability to track movement is such a cheat. Their reaction speeds aren't even on the same level. Geto's hand-to-hand skills aren't bad either."

Shoko looked at him. Not a casual glance; she deliberately turned her gaze away from the field and rested it on his profile.

The lines of Yan Si's profile looked clean in the sunlight, his nose straight, his lashes casting a small patch of shadow.

He watched the match just like an ordinary person. Most people were there for the spectacle, and so was he.

Noticing Shoko looking at him, Yan Si blinked at her, deploying his beauty as a weapon.

"Pretty, right~?"

Shoko Ieiri fell for it. She paused for a few seconds, then said expressionlessly, "Narcissist."

"Of course." Yan Si turned toward her with a beaming smile, his purple eyes curving into two arcs, the red mole between his brows beautiful in the sunlight.

"With looks like mine, it'd be pretty dumb not to be narcissistic~"

Shoko stared at him expressionlessly. Two beats of silence passed. Then she took another handful of seeds from the bag, her tone flat. "Are all you guys this full of yourselves?"

Yan Si earnestly corrected her, raising one finger with a very serious expression. "I'm different from them. They're shameless. I'm actually good-looking."

Shoko didn't argue. She turned toward Suguru Geto, who was exchanging blows with Satoru Gojo on the field.

Suguru Geto was steadily blocking a tricky strike from Satoru Gojo's side, the veins in his arm standing out slightly, his expression still composed.

He didn't grow impatient because his opponent was Satoru Gojo, nor did his occasional successes make him careless. From beginning to end, he maintained an almost professional level of concentration.

Shoko watched for a while, then nodded. "Suguru Geto seems the most normal so far."

Yan Si sighed.

It was a long, heavy sigh, enough to make his shoulders sag.

"Yeah. So normal it makes you feel sorry for him."

Shoko looked down at him.

The boy sitting on the sand tilted his face toward the sky, his expression filled with the pity of someone who had seen through everything.

Shoko Ieiri didn't understand. "You feel sorry for him?"

"Of course I do." Yan Si spoke with complete conviction, slapping his knee and sending a few grains of sand flying. "He'll have to look after me and the White-Haired Cat in the future. That's a lot of work."

"Haha, nice people always get pushed around!"

Yan Si chuckled.

Shoko fell silent for two seconds. In those two seconds, she pictured the future.

Suguru Geto trailing after Satoru Gojo and Yan Si, cleaning up the messes they left behind, one after another, without end.

Then she realized the scene was terrifyingly realistic.

Ah, how hopeless.

"Scum." She looked down at Yan Si, her tone carrying a hint of sincere, heartfelt agreement for the first time. "You actually know yourself pretty well."

"Thanks for the compliment." Yan Si winked at her, his lashes gleaming pale gold in the sunlight.

"That wasn't a compliment." Shoko's tone returned to its earlier coolness.

"I'll take it as one." Yan Si's smile didn't change.