Shoichi Kano's thinking was simple. At first, he had intended to talk things out, figuring there might be some misunderstanding they could clear up. But he hadn't expected the man to be a repeat offender with no regard for human life. What else was there to say? If the man didn't respect other people's lives, Shoichi Kano had no intention of respecting his.
Shoichi Kano took a fighting stance and threw a punch at the man's face.
"Those punches are slow as snails!" Believing he had seen through his opponent's moves, the middle-aged man crossed his arms over his face, trying to block Shoichi Kano's fist.
After all, as far as he knew, unless they were exceptionally powerful, Jujutsu Sorcerers fought much like ordinary people, trading punches and kicks. The only difference was that their blows were coated in cursed energy and hurt more.
What he didn't know was that Shoichi Kano's punch was nothing but a feint. His fist seemed to fly straight forward, but he had already concealed a strand of cursed energy in his palm. It shot out between his fingers and pulled taut, like a thin steel wire.
Then Kano pretended to abandon his punch, abruptly pulling his fist down and to the right, dragging the thread diagonally with it.
The middle-aged man felt a prickling itch on his right arm. When he looked closely, he discovered that something sharp had sliced it open. Blood kept welling from the hair-thin cut.
"What the hell was that?!" He instinctively retreated several steps and carefully checked that the wound hadn't hit anything vital before relaxing a little.
He genuinely had no idea how Shoichi Kano had injured him. His opponent had clearly only thrown a punch and pulled it back. Even if the fist had hit his arm, it couldn't possibly have left a cut like that!
He therefore decided to keep his distance, observe the situation, and then figure out his next move.
"Kid, I admit you've got some skill." The man shook his injured arm, gritting his teeth against the tingling sensation as the wound broke open and bled. "But you can't win a real fight with cheap tricks like that!"
"Taste my..." The middle-aged man roared, clenching his right fist. Purple cursed energy coiled around it, seemingly distorting the air. "Heaven and Earth Galloping Fist!"
The move sounded badass, but it was essentially just a running charge followed by a straight punch. It only looked impressive because his fist was coated in cursed energy.
Then Shoichi Kano tilted his head slightly, and the punch missed.
Bang! The heavy fist slammed into a parking garage pillar beside him, leaving a dent in the concrete. Bits of rubble and dust sprayed out, striking Kano's cheek.
"You're so weak." Watching the man's sluggish, rigid punches, Shoichi Kano relaxed considerably. Now this was more like it. This kind of matchmaking made sense. Running into the Slit-Mouthed Woman the moment I stepped outside was the abnormal part!
The middle-aged man withdrew his fist, twisted at the waist, and locked onto Shoichi Kano's position, continuing his attack. "Is dodging all you can do?"
Shoichi Kano weaved through the gaps between the man's punches and kicks, even finding time to pick his ear or straighten the tie around his neck.
Finding that not a single attack had landed, the man grew unbearably agitated. He even pulled a switchblade from his pocket and pressed the mechanism on its handle with a click. Before the blade had fully swung into its locked position, he was already trying to stab Shoichi Kano.
To be honest, Shoichi Kano hadn't had much actual fighting experience in either his previous life or this one. But when he circulated his cursed energy, his body instinctively performed a series of movements. That was more than enough to toy with the half-baked amateur before him.
So when the switchblade was about to stab him, he slipped aside like an agile badger, letting the blade slide along his shirt. Apart from slashing a hole in the fabric, it did him no harm.
The middle-aged man stood panting, gripping his knife and glaring viciously at him.
Shoichi Kano touched the torn fabric at his waist. Discovering that the knife had slashed his shirt wide open, exposing his skin, he immediately lost the desire to play around.
His experience really was lacking. Even sparring with a worthless loser like this, he could still make mistakes.
"I've seen through your cursed technique!" The middle-aged man pointed his knife at Shoichi Kano's face.
The boy's pupils contracted. "What?!"
He genuinely thought the man had discovered something during those few minutes, but on reflection, something seemed off. He had only used his cursed technique once from start to finish. How could the man have seen through it?
"Your cursed technique must be triggered by some kind of feint!" the man declared confidently. "Earlier, you feinted a punch, and my arm got cut! But now my relentless attacks have forced you to do nothing but dodge. You can't make any feints, and I haven't been hurt again!"
"So your cursed technique releases invisible slashes when you make a feint! Am I right?!" The smile on the man's face grew increasingly arrogant, as though he had grasped the very essence of cursed energy.
Shoichi Kano was utterly speechless. He had thought the man might actually have some ability, but it turned out he was just another random nobody.
Then again, a small fry who hadn't even appeared in the original story probably wouldn't have much combat sense.
Seeing Shoichi Kano standing motionless, the man grinned viciously. "Well? I nailed it, didn't I?"
Kano looked at him, unsure whether to laugh or cry. "How about this? I won't dodge or move. I'll stand right here, and you can attack me. Sound good?"
"You're putting on an act! Bluffing!" The middle-aged man found his angle, held his switchblade in a reverse grip, and lunged straight at him!
Since Kano thought his cursed technique really did resemble that of a certain Lower Rank demon from Demon Slayer, he acted on an impulse he couldn't quite explain. He spread his hands, palms facing each other, and formed a dense lattice of crisscrossing threads between them. Reinforced with cursed energy, they became stronger and sharper than steel wire!
"Blood Demon Art..." Layer upon layer of interwoven threads formed a fine spiderweb, waiting for its prey to fall into it. "Killing Eye Cage!"
Only when the middle-aged man heard the strange words from Kano's mouth did he realize something was wrong. But it was already too late! His knife-wielding arm was only a few centimeters from Shoichi Kano's web. There was no way he could stop!
His entire arm passed through the "web." In that split second, he didn't even have time to feel pain. He could only stare blankly as his arm was sliced into dice-sized chunks of flesh that scattered across the ground in a bloody mess.
The switchblade was narrow enough to lodge in a gap in the web instead of falling to the ground. At first glance, it looked as though some invisible barrier had stopped it, leaving it suspended rigidly in midair.
At last, the middle-aged man paid the price for his stupidity.
He could now see the almost transparent threads of cursed energy in the air, because his blood had stained them red.
"Sayonara." Kano shook the "web" between his hands, dislodging the knife, then controlled it to expand and spread over the middle-aged man.
With his entire arm shredded by the threads, the man had fallen into a dazed stupor from massive blood loss. Simply remaining upright exhausted what little strength he had left. Clearly, he couldn't dodge Kano's follow-up attack.
The enormous "web" enveloped him, then gradually tightened. Its threads bit into his flesh, slicing through it like a hot knife through butter, cutting and tearing him completely apart.
Shoichi Kano looked at the large pile of still-steaming "beef cubes" on the ground and suddenly felt sick enough to vomit. The last time he had seen anything like this had been in his previous life, watching the Resident Evil films at home. In one of them, a group of agents went to investigate the Hive Base and triggered its laser weapons. One agent was struck by a laser grid, his entire body sliced into chunks of meat just like this.
He took several deep breaths before crouching to pick up the switchblade. It was sticky with blood, and no matter how long he wiped it, he couldn't get it clean. In the end, he could only fold it up as it was and stuff it into his pocket.
Then he sat down on the ground, pulled his phone from his pocket with his other, relatively clean hand, and dialed the landline at home.
"Hello?" To the Slit-Mouthed Woman, Shoichi Kano's voice sounded hoarse, even a little shaky, which she found quite interesting. "Mom, could you come over? I'm at..."
"What happened?"
"The talk didn't work out." Kano swallowed. "I killed that curse user. The scene... it's a little messy."
Miss Cursed Spirit chuckled softly on the other end of the line, then said, "Don't be scared, sweetheart. Give me ten minutes."
For some reason, Shoichi Kano suddenly felt a little more at ease.
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