Yaha's right hand rested on his sword's hilt.
The instant his new sword left its sheath, he shifted his stance. He went from leaning against a veranda pillar to a half crouch, his left hand still holding the unfinished apple core, while the sword in his right had already traced an arc.
The slash left the blade without a sound.
A pitch-black slash cut vertically upward, crashing into the lingering dark-purple rift.
There was no explosion.
Only a sound.
Thin and shrill, like nails scraping a blackboard, or glass being crushed from within. The teeth-grating sound of cutting poured down from thirty meters overhead and into the ears of everyone in the courtyard.
The laws of Cursed Technique: Dismantle clung to the slash's surface. It wasn't striking the fabric of space. It was cutting it apart.
The rift's edges began to shatter.
Dark-purple light peeled away from both sides of the opening, piece by piece, like ice on a lake in the depths of winter being smashed from below. Fractures raced from its edges toward its center. In the blink of an eye, the technique's laws tore the entire rift into hundreds of irregular fragments.
The suction stopped.
Abruptly.
As though someone had sliced through a power cord.
The Hidden Corps members dangling in midair lost the force holding them up and plummeted. The scrawny one fell from twenty feet onto the muddy ground, landing back-first with a grunt. Their limbs were still flailing in the air, and it took three seconds to realize they hadn't died.
Rubble, fallen leaves, and broken branches all dropped from the sky. A barrage of clattering filled the courtyard, like a sudden downpour.
Zenitsu was still hugging the veranda pillar.
Inosuke pulled his fingers out of the gaps between the paving stones. Blood clung