The world changed with noise first.
A bright, shameless rush of music burst into existence around Oden as Hakari's Domain Expansion swallowed the rooftop whole. The city disappeared. The sky disappeared. Kirara disappeared.
All that remained was the domain—
a fever dream of color, motion, train imagery, flickering signs, and music that had absolutely no business being this catchy in the middle of a fight.
Oden landed in a low stance and blinked beneath the blindfold.
"…What is this?"
Hakari stood across from him, grinning like a man who had finally dragged someone into the exact kind of madness he personally enjoyed.
"My domain," he said. "Try to keep up."
Then the information hit.
Rules. Conditions. Flow. Probability. Riichi scenarios. Symbols. Chances. Progression.
It all slammed into Oden's mind in one dense wave, as if the domain itself had shoved a rulebook directly into his skull and demanded he read it at knife-point.
Oden stood still for a fraction too long.
Hakari capitalized instantly.
He was on Oden before the information fully settled, fist whipping across the strange neon-lit space. Oden got his sword up in time, but the blow still rang through the katana and up his arm with that same cursed-energy texture. Rough, jagged, and offensively painful.
Oden slid back.
"…Your domain has music."
Hakari lunged again.
"And?"
Oden parried, pivoted, and answered with a flat slash toward Hakari's shoulder.
"It's good."
Hakari barked out a laugh.
That laugh nearly cost him an ear.
Oden's katana snapped across the space where Hakari's head had been a breath earlier, the flat of the blade humming with cursed energy.
Hakari noticed it almost immediately.
"You're only using the blade?"
Oden stepped in and struck in a three-part rhythm. Wrist, throat, knee. Hakari caught the first on his forearm, evaded the second with a twist, and barely checked the third with his shin.
"I'm testing something," Oden said.
Hakari's grin widened.
"Oh? And what's that?"
Oden flowed around another punch, then answered by cracking the flat of the katana against Hakari's ribs hard enough to force him back a half-step.
"How long I can tolerate your face."
Hakari laughed again.
Then punched so hard the air itself seemed to burst.
Oden met it with the spine of his blade and felt his grip almost fail on impact.
He clicked his tongue.
He really does hit like he's trying to punish the planet.
The fight stretched.
And became beautiful.
Hakari's style was all fever and pressure. An aggressive, rhythm-breaking rush designed to crush caution under momentum. He fought like a gambler who sincerely believed the next blow would solve everything if he threw it hard enough.
Oden, by contrast, became a line.
A razor-thin line of discipline cutting through chaos.
He used the katana in ways that made ordinary swordsmen look clumsy. The blade was never just a weapon. It became a frame for his body, a lever for angles, a shield, a weight, an interruption.
Hakari drove in with a left straight.
Oden turned his wrists and caught it on the broadside of the blade, guiding the strike away while stepping inside Hakari's shoulder line. Then he reversed his grip halfway, let the hilt slide, and smashed the pommel into Hakari's sternum.
Hakari grunted.
Oden followed with a sharp rising strike to the jaw—
Hakari slipped it.
Then answered with a body hook that folded Oden halfway and launched him backward.
Oden coughed.
"…You're absurd."
Hakari rolled his neck once.
"Your compliments suck."
The domain's visuals flashed around them. Train doors, symbols, feverish colors, probability indicators Oden only half cared about because the only part of this domain he truly found relevant was the man trying to cave his ribs in.
Still—
his mind kept track.
Rules were rules, even when wrapped in nonsense.
Hakari needed momentum inside his game.
Scenarios advanced.
Outcomes accumulated.
And unlike some opponents, Hakari actually liked operating within this lunacy.
That made him dangerous.
Their clash accelerated.
Hakari struck high. Oden ducked and slashed low.
Hakari jumped the cut. Oden rotated the blade and struck upward with the flat.
Hakari caught his wrist. Oden let go with one hand, shifted weight, and drove a knee toward the liver.
Hakari took it, smiled through it, and elbowed him across the side of the head.
Oden staggered three steps, blindfold dampened slightly with blood at the temple.
Hakari's eyes sharpened.
But Oden only reset his stance.
Then they came together again.
The sound of blade on reinforced flesh became its own rhythm beneath the music.
Hakari was stronger.
Oden admitted that freely.
Every direct collision reminded him of it. Every punch felt like being hit with a rusted truck axle wrapped in cursed energy. But Hakari was also straightforward in a way Oden appreciated.
Not simple.
Never simple.
But honest.
Heat first. Pressure second. Overwhelm third.
So Oden adjusted.
He stopped matching force with force.
Started shaving moments instead.
Hakari's shoulder twitched before his hook. Oden cut the angle.
Hakari's hip loaded before the knee. Oden disrupted the base.
Hakari's grin widened before a feint. Oden ignored the smile and punished the lead foot.
By the time a proper stretch of the fight had passed, Hakari realized something important.
The blindfold brat was reading him.
Not fully.
Not enough to shut him down.
But enough to make every exchange increasingly expensive.
Hakari wiped a line of blood from the corner of his mouth and laughed.
"This is fun."
Oden exhaled slowly, sword lowered for one brief second.
"I'm getting tired."
Hakari blinked.
"…What?"
Oden tilted his head slightly as the music swelled again around them.
"I said I'm getting tired."
Hakari stepped forward.
"Then lose."
Instead—
Oden started dancing.
Just… moving.
A step backward. A turn. A shift of the shoulders with the rhythm. The katana moved with him, tracing the beat in small arcs as his feet adjusted to the music the domain had shoved into the fight.
Hakari stopped.
Actually stopped.
The domain pulsed around them.
Oden spun the blade once, stepped with the beat, then side-slid across the floor in a movement too clean to be accidental.
Hakari stared.
Then, slowly—
he grinned.
Wider than before.
Hotter than before.
"That," he said, "is heat."
Oden looked at him.
"It's better than being confused by your weird train songs."
Hakari laughed hard enough to throw his head back.
Then, just like that, he dispelled the domain.
Reality crashed back in.
The rooftop returned.
The Tokyo air returned.
Kirara returned, still down but conscious enough to look annoyed at how much fun Hakari was suddenly having.
Hakari planted his hands on his hips and exhaled.
"Alright," he said. "I get it now."
Oden adjusted his grip on the katana.
"…Get what?"
Hakari pointed at him.
"You've got too much heat to be involved with Jujutsu High."
Oden stared.
"That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me today."
"It's not nice. It's practical."
Hakari stepped closer, no longer trying to hit him.
"Also," he added, "we need to fix the money misunderstanding before you accuse me of financial warfare again."
Oden narrowed his eyes beneath the blindfold.
"You implied three million yen."
Hakari pointed at the rooftop like the answer was written there.
"No. I said the full-time earners can make that kind of money."
Oden paused.
Then replayed the conversation in his head.
Then realized—
with immediate and crushing irritation—
that Hakari was right.
He had misunderstood.
A long silence followed.
Then Oden said:
"…Fine."
Hakari snorted.
"That's your apology?"
"That's your victory."
Kirara, sitting up now and brushing dust off their clothes, laughed under their breath.
Hakari folded his arms.
"Join me permanently," he said. "Help me dismantle the Jujutsu rules. We build something better. Hotter. More real."
Oden slid the katana back into the waiting mouth of a small snake emerging from his shadow. The serpent swallowed the blade whole and vanished again.
Then he answered honestly.
"I'll think about it."
Hakari clicked his tongue.
Not dissatisfied.
Just recognizing that this was probably as much commitment as Oden gave anyone on a first offer.
"Fine," he said.
Oden turned and started for the exit path off the roof.
Once he was gone and only Hakari and Kirara remained, the rooftop quieted.
Kirara glanced toward the space Oden had occupied moments earlier.
"…His technique looked odd."
Hakari nodded slowly.
"Yeah."
He shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Too odd."
Kirara looked at him.
Hakari's smile returned. Smaller now, more calculating.
"It felt similar to the Ten Shadows."
That got Kirara's full attention.
"…You think so?"
Hakari shrugged.
"Not the same. But close enough in flavor to start a conversation."
Kirara's expression flattened.
"Oh, wow. You asked him to join you and now you're already thinking about selling him out?"
Hakari laughed.
"No. That's Oden helping me."
Kirara stared.
"That logic is terrible."
Hakari smirked.
"If information about him earns me a favor from the Zenin clan, then he's done his job for me before even signing on."
Kirara folded their arms.
"And if the Zenin decide to kill him?"
Hakari looked out over Tokyo.
Then asked, almost idly—
"Do you honestly think there's anyone in the Zenin clan who could kill that kid?"
Kirara imagined it for one second.
Then laughed.
A real laugh.
"...No," they admitted.
"Exactly."
---
Back downstairs, Oden found Panda waiting.
The panda looked him over once. Then twice.
Then asked the only question that made sense.
"What happened?"
Oden walked past him toward the exit.
"I fought Hakari."
Panda froze.
"…What?"
Oden kept walking.
Panda hurried after him.
"What do you mean you fought Hakari? Why were you fighting Hakari? How are you walking normally after fighting Hakari?"
Oden did not answer any of those questions.
Instead, he glanced sideways and said:
"I'll treat you to ramen."
Panda stopped talking instantly.
Then—
"…You know what? That does solve a lot emotionally."
Oden kept walking.
Panda followed.
---
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