"What kind of weird reflex is that?!" Kyōma shouted furiously. "Sueyoshi! Hit him!"
"No matter how much you yell, he still won't hear you," Muten Natsu said with a yawn. "And you're definitely not waking up his fighting spirit, either."
Kyōma glared viciously at Tachikawa. "Damn it..."
"Ugh!"
"Sueyoshi is getting beat up again."
People nearby started noticing the commotion. Clearly, this was not the first time something like this had happened.
"He should've just quit already."
"At this rate, something bad is going to happen."
"This is your last warning." Tachikawa raised his fist. "Give me your place in the match!"
"No... don't!" Sueyoshi swayed on his feet, but his voice was unusually firm. "I earned this through hard work."
"Hmph... how interesting. So you really don't get it at all." Tachikawa flung off his gloves and clenched his bandaged fists. "Then I'll beat it into you until you do!"
"You... that's enough already!" Kyōma rushed into Sueyoshi's body and drove a punch straight into Tachikawa's face. Then he tore off the gloves and slammed another punch into Tachikawa's stomach. As the crowd cried out in shock, he started viciously stomping the fallen Tachikawa.
"What the hell is wrong with you, you bastard?! Die! Die! Just die already!!!"
"No... stop... I'll kill you!" Sueyoshi's expression twisted, and his movements turned stiff. "Stop right now... I'll never forgive you!"
Muten Natsu reacted at once, grabbed Sueyoshi, and dragged him away from the scene.
"I..." Sueyoshi stared blankly at his own hands. "What did I..."
"It was me." Kyōma's voice came from inside his body. "Sueyoshi, it's me, Kyōma."
"Kyōma, but weren't you..."
Speaking through Sueyoshi's body, Kyōma said, "I really am dead. Right now, my Soul is attached to you."
Rukia Kuchiki and Orihime Inoue caught up just in time to see Sueyoshi talking to himself in two different voices, and immediately realized that Kyōma had slipped into his body again.
Kyōma snapped in frustration, "What is wrong with you? Why didn't you fight back? We were in the ring just now, not some alley. Fight back already!"
Sueyoshi shouted back, "It's because I was in the ring that I couldn't fight back! That wasn't boxing at all! I don't want to be like Tachikawa, throwing punches just to hurt people! Boxing is supposed to be about winning, not venting your own selfish impulses!"
"Huh? If everybody thought like you, boxing wouldn't even exist! Back then, when dueling with swords was outlawed, bare knuckle fighting took its place, and that eventually developed into boxing!"
"You said it yourself, back then. Back then was back then, and now is now! Now..." Sueyoshi clenched his fists, and his expression suddenly dimmed. "Now it doesn't matter what I say. Even if you were controlling my body, everyone saw me throw those punches. Everything I've stood by all this time... you ruined it."
"So you're blaming me?" Kyōma was stunned for a second, then furious, twisting Sueyoshi's face along with his anger. "I protected you, and somehow that was my mistake?"
"I never needed your protection! Did I ever ask you to protect me?!"
"Sueyoshi..." Kyōma's Soul drifted out of Sueyoshi's body, hovered in midair, gave him one long look, then turned and passed through the wall.
Sueyoshi immediately felt his body grow lighter, and the sense of dissonance from before vanished. "Kyōma? Are you still there?"
"He just left." Muten Natsu pointed in the direction Kyōma had gone.
"I... actually..."
"Sorry, I'm not that interested in your emotional drama." Muten Natsu waved a hand. "If you've got something to say, say it to him directly."
Orihime Inoue sensed where Kyōma was and led Muten Natsu and Rukia Kuchiki to the lonely Soul by the riverbank.
"You've given up now, right?" Muten Natsu raised a hand. "Can you head to the next world in peace now?"
Rukia Kuchiki looked at Muten Natsu helplessly. He clearly wanted Sueyoshi and Kyōma to have a proper talk, yet he was still saying things like this.
Orihime Inoue spoke softly. "I think Sueyoshi probably still has things he really wants to say. He just got carried away in the heat of the moment..."
"It's exactly in moments like that that people let their true feelings slip out. That's definitely how Sueyoshi really feels." Muten Natsu gave a light snort. "You think you're helping him, but he might actually be sick of you. There should be a limit to being so full of yourself."
Orihime Inoue's voice turned soft and drawn out. "Muten~"
Muten rubbed his earlobe and stopped talking.
"I..." Kyōma stared at the river. "I can understand him."
"Woooow~~~" Muten Natsu said in an exaggerated tone. "You're amazing."
"You're so annoying!" Kyōma muttered irritably. "Actually, I realized it myself. At first, I really did want to help him. But once I got a taste of the thrill of putting people in their place... compared to helping him, I was enjoying that feeling more. And with him as my excuse, what would have been plain violence turned into some righteous act I could feel justified about."
"So are you ready to move on now?"
"Maybe it's exactly because I treated boxing like a tool for violence that he kept insisting on its purity. Because I was protecting him, he couldn't directly blame me, so he chose to protest in this silent way instead."
"So are you ready to move on now?"
"If I'd realized that sooner, maybe I wouldn't have been beaten to death after getting into fights with people."
"So now you..."
"Do you not have any other question?!" Kyōma was in the middle of pouring his heart out, and Muten Natsu just kept cutting straight to the point. "Are you really that eager to send me to the Soul Society?"
"You look like the type who'll keep talking forever. Rather than stand here listening to you ramble, I'd rather just send you straight to the Soul Society."
"Can't you hear the regret and reluctance in what I'm saying?!"
"I can, but I don't care." Muten Natsu looked completely unconcerned. "To me, you're just a Soul that needs Konsō. What you say and what you do have nothing to do with me. My job isn't to listen to you ramble. It's to send you on."
"Are all Shinigami heartless like you?"
"Not all of them."
Kyōma let out a long breath. "That's good."
"There are plenty who are colder than I am." Muten Natsu pointed at himself. "I'm one of the nicer ones."
"You think I'd believe that?"
"I don't need you to believe me. I just need you to go." Muten Natsu pointed toward the boxing club. "The one who needs you is over there."
Kyōma froze for a moment, then got to his feet. "Can I... still talk to him?"
"Don't go making trouble for me." Muten Natsu gave a cold snort. "I'm not passing along messages for you, and I'm definitely not watching the match for you."
…
The boxing venue was thick with tension and excitement.
The arena lights were dim, with only the ring lit up in stark brightness.
Inside the ropes, Sueyoshi was trading solid blows with his opponent, Samejima.
The thudding of punches rang out without pause. Sueyoshi's eyes were resolute, with none of the pathetic timidity he showed when he was being bullied.
"He's so strong!" "This is incredible!" "They're evenly matched!"
The crowd roared, and a few sharp eyed spectators quickly noticed more.
"No, Sueyoshi has the edge!"
"He's so fast!"
"Go, go, go!"
"Those jabs are landing one after another!"
"Beautiful!"
As the fight heated up, the atmosphere in the venue grew even more intense.
"So this is what a boxing match is like..." Rukia Kuchiki looked around curiously, noticing the excitement on the spectators' faces. "It feels a little like the Eleventh Division."
"It's pretty different from karate," Orihime Inoue said. She had seen Tatsuki Arisawa's matches before, and boxing was clearly nothing like that.
"Looks like Sueyoshi really wasn't just talking," Muten Natsu said, watching the ring. "He really has been training hard..."
"Hit him!" Kyōma floated excitedly in midair, punching the air. "Hook! Hook! Nice! One more!"
This should be fine now.
In the first round, Sueyoshi had still been getting used to things and focused mainly on defense.
By the second round, he started going on the offensive.
As soon as the third round began, Sueyoshi took the upper hand.
Judging from the score so far, as long as he kept this up, Sueyoshi had this match in the bag.
Kyōma suddenly fell silent. Watching Sueyoshi rest and get ready for the fourth round, he turned and moved closer to Muten Natsu.
"Send me on."
"Hm?" Muten Natsu looked puzzled. "You're not going to watch till the end?"
"It's enough." Kyōma shook his head. "Let this pure sport keep going in my memory."
"You're not going to say anything else to him?"
"I can't even tell whether I was helping him or just indulging my own selfish urges, so how could I possibly explain it to him?" Kyōma smiled. "Regret is part of life."
"All right, then..." Muten Natsu held out a hand to Kyōma.
"What's going on?!" "What happened?!" "Hey! Fight back!" "Did an old injury flare up?!" "Why isn't he hitting back?!" "Sueyoshi!"...
The stands erupted into chaos. Muten Natsu and Kyōma turned at once.
For some reason, Sueyoshi had completely lost the ferocity he showed earlier. He had curled in on himself and was only dodging. Even after taking several punches in a row, he showed no sign of striking back.
"That idiot!" Kyōma suddenly remembered what Muten Natsu had said earlier. "Could it be that damned conditioned reflex?!"
Sueyoshi slipped up on defense and took a heavy punch to the head.
Samejima pressed the advantage and drove another punch into Sueyoshi's stomach.
As Sueyoshi doubled over, Samejima followed with an uppercut that landed squarely on his chin.
"He was doing fine just a second ago..."
The moment Kyōma noticed Samejima drawing back to throw another punch, he stopped thinking and dove straight into Sueyoshi's body.
"What are you doing?!"
Sueyoshi's body swayed, narrowly avoiding Samejima's punch, and he fired back with a punch of his own.
"You finally came, Kyōma."
"Sueyoshi..." Kyōma had just tried to take control of Sueyoshi's body, but failed.
Whether it was defending or counterattacking, Sueyoshi was doing it all himself.
"I knew it..." Sueyoshi murmured in his mind, passing the thought on to Kyōma. "If I was getting beaten up, you'd definitely show up. I'm sorry... I said some awful things to you before."
"Idiot! Focus!" Kyōma shouted inside Sueyoshi's head.
Sueyoshi handled Samejima's attacks with ease. "Thank you, really, for always protecting me. You showed me that violence is not just a way to hurt people. It can also be a way to protect them. But... I don't want you protecting me anymore."
"Why...?"
"Do you remember the day you took me to the boxing club? You happily told me that helping people who needed help was the reason you learned boxing." Sueyoshi ducked under Samejima's attack and blasted out a left hook. "But when you were fighting those guys to protect me, you started using illegal moves."
"Sueyoshi..." Kyōma seemed to understand what Sueyoshi meant. "You think I stained boxing?"
"No. I stained you!" Sueyoshi threw his fist with all his strength. "Because I was useless, because I was a coward, you had to fight people using fouls. You were the one who showed me how joyful boxing could be, but I was the one who made you stray from its purity. I don't want you to become like that."
"Idiot..." Kyōma cursed. "I did it willingly!"
"But I didn't want that!" Sueyoshi clenched his fists tight. "If I could become stronger, you would not have to fight people to protect me anymore. If I could become stronger, you could feel the purity of boxing again. If I could become stronger, you would not have died... If I could become stronger, you would not still be worrying about me even after death..."
Sueyoshi leaned back to avoid Samejima's punch, then dropped low to launch his own attack.
But after throwing his punch, Samejima did not return to a defensive stance. Instead, he raised his elbow and smashed it toward Sueyoshi's face.
That was an obvious foul!
Sueyoshi suddenly dropped his head and took the elbow head on with his forehead.
"I've taken hits like this far too many times already!"
Years of being bullied without ever fighting back had indeed given Sueyoshi a conditioned reflex. The moment someone swung at him, his body automatically braced to take the blow.
But at the same time, it had also forged him into someone who could take a beating.
He tanked Samejima's attack and drove a straight punch right into Samejima's face!
Samejima crashed hard to the mat, and the referee began the count.
"10... 9..."
"Thank you for everything you've done for me..." Sueyoshi stood beneath the lights, in the ring, beside his fallen opponent. "I'm sorry for turning you into that... I'll keep working hard. I'll work hard to become stronger! Just like you protected me, I'll protect other people too."
"3... 2... 1! The winner is Sueyoshi!!!"
"Sueyoshi, your boxing..." Kyōma slowly slipped out of Sueyoshi's body. "It isn't pure either."
Watching Sueyoshi amid the cheers, Kyōma returned to Muten Natsu's side.
"Boxing... is amazing, isn't it?"
Muten Natsu answered with complete honesty. "Well... I have no idea what you two were talking about, so even if you say something like that, I can't really give you a very good response."
Kyōma stared at him. "Are you allergic to being moved?"