Chapter 50 — Fifty Punch
Inside the Saitama Prefecture Police Station.
"Ahahaha, really, my apologies…"
Megure, with his beer belly, rubbed the small mustache on his upper lip, while the Saitama police officer he was speaking with wore a somewhat embarrassed expression.
Behind them was an interrogation room. Saitama and Genos sat handcuffed to a table. Standing nearby was a familiar face—Wataru Takagi.
"By the way, why are you two here?" Saitama's gaze shifted from Megure at the door to Takagi.
"We just happened to be in Saitama Prefecture for an interdepartmental exchange with the local police. Didn't expect to run into you guys," Takagi said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. "And of course, the moment we arrived, you were already cuffed as if you were criminals… Well, not 'as if'—you basically are the criminals here."
Takagi then glanced at the golden-haired cyborg he was meeting for the first time.
"My name is Genos," the cyborg said calmly.
"Ah, Mr. Genos… I heard you were the one who blew up the Yasohachi Bridge," Takagi sighed. "Even though this involves jujutsu, and the higher-ups usually try to give you some leeway, you should still rein it in a little. Getting dragged into the station is quite troublesome."
Genos looked at him disapprovingly and raised a hand slightly. "This petty police station cannot restrain me. These handcuffs would shatter the moment I applied force…"
"Don't break the handcuffs!" Takagi quickly intervened. "If you do, it'll be considered an escape attempt!"
Genos: "…"
Fortunately, at that moment, Megure had finished his discussions with the prefectural police. The two walked in, and as the police officer used a key to unlock the cuffs, his gaze toward Saitama and Genos carried a hint of curiosity.
Megure and Takagi accompanied Saitama and Genos out of the station. Before leaving, Megure warned them, "Be careful in your actions from now on. Try to minimize damage to public or private property and avoid drawing attention. By the way, when you jujutsu sorcerers carry out missions, don't you usually deploy an 'obscuration technique' called a 'barrier'?"
"Sensei and I don't know how to use a 'barrier,'" Genos replied bluntly.
"…"
Megure and Takagi were momentarily silent, then turned and returned to the station.
"Sensei, it's already four p.m.," Genos said after glancing at the time. "Shall we head to the inn now?"
Saitama snapped back to attention. "Mm, let's go."
---
Half an hour later, outside the Blue Forest Inn.
"You're finally back! You didn't even deploy a 'barrier,' and yet you blew up the Yasohachi Bridge… unbelievable!"
Facing Saitama and Genos, who had just returned from the police station, Akira Nitta—who had previously remained composed—couldn't help but show frustration. "That officer Takagi called Gojo-sensei, who then informed me, and I found out you actually did this… What were you thinking?!"
"You!" Genos stepped forward. "Daring to speak rudely to Sensei…"
"Huh? Speaking of which, Genos, you were the one who destroyed the Yasohachi Bridge, right?" Nitta's tone grew louder, startling Genos. "No normal person would exorcise a curse this way!"
"You…"
Genos opened his mouth, but Saitama, exasperated, tugged on his arm.
"Genos, let it go," he said sheepishly. "This time, we're technically at fault anyway."
Fortunately, Nitta didn't dwell too long. After a few moments of venting, she sighed. "Alright, alright. I'll write up the incident report tonight. Anyway, after receiving the information, we checked the ruins of the Yasohachi Bridge and confirmed that all traces of cursed energy are completely gone. Tonight, everyone can just relax at the hot spring inn."
"The inn we originally booked was just a normal one, but Gojo-sensei upgraded it to a hot spring inn for us." Nitta handed out room cards. "There's only me and Nobara for the girls, so we'll share a room. The five boys will split into a group of three and a group of two…"
"I'll share a room with Sensei Saitama," Genos declared loudly before Nitta could finish.
"Oh, here's your card." Nitta handed the two-room key to Genos.
Junpei Yoshino, standing aside, felt a twinge of regret. He had wanted to share a room with Saitama too, but Genos beat him to it. Still, seeing the energetic Yuji Itadori, he decided that being in the three-person group wasn't bad.
After distributing the room cards, Nitta instructed, "Tonight is free time. Tomorrow morning, we'll meet here at ten o'clock."
"Ohhh!" Yuji Itadori clutched his room card, eyes shining. "Even though the mission ended without us really doing anything, holding the room card gives it a sort of 'training camp' feeling!"
"This is quite rare," even Megumi Fushiguro remarked. "After all, the Jujutsu Tech School is special—it's not like a normal school with camps or school trips. Even if students go somewhere a little distant, it's usually just for missions. They come and go quickly, without opportunities to enjoy a hot spring like this."
"Sounds great…" Yuji put the card back in his pocket and picked up the inn's guest guide booklet, flipping through it. "They have a lot of different hot springs! Let's go soak together later!"
"Um, Saitama-Sensei, will you come with us?" Junpei asked.
"As for that…"
Saitama's simple-lined face suddenly grew serious. "I won't be joining you. I have my own plans."
...
Fifteen minutes later.
"Junpei and the others probably want to go to the regular hot spring. But I'm here for the hair-growth spring. Better to go separately."
Having already removed his clothes and wrapped a towel around his waist, Saitama stood by the steaming hair-growth spring with a small basket of belongings, eyes fixed on the water.
"By the way," Saitama turned to point at Genos' smooth golden hair, "Genos, your head has been modified too, right? So your hair is artificial fiber?"
"Yes, Sensei," Genos replied respectfully, holding his basket. "My hair is made of reinforced synthetic fibers. Water- and heat-resistant, but modeled after my original hair in texture."
"So, your original hair was dense and smooth… ah, that's nice."
Saitama set his basket on a rack and continued, "But Genos, since your hair is synthetic, you don't actually need to come to this spring. It won't have any effect on you anyway."
"I'm a cyborg. Most of my body is made of waterproof components, so no spring would have any effect on me. Wherever I go, it's the same," Genos explained.
"Ah, I see."
After removing his robe, Saitama wrapped a towel around his waist and sank into the hot water. Genos sat beside him. As a cyborg, he didn't even need a towel.
The hair-growth spring steamed in silence. Since it wasn't peak tourist season, besides the two of them, only an elderly man remained, his head partially bald in a pattern reminiscent of the Mediterranean.
"Ahhh—" Saitama let out a satisfied sigh as he sank further into the hot water, letting it reach up to his head.
He muttered to himself with excitement, "Now, as long as I soak in this spring, my hair follicles should gradually revive… Can't wait to see the results."
One hour later.
"Sensei."
"..."
The elderly man with the Mediterranean-style bald patch had long since left the hot spring. Genos sat in the water, watching Saitama beside him.
"Sensei," he asked again when Saitama didn't respond, "normally people soak in hot springs for about twenty to thirty minutes. But we've already been here for an hour. Aren't you going to get out soon?"
"..."
Saitama's skin had turned a deep red from the heat, his facial features warped into wavy lines, making him look like a potato rolling in boiling water.
"Ah, mm." He opened his wavy-line-shaped mouth and forced out a reply. "I still want to soak a bit longer. The longer I stay, the better the effect of the spring, haha… ha…"
"That has no scientific basis, Sensei."
"..."
Saitama continued to float in the water, suddenly thinking of something. "Genos, if you're done soaking, go get me a cold milk from the vending machine. I'm feeling hot and almost dehydrated."
Genos blinked, then immediately replied, "Yes, Sensei!"
Listening to Genos' footsteps fade into the distance, Saitama closed his eyes again, bobbing gently in the spring.
Time passed without him noticing, until footsteps sounded at the entrance of the hair-growth spring.
"Ah, is that Genos?" Saitama stood up with a splash, looking expectantly toward the entrance. "Cold milk—huh?"
He scratched his head in confusion—because the person entering the spring wasn't Genos with the ice-cold milk he had been waiting for, but a guy dressed like a Las Vegas strip dancer.
—Five minutes earlier, Eso had traced the faint remnants of the curse from the Yasohachi Bridge to the hot spring inn. It was clear the curse had followed someone to the inn, but over time, the cursed energy had thinned out so much that by the time they arrived, it had vanished completely.
Night had fallen. Unable to determine exactly which person the curse following the finger-devouring Sukuna had latched onto, Eso and his younger brother split up to search the inn for clues. Taking one path, Eso eventually reached the hair-growth spring.
But he found no curse there—only a bald head soaking in the spring.
Eso and Saitama stared at each other in silence for a moment.
Saitama's deadpan eyes slowly traveled up Eso's face, finally resting on the top of his head, where a patch of hair remained in the center, the rest completely bald.
"You're here for the hair-growth spring too?" Saitama asked blankly. "You really stripped down thoroughly."
"Ah?"
Eso was a bit puzzled, but upon seeing his reflection in the mirror embedded in the wall across the spring, he quickly understood why Saitama had said that.
"There's no trace of a curse here, and that blank-faced bald man soaking in the spring shows no sign of cursed energy."
Still, Eso had no intention of provoking a jujutsu sorcerer. After all, even though the brothers had temporarily chosen to cooperate with humans like Mahito, they bore no deep hatred toward humans or sorcerers. Their mission was limited to retrieving Sukuna's two fingers.
"Looks like it's not here," Eso murmured, retreating.
Saitama: "..."
What's with this guy? I thought he came in to try and grow some hair too.
With a splash, Saitama fell back into the spring, his deadpan eyes staring up at the sky. Above, the night sky was irregularly segmented by the emerald bamboo surrounding the spring.
"Genos is taking so long…"
...
Elsewhere.
Genos raced through the inn, searching for a vending machine.
He had assumed he could quickly buy the cold milk Sensei wanted, but several vending machines along the way were either sold out or had no chilled milk.
This forced Genos to sprint to the inn's main entrance, where he finally found a row of vending machines in the lobby.
"Cold milk, 350 yen per box. Original and strawberry flavors… Based on past observation, Sensei usually drinks the original."
Genos quickly made up his mind, pulled out a few coins from his wallet, and inserted them into the machine.
Halfway through, he heard a soft "ding" behind him.
He instinctively turned, only to see the automatic sliding doors of the inn slowly opening. But the entrance and the lobby were empty, bathed in the quiet darkness of night.
"..."
Genos paused for a moment, said nothing, and returned to inserting the last coins.
The final coin dropped. He pressed the button. A box of cold milk fell into the collection slot with a clunk.
The cyborg bent down, lifted the flap, and grabbed the milk. But at that moment, with his body no longer blocking the view, the vending machine's glass panel caught a glint of something horrifying behind him.
From the air behind Genos, a black mist began to coalesce, and at its center, a goldfish-like head with bulging eyes slowly emerged.
A sinister aura spread, the goldfish head's four swollen eyes opened and closed, its thick lips pursed, aiming at Genos' back.
In the blink of an eye, Genos' arm snapped with a mechanical "crack," rotating 180 degrees to face the lurking curse. The palm-mounted cannon ignited, flames already primed.
"Incinerate." He said calmly.
The fire from the cyborg's palm immediately engulfed the ambushing curse. Its outline struggled within the flames, then gradually dissipated. Genos precisely controlled the area of effect—the fire blazed around the curse, but the inn's walls and furnishings remained completely unharmed.
The fire soon extinguished. Genos' arm rotated back swiftly. One hand held the cold milk, the other still radiating heat and white smoke. He turned around.
"You thought you could sneak up and hit me unprepared?" Genos said, brow furrowed, metal knuckles clenching and unclenching. "Get out of here! Sensei is waiting for his milk."
As he finished speaking, the night outside the inn's automatic doors suddenly transformed.
The smooth asphalt floor turned into a riverbed overgrown with wet coral, seaweed, and moss. Stalactites became support frames, entwined with slender fungal threads, forming countless milky-white cocoons.
Amid the stalactite pillars entwined with fungal threads, a mass of wet, rippling scales shifted. Like a pangolin curling up and slowly uncoiling, it revealed what lay within—
From the scales emerged a curse dripping with river water, carrying a faint fishy stench.
If Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, or Nobara Kugisaki—who had all fought in the Juvenile Detention Facility—were present, they would instantly recognize it. This curse bore a ninety percent resemblance to the Special Grade curse from the detention facility.
The reason was simple: both curses had consumed a finger of Sukuna.
The cursed energy within Sukuna's fingers far exceeded that of ordinary curses. After consuming one, a curse's strength could be forcibly elevated to Special Grade, but the curse's form would also develop similarities to the other, almost like siblings born of the same mother.
However, if Saitama, who had fought the Special Grade curse in the detention facility, were present, he wouldn't recognize the curse before him. In his eyes, all enemies at the Juvenile Detention Facility were the same—unremarkable, to be solved with a single punch, not worth memorizing.
"…So this is something called a Domain." Genos quickly activated the knowledge he had scanned and processed in his mind. "Then, this guy is Special Grade…"
"Hmph, perfect for testing the parts Mechamaru gave me," he muttered.
Genos set down the box of cold milk and stepped outside the inn.
"Better to fight outside. Entering a curse's Domain would put me at a disadvantage. Also, if I destroy the building like during the day, Sensei might get in trouble with that blonde woman, Akira Nitta."
"Ehehe—" The Special Grade curse's multiple eyes fixed on Genos, emitting an eerie, chilling laughter.
The unsettling sound lingered in the air, but before it faded, two rows of thrusters suddenly sprang from Genos' shoulder blades, shooting six streams of dazzling fire—azure at the base, orange-red at the tips.
Using the reaction force, the cyborg shot out of the inn like an arrow, the fiery trail behind him resembling golden meteors.
In an instant, Genos closed in on the Special Grade curse. The curse swung its sharp-clawed hand, gathering cursed energy, and struck at him.
But the next moment, the blonde cyborg's left hand detached unexpectedly from his shoulder, connected to it by a steel cable. His fingers clamped onto the curse's arm like iron pincers.
"Ahh—!"
The Special Grade curse screeched, stumbling forward under the pull. But Genos' flight path had already shifted.
His shoulder thrusters adjusted slightly, and using the steel cable and centrifugal force, he spun rapidly around the curse, flames from his back tracing brilliant circles around it in the night.
"Machine Gun Barrage Fist!"
Genos bent his right arm slightly, fire igniting along it, and rained a storm of strikes on the Special Grade curse.
Thanks to Dr. Kuseno's modifications, Genos could now punch thirteen times per second with one arm. The blindingly fast assault lit up even the darkest corners of the riverbed Domain.
The Special Grade curse widened its eyes and let out a mournful cry. Genos' speed left almost no interval between strikes; dozens of bowl-sized dents appeared across the curse's body nearly simultaneously.
Genos released his left hand from the curse's arm. The curse toppled backward, its egg-sized eyes bulging, black pupils rolling upward, leaving only bloodshot whites.
"Final Strike!"
Without hesitation, Genos brought his palms together, mechanical clicks echoing as the cannon ports on his arms spread like lotus petals.
"Ultimate Incinerate!"
Flames erupted from his arm cannons, shooting skyward and illuminating the night.
At that moment, whether soaking in the hot spring—Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara—or Nobara applying skincare in her room, Akira Nitta changing into her yukata, and other guests, everyone was drawn to the light at the inn's entrance.
"Is that a giant bonfire?" Saitama muttered in the hot spring, tilting his head to watch the blaze. "I don't remember this being mentioned when we checked in."
The Special Grade curse gradually turned to black smoke under Genos' Ultimate Incinerate. The riverbed Domain vanished in the next second, and the inn's entrance returned to its normal state.
Genos' arm retracted along the steel cable with a sharp "shick," his feet landing on the ground as he flexed his arms.
"That takes care of it."
He raised a hand, staring at the still-hot cannon port, lost in thought.
"After upgrading the parts Dr. Kuseno gave me, the damage against curses really increased. Is it because of the additional cursed-energy amplification?"
A memory of a volcano-headed curse flashed before his eyes.
With the parts now upgraded, he wondered whether he could defeat that volcano-headed curse if they met again…
At that moment, the body of the Special Grade curse completely disintegrated. Something clinked as it fell to the hard concrete floor.
"Hm?" Genos' thoughts snapped back. He stepped forward and picked up a finger turned into a purple-brown mummified wax.
"This is…"
As he muttered, a shadow darted past his side.
—Another enemy?
In an instant, Genos clenched the finger tightly and turned sharply. But the next second, his right hand felt lighter.
Crackling electricity danced along the central joint of his arm; fragments of steel armor clattered to the floor, wires dangling uselessly from the broken connection.
Genos froze for a moment, then realized—
The arm holding Sukuna's finger had been severed, and there was more than one assailant.
The blonde cyborg's gaze locked onto two figures.
The malformed blue-and-cyan Kechizu, and beside him, Eso, holding a half-arm sparking with electricity.
...
Compared to the battlefield outside the inn, the hair-growth spring was now shrouded in steam and quiet.
Saitama soaked in the hot spring, his expression blank as he recalled the flames earlier.
The pamphlet provided to guests made no mention of bonfires or fireworks. And that flash of light—it looked, in retrospect, a lot like Genos' Ultimate Incinerate…
With a splash, Saitama stood up from the spring, adjusting the towel around his waist.
"Better go see for myself," he muttered, stepping out of the water.