[The word hit and your pupils contracted. Your brain caught up in an instant.]
[Inside the Zenin clan's insular, bloodline-obsessed hellhole, the Kukuru Unit was the bottom rung. Clan members who'd inherited no Innate Technique, some with cursed energy so faint it barely registered.]
[Under jujutsu law and Windows' classification standards, these people were, for all practical purposes... civilians.]
[If you deployed destructive jujutsu against "civilians" in broad daylight, the one caught breaking the secrecy code wouldn't be Naoya.]
[It would be you.]
[He never expected them to beat you. They were meat shields, designed to seal off your techniques and pin you down.]
["What are you standing around for?! Move!"]
[They didn't need to be told twice. Four Kukuru Unit members surged forward like wolves unleashed.]
[Three formed a tight triangular formation, thick arms swinging to cut off every avenue of retreat. The fourth slipped around your blind spot, darting straight for Megumi like a leopard.]
[The world seemed to slow. You started to turn, but the fist from the left was already closing on your jaw, the sweeping leg on the right sealing the exit.]
["Hayase...!"]
[A scream tore through the noise. Raw with terror, helplessness, and total collapse. It punched through the air and buried itself in your chest like a bullet. Your heart lurched, missing a beat.]
[Because Megumi Fushiguro, that painfully precocious child, the little adult who called you "Mr. Hayase" or "Sensei" with forced composure even when staring down Cursed Spirits... he had never once called you the way Tsumiki did. Never with that kind of unguarded, desperate need.]
[That single word was his last line of defense crumbling. A final distress call to the only person he thought of as family.]
["Megumi...!!"]
[You whipped around, eyes burning red, reaching out without a thought for anything else, but a heavy fist filled your entire field of vision.]
["Crack!"]
[A calloused iron fist smashed into the side of your face. The impact snapped your head sideways. The taste of rust flooded your mouth.]
[In that single second, the one who'd circled behind had already locked both arms around Megumi's waist.]
["Let go!! Hayase...!!"]
[Megumi thrashed wildly, small hands clawing at the air, but against a grown man's strength he was a kitten held by the scruff. The man showed no mercy, covering the distance to Naoya in a few quick strides.]
[Naoya ripped the sobbing boy from his subordinate's grip and hurled him into the open door of a black luxury sedan like a piece of luggage.]
["Tch. Noisy little brat."]
[He dusted off his hands with a look of disgust, as if he'd touched something filthy, then turned, one hand resting on the car door.]
[As the window rose, about to seal away Megumi's pale, struggling, terrified face, Naoya peered through the half-lowered glass. Across the crowd, past the three men beating you down, his eyes found yours.]
[His lips curled into the cruelest, most satisfied grin yet. Eyes brimming with the sick thrill of revenge.]
[He raised his right hand, beckoned with one taunting finger, then drew it slowly across his throat.]
["Slam!" The door shut. The engine roared like a beast. Tires shrieked against asphalt, and the black sedan tore away.]
[Watching those taillights carry Megumi into the distance, something black and almost physical churned in the pit of your chest.]
[Behind your eyes, the scene replayed on loop. Megumi's wide eyes, filled with terror and defiance, as they shoved him into the car. And that voice, cracking with tears, echoing over and over.]
[Hayase...]
["Crack! Thud!"]
[Two more solid hits. The force drove you half a step back.]
[The three Kukuru members, seeing you refuse to use jujutsu, grew bolder. Under Naoya's earlier signal, their strikes turned vicious and dirty. Every blow aimed at something vital. This wasn't just stalling anymore. They wanted to break you for good.]
[Your head hung low, black hair falling over your eyes, and you let the punches rain down. Face... stomach... shoulders. Again and again.]
[At your sides, your fists clenched until the knuckles went white. Bones ground together with an audible, teeth-aching creak.]
[Did it hurt?]
[Honestly, these flimsy physical blows were nothing. Compared to what Naoya Zenin did to you every day in that hopeless simulation, cursed energy torture dealt out purely for his own amusement, this didn't even register as an itch.]
[You could feel it. That passive state carved so deep into your soul it had become part of you. Bearing Insults and Heavy Burdens. After an eternity dormant, it stirred back to life.]
[Only this time, it wasn't about surviving like a dog.]
[This time, it was about converting every drop of this towering rage into the purest, most lethal force imaginable.]
[Slowly, inch by inch, you raised your head.]
[The air, noisy just a moment ago, seemed to have its temperature ripped away in the instant your eyes came up. The three Kukuru members, mid-swing, froze in the most unnatural way. Fists hanging in dead air.]
[In your eyes, they found nothing. No fury from being beaten. No panic. Just a suffocating, abyssal stillness. The kind of primal, marrow-deep tremor that seizes every living thing when something at the absolute top of the food chain locks on.]
[You ignored the stares of the bystanders. Didn't draw on even a whisper of cursed energy.]
[For trash like this, you didn't need a technique.]
[One deep breath. Every muscle fiber in your body dialed to its perfect killing state. Cursed energy roared through your circuits at full speed. When you spoke, the voice that came out was low, cold, and stripped of anything resembling human warmth.]
["Clench your teeth."]
["Wha..."]
[The closest one. The biggest. The one who'd been grinning the widest. He didn't even have time to blink.]
[Your right fist, ripped upward with an air-splitting sonic crack and detonated dead center on his face.]
["CRACK!"]
[Not the sound of flesh hitting flesh. The wet, heavy crunch of a sledgehammer caving in a watermelon.]
["Psshh...!"]
[Blood and shattered teeth erupted in a fine mist against the sunset, spraying outward in a starburst pattern, painting your knuckles and half your sleeve red.]
[The man weighed over two hundred pounds. He didn't even get a scream out. The bones of his face visibly caved inward. His massive frame launched off the ground, sailing three, four meters through the air on nothing but raw kinetic force.]
["Thud!"]
[He hit the pavement like a dead tree. Consciousness gone. Only a faint twitch remained.]
[The remaining two Kukuru members stared at their colleague lying in a spreading pool of blood, life status unknown. Then they looked at you. At the fist slowly lowering, slick with red. At the face showing absolutely nothing, like a war god descending into the mortal world.]
[Their Adam's apples bobbed. Their calves began to shake beyond their control. Something nameless and absolute finally surfaced in the depths of their eyes.]
[Fear.]
[You flicked your wrist, shaking the blood off your knuckles. Like brushing away something dirty.]
[Your head tilted slightly. Those lightless eyes settled on the last two like they were already corpses.]
["You're next."]