“Congratulations, Saruhiko. Now that you have become a J ranker, I shall give you power personally through the installation. Although, considering that you are already a 2 color user, you might not find the occasion anything special.”
Hisui’s body glowed green, entwined in whips of electricity that burst with a crackling sound. The radiance elongated in what almost looked like cords, or maybe vines that a green plant sprouted, that spread wide within a moment and attached themselves to Fushimi’s body. The long thin tendrils of green light clung to Fushimi’s arms, temples, chest, linking him up to Hisui Nagare. The moment a weak electric shock, followed by characteristic numbness, ran across his body, the light disappeared.
Having gone through multiple installations, Fushimi unfailingly found that when it came down to it, it was always over so quick.
Producing a knife he had hidden in his sleeve, he focused his thoughts on the third color now dwelling in his body. Green light engulfed the knife, and an electric current coiled around it. The new power, welling up from deep within his body, was nothing like its borrowed counterpart lent through a PDA.
“A third color, huh…” Fushimi muttered without much emotion behind the words.
“I’m an old man, so I don’t really get what’s so good about those modern games. It’s a mystery for me why Nagare and Sukuna are so crazy about them that they can pip-pip with the game console all day long.”
“No need tho’?” Iwafune narrowed his bottomless eyes with a grin. “This place is free. You can act however you like, Saruhiko-kun, and ask whatever you like. I will answer those of your questions I wanna answer, and ignore those that I don’t feel like answering,” Iwafune sing-songed.
Fushimi looked away from him, chopping up the vegetables violently as if in hopes of glossing the incident over. Iwafune opened the plastic bag with the chicken meat, unloading its contents onto a tray and sprinkling them with potato starch, then throwing them into the hot oil. With a satisfying sizzle, the chicken meat plunged into the oil, floating in it. For a while, it was quiet, with only the sounds of cooking breaking the silence occasionally. If Fushimi was to space out enough, he could almost believe that this wasn’t the dead middle of the enemy territory but a peaceful household.
Piling up the cabbage he chopped up on a plate in a manner that was more appropriate for throwing out garbage, Fushimi asked quietly, “…What do you intent to do with these vegetables?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I just don’t feel like I have any obligation to handle the vegetables I won’t be eating myself with any sort of care.”
“Oh, what a nice smell.”
“Don’t lump me together with him! Besides, I only hate bell peppers and have no problem eating the other veggies in hotpot!”
“Sukunaa, put the gas burner on the tea table, will you?”
“But first, wash your hands.”
“Where is Nagare-chan?”
“Yeah. I’m new here, after all. Call it learning for the sake of what’s to come.”
“I was not sleeping, just thinking with my eyes closed.” Giving Sukuma a childish excuse like that, Hisui shifted his gaze to Fushimi.
That direct gaze, betraying no emotions whatsoever, made Fushimi flinch inwardly, but outwardly, keeping up his composed facade, he replied casually, “Yes, I did. I mostly figured out the layout of the secret base. I believe it will save me a good amount of time come the next mission.”
“What, huh… Nothing much.” Fushimi couldn’t provide much of an answer to Hisui’s abrupt and vague inquiry.
Only his right eye visible, Hisui gazed at Fushimi from beneath his white hair that almost seemed to glow. Back when Hisui was a presence lurking on the other side of the internet and Fushimi didn’t know what he looked like, he tended to imagine the Green King as having a villainous air about him, but after he had met him in person, “childish” had became the descriptor also coming to mind.
Fushimi looked away, pushing up at the bridge of his glasses. “…When I first stepped to "this side”, I felt that the Slate might be the power that could change the world, but now I don’t have any particularly strong feelings towards it. If anything, it seems to me from time to time that all of you kings are being manipulated by the Slate one way or another.“
With each next word coming out of Fushimi’s mouth, the sharp glint in Sukuna’s eyes was becoming more pronounced.
Assuming that Hisui would see through him if he tried to flatter him, Fushimi gave his honest answer.
Hisui’s expression didn’t change, still making it impossible to grasp what he was thinking.
"The Slate’s power lies in the wide variety of possibilities,” Hisui said. “Making use of those possibilities is up to each person. If someone looks like they are being manipulated by the Slate, it likely means that they do not make proper use of their possibilities. Being controlled by one’s dream is a rather common occurrence. Whether they can reach the endresult they desire after being manipulated and controlled by it or not is also up to each person.”
Not moving his head an inch, Hisui was seizing up the Slate and Fushimi in turns with his gaze only. Appearance-wise, he belonged to the category of people that could be described as good-looking, but the unnatural paleness of his skin and his quirk of staring right at people with unblinking eyes for prolonged periods of time brought out the creepiness factor which ended up eclipsing everything else.
“Countless possibilities exist at any given time. Life itself is but a series of choices. Depending on the option chosen, the endresult that can be reached also varies greatly. —Saruhiko, I am looking forward to your choice.”
Hisui’s dispassionate voice sent a shiver down Fushimi’s spine, and all of the hair on Fushimi’s body stood on end.
Fushimi couldn’t tell how much of what was to come Hisui could foresee to have the base for making such statements, but at that moment Fushimi felt like the fact that, depending on his “choice”, not only the future within the reach would change greatly, but his future itself may very well disappear, tangibly brushed against the nape of his neck.
♦
The liberation of the Slate was close.
It appeared that with no one around to maintain the seals placed on it, the Slate’s primary function, that is, bestowing supernatural abilities upon every living person on the planet as the “humanity evolution device”, started manifesting without restrain. The light it radiated was getting stronger by the day, so the time of its full awakening was, no doubt, nearing.
Aware of the pressing circumstances, Fushimi turned his back to the Slate, leaning against one of the concrete pillars that lined the space at regular intervals, and focused on the fight between Yukari and Sukuna.
Yukari’s long-bladed sword sliced through the air. The peculiarly colored light the sword emanated was perhaps due to Yukari blending his colors as a more-than-one color user to produce this mix, or maybe it was simply a special ability he possessed from the start. At the very least, it was a peculiarity that Fushimi, a several color user himself, didn’t have.
Yukari’s glimmering blade glided through the space, drawing fancy arcs in the air. Without concentrating, it was hard to follow them even with the eyes.
But Sukuna matched Yukari’s attacks blow for blow despite their speed. Yukari moved with fluidity of a dancer; Sukuna’s movements, on the other hand, looked more like those of a small animal jumping about.
Sukuna’s big eyes chased the tip of Yukari’s sword, and his body reacted accordingly, shifting and whirling. With Sukuna being a lightweight, his fighting style, with aerial battle as its forte, was more acrobatics than anything else.
Jumping up high, Sukuna brought down his scythe on the tall Yukari from above. The scythe’s blade, enveloped in green light, clashed with Yukari’s sword, Ayamachi, and got repelled. His attack repulsed, Sukuna spun the handle of the scythe around its midpoint and, after righting his posture in mid-air, kicked the nearby pillar, launching himself at Yukari yet again. Yukari dodged the assault with ease and with a light step of a dancer, swung his Ayamachi at Sukuna’s back. Sukuna’s head didn’t even turn to look back as he avoided the blade by rolling across the floor; then, as he was getting back up to his feet, he launched another attack, pointing the sharp tip of the scythe’s sickle upward and making a scoop-up motion with it. Not perturbed in the slightest, Yukari calmly blocked Sukuna’s blow with his sword. The heavy and gritty sound of metal on metal resounded in the sprawling underground space.
Fushimi felt his eyeballs go dry from how unblinkingly he followed the development of the battle between the two, so he blinked his eyes a few times.
Yukari kept moving like dancing, and Sukuna kept doing his acrobatics.
'What is this, a circus?’ Fushimi commented snidely in his head. But, in contrast to that mocking remark, droplets of unpleasant cold sweat traveled down his spine. 'And in the first place, how come two comrades are using lethal weapons, easily capable of killing the opponent, in a friendly bout?’
In Scepter 4, they used drawn sabers when practicing fixed swordplay kata in a line, but naturally, for combat practice involving exchange of blows, only bamboo swords were used.
That game Yukari and Sukuna played was extremely dangerous, but their moves were sure. To them, it might have been only a warm-up routine rather than a real fight, perhaps.
“That boy is strong, you know? He lacks refined beauty for now, but in raw power he’s equal or even stronger than me. If he challenges you to a fight again, I advice you to decline.”
Fushimi pondered those words that Yukari said to him earlier.
'I would be lucky if the circumstances would allow me to decline,’ Fushimi thought with a scowl settling over his features.
After getting into a trifle argument with Sukuna (that is to say, Fushimi stooped to the level of the brat, and to him the fact was annoying as hell) and getting punched by Yukari along with him, Fushimi watched Sukuna ask Yukari, “Yukarii, let’s fight for a bit. Since, the newcomer won’t play with me.” Sukuna made a show of looking in Fushimi’s direction as he said that.
Yukari gave him a wry smile and with a shrug of his shoulders accepted the challenge. “I don’t mind. But we won’t bet any points, got it? I would feel bad extorting points from a child through a bet.”
“……Tch.” Sukuna admitted his defeat by lowering his scythe but puffed his cheeks in frustration.
Yukari chuckled quietly and, spinning his beloved sword nimbly, put it back into the sheath on his back. He then turned on his heels and started walking in Fushimi’s direction.
“Did you enjoy spectating our little game?” Yukari asked, throwing a sidelong glance at Fushimi as he passed him by. Fushimi didn’t answer right away, and Yukari passed him by without stopping, not waiting for a reply.
Awkward silence stretched on between the still squatting Sukuna and the only other person still left on the scene, Fushimi.
“Tch,” Sukuna gave another small tongue click and stood up. Putting the handle of his scythe, with its sickle created by his powers now undone, on his shoulder, Sukuna sported a frown, his attitude losing some of its usual bite, probably because he felt embarrassed about having been seen lose.
Fushimi didn’t handle kids very well in general, and this one in particular. The brat made Fushimi feel restless because, just like with an animal, you never had any idea what to expect next with him.
“I was in my practice mode, got it?! It won’t go like that in a real fight!” Sukuna made nonsensical excuses, pointing at Fushimi with the scythe’s handle.
Fushimi answered nothing, only letting out a big sigh. 'Does this brat even understand that when he loses in that “real fight”, it will be all over?’
Sukuna was still a 13 year old kid. Fushimi had no idea just how much of the current situation, of his own position and of the meaning behind what he participated in Sukuna actually comprehended. A heavy feeling settled in the pit of Fushimi’s stomach as he thought about Hisui Nagare’s reasons for involving a small brat like that into his shit.
Except it seemed that to Hisui Nagare, there was no difference between kids, flaming gays, birds and kings, all of that being but negligible details to him.
“Gojou.”
“I wanna know your opinion. What do you think of the Slate that that king of yours plundered and is now trying to activate?”
Sukuna blinked at him and paused for a couple of seconds, thinking. “It’s a tool necessary for Nagare to turn the world into an awesome game setting.”
Fushimi grimaced and turned his head to gaze at the Slate behind him. The radiance coming from it as it tried to divest of the last of the restricting seals was really bright now. So bright that the last restrain could fall off any minute now.
“Reality ain’t no game, you know.”
“…Do you realize how risky the game you’re playing is?”
Sukuna snorted at that. “I bet all my remaining LPs and joined Nagare in his game.”
'Damn game nut of a brat,’ Fushimi cursed inwardly, gritting his teeth.
What was the worst though was that this brat had made such a choice not because his game-fried brain mixed up reality and virtuality. Which meant, the answer to the question Fushimi asked himself earlier, about whether the brat understood that losing in a “real fight” spelt game over in reality, was a solid yes. Fushimi couldn’t tell the degree of how “real” reality actually felt to Sukuna, but it was clear that he understood what was at stake.
The brat was intent on having fun participating in Hisui Nagare’s “Let’s remake this world according to my wishes” game despite properly differentiating between reality and virtuality.
Hisui said that life was a series of choices. And Sukuna had chosen Hisui Nagare. His choice was conscious, made with the awareness of the pain and suffering, the hated and resentment borne out of them, and all the other raw and vivid emotions to be found there, and now that he had chosen, he treated reality as a game and tried to play it as one.
For Fushimi, it meant that come the time to fight this brat, he would need to be fully prepared to kill or be killed.
With Fushimi, it was doubtful to begin with if he could even embrace the leniency of going easy on the opponent because they were only a kid and the luxury of the weakness to question himself if he could actually kill or not, and under these circumstances giving in to these notions would only endanger his life further.
Fushimi’s chest got weighted heavily with this realization, adding to the bitterness already dwelling there.
“You will go that far for Hisui Nagare?” Fushimi blurted out, forgetting his own circumstances for a moment. “Despite the high probability that all of this, you guys included, is just a game to him and you are his game pieces to be used in it?”
“If I’m discarded, then such is Nagare’s will and wish,” Sukuna replied with a firm voice. “If Nagare decided that’s what he wanted, I’m fine with. Nagare does what he wants, and I do what I want.”
Fushimi couldn’t help a little chuckle that had escaped him then. It was barely audible, just letting out some air out of his lungs, in understanding - and in resignation.
Now that he thought about it, Iwafune mentioned it, too, didn’t he. That this place was free, and that he could act however he liked.
And he understood now what kind of place this was. A clan where one was responsible only for oneself, making it terribly irresponsible as a group.
There was no need to get along with anyone, even with the people who were technically your comrades. You were only responsible for yourself, and no one else. This, in and of itself, might not have been such a bad thing, actually… but.
But life was a series of choices, and Fushimi had already made his.
It appeared that Sukuna didn’t notice Fushimi’s light chuckle. In a mean-spirited and childish gesture, though appropriate for his age, he stuck out his tongue at Fushimi.
“But I won’t screw up so bad for Nagare to want to abandon me, and I will play this game with Nagare till the end.”
While calmly turning this thought in his head, Fushimi, not about to give up even in the face of the odds as he embraced his budding will to live, took out the knives hidden in his sleeves