The moment Hakari's domain bloomed into existence, the clash between him and Uraume erupted into chaos. The pachinko reels behind him spun in a blaze of garish color, the metallic chime of jackpot bells filling the frozen courtyard.
Three numbers aligned. Jackpot.
The song began to play.
Hakari's grin widened as golden light surged into his body, his skin glowing faintly with the rush of unlimited cursed energy. His wounds closed instantly, muscles swelling with impossible resilience. Every nerve in his body sang with reckless power.
"Now we dance," he muttered, and hurled himself forward.
Uraume met him head on, palm flashing outward with a burst of icy mist. Frost exploded around Hakari's arm, freezing it solid mid-swing. In the same heartbeat, he tore the arm free with sheer strength, shattering the ice, then smashed his fist across her jaw.
The sound was brutal. Bone cracked, her body twisting in mid-air from the impact.
Hakari laughed. "Nice try. But you're gonna need more than that."
She steadied herself, fury flashing in her pale eyes. Raising both hands, she conjured massive spires of ice from the ground, columns thrusting upward to pierce him. Hakari didn't dodge. He sprinted straight through them, letting one spike stab clean through his chest. Blood sprayed, and yet he kept running, laughter bubbling from his throat as the wound closed instantly behind him.
He punched again. She blocked with a wall of ice, but his fist shattered through it and cracked into her ribs. Her breath hitched, frost scattering with the force.
Every movement of his was wild, almost sloppy compared to his earlier precise counters. He wasn't conserving strength anymore. He wasn't calculating. He was gambling with his life every second, and the house always paid him back.
Uraume's lips curled in disdain, though her eyes betrayed sharp calculation. She unleashed another torrent of mist, encasing his legs in ice thick enough to freeze an elephant in place.
Hakari stomped once, cursed energy roaring outward. The ice shattered into chunks, frost spraying like snow. He twirled on one heel, dancing through the fragments, swinging his arms as though keeping rhythm with the song echoing from his domain.
"You call that cold?!" he roared, a grin splitting his bloodied face. "Turn it up!"
Uraume obliged. She lunged forward, her palm colliding with his face. Frost spread instantly, consuming his head entirely in a sphere of ice. For a moment his body went still. Then the sound of shattering glass echoed. He burst free, grinning through shards as his head knitted back together, bones snapping into place, flesh sealing in an instant.
He uppercutted her with such force that her body launched skyward before slamming into the ground hard enough to crater the courtyard tiles.
"Not bad," Hakari chuckled, shaking blood off his knuckles. "But I told you. You can't kill me."
For the first time in centuries, Uraume felt something alien stir in her chest. Annoyance. This gambler's cursed technique twisted the flow of battle into something grotesque. His body overflowed with cursed energy, constantly reinforcing itself to monstrous levels. No technique of hers could hold him long enough to keep him down.
She narrowed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and blew out.
"Frost Calm."
A blizzard erupted from her lips, flooding the courtyard with thick freezing mist. Frost swept over every surface, drowning everything in white. Even Hakari vanished in the haze.
And yet his laughter rang out within it, loud and mocking. The sound of feet stomping in rhythm echoed like a heartbeat. He was dancing, wild and unchained, even as shards of ice cut into his skin and froze him in chunks. His arms, his legs, his torso. All frozen, broken, and shattered, yet instantly healed.
He burst from the fog like a demon, fist cocked back, eyes blazing with manic joy. His strike landed with the weight of a cannonball, driving Uraume into the wall of a building. The entire facade cracked under the impact.
She coughed, blood trickling down her chin, bones in her shoulder snapping. Her expression remained cold, but her mind whirled. He surpassed her reinforcement now. She could not cage him in ice, not while he drowned himself in this endless tide of cursed energy.
"Reckless fool," she hissed.
Hakari just laughed again, twirling, fists swinging in wild arcs. He looked unstoppable. Every injury she dealt vanished instantly, while his strikes broke her bones piece by piece.
And yet she did not falter. She did not retreat. Instead, she bided her time, her keen mind sharpening on a single truth.
This ability could not last forever.
She tightened her fists, letting another icicle spear pierce his chest as she whispered to herself. "All I must do is endure. The song will end. And so will he."
Meanwhile, not far away, Choso gritted his teeth. His body trembled violently as he forced cursed energy through his veins. Steam hissed from his skin as he tried to heat his blood, melting the ice binding him.
Every ounce of his will screamed at him to move, to break free, to protect Yuji. But Uraume's frost was merciless, locking him down in glacial chains.
Back in the courtyard, Hakari and Uraume clashed in a brutal ballet. Her ice spears whistled; his fists shattered them to dust. Her walls of frost crumbled under his relentless assault. And every time she thought she had skewered him for good, his body would stitch itself together, his grin never fading.
"You're not bad," Hakari admitted, his voice rough from the strain. "But I can't lose against odds like this. Never have. Never will."
Her silence was her answer. She simply attacked harder.
The courtyard became a warzone of ice and blood, the ground splitting, air fogging with cold mist, and exploding under their strikes.
Within that fog, unbeknownst to both fighters, something else was moving.
A burly figure appeared beside Choso. Cloaked, massive, his presence silent but suffocating. Before Choso could even react, the figure's fist came down on the back of his skull. The strike was swift, surgical. Choso's eyes rolled back, his body collapsing instantly.
The figure moved with terrifying purpose, advancing toward Hakari from behind, staying in the shadows.
Uraume's eyes flicked toward him in suspicion; she was observant, but Hakari never noticed. The gambler was too wrapped in his wild frenzy, fists swinging, laughter ringing. His song still played.
The figure waited. Watched. Patient as stone.
Then the music ended.
Hakari paused, chest heaving. His glow dimmed. His hands moved immediately, forming signs to lay out another domain...
And that was when the cloaked man struck.
His fist was inhuman, covered in cartilage ridges, larger than Hakari's head. It slammed into the gambler's skull with apocalyptic force, driving him into the ground so hard the earth split. His head burrowed deep into the tiles, a shockwave rippling outward that even pushed Uraume back a step.
Hakari twitched once, dazed, his song gone, his regeneration halted.
Uraume raised her hand to freeze the cloaked figure where he stood, not wanting to take any chances as to whether it was friend or foe.
But before she could strike, an earthen wall erupted, slamming upward between them. The thick stone blocked her view completely. By the time it crumbled, the figure was gone.
All that remained was silence.
And Hakari, buried in the earth, unconscious at last.