"Not bad, Toji-san. With those muscles, you could've made a killing in the real world."
"Though, I guess you were too busy selling Megumi off to the Zenin to focus on your fitness career, huh?"
Yoichi stepped back, dusting his hands off with a cheeky grin.
"You're awfully knowledgeable for a brat," Toji replied in a dry tone.
In an instant, the "confused father" was gone. The Sorcerer Killer returned.
A cold sweat slid down Yoichi's cheek.
Is this what they call 'Fatherly Love' in the Fushiguro house?!
Why are you showing off your stats now that you're dead?!
Yoichi stood frozen, goosebumps sent down his spine as Toji's menacing figure loomed into his small frame.
But before the pressure could snap Yoichi's mind, a warm hand reached out. Akio stepped between them, placing a gentle palm on Toji's tensed forearm.
"Toji, stop! He's just a child."
"You're being too naive, Akio" Toji replied.
"Look at him. Brats his age talk about toys, not these serious contracts for adults. He's either a puppet for those garbage sorcerers or a high-grade curse playing dress-up in a skin suit."
"In my world, people who 'know too much' usually have a knife behind their back. I don't trust anything that talks in circles and smiles while I'm trying to kill it."
The air within the environment seemed to solidify until Akio voiced out her reason.
"Because he helped me find you! Without him, I'd still be wandering this mysterious place all alone," she smiled, looking back at the shivering Yoichi.
Toji stared at Akio for a long time. The man who had spent years drowning in his own misery seemed to deflate under her gaze.
He let out a rough click of his tongue and scratched his scalp. "Whatever. You win."
However, Toji held him up like a grocery bag. "Don't think the 'cute kid' routine works on me. Start talking. Who are you really?"
"What is this place and how come a brat like you knows my business with Zen'in?"
"Get me down! This is child abuse!" Yoichi barked.
"No," Toji replied flatly.
"Dangle there and talk. I like the height difference."
In a fit of frustrated resentment, Yoichi began to thrash. "You're lucky I'm tired!"
Toji scoffed, a sound of amusement.
"You look like a bug on a pin, kid. Keep at it. Maybe you'll grow wings."
After a few more seconds of useless struggling, Yoichi finally gave up.
"Fine. You win, you muscle-bound gorilla!"
With a sigh, Yoichi resigned to his fate.
"Yoichi Murakami, that's my name."
"I'm as clueless as you are about this place. But as for how I know you? Let's just say I'm a huge fan of your work. You've got a real cult following."
Hearing this, Toji's eyebrow shot up.
The kid was speaking nonsense, yet his heartbeat was steady.
"But don't worry," Yoichi added, hanging limp in the air. "You didn't die for nothing. Gojo fulfilled his promise. He pulled Megumi out of that Zenin hellhole and looked after him."
Toji froze mid-step. His eyebrow, which had been raised in mockery, slowly lowered into a deep, pained furrow.
He didn't speak or scoff.
"You got proof?" Toji demanded, his voice dropping into a low hum.
"Or is this just more of your childish delusions?"
"It's been a year since you kicked the bucket, man," Yoichi countered, dangling with a bored expression.
"Look around. You're cut off. Dead men don't get updates, but I'm the exception to the rule. You can either listen to the only guy with the news, or you can keep staring at the grass and wondering."
He kicked his legs once, weakly.
"Now, seriously. Put me down.
"I'm starting to feel like a used grocery bag."
A firm grip loosened, and Yoichi hit the grass with a soft thud, finally back on his own two feet.
"My son..." Akio whispered, her voice trembling with a year's worth of unspoken prayers. "Yoichi-kun, is he really... is he safe? Is he happy?"
Yoichi's expression turned unusually kind.
"Your son is going to be more than fine, Akio-san. He's got the kind of potential that people dream of. He's going to be a good sorcerer—the kind that helps people. You can rest easy now."
Soon, Yoichi's inner troll was waking up.
Should I tell her about the second wife? That's a special grade disaster waiting to happen.
A smirk presented itself.
But the joke died in his throat when he realized the Akashic Records were missing.
He scanned the surroundings, head and body swinging left and right until he caught a glimmer of white light.
The Akashic Records were hovering near the entrance of the giant box, waiting for him like a loyal dog. Yoichi then went to the monolith with a burning need to see what was behind those white walls.
As the Akashic Records descended and settled into his palms, Yoichi's eyes drifted toward the monolith.
I wonder what this thing is even for? A shelter? A prison? Or just another gimmick that that stupid god orchestrated?
The moment his hand made contact, the laws of physics simply ceased to apply.
A sudden vacuum sucked him through the solid barrier.
In a heartbeat, he vanished.
"Yoichi-kun?" Akio called out, blinking as she realized the space beside her was suddenly empty. She looked around frantically. "Toji... where did he go? He was just here!"
Toji's eyes narrowed, his supernatural senses—honed to a razor's edge—instantly tracking the residual vibration on the box's surface. He hadn't just seen the boy disappear; he had felt the world itself swallow him.
"The brat's inside," Toji rasped.
Without a second of hesitation, he surged forward. His feet tore the grass from the earth as he launched a terrifying, full-tilt punch aimed at the heart of the monolith.
BOOM!
The shockwave of the impact flattened the grass for meters in every direction, but as the dust cleared, the silence was deafening.
The box hadn't even budged a millimeter.
Toji stood there, his fist still pressed against the pristine white surface, his expression shifting from aggression to a cold, frustrated disbelief.
Outside, Toji's fury was relentless. He drew back his fist again, the air whistling as he prepared a blow that would have pulverized a cursed spirit into dust.
But inside, the world was hauntingly still.
Yoichi stumbled forward. He wasn't in a high-tech fortress or a spiritual temple.
Instead, the interior looked like a relic from a forgotten decade.
An old recording studio.
To his left and right, shelves groaned under the weight of thousands of lined-up cassettes, their plastic cases glinting under dim, flickering fluorescent lights.
In the corner stood a refrigerator, humming in a low-frequency tune though its shelves were mostly empty.
But the centerpiece was the desk.
Sitting there was a computer set that looked like it belonged in a museum—a massive, beige monitor so "fat" it resembled a 1980s television set.
The screen flickered with a green pulse, casting distorted shadows across the room.
Inside, a pensive look crossed Yoichi's face as he stepped deeper into the studio.
"What in the hell is going on?" Yoichi muttered, his voice echoing in the cramped space. "Is this the 'cheat' that god talked about? It looks more like a basement office for a failed radio station."
A glint of cold steel caught the eye from the corner of the room, drawing a focused gaze toward a massive broadsword. Intricate, skeletal designs etched into the guard seemed to pulse with a life of their own.
Excitement surged through his chest as his gaze became hot with enthusiasm.
"Isn't this... Rebellion from DMC?!"
A hysterical search of the surroundings followed. Resting nearby, the iconic silhouettes of two specialized handguns sat ready for action.
The dark, matte finish of one and the polished silver of the other were undeniable.
"No way, even Ebony and Ivory are here!"
A shaky hand reached out, fingers hovering just inches from the grip. The mood around the weapons felt charged, jerking with a power that put any Cursed Tool to shame.
'Is... Is this my cheat? To be Dante?!"
Drowned by excitement, a hand clasped on the bony yet metallic touch of the Rebellion.
Cold metal seemed to fuse with skin as the hollow sockets of the skeletal guard flickered into a malevolent red.
A sickening sensation of being hollowed out took hold, as if a vacuum had been pressed against the veins.
"What is going on now?!"
A desperate struggle ensued to maintain a grip on his sanity. The atmosphere in the room was distorted by the sheer volume of Cursed Energy siphoned into the blade.
"RAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
From the depths of the lungs, a primal roar erupted, tearing through the silence as his body and mind fought to stabilize the drain.
"DAAAAMMNN ITTT!"
A sharp pressure mounted behind the chest, feeling less like a muscle and more like a cornered beast kicking for an exit.
Each strike sent a static-like jolt through the nerves, rattling teeth and blurring sight.
A sigh escaped from the mouth as moments ticked by. His lungs felt burned out, gasping for air while the weight of Rebellion became evident.
The massive blade now felt light, very light in a stark contrast to its cool yet heavy-looking appearance.
"Oh, we are so back!"
However, his celebration was cut short by an abrupt flicker of lights in the corner of his eyes.
A neon glow manifested, casting a digital hue over the room as a prompt materialized on the RCT monitor.
[Please, choose your desired style for the upcoming mission.]