"You are all idiots."
Suzuki let out a long, heavy sigh. All of their desperate attempts were completely meaningless. His Frame Deletion essentially mimicked the terrifying time-erasing prowess of King Crimson. It was practically impossible to catch him, especially when he already knew exactly when, where, and how their attacks would land before they even swung their weapons.
Manager.
While Frame Deletion granted him the physical capability to move instantaneously, his true, absolute invincibility stemmed from the Manager. The AI flawlessly read, collected, and processed every single variable in his environment, allowing him to calculate the exact trajectory and impact zone of an enemy's strike in 0.001 seconds.
In the simplest terms: he could read the future.
It wasn't a mystical, divine ability, nor was it a unique cursed technique. It was pure, unadulterated mathematics. Instead of relying on "destiny" or praying for the universe to grant him a miracle, he took the universe's fundamental physics, crushed them down into a raw algorithm, and used it to actively dictate reality.
He wasn't a god who could magically peer into the future. He was a ruthless CEO reading real-time market data, manipulating the stocks before the other traders even realized the market was open.
Yet, with the Manager acting as an onboard supercomputer functioning at processing speeds far beyond human comprehension, calling him a god wouldn't exactly be a stretch.
This ability... it really is just Laplace's Demon, Suzuki thought, adjusting his glasses.
Laplace's Demon: An 1814 thought experiment proposed by Pierre-Simon Laplace. It states that if a super-intelligence knew the precise position and momentum of every single particle in the universe, as well as all the acting forces, it could calculate the entirety of the past and the future. It is the ultimate expression of scientific determinism.
With the Manager's computational power fused to his mind, Suzuki practically possessed the Epitaph ability. He didn't just guess what his enemies would do; he mathematically proved it.
So, even as hundreds of men charged at him, screaming and brandishing a lethal array of swords and spears, Suzuki remained completely, utterly calm.
Laplace's Engine: Activate.
The Manager instantly hummed to life. To Suzuki's perception, time violently dilated, slowing to a near-halt. The AI simultaneously mapped the muscle tension, foot placement, and weapon trajectories of all one hundred men, instantly generating a glowing 3D probability map for every incoming strike across his retina.
"Amazing..." Suzuki murmured to himself.
He wasn't entirely sure how Satoru Gojo's famed Six Eyes processed information, but he firmly believed his Manager didn't lose out to them in the slightest.
When this coup is over, I really need to figure out how to monetize this on the stock market, he noted casually.
Without a doubt, his ability to nonchalantly ponder financial investments while surrounded by an army trying to slaughter him was the ultimate display of arrogance. It was a humiliating reality check for the clan. It proved that no matter how hard they trained, they couldn't even touch the fabric of his hoodie.
"DIEEEEEEE!"
"AIM FOR HIS LEGS!"
"THE EYES! BLIND HIM!"
The Kukuru Vanguard didn't hesitate. They threw absolutely everything they had at him.
Yet, Suzuki's expression didn't shift. He remained as coldly analytical as ever. He didn't fight them one by one like a traditional martial artist. Instead, he simply programmed a rapid-fire sequence of Frame Deletions.
"Well, trash. Let me show you exactly why I exist on a completely different plane of reality than you."
In the past, Suzuki would never have used such crude, arrogant words. But since they actively wanted to maim him, cripple him, and disfigure him, he wasn't going to show a shred of mercy. He was going to brutally demonstrate that no matter how hard they struggled, they were nothing more than stepping stones for his ambition.
Glitch.
Suzuki skipped through the massive crowd like a heavily bugged video game character. He completely deleted the travel time between enemies, manifesting directly in their blind spots for exactly one frame. In that single, frozen frame, his Mach-accelerated fists delivered a precise, surgical kinetic tap directly to their median nerves or the brittle shafts of their weapons.
Crack! Boom! Crack! Boom!
In exactly 4.0 seconds, fifty highly trained men collapsed to the ground simultaneously. They were violently paralyzed by sheer nerve shock, their weapons shattered into jagged splinters.
"Guwah!"
"ARGGGGH! MY ARM!"
"MY LEG! I CAN'T FEEL MY LEG!"
The courtyard instantly transformed into a chorus of agony. Knees were inverted, forearms were crushed, and dozens of grown men curled up on the dirt like shrimp, gasping for air.
Meanwhile, standing in the center of the carnage, Suzuki was as spotless as ever. He looked completely unscathed, as if he had just taken a casual stroll through a park, despite the utterly bizarre, physics-breaking nature of his footwork.
"...." Mai and Maki stood near the gate, completely frozen.
"It really is King Crimson..." Mai whispered.
Even though the twins had watched Suzuki train his techniques countless times over the past week, watching him effortlessly dismantle an army like a glitching sprite was an entirely different, terrifying experience.
"...His application is just completely different," Maki muttered, her grip tightening on her polearm.
They had been genuinely worried about him taking on the entire clan alone, but it seemed Suzuki was dead set on proving them wrong. At this rate, he was going to crush the entire Zenin combat force before the dinner bell even rang—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!
"Suzuki-niisan!"
As Mai stood dumbfounded, Maki screamed in alarm. The stone courtyard violently ruptured, and two gigantic, crushing arms made of solid earth erupted from the ground, violently slamming together and crushing Suzuki between them!
"Hohoho..."
A short, elderly man wearing traditional robes stepped out from the shadows of a nearby pillar, stroking his beard as he looked at the massive earthen tomb with dry amusement. "You young people are always far too hasty. You really need to learn some humility."
"Suzuki-san..."
Another young man—featuring spiky hair tied back into a loose ponytail—stepped forward, looking at the destruction with a disturbed expression. He shook his head, hardening his resolve. He knew Suzuki was bringing chaos to the clan, and chaos had to be eradicated.
Behind them, a massive, imposing man stood in complete silence. He looked like a solid wall of muscle that could crush a boulder with his bare hands.
"The Hei..." Maki gritted her teeth, her knuckles turning white as she glared at the three figures who had suddenly ambushed Suzuki.
"He was undeniably strong," Jinichi Zenin, the imposing man, rumbled. He looked at the groaning, paralyzed members of the Kukuru unit and nodded in begrudging respect. "Unfortunately, he walked down a stray path."
In the eyes of the elite Hei, Suzuki's path was nothing but blasphemy. Instead of adhering to the proud, traditional techniques mastered by his father, he had dabbled in useless, secular human science. That arrogance was exactly the reason for his downfall.
"Oh my, the elite Hei squad? I'm absolutely terrified~!"
"....."
The three men froze.
The dust cloud slowly began to settle. Stepping casually out from between the crumbling, massive earth hands was Suzuki. As always, there wasn't a single speck of dirt on his hoodie or his glasses.
His condescending, perfectly calm expression annoyed them to their very core.
"Since I'm just so terrified, I guess I'll have to get a little bit serious, okay?" Suzuki smiled, brushing a non-existent piece of dust off his shoulder. "I really don't want to die today, after all."
Despite his mocking words, his eyes were cold and completely dead.
Chojuro, Ranta, and Jinichi all scowled, their cursed energy immediately flaring—
"Old man. You elderly folks should really just stay in your rocking chairs and leave the future to the youth."
Glitch.
Without a single sound, Suzuki bypassed the space between them, instantly materializing directly in front of Chojuro.
"But," Suzuki smiled kindly, "if you're having trouble resting, allow me to tuck you in~!"
His fist was already raised high.
"...Eh?"
Chojuro was a highly seasoned martial artist and an elite Sorcerer. Yet, staring down the barrel of a fist accelerating at the speed of Mach 1, his decades of experience meant absolutely nothing.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!
The shockwave shattered the remaining flagstones as Chojuro was violently blasted backward.
The real battle for the Zenin Clan had just begun.