Hakari in Chained Soldier

[General POV]

Hakari watched Tenka's face slacken in shock as his domain formed around them, catching Sahara and Yachiho in the barrier's creation. The speed of its construction was a useful tool for him, and as the pachinko-themed domain set itself into reality, he activated the sure hit, giving the three members of squad six all the necessary information for how his domain worked. 

An offset of his quick domain and nonviolent sure hit that many didn't know about, was that Hakari was also hit by it. This usually didn't matter, as he had been using this technique for so long that he could recite the rules in his sleep. However, this time, it mattered.

Something had changed how his domain functioned. 

As the new rules for his domain funneled into his head for the first time, Hakari felt a sour taste enter his mouth. Riichi Mode was only gonna happen if he kept the two same numbers instead of showing him two numbers for the jackpot. It would still push towards events, but that change made his original strategy using his domain a poor one. 

'Guess there ain't much left to do but play the game.' He thought, rearing a hand back to launch a reserve ball. As it left his hand and zoomed across the distance to Tenka, he saw its golden like color. Tenka, to her credit, weaved out of its way, even as the numbers rolled for his jackpot.

[1,5,1] 

With the new rule in place, Hakari felt the Riichi Mode activate, his domain rolling for an event. The basic stage shifted, taking on the look of a train filled with people sitting in the seats. At the end of the train was a woman with short cut blonde hair, dressed in basic office attire with a lanyard around her neck. 

Passenger Seat Competition. The character, Shimizu Suzuka, needed to get in a seat on the crowded train in order for him to get a jackpot. Hakari dropped into a deep squat and lunged forward, flying towards Tenka with a fist cocked back. The sixth squad chief lifted her arms up in a cross guard that Hakari slammed his fist into. The numbers rolled. 

[6,6,6] 

[JACKPOT]

The domain collapsed as Tenka was pushed back from the blow, hitting the barriers edge and shattering it due it no longer having the necessary strength to keep itself up. SHe corrected her flight with a flip, landing with her legs bent to help absorb the impact. As she laid eyes on Hakari again, she could see him standing there, looking down at his hands. Her own eyes widened, as well as Sahara's and Yachiho's, upon seeing the effect of his jackpot. 

Hakari took the moment of quiet in this spar to observe his shaking hands as his jackpot took effect, the music swelling into existence around him. He hadn't hit a jackpot in some twenty years, and he had forgotten how good it felt. The full body sensation of infinite energy was no joke, and as the excess began to leech off of him, slipping through his skin to reach the air, a grin cracked his face. 

"How is this possible?" He heard Yachiho ask off to the side, bracing herself. Sparing a glance, he could see how Sahara and she were braced, as if ready to flee in a moment. "How can you be giving off so much energy?!" 

"If Mato had something like a heart, or a soul," Tenka chimed in, standing back up in a readied stance. "It would feel like this."

Hakari didn't bother answering. They didn't have the concept of cursed energy, so anything he would try to explain would just go over their heads. Instead, he lunged towards Tenka, engaging them in a good, old fashioned, fist fight. He came in low, his fist rising into an uppercut that was dodged by Tenka as she moved backward, a right jab flying out and striking Hakari's face easily. 

One expects when they hit an opponent, even without full force, they will flinch or back away. The jab was far from a love tap, but Hakari didn't even seem to react to it in Tenka's eyes. Instead, he kept up the assault, sending another punch that forced her to step back and to the side, counter attacking again, this time a knee to the stomach. Again, he didn't even let out a breath of annoyance at the blow she knew had a solid hit.

Hakari sent his third punch of the exchange going directly towards her chest, and Tenka panicked for a moment, lifting a hand to catch and block the blow instead of dodging as she had previously. The punch hit her gloved hand and twisted in her attempted grip, pushing her back again, skidding along the ground with her feet planted. Feeling a sting from her palm, Tenka spared a glance down to see the fabric of her glove ripped and her palm covered with small lacerations that welled with blood. 

"His punch, it cut me?" She asked aloud, before taking a step back through a black portal that let loose several feathers. Hakari saw this portal close, and reopen further away, creating great distance between the two of them.

"Your martial arts are really good, Hakari~" Tenka said, calling out across the field. "How is your long range, though?" 

"I tend to just close the distance!" Hakari shouted, legs pumping into a sprint as he moved to get towards the chief. Lifting a hand, he fired a reserve ball towards her, and she chose to step sideways into another portal, and he lost sight of her. He turned, making to guard his blindside, and saw Tenka on the other side of the field, just as far away as had been. 

"I think I've found your Achilles Heel, Hakari!" She called out, voice a singsong mocking tone. "I can make distance faster than you can clear it, and what range you do have is simply too choreographed to be able to hit me from such distance!" 

She had planned to gloat a little about his failings, then praise him on his ability, both natural and not. Being the first man to have the power of a peach, he would undoubtedly be studied, but his strength was great enough that he could be the first true member of the Anti-Demon Corps, maybe even eventually its first chief. She made to finish her statements, to call the spar to a close, but she stilled, seeing the grin on his face as he pulled his hands into the same position they were when they first started this bout. 

"MAKE DISTANCE FROM THIS THEN!" Hakari screamed, the negative energy coiling off of him spreading out towards her in a very oblong, oval-like shape. "[DOMAIN EXPANSION: IDLE DEATH GAMBLE]!"

Tenka made another portal, ready to move, but this illusion of space was filled in and made whole faster than she could. However, she could teleport to places she didn't need to see. As long as she knew its position, it was a foregone conclusion. She stepped through the portal with a coy smile.

She stepped back out, eyes wide in shock, as she was still in his illusion.

"You might be able to make those portals wherever you wanna go," Hakari said, moving forward casually, stretching his arms. "But I can decide if someone can leave or not."

"H-How?!" Tenka was flabbergasted, never having found a single thing that could impede her spatial manipulation. 

"I made a…a deal with my technique." Hakari said, standing at a casual distance from Tenka. "Anyone can enter, but no one can leave, not until I say so." 

"Now then, Tenka Izumo, Chief of squad six of the Anti-Demon Corps," Hakari said, voice taking on a slight mocking tone of his own as he listed her title, lifting his hands up into a readied stance. "Let me feel your fever."

Tenka barely had the time to enter her own stance before Hakari moved in for the assault, round two of their close quarter combat beginning.

"Just in case you're wondering," Hakari said, catching a blow under his chin, head not budging from her blow even as he spoke through clenched teeth. "You don't gotta worry about me hitting another jackpot."

Tenka stepped back into another portal, making to disengage from the melee only to have Hakari clear the considerably shorter distance she could make almost as fast. "Why? Cause you're gonna beat me before you need to?"

"Nah," Hakari dissuaded, fists moving in a blur to try and catch Tenka, who moved just as fast to dodge and counterattack. "I can't try for another till the first one ends, is all." 

Tenka was quickly finding herself lost in the throes of the simulated combat. She couldn't disengage without being back in the fray soon after, and her blows didn't seem to matter to Hakari. She felt she was hurting herself more than him, feeling abrasions forming over her knuckles and knees where the fabric had long since ripped, whatever was cutting her was doing it in shallow motions, like sandpaper. 

She wanted to call the fight here, but her pride told her to hold out and whittle him down. Not since the year 2020 had a man had such strength compared to a woman, and while she wouldn't call herself misandrist, she didn't wanna have that fact change. Hakari was strong, but the want to show she was stronger was one far greater than wanting the fight to stop. 

As a result of mulling over these thoughts, a habit she had against weaker foes, she wasn't ready for the two train doors that slammed into her knees. They forced her legs to bend, making her fall partly onto the doors in a matrix dodge pose. Hakari, however, was already following up the move, sending a fist down towards her face. 

That pride in her strength left Tenka in that moment. Never had she felt so helpless. Pinned. It may have been the negative energy that wept from Hakari's pores, or even less likely, some built in survival instinct back when humanity had been more barbaric, when women didn't have access to the blessing of the peach. 

That pride fled and in its wake came the vein chilling clench of fear, and she lifted her hand before she could think twice about it. 

"Ame-no-Mitori!" Despite not making the necessary hand sign, Tenka could still do her ranged attack with far less damage. The white ball of rending space spun from her hand, skidding along Hakari's arm until it hit his shoulder. The effect was immediate, bypassing all defenses and ripping the flesh from his body, the limb thumping down against Tenka's chest before hitting the ground. 

Tenka knew this was a mistake the moment she let the attack go, the domain that Hakari had put up falling away and the doors pinching her knees disappearing. She could hear the startled noises of Yachiho and Sahara as they were allowed to see the fight again, and the grievous wound Hakari had been given. 

The three members of squad six also got to see how the arm grew back just as quickly as it was removed, bone building up to be wrapped in muscle, then skin. Hakari looked at the hand, clenching it and rolling the wrist. Another thing he hasn't experienced in the last twenty years, his techniques automatic RCT letting him regrow limbs. It was novel, in a way, to experience something like that again after so long. 

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" Tenka said, standing back up and dusting down her outfit. "I think the spar went a little far, my apologies."

"Oh, no harm no foul." Hakari said easily, waving it off. The music of his technique gradually dimmed until it was gone, and he made to go back into the dorm. "I'm gonna change into a robe that isn't ruined."

"When you do, meet me back in my office." Tenka said, moving towards the dorms. "I need to talk to you about something." 

And so, the two powerhouses went back inside, leaving Sahara and Yachiho, awestruck, outside.

[Hakari POV]

Dressed in a fresh robe, Hakari walked into Tenka's office to see she had changed clothes completely. She was dressed in a purple turtleneck, a black vest over it that had straps that went over the shoulders. 

"You wanted to talk?" Hakari asked, closing the door behind him. 

"I did." Tenka said easily, easing back into the chair she sat in. "I think your powers are far more than just 'playing pachinko'."

"They really aren't." Hakari moved to sit down as well. "All the moves I did were in relevance to pachinko."

"That doesn't explain the winnings of your jackpot, or that…domain of yours." She refuted. "You know, Chief Varvara Pilipenko of squad eight has a similar blessing to yours, maybe she would be willing to talk to you about yours."

"Ah, uh, that's not necessary." He cut off the idea immediately, shaking his head at the idea. "I have no interest in talking with people about what I can do."

Tenka leaned forward onto her elbows, steepling her fingers. "What about joining squad six?" she asked. 

Hakari was almost quick to say no as well, but thought about it. Their spar had kicked his fever back into gear a little, and now he had the dilemma in his heart of the quiet life he had gotten used to or the life of fever he had to leave behind. In moments of solace, he thought back to Kirara, and what they would say. 

He could imagine it clearly, Kirara wanting him to chase his fever, knowing how much he didn't like running cold. 

He went to speak again, but Tenka spoke before him. "We really do need a caretaker around here, you know." She said offhandedly, resting her cheek on her steepled hands. "So if you joined, I would be grateful."

Hakari's eyes glazed over in confusion. "You telling me you want me to be a fucking janitor?" He asked, jaw slack in disbelief. "Did I hit you too hard in the spar or something?"

"Oh no, you are a strong fighter, Hakari, don't think I'm trying to diminish your ability." Tenko said, straightening up her posture. "It's just that men are not allowed to be active members of the Anti-Demon Corps, so this would be the easiest way to get you to be here, helping out."

Hakari could only bow his head in contempt, taking a deep breath. "Can I at least go get some stuff to move in with?"

Tenka only clapped her hands and smiled. "Of course! I wouldn't expect you to be hanging out in a bathrobe! We'll get your clothes cleaned and you can head back to Japan and get anything you wanna bring with you!"

Hakari couldn't decide what was worst, having to be a janitor to feed his fever or having to dress like a geezer again.