(Toji is a... well... straight forward guy? I don't think he gonna do much except killing so the war game is just like a... walk for him? Since i honestly don't know how to make it long so this chapter won't be that long and exciting. After this, we're going straight to Ishtar arc so yeah)
The War Game had begun.
Toji stood at the front of the wall where the fortress had been built, staring at the crumbling stones.
Behind him, the air smelled of burning timber and dust.
Ryuu Lyon, her expression unreadable, stood silently by his side.
"I'll take the right side," she said softly, drawing her blade from its sheath.
Toji grunted in acknowledgment, already cracking his neck and stretching.
The air hummed with an unspoken tension as the first wave of Apollo Familia adventurers rushed to meet them.
"Damn goddess... pulling me into this mess," Toji muttered under his breath, his fingers curling around the Inverted Spear of Heaven. "Couldn't even enjoy a quiet day for once..."
With that, he dashed forward.
The first adventurer, a warrior clad in silver armor, was barely able to raise his shield before Toji reached him.
In a blur of motion, Toji smashed the shield aside with the flat of his cursed spear, his foot driving into the warrior's stomach and sending him flying backward into a wall with sickening force.
Another adventurer lunged with a spear. Toji side-stepped it with a laugh.
The spear stabbed into the earth as Toji swung his blade around, cutting through the spear shaft like butter before embedding the cursed edge in the adventurer's gut.
The man screamed as blood sprayed, but Toji didn't even flinch.
He ripped the blade free, spinning it effortlessly in his hand.
Behind him, more rushed in.
An archer fired. Toji dodged the arrow, vanishing in a blur of motion and reappearing directly in front of the archer.
The man's face twisted with terror just before the assassin's blade pierced his throat, silencing him in an instant. Toji let the corpse slump to the ground without a second glance.
Another warrior swung a heavy axe. This time, Toji didn't even attempt to dodge.
He stepped forward, grabbing the axe's handle mid-swing and yanking it out of the warrior's hands before sending the man flying with a brutal punch to the jaw.
Blood. Everywhere. The battlefield had turned into a hellscape of twisted bodies, screams, and death.
The defenders regrouped, trying to form a line. Toji tilted his head slightly, watching them with a disinterested expression.
"Really? You're still at this?" he asked with a sarcastic grin, his hands casually adjusting his grip on the cursed spear.
An explosion of cursed energy erupted from him, sending the remaining front-line warriors stumbling backward.
His presence alone sent waves of fear into their hearts, but they still tried to fight.
The next group of attackers, a team of mages, formed a circle and began chanting spells, summoning a storm of magic to bombard him.
Toji's expression soured.
He raised the Inverted Spear of Heaven, its cursed energy flaring as the magic around him fizzled out like water hitting stone.
One mage tried to retaliate with a fireball spell, but Toji's hand was already moving.
He swiped the air in front of him, cutting through the flames with an effortless strike of his cursed blade.
"I said... enough."
Toji didn't give them a chance to regroup. He advanced.
A mage attempted a lightning spell, aiming at Toji's head, but he was faster.
With a snap of his wrist, Toji threw a cursed dagger at the caster.
The dagger lodged into the mage's eye, and he dropped to the ground instantly, twitching in death.
Toji stepped over his body without breaking his stride, carving his way through the fortress as if it were no more than a training ground.
The soldiers tried to stop him, charging with weapons raised. Toji, with little more than a flick of his wrist, decimated them, each slash, each stab, precise and clean.
One warrior, desperate, lunged at him with a sword. Toji didn't even need to move his feet.
He grabbed the man's wrist, twisting it with a sickening crack before lifting him off the ground and throwing him into the nearest wall with a thundering slam.
"Damn it," Toji muttered, looking around as his enemies seemed to diminish in number. "This is taking too long."
He disappeared into the shadows, only to reappear on the walls above, high above the battlefield.
From there, he saw them, the last wave of defenders, trembling, trying to form ranks.
A cursed spirit surged from Toji's side.
It scurried forward, an ethereal creature born from his own cursed energy.
With a whistle from Toji, the creature manifested a large, sleek weapon, an advanced projectile gun, like a spring-loaded bow.
He aimed and fired. One by one, the defenders were picked off, each shot a clean hit to the head.
Without even bothering to reload, Toji summoned more cursed spirits, his Shikigami, each weaponized form appearing at his command.
A series of high-caliber blasts rang out. The air was thick with the smell of blood and the echoes of screams that soon fell silent.
Within moments, the battlefield was littered with the bodies of Apollo's adventurers, their lifeless forms scattered across the ground, their eyes wide with terror, their blood soaking into the earth.
Finally, Toji reached the control room, a massive hall at the heart of the fortress.
He reached forward, slamming his foot into the door with brutal force, splintering it in half.
Inside, the remaining commanders of Apollo Familia looked up in horror as Toji entered, stepping over the corpses of their fallen allies. His expression remained cold, detached.
"Time's up," he said with a smirk. He cracked his knuckles. "Let's hope the afterlife is real."
With a single motion, the last group of Apollo's commanders were cut down, their efforts no match for Toji's brutality.
He stood over their bodies, his breath steady and calm. He glanced around the room, satisfied.
"Well... that was quick."
He turned to Ryuu, who was already leaning against the doorway, watching him with her usual cool demeanor.
"Done?" she asked, her voice dry.
"Yeah," Toji replied, cleaning his blade on one of the bodies before sheathing it. "Your turn to clean up."
Without another word, he walked out, leaving the destruction behind.
Bell reached the top of the battle, facing the strongest person in the familia.
Ryu, decided to wipe out the remaining people Toji ignored, there's an elf in there so it's interesting.
Although it wasn't all boring, he didn't like the idea of working for someone without any payment.
"Fucking annoying god, not even a penny out of this... I'll cut her arm off next time" He mutter, clearly pissed.
...
A weeks later...
The dust from the War Game had barely settled before Toji returned to his usual rhythm.
His reputation increased, while most people still fear him, he is respected as a strong individual in the city.
But that doesn't change much since just by the look, people already assume he is strong from the first look, especially the 18th floor incident where he activated his simple domain.
Some of the gods also interested in him. One of them is Freya, someone he found extremely odd and fishy.
He caught her staring in many occasion, he can even sense some divine stuff reaching him. It feel like she is trying magic on him.
For him, the bloody spectacle was already fading into memory, just another job he didn't ask for, forced on him by a capricious goddess who found amusement in chaos and him.
He hadn't even taken his cut from Apollo Familia's defeat.
Money didn't interest him. Well... not that much.
He just wanted peace, silence, the sound of clashing blades only when he chose.
And training Lefiya had, strangely, become a part of that routine.
"Your stance is garbage today," Toji muttered lazily, crouched on a rock, watching Lefiya pant with her staff half-lowered. "You sleep in or just dreaming about blondes in the mirror again?"
Lefiya shot him a glare, cheeks flushed. "I didn't—! That's not—!"
"Don't waste breath arguing," he interrupted. "You'll need it when the next monster bites your neck."
Toji stood and adjusted the cursed dagger strapped to his thigh.
His gaze was sharp, focused, but there was a strange softness in the way he reached over and flicked a leaf off Lefiya's hair without comment.
"You're hesitating again," he added, more quietly. "In a real fight, that'll kill you."
"I... I'm trying," she said, lowering her eyes, frustrated.
He sighed through his nose. "I know."
It was subtle, but Toji had changed. Not in any overt or dramatic way, but he was more present, more patient.
He corrected Lefiya's posture, showed her how to strike more efficiently, and even, on rare occasions, shared knowledge he'd normally hoard.
Things like: where to stab if you want someone to die slowly, or quickly, or not at all.
Lefiya had stopped flinching when he spoke like that.
She still didn't like it, but she listened.
Partly because she respected him, partly because, though she'd never admit it, she'd come to care. Just a bit.
Then, one morning, a courier appeared.
Toji raised an eyebrow when the man handed him a sealed envelope bearing the Hestia Familia mark.
"The hell is this?" he muttered, slicing it open with a flick of his cursed knife.
He scanned the contents. A mission request. Escort and assist. From Hestia herself. The goal? Something called the Killing Stone.
Toji's eyes narrowed. It has been a week and that damned kid got into another trouble with a familia.
"Oh gods... Again!? That fucking rabbit!"
Lefiya peeked over his shoulder. "What is it?"
He handed the letter to her, rubbing his temple. "More trouble. Same annoying little shit. Same goddess simping for her child. These goddamn people is driving me insane"
Her lips moved as she read. "They're going after a ritual, Ishtar Familia. There's some artifact called the Killing Stone that needs to be destroyed... Something about a Renard girl, a fox."
Toji exhaled sharply through his nose. "Let me guess. Her ears twitch when she's sad, her tail wiggle when she happy and he's rock solid?"
"I—I don't know!" Lefiya said, flustered. "But... this is important, right?"
"Important, yeah, not everyday that a familia full of perverts murder someone for an artifact. But not my problem."
He moved to toss the letter aside, then paused. His eyes hovered on the name Hestia. Then Bell Cranel. Then assist. Especially the payment, it was quite much for a familia like Hestia.
He thought back to that kid. Bleeding in the dungeon. Screaming beneath the Minotaur. Still standing despite the fear.
Toji clicked his tongue.
"Tch. Fine."
Lefiya blinked. "You're going?"
"Only because the pay's decent," he muttered. "And I need to vent."
"You don't care about helping?"
"Nope."
"Not even about Bell?"
"Kid should've run faster."
"...You're the worst," Lefiya huffed.
But she smiled, trailing behind him as he packed his tools and strapped on his gear.
As they left, Toji glanced at the sky. Overhead, the clouds were already shifting, darker and thicker, as if foreshadowing the chaos to come.
Another hunt. Another battlefield in a damn week.
Another mess he didn't ask for.
But this time, he didn't sigh quite as deeply.