Chapter 8: Showtime

High on the coaster track, Shin squares off against Tatsu. When his telepathy draws a blank, he decides his opponent is the reckless sort who strikes before thinking. Both men leap clear of an oncoming train, and Tatsu flings a pair of blades in mid-air. Forced to choose, Shin evades one but the second nicks his leg. His sight swims almost at once, since the metal was coated in a poison Tatsu brewed himself, and Tatsu promises the wound is fatal.

Tatsu lectures that Taro wore the look of a man terrified to die, arguing that clinging to survival dulls a fighter's split-second judgment, the very lapse that let a knife touch Shin. Shin rejects the theory. Taro does fear death, he counters, yet only because his life is pledged to shielding his family, and someone guarding what he treasures fights far more desperately. Sensing Shin has gone blind, Tatsu feints another throw, only to watch him drop low and board the passing train, where the two grapple.

Reading the crowd's stray thoughts, Shin hurls himself and Tatsu off the ride, landing onto a Sugar Park stage mid-performance. He ducks into the rabbit mascot suit and resumes the duel, slipping past every blade and connecting blow after blow despite his ruined eyes. Aoi and Hana cheer from the seats, convinced the brawl is scripted. Taro sits among them too, silently feeding Shin the enemy's next moves through their linked minds. A slash opens Shin's cheek and exposes his shut eyelids, but the borrowed foresight lets him finish the fight, knocking Tatsu clear off the platform. The audience roars for the mascot's win as Shin and Taro trade a quiet salute, while Lu, still circling on the coaster, wonders where her partner went.

Shin overcomes Tatsu and neutralizes the poison-user threat despite being blinded by his homemade toxin. The turning point is a new tactic: Taro watches from the audience and relays Tatsu's intended strikes, so Shin, reading Taro's thoughts, can keep fighting without his sight.

Known in Japanese as Shotaimu, this eighth chapter wraps much of the coaster clash and belongs to the Amusement Park Arc, collected in Volume 2. It first ran in the eighth 2021 issue of the magazine with a late-January release. Shin, Tatsu, Taro Sakamoto, Aoi, Hana, and Lu Shaotang all feature.