Chapter 187

Hakari draws Kashimo into his domain, where the odds of a jackpot run higher than before. Far from fearing a foe who is essentially immortal, Kashimo embraces the test. A look back four hundred years reveals that, while tied to Kenjaku, he entered the Culling Game for a single purpose: a crack at the mightiest fighter who ever lived, Sukuna.

The sure-hit of Idle Death Gamble does nothing but harmlessly feed its rules to whoever it marks, and the catch is that the imbued technique fires off quicker than even the all-or-nothing domain Mahito wielded at Shibuya. Those rules land in Kashimo before he can retreat to Hollow Wicker Basket, informing him both that the earlier jackpot handed Hakari unlimited cursed energy and that aligning three odd symbols boosts his odds this round. Kashimo relishes it, while Hakari notes that gamblers forever live alongside risk. Kashimo overwhelms him with a heavy combination and knocks him cold, but the sequence is rerun through a consecutive effect, which rolls back every bit of the damage. Since that gamble usually fails at a high rate, Hakari risks it only during increased probability. Floored a second time, he runs the replay once more.

Slipping into riichi mode, Hakari sets off the potty-emergency run, in which a character named Hiro must arrive at Yurigoaka station without wetting himself. The pachinko chaos plays out until Hiro arrives, paying off as three sixes in a row for the jackpot, and Hakari loudly calls up the music to switch on his deathless state of endless energy and automatic reverse cursed technique. Because this jackpot came on three even numbers, the next round drops the increased probability. Kashimo grasps that simply surviving four minutes and eleven seconds leaves him a killable target, yet he brands that loser's logic, sparks up his electric cursed energy, and resolves to slay the unslayable.

The flashback opens on Kenjaku stumbling upon an aged Kashimo amid a field littered with the warriors he had slaughtered, not one of whom brought him any enjoyment. Kenjaku brought up Ryu Ishigori, reputedly the holder of the greatest cursed energy output on record, but Kashimo brushed him aside as too remote a target. He asked instead for the strongest sorcerer Kenjaku had ever known, and the reply, Sukuna, sealed his choice. Kashimo consented to become a cursed object so he might someday be reincarnated into the Culling Game with the sole aim of fighting him.