Chapter 196

Rokujushi Miyo finally lands the match he longed for as Maki agrees to wrestle and clear her head. Stalled below the strength she craves and unable to concentrate, she relies on another person's guidance for the first time. The only road to freedom Miyo can offer is the one paved through sumo.

Sensing the tension dulling her instincts, Miyo asks Maki to wrestle, and she agrees, which startles Noritoshi. His simple domain works as a pure sumo bout requiring mutual consent, so it skips any binding vow. Admitting she has been overthinking, Maki steps in and quietly asks herself what she keeps missing.

The first round ends with Miyo tossing her aside despite her aggression. Professing his love of the sport, he grants that a straight fight would go her way, then presses her on why she cannot settle. Maki has never accepted anyone as a teacher, writing off Satoru and Atsuya as fools, and never once considered leaning on others to grow. She admits Daido's remark about perceiving everything still escapes her, so Miyo says he can only convey it through sumo.

He tells her she has wound herself up in everyone and everything nearby. Wrestling is itself an act of tangling together, yet a person must mature outside the ring first, so every past experience pours naturally into the match. He likens the resulting awareness to smelling light or hearing sound, a state where even the contest dissolves beside pure self-expression. That, Miyo reveals, is the freedom Daido named, and Maki has to taste it herself. After many bouts the domain fades and she rejoins the others, visibly changed, smiling as she declares she is at her peak.

Belonging to the Culling Game Arc, this chapter ran in issue 40 of 2022 and was published on September 5, 2022. It appears in Volume 22, with Miyo and Maki sharing the cover. The clash of Maki, Daido, and Miyo against Naoya runs through it, and the lone featured power is Miyo's Simple Domain. Only the five fighters at the colony appear.