Chapter 197

The time spent grappling with Miyo reshapes Maki in ways no one expected. Working alongside the wrestler and the swordsman, she climbs to new heights and casually flips the momentum of the battle back onto Naoya.

Noritoshi and Daido note how drastically Maki has shifted after so little time inside the domain. Because Miyo's barrier discards binding vows, time within it races ahead, so a thousand bouts passed in under a minute outside. Unmoved by the change, Naoya peels away to gather speed for another charge. When Noritoshi asks the newcomers who they are, they shrug off the question, calling themselves people who simply do as they please.

Maki gives chase and frustrates Naoya, who cannot leave her behind. Racing through the city, she now anticipates his movements by perceiving the whole of her surroundings, recognizing she can see what only one person managed before her. She believes that man could have shattered Naoya's cursed womb and endured a full-speed strike. Naoya tries to ram her in midair, but she slips aside by treating differences in temperature and air density as surfaces to push off, needing no solid footing. She slams him down and he goads her to keep hitting without cursed energy, only for Miyo to headbutt him and Daido to bisect him again, after which Maki kicks his upper half clear before he can mend.

Increasingly enraged that she resembles the man he despises, Naoya forces his human form out from his cursed-spirit body. His hands emerge from the lower half and haul out a recreated upper torso. Once more insisting that he is the one who belongs beside Satoru and Toji, he unleashes his domain expansion.

This Culling Game Arc chapter ran in issue 41 of 2022 and came out on September 12, 2022. It is collected in Volume 22, with all five fighters of the colony bout featured on the cover. The brawl of Maki, Daido, and Miyo against Naoya carries on throughout. Featured powers include the Split Soul Katana cursed tool and Naoya's Projection Sorcery, while Toji Fushiguro appears within Maki's thoughts.