Chapter 108: Authenticity

Battered and scuffed from their duel with Devil Long Hair, Iaian, Okamaitachi, and Bushidrill catch their breath. Their blades had shredded every last strand of the creature's hair, which proved to be its one fatal weakness, and it drops in defeat. The trio are stunned to have come through it, admitting none of them could have managed the win alone, and they fret that other foes of that caliber could still be lurking. Iaian steadies their nerves by insisting their teacher is beyond such worries.

Attention swings to Atomic Samurai, who is felling monsters in rapid succession. A blade-bearing creature called Sword Devil Executioner compliments his technique, and Atomic, mildly surprised anything survived his first cut, ends it before it can move. He then invites any survivors to raise a hand. The machine G5 lifts a mechanical arm, boasting that it has mapped every one of his motions, and the two launch into a blistering exchange of swordplay.

Amused, Atomic muses that modern contraptions have grown quite entertaining and jokes about buying one, which spurs G5 to press its attack. Even after mimicking the Atomic Slash with twin blades, the robot falls, carved into hundreds of fragments by an unimpressed swordsman. Atomic notes he could not breach the core of the Machine God, plated in some substance harder than G5's own shell. A laser lances out of the settling dust; he parries it and answers with an Air Blade, only to find the real culprit long gone. He decides to hand the chase to the surface heroes.

The story returns to the disciples, now talking with Narinki's Private Squad. The mercenaries admire how the swordsmen bottle up their killing intent in combat and pitch them on joining their Private Military Company. The students turn it down, since hero work doubles as their training. When Bushidrill asks Tongara whether the squad prizes heroism or swordsmanship, the leader calls both notions useless in a real fight, explaining that a mercenary survives through deceit, even faking terror to bait an enemy. He confesses that when his men wept before the monsters, the tears were entirely real. Iaian, struck by their coordination, sees something worth learning in it. The scene cuts to Tareo fleeing Black Sperm, until a surprise slash from Atomic Samurai drives the monster back, and Atomic remarks on its speed as the chapter closes.

The three disciples finish off Devil Long Hair by cutting through the source of its power. Atomic Samurai wipes out Sword Devil Executioner and dismantles the mimicry robot G5, though he cannot pierce the Machine God's protected core and lets the escaping enemy slip toward the surface team. Narinki's Private Squad tries and fails to recruit the swordsmen, and Tongara lays out the mercenary philosophy of using fear and trickery as weapons. Atomic then intervenes to save Tareo from Black Sperm.

Titled Authenticity (Shingan) and printed under the same name in the Viz edition, this is the one hundred eighth chapter, collected in Volume 23 and adapted in Episode 34. Before its redraw the chapter carried the title Atomic Samurai and staged a longer duel with G5. Because the mercenaries had been killed off by Sweet Mask in the earlier plot, Tongara's talk with the disciples did not exist in that scrapped version. A bonus page shows a chibi Black Sperm bouncing about cheerfully.