Chapter 222: The Battle Begins

A dreamlike passage opens the chapter. A trimmer version of Sakamoto stands lost in blank white space, unsure of what he had just been doing. Glancing to one side, he realizes he is seated aboard a train beside Rion Akao, the friend he lost, and his outfit has reverted to his old JCC student uniform. Rion greets him without ceremony, and Sakamoto can only ask where they are.

Reality returns at a supermarket vending machine, where Oki drops in a coin and makes a selection, only for Nagumo's hand to grab the can as it falls. Oki flatly refuses to treat him, noting with distaste that Nagumo has reached for Aojiru. He suggests that turning up in front of an enemy so casually means Nagumo must think little of the Order, though Nagumo waves it off as chance. Riding the escalator side by side, Nagumo remarks that Oki looks worn out, and Oki concedes there has been no rest since the JAA was restructured. When Nagumo asks whether Oki and Slur get along, Oki admits they barely speak and he cannot read the other camp at all.

Talk drifts to their shared school year with Sakamoto and Slur, which Nagumo calls a wild time. Oki wonders aloud if Nagumo ever considers coming back to the Order, and Nagumo flips the question, inviting Oki to join him instead. The offer curdles into a tense standoff. Oki declines, bound by JAA rules against quitting, and Nagumo declines to return, calling the talks a bust. Pressed on whether he resents that Oki chose Slur's side, Nagumo confesses with a smile that he hates it a great deal.

Oki says he has his own motives, then heads up to the rooftop lot. As he opens his car, Nagumo drops into the passenger seat and warns that the JAA is bound to lose the coming war now that it stands apart from the Order. Oki recalls first meeting Sakamoto and Nagumo, when he took the pair for a couple of cheeky troublemakers Yotsumura had dragged in, and admits he once pictured Nagumo leading the Order one day. Then he throws the car into gear and sends it straight off the edge.

Inside the falling cabin, a brutal exchange erupts. Knives and gunfire fill the cramped space as the two trade cuts, one opening the other's cheek in turn, then aiming for chest and neck. To keep either strike from landing fatally, Nagumo lets a blade skewer his hand while Oki shields himself with an arm. They cast the knives aside and land matching punches, blood at both their mouths. Below, a young man is being told he lacks passion just as the wreck slams down and bursts into flame behind him, sending bystanders shouting for help. In a nearby cafe, the two combatants sit coatless. Oki checks his watch and orders a Blend Coffee, and when he asks what Nagumo wants, Nagumo simply requests the same.

Sakamoto experiences a vision of the deceased Rion Akao aboard a train, dressed once more as a student. Oki and Nagumo meet at a supermarket and probe each other over the Order, the restructured JAA, and their old classmate Slur, each refusing the other's recruitment pitch. Oki drives his car off a rooftop and fights Nagumo in freefall, the two wounding each other but pulling their killing blows before the vehicle explodes on impact.

The Japanese title Kaisen renders as The Battle Begins. Part of the New JAA Arc, the chapter runs nineteen pages, carries a cover featuring Taro Sakamoto, and debuted in the thirty-fourth issue of 2025 before its inclusion in Volume 25. Kei Uzuki and Satoru Yotsumura are referenced without appearing. The chapter follows Chapter 221 and leads into Chapter 223.