Chapter 200: The Weather God's Lightning Strike; Hina Amano's True Feelings
Standing amidst the torrential downpour, surrounded by over a hundred evil spirits with twisted, vengeful eyes, the atmosphere grew suffocating. The only sound was the rhythmic drumming of rain hitting the pavement—a heavy, oppressive silence that signaled the start of a "Night Parade."
Mitsuha Miyamizu and Hina Amano both paled. One was a Shrine Maiden from a remote village, the other was the "Sunshine Girl" who could control the sky through prayer, but neither possessed the power to actually fight a ghost.
Especially not a hundred of them at once.
"What do we do...?" Hina's voice trembled with rising panic.
Yoru simply waved a hand dismissively, his expression bored. "Relax. We just kill them all. Simple."
Hina stomped her foot in frustration. "How can you keep acting like a cool guy at a time like this?!"
Yoru smirked. "If panicking actually helped, I'd be the first one to do it."
Suddenly, a blinding flash of white light tore through the black clouds.
To Hina, time seemed to grind to a halt. The world slowed into a series of flickering frames. High above, a massive bolt of lightning—a concentrated spear of divine wrath—descended directly toward Yoru.
Hina's eyes widened. She tried to scream a warning, but her body couldn't keep up with her racing thoughts. She couldn't even get the word "Watch!" out of her mouth before the heavens collapsed upon him.
"Get out—!"
BOOM!
The thunderous roar shook the very earth, accompanied by a flash so bright it seared the retinas. The lightning struck exactly where Yoru was standing.
Hina and Mitsuha were far enough away to avoid the physical blast, but the sensory overload left them temporarily blind. In that white void, they both had the same thought:
It's over.
The Weather God—that malevolent entity—had summoned the literal power of nature to strike Yoru down. How could a human body, no matter how gifted, survive the fury of the atmosphere?
But unlike Mitsuha, Hina still held a tiny, flickering ember of hope—a hope so "Abstract" it was almost ridiculous.
Did he really lose?
Even against a God... is this how the Super-Quant Club ends?
The white spots in Hina's vision slowly faded. "Yoru...?"
Looking at the crater and the swirling dust and steam kicked up by the strike, Hina grit her teeth. Tears overflowed, tracking down her cheeks as she clenched her fists.
"Yoru... get up! Please, get back up!"
The response to her desperate plea was Yoru's voice—sounding amused and slightly exasperated.
"Are you filming a Tokusatsu show or something? What's with the melodrama?"
"Eh?"
Hina and Mitsuha froze. Their hearts, which had plummeted into their stomachs, suddenly surged back to life.
Patter... patter... patter...
The sound of rain hitting the ground became clear again. As the deluge washed away the dust and smoke, a figure was revealed.
Standing over Yoru was a five-meter-tall, headless monstrosity. Its body was split vertically—one half pitch-black, the other bone-white. Beneath the protective shadow of the monster's massive ghost-hands, Yoru stood perfectly still. Not a single speck of dust or a drop of rain had touched him.
"I never went down in the first place, so why are you telling me to stand up?" Yoru sighed. "Focus, Hina. I'm not some Shonen protagonist fueled by the power of friendship."
As he spoke, a pitch-black katana manifested in his hand. Swirling black flames licked his body, forming a long trench coat and a dark, expressionless mask that hid everything but his eyes.
"I am definitely the protagonist of an Invincible Power Fantasy."
"Is that...?" Mitsuha gasped, covering her mouth. Her eyes reflected a total mental earthquake. "The Mask...?"
Yoru chuckled behind the black visor. "Wow. Even a cute freshman girl from the middle of nowhere knows my name. My PR team is doing God-tier work."
Mitsuha only heard the first half. When he called her a "cute freshman," her brain effectively short-circuited. Her face flushed, and her heart rate spiked. But the moment she looked back at the hundred snarling Yokai surrounding them, the reality of the situation came crashing back down.
So Yoru-kun is the 'Mask'...? The mysterious vigilante who's more popular than every pop idol and movie star in the country... the mystery man voted 'Most Likely to Save the World' by everyone from six-year-olds to grandmas?
Seeing that Yoru had survived the lightning without a scratch, the swarm of spirits began to close in. Their twisted, manic eyes weren't just on him. They hungered for Hina—the "Weather Child" chosen as a sacrifice—and Mitsuha, whose bloodline carried the ancient power of the Miyamizu shrine. To them, the girls were high-tier gourmet snacks.
"DIE!"
One spirit—nearly seven feet tall, draped in rotting rags with a dozen eyeballs sprouting from its face—lunged first. It locked all twelve eyes onto Mitsuha's spirit form and pounced like a rabid animal, its maw leaking black miasma.
Mitsuha froze. Before she could even process the terror, she heard the sharp shing of steel.
CLANG!
The black blade of Onimaru Kunitsuna carved a crescent arc through the air—a strike so elegant it looked like a moonbeam.
The Yokai's upper torso continued its forward momentum, only to face-plant into the mud. It looked back in confusion, only to see its own legs still standing three yards away, severed by a perfectly smooth cut.
"Who's next?"
A white, smiling face appeared on Yoru's pitch-black mask. He scanned the hesitating swarm, flipped his katana into a reverse grip, and drove the point through the downed Yokai's skull without looking.
"First come, first served. You all have the honor of being the appetizer for Kyoto's Number One Exorcist."
The clouds above grew so thick that the afternoon felt like midnight. Seeing the spirits hesitate, Yoru stepped forward. "If you won't come to me, I'm coming to you."
"Go."
With that one word, the massive black-and-white headless Soul Body that had been shielding Yoru straightened up. It lacked legs, but its five-meter-tall torso radiated a crushing pressure that made the common spirits tremble.
BAM.
A pale ghost-hand with razor-sharp black claws slammed into the ground. The headless monster moved in a bizarre, terrifying fashion—using its massive arms like crutches to vault forward at high speed.
"One."
A pitch-black ghost-hand shot out, snatching a spirit mid-air. With a casual squeeze of its fingers, the spirit popped like a cheap toy.
Immediately after, the pale hand swept through the crowd. Its claws, sharp as obsidian scalpels, shredded three more spirits into ribbons of black smoke.
The spirits, who had been licking their metaphorical chops moments ago, suddenly realized they weren't the hunters. They were the livestock. Their madness turned to pure, unadulterated dread.
In the next second, Mitsuha witnessed something she would never forget.
The army of over a hundred terrifying monsters turned tail and fled. They screeched in panic, scattering into the rain like a swarm of rats.
The monsters... are running away from a human? Mitsuha couldn't believe her eyes.
But what shocked her even more was that Yoru had no intention of letting them go.
"Tsuna-chan."
Yoru let go of his katana. To the shock of Hina and Mitsuha, the black blade shimmered and transformed into a stunning woman wearing a black mourning kimono, her long hair reaching her waist.
"Master," Onimaru Kunitsuna (Tsuna-chan) whispered, bowing deeply with the devotion of a total yandere.
"I'm too lazy to chase them. Take care of it."
"As you wish, my Lord."
When Tsuna-chan turned toward the fleeing spirits, the gentle devotion in her eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, predatory vacuum. She flickered out of existence, her spiritual speed so great that she cut through the rain like a hot wire through wax.
Mitsuha and Hina couldn't see exactly what was happening in the deluge, but the screams of terror echoing through the valley told the story.
Two minutes later, the storm began to break. The rain slowed to a drizzle, then stopped entirely. The black clouds parted, and the warm summer sun bathed the mountain pass once more.
"All done," Yoru said casually.
The black trench coat and mask dissolved into embers. Tsuna-chan and the headless monster vanished back into his soul. He looked like a normal student again.
Mitsuha stared at the empty station platform. No blood, no bodies, no trace of the massacre. She looked at Hina. "Do you... do you do this every day?"
Hina gave a weary smile. She looked at Yoru, who was acting like he'd just finished a light jog. "If you mean exorcising... then yes. But the way he does it? No one else in the world is like him."
"You call that 'Exorcising'?" Mitsuha's voice was full of disbelief.
As a Shrine Maiden, she knew the legends. Exorcists were supposed to use paper talismans, set up complex barriers, and risk their lives in a desperate struggle against the dark. That's how the stories went.
But Yoru? He didn't struggle. He didn't use talismans. He didn't even break a sweat. He sent the monsters into a state of total existential crisis. He was the one who set the trap. He was the one they feared.
Is this guy even a 'Good' guy?
Hina patted Mitsuha's shoulder. "I had the same reaction. You'll get used to it."
Suddenly, the air rippled with Red Threads again. They wove a message in front of Yoru:
[GOD OF ITOMORI]: "As expected of the Supreme Hero chosen by the Heavens! Such raw power! Those spirits were mere trash before your divine presence! SASUGA, YORU-SAMA!"
Hina and Mitsuha watched the text scroll by, feeling a collective sense of "cringe."
A Simp God... This was a first for both of them.
The threads then flickered, looking almost hesitant.
[GOD OF ITOMORI]: "So... I have a tiny request. A small negotiation, if you will?"
Yoru waved a hand. "You want Mitsuha to go back into her body, right? Fine by me."
[GOD OF ITOMORI]: "You read my mind! Truly, your wisdom is—"
"Shut up."
The God of Itomori, despite being a bit of a troll, was a responsible deity. He had realized that with the "Weather God" sending hit squads of spirits, a spirit-form Mitsuha was a sitting duck. Sending her back into her physical body at the shrine was the only way to keep her safe while Yoru did the heavy lifting.
Comparing the two gods was like night and day. One wanted to save his people and was willing to kiss up to a human to do it. The other held the sky hostage and demanded a teenage girl as a snack.
As Mitsuha's spirit form began to fade, Hina let out a sigh of relief. She looked at Yoru, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Maybe... maybe we should go back. It's too dangerous."
Yoru looked at her. "Think about it, Hina. If we give up now and go back to Kyoto, you'll be a 'Living Sacrifice' within the month."
Hina flinched. He had seen through her. He knew her body was becoming translucent. He knew she intended to die to save Japan's weather.
"But..." Hina forced a smile, her eyes full of sadness. "That's just destiny, right? One girl disappears, and everyone in the country gets their sunshine back. It's a fair trade. My life actually becomes meaningful that way."
"No." Yoru stopped smiling. He shook his head. "That has zero meaning."
"Think about it. Even if you sacrifice yourself, how long does that 'Stability' last? Ten years? A hundred? And what happens when that greedy bastard in the sky wants a new sacrifice a century from now?"
"If we have the power to kill a God who uses the weather to extort human lives, then we should kill it."
"If we don't, the next girl who gets chosen as a sacrifice... her blood is on our hands."
Hina bit her lip. "That... doesn't sound like you. You always say we shouldn't feel 'obligated' to save the world just because we have powers."
"Heh." Yoru waved it off with a grin. "I'm just using that logic because I personally don't want you to die. But that doesn't make me wrong."
Hina froze. Looking into his smiling eyes, her face turned a deep crimson. "I-I see... I mean, you want to protect everyone in the club, right? And I'm in the club, so... that's all this is, right?"
"What are you, a riddle-master?" Yoru teased. He suddenly pointed toward the horizon. "Look."
Hina followed his finger. In the wake of the storm, a brilliant, vibrant rainbow had formed across the valley.
"It's beautiful..."
Yoru looked at Hina, the "Sunshine Girl," as she bathed in the light.
"Yeah," he murmured. "It's a view worth keeping around. I'd like to see it a lot more often."