"Don't get cocky... it's not over yet!"
Matsuda Jinpei gritted his teeth, leveraging his core strength to forcefully twist his body and break free from Satoru Gojo's restraint. Using the momentum, he rolled away to put distance between them, simultaneously throwing a glance at Furuya Rei.
"Hey, can you still move?"
Catching his drift, Furuya Rei endured the dull ache in his shoulder and quickly regulated his breathing. A flame of defiance ignited in his purple-grey eyes, and he said in a low voice, "Again!"
"Eh~ those few hits must have hurt quite a bit, you still want to continue?"
Having intentionally held back to let Matsuda slip away, Satoru Gojo stood a few paces away. He shrugged, looking rather helpless. "You two wouldn't want to be absent on the very first day of class, would you—"
The two men, whose competitiveness had completely taken over, turned a deaf ear to this.
Matsuda Jinpei acted first, launching a straight right punch directly at Gojo's face. Perhaps because he grew braver with each setback, his movements were even faster than before. At the same time, Furuya Rei lunged forward from the flank, leaving virtually no room for any sort of evasion.
However, Satoru Gojo didn't just dodge blindly. He directly grabbed the curly-haired youth's wrist, using him as a human shield, and leaned back gracefully.
Matsuda Jinpei didn't even have time to react. He only felt his vision blur before taking a kick, unable to hold back a shout.
"You blond bastard, look who you're hitting!"
"Sorry." Furuya Rei's eyes were locked onto the fluttering ribbon in the air. "But... now is the time."
In his previous calculation, there was a sixty percent chance that Hisano would pull Matsuda over to block in front of him. It turned out exactly as expected. In that case, taking advantage of the split second of slack when the opponent leaned backward, they would have an opportunity to break through—
Furuya Rei put everything into it, using his entire body weight to drag Satoru Gojo down.
The black-haired youth let out a muffled grunt, appearing caught off guard by his actions.
"Got you!"
Just as Furuya Rei had anticipated, his fingers were about to graze the edge of the ribbon. Leaving aside the fact that a two-on-one still couldn't beat Hisano to the ground, if they couldn't even achieve a tiny goal like this, wouldn't the two of them be way too pathetic?
Just a little more... as long as I reach that spot...!
Regrettably, things didn't go as planned, and Furuya Rei only caught a handful of thin air.
"Too naive~ Furuya-kun." In the next split second, his wrist was locked by a terrifying, monstrous force, and he was thrown right out.
Bang!
Amidst a whirlwind environment, his back slammed heavily against Matsuda Jinpei, who was right beside him. The two of them crashed together in a sorry state, tumbling onto the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Cough... cough cough!"
It hurts!
Both his body and mind fell into numbness, and a rusty metallic taste filled his mouth. Furuya Rei's vision blurred, and it took quite a while before he recovered slightly.
At this point, Satoru Gojo strolled over leisurely with his hands in his pockets.
"The game is pretty much over, isn't it?" His expression was entirely normal and his breathing steady; he hadn't even broken a single drop of sweat, showing absolutely no sign of physical exhaustion.
That effortless appearance... so, the opening just now was deliberately shown.
Furuya Rei had been in countless fights since childhood, yet he had never encountered such a troublesome opponent. Evading all attacks almost flawlessly, while somehow possessing such overwhelmingly dominant power...
"Furuya-kun, you have good tactical awareness, but it's a pity your body can't keep up with your brain. As for Matsuda-kun... your strength is decent, but your tolerance is too weak." The black-haired, red-eyed youth squatted down, resting his chin in his hands as he sighed. "Clearly lacking the strength, yet insisting on pushing your luck."
Furuya Rei wanted to keep fighting, but found he didn't even have the strength to lift his hand.
A wild, unyielding arc pulled at the corner of Matsuda Jinpei's blood-stained mouth. "Hisano, I'll remember you." He propped himself against the ground to stand up slowly. "Six months is a long time. I'll make you swallow every single word you've said!"
Having reaped a good amount of impression points, Satoru Gojo gave them some face and clapped. "Ganbatte, ganbatte~ (Good luck, good luck!)"
"You guy..." Matsuda gave him a flat, half-closed-eye stare.
Furuya Rei's injuries were heavier than his, so it took him a bit more time to stand up in a wobbly manner. "As expected of Hisano-kun, you really are strong." He looked directly at the black-haired youth opposite him, the flame in his purple-grey eyes seemingly burning even more stubbornly than before. "But, I will challenge you hundreds and thousands of times, until I beat you down to the ground where you can't get back up!"
"Haha..."
Hearing such fierce words, Satoru Gojo burst into laughter instead. He spoke in a highly amused tone: "No wonder I noticed you the moment I entered the school. Furuya-kun, you're even more interesting than I imagined."
"Huh? You finally admit you were looking at me before, right!"
Gojo didn't deny it, simply continuing, "Matsuda-kun is the same... looks like life at the academy won't be boring from now on."
Matsuda Jinpei countered, "Hey hey, I'm not a tool for you to kill time!"
"Well~ you guys got hurt this time, so it's still unfair no matter how you look at it. Once your injuries are fully healed, try challenging me again."
Though the black and blue bruises he left on the two of them looked intimidating, they were actually just superficial injuries that didn't harm their vitals. After all, if he had truly used a few more fractions of his strength, a "mysterious freshman death incident" would probably be circulating on the very first day of the police academy.
Seeing the night grow heavier, Gojo kindly asked, "Need me to help you guys back?"
"...No need."
"I can walk on my own."
Even though their entire bodies ached, to preserve their last shred of dignity, neither of them wanted to be supported by their opponent.
"Alright then," Gojo said regretfully. "I'll head back to sleep first."
Watching his not-so-tall silhouette, Matsuda Jinpei muttered grumpily, "...Talk about arrogant, he's clearly just a brute-strength kid."
"I can hear you, you know—"
"..."
"Ah, right." The youth with his long hair tied up in a ribbon stopped in his tracks with his back to them, speaking softly. "Admitting that you need to be protected isn't weakness... it's so that you can protect more people in the future."
"If you want to become excellent police officers, start with that point first."
Furuya Rei caught himself in a slight daze. For such words to actually come out of the mouth of a youth who claimed he only joined the police because it was interesting felt incredibly incongruous.
Before Furuya could ask further, the other party added a line: "Anyway, I'm definitely not going to protect anyone. It's better to leave that kind of foolish stuff to you guys." With that, the figure swaggered away.
"...Is that so."
Hisano-kun, do you truly think that way?
While pondering this question, Furuya Rei slowly took a step in the direction of the dorms. Before he knew it, he was walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Matsuda Jinpei.
"What a joke. Anyone can see that protecting others and being a hero of justice is something only a guy like you would do."
"Matsuda, I think you're just being stubborn, aren't you?" Perhaps due to the experience of fighting side by side and being beaten to the ground together—which added a sense of shared misfortune—Furuya Rei's perception of "Matsuda Jinpei" had changed quite a bit. "By the way, what exactly did you enter the police academy for? Don't tell me it was just for fun too?"
"Ha, don't make me laugh. Naturally, it's to beat up the boss of the police, that bastard of a Superintendent General!"
"...That's even more absurd!"
Faced with Furuya Rei's astonishment, Matsuda Jinpei didn't elaborate further, merely smacking his lips. "But before that, I have to beat Hisano first. I can't lose like today again. Furuya, don't you agree?"
"Hmph..."
"What's wrong?" Matsuda asked.
"You're not calling me a blond bastard anymore?"
"Don't you think it's exhausting to shout so many syllables?"
Furuya Rei let out a low chuckle, but it aggravated his injury, causing him to hiss from the sharp pain. "At least... our cooperation today wasn't bad."
Matsuda Jinpei fell silent for a moment, his head tilting away slightly. "It's barely a passing grade."
Through a strange twist of fate, the two could be considered to have accepted each other's status as roommates, and the atmosphere was no longer so intensely hostile. Therefore, after returning to the dorm building, Furuya Rei didn't knock on Hiromitsu Morofushi's door to ask if he had spare bandages as he did in the original timeline; instead, he and剧 Matsuda bandaged each other up. Of course, there was no shortage of complaints during the process.
Meanwhile, a short while earlier, Satoru Gojo had returned to Room 144 and lain back down on his bed as if nothing had happened.
At that moment, Hiromitsu Morofushi suddenly snapped his eyes open, breaking into a cold sweat.
"Ah... ahh!"
Looking at the pale face of the handsome young man, Satoru Gojo tilted his head. "What's wrong, Hiro-kun?"
Hiromitsu stared at him, his expression appearing somewhat dazed.
"I—" He shook his head. "I'm fine. Go back to sleep, Nozomi-kun."
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