0— Is it appropriate to call this a Prologue?

"I Got Isekai'd Into a World Where Being Naked Is a Felony!"

***

"Holy smokes! What in the world is going on down there in the arena, Masatoshi?!" Hitoshi, the play-by-play commentator, hollered from the balcony seats. His voice swallowed whole by the thick haze blanketing Orukuen Arena.

"This toxic smoke—no doubt about it, this is the handiwork of the one and only Sasuke the Mad Cobra!" Masatoshi fired back, his voice pitching up into a squeal.

Through the billowing clouds of smoke churning like a giant steampunk engine, Sasuke stood with an arrogance that oozed from every single pore.

"Check that out, folks! Sasuke's Suppafuku has evolved into San-Enkai mode!" Hitoshi cranked the crowd up to a fever pitch.

Every eye in the stadium locked onto Sasuke, drowned out by a roar that rattled the bones.

"Those golden accents tracing every cut of muscle on that jet-black armor—absolute peak aesthetics!"

"You said it, Masatoshi! But don't sleep on those armor plates at every joint, gleaming just like the scales of a real cobra!" Hitoshi bellowed with full theatrical flair.

"Shishishi, yeah, yeah, yeah—keep the compliments coming, I can take it!" Sasuke threw both arms wide open, spinning to strike a pose at every corner of the stands.

"His Scaled Raiment of Naja is practically guaranteed a nomination for Super Fashion of the Week!"

The stadium erupted in thunderous applause. Meanwhile, Sasuke snapped his scythe through the air with a sharp flick.

Tssssh!

A spray of deep purple, highly corrosive venom splattered from the blade, foaming and eating into the arena floor.

"Hey, garbage," Sasuke sneered from behind his half-face helmet shaped like a striking cobra. "Give it up. I'm not looking to take your life today. Consider it a little gift from me."

"A little gift? Oh wow, how do you even say that with a straight face while radiating full-on murder vibes?" From somewhere deep in the smoke, a raspy voice answered back—and the tone was, shockingly, way too relaxed.

"And let me tell you something, pal. Fake Kamen Rider. Giving up isn't in my dictionary. Now, Epic Failure? That one's got its own chapter on page one."

The voice belonged to Houku Toma.

He stepped out from behind the haze looking like he'd lost a fight with a bus. His left arm had gone black and blue, dark purple snaking up toward his shoulder like ink bleeding through wet paper. The arm hung limp. Completely useless.

Man, this is such a pain. Fake Kamen Rider's poison works way too fast. Toma groaned internally.

But hey—bright side. My passive skill stack just maxed out. Thanks to this nasty little poison, ironically enough.

DING.

"Doki-doki Konjou is now active, Toma-kun! Chu!"

A faint smile crept across Toma's face as a small floating status window—invisible to everyone but him—lit up with three heart icons above his head. Followed by a sweet, familiar voice. His boss.

"Pfft—you look way too chill for someone who's actively dying. Either you're an idiot or you've just fully accepted your fate." Sasuke's voice sliced right through Toma's moment.

"Listen up, my poison is permanent. So you've got two options: surrender, get on your knees, and kiss my boot for the antidote—" Sasuke jabbed a finger at his own foot. Then pointed the massive scythe at Toma. "—or let me take that head of yours off. Honestly, that's a mercy compared to dying in agony from my venom—shishishi!"

Toma rolled his eyes like he'd just been told the most boring story in history. A stark contrast to the dismissive smirk Sasuke wore behind that orange visor.

"Oh no! Toma is in critical condition! Is this the end of his run in Fuseta, Hitoshi?!"

"Has to be! His luck has completely run dry, Masatoshi!"

Toma slid his gaze toward that insufferable duo.

"There's no way he beats Sasuke!"

"Sasuke's Suppafuku is the absolute gold standard of a Super Fashion!"

What's so Super about it? That costume looks like a tokusatsu extra who flunked the audition. Toma commented internally without so much as a glance at his opponent's outfit.

Whatever standard Toma had in mind for fashion was a complete mystery—because his own Suppafuku was objectively far worse. A dingy white tank top, a pair of beat-up denim shorts held together by prayer, and a set of rotting wooden geta sandals.

"Just die already!"

"Total loser!"

"Your Suppafuku is burning my eyes!"

Toma barely furrowed his brow, completely unbothered by the insults raining down from the stands.

"Hear that? They're literally cheering for your death." Sasuke swung his scythe lazily through the air before resting it against his shoulder.

Time to end this. But wait—I gotta come up with something cool to say. Like a proper shonen protagonist. Toma closed his eyes and dropped his head.

He breathed slowly. Searching for one sliver of calm in the middle of all this chaos. His ears buzzed for a moment—then...

"When the shadow of doubt makes your steps start to sway, hear these words that I say, before you crumble and fray—my rascal of a grandchild, don't you dare lose your way!"

DING.

The image of his grandmother flashed through his mind. Toma let out one long, heavy exhale—then raised his face with a slow smirk.

"None of that means a thing to me. And I'm passing on your offer. Because..."

His eyes locked onto Sasuke's. Steady. Unshakeable.

"...my grandma once said something genuinely cool: 'Never bow to the darkness, never tremble or wail; even if your whole life is a blazing garbage pile.'"

"GYAHAHAHA!" Sasuke exploded into laughter, his scythe wobbling as his whole body shook with unhinged glee.

"So you finally know your place! Yeah! You're nothing but trash! So there's no way a loser like you can beat an elite soldier of the Nuno-Gun like me—"

"SAN—!"

Thud.

Sasuke froze. His eyes blew wide behind the visor.

"ENKAI!"

BOOM!

A dense wall of white smoke swallowed Toma whole. The entire arena shook. Debris scattered in every direction, and Sasuke's toxic haze was blasted apart by the force erupting from the center of that explosion.

"Impossible..." Sasuke stumbled back one step, his scythe trembling in his grip. "A low-tier Suppafuku like that—reaching San-Enkai mode?!"

The smoke began to clear. From the heart of that white cloud, Toma stepped back into view looking—exactly the same. Dingy tank top, beat-up denim shorts, geta sandals.

Except now a pair of round black sunglasses sat on his nose. His right hand gripped a two-meter wooden staff with a smooth, rounded tip—and WHERE DID THAT GIANT TURTLE SHELL ON HIS BACK COME FROM?!

"How is his left arm healed?!" Sasuke stared, completely lost. The deadly cobra venom had vanished without a trace.

"PFFT! HAHAHA! Bro what is that outfit?!"

"He looks like a blind old man, no cap!"

"Is that a wok or a turtle shell?!"

"Dude looks more like a circus clown than a Fukukishi! HAHAHA!"

The crowd's mockery bounced off every wall in the stadium. But Toma didn't care—or more accurately, he never had. Instead, he nudged his sunglasses up with two fingers and spun his wooden staff with flair—which immediately backfired when it smacked him in the knee. But that didn't matter, right?!

If Grandma were still alive, she'd be screaming right now—because... Toma grinned wide and raised one eyebrow.

I look exactly like the master of the most legendary Saiyan fighter of all time!

WHOOOSH!

Without giving Sasuke even a single second to process the absurdity, Toma shot forward—dragging his staff along the ground at blistering speed.

CLANG!

Wood met iron. Sparks exploded from the impact, and Sasuke was shoved back several steps whether he liked it or not.

"What the—?!" Sasuke stared at Toma's wooden staff in disbelief. "How is a stick blocking my scythe?!"

"Because this staff is coated in the same aura as its owner—pure, unrivaled cool-guy energy!" Toma shot back.

SLASH!

"Toma's swinging that thing like a rookie at batting practice! And yet every wild swing keeps pushing Sasuke back!" The veins on Hitoshi's neck practically bulged as he screamed into the mic.

Baseball bat? Yeah! I've broken one of those before! Toma quipped internally, not missing a single beat of his assault.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

"He's been the dark horse of this semifinal and he's fighting like he's got nothing to lose, Hitoshi! But Toma's technique is rough as sandpaper! He's leaving himself wide open!" Masatoshi's booming analysis blasted through the speakers.

Every eye in the place was glued to the arena. Barely a blink between them, like no one could afford to miss a single second.

"Tsah! Tsah! Tsah! Called it—fighting you with a weapon is way easier!" Toma riding high on full confidence.

"Easier, you say?! You've got some nerve, you little punk!" Sasuke snapped, ramping up the speed of his scythe swings.

DASH!

It didn't take long for Sasuke to snatch the momentum back.

"I take back what I said about not killing you!" He launched himself high into the air, vaulting above Toma's head and winding up for a lethal execution strike from above.

"This ends here!"

Toma looked up. Sasuke's massive silhouette swallowed him in shadow. That split second stretched out like slow motion.

Blzt!

You gotta be kidding me—the last of his poison is kicking in right now?!

A tingling sensation crawled through Toma's hands.

No other choice! Toma stopped thinking and handed everything over to his instincts.

But his instincts led him to pull off a move that no sane fighter—not even the most clueless amateur on the planet—would ever conceive of.

HE STARTED TWERKING.

CRAK!

Sasuke's iron scythe was ripped clean out of his hands—after slamming dead center into Toma's turtle shell, which had angled itself perfectly open thanks to that twerking motion. The weapon launched high into the air before crashing to the ground several meters away with a heavy, ringing clang.

"What—?!" Sasuke stared at his empty hands wide-eyed, still airborne.

Boom!

Toma drove his wooden staff into the ground with maximum drama. In that instant, the image of a girl with a black eyepatch and wounds that hadn't stopped bleeding flashed through his mind. The girl who had lit a fire in him—from the very moment he stepped into this arena to face Sasuke.

That girl. Tojo.

"This one's for you, Tojo-san!"

Toma yanked both arms back—elbows high, fists clenched tight, coiled and ready to detonate.

"This is payback for the lowlife who had the nerve to hurt a woman like her!!!"

Without even realizing it, Toma had dropped into the exact fighting stance of his all-time favorite shonen manga hero—down to his very bones.

"HADAKA—NO—KEN!"

BOOM!

A two-fisted strike of catastrophic force slammed into Sasuke's gut with the impact of an earthquake. The entire body of the black-and-green-haired soldier convulsed from the hit—right as a spray of blood left his mouth.

SHIIING! CRAK! WOOSH!

A blinding white flash detonated at the point of contact, followed by a web of glowing cracks that shredded his Suppafuku into dust—and a shockwave that launched his body straight up into the sky. His shocked eyes rolled back, consciousness slipping away.

CRASH!

Sasuke—buck naked—went airborne, spinning wildly through the air. He sailed clean over the arena boundary and slammed into the stone wall, dropping the entire stadium into dead silence.

"AGAIN! AGAIN! AND AGAIN! TOMA HOUKU HAS COMMITTED A SERIOUS FELONY BY GETTING SASUKE NAKED IN A PUBLIC PLACE!" Hitoshi screamed into the mic. "I HAVE NO IDEA WHY GODDESS AME NO NUNO HASN'T STRUCK HIM DOWN YET!"

"ARENA SECURITY! WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?! DO NOT LET SASUKE STAY NAKED FOR MORE THAN TEN SECONDS!" Masatoshi followed up, his voice shaking with genuine, undisguised horror.

"No way..."

"How did he..."

"Oh my Goddess..."

The crowd stared at Sasuke with a cocktail of shock and disgust. Parents threw their hands over their kids' eyes—though more than a few children were peeking through the gaps. Arena security sprinted onto the field, stretching out an emergency white blanket stamped with the kanji for "Emperor of Threads" in the center.

—Meanwhile, at the highest balcony of Orukuen Arena, far removed from the chaos of the general stands.

A lavish private box sat hidden behind thin, transparent golden curtains.

"That kid's Suppafuku... the power behind it feels like..." A deep, resonant voice drifted from within—where the Shogun resided.

"...like the Goddess herself is spitting in my face."

He was Kuruto Akahari. The supreme ruler of the nation that had criminalized nudity: Oru no Kuni.

As thousands of eyes locked onto Toma with a storm of clashing emotions, he stood at the center of the arena—sunglasses catching the light. He had no idea—and probably wouldn't care anyway—about the danger quietly closing in around him.

A small, cocky smile settled on his lips.

***

"And me? Toma Houku. A Fukukishi with the power to make people naked. But hey—this story isn't about being naked!"