The Mahito clone lunged at Nanami Kento, its form twisting mid-air, arms elongating into weapons. Nanami's eyes tracked the movement with cold precision.
*「十劃呪法・瓦落瓦落」
Ten-Line Cursed Technique: Walou Walou. *
His blunt sword struck at the 3:7 ratio point on Mahito's arm—the critical dividing line where his technique found its mark. The blade bit deep. Mahito's arm separated cleanly, the clone's eyes widening as the limb hit the ground and dissolved.
'It can't regenerate.' Nanami noted the clone's hesitation, the way it scrambled backward. 'Or it won't.'
Beside him, Haibara Yu moved.
*「藁人形呪術・案山子」
Straw Doll Cursed Technique: Scarecrow. *
His Shikigami materialized—a looming figure of straw and shadow, its scythe gleaming with cursed light. It swung, and the Mahito clone before Haibara folded at the waist, severed cleanly. But Haibara didn't stop. He stepped forward, knuckle dusters gleaming, and punched. Twice. The clone exploded into fragments that dissipated before they hit the ground.
One remained.
The original Mahito—arm missing, expression twisted—backed away from Nanami, reassessing. The clone's destruction had cost him cursed energy, a quarter of his reserves. Annoying, but manageable.
The arm, though.
He looked at the stump. The wound pulsed with a wrongness he had never felt before. When he tried to regenerate, to reshape the flesh and bone that should have answered his will, nothing happened.
'My soul. That strike damaged my soul.'
He remembered the moment of impact—the way the blunt sword had shown him dividing lines, the way it had cut not through flesh but through concept. That was the wielder's technique.
But the soul damage? That was something else.
His gaze fell on the sword in Nanami's hand. Ordinary in appearance, blunt in edge, but now that he focused, he could feel it—a faint, almost imperceptible pulse. A hum that resonated with the fabric of souls.
'The weapon itself. It's designed to hurt us.'
He looked at Haibara, at the knuckle dusters gleaming on his fists. The same pulse. The same threat.
Mahito's lips curled.
'Then I won't let them touch me.'
He reshaped his soul, the damage from Nanami's strike slowly knitting closed, and grew a new arm—not a regeneration of the old one, but an entirely new limb, attached to a different point on his body. It was awkward, grotesque, but functional.
The two sorcerers charged.
Mahito's mouth opened—wider than any human jaw should—and spewed.
*「多重魂・抜体」
Multiple Souls: Body Extraction. *
Transfigured Humans poured from his throat like a tide, dozens of them, each one a screaming nightmare of twisted flesh and gnashing teeth. They swarmed toward Nanami and Haibara, blocking their advance, buying Mahito time.
'One at a time,' he decided. 'Take the weaker one first. Break his soul. The other will follow.'
*「多重魂・幾魂異体」
Multiple Souls: Several Souls Heteromorphic. *
Three figures emerged from the swarm—larger than the others, their bodies crackling with explosive power. Mahito had burned multiple lives to create them, condensed their existence into a few moments of devastating strength. They could match a First Grade Sorcerer.
For a few seconds.
He sent them at Nanami, a wall of fury and violence, and turned his attention to Haibara.
'The younger one. The more reckless one. He'll fall first.'
Haibara met his gaze and smiled.
"I'm being underestimated."
He charged.
Mahito's arm became a giant fist, slamming down where Haibara had been. Haibara was already moving, weaving around the blow, closing the distance. Mahito's arm transformed again—into a whip, lashing out to keep him at range. Haibara ducked under it.
'Too fast. Too aggressive.'
Mahito's legs shifted—cheetah limbs for sprinting, antelope for leaping—keeping him mobile, keeping him at the edge of Haibara's reach. He struck with mid-range attacks, never letting the young sorcerer get close enough to use those knuckle dusters.
'He's afraid,' Haibara realized. 'Afraid of my weapon. Afraid of what it can do to him.'
He changed tactics.
Mahito's arm extended again—a punch from a distance, meant to drive Haibara back. Instead of dodging, Haibara caught it.
His arms wrapped around Mahito's extended limb, his body anchoring against the Cursed Spirit's pull, and he yanked.
Mahito stumbled forward, off-balance, closing the distance Haibara had been unable to cross.
"Scarecrow."
The Shikigami loomed behind Haibara, its hollow eyes fixed on Mahito.
*「恐怖咆哮」
Fear Roar. *
The sound was not a sound. It was a presence, a weight, a wrongness that pressed directly against Mahito's soul. For a moment—just a moment—he felt it.
Cold.
Not the cold of temperature. The cold of absolute terror, the kind that freezes blood and stops hearts. The kind that, when people speak of being "chilled to the bone," they are trying to describe but never quite capturing.
Mahito's soul froze.
His body locked. His limbs refused to move. His mind, still conscious, still aware, could only watch as Haibara raised his knuckle-dusted fist.
'This is bad.'
The fist descended.
Haibara Yu would not waste this opening.
Every ounce of his cursed energy channeled into the knuckle duster, his fist drawing back, his focus narrowing to a single point—Mahito's disfigured face. The world around him faded. The sounds of battle, the groaning of the injured, the distant crash of waves against the barrier—all of it vanished.
There was only his fist. There was only Mahito.
And for the first time in his life, the universe cracked.
*「黒閃」
Black Flash. *
The impact sent Mahito flying—not just through the air, but through the fabric of space itself. His face, already damaged from the Scarecrow's fear, cratered under the blow. Bone that wasn't bone splintered. Flesh that wasn't flesh tore.
He was still airborne when Nanami Kento arrived.
The three Several Souls Heteromorphic were already dissolving behind him, their brief, explosive lives spent. Nanami's blunt sword was already swinging, black cursed energy erupting along its edge.
*「黒閃」
Black Flash. *
The blade caught Mahito's left shoulder, biting deep, nearly severing the arm at the root. Mahito's scream was not human—it was the sound of a soul being torn, of boundaries being crossed, of a Cursed Spirit learning that it could, in fact, feel fear.
Nanami did not stop.
*「黒閃」
Black Flash. *
The second blow came as Mahito's body twisted in the air, unable to escape, unable to defend.
*「黒閃」
Black Flash. *
The third struck his ribs, cracking something essential.
*「黒閃」
Black Flash. *
The fourth caught his remaining arm, severing it at the elbow.
Mahito's mind, still reeling from the assault, still struggling to understand how mere humans were hurting him, barely registered the fifth blow.
*「黒閃」
Black Flash. *
The blade split him from hip to shoulder, and Mahito's soul—the soul he had been so proud of, so certain was inviolable—fractured.
'No. Not yet. I haven't—I haven't realized the true form of my soul yet. I can still—I can still become stronger.'
His body was in pieces. His cursed energy was draining. But his will—twisted, desperate, unbreakable—refused to yield.
*「領域展開・自閉円頓裹」
Domain Expansion: Self-Embodiment of Perfection. *
The world shifted.
The pieces of Mahito's body reassembled—not into a whole, but into a framework, a skeleton upon which his Domain could be built. Two hands grew from a fragment of flesh, forming seals, channeling the last of his power.
The black sphere formed around them, swallowing Nanami Kento whole.
Inside, the air was wrong. The ground was wrong. Every surface reflected not light but concept, the fundamental understanding of what a soul could be, twisted toward Mahito's will.
But Nanami was already moving.
His Domain expanded in response—not as a counter, but as a correction. Where Mahito's Domain imposed his will upon souls, Nanami's Domain offered a different truth: that evil had a price. That cruelty would be answered. That every soul Mahito had twisted, every life he had ended, every moment of suffering he had inflicted—
*「領域展開・深淵魂魄地獄」
Domain Expansion: Abyssal Soul Devouring Prison. *
—was waiting for him.
The Domains clashed. Sure-hit effects canceled each other, leaving only the raw performance of the barriers themselves. And Mahito, already drained, already fractured, already running on nothing but spite—
Could not hold.
His Domain cracked.
Nanami's Domain poured through.
The karmic fire ignited.
It did not burn flesh. It burned soul. It found every trace of Mahito's existence—every life he had taken, every soul he had twisted, every moment of pleasure he had derived from suffering—and turned it against him.
From the flames, figures emerged.
The people of the village. The passengers on the train. The countless unnamed victims, their faces contorted in death, their hands reaching, grasping, dragging.
Mahito screamed.
The souls he had tormented, the lives he had treated as clay for his amusement, pulled him down. Into the fire. Into the abyss. Into the hell he had spent his existence building for others.
The Special Grade Cursed Spirit, Mahito, was exorcised.
Nanami Kento stood alone in the fading light of his Domain, breathing hard, his blunt sword still raised. Around him, the battlefield was quiet. The Cursed Spirits that had not fled were dissolving. The barrier behind him pulsed steadily.
Haibara Yu approached, knuckle dusters still gleaming.
"Did we... get him?"
Nanami lowered his sword. He looked at the space where Mahito had been, where nothing remained but fading embers and the memory of a scream.
"We got him."
Kamo Itsuki's clone watched from the barrier's edge, his expression unreadable.
'Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing. The form he should have achieved. The transformation that would have made him truly dangerous.'
He looked at the fading embers, at the two sorcerers who had faced a Special Grade and won.
'He never landed a Black Flash. He was too cautious. Too afraid of the spirit-slaying swords to close the distance.'
A flicker of something—not regret, not quite—passed through his eyes.
'In another life, he would have been a nightmare. In this one...'
He turned away.
The barrier held. The civilians slept. The battle was over.
For now.