"Helping out, senpai!"
Maki Zenin leapt into the fight, and Zen'in Mai followed right after, constructing cannon barrels for ranged support.
Megumi Fushiguro and the others didn't know what exactly was going on between the blue-haired Cursed Spirit and Maki Zenin's group, but on a battlefield, sharing the same target meant they could band together against a common enemy — so they charged in too.
Fighting alongside them.
"Truly filthy. A defilement." Zenin Jin'ichi spoke thus as he walked over from one side.
Zenin Jin'ichi was a Grade 1 sorcerer.
He didn't support Naoya Zenin's grand scheme of digging up the family's ancestral graves, but the current situation gave him no leeway to look for another path.
The man ripped off his shirt and leapt into the air, Cursed Energy gathering and storing up between his fists. Suspended in the sky, he hammered his fists downward, and countless fist-afterimages came crashing from above, hurtling straight toward the Jujutsu High group.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM——
These massive fist-afterimages were born of Zenin Jin'ichi's Jujutsu Technique.
And at the very moment Zenin Jin'ichi threw his punch, Zen'in Mai had already spotted his intent from the ground.
She raised her arm, finger pointing into the air.
The dozen-plus cannon barrels on the ground all adjusted their angles at once, muzzles trained as one on Jin'ichi.
The instant Jin'ichi hammered his countless fist-afterimages down through the sky, Zen'in Mai loosed every shell.
The shells of dozens of cannons fired in unison; shells and fist-afterimages slammed against one another in mid-air, producing an unbroken roar that shook the heavens.
On the ground, Nanami Kento dodged the flaming long sword of a Kukuru Squad member, knocked him back with a single punch, and at the same time turned his head and shouted, "Mei Mei!"
"I know, I know — I'll stop slacking." The long-haired, alluring woman flashed a smile and drew from the wooden case on her back a massive long-shafted greataxe, utterly disproportionate to her figure. "Running into a hassle of a job like this... I really ought to put in for a bigger stipend from Jujutsu High when we're done..."
Caw — caw!!
Mei Mei activated her Technique.
And so, several sharp crow caws cut through the sky, drawing the attention of Jin'ichi, who was still hovering aloft.
——Crow Manipulation, also known as "Black Bird Manipulation."
He knew this was the Technique of the Grade 1 sorcerer Mei Mei.
This woman could manipulate crows and share their field of vision, scouting out the battlefield through them, and she could also drive crows to fight.
Zenin Jin'ichi cast his eyes sideways.
Within the flock, one of the crows blazed with an unusual, roaring fire of Cursed Energy and came hurtling toward him like a streak of black lightning.
That magnitude of Cursed Energy was utterly impossible for any ordinary crow to possess.
"!"
Jin'ichi's pupils tightened.
The deeper secret of Mei Mei's Crow Manipulation was to have a crow sacrifice its life on her behalf. Because the condition of "sacrificing its life" carried the binding effect of equivalent exchange, this crow technique — known as "Kamikaze," a suicidal ramming attack — possessed an extreme speed and lethality.
——A crow's impact was not something one could just tank head-on!
Jin'ichi twisted his body in mid-air, hoping to rely on the recoil from his earlier punch to dodge the strike.
But in that very instant, a golden silhouette had already shot in.
That figure leapt up, and in the blink of an eye became a golden afterimage, streaking past through the sky.
SLISH SLISH SLISH SLISH——
Several flashes of cold steel.
In a single moment, the several crows were each cleaved clean in two.
"Hm?" Mei Mei was taken aback.
Crows in the "Kamikaze" state had extremely high speed and offensive power — so what on earth was faster than a self-sacrificing ramming crow?
"Hahahaha..."
——It was Naoya Zenin.
Up in the sky, Naoya Zenin — who had just leapt up to slay those several crows and was still suspended aloft — was gazing at the Soul-Severing Blade in his hand, laughing in a feverish, savoring delight.
"Magnificent." The young man looked at the blade in his grip, eyes nothing short of fanatical. "Toji... so long as you are with me... then I am invincible!"
What was faster than a crow's self-sacrifice was Naoya Zenin.
And what had effortlessly cut those crows down was his Soul-Severing Blade.
The fact was, in Mahiru's eyes, the greatest threat on this battlefield was not Urogi Kyoko, nor those sorcerers summoned forth by the Spirit-Calling Granny.
The most dangerous was, in truth, the Naoya Zenin who now held the Soul-Severing Blade.
Naoya Zenin's Jujutsu Technique was called "Projection Sorcery." By preset-ing his own movements at twenty-four frames per second, this Technique could enormously boost his action speed.
Naobito Zenin, who possessed the same Technique, was the fastest sorcerer aside from Satoru Gojo.
And while Naoya Zenin wasn't as strong as Naobito, his speed... at least right now, right here, even counting Mahiru, in pure speed he was the fastest of them all.
This Jujutsu Technique did have its drawbacks.
On the one hand, if he failed to complete his preset action, he would conversely lock himself in place for one second.
On the other hand, this Technique also had a rather humorous alternate name: "Gua Sha Sorcery."
Naoya Zenin's speed and rate of attack were both very high, but his attack power was low. Hammering ordinary punches and kicks continuously into enemies with thick HP or high defense, he might not put them down even after several hundred strikes — the most you could say was that the emphasis lay on suppression.
But now, things were different.
The current Naoya Zenin... had the Soul-Severing Blade, which ignored "defense" and "hardness" alike.
"You pieces of garbage!" Up in the sky, the blond young man swung his body around, using his Jujutsu Technique to preset the trajectory of his own free-fall. "All of you — come and die!"
So long as he completed a preset action, he could accelerate.
Falling counted just the same.
Naoya Zenin touched down on the ground in an instant, and then another golden afterimage shot off, charging in Megumi Fushiguro's direction.
From swinging his body around in the sky to appearing right in front of Fushiguro Maki, Naoya Zenin had taken only the time of a single blink.
The girl hadn't even reacted.
The blade of the Soul-Severing Blade was already swinging down at the black-haired girl.
"Fushiguro!!——" Yuji Itadori's pupils contracted; he shouted at the top of his lungs.
But the boy was powerless.
Because Naoya Zenin's speed was simply too fast.
In the time it would take Yuji Itadori just to cross the distance between himself and Megumi Fushiguro, Naoya Zenin could have made another round trip.
"First to die — it's you! You Ten Shadows Technique trash!" Naoya laughed.
That's right.
Ever since Naoya Zenin had gotten his hands on the Soul-Severing Blade, his combat power had soared straight up a terrifying tier.
His Jujutsu Technique and this cursed tool had produced a truly fearsome chemical reaction.
This blade had been his idol's signature sword, so Naoya felt no inner resistance whatsoever toward using the Soul-Severing Blade.
Ignoring hardness, cutting through whatever it touched... a speed that towered over everyone present, paired with a blade that could disregard any defense at all — Naoya had become, in stark relief, the most top-tier assassin.
Everyone, in his eyes, was a lamb waiting for slaughter!
"Fushiguro!!——"
Crap.
Megumi Fushiguro felt that she was about to die.
The black-haired girl could practically see the image of her own head being severed. She didn't even have a chance to form a hand seal... she couldn't even summon Mahoraga.
Damn it...
Despair welled up in the girl's heart.
But it was in that very moment that she heard a familiar voice ring out at her ear.
"「Step back」——."
It was Mahiru's Cursed Speech.
Naoya Zenin certainly wouldn't be foolish enough right now to leave his own ears unplugged.
But it didn't matter — so long as Megumi Fushiguro hadn't plugged hers.
Mahiru's Cursed Speech reached Megumi Fushiguro's ears, and the black-haired girl's body outright defied the laws of physics, bursting violently backward.
Naoya's slash cleaved through empty air; an expression of surprise crossed his face.
The next instant, a white rabbit had already appeared right in front of him, bursting forth like an explosion.
BANG BANG BANG!!——
Rabbits, exploding.
At the same time, more and more rabbits came pouring out.
A flood of rabbits, swarming densely, would seriously interfere with Naoya's movements and throw off his predictive reads. Naoya had no choice but to retreat back, away from the sea of rabbits.
But the direction he was being driven... was precisely the one Mahiru had set up on purpose.
"You're pretty fast... not too shabby, huh? So how about you come play a little game with me?"
Mahiru sauntered along at her leisure, casually reaching up to grab a Kukuru Squad member passing by along the path, brutally twisting him into a [Husk] in her hand. "The name of the game... is Whack-a-Mole."
She raised her hand, and the [Husk] in her grip went hurtling toward Naoya Zenin.
In a Jujutsu Technique battle, matchup counters really did matter.
Naoya Zenin, with the Soul-Severing Blade, hard-countered nearly every single person on the field.
The one exception was, right now, that he had run into his most severe of fathers — Mahiru.
"Don't just keep eyeing other people — come and play with me, won't you?" the girl said with a smile, the light of Cursed Energy in her hand unsparing. "Don't tell me you're afraid of me?"
Mahiru's skills required no hand-seal windups.
Mahiru's Darting Hare could disrupt Naoya Zenin's movements across a wide area.
The Soul-Severing Blade had the ability to strike the soul, but that required the wielder to be able to perceive the boundaries of a soul. Naoya Zenin couldn't manage it, and so no matter how he hacked at Mahiru, he couldn't inflict any damage.
The only thing Mahiru found mildly annoying was that she also couldn't reliably catch the high-speed-moving Naoya. Beyond that, in a one-on-one, Naoya was nothing more than a toy for her to play with as she pleased.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Heavy-Armed Darting Hares also appeared behind the girl.
Rabbit missiles, flame hand-cannons — Mahiru, like an artillery emplacement, chased Naoya around with a relentless barrage.
Naoya's speed grew faster the longer he ran, weaving through the vast Zenin estate, dragging a long plume of dust behind him.
"Damn it!" Naoya raged. "Why aren't you doing something about her!?"
Crack, crack...
Cracks appeared in the sky once again.
Urogi Kyoko once again teleported into existence directly above Mahiru's head, her two hands pushing forward against a "surface in space."
"——〈Ushura Bullet〉!"
Just like Ishiryuu had been at the start, the current Urogi Kyoko hadn't yet recovered to her in-life prime state — but her condition was a whole lot better than Ishiryuu's.
On another note, Ishiryuu relied on raw stats, whereas Urogi Kyoko relied chiefly on mechanics.
The current Urogi Kyoko, owing to a mechanical counter, could not be defeated by anyone present aside from Mahoraga and Mahiru.
Mahiru and Urogi Kyoko, on the other hand, were the kind of opponents who could not inflict damage upon each other — perfectly stalemated against one another.
Urogi Kyoko's task right now was to keep Mahiru tied up, so that Naoya Zenin could go and slaughter those Jujutsu High people to his heart's content.
Kill everyone other than Mahiru — that was their victory objective.
CRACK!!——
The fissure in space widened once again; Urogi Kyoko's attack was about to be unleashed.
But just at that moment, the sound of rushing wind rose at her ear.
Two columns of blood erupted from the back of Mahiru's Heavy-Armed Darting Hare, instantly accelerating it to Urogi Kyoko's side, where it hammered a fist toward her.
What... so fast!
She'd used Blood Manipulation to accelerate?!
Urogi Kyoko hadn't anticipated that the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare's speed could surge to such a degree.
She had no choice but to abort her own attack, crossing her arms to block the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare's strike, and was hammered flying off.
And at this moment on the ground, Naoya Zenin had suddenly doubled back. He charged once again toward Mahiru along the very trail he'd just run. The Soul-Severing Blade came swinging down at the blue-haired girl.
Naoya Zenin had no shortage of little battle tricks, either.
When he ran, his extreme speed would kick up a streak of dust along the ground. By rapidly doubling back along that very dust trail he had originally raised, the trail of sand and dust would conceal his form.
So in the eyes of an outsider, he had suddenly vanished — and then suddenly reappeared right in front of Mahiru.
"JUST DIE!!"
Naoya cut at Mahiru. A flash of blade light slashed across — and the place where Mahiru had been struck dissolved into countless blue petals, fluttering through the air, having dealt no damage at all.
"Damn it!"
Only then did Naoya grit his teeth and once more open distance from Mahiru, guarding against a counterattack.
"I still can't bring out the cursed tool's full strength the way Toji could..."
Naoya had realized, too, that he simply couldn't strike Mahiru's soul.
He, too, was feeling just how thorny things had become.
He had originally thought that as long as he had the Soul-Severing Blade in hand, he could kill whoever came his way. The one thing he hadn't anticipated was the blue-haired Cursed Spirit actually showing up here.
The means he prided himself on could put forth no power at all in the face of Mahiru.
He and Mahiru stood facing one another, dozens of meters apart.
The blue petals on Mahiru's body restored themselves back into a complete body.
"Heh." Naoya Zenin sneered. "A Cursed Spirit actually butting into human affairs — what a piece of work..."
He stared at Mahiru, eyes slightly narrowed.
"So you were the one who saved those two pieces of trash... are you also coveting the Zenin estate's family fortune? Or do you have some other purpose?"
"I have no interest in you personally." The blue-haired girl shrugged. "Right now, all I want is to flatten the Zenin estate... if anything, it's you — haven't you noticed you've already become someone else's pawn?"
The Zenin estate was now thoroughly rotten, past saving, having completely become an insurgent force.
So it just needed to be destroyed.
Driving the Zenin estate to rebellion was, in all likelihood, exactly Kenjaku's aim.
A Naoya with the Soul-Severing Blade; a Kukuru Squad equipped with Techniques, virtually identical to Ogi Zenin in every respect save for having a Cursed Energy quantity lower than his... if they were left alone to keep on existing, allowed to slip into society and infiltrate the population, it would bring about countless undefendable assassinations and atrocious terror attacks.
So the Zenin estate had to be wiped out right here.
These bastards had to be netted in one sweep.
"Is that so?" Naoya Zenin slung the blade over his shoulder and rolled his neck. "But to destroy the Zenin estate as it stands now — do you really have the ability for that?"
He smiled, vicious and contorted.
He knew the legends of the blue-haired Cursed Spirit, but he was also blindly arrogant.
At the end of the day, she was nothing more than a Cursed Spirit.
True enough — I can't wound you.
But can you catch me?
In this world, soldiers prize speed above all; only the swift cannot be broken. If you can't keep up with my pace, then you can only remain beneath me.
Naoya Zenin was insufferably cocky.
And watching the blond young man's cocky smile, Mahiru folded her arms and raised an eyebrow; her gaze suddenly fell on the blade in his hand.
"Eh?" The girl feigned surprise and tilted her head. "This blade looks rather familiar to me — isn't this blade the one that belonged to that Heavenly Tyrant?"
"Oh?" Hearing this, Naoya Zenin raised an eyebrow. "Seems you're not entirely clueless after all."
"Of course not. Of course I know about the Heavenly Tyrant. His name was Toji Fushiguro, right?" Mahiru smiled. "To be honest, you people of the Zenin estate really are foolish. Such a magnificent thing the Heavenly Restriction is, and yet you can't even grasp it."
Oh?
Now Naoya was interested.
Did this Cursed Spirit mean that she, too, understood just how amazing Toji Fushiguro had been?
The look in his eyes as he turned them on Mahiru shifted outright: "Ha — a mere Cursed Spirit, and I really didn't expect you'd be one to see matters so clearly."
How—
"You're absolutely right — mediocrities cannot understand Toji's strength." Naoya laughed in excitement, spreading his arms wide. "Cursed Energy, Jujutsu Techniques... the things the fools revere are worthless in the face of Toji's strength. On the contrary — you, a Cursed Spirit, have made me look at you with new eyes. I never imagined that you, too, could understand..."
"Ah, what? Why can't I follow what you're saying?" Mahiru, at this point, waved her hand and cut off Naoya Zenin's words. "Toji was strong? How come I didn't know that?"
"Hm? What do you mean by that?" Naoya furrowed his brow. "Weren't you just saying that the Heavenly Restriction is [magnificent]?"
"That's right — it really is [magnificent]." The blue-haired girl blinked, baring a wicked smile. "Because... the body of a so-called [Heavenly Tyrant]... is really quite delicious, you know?"
The girl began to giggle.
"What's the matter? Why are you making that kind of face? Don't you feel the same way? Isn't the magnificence of the Heavenly Restriction precisely that their bodies can be turned into perfect toys?"
At the girl's words, Naoya Zenin's breath turned suddenly ragged, his expression turning ugly — ugly in the extreme.
And the girl's smile and voice grew all the more wicked.
"You know — I turned Maki Zenin into a Heavenly Tyrant, just like that Toji Fushiguro... so as expected, the so-called [Heavenly Tyrant] is meant precisely to serve as a pet that can be trampled and toyed with however one pleases, isn't it?"
"Do you know what it feels like to be called 'Master' by a Heavenly Tyrant?"
"Oh, surely you don't not know that back in the day, when Toji was out there... he was always scraping by as some woman's kept boy, right?"
"Shut your mouth..." Naoya raged. "A mere Cursed Spirit...!"
On the battlefield, he could endure any kind of trash talk aimed at him.
But — the one exception — anything aimed at Toji would not stand!
"So you think you can provoke me with this kind of method!!" The young man was furious in the extreme, his eyes shot through with bloodshot vessels, gritting his teeth, his eyes practically splitting at the corners. "You think I'm a fool?!"
"Eh? Provoke you? Are you joking?"
Mahiru giggled and, with a casual flick of her hand, tossed out a photograph.
The photo drifted to a stop in front of Naoya, and on it, in stark display, was Maki Zenin — who had now become a Heavenly Tyrant — done up in a maid outfit.
"Just what kind of dog do you think you are, anyway? Why would I need to provoke you? I'm only stating the facts!" Mahiru clutched her stomach and burst into laughter. "Do you know how the Heavenly Tyrant came to submit to me back then?"
She looked at Naoya, her gaze taunting and flippant, her tone making a light shift.
"[My deepest apologies for not making Mahiru-sama exert your full strength]..."
"——That's what the Heavenly Tyrant said at the time, you know?"
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!——" Veins bulged on Naoya's forehead, his face contorted with savagery as he hurtled straight at Mahiru, heedless of his own life. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!——"
____
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