Black flames flared, teleporting Maki and Mani a few dozen feet. They locked eyes with each other the second after appearing, but by the time Maki began moving her fist, Mani's flaming palm smashed into her chin and rocked her head up. She brought both hands up to block a knee before throwing the leg down and landing a hit of her own. Her knuckles were burned from Mani's armor of flame as his shikigami advanced. Maki pushed off the ground and into the high, finding herself able to flick off the air with pure instinct. She flipped and ducked the bird and shadow, but was eventually nicked by the latter. The black flames activated less than a second after coming into existence. Mani's fist slammed into her face before another one nearly went right through her midsection. Maki grabbed the arm buried in her gut and twisted, breaking the appendage. Mani slammed another fist into her as his flames burned her hands, only for Maki to move her head out of the way by head-butting him in the face. His nose broke, but the orange flames healed it in the next second.
"You animal!" Mani yelled as his flames intensified. Mani's formerly broken arm soared upward to smack her on the underside of her chin before the phoenix shikigami slammed into her. She chopped down, cutting through the fire and smacking the bird away, though doing no damage. Maki was in a bad spot; there was no doubt about that, for three main reasons. One, Mani was faster than her, to begin with anyway. Her top speed exceeded his, but he accelerated to his max before Maki could get going, resulting in at least one searing hit. Considering his teleportation technique halted all momentum and returned them both to a stop, he was put in a perfect position to make use of this advantage often. Two, he had those shikigami. With no cursed energy and no weapon on hand, she had no way to destroy them short of taking out the user. And with his teleportation and wide area of effect attacks, she was hard-pressed to make her way back to what remained of Playful Cloud. Third, and most damningly, he was basically unkillable. With those healing flames surrounding his body, alll damage was healed before Maki was even done inflicting it. She was momentarily reminded of how annoying it must be to fight Hakari.
"Those flames, they're powerful on their own but not to this extent. Your dead sister must've made a binding vow with her life to amplify their effects. But considering how hard you're fighting, they won't last for very long. Good thing an animal like me doesn't know a thing about pride." With that, Maki punched the ground with all her might, forming an enormous crater and kicking up an ungodly amount of dust. Mani's shikigami flew through the cloud as flames, both orange and black, combed through the dust in less than a second. But she was nowhere to be found. Mani's keen senses, honed by decades of battle, caught the slightest outline toward the old Zen'in clan estate. He roared in anger as the phoenix flew towards him and surrounded his body in flame before he blasted off like a rocket.
Maki ducked around debris and crumbled walls as she ran from the ancient sorcerer, a smile on her face all the while. While Maki could no longer sense cursed energy like she barely could before, her other senses had been brought to a whole new level, not that she would've needed it to feel the heat of the walking sun currently approaching her location. Her general location rather. Another advantage of her new and improved body was its nearly perfect stealth. With no more energy to sense, and no cursed tools to detect, Maki was invisible to the supernatural senses of her foe. Something she was counting on. Could she hide from him until he powered down? Probably. Would she? Hell no. She wasn't a complete animal after all.
He blasted past her, as expected, before he hovered in the air above the clan. His eyes searched the entire battlefield as his shikigami took flight and scanned the rubble more in depth. Maki entered a track and field pose, like she was about to run a hundred-meter dash. All the while, her senses were solely focused on the shikigami. She waited until they both sounded and felt like they were out of sight of Mani. Maki didn't waste a second before she dashed off the ground without so much as a whisper. She was on Mani's right flank before either of them knew it. Maki, using every muscle in her body and her momentum from such an explosive maneuver, landed the hardest punch on the side of his head as she could. His entire body was slammed to the side, turning clockwise about 90 degrees. Maki reeled back another punch and delivered it into the same spot. That one was too much for whatever power suspended him in the air. Maki chased after him as he crashed to the earth, still not quite aware of what had hit him.
Maki came down with another punch right to the nose, before another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another. His wounds healed as she made them but she could tell she was outpacing it. His fire armor flared to full strength until she could tell it was too much for his body to handle. If it weren't also healing his body, he would've killed himself by now. Despite this, Maki was determined to kill him; she wouldn't get another chance. She slammed bloody, charred fist after bloody, charred fist into the man's skull, her skin burnt away so all that remained was her bare boned knuckles. After a while, even those were put under too much strain. Luckily, they chipped off into sharpened bone, which only helped Maki, despite the pain. Eventually, the fire died down as the man no doubt ran out of energy. With this small dip in healing power, the constant attacks were too much for the dying hope of his sister. On the seventy-fourth punch, his skull shattered and his brain was smashed. The flames died down entirely after this, as Maki straightened on her knees and looked to the sky.
"Finally, I can help."
--
A black wall stretched into the sky beyond the clouds. Just outside the massive barrier was a group of six teens. They sat in a rough circle, some sitting on the ground while others sat on whatever they could find. The tone was serious; there was no doubt who seemed to be their leader.
"From what we know of the Void Generals after scanning every historical record we could find, they were a set of five insanely powerful individuals who joined to fight against the King Of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna." everyone shot a glance toward Yuji before they shifted their eyes back to Megumi. "Their chain of command works off power, with each general numbered with the lowest number holding the highest authority. We recently heard that Isamu slew the second void general and is now heading to where the first is located." Yuji raised his hand then.
"You don't need to raise your hand, just speak." Megumi said, Yuji blushed a little in embarrassment.
"Right. How do you know where the first guy is?" It was no doubt something most of the others were wondering.
"There was a traitor among the enemy. They turned themselves in and gave us everything. We've confirmed the locations given, with three of the five locations holding water." Megumi explained, catching the questioning of Kamo.
"I find it hard to believe such a tightly knit group had a traitor, especially one with so much valuable info. Could it be a trap? Also, which locations were confirmed?" Kamo showed his age and education with his questioning.
"Those were my thoughts as well. I think someone either planted the information or intentionally let a real traitor go. Either way, there is no doubt it was intentional. As for a trap, I don't think so. I don't think they are exactly friends, based on what I heard in Shibuya between the third general and Kenjaku, the ancient sorcerer piloting Geto. It's my theory that the generals are or were, a means to an end. Now that the end has been reached, he is using Jujutsu High to remove them while weakening the winning side so he can clean up afterward. Whether or not it's a trap doesn't matter. Attacking now is our only move. The third, first, and fifth were confirmed. The first is in an old Buddhist shrine in the mountains, he seems stationary for now. Isamu is going there to make sure he stays that way while he takes care of the others and gathers with him. The second wasn't where he was said to be but ended up cut in half in Kagoshima by Isamu's hand. The third is the one we know the most about, so a task force was created for him. The fifth is behind this barrier. As for the fourth, he is perhaps the most threatening at the moment. He was said to be near Shibuya but was nowhere to be seen. In short, he's in the wind and could pop up anywhere." Megumi explained in a rather long winded.way. It wasn't his first time doing something like this, but he wasn't truly experienced either.
"Maybe they were spooked by the death of the second and are consolidating their power." Nobara theorized, her fingers pinching her chin. Megumi nodded slowly as he thought.
"If that's the case, we need a plan if we're actually walking toward two generals." Megumi said, mirroring Nobara's pose in deep thought. "The fifth will be easier to deal with more than likely considering his power. So our best shot would probably be to split into groups, one to stall the fourth and the other to take on and kill the fifth before gathering and taking on the fourth together."
"What'll the teams be then?" Yuji asked, punching his fist into his palm.
"Our three best fighters are myself, Yuji, and Kamo. I think we need at least one to fight the fifth for victory to be a possibility. The other two should take on the fourth. I'll be one of them as the fourth is more likely to possess a domain expansion." Megumi explained, pointing at the three of them as he did.
"I'll go too! I'm tough, right?" Yuji explained, standing from his seat on the ground. Megumi nodded at the surface-level reasoning. Yuji's superhuman durability would make him a better fit than Kamo for stalling. Kamo's superior lethality made it more likely he'd be able to kill the fifth quickly as well.
"With that out of the way, I must explain our true goal." Some around the circle looked confused, Momo speaking up to voice her question.
"So… we're not here to take down the generals?"
"That's one goal. Our primary goal is to find the player known as 'Angel' and recruit her to our side. Then, using her technique to nullify cursed techniques, we can free Gojo from the prison realm and secure our victory. If we find her, we are to retreat right away, Gojo can wipe out the generals later." Megumi received nods from around the group at his plan, the plan of jujutsu high that is.
"With that all said, let's go to war."