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Utahime soon emerged from the barrier.
She was about to say something to others, but the moment she turned to them, she noticed them looking at her weirdly.
Suddenly, the three of them started clapping.
Surprised by their actions, Utahime blinked in surprise, though soon a smile appeared on her face.
"Hehe, I tried my be-"
"You finally realised how fun it is to beat people up," said Yuki a bit emotionally.
"Huh?"
"To think the little spineless girl grew this much…" Yuki muttered, dramatically wiping an imaginary tear. "I raised her well."
"Oi! What is happening here? What is senpai saying?" asked Utahime.
Naoya walked closer to her and gave a firm pat on her shoulder.
"Welcome to the club. You are one of us now," said Naoya with a smile on his face.
"What club? What one of us? I don't want to be like you!" complained Utahime.
"One of us," cheered Kuroko
"One of us!" cheered Naoya and Yuki.
Utahime looked at the three of them with confusion, and after they finally told her what happened, she immediately tried to give the bat back to Naoya.
"Take it! I don't want to join your club!!! I want to be the voice of reason of the group!!!!" exclaimed Utahime.
Naoya, who was now holding the bat, looked at it and soon got disappointed.
"...It was a gift.....so you didn't like my gift at all...."
"Ah! Utahime made Naoya sad," said Yuki.
"So ungrateful. Not cool, senpai," added Kuroko.
"Huh? I didn't mean it like that! It's not like I am ungrateful for the gift! It's a very good gift even. Here, give it back!!! I am sorry for hurting your feelings!!! Don't be sad!" said Utahime, feeling a bit guilty of her actions.
"It's alright, senpai. You don't need to say that because of peer pressure. I can understand," muttered Naoya and tried to take the bat back.
"Nope! It's mine now! The moment you gifted it to me, it became mine! No take-backs! Thanks a lot for the gift!" said Utahime and hid the bat behind her to make sure Naoya could not reach it.
Naoya looked at her with a small smile, though on the inside, he was already rejoicing to see that his plan worked successfully.
Soon, Kuroko gave his farewell to the rest of them and got inside the barrier.
"By the way, you fought well," said Naoya.
"Huh? Ah- Umm... thanks," muttered Utahime, feeling a bit shy from the sudden praise.
Seeing her squirm around, Naoya smiled. She looked quite cute acting like that.
'....wait what....' thought Naoya and became confused about his own thought.
-----
Back inside the barrier.
Currently, Geto was checking the spot where Utahime struck her earlier, and there was clear bruising in that area.
'I will get Shoko to look at it later....crap, it hurts....' thought Geto and covered his body once again, seeing that his next opponent had arrived.
"Kuroko-kun. I am gonna pay you back for last night's losses."
"Go easy on me Geto-kun. I am only strong in games."
Geto nodded, but didn't have any intention of going easy on Kuroko. He already saw firsthand what not being serious in a fight could result in, and the person he was about to face was someone even Mei Mei warned him about.
[Cursed Spirit Manipulation]
Multiple cursed spirits started to flood the area as Geto activated his technique.
Kuroko, seeing that, didn't waste a second and activated his technique as well and vanished from Geto's sight.
[Dead Space]
Geto, already somewhat aware of Kuroko's invisibility, got alerted and activated the cursed energy reinforcement to counter if an attack comes out of nowhere and counter him.
"Spread out and search," ordered Geto as the cursed spirits started to 'look' for the human enemy. Though none of them had the faintest idea about where to search for him.
Geto kept his guard up and stood at his spot, and had a few of his cursed spirits hidden underground as well to launch an attack when Kuroko got close.
Sadly for him, the area that they were fighting in was too wide for him to utilise the same tactic as Mei Mei. Kuroko was already expecting a similar strategy from Geto and had already taken apropriate distance from him.
'What is he planning?' thought Geto. He was on guard for quite some time and had even given some opening for Kuroko to take bait and attack him, yet he didn't receive any attack.
Geto looked around to check if his curses found something, only for him to narrow his eyes at a sudden realisation.
'...Many of my curses are dead...' thought Geto realizing only now that some of his curses suddenly disappeared.
Kuroko was not just hiding. He was thinning out Geto's curses without getting noticed at all.
"...Only Grade 3 and semi-grade 2 spirits fell....it seems that's his limit," muttered Geto.
Thinking that Geto let out more of his stronger curses to be on the lookout, while he himself rode on top of a flying curse and got up in the air.
"How's that Kuroko-kun? Can't hit me now, can you?" asked Geto, trying to taunt Kuroko.
And what Geto said was true, Kuroko didn't have a reliable long-range attack to strike Geto.
However, despite all that, Kuroko didn't respond and kept hidden from Geto.
2 minutes later
Time passed as Geto, and his curses had no sight of Kuroko, who kept on doing his stealth assault on the curses.
The curses were dying, Geto could see that, but when and where they died, he didn't know.
'Ah! It's getting boring.' thought Geto in frustration.
"Come out now, will you! It's getting boring!!! You seriously want to fight like this, you....wait....who am I fighting?" yelled Geto, though by the end, he got confused and started looking around.
"What's going on?" asked Geto, but no answers came to him. He knew that he was in the middle of a fight, but whom he was fighting, he didn't seem to recall who he was fighting.
This revelation suddenly made him a bit stressed.
He checked the area below him to look for the enemy, but could not spot anything suspicious.
"Start destroying the area!!!" ordered Geto.
He wanted to conserve his cursed energy to fight the Special Grades, but the sudden creepy feeling made him reconsider that idea.
The curses looked at Geto, seemingly suffering from the same confusion. They too didn't know who they were fighting or where they should attack.
Still, because of the orders, the curses started attacking and destroying the already destroyed field, yet none of them seemed to have struck their 'unknown' enemy.
-----
Kuroko, who was under the influence of [Dead Space], was standing far away from all the commotion that was going on.
He saw the confusion that was going on the battlefield and knew very well that he was responsible for it. In fact, it was something he planned.
[Dead Space] initially might seem like a technique that makes the user invisible, but that's not how it worked.
Instead of making the user invisible, it makes others not register the user in their brains until and unless the two make eye contact.
Though that was just the initial phase of the technique.
The [Dead Space] had a more complex and patient approach to it.
True, it made others not register the user of this technique, but if they were aware of the fact that they were in a fight with the user, and then the user activates this technique and slips out of the opponent's sight, the other aspect of the technique gets activated.
The Second aspect is divided into multiple phases:
Phase 1: Attention Slippage:
Duration - 60s. It works similarly to normal [Dead Space]. The target can't precisely track the user unless they make eye contact.
Phase 2: Task Confusion:
Duration - 2 to 3 minutes, depending on how the opponent's brain works. During this phase, the targets slowly start to forget about the user until they entirely forget that they were fighting the user. They still have the idea that they were in a fight, but who they were fighting, they can't recall.
Phase 3: Target Deletion:
Duration - 5 minutes.
Once 5 minutes pass without the target's brain actually registering Kuroko's presence precisely, they completely forget about the user and all the situation that has been going on around them that involves the user. Any danger they seem to be feeling from the user is ignored by the targets.
Phase 4: No Guard:
Once the first three phases are over, the user of [Dead Space] is rewarded for their patience.
*Beep Beep*
Kuroko's wrist watch gave a chime that the 5 minutes were up.
"Time to get the job done," muttered Kuroko and started running straight towards Geto and the curses.
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Geto blinked in confusion, not able to understand what he was doing in a destroyed field and why his curses were destroying the area around him when the area already looked quite beaten up.
"What is going on? What am I doing?" muttered Geto and tried to find someone for answers, yet no one familiar was in sight.
"I don't know what is going on....better save up my and the curses' cursed energy in case of emergency," muttered Geto and started to call back his curses.
The curses started to move towards their summoner, and suddenly curses started to get sliced up out of nowhere.
Geto's eyes widened in surprise. In an instant, many of his cursed spirits were killed.
Kuroko, who was still in [Dead Space], was moving without getting detected and cleaving through the cursed spirits with the cursed daggers that Naoya gave him.
The final phase of his technique was the active, and it had just a simple function. All targets who have passed the threshold of the first three phases take the absolute damage from Kuroko's first attack. No form of cursed energy defences worked for that attack.
Kuroko himself was not that strong, but combined with this ability, even he could take down high-level curses.
Kuroko looked around and checked the surroundings, and immediately found a path to Geto.
Since the Grade 1 sorcerer had recalled the curses around him, many of the taller spirits were gathered in the area, and Kuroko immediately made his way on top of them. After jumping on some of them, he appeared directly above the air-borne Geto.
He looked at Geto and sheathed the daggers. It was a friendly fight after all.
Still, he took a deep breath and gathered as much cursed energy in his palm as possible.
"Let's see how effective it is in a fight," said Kuroko and landed on the flying cursed spirit as well without getting noticed by Geto.
He took a stance and, with all the force he could muster, struck Geto's gut, specifically where Utahime had hit him earlier.
"Ignite Strike!"
The cursed energy-enhanced strike hit Geto without any sort of protection.
"Huh?" muttered Geto, feeling someone touch him, only to find himself flying straight towards the ground.
Geto looked towards the cursed spirit he was standing on and, by chance, caught Kuroko's eye and immediately all information about Kuroko and the situation came back to him.
The sudden information surge made him lag for a bit, and that time was enough for him to crash straight into the ground.
"Phew...." muttered Kuroko, feeling relived but suddenly he too found himself falling.
He looked at the curse he was standing on, shook him off, and a moment later, a giant one-eyed cursed spirit was coming straight at him.
"Shi-" said Kuroko, though before he could finish, the cursed spirit punched Kuroko, sending him crashing into the ground as well.
"F*ck! What is with this Kyoto bunch!" said Geto, standing up from the crater, bleeding heavily from multiple spots and clutching the spot that Kuroko struck him earlier.
He glared at the spot where Kuroko crashed and sent some of his curses to check on the enemy.
The earlier strike from Kuroko landed cleanly, but Geto was not an inexperienced sorcerer. Before he could crash, he had already activated his cursed energy reinforcement. If not for the information overload, he could have done more to minimise the damage, but complaining now won't help him.
[Winner Tokyo]
The announcement came as the curses showed and an unconscious and brutally injured Kuroko, who was bleeding heavily as well.
Seeing him unconcious Geto sighed.
"So much for not being good in a fight. Seriously, since when do Grade 3 sorcerers get this strong?" muttered Geto and sat on the ground while suffering from the pain that was slowly becoming worse thanks to adrenaline leaving him.
-----
On the audience side, the people from the HQ and even the jujutsu high were surprised by Kuroko's performance.
The talk about him was spreading in the room, and out of nowhere, the idea of his promotion to a Grade 2 came up.
Surprisingly, no one was against the idea at all.