"But first," Genji suddenly smiled, a hint of calm, almost self-deprecating, in that smile. "I need to make one thing clear—"
He paused, and the wooden staff twirled in his hand, the movement smooth but not ostentatious.
"My hand-to-hand combat skills are actually not very good."
Silence fell over the training ground.
Panda's beady eyes blinked. Megumi Fushiguro frowned slightly. Itadori said, "Huh?" Even Maki was stunned for a moment.
Zen'in Genji—the God of Curses from a thousand years ago, the complete Ten Shadows Technique, the only existence in history to subjugate Mahoraga—said he was "not very good at hand-to-hand combat"?
"This isn't modesty, it's the truth," Genji continued, his tone calm, as if saying, "The weather is nice today." "A thousand years ago, about 99% of the opponents I faced couldn't even get past my nine shikigami."
"Most enemies," Genji shook his head slightly, "by the time I summoned three or four shikigami to work together, they were already defeated. They didn't even have a chance to get close to me."
He paused and added, "The remaining one percent—those who could break through the combined efforts of the first nine shikigami—would then face Mahoraga. And Mahoraga's 'adaptation' characteristic determined that the battle had to end quickly. Once it adapted to the opponent's technique, the fight lost its meaning."
The training ground was quiet.
Everyone understood the implication of Genji's words: it wasn't that he was bad at hand-to-hand combat, but that he simply never needed to use it. Under the overwhelming pressure of his shikigami system, before the absolute power of Mahoraga, the vast majority of enemies never even touched the hem of his clothes.
"As for those who could defeat Mahoraga…" Genji said, a complex arc lifting the corner of his mouth. "In a thousand years, there was only one person."
"Sukuna," Megumi Fushiguro said quietly.
"Yes. Sukuna," Genji nodded, a flicker of nostalgia in his deep indigo eyes. "But that guy… it wasn't so much 'defeating Mahoraga' as 'forcibly suppressing it with absolute power and speed before it could fully adapt.' And our battles were rarely purely hand-to-hand combat competitions."
"I," Genji said frankly, "rely on the Ten Shadows Technique's battle system. I'm more inclined towards… well, in today's terms, a 'ranged mage.' The shikigami are the front line, the barriers are the control, and the techniques are the fortress. I need to coordinate the overall situation, analyze the battle, and choose the right combination of shikigami and techniques—rather than charging in and hitting people with my fists."
"Hmph… a guy who never has to get his hands dirty."
Almost simultaneously, deep within the innate domain inside Yuji Itadori's body, the King of Curses on his skeletal throne let out a sneer.
Genji looked at Maki seriously. "Listen, Maki-san. If you want to learn some exquisite hand-to-hand combat techniques from me… you'll probably be disappointed. I can teach you more about 'battle perspective,' 'timing,' and 'application of force'—these general principles. As for specific hand-to-hand combat techniques…"
"Over a thousand years, I've really never needed to practice hand-to-hand combat. After all, hand-to-hand combat only shows significant progress in real combat, in life-and-death battles, against opponents who can truly pressure you."
"And I," Genji said calmly, "haven't met an opponent in a long time who could make me feel that I needed to improve my hand-to-hand combat to win."
The corners of Sukuna's lips grinned wide, his expression a mix of displeasure and an almost pleasant irritation.
Genji's assessment had hit him right where it hurt.
Facing Zen'in Genji's damnably perfect Ten Shadows Technique system, he often felt a suffocating sense of being unable to focus his strength.
Want to get close? Not so easy.
Genji himself was always in the safest rear, guarded by shikigami and barriers, calmly watching with those eyes that seemed to see through everything.
The happiest moments in Sukuna's life were those when he fought hard, forcibly broke through the shikigami's defenses, and made his opponent breathe faster.
Yet that man would either use his "Construction Technique" to temporarily create a problem, or simply melt into the shadows and slip away.
So annoying. Sukuna gritted his teeth, but the fire burning in his eyes grew stronger. It was precisely this "mystery" and "power" that couldn't be easily cracked, that always had deep tricks up its sleeve, that made Genji the only opponent he acknowledged and the goal he had pursued and wanted to defeat for a thousand years.
His mind calmed, sinking into a cold assessment. The power of the Ten Shadows Technique's shikigami was directly related to the user's cursed energy strength and control precision. That was common sense.
In Sukuna's memory, the nine shikigami under Genji's command (excluding Mahoraga) each possessed the terrifying ability to defeat ordinary special-grade cursed spirits in direct combat.
Where else could one find shikigami like these? They were clearly nine special-grade curses, completely tamed by him.
And that wasn't the most troublesome part.
Sukuna's pupils narrowed slightly. What he envied most—and what he had continued to analyze and try to crack during his thousand-year sleep—was the "combination" tactic developed by Genji, which was almost cheating.
This researcher, with his deep understanding of the "Construction Technique" and the essence of shikigami, had developed a forbidden technique that allowed multiple shikigami to merge and form a new combat entity.
The nine basic shikigami could be combined in different ways according to the needs of the battle situation.
Each combined shikigami inherited the characteristics of the basic shikigami and produced terrifying qualitative changes. Its stats—strength, speed, cursed energy output, special abilities—even briefly soared to a level no less frightening than Mahoraga's during the fusion period.
This meant that facing a full-powered Zen'in Genji, you never knew what kind of monster he would pull out next. You thought you had forced out a trump card, but in an instant, that card would merge with others, transforming into something even more terrifying.
You thought you could win by defeating Mahoraga? No, Mahoraga might be his decoy, used to test your strength or buy time for a fusion ritual.
Under this kind of complex system, hand-to-hand combat really wasn't very necessary for Zen'in Genji.
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