Crunch. On the rooftop, Mahiru stomped a Cursed Spirit's head to a pulp with one foot while, with her other hand, she used "Idle Transfiguration" to knead the Special Grade Cursed Spirit she was holding into a little ball and stuffed it into her pocket.
She narrowed her eyes, her expression already a touch annoyed: "Are you someone who's here looking for a beating?"
She was speaking to Hajime Kashimo through a clone she was controlling.
A moment ago, when Hajime Kashimo had fought Nanami, he hadn't actually gone all out, but even so it had been enough to leave Nanami gravely wounded. The gap in strength was simply too vast. Hajime Kashimo was now working for Kenjaku, sent to find Tsumiki and bring her back. How exactly Kenjaku had managed to talk him into it, who could say.
Nanami had come within a hair of being critically injured, and Mahiru was already angry.
"Is Tsumiki with you?" Hajime Kashimo turned his attention to the clone.
Nanami wasn't strong, so he'd simply tossed him aside.
And it was right at this moment that a small Cursed Spirit came flying over from one side.
"All right, all right, we don't need Tsumiki Fushiguro anymore." This was Kenjaku hurrying over to drag Hajime Kashimo back home. "You can come back now."
"Yorozu's" existence had already been discovered, so there was no point in searching any further.
What Kenjaku feared even more was that this hothead Hajime Kashimo would let his temper get the better of him and go pick a fight with Mahiru.
Hajime Kashimo's stats might be high and his power formidable… but Mahiru was genuinely, boundlessly underhanded.
Don't go, hurry back, we don't need Tsumiki Fushiguro anymore—Kenjaku pleaded earnestly with Hajime Kashimo.
But did Hajime Kashimo listen to a word Kenjaku said? Like hell he did. "You? You want to beat me up?" The youth had been provoked. "What makes you think you can?" Kenjaku: Uh-oh. "Are you for real, you actually think you're hot stuff?" The two ears of Mahiru's little bunny twined together and flipped a middle finger. "Can you do a Domain Expansion? Over on our side, even a sorcerer who can't beat a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit can pull off a Domain Expansion. Can you?" Crack. Hajime Kashimo felt something inside him waver.
He indeed couldn't do a Domain Expansion—in fact, he had never even cared whether he could or not.
He admitted it: the Domain was a thing he simply couldn't learn.
But the Domain wasn't "the one and only yardstick for measuring the strong." In ancient times, countless sorcerers who could perform Domain Expansion had died at his hands.
So he had long since accepted the fact that he had no Domain, and he wouldn't feel that an enemy who could use a Domain was somehow a cut above him just because of it…
But what did you just say?!
"A sorcerer who can't even beat a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit… can also do a Domain Expansion?!" Hajime Kashimo was taken aback.
Had the "Domain" become this dime-a-dozen nowadays?!
A Grade 2 Cursed Spirit was an ant before him, and precisely because of that, an extreme sense of imbalance suddenly welled up in his heart.
Because, you have to understand—"I can casually kill the strong who wield Domains" and "the ants I can casually kill can do something I could never learn no matter what" were two completely different things!
A thing even a piece of trash can learn, and yet I can't learn it no matter what I do?
Oh come on! This is mortifying!
Hajime Kashimo felt his pride take a brutal hit. "Hm?" Over on Mahiru's side, Yuji Itadori and the others looked puzzled.
"Someone who can't beat a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit but can still open a Domain?" Fushiguro asked, perplexed, while dealing with a Cursed Spirit. "Is there really such a person?" Mahiru shot Fushiguro a quiet, meaningful look: "…It's nothing, you just focus on your own work."
She was talking about Megumi Fushiguro.
In the original story, around this point in time Megumi Fushiguro should have been about ready to learn the Domain. This time around, with Mahiru watching over Fushiguro, life was stable and secure, so he hadn't learned it yet.
So Mahiru's words involved a bit of artistic exaggeration, but they were perfectly fine.
"And then there's Black Flash—have you ever landed a Black Flash? Over on my side there's someone who's been a sorcerer for barely a few months and can already land consecutive Black Flashes. Can you?"
"And there's the Reverse Cursed Technique, too—don't tell me you can't do the Reverse Cursed Technique either? Sheesh, if you can't even do this, then what can you do? Doesn't that mean you can't do anything at all…" "Hey, Cursed Spirit," Hajime Kashimo bared his teeth in a grin, "if you want to throw down, then just come out and say it." "Oh? You want a taste of our genius Black Flash boy plus our genius Domain boy? You're going to get beaten to a pulp, you know?" "Tonight, then," Hajime Kashimo said with a smile, "you, Cursed Spirit, bring along these geniuses you keep going on about… I'll smash all of you, and then take that girl named Tsumiki away." "Heh-yo?" Mahiru was delighted; she hadn't expected this guy would really want to fight her. "Sure, I accept—no going back on it, okay?" The Binding Vow was thereby formed.
The little bunny flopped down onto Hajime Kashimo's head with a plop.
"Then wait for me to tell you the location!" Mahiru chuckled smugly. "Don't go crying when you get walloped!"
Once the Binding Vow was formed, Hajime Kashimo had no reason to keep causing a ruckus here, and so Nanami and the others were naturally safe.
"Don't disappoint me, Cursed Spirit." Hajime Kashimo gave a smug snort of laughter.
Kenjaku, listening off to the side, sighed again and again.
He really was out of options.
Isn't it the case that, just because you have a Domain, you'll fight Mahiru?
She has a Domain, and you can't even win a Domain battle against that Cursed Spirit; when you go over there and see her open her Domain, all you can do is brace against it with "Miyakogakuro." Both your hands are tied up forming hand-seals, so how are you going to fight the other side inside their Domain?
Are you going to kick them with your two legs?
This is ridiculous. Sigh… but in truth, Kenjaku had long since foreseen this scenario.
Hajime Kashimo was a battle junkie.
Although he was forever arrogant in speech, in reality he admired every strong fighter and desperately wanted to fight the strong.
Right from the moment he'd heard there was a character like this blue-haired Cursed Spirit, he'd already been itching for it; now, prodded by a single offhand provocation from Mahiru, he'd taken the bait on the spot.
There was no stopping him.
The little bunny lost its Cursed Energy fluctuations—it had probably gone dormant.
And Kenjaku, off to the side, kept reminding Hajime Kashimo: "Don't forget, Mahiru's Domain Expansion is seriously impressive."
"So what?" Hajime Kashimo was brimming with confidence. "It's not like I'm an idiot."
His combat IQ was actually very high.
They called him a battle junkie because he loved fighting, hollering "all-out attack" at everyone he saw, day and night.
But he was by no means some brute who only knew how to charge in headlong.
"If the dueling ground she picks is in the middle of a crowd, then I'll kill off the whole crowd first." Hajime Kashimo narrowed his eyes. "I'll make it so she can't unfurl her Domain at full power."
"Fine then… as long as you've got it figured out in your own head." Kenjaku said.
He'd half a mind to keep Hajime Kashimo around until the very end to make him fuel for his plan, but since this guy was dead set on going, then go he would.
—And over on the other side.
"Mahiru, who's this genius boy who can open a Domain at Grade 2 sorcerer?"
"Yeah, yeah, and who's this genius boy who can land consecutive Black Flashes?"
The Cursed Spirits had already been cleared away.
Fushiguro and Yuji Itadori looked at Mahiru and asked, blissfully clueless.
"And we're really going to fight him? That guy's pretty strong, isn't he?"
Yuji Itadori and Fushiguro hadn't been on the scene, but that pillar of lightning that had shot up into the sky—they'd both seen it with their own eyes. Terrifying.
The enemy really was strong.
Unlike the Ishiryuu and Urogi that Mahiru had encountered before… this time, Hajime Kashimo was a revived one who had genuinely been restored to his prime of the past.
"Should we call in some more people to help?" Yuji Itadori asked. "Like… Todo and the others?"
"No need." Mahiru stroked her chin, lost in thought.
Hajime Kashimo was absolutely a formidable foe who demanded a full, battle-ready stance.
But… when it came to throwing down in a duel, Mahiru was the true professional.
The girl remembered Hajime Kashimo's weakness.
Hajime Kashimo's nickname was "Thunder God," because his Cursed Energy had properties just like lightning.
But for that very reason, if Hajime Kashimo were thrown into the sea, the moment he released his Cursed Energy, it would instantly be conducted away and dispersed by the seawater, that kind of conductor.
The character in the original story had defeated Hajime Kashimo by exactly this method.
The girl could imitate it too. But… Mahiru glanced at Yuji Itadori, then at Fushiguro: "Come to think of it, Fushiguro, don't you still owe a whole pile of money?"
"Hm?" Fushiguro was startled, not knowing why Mahiru was suddenly asking this. "Well, I do… but aren't I already not Megumi Fushiguro anymore?"
"Aiya, I'm just asking whether you want to make some money."
"Huh? Make money?"
"That's right, make money, and at the same time contribute to the reconstruction of the disaster area." Mahiru giggled and pointed at a power station in the distance. "We finally ran into a handy generator—isn't it a waste not to use it?"
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