"What?!——" Hearing what Nanami Kento said, Ijichi's eyes went wide with shock. "You're saying those few went off to do WHAT?!——"
This was Jujutsu High's temporary infirmary.
Five in the afternoon. Nanami Kento had only just finished treating his own injuries.
"They went off on their own?!"
"Yes." Nanami nodded and sighed. "Yes, they did."
No backup from anyone else—just Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, Nobara Kugisaki—and that blue-haired Cursed Spirit.
They had made a pact for a showdown with that mysterious, powerful sorcerer; a Binding Vow had already been formed. Just like every time before, none of them could understand what was going on inside that blue-haired Cursed Spirit's head—truly, who would have thought that even after they'd become comrades, the situation would still be like this.
"The battlefield… is a power station?" Ijichi couldn't wrap his head around it. "Why… isn't that place far away from any crowds?"
By rights, Mahiru's Domain could only display its true power amid a crowd. That power station had been under emergency repairs lately, but since it was being used as the dueling ground, they'd surely evacuate the crowds first… so why on earth would she accept this duel?
Couldn't it just be left to Satoru Gojo?
Ijichi really did have a headache.
He worried about the students… they were all still only Grade 3 and Grade 2 sorcerers…
That enemy was terrifying beyond measure—even Mr. Nanami, a Grade 1 sorcerer, had been easily defeated. Could Mahiru really handle him?
"Don't underestimate them." But then Nanami suddenly spoke up. "Yuji Itadori and the others… they're no longer who they once were."
Back when Nanami first met Yuji Itadori, Yuji Itadori had been nothing more than a Grade 3 sorcerer.
And now… although the boy's rating was still only Grade 3, he had already beaten Cursed Spirits stronger than himself, and had grasped the knack of landing a Black Flash—a knack no one had ever mastered before… He had long since surpassed the level of an ordinary Grade 1 sorcerer.
And the same was true of Nobara Kugisaki and Megumi Fushiguro.
"That Cursed Spirit never does anything she isn't sure of," Nanami said. "Trust her…"
The present moment was drawing ever closer to the time the showdown would begin.
Looking outside, the sky was gradually darkening. The instant the sun set would be the moment the battle began.
"Mr. Ijichi!" A jujutsu assistant came bursting in from outside. "Why is the power station only starting to evacuate now?!"
"What?" Ijichi whipped his head around. "Only evacuating now? Then what were they doing all afternoon?"
Because strange attacks had been cropping up all over the place that afternoon, no one had had the time to pay attention to what exactly Mahiru and her group had gone to the power station to prepare. With the duel time bearing down, someone went to look into it, and it turned out the repair crew inside the power station was only now being evacuated.
For the whole afternoon, they seemed to have struck some sort of agreement with Mahiru, and had been hard at work the entire time.
What were they up to?
"And another thing! It looks like we've identified that mysterious sorcerer who attacked the medical clinic!" the jujutsu assistant went on. "This sorcerer… is recorded in historical records from four hundred years ago…" "What?" "According to the records, his name is Hajime Kashimo…" The jujutsu assistant swallowed hard. "He was once the strongest—the one who slaughtered every powerful being in his region four hundred years ago."
The strongest, was he? In truth, even Hajime Kashimo had never called himself that.
The world was vast. Hajime Kashimo had spent his whole life fighting, searching for an enemy who could match him. Yet even so, until the day he died he never managed to challenge every single person of his era.
So he felt he wasn't the strongest in the literal sense.
And so, he had come to the modern age.
——choosing to take part in that grand gathering, promised by Kenjaku, that would bring together all the mighty ones of past and present.
"Oh? Have you made preparations?" The youth came to a stop.
He still had his staff slung over his shoulder, walking with a casual, swaggering gait. The last sliver of afterglow left by the setting sun framed his silhouette from behind.
Off in the distance was the power plant.
This had originally been a massive integrated thermal-and-new-energy power plant; it had collapsed in an earthquake, and after emergency repairs, the power station now looked rather different from before.
"Heh…"
He understood—Mahiru had absolutely already made her preparations.
That didn't matter. A so-called death match was precisely a slaughter in which both sides gave it their all. The other side would set things up in advance; he could prepare in advance too.
Deceit and counter-deceit, each working the information gap against the other… that was the true meaning of the word "battle." Come then… you blue-haired Cursed Spirit… don't disappoint me…
The power station stood soundless in the silence, not a trace of human presence within.
Hajime Kashimo stood at the gate, waiting quietly—waiting for the sun's afterglow to be utterly extinguished.
Bit by bit… until the golden radiance vanished completely, and then, thunder soaring to the heavens replaced the sunlight to illuminate the entire hilltop. "Time's up!!——" Hajime Kashimo broke into an utterly manic grin. "Cursed Spirit! Come on out!!!" BOOM. With a single swing of his staff, he sent the entire great gate blasting away, and Hajime Kashimo turned into lightning and surged into the power plant. At that very same moment, another massive surge of Cursed Energy manifested from the sky—the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare thrust out its hand, taking aim at Hajime Kashimo, the cannon-fire in its palm gathering power.
The blue-haired girl had already appeared above the power station at that same instant, her gaze full of disdain: "Incinerate."
With a roar, a pillar of fire came crashing down. Hajime Kashimo threw back his head in wild laughter, and a pillar of thunder shot skyward.
Fire and lightning collided. Blue and crimson clashed.
Mahiru felt the sound of wind rushing at her ear, and she glanced slightly to the side.
Hajime Kashimo had already appeared right beside her.
"So you've given up using your Domain!" Hajime Kashimo laughed heartily. "You made that choice to protect the crowds? You really are quite the saint!"
The thunder-wreathed staff swung toward Mahiru's direction.
Hajime Kashimo's speed was astonishingly fast, far faster than Mahiru's. But Mahiru had deliberately shown an opening to lure Hajime Kashimo into attacking her flank, so she was already prepared, and directly maneuvered the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare she'd readied beforehand to block the strike.
BANG! This time the armor was different from before.
This time the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare sacrificed its offensive properties, forming a defense-specialized shield.
The staff that could originally smash anything to pieces didn't shatter the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare—it only battered it into a dent.
But… unfortunately, although the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare blocked Hajime Kashimo's strike, the impact still carried through to Mahiru, and a numbing tingle had already spread along the Darting Hare and onto Mahiru's body.
Mahiru's eyelids lowered slightly; she paid it no mind. "——'Don't move.'"
Once again, it was her go-to little combo: control with Cursed Speech, then unleash the output.
This was the whole point of luring Hajime Kashimo in close.
The moment the Cursed Speech was uttered, Hajime Kashimo's body was pinned in midair, and as Mahiru raised her hand, a dazzling white light bloomed from her palm.
"——[Husk]."
It was, as ever, the instant-cast [Husk] she'd prepared in advance—and the raw material for it was the Special Grade Cursed Spirit that Mahiru had devoured during the day.
The pillar of light came smashing down, slamming viciously into Hajime Kashimo and battering him out of the sky.
And the instant the [Husk] struck home, Hajime Kashimo's body had already regained the ability to move.
As lightning-natured Cursed Energy formed a Cursed Energy barrier before him, he broke into a smile and pointed a finger toward Mahiru's direction. "Cursed Spirit! Have you ever seen a guaranteed hit that works outside of a Domain?!" he laughed.
Hajime Kashimo's body was plummeting downward, but a flash of lightning skittered across his fingertip.
This streak of lightning, like a silvery-white thread, in an instant linked Hajime Kashimo's body to Mahiru's. Crackle— The lightning detonated upon Mahiru's body, blood spattering everywhere.
That lightning was faint, but the girl's flesh was very fragile, utterly unable to withstand this sudden attack.
——This was Hajime Kashimo's way of fighting.
His Technique was one-and-done—use it once and he died. Because of that, the whole of his strength was built upon his development of the properties of his own Cursed Energy.
His Cursed Energy shared the same nature as electricity.
Its destructive force was as terrifying as thunder, and its speed as swift as lightning—but the single most important property was that he could split his Cursed Energy into "positive charge" and "negative charge."
To put it simply, his Cursed Energy could have a yin side and a yang side, and the yin and yang sides would attract each other.
He had injected "yang lightning" into Mahiru's body. So no matter the direction, the moment he released the "yin lightning," the attack of that yin lightning would automatically strike Mahiru at the speed of lightning.
There was simply no dodging it.
This was the "guaranteed hit" that only Hajime Kashimo could pull off.
In theory, this move of Hajime Kashimo's required him to accumulate enough of a charge and then release it all in one go to produce a "certain-kill" effect. But Mahiru's body actually wasn't sturdy, and Hajime Kashimo knew this, so he released after accumulating only a little charge—he meant to keep Mahiru under continuous suppression.
——As long as he could keep ceaselessly smashing Mahiru's body to a pulp, then even if she could keep repairing herself, she wouldn't be able to hold out, would she?
That was what he thought.
But it seemed he had misjudged. The opening the girl had shown seemed to have been meticulously designed.
Mahiru's body had already been struck by the lightning, blood blossoming in midair. But Hajime Kashimo had no time at all to press the attack, because his body was still being driven by the [Husk], smashing him downward.
This action was extremely purposeful, putting Hajime Kashimo on instant alert. What was below?
He looked back and down. Below was a place like a factory building. From the construction marks, this factory building even looked very new, bearing the traces of recent assembly.
He didn't know what it was.
For the moment he couldn't draw any leverage in midair, and just as he was about to mobilize his Cursed Energy to shift his posture, the girl's second "'Don't move'" had already followed right on its heels.
He was pinned once more, and then forced to be smashed down into the factory building.
And so, after he'd fallen into the factory building, he locked eyes with the girl.
Fushiguro Maki was waiting for him right in the middle of the dark factory building, her eyes glittering.
Her hands had long since formed the seal.
"Huh? A Domain Expansion?" About three or four hours ago, after hearing Mahiru's words, Fushiguro had pointed at herself, her face full of astonishment. "Me? I can't do that, you know?"
Mahiru wanted her to learn Domain Expansion within three hours. This was utter nonsense.
Domain Expansion was the highest expression of jujutsu attainment, something only the most formidable people could learn.
If those words had come from Satoru Gojo, Fushiguro Maki would absolutely have said, "Get the hell out of here."
But for some reason… truly, this feeling was uncanny.
In that moment, when those words came out of Mahiru's mouth, Fushiguro suddenly felt that Domain Expansion didn't seem like such an impossible thing after all.
"I'll put you through special training—I guarantee you'll have a breakthrough in three hours."
Fushiguro had no idea that she had, in fact, long since accumulated enough jujutsu to support her in performing a "rudimentary Domain Expansion."
Nor did she know how to even imagine a Domain she'd never unfurled before.
But…
She still chose to trust Mahiru. And so, her trust once again paid off as the right bet.
Three hours? No…
It was one hour.
In one hour and sixteen minutes, with Mahiru's help, Fushiguro Maki had learned a rudimentary Domain Expansion.
And this very moment was the crucial step in their plan.
"Domain Expansion——" Under Hajime Kashimo's shocked gaze, the girl formed the seal and lowered her eyes. So she intoned.
——"Chimera Shadow Garden."
____
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🔥 New history: COTE: Counterattack System
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