In the torrential rain, Mahito crashed into the crowd once again.
This time, all the squad members were on guard, and no one dared to block in front of Kirigiri.
They were all Kukuru Unit members proficient in taijutsu; each had trained their physical and sword skills since childhood.
In close-quarters combat, they were confident they would not give Mahito another chance.
Mahito swung his blade upward, but this time Kirigiri didn't hit anyone because all the squad members in that path consciously split apart and attacked from both sides.
At this moment, Mahito's old momentum was spent and new momentum had yet to be born—it was the perfect time to attack.
However, unexpectedly, Kirigiri reached their eyes in an instant.
"What—!"
Someone realized and tried to dodge, but Kirigiri's attack range was simply too long, and it sliced his body open.
The exposed bone and blood were drowned by the rain.
Mahito used both hands to swing the blade in a circle, and the squad members on both sides didn't even have time to react before being cut in two.
Mahito stepped forward, accompanied by blood and flesh, wind and rain.
He pulled his bamboo hat low again.
The sprayed blood and flesh fell onto his hat and were washed away by the rain, leaving only the lingering scent of blood.
Every squad member who rushed forward was touched by the blade light at just the right moment.
In the wind and rain, the blade light was faint and elusive.
The experienced squad members were actually dying one by one without any power to resist.
Mahito rampaged through the midst of the squad members, and not a single one could make him stop.
Mahito's movements were neither ergonomic nor did they follow the principles of swordsmanship.
If his moves were shown to a kendo instructor, they would surely point at his nose and scold him.
Yet, it was this very technique that allowed him to go on a rampage against the Kukuru Unit members who were masters of taijutsu and close-quarters combat.
Finally, a squad member saw the reason.
"That blade in his hand isn't a Cursed Tool, it's a tsukumogami!"
The way cursed tools and tsukumogami are used is fundamentally different.
Although cursed tools have various abilities, they are ultimately meant to assist the user, and their performance depends on the user's strength and skill.
A tsukumogami is the exact opposite; it has its own thoughts and abilities.
As long as the user can bring out its performance, the rest can be left entirely to the tsukumogami.
This was exactly the case for Mahito now.
He used Idle Transfiguration to keep his soul unchanged, so that no matter what counterintuitive actions he performed, they would not destroy the integrity of his body.
Kirigiri led Mahito's movements; every action was centered on Kirigiri, while Mahito was the assistant.
The Kukuru Unit members had judged wrongly from the very beginning.
"Too late," Mahito sighed softly.
Kirigiri spun continuously in the torrential rain, her silver-gray glow spreading through the curtain of rain.
Mahito followed Kirigiri, as if dancing a duet.
He had never felt Kirigiri's presence so clearly, revealing a chilling beauty that was soul-stirring.
At the start, Mahito was merely a sword rack, but he grew at high speed during the slaughter and soon caught up with Kirigiri's movements.
He tried to actively cooperate with her as they strolled through the rain.
Not a single Kukuru Unit member retreated; they threw themselves forward one after another, only to be left with extremely shallow wounds.
These battle-hardened Kukuru Unit members were like the mooks in a samurai film.
The master swordsman walks past lightly, and the mooks fall like wheat.
There were no deep wounds on any of them because every time the master swordsman struck, he used the tip of the blade to lightly slice across their vital arteries.
For the human body, such a shallow wound is enough to be fatal.
Holding the "Cutting Line," Kirigiri gradually came to understand this in actual combat.
It wasn't just Mahito; Kirigiri was also growing.
Never before had there been a tsukumogami like Kirigiri.
Even the broom used by Momo Nishimiya had never possessed such spirituality.
But this ancient blade displayed everything a newborn life should.
She was curious, she learned, and she grew.
Mahito was certain that this was not just because of his Soul Creation; her own material was also a vital reason.
As an exquisite replica of the Futsu no Mitama that had almost been buried in the dust of history, the time she had existed surpassed any other Japanese sword.
Her antiquity allowed her the aptitude to become a tsukumogami, and now, in this slaughter, she would bloom as a new birth.
The strange cries of the Kukuru Unit members grew increasingly shrill, while Mahito met them with silence.
Mahito swung his blade in the rain, the blade light scattering wantonly.
He walked in silence.
At first, he had to stay low and run on the ground, and he had to dodge, but as time passed, he even dispensed with dodging.
He was strolling, accompanied only by the light of the blade.
Kirigiri suddenly let out a soft hum, her faint silver glow reflecting a beautiful arc in the curtain of rain.
Mahito was certain he had caught up with Kirigiri's movements.
Having never had any experience using a sword before, he was now performing perfect cuts.
Kirigiri's ability did not activate, but Mahito still had the feeling—the texture of muscles, the joints of the skeleton, and the gaps between internal organs.
Kirigiri lightly sliced along these natural cutting lines of the human body, and people were turned into halves.
Mahito and Kirigiri were growing together at a visible speed.
He and she swung the blade to their heart's content in the curtain of rain. The wind and rain they stirred up scattered in all directions, as if a mist were swirling around him. Kirigiri moved like a silver fish through the mist. In the torrential rain, there really was a silver fish swimming—that was the tip of Kirigiri's blade, and Mahito's footsteps.
Indeed, there was a mist spreading—it was a mist of blood. And indeed, there was blade light accompanying it, slicing the blood mist in two.
Mahito had not lied; the squad members had indeed realized it too late. If the squad members had known from the start that Kirigiri was a tsukumogami and that Mahito's style was to follow the blade, they would surely have found a way to counter him. But now it was too late. In the initial battle, they had failed to seize the only remaining moment. Now, both Mahito and Kirigiri had grown in this short time, and they no longer had a chance.
The squad members cried out as they raised their long swords and closed in, only to stop their cries in the next second. Mahito brushed past them, and a wound like a death line appeared on their bodies. In the next instant, they died silently, and even the scent of blood was masked by the curtain of rain.
Lastly, there was the Fang Thrust.
Kirigiri struck a member of the Kukuru Unit without warning. The tip of the blade pierced the member's heart and emerged from his back. Mahito then lifted Kirigiri, and the member's body was split in two. His legs knelt on the ground, and his head hung low, as if in worship.
The last member still wanted to charge, but he suddenly realized he was the only one left. He looked at Mahito, abruptly threw away his long sword, and let out a sound of mental collapse.
He screamed and ran backward, but as he stepped into the Zen'in gate, a giant stone palm appeared and crushed him in its grasp. Before the fleeing member could even scream, the earth-and-stone palm squeezed hard, crushing him to death. Blood and flesh leaked from the gaps of the stone palm, looking like a Buddha's Flower-Holding Palm under the wash of the storm.
"What a waste. You couldn't even make him show his Cursed Technique, and you actually dared to desert? How shameful!" an old voice roared in anger.
It truly failed to be effective because Mahito had only used two Cursed Techniques from beginning to end. At the very start, he used Boogie Woogie because he thought everyone in the Zen'in family would surround him; he wanted to reduce the enemy's numbers and split the threatening enemies as quickly as possible. But he hadn't expected that only the Kukuru Unit would gather, while the true elites of the Zen'in family didn't lift a finger.
It was like an ancient army that would always send the conscript units first, while the elite troops rested in the rear to conserve energy. Only after the conscript units were mostly consumed and the opponent's capabilities were clear would these elites truly enter the battlefield.
Mahito immediately realized that the Hei were using the lives of the Kukuru Unit to probe for information about him. Since that was the case, Mahito naturally wouldn't show his full strength, so he immediately deactivated Interstellar Flight and simply used the Tool Manipulation Technique against the enemy.
And now, the true elite force of the Zen'in family had appeared.
The Hei were inside the courtyard, watching Mahito's rampage outside the gate and seeing him kill the Kukuru Unit members one by one, unmoved. They watched Mahito with sharp eyes, analyzing his every move in detail. They collected information on Mahito, not letting a single piece slip by.
Mahito shook the sword, but there was no blood on Kirigiri's blade at all. She was as silver and bright as before, like a girl fresh from a bath under the wash of the rain. Mahito straightened his body and carried Kirigiri on his shoulder. Kirigiri's edge faced upward, and the back of the blade rested on his shoulder. The over-two-meter-long blade was like a spear laid across Mahito's back. In the storm, he wore a bamboo hat and strolled leisurely. Lightning flashed across the sky, and those heterochromatic eyes lit up at some point, appearing faintly visible in the curtain of rain.
An old man stood in the middle of the courtyard, his hands forming a seal. He flinched slightly upon seeing Mahito, but then, as if insulted, he suddenly roared, "The game of clashing swords is over, Curse!
"Member of the Zen'in family's Hei unit, Zen'in Chojuro."
"A Jujutsu Sorcerer without a Cursed Technique is just trash after all. Let this old man show you the cruelty of the true jujutsu world!"
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