The massive pale hands crisscrossing the sky and the churning clouds shattered like broken glass, collapsing with a shriek sharp enough to sting the ears.
The real night wind rushed back into the area. As the two Domains were forcibly dispelled, the ruined, mud-soaked athletic field of Yasohachi High was exposed to the darkness once more.
The torrential rain that had seemed ready to drown everything also cut off the instant the Domains broke, turning into scattered droplets that struck the puddles below.
Kaede stood in the mud, chest heaving, each breath sounding like a battered bellows being dragged open.
The hand gripping Mikazuki Munechika was completely stained by ominous black cursed energy, the corruption creeping past his wrist and leaving it a withered gray-black. Blood kept pouring from the wound through his left shoulder, and he could no longer maintain even the most basic "rainfall" effect.
The second both figures reappeared in the real world, Mahito, still trapped in burnout, had not even had time to catch his breath before he saw Kaede suddenly raise both arms and slam his palms together.
"Sorry. I don't suffer from technique burnout."
The moment those calm but deadly words fell, Kaede threw his trump card onto the table.
In jujutsu combat, revealing the secret of your technique to the enemy creates a Binding Vow that boosts your cursed energy output.
Mahito's mismatched pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Impossible.
The dizziness from overloading his technique still raged through his brain. He could clearly feel the heavy stagnation of his cursed technique etched into his body.
And yet in front of him, Kaede, who should have been in the same empty post-Domain state, erupted with a dense surge of cursed energy between his palms.
A jet of high-pressure water, compressed to the absolute limit and amplified by the tremendous boost of the Binding Vow, became a silver flash too fast for the eye to follow. It tore through the air with a piercing sonic crack.
Thwack!
The dull, sickening sound of flesh being pierced rang out across the dead silent field.
Mahito had no room to dodge at all. The high-pressure water blast punched straight through his throat with overwhelming force.
A fan-shaped spray of black-red blood mist mixed with shattered vertebrae and fragments of trachea burst from the back of his neck and splashed into the mud.
"Ghk... hss...!"
The immense impact sent Mahito reeling backward. A horrific hole had been blasted clean through his throat, and air poured through the mangled windpipe, producing a ragged wheeze like a broken bellows.
He crashed onto the ground, legs convulsing in the mud.
He clutched at his throat as blood geysered through his fingers. Thick black blood spilled from his mouth in great waves.
The instinctive terror of death coiled around his nerves like an icy serpent.
No technique.
During burnout, he could not use Idle Transfiguration to maintain the shape of his soul and regenerate.
At this moment, he was dragging around a fragile body that could actually be killed by physical injury, one already bleeding out fast.
Even as he coughed up chunks of blood and tissue, he forced himself to stay as clear-headed as a wounded beast.
That bastard wasn't in burnout.
Why?
Because Kaede's body itself was made of cursed energy and water. As long as his cursed energy had not run completely dry, there was no such thing as a cursed technique overloading in the brain.
But...
A twisted, savage grin stretched across Mahito's blood-smeared face.
He brutally gathered the raw cursed energy still left in his body and forced it into his neck like thick glue, plugging the torn artery and ruined windpipe to keep himself alive by sheer force.
Kaede could not even maintain a basic rain effect anymore. All he could use now was this primitive kind of water blast.
Which meant that lunatic's cursed energy reserves were nearly empty too.
"Hss... cough..."
Mahito did not choose to stand and fight, nor did he resign himself to death. He rolled wildly through the mud like a half-broken stray dog.
Using what strength remained in his legs, he kicked off the ground hard, throwing up a curtain of mud to block Kaede's vision, then scrambled toward the deep shadows of Yasohachi High's main school building dozens of meters away.
If he could just survive this brief vacuum of technique usage, if he could hold out for even a few dozen seconds, he could rebuild his throat and reverse the whole fight.
Mahito, fleeing for his life, pressed one hand against his leaking throat and crawled through the mud like an animal driven into a corner, dragging himself toward the deeper darkness of the school building.
He did not even dare look back. All his focus went into forcing the last of his cursed energy into that fatal wound.
Just as he was about to vanish into the shadows,
Kaede's right arm snapped up. His wrist, blackened all the way to the forearm by the backlash, cut a vicious arc through the air.
The heavy Mikazuki Munechika Replica left his hand as a streak of black lightning, shrieking through the air straight for Mahito's undefended back.
It was a killing throw with no margin whatsoever.
Just as the blade was about to tear through Mahito's spine, something changed.
"SKREEE!"
A bloated low-grade curse covered in pus-filled sacs suddenly leaped out from behind a collapsed slab of concrete above and to the side.
It appeared at a moment so precise it was chilling, throwing its huge body directly into the sword's flight path between Kaede and Mahito.
Thwack. Boom!
The black blade pierced straight through the low-grade curse, and the residual corruption attached to it shredded the creature into a spray of purple gore in an instant.
But that tiny fraction of a second was enough to kill the weapon's momentum.
Mikazuki Munechika let out a metallic wail, spun wildly off course, and angled down toward the ground.
Using that sudden cover, Mahito shrank his body and disappeared completely into the pitch-black darkness behind the school building.
Only a few drops of black-red blood remained to prove he had been there at all.
"There's someone else here?"
Kaede's slightly hoarse voice rang out across the empty ruin.
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, the forward-leaning posture he had taken to pursue Mahito abruptly stopped. His leg muscles tightened at once.
He dropped his center of gravity and sprang backward several meters like a released arrow, opening a safe distance where he could attack or retreat at will.
His dark red eyes swept across the deep night and the dead corners of the ruined grounds with sharp caution.
Plop.
The thrown blade finally fell.
But just before it could touch the mud, the surface of a small puddle left over from the earlier Domain clash rippled strangely.
The puddle became like an invisible mouth, swallowing the entire blade quickly and cleanly.
There was not even the sound of metal striking water. The sword simply vanished into the pool, reclaimed into Kaede's cursed water body.
The night wind howled. Apart from the creaking of shattered buildings, there was no other movement.
No fresh attack came. No enemy presence emerged.
Kaede stood there, his breathing still rough, his backlash-ridden right arm hanging unnaturally at his side, fingers twitching faintly.
"I can't keep chasing him... I'm almost out of cursed energy. It's recovering, but there's no way I can force out a second Domain Expansion in the short term...
I should check on Itadori first."
He muttered the words under his breath, voice almost lost to the wind.
Then he turned away.
He did not search for the unknown interference any further, nor did he spare a glance toward the direction Mahito had escaped.
Dragging a body made heavy with mud, blood, and exhaustion, he walked with a slight limp but an unwavering purpose toward the school gates, until his back faded into the streetlights beyond the campus.
...
Several hundred meters from the field, atop the upper floor of an unfinished high-rise.
A man in monk's robes, with a horizontal stitch line across his forehead, stood quietly at the edge of the roof with no guardrail behind him.
The night wind snapped at his sleeves. In his narrow, fox-like eyes burned an almost coldly mechanical intelligence.
That low-grade curse just now had been one of his disposable pieces, released casually from his sleeve.
"That was close."
Kenjaku watched the retreating figure disappear beyond the school gate, a meaningful smile tugging at his lips.
He had been watching the fight the entire time.
From the instant Mahito's arm had been severed by Kaede's sudden arrival, the battle had already slipped beyond his expectations.
Especially that sealed double-Domain, and the sheer ruthlessness to squeeze every last drop of cursed energy into a single decisive kill.
"He survived Kurourushi's slaughter and then pushed Mahito all the way into burnout, nearly killing him.
A water-based construct born from Heavenly Restriction... he's not just one of Gojo Satoru's curiosities. He's a major variable in his own right."
Kenjaku lightly rubbed his chin, a trace of wariness passing through his gaze.
He had not stepped in to save Mahito out of any kind of camaraderie.
Mahito's soul-touching Idle Transfiguration was an indispensable key to the grand nationwide plan to come, the Culling Game.
Before that plan reached maturity, Mahito absolutely could not die.
And more importantly, Kenjaku had no interest in confronting Kaede directly yet.
"He didn't even have the spare energy to track cursed signatures. His judgment was sound.
Still, now that you've entered the board..."
Kenjaku withdrew into the rooftop darkness.
"We'll be seeing each other again soon, rain sorcerer."
His figure melted into the night without a sound.