MONITORING ROOM POV
The image on the main screen changed, showing Nagi tearing through the forest at full speed, leaping over roots and weaving between trees with Tokyo’s red flag firmly tucked under his arm.
“HE’S GOT IT!!!” Miwa shot to her feet.
“NAGI’S GOT IT!!!”
In the process, she knocked into a chair and nearly sent it flying backward.
Mechamaru had to catch it with one of his mechanical arms before it crashed into the walls covered in paintings.
Mai, who was trying to maintain her composure, couldn’t stop a satisfied smile from slipping onto her face.
“Hmph…
At least he’s not a complete idiot.
He’s got some gray matter in there.”
On the screen, Nagi kept running until he suddenly turned his head toward a specific point among the treetops.
With the Shinkeigan, he had located Mei Mei’s crow following him and transmitting the footage back to the monitoring room.
Nagi stared directly at it for a moment, winked, and raised two fingers in a victory sign.
Miwa stared at him with her mouth slightly open before laughing.
“What a show-off…”
“He found the exact spot we’re watching him from.
He really loves showing off,” Mai commented.
“He read Kirara’s technique correctly,” Mechamaru said, analyzing the footage.
“Even without figuring out how to fulfill the technique’s requirements, he used an external spatial swap to bypass the constellation’s hierarchy.
Pretty brilliant.”
Mei Mei watched the screen with her arms crossed, following Nagi as he approached Kyoto’s base.
“Interesting.
He’s not just strong.
He knows how to make use of the resources available to him, both his surroundings and his allies.
Good strategists can be extremely dangerous.”
Kusakabe let out a long yawn.
“Mmh…
Yeah, yeah…
Although, to be fair, all of this was only possible because of Aoi.
Without Boogie Woogie, he wouldn’t have been able to get the flag.”
“But Nagi was the one who thought of using it.
You wouldn’t have come up with that, sensei,” Miwa immediately shot back, still standing.
Gojo was leaning against the wall with a broad smile as he watched the different feeds.
Utahime glanced at him with a smug expression.
“Looks like Kyoto isn’t doing so badly this year, huh, Gojo?”
Gojo tilted his head slightly.
“Mmm…
Believe me, I’m the first person who enjoys seeing sorcerers with potential emerge.
All of them—Yuta, Hakari, Todo, Kamo, Nagi…
Megumi.
Eventually, they’ll become better sorcerers than us.”
Then he turned toward her with an almost childish smile.
“And you know what?
I think several of your students are already stronger than you.”
Utahime’s satisfied expression vanished instantly.
She clenched her jaw, and a vein began to bulge on her forehead.
“Want to step outside for a minute?”
Miwa, completely oblivious to the sexual tension between the two adults, turned toward Gojo with stars in her eyes.
“Gojo-sensei!
Do you understand exactly how Kirara’s technique works?
I didn’t understand any of it!”
Gojo brought a hand to his chin, putting on an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression.
“Hmmmm…
Yeah…
of course…
More or less.”
Gojo shrugged.
“Love Rendezvous is a system of attraction and repulsion based on the stars of the Southern Cross.
There’s a specific order you have to follow between them and…
well, explaining it with words is incredibly boring.”
“You don’t even know how to explain it.
Give it up, Miwa.
Gojo never bothered to understand that technique in depth,” Utahime said with a tired sigh.
Gojo’s smile widened.
“Even so…
don’t celebrate too soon.
Nagi still has to get past Yuta and Hakari.
This isn’t over yet.”
BATTLEFIELD POV — KYOTO BASE
The message appeared on Kamo’s phone in the middle of the fight.
Nagi:
Eagle is heading to the nest.
Repeat: eagle is heading to the nest.
I’ve got it.
Kamo barely had time to put his phone away again.
Hakari wasn’t giving him even a second to breathe.
He slipped the phone away just as a punch grazed his face.
He leaned back, blocked the next strike with both forearms, and was dragged several meters across the ground by the force.
His pupils contracted for an instant as he understood what they had to do, it no longer mattered whether Yuta or Hakari reached their flag.
Kamo immediately changed strategies.
The best thing he could do now was keep Hakari from moving and clear the way for Nagi.
He threw another bag of blood.
“Crimson Binding.”
Dozens of crimson lines erupted into the air from the container of blood, weaving around Hakari and forming a dense net that closed around his body to immobilize him.
“THAT’S ALL YOU’VE GOT?!
YOU’RE LACKING PASSION!”
Several train doors appeared around him.
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
They slammed shut on the net from different directions, trapping the blood lines between their frames and severing them one after another.
Within seconds, Hakari completely destroyed the Crimson Binding and stepped out with a grin.
Kamo glanced toward the other side of the battlefield.
Todo hadn’t read the message.
He needed to warn him without revealing to Tokyo that Nagi had already taken their flag.
Kamo raised two fingers toward Todo, who caught the gesture from the corner of his eye.
Then Kamo traced a small circle backward with them and closed his fist—a signal they had discussed beforehand.
Fall back.
Hold out.
Support Nagi.
Todo understood.
“Getting distracted in the middle of a fight?” Hakari asked, smiling with a mixture of violence and sadistic amusement.
Before Kamo could react, Hakari drove a right hook into his abdomen.
The impact made Kamo spit blood and sent him crashing down onto his knees, dazed.
Several meters away, Fushimi and Suzuki were both already out of the fight, lying on the ground and breathing heavily.
Their fight inside the Special Simple Domain had ended in a technical draw.
Neither was in any condition to continue, suffering from fractures, bruises, and more than likely concussions.
Yuta took a step forward.
Suddenly, a monstrous mass of cursed energy began materializing behind him, distorting the air around it.
It took the form of an enormous curse with a pale, muscular body, long arms ending in claws, a face devoid of eyes, and a gigantic mouth filled with teeth.
Yuta’s eyes widened with concern.
“Rika…
no.
You don’t need to come out.”
“Stop bothering Yuta,” Rika growled in a distorted voice.
“I’m fine, really,” Yuta insisted, turning toward her.
“Rika, please go back.
I don’t want you to hurt them.”
But Rika ignored him and remained outside.
Back in the monitoring room, Gakuganji abruptly shot to his feet.
“Gojo!” he exclaimed, gripping his cane tightly.
“Do something!
Okkotsu is losing control of Orimoto!”
“It’s fine,” Gojo replied.
“Rika came out without that much anger.
Yuta’s still conscious and he’s trying to control her.
“If that changes, I’ll teleport in and intervene.”
Back in the forest, Kamo gathered the last of his remaining energy.
He brought his hands together and compressed the blood between them, attacking the monster despite the fact that their orders were to retreat.
His legs simply didn’t have enough left in them to run.
“Convergence…
Piercing Blood.”
BOOM!
The blood tore through the air like a supersonic projectile and struck Rika directly.
And all it did was leave a scratch.
Rika vanished from his field of vision and charged toward him with an expression of absolute fury.
Help, help, help, shit, shit.
Why the hell did I attack her?
“Rika, wait!” Yuta shouted, stepping between them.
Gojo appeared beside Kamo.
“That’s enough.”
He placed a hand on Kamo’s shoulder, and the two vanished from the battlefield, effectively disqualifying Kamo from the event through forced surrender.
Yuta let out a relieved breath.
“Rika…
that’s enough.
Please, stop.
I’m fine.”
“I don’t want them to hurt Yuta…”
Rika didn’t disappear, but at least she calmed down and went to her thinking corner after Yuta scolded her.
“Shall we finish this, Todo?” Yuta asked calmly, with Hakari backing him up.
Todo, covered in dust and blood, silently stared at them, his eyes gleamed with confidence as enlightenment struck his mind.
“Thanks to religiously attending my beloved Takada-chan’s conventions…
I have achieved an IQ of 20,000.”
Hakari frowned.
“What…?”
Todo’s eyes shifted toward the safe zone, near Kyoto’s own flag, where Reina had remained after realizing that, without her shikigami, she wouldn’t be much help in the fight anymore.
Then Yuta turned his head slightly.
He had sensed a presence approaching at high speed through the forest.
Todo, of course, had already seen him.
Nagi burst out from between the trees, sprinting at full speed with Tokyo’s flag firmly tucked under his arm.
Nagi froze for a second when he saw Rika off to the side by a tree, staring at him.
“…What the hell is that thing?
Is that Rika?”
Just in time, my friend.
Todo thought.
Hakari followed his gaze, his eyes widened when he recognized what Nagi was carrying.
“Wait…
Is that our flag?
How did he…?”
They had left Kirara alone precisely because they trusted her technique to make it practically impossible for anyone to approach the flag.
They had assumed no one from Kyoto would be able to decipher it and overcome it in time.
CLAP.
Nagi vanished from between the trees and Reina appeared in his place, looking around in complete confusion.
“Huh?”
At the same time, Nagi appeared exactly where she had been a moment earlier—inside Kyoto’s safe zone, still holding Tokyo’s flag.
NAGI POV
I looked at the flag.
Then at the line marking the boundary of our base.
That’s it?
The barrier system immediately reacted.
A sharp sound rang through the speakers scattered across the forest before a voice echoed throughout the battlefield.
“TOKYO’S FLAG HAS BEEN CAPTURED AND SUCCESSFULLY BROUGHT TO KYOTO’S BASE!!!”
“THAT MEANS KYOTO HAS WON THE TEAM BATTLE!!!”
I raised my fist toward the sky.
“LET’S GOOOOOO!”
Back in the monitoring room, the Kyoto students hugged each other as if their team had just won the World Cup.
Chronostasis and help more people find it!