“Jesus Christ, Boogie Woogie is such bullshit.”
Atsushi lay flat on his back with his arms and legs spread out, completely unconcerned with how ridiculous he looked.
Dappled sunlight filtered through gaps in the canopy overhead, illuminating a forest floor covered in severed branches, splintered wood, and rocks torn from the earth.
I thought he smashed through all those trees with cursed energy reinforcement before the fight just to intimidate me.
Turns out he was planting cursed energy in the broken wood and rocks ahead of time.
During the fight, he could swap with rocks and trees he’d touched directly, but also with all the fragments he’d sent flying when he bulldozed through the forest in the first place.
An instantaneous clap with practically no startup.
Nearly a hundred possible swap targets scattered throughout the area, including himself.
And the dirtiest part of all…
Every time he clapped, he could choose whether to activate his technique or simply clap for no reason.
That created thousands of possible mind games every second.
“What a ridiculously cheap technique.
I don’t think I’m ever going to forget this one.”
Atsushi thought this while lying on the ground after his final slash had missed completely because Todo hadn’t swapped at all, allowing him to send Atsushi flying with a punch instead.
Even after losing, Atsushi felt no frustration.
Only resignation at how absurd the technique was.
More accurately, the whole thing was so ridiculous that he could only laugh.
Still…
Todo Aoi held back.
Once Atsushi calmed down, his mind immediately started working again.
That last punch had been much weaker than the first.
“Didn’t think you were the type to hold back against an enemy.”
Blood trickled from the corner of Atsushi’s mouth as he spoke from the ground.
Between the aftermath of Flowing Red Scale and the anemia worsened by [Glass Cannon], he looked like he might collapse at any moment.
His mouth, however, showed no such weakness.
“Don’t tell me you started respecting me halfway through the fight and decided your rival had to become your best friend or something.”
“You’re the one who was holding back.”
A massive shadow blocked out the sunlight.
Todo stepped over broken branches and walked toward Atsushi one heavy step at a time.
Ignoring the sarcasm, he looked directly into Atsushi’s eyes.
“Sorcerers are sensitive to the negative emotions that give rise to cursed energy.”
“I could feel your killing intent.”
Todo slowly crouched down.
“And there was something else mixed into it.”
“Some kind of attack aimed at me with the intent to kill in a single hit.”
“But you never used it.”
Seriously?
He noticed that too?
With the cold soil grinding beneath him, Atsushi shifted into a slightly more comfortable position and continued lying there.
“I thought I hid my killing intent pretty well.”
“But I guess when your life is actually on the line, some of it slips out whether you want it to or not.”
So that’s why.
After I activated Flowing Red Scale and raised my physical abilities, Todo kept using Boogie Woogie to evade instead of attacking.
He noticed “that.”
By ordinary jujutsu standards, the difference between Atsushi and Todo was enormous.
Total cursed energy, cursed energy output, hand-to-hand combat, cursed technique mastery.
Todo held an overwhelming advantage in almost every category.
Even so, Atsushi still possessed one trump card that, in the worst-case scenario, could at least let him trade his life for Todo’s.
In fact, against almost any sorcerer who couldn’t use Reverse Cursed Technique, Atsushi’s true damage gave him a possible way to turn the tables with that same card.
For that, he actually had Kenjaku to thank.
To prepare Atsushi for this mission, Kenjaku, one of the most experienced sorcerers alive, had given him more than just the Special Grade Cursed Tool Dragon-Bone.
He had also taught him quite a bit about jujutsu.
Cursed energy control.
How to maximize cursed energy output.
Even techniques associated with the Three Great Families, such as Falling Blossom Emotion, as well as the fundamentals of barrier techniques required to eventually perform Domain Expansion.
Of course, all of those techniques were extremely complicated.
When Kenjaku said he was “teaching” them to Atsushi, what he really meant was giving him enough information to understand the principles behind them.
There was no chance Atsushi could master them in only two days.
But there was one thing he had understood very clearly.
Binding Vows.
A Binding Vow between two people required mutual agreement and participation from both sides before it could take effect.
Having personally gone through the process of establishing one with Kenjaku, Atsushi gained a clear understanding of how Binding Vows functioned.
From there, he figured out how to establish a self-imposed Binding Vow with himself as the only participant.
In exchange for being unable to use his cursed technique against the enemy standing before him ever again.
His next use of that cursed technique would automatically track that enemy.
This was the first self-imposed Binding Vow Atsushi had developed after Kenjaku’s instruction.
Naturally, because the sacrifice wasn’t severe enough, the targeting effect granted by the vow was nowhere near as powerful as the sure-hit effect of a Domain Expansion.
A Domain’s sure-hit technique directly manifested its effect on the target, bypassing ordinary attempts to evade it.
Atsushi’s Binding Vow merely granted his attack automatic targeting and tracking.
But his true damage made up for that weakness exceptionally well.
Used at the right moment, the vow could completely shift the outcome of a fight.
Of course, Atsushi never actually used it against Todo.
Once he realized Todo had no intention of killing him, he abandoned the idea.
Unfortunately, Flowing Red Scale had also intensified Atsushi’s aggression during the fight.
Todo had sensed the danger through the negative emotions leaking from him.
“Blood Manipulation, the Kamo Clan’s inherited technique.”
Todo looked down at him.
“You’re only around Grade 2 or Grade 3, but you’re carrying some kind of attack that feels like it could guarantee a lethal hit.”
“On top of that, you’ve got combat instincts closer to an animal than a normal person.”
Todo’s expression hardened.
“So what exactly is someone like you doing at the Goodwill Event?”
“I’d tell you if I could.”
Atsushi casually spread his hands while still lying on the ground.
“But I made a Binding Vow with someone.”
“I literally can’t talk about it.”
There wasn’t the slightest trace of panic on his pale face despite the interrogation.
Just as the conversation reached an impasse, Atsushi’s gaze shifted past Todo’s shoulder and slowly rose toward the distant sky.
There, a layer of darkness as thick as spilled ink was silently spreading across the horizon.
Like a massive black dome being lowered over the world, a Curtain gradually formed above the entire Goodwill Event grounds, separating the forest from everything outside.
“Looks like it’s starting.”
A smile appeared on Atsushi’s face as the Curtain came down.
“Starting?”
Todo’s hand had just begun to reach toward him.
“What the hell is starting?”
Then suddenly, an enormous surge of cursed energy swept across the entire Goodwill Event grounds.
Not Grade 1.
Not a Special Grade cursed spirit.
Not even anything that could be compared to an ordinary high-level sorcerer…
It carried a suffocating sense of death.
An overwhelming mass of cursed energy that seemed capable of swallowing the entire forest.
What the hell is that…?
So you really pulled it off, Mechamaru.
A knowing look appeared in Atsushi’s eyes.
I’m still pissed you dragged me into your side of the plan without telling me, though.
But now…
Todo Aoi had been delayed because he came to check on Miwa Kasumi.
Without Todo there, Itadori Yuji hadn’t learned Black Flash.
And the Curtain was keeping Gojo Satoru outside.
Which meant that the instant the Curtain fell and the Special Grade cursed spirit Hanami appeared.
There was only one student on the entire battlefield capable of stopping Hanami.
“The final shikigami of the Ten Shadows Technique.”
“The one no Ten Shadows user in history had ever successfully tamed.”
“Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga.”
Atsushi’s smile widened slightly.
“So you really went straight for the suicide option…”
“Fushiguro Megumi.”
(To be continued.)