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A few days had passed by since Naoya's last visit to Kyoto Jujutsu High.
Currently, in Tokyo Zenin Estate's training ground, where Akashi and Kukuru squads trained, a mock squad-wise sparring was happening.
Naoya was present there as well, acting as the referee of the bout.
Now, he was a Hei member, rank 1 at that and thus had no reason to be around the other squad's training area.
However, unlike him, Maki and Mai were not Hei members.
Maki Zenin was part of the Kukuru squad. The Kukuru squad comprised those members of the Zenin clan who do not possess an innate technique. In the past, it was strictly allowed for male members of the clan, but recently, Maki was enlisted as the first female member of the clan.
Mai Zenin was part of the Akashi squad. The Akashi squad comprised those members who possessed an innate technique but were not up to the level required to get into Hei. Similar to the Kukuru squad, this squad too was male-only, but that changed after Mai Zenin was enlisted as the first female member of the clan.
There were many complaints by the oldies regarding women joining their squads, but those who directly came to complain to the higher-ups were promptly sent to the hospital by Naoya. In his words: "A few days of thinking while being on life support broadens one's mind." That actually was true. Since then, none of them even squeaked about the issue of women joining the squads.
"Alright, who's next?" asked Naoya.
Currently, it was the turn for the Kukuru squad to have their spars.
Many hands rose at Naoya's question.
Naoya scanned the group; everyone was filled with determination. They wanted to showcase their skills and improvements to the strongest man in the clan. It was one of the few times when they could use real weapons and lethal techniques since Naoya could mostly stop them if things went out of hand or heal them with his shikigami. If they did well, they could raise their rank in their squad and thereby in the clan as well.
"Shinzo, Maki, come up."
"Yes!"
The two replied and got on the battle stage.
Shinzo was someone around Naoya's age and was also a considerably strong member of the squad. He is a Grade-2 sorcerer, and that too without any technique at all. The man wielded a naginata and had quite some expertise in wielding them as well. Currently, he held a Grade-2 cursed tool, Nagingata, and looked at Maki with a mocking expression.
"Naoya-sama's disciple or not. Don't expect mercy from me, little girl," warned Shinzo.
Naoya didn't say anything. The man wasn't mocking Maki for being a woman and was treating her as he would treat any other member of the clan; it was better than other misogynistic comments people of the clan called the girls.
Maki narrowed her eyes.
"Better not come crying and complaining after I kick your ass," retorted Maki.
Maki was now 15 years old, and she had grown quite a lot. Thanks to the harsh training under Naoya and Toji, the girl now had well-defined muscles as well, though she still had charming features to her. Her hair was tied in a ponytail, and on her back were two short swords. She was proficient in most forms of weaponry, just like her teachers Naoya and Toji, but she liked to dual-wield swords the most. In her words, "Dual-wielding looks cool."
Her evaluation as a Jujutsu sorcerer just arrived recently, and her initial evaluation by the HQ placed her at Grade-2.
Maki was a bit dissatisfied with that evaluation, but Naoya told her it was all right for now. Better not get a very high grade from the start, as it allowed her to experience fighting weaker curses first before she could rank up and face difficult opponents.
The man himself fought Special Grade curses at 10 years of age, but was worried about the girls and giving such advice.
Anyway, back to the fight.
Maki unsheathed the short sword from her back and smirked at Shinzo.
The short swords that she held were Grade-1 cursed tools developed by the most talented weapon smith of the current era, Zankyo. The short swords had a curved edge, and one had a jet black blade while the other was pure white. The swords were named Kanshou and Byakuya. Zankyo was quite proud of this creation.
"Ready?"
Both participants took their stance. Shinzo is pointing the weapon towards Maki while Maki crouches down a bit for a swift attack.
"Start!"
Without wasting a single movement, Shinzo stepped forward and thrusted the spear as well, immediately covering the distance between them. His spear was also reinforced by CE, so the attack was quite deadly.
Though that only mattered if the attack hit Maki.
Maki threw one of the blades towards Shinzo at full strength.
Seeing the sword flying towards him, Shinzo immediately leaned to his side to dodge it, but in the time Maki used her now free hand to sidestep and dodge the blade, and catch the Naginata's handle.
Without any warning, Maki pulled the handle towards herself, pulling the wielder as well.
Shinzo, seeing his body move forward, let go of the spear to avoid falling straight into Maki's trap.
With a cursed energy-reinforced body, he held his ground and jumped up, dodging the short sword that was returning behind him.
Maki's short swords had the function of returning to the wielder's hand, and by now, Shinzo was quite familiar with it.
Seeing the man jump, Maki dropped the spear and ran forward, catching her sword and following that with a swift kick towards Shizo, who had started to get back on the ground.
Shinzo crossed his arms to block some impact from the attack, but still found his body flying.
Maki followed Shinzo and readied her swords to end the fight swiftly, but Shinzo soon got a hold of his footing and immediately dropped down and attacked Maki with a leg sweep.
Seeing the sudden attack, Maki pounced forward, jumping over Shinzo. Though mid-flight, Maki slashed the open back of Shinzo.
The swords tore through the clothes and grazed the skin as well, making Shinzo wince from pain. The man glared at Maki, who pierced the swords in the ground to control her momentum, and glared back at Shinzo.
Shinzo rushed forward to get a hold of his weapon; a barehanded assault at Maki was quite dangerous after all.
Though by now it was very late.
When Shinzo showed his back, Maki immediately understood what she was trying to do and made her move. She ran with full speed and landed a quick, deep slash on Shinzo's back.
However, before the sword could go too deep, it suddenly came to a stop.
"Alright, match's over. Maki wins," declared Naoya.
Shinzo winced and looked at his back. The sword was being held back by a shadow, meaning Naoya stopped before the man got a deep wound.
Maki smirked after hearing the announcement and pulled the sword out.
Naoya walked towards Shinzo and healed the man.
Maki raised her hand forward.
"Good fight. Though getting close in with a spear. Wrong choice against me," said Maki.
Shinzo snorted and shook her hand.
If he hadn't gone in for the first blood, the girl would have come in on her own, and then he would have been at a disadvantage.
'I needed to be faster there,' thought Shinzo and got off the stage.
Maki didn't and went towards Naoya with expectant eyes.
Naoya looked at her; her ponytail seemed to be swaying from side to side, asking for praise.
Naoya gave a 'so-so' gesture, and immediately the ponytail wilted, and Maki's eyes widened in shock.
Naoya chuckled seeing that and gave a thumbs up.
The ponytail came back to life, and Maki walked away skipping.
After that, more of the Kukuru members had their spars.
Once they were done, it was the turn of the Akashi squad members.
The Akashi squad members were cursed technique users, so more precaution was needed. The audience was made to stand further away, and once they were done, Naoya started their spars.
"Who wants to be the ope-"
"I will go first!!!!!"
Everyone looked at the overly excited shout and looked at the person; it was Mai Zenin.
"Alright, who will be her opponent?" asked Naoya and gestured for Mai to come on stage.
No one raised their hands.
Not because it was too humiliating for them to fight against a woman, but because facing Mai only meant a humiliating loss.
Seeing no one was willing to fight her, Mai puffed up her chest in pride.
Naoya facepalmed and sighed. Honestly, it's somewhat his fault too that no one wanted to fave Mai.
Objectively speaking, Mai got the worst end of the twin curse deal. Sure, she got more stuff than Maki in the form of a CT, the ability to manipulate CE, and more CE than Maki. However, all that was useless. The CT she got was one that was very cost-inefficient, and even after repeated practice, the efficiency of the technique was still horrendous.
While Maki was improving a lot thanks to her physical training from Naoya and Toji, Mai's progress at one point came to a halt. No matter how much effort she put in, she didn't improve. She tried a lot of things, weapons, physical training, but even then, she was nowhere close to her sister and that made her disappointed in herself. She even cried when she thought no one was looking.
Naoya, though, saw her crying. He might be someone whose emotional senses were not that good, thanks to all the jujutsu activities and the effects of living in the Zenin clan for so long. But seeing the tears in Mai's eyes was something he was not going to overlook. It might be true that her talent as a sorcerer was bad, but if Naoya was not able to support her and bring out the talent that she actually had, then he would be a failure as an older brother.
From that point on, every time he wasn't busy, he dedicated himself to studying Mai and her jujutsu prowess, trying to get even a strand of hope for future progress.
And after months, he found it.
Mai's innate cursed technique is called [Construction]. Just like its name, it allowed Mai to use her cursed energy to create something from nothing. The effects might sound amazing, even god-like. To create something from nothing after all was something that could make someone the most versatile sorcerer of all.
However, this technique's biggest flaw was that the technique itself was very inefficient. Even after Mai's extreme training, the best that Mai could do was create two finger-sized ingots of metal before running out of fuel. Despite the technique's crazy effects, it was useless during combat.
However, after Naoya worked with Mai on the technique, he came to an understanding of the functioning of the technique.
[Construction] was not that simple a technique, where Mai thought of something and the exact object came out. The technique had a kind of breakdown on how it could be used.
Firstly, Mai needs to pump in CE to the technique and decide on what material she wants to create. Secondly, she needs to use CE to shape the said matter into the desired shape she wants. After these two steps are done, the object she wants is formed.
From what he learned from Mai, he came to realise the part of the technique that ate away most of the CE was the initial part that required her to use CE to make up matter.
Shaping was more efficient than matter creation. That's what Naoya caught on to as his strand for future progress.
If the requirement of matter creation could somehow be made effcient than maybe Mai could improve.
But no way was going to happen. The amount of CE required for matter creation will still be needed; there was no way they would be able to reduce the minimum cost of production of that matter......so he decided to stop paying for the matter production.
After going through some trials and errors, Naoya came up with some binding vows for the technique.
[I give the versatility of my technique and renounce the ability to create matter from nothingness. In return, I will limit my technique's scope to matters that are present with me to utilise my technique. Like my technique, I can only use the material that is imbued with my CE.]
Naoya had roughly guessed how the twin curse works; the binding vows would still give Mai a boost. And it did.
Though to Mai, the technique was a hindrance. To the world, the complete being of the twin got an advantage from the technique.
Because of that, the Binding vow came into effect and even gave Mai a great boost in her output as well. To the world, Mai gave up her god-like ability to make anything from nothing and was now stuck with the materials that she might have at hand. It was a big sacrifice.
Now, going back to how her technique functions.
Before Binding Vow:
Forming an object was roughly: 99% matter creation + 1% shaping it.
After Binding Vow:
Forming an object: Passing CE to material + using 0.8% of CE to shape it.
Now, the energy efficiency of the technique was massively reduced, but there was still an issue. Now Mai needed material that she can use to make objects.
She couldn't have many materials at hand that she could use to make objects; surely, she would still be very restricted during fights.
After all, to anyone standing at anywhere on the land, the only thing around them is the land and the air. What can she even do with that?
.
.
.
She did.
Using her technique to reshape and utilise the soil, sand, and rock to make objects and projectiles to fight while moving them remotely, thanks to her technique.
Breaking apart land, making giant rifts in the ground under the target, and once they start falling, slam the crack closed once again, crushing them like mosquitoes.
Even air wasn't out of scope for her. Mai's daily progress of using her technique before getting the Binding vow made her highly efficient and swift with her technique's usage.
Once she got the binding vow, she suddenly caught up to Maki once again.
Previously, she was the lowest-ranked in Akashi, and now she was contending for the top spot.
Her evaluation from the HQ came recently as well, and she, too, was given a Grade-2 in her initial assessment. She was going to destroy the entire HQ for giving her a Grade-2, but Naoya stopped her from doing so.
Though it was reckless, Naoya totally believed she could do it. Sure, she will be killed later once other sorcerers arrive at the scene, but by that time, she will have done the damage.
There were also other issues.
Sure, the Binding Vow gave her new strength, but there were still restraints on her.
Her overall CE reserves were still the same, meaning quite low.
Depending on her usage, at max, she could use her technique for 30 minutes before she runs out of fuel. Bigger creations would drain her faster.
Still, despite all that, Mai was now quite a formidable sorcerer as well. Because of Naoya's request, Chojuro was training her as well, since his CT was also a bit similar to hers.
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Mai stood still and looked at Naoya with a proud look.
Naoya sighed at her and then looked towards the Akashi members and picked two of them at random.
"Since no one is willing, I will choose on my own. Because of your hesitation, I will allow a 2 vs 1. You okay, Mai?"
"Bring it on!" declared Mai, got ready to fight and took out a card.
"Ready?"
The two male sorcerers looked at each other and gave a nod. They were not going to go down without a fight.
Mai gave a nod as well and prepared her CE.
"Start!"
The moment the signal came, one of them started preparing his CT while the other decided to get in close quaters since Mai was quite weak in that department.
Mai, though, simply smirked.
Cursed energy coursed through the ground, and immediately, large amounts of sand came out and devouvered the two of them, restraining them immediately.
The card in Mai's hand then glowed with CE, as the air around the restrained men got compressed and turned into invisible walls of highly compressed air, which then moved forward to crush the two of them.
"AHH!!!"
The two of them screamed from the crushing force.
Mai simply kept using her technique.
The card that she was holding was kind of a talisman that she used to make her technique more efficient. Instead of using her own brain to get a sense of every particle in the air, the card had that function of her technique inscribed to save time, and she only needs to use the grasped content of the air and shape it according to her will.
"Match up. Winner's Mai," declared Naoya as his shadows rose and crushed the compressed air walls and freed the two men.
He looked at them for injuries and, seeing no significant damage, let them go. He then looked at Mai, who was pouting at him.
"Onii-chan! Why did you break my technique so easily?!" complained Mai.
Naoya simply flicked a weak, cursed energy blast at her, sending her flying.
"Waaaaa Maki!!!!!" flailed Mai.
"Yes, Yes."
Maki, as if used to this, simply moved and caught the falling sister of hers.
Naoya looked at the twins. He didn't know whether he should pat himself on the back for raising them so well or be worried for the future, where they will be breaking shit up a lot.