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Megumi, who was sent flying, was approaching the ground fast.
He unsummoned the combination shikigami and resummoned [Nue] to grab onto it.
Nue flew Megumi away and had him land on the ground safely.
"I really can't get a break from those two..."
Megumi took a deep breath to calm himself down.
Despite getting stronger, the twins were still able to make him feel helpless from time to time.
Maki was physically stronger and faster than him, and Mai's technique was highly difficult to counter.
"Still, I guess flying for scouting is off limits until Mai nee-san is neutralised."
Megumi pressed the comms and relayed the information to the rest of the group.
Maki was about to speak when suddenly a spider cursed spirit popped out of nowhere.
Still, Maki wasn't surprised and was about to slay it, but the nearby trees started making a noise, making Maki look to her side and notice a muscled freak casually running through the forest and destroying the trees in the process.
Aoi Todo locked onto the cursed spirit.
Then he punched it.
The resulting shockwave obliterated the curse and flattened several more trees for good measure.
"Hell Yeah!"
Todo's gaze immediately shifted toward the Tokyo students.
"Great! The whole Tokyo gang is he—"
His eyes swept over the group.
"...Where's Okkotsu?"
His excitement noticeably dimmed.
Finding his target this quickly had been great.
Finding out that Yuta wasn't here?
Not so great.
Yuji Itadori, meanwhile, wasn't fazed in the slightest by Todo's sudden appearance.
Instead, he sped up.
The moment he got close enough, he jumped.
His knee drove straight toward Todo's face.
"SCATTER!"
Maki ordered the rest of them.
This had been the plan from the start. Yuji Itadori was tasked with handling and keeping Todo occupied while the rest of them dealt with the match.
As the others ran away, Yuji, who was still in mid air with his knee striking Todo, used the chance to land multiple other solid blows on Todo.
Todo, though, wasn't harmed much and casually grabbed onto Yuji's leg and threw him away.
"Nice speed, brother!"
Yuta Okkotsu wasn't here, and by the looks of it, he wasn't anywhere nearby as well.
"I will appraise you then. It might even be better than facing Okkotsu. A bonding time with my brother. BRING IT ON!!!!"
Aoi Todo wasn't one to hold back against his best friends. That's what his big brother has taught him. Only by facing your brother/best friend with everything you've got can you truly show that you acknowledge them.
Aoi ran forward and landed a punch straight into Yuji's face.
Yuji's eyes widened a bit.
Not because of the punch. He could see it coming towards him, but because another spider cursed spirit came out of nowhere.
Todo's fist pierced straight through the curse and struck Yuji, who had raised his arms to block Todo's attack.
*BOOM*
Yuji was sent flying as his body crashed into a tree.
Yuji felt his entire body shake from the aftereffects of the cushioned punch from Todo. If it had connected without the curse coming in between, then it would have been a lot worse than it is now.
"No time to think, brother! Get back up on your feet!"
Todo was already making his way towards Yuji.
'Damn it! Give me a sec!'
Yuji saw that the muscled giant was already close enough.
With no time to dodge. Yuji decided to use his head.
Literally.
He moved his body forward before swinging it right back, hitting his head against the tree behind him, breaking it and getting enough space to narrowly dodge the kick that was coming his way.
The tree also aided him further as the broken half fell towards Todo, making the Grade 1 sorcerer jump back to dodge it.
"...Brother, I have told you multiple times that using your head does not mean that," said Todo with a deadpan look on his face.
'When did we even have a talk about this?!' Yuji thought.
Todo shook his head.
Even when they were young, his best friend was a little slow in the head. If not for him, he felt that Yuji would have suffered even more.
"Well, it is a best friend's job to correct your issues. Get back on your feet, brother. We have a fight/test/training on our hands right now."
Yuji got back on his feet and dusted off his clothes.
He instinctively knew that Todo wasn't going to be an easy opponent or one that will let him off easily.
Yuji took his stance.
'Bring it on. I didn't come to this game with the intention of losing. Especially in using my punches and kicks.'
"Nice expression, my friend!"
A maniacal grin appeared on Todo's face as his fighting spirit burned even hotter.
-----
While the fight between Yuji and Todo was happening, the other students were also getting into matches with the opposing side.
As it turned out, sabotaging the opposing team was far more popular than actually exorcising curses and earning points.
In another part of the forest, Maki and Mai were facing off.
"To think we will be facing each other? Was this a fated match-up?"
Mai teased.
Maki snorted.
"Fate, my ass. With you around, our little bitch of a scout can't fly freely. Taking you down is a necessity. It's just that Panda and Toge aren't willing to fight against you after last year's fights. That leaves only me."
Mai thought about what Maki said.
She choked one of them and fired a massive fireball at the other.
What's there to be scared about?
She was just a frail girl who did her best.
Mai shrugged her shoulders.
"Whatever, can't change the fact that we are facing each other. So? What will it be, Maki? Are you taking the easy way by surrendering or the hard way by fighting and then losing?"
Maki unsheathed her swords as a smirk formed on her face.
"You should already know that I like it hard!"
"Title of your s*x tape." Mai quipped in and chuckled at her joke.
Maki ignored the comment and got serious.
For better or worse, she knew how her sister operated and how unfair fighting against her could be. She would need to concentrate solely on the fight to deal with her without getting injured.
Seeing Maki's seriousness, Mai got serious as well.
Maki was a slightly inferior version of her cousin, Toji. But just because she was inferior didn't mean that she was easy to defeat. She could still not read her movements, and if she could connect even a single solid blow, the tide of the battle would heavily shift in her favour.
Both sisters waited for a second more before Maki lauched forward to attack.
"I will win!"
Both of them declared as the fight between them started.
-----
In another area of the match field, a fight between Megumi and Noritoshi was currently going on.
It was a heated battle, but Megumi seemed to be having an advantage in the fight.
The only other pair that was engaged in the fight, aside from the ones mentioned, were Arata and Nobara.
Their fight also seemed to be in a stalemate.
Nobara Kugisaki, after seeing how she got caught in a pinch during the finger bearer incident at the Juvenile detention centre, was limited by the large number of curses and her limited nail ammo that she had.
It also didn't help that she was not fast enough to attack all the curses that came surrounding her.
Because of all this, she got caught in a pickle.
Her technique [Straw Doll Technique], in her own words, was amazing. If she got even a teeny tiny bit of an opponent, her technique can harm them no matter how far away they are. The damage dealt is also not avoidable at all. It directly strikes their soul, causing massive damage.
However, she first needs to physically engage in a fight with an enemy to tear off a chunk from them if she doesn't already have it, and for that she had to use hammers or nails she carries.
She can use CE to boost the damage of both the nails and hammers and even explode the nails if she wants, and it was also quite a strong aspect of her technique.
But because of the nature of her technique, she gets in a pinch if she gets out of nails....or gets overwhelmed by the number of enemies she has to deal with. There was a limit to how fast she could attack with a hammer and nails.
Worried about the bottleneck she was facing, she headed straight to Maki as a damsel and shared her worries with her.
And she was glad that she did that.
Maki herself didn't know much about how she could help Nobara with her technique. At best, she can teach her how to fight with just the hammer better and aim the nails better, but that was it, and frankly, it wouldn't have helped her much.
The thing that Maki helped Nobara with was introducing her to a hot guy.
Naoya Zenin, Maki's and Mai's older brother, was, if Nobara put it casually, a hottie. A hunk, if you will. Even Daddy, if you should.
Keeping the mind out of the gutter.
Naoya Zenin was a resourceful and handy man.
After hearing Nobara's problems, Naoya looked at the two of them and thought for a while before he sat down and took out a notepad and a pen.
"Kugisaki-san, right?"
"Yes~"
Nobara replied happily.
"Explain how your technique works and how you fight."
Nobara gave a nod and started telling Naoya about the things he had asked her. Even further questions were happily answered by her.
At a certain distance, Yuji and the gang looked at the scene with their eyes widened in confusion.
Who the hell was that happily grinning girl? No way she could be Nobara.
Yuji looked at Megumi.
He was equally surprised.
Leaving the other students aside, after Naoya had had enough things to go on about Nobara's technique and fighting style, he had thought of a solution for her.
It wasn't even something groundbreaking, too.
It was.....a nailgun.
A cursed tool nail gun, developed by the handy shikigami, Zankyo.
As a standard Zankyo-issued weapon, it had infinite ammo and was quite durable. It also packed more power than standard nail guns that could be bought at a hardware store, and it was also not that clunky and heavy to carry around.
A nail gun was chosen above other tools because of the [Resonance] aspect of her technique.
She needed something to pin the chunk from the enemy and strike it, and standard bullets were not the way to go as they could destroy the straw doll itself.
A nail gun suited Nobara better anyway, thanks to her familiarity with the ammo and how much CE is needed to boost and explode them as well.
A nail gun gave her rapid firing, and a free hand to use the hammer freely as well, making it quite a handy tool. Also, it was easier to store than a large amount of nails to overcome her ammo weakness.
Coming back to the present:
Arata was trying to get in close and strike Nobara down, but the brunette was making sure that he couldn't get close to her at all.
Nails came flying at him and exploded in his face.
If not for the power of youth within him that he gained thanks to Naoya and Todo, he would have been down way earlier.
"You certainly pack the Youth with you, too!"
Arata declared before he moved away from her.
Nobara gave a crept look on her face before she realised that Arata was running away from her.
"Oi! Don't you dare ru-"
She stopped mid-sentence.
It seemed like Arata wasn't running away.
Arata got behind a small-sized tree.....and yanked it out of the ground!
"MY YOUTH!!!! HEED TO MY CALL!!!!"
Arata yelled out loud as CE coursed through his body, and his muscles bulged out and ripped his sleeves.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
Nobara yelled out in shock.
"Heh, I realised that I needed to empower my power of Youth with a weapon! But sadly, I don't carry them.....until I remembered these guns I have developed during my journey to discover my power of youth!"
Arata declared excitedly and flexed his muscles.
"Creepy Creepy Creepy! You are creepy!!!!"
"It's Youth, my dear friend! You will realise how amazing it is after you have experienced it. On that note. Let's continue where we left off!"
Arata swung the tree like a club and aimed it at Nobara.
Not having much of a choice, Nobara jumped out of its path.
"You throw a whole damn tree at me, one more f*cking time, and I am gonna lose it!"
"Hahaha. Then you'd better start losing it now cause here comes the tree!"
-----
In the audience/observation room, the teachers, principals, and Mei Mei were sitting together and enjoying the match.
"...You really trained some crazy kids," Satoru mumbled, seeing Arata fighting using a tree.
"Crazy Strong?" Naoya asked.
"That too, but still crazy in the head too," Satoru replied.
"It's not normal to have a sane and strong sorcerer at the same time."
"Yeah, not everyone can be calm and strong like me," Gojo replied.
Without even wasting a second, everyone looked at him.
"...What's with those looks. I am sane!"
No one said anything.
Naoya simply reached over and ruffled Satoru's hair.
"Such strong delusion."
"Huh?!"
A vein popped up on Satoru's forehead.
He was about to argue when suddenly the markers connected to the cursed spirits that were spread out in the field started burning.
Everyone looked at it.
All the markers were burning red, which either accounted for Maki being struck down by them or unregistered cursed energy being the cause.
Everyone turned towards the screen.
It was jet black.
"Looks like my crows are down as well..." Mei Mei replied with a shrug.
It didn't take them much to decipher what that meant.
"An intruder," said Utahime.
"How come Tengen-sama's barrier didn't inform us?!" Yaga snapped.
"Save that for later, right now we need to deal with these int-"
Naoya started to speak up when suddenly everyone's phone started ringing.
They looked at each other before taking out their phones.
It was an emergency response request from Jujutsu HQ, and to make matters even worse, there were two requests.
Naoya clicked on the first one.
"Kyoto branch of Jujutsu HQ is under attack. Assistance requested."
Satoru clicked the second request.
"Tokyo branch of Jujutsu HQ is under attack. Assistance requested."
Everyone's faces inside the room turned serious.
There was no way that this was just a coincidence. This was a planned attack, and the attackers must be after something from this.
...Yet, they had no choice but to fall for this and take action.
"I will head to Kyoto."
Satoru Gojo looked at everyone. He was the only one who could arrive there in an instant.
"I will head to Tokyo HQ then," said Naoya.
With the two Special Grades, no matter the enemy, they could be easily neutralised.
"That only leaves the intruders at the school..." Gojo mumbled.
"Leave those to us. We can deal with them. We have Mei Mei with us, too, and if things were to go south, then there is Okkotsu as well," Yaga replied.
Gakuganji and Utahime gave a nod.
It was their job as teachers and principals to keep the kids safe, and if possible, they would appreciate it if the danger was not that high to involve Yuta.
"I will be expecting a decent bonus." Mei Mei added happily.
Yaga just gave her a thumbs up.
Mei Mei smirked.
That was enough for her to comply.
"Try to wrap things up at the HQ fast and head back here."
"You too."
Satoru and Naoya ran out of the room, and as they got out of the building vanished from their spots to head to their respective locations.
-----
At another location inside the Tokyo Jujutsu High compound, Geto and Mahito were walking as if they were on a stroll.
The two were enclosed within a barrier made by Geto, and Mahito kept fiddling with it.
"Geto~ Teach me this barrier stuff too~ It looks handy~"
Mahito tried to coax Geto.
"Now now, I don't give away my secrets for cheap."
"Eh? Will you charge me? Stingy~"
"Business is business."
"Boo hoo. Well, whatever, I will find you something....for now, though, let's get this party started!"
Mahito and Geto came to a halt as they stood in front of the entrance to the Jujutsu division's most secure warehouse.
"After you."
Geto gestured for Mahito.
"Oh my~ Such a gentleman~"
Mahito played along and took a step forward.
An instant later, he ran inside the warehouse with an excited smile on his face.
Geto stood outside.
The screams coming from the inside told him that Mahito had started doing his job.
"Such an efficient fool..." Geto mumbled and looked at the sky.
"I hope things are just as entertaining at the other locations." A slight yet noticeable smile came on Geto's face.
He really was looking forward to how things would unravel.