Chapter 232: Is this... [Idle Transfiguration]?!
From a purely emotional standpoint, allowing or even encouraging the enemies to self-destruct through infighting was technically the most "correct" option. However, the universal rule that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" did not apply to the battlefield of Shibuya.
This was because neither the cursed spirits Jogo and Dagon, nor Kenjaku—a curse user whose mind and body were no longer those of a normal human and who cared only for realizing his ideals—possessed a value system consistent with normal living beings.
The common saying that "there are no permanent enemies, only permanent interests" similarly did not apply to them.
In the original context of that phrase, both parties are at least human, standing on opposite sides merely due to different identities and positions—when a common enemy or goal appears, they can naturally shed their original hostility and reconcile.
This concept is better suited for relations between different nations. As members of the human race, there is always room for de-escalation; the essence of this mitigation is that their conflicts and cooperation are based solely on the level of "interest."
But from a human perspective, whether dealing with cursed spirits or the curse user Kenjaku, coexistence was fundamentally impossible.
The relationship between the birth of humans and cursed spirits destined them to be on opposite sides; it was only natural that each would want to thoroughly kill the other. As for Kenjaku, he viewed the entire human race as objects to be taken or given at will, as if he were the manipulator standing at the very top.
When Emiya began thinking from a human standpoint, there was no room for mitigation or negotiation with either side.
In terms of threat level, Kenjaku—who had been hidden in history for a thousand years and had even manipulated several Special Grade cursed spirits into his schemes—was undoubtedly the highest. The cursed spirits would, at most, brainlessly cause destruction; one only needed the strength to confront them head-on. But Kenjaku was infinitely more insidious and disgusting. Human malice is something that should never be underestimated.
Therefore, even if Emiya could tolerate the cursed spirits surviving for a few moments longer, he could absolutely not sit by and watch Kenjaku's strength continue to grow. As a "human," Kenjaku could utilize all sorts of sinister methods without any psychological burden.
In contrast, Jogo and Dagon were better; no matter how angry they were, they only thought of defeating and killing you head-on. Kenjaku, the moment he realized he might not be a match, would already be plotting his escape and ways to murder you.
"You... you bastard..."
Jogo could search its mind forever and still never imagine that the person standing in front of it to protect it would be a human—and Emiya at that, the very man who had insulted it more than once. As a cursed spirit, Jogo's personality was not complex; though seemingly irritable, it was exceptionally straightforward.
When purely standing in opposition to Emiya, it could naturally try to find ways to kill him without any psychological burden, allowing its sense of hatred to grow and stack with each successive failure.
Yet it was precisely this straightforward personality, which could not endure any humiliation, that left it at a loss when it suddenly received a favor from an enemy.
It couldn't stand being defeated and humiliated, and naturally, it could endure receiving a favor from an enemy even less... If it couldn't settle this debt, how could it go on to kill the opponent in a clean and cruel manner?
Jogo was simply irascible and viewed humans as a species entirely hostile to itself; such was its nature.
If it were someone like Kenjaku, you might save him one second, and the next second he'd be thinking about how to squeeze every bit of utility out of you.
It is precisely because of having emotions that one is so sensitive to these things. For a creature like a cursed spirit, this could probably be considered a flaw, couldn't it?
Unfortunately, these complex emotions seemed to be Jogo's own unrequited sentiment, because Emiya never once turned his head to look at it from start to finish. He didn't even bother to give a verbal response, keeping his gaze dead-locked on Kenjaku.
Although Emiya had undergone a deep fusion with "Heroic Spirit EMIYA" in both body and memory—to the point where, in most memories of the "Shirou Emiyas" who were slightly older, they weren't exactly known for being polite—Emiya himself wasn't quite that malicious yet. Otherwise, if the "Heroic Spirit EMIYA" version were here, he would have been able to use a few choice words to provoke Jogo into a "red-faced" breakdown via sarcasm.
After all, Jogo was just a simple cursed spirit; how could it possibly compete with the [Guardian] who had protected humanity for countless years?
"Is that so? I never imagined you would be so magnanimous. You can actually tolerate cursed spirits that have slaughtered countless humans?"
"You should know that exorcising such creatures is the duty of jujutsu sorcerers, not to mention you've never hesitated in such matters before... As a sorcerer, I'm merely helping you complete that process."
"You would even stop something like this?"
It was unknown where this confidence came from, but Kenjaku actually naively thought he could use words to waver Emiya's actions and will.
Such behavior might work on immature students like Fushiguro Megumi or Kugisaki Nobara; perhaps even Gojo Satoru might have his own weaknesses in certain aspects. But Emiya had long passed the years where he would be influenced by such things.
Conversing with an enemy during battle was certainly fine, but such conversation had to be for the purpose of gathering more intelligence, interfering with the opponent's emotions, or buying enough time—never for the ridiculous reason of building a rapport with the enemy.
"Compared to cursed spirits, the species known as 'human' is always more sinister and threatening... You, who claims to want to change humanity as a group, should at least know this much, right?
Moreover...
As for the fact that I can still consider you a 'human,' you should feel satisfied!"
The moment his voice fell, Emiya swiftly raised his right hand and projected the familiar Hrunting, swinging it down toward Kenjaku without hesitation.
After discovering that the effectiveness of Hrunting could perfectly align with the concept of the [Black Flash], Emiya had specifically practiced countless times with this blade—which other "Shirou Emiyas" usually only used as a sword-arrow.
It could be said that in terms of close combat, he had already surged far ahead of the many Shirou Emiyas, taking the lead.
Under the blessing of the concept "Always delivering the correct strike", the blade of Hrunting instantly erupted with a brilliant black light, slashing precisely toward the forehead where Kenjaku's obvious stitch marks were located.
If it is called a "correct strike," then naturally it must be a strike that truly harms the enemy to be considered correct.
Clearly, Hrunting directly confirmed where Kenjaku's true weakness lay. There was no need for Emiya to doubt whether that conspicuous mark was a deliberate ploy by the opponent to lull others into a false sense of security.
Bang—!
Facing this sudden attack, Kenjaku did not dodge—or rather, he simply didn't have time to dodge.
He could only summon several cursed spirits from his sleeves as quickly as possible to act as a buffer against the attack. After the massive force inevitably sent him flying back a significant distance, Kenjaku immediately flung his palm toward Emiya's original position.
"Cursed Technique Reversal...!"
—BOOM!!!
The ground where Emiya originally stood was instantly crushed downward by tens of centimeters by a sudden weight. Fortunately, Emiya himself had already stepped off forcefully before Kenjaku made his move, closing a massive gap toward the direction Kenjaku had been blasted.
"Needing to use Technique Reversal to bring about a gravity effect... does that mean the original technique effect is actually Anti-Gravity? That is indeed a strange type.
However, such a technique likely cannot lock its release target directly onto a specific object, right? Unless you can make close-range contact with it...
Otherwise, you'd have to use something like Domain power to conduct an indiscriminate strike... If you think you can succeed, feel free to try!"
As he spoke, Emiya had already arrived in front of Kenjaku once more, fully utilizing the power of Hrunting to cut off the opponent's retreat.
Even if there was a high probability that there was no more time to stop the situation with Itadori, and he could only trust that Itadori himself had enough ability to solve the problem, Emiya still had things he could do his best to complete.
As long as he could keep Kenjaku here permanently, wouldn't the remaining problem be the simple option of re-sealing Ryomen Sukuna back into Itadori's body?
"Who says I can't?"
[Anti-Gravity System].
Before reaching a very high level of mastery, or before expanding a Domain, the accuracy of this technique in actual combat was indeed worrying. Otherwise, one could solve a battle simply by applying a layer of tenfold reversed gravity to the enemy.
But Kenjaku didn't just play tricks and schemes; his combat IQ was also very high. The existence of that initial gravity field was only to force Emiya into a situation where both feet were off the ground.
Unless one could be like Gojo Satoru, crudely using the attraction and repulsion derived from a technique to fly freely in the air, being in mid-air makes it very difficult to dodge area-of-effect attacks.
Kenjaku had even thought it through clearly: a reversed gravity field might not necessarily interfere with Emiya, as it would only cause the opponent to quickly hit the ground and adjust his stance. But anti-gravity was different.
When gravity is erased, objects enter a state of weightlessness similar to being in space. Although the presence of things like air would prevent one from entering a state of unlimited inertia, it was enough to cause someone to lose their balance completely in an instant...
"What...?"
Emiya fell into such a state due to a momentary lapse—after losing the constraint of gravity, his body naturally deviated from its intended trajectory, causing the guaranteed hit to miss its mark as well.
Fortunately, the inertia that caused Emiya to lose his balance also carried him out of that anti-gravity field in the next instant. Emiya quickly regained his balance after feeling gravity again, coming to a steady halt not far away.
"Just like I said, there's always a way to solve a problem."
Having just dodged Emiya's attack, Kenjaku immediately rushed toward Jogo's position again. Jogo was a Special Grade cursed spirit after all; after Kenjaku released the anti-gravity technique on Emiya, the constraints previously placed upon Jogo were also lifted.
Boom—!
Jogo, already furious at this sudden betrayal, immediately released terrifying lava that swallowed Kenjaku's figure, turning more than half the street into a volcanic purgatory.
If Eso hadn't already moved all the ordinary people nearby earlier, there was no telling what kind of casualties this strike would have caused—though Jogo himself never cared about such things. It wasn't human, after all; why should it care about human life or death? It was just as humans never care about whether they've accidentally stepped on a few ants.
After doing this, Jogo did not follow up with another attack or rush to confirm Kenjaku's status. Instead, it turned to look at Emiya's position.
"Why? Why did you do that? Isn't my death exactly what you desired?"
Precisely because it possessed intelligence, its desire to kill all humans did not stem from instinct, but from the belief that only by doing so could the species known as cursed spirits escape the cycle of killing and being killed.
The relationship between humans and cursed spirits was irreconcilable, so it could not understand why Emiya had just done what he did.
"Really... could it be that after cooperating with him for so long, you guys don't even know? The final effect of [Cursed Spirit Manipulation] within the body that guy occupies."
To prevent the stubborn Jogo from obsessing over this question, Emiya patiently explained:
"[Maximum: Uzumaki]. The ability allows the user to extract the Innate Technique from a Grade 1 or higher cursed spirit and convert it into a form the sorcerer themselves can use... I simply don't want this guy to get any stronger."
Kenjaku's cooperation with this group of cursed spirits hadn't been short at all, yet they seemingly didn't know the true ability of [Cursed Spirit Manipulation] from start to finish—or even that this guy was just a curse user occupying someone else's body.
Should it be said that Kenjaku hid it too well, or that these cursed spirits were just too stupid?
"A technique that absorbs techniques?"
Hearing this, Jogo's first reaction was naturally one of half-doubt. After all, such an effect sounded truly exaggerated; it seemed that as long as the person with this technique collected as many techniques as possible, they could stand invincible in most situations.
Although Kenjaku had already displayed more than one technique ability so far, Jogo was still somewhat unwilling to believe in such an exaggerated effect.
Until Jogo turned its head back to look at the spot where Kenjaku had been swallowed by lava—its single eye was instantly shocked to a point of near-distortion by the scene before it.
It saw that Kenjaku was clearly standing in the middle of the extreme-heat lava, yet his skin and even his clothing, which had been destroyed by the high temperature, were rapidly recovering despite the destructive nature of the flames.
If it were merely [Reverse Cursed Technique], the effect would absolutely not look like this; Jogo didn't even see much obvious flesh or blood tissue involved.
Combined with Emiya's words just now, the truth of the scene before them was no longer so difficult to guess...
"This is... [Idle Transfiguration]??!!!"
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