Her Cursed Technique was a testament to a twisted biological admiration. In her eyes, insects were nature's perfect engines—tiny bodies housing explosive strength, speed, and lethality, all achieved with staggering energy efficiency. She sought to replicate that perfection, to forge a human form that operated with the ruthless economy of a hornet or a mantis.
Now, clad in her chimeric insect armor, she embodied that ideal. Her movements were no longer human; they were bursts of hyper-efficient kinetic violence.
"DIE!"
She vanished, reappearing behind the Monkey-mask puppet in a blur of silver. Her fist, a condensed piston of force, aimed to pulverize the puppet's core in one blow.
She had forgotten one thing: her enemies were a unit.
The Fox and Cat masks reacted instantly, their attacks already coalescing. The Monkey-mask, buying a microsecond, conjured a dense stone wall at its back.
"Pathetic!" Uro snarled, her punch not faltering. She would shatter the wall and the puppet behind it.
Crack! The wall held for a fraction of a second—just long enough.
A vortex of wind from the Fox-mask wrapped around a roaring fireball from the Cat-mask, creating a swirling Fire-Dragon that engulfed Uro in a vortex of searing heat and slicing air. The sound of superheated metal screaming filled the night.
When the flames dissipated, her once-pristine armor was webbed with cracks, her form staggering slightly.
"Oh, I forgot to mention," Kamo's voice cut through the din, cool and mocking. "My puppets share a sensory network. Your 'surprise' wasn't very surprising."
He stood apart, a conductor observing his orchestra of destruction, utterly in control.
Enraged, Uro's armor flowed, the liquid metal sealing the cracks, repairing the damage. "I'LL TEAR YOU ALL APART!"
She launched herself again, a silver comet of fury. But the puppets had adapted. They maintained distance, becoming a revolving battery of elemental suppression.
Wind blades harried her. Earthen barriers thwarted her charges. Fireballs hemmed her in from all angles. She was a caged beast, lashing out against walls of calculated force. Her curses became screams of pure frustration against the emotionless, mechanical onslaught.
The Eighty-Eight Bridge, an ancient structure, could no longer bear the strain. With a final, groaning shudder, it collapsed into the ravine below, stone and steel raining down. The riverbank was a scarred wasteland.
Kamo watched the escalating collateral damage. While his puppets would eventually grind her down, the cost to the environment—and the unnecessary drawn-out spectacle—was becoming inelegant.
'Enough,' he decided.
He began walking toward the chaotic epicenter, his gaze locking onto Uro with a final, assessing intensity.
Seeing him finally move, a savage, triumphant grin split Uro's face beneath her cracked helmet. 'Finally! The coward shows himself! I'll crush him and take back everything!'
She abandoned her assault on the puppets, turning all her manic fury toward the approaching figure. This was the moment she'd been waiting for—to punish the blasphemer with her own hands.A vicious, triumphant grin spread across Uro's face. She couldn't endure the humiliation of being herded by puppets any longer. She would end this, now, with her ultimate authority.
Domain Expansion: Triple Tribulation!
A sphere of absolute black, humming with malignant intent, swallowed the battlefield whole. Space itself seemed to bow to her will. The three puppets and, to her delight, Kamo Itsuki himself were all trapped within her world.
Within the domain's oppressive silence, her voice rang out, cold and final.
Construction Technique: True Sphere.
Cursed energy surged around her, condensing into a single, flawless orb of liquid metal. It hovered, deceptively placid, gleaming with a deadly sheen. Its property was infinite localized pressure—anything it touched would be atomized into nothingness. And within her domain, with its guaranteed-hit effect, there was no escape. The sphere would find its mark.
She stared at Kamo, her eyes pits of icy victory. "You've walked into the trap, you stray monkey. No amount of begging will save you now. I'll crush you into paste and feed you to the dogs."
But the Kamo inside her domain didn't panic. He didn't even move.
Then, with a sound like shattering glass, the black sphere of her domain fractured from the outside and imploded.
Kamo Itsuki's voice came from where he had originally been standing, outside the now-dissipated boundary. "Even if you dragged the real me in, it wouldn't matter. But a wise man doesn't stand under a collapsing wall." His tone was one of mild disappointment. "You trapped a clone. It gave you a rather pathetic illusion of victory."
The backlash of a broken domain hit Uro like a sledgehammer. Cursed Technique burnout—a soul-deep exhaustion—crippled her. Yet, fueled by demented devotion, she refused to fall. With a guttural roar, she lunged at the real Kamo, a final, desperate strike.
He watched her stumble forward, a pitiful monument to wasted obsession. He raised a hand.
Blood Manipulation: Spider Spear.
A dozen crimson threads lanced out, piercing her insect armor, her flesh, her core, with surgical precision. She froze, a marionette with its strings cut, then slumped.
'I wonder how her Construction Technique differs from Mai's... worth a sample,' Kamo thought clinically.
He collected a blood sample from the cooling body. Then, with a gesture, he ordered the Fox and Cat puppets forward. A combined wind-fueled inferno engulfed Uro's remains, reducing them to sterile ash. The Monkey-mask followed, churning the scorched earth and debris, burying the residual cursed energy to prevent any lingering hauntings.
'That makes six fingers,' he tallied, storing the puppets and the newly acquired finger back into the Blood Prison.
With the site scrubbed, he turned and left without a backward glance. The Eighty-Eight Bridge was now just a memory and a crater.
Not long after he departed, a girl of twelve or thirteen appeared at the edge of the devastation. A shimmering, ornamental goldfish Shikigami floated serenely beside her. She surveyed the scene—the shattered bridge, the churned earth, the lingering, faint ozone scent of immense, clashing powers. Her expression was unreadable, a mix of curiosity and deep, unsettling calm.
The stage was clearing, but new players were always waiting in the wings.