Chapter 55: Cutting Through Steel
"Nishimiya! You're too low! You'll get caught in the blast!"
Mechamaru's cold mechanical voice rang through the forest, carrying a level of urgency none of them had heard from him before.
His massive body stood in the clearing like a steel fortress. Heavy limbs shifted with grating force as his targeting systems tried to lock onto the black clad youth suspended in the sky.
But they could not.
Because Yami was no longer moving in a way ordinary vision could follow.
He hung upside down high above the battlefield, his figure wavering beneath the refraction of sunlight, like a phantom that had slipped free from the laws of the world.
"Is that really... the special grade cursed tool, Shiranui?"
Momo Nishimiya gripped her broom so tightly her knuckles turned white. She pulled higher into the air by instinct, her entire body stiff as she stared down at the young man with the sun at his back.
The noon light poured around him, tracing his silhouette in molten gold.
He looked holy.
He looked terrifying.
Even from that distance, Momo could feel a prickling chill across her spine, as if the moment she made the slightest wrong move, she would be cut from the sky.
He had not attacked.
He had done nothing at all.
And yet that single gaze, that gaze that seemed to look down on all things equally, had already robbed her of the courage to flee.
...
Inside the exchange event observation room, the atmosphere was so heavy it felt one spark away from collapse.
Every screen had been switched to the same section of forest, the same patch of battlefield saturated in cursed energy and tension.
"So this is Kyoto Jujutsu High's trump card?"
Gojo Satoru lounged in his chair with one leg crossed over the other, a half eaten kikufuku in hand and his usual infuriating smile still pasted across his face.
"Massive cursed energy accumulated through Heavenly Restriction, combined with modern firepower. Principal Gakuganji, you really did your homework."
Yoshinobu Gakuganji's expression did not change, but the hand gripping his cane tightened slightly.
"In a battle between sorcerers, what matters is the exorcism itself. The means are irrelevant."
His old voice was low and dry.
"That boy named Yami may possess extraordinary physical ability, but in the end, he has no cursed energy."
"In the face of absolute firepower, how long can a mortal body last?"
"Mechamaru's strike would reduce even a Special Grade cursed spirit to ash."
Gojo took a lazy bite of his kikufuku and chewed for a moment before answering.
"Is that so?"
He tilted his head and smiled.
"Then keep your eyes open, old man."
"Watch carefully."
"Watch what a so called mortal looks like when he steps beyond common sense."
His sunglasses slipped just enough to reveal the teasing gleam of the Six Eyes beneath.
...
Back on the battlefield, Kamo Noritoshi's nerves were wound so tight they felt ready to snap.
"Stop spacing out! Move!"
His voice turned sharp as he shouted upward.
As the next head of the Kamo clan, he could feel the horrifying amount of cursed energy Mechamaru was gathering. That was not a normal combat technique. That was his trump card. The power he had stockpiled for years through pain, isolation, and mutilation, all being released in one reckless burst.
If they failed to get clear, that attack would take out half the competition area.
"Yami!"
Mechamaru's voice thundered through the woods, filled with a kind of violent release that bordered on madness.
"I don't care what kind of monster you are! Try taking this!"
"This is everything I've accumulated just to survive in this rotten world!"
"Triple Great Exorcism Cannon! Point Blank! Full Output!"
Creeeeak.
The sound of metal grinding against metal made everyone's teeth ache.
Mechamaru's already enormous frame expanded further. The thrusters on his back roared to life, spitting blue flames that scorched the earth black beneath him. The armor on his chest opened layer by layer, revealing a monstrous cannon barrel more than half a meter wide. Inside it, alongside curse circuits, were the rifled grooves of a true artillery weapon.
Jujutsu and machinery fused into something hideous.
Something beautiful.
Something made for war.
Blue cursed energy condensed at the muzzle with violent density. The surrounding air crackled under the strain. Light itself began to warp.
Then it fired.
Boom!
A colossal beam of blue light, like divine punishment made visible, tore through the forest and blasted toward Yami with enough force to erase everything in its path.
The power of that strike was enough to vaporize a Grade 1 cursed spirit in an instant.
Wherever the beam passed, the air ionized into a blistering vacuum trail. Trees that even brushed against its edge skipped burning entirely and disintegrated into ash. The ground shuddered as though even the forest itself feared the attack.
"It's over..."
Kasumi Miwa squeezed her eyes shut, unable to bear what she thought was about to happen.
Before such absolute destruction, a human body was nothing but paper.
Yet Yami, at the center of that storm, did not even blink.
His hair whipped wildly in the gale. His uniform snapped like a banner in a typhoon. In those dark red eyes, the world ending blue beam reflected in perfect clarity, and still he looked no more interested than if he were watching a dull firework show.
"Too slow."
His lips moved slightly.
That was all he said.
He did not draw his sword.
He simply turned lightly in the air, as if he were a bird catching a current, his posture so graceful it felt almost obscene against that world shattering assault.
Sun Breathing, Third Form: Fake Rainbow.
The moment the beam should have swallowed him, seven or eight afterimages bloomed in the sky.
Boom!
The attack tore straight through Yami's body.
Or so it seemed.
The figure it struck burst apart like a bubble. No blood. No broken limbs. No death. Only fragments of light and shadow scattering into the wind.
"Afterimages?!"
The red lights in Mechamaru's eyes flashed violently as his internal processors screamed toward overload.
Warning! Target lost!
Warning! Target lost!
Reacquiring target...
Error! Visual data and cursed energy radar do not match!
Warning! High energy reaction above!
"He's above!"
Kamo Noritoshi looked up, horror exploding across his face.
Before Mechamaru could react, a calm voice drifted down from above his head.
"Your attack was powerful."
"It carries the obsession to survive."
"But..."
"It's too direct."
Mechamaru jerked his head upward.
Yami was there.
Directly above him.
Hanging upside down like a falling star.
And in that instant, the aura around him changed.
The scorching brilliance of the sun withdrew, softening into a continuous, surging current like flowing water.
"Since it's steel," Yami said quietly, "let's cool it down."
Water Breathing, Eighth Form: Waterfall Basin.
Shiranui left its sheath in a flash of cold light.
For one instant, it looked less like a sword and more like a blue dragon diving from the heavens.
Boom!
Yami descended with the force of a falling mountain.
The blade struck the crown of Mechamaru's armored shell and bit in.
Then came the sound.
Screeeeeech!
It was so shrill and violent it felt capable of tearing through the sky itself.
Yami became a streak of blue light cutting straight down from Mechamaru's head to his feet. The image was overwhelming. Water Breathing flowed around the descending strike like a waterfall pouring from a cliff, and wherever the blade bit into the armor, showers of golden sparks erupted like exploding stars.
The friction was so intense that fine arcs of electricity danced through the water itself.
A trail of water.
A trail of sparks.
A trail of lightning.
Like a bolt of heavenly judgment splitting a fortress in half.
When Yami landed, the stream of sparks and the rippling blue current behind him had only just begun to fade. The air reeked of scorched metal and steam.
Click.
He flicked his wrist.
Shiranui slid neatly back into its sheath with a crisp, elegant sound.
Crack.
Mechamaru's giant body froze.
Then a molten red line appeared, running from the top of his head all the way to his waist and beyond. The metal along the cut had partially liquefied. Molten droplets slid down the ruined shell while neatly severed circuits and intricate internal structures glimmered in plain view.
Thud!
The steel giant split in two and crashed heavily to the ground.
Sparks flickered from torn cables. Smoke curled upward. The earth shook.
"Mechamaru!"
Kasumi Miwa and Mai cried out at the same time, their voices filled with panic.
Kamo Noritoshi's face had gone deathly white.
Just one strike.
One single strike.
That lightning fast descent had been so fast no one even clearly saw the motion, and yet Mechamaru's specially reinforced armor, a body built like a moving fortress, had been cut cleanly apart.
That was no longer the realm of ordinary jujutsu combat.
That was a divine technique.
"Don't worry."
Yami landed lightly on the ground, dustless and composed.
He glanced at Mechamaru's ruined body and spoke in the same calm tone as ever.
"He's fine."
Though the outer shell had been split open, Yami's control had already reached a microscopic level. His cut had cleanly avoided the puppet core, power lines, and essential systems that would actually kill or permanently destroy him. It had only severed mobility and interrupted the neural link.
Then Yami gave his verdict.
"Too slow. Too fragile."
Four simple words.
Nothing more.
Then he turned and looked at the last one still standing.
Kamo Noritoshi.
His gaze remained calm. No killing intent. No rage.
Only pressure.
The kind of quiet, suffocating pressure that made the air itself feel too heavy to breathe.
"Now," Yami said, "you're the only one left."
Kamo stared back, his hands trembling.
Not from cowardice.
From humiliation.
From fury.
From despair.
So this was the strength of someone labeled Pending Special Grade. Someone even Satoru Gojo had chosen to protect and praise.
The gap between them was not large.
It was absolute.
As one of the elites of the Big Three Families, Kamo Noritoshi had never imagined he would be reduced to this by someone with no cursed energy at all.
But he could not lose.
If he lost here, then what was the worth of his clan's pride? What was the meaning of everything drilled into him since birth?
"It's not over yet!"
He bit hard into the tip of his own tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood.
The sight of it against the forest floor was stark and vivid.
He would not lose.
Not here.
Not like this.
"For the glory of the Kamo clan..."
Blood Manipulation: Flowing Red Scale, Stack!
The veins across his body bulged violently. His skin flushed bright red. His muscles swelled beneath the strain until he looked almost feral.
"Yami!"
His scream tore from his throat.
"Take this!"
Every drop of blood. Every ounce of cursed energy. Every last shred of dignity.
He condensed it all into a single attack.
The strongest strike he could unleash at this stage. The attack of the next head of the Kamo clan.
"Piercing Blood!"
Whoosh!
A crimson spear of blood tore through the air faster than sound itself, blasting toward the center of Yami's forehead with enough speed to leave a sonic vapor ring behind it.
Yami watched it come.
This time, his pupils narrowed slightly.
And this time, his hand settled once more on Shiranui's hilt.
"Good resolve," he said softly.
Then the aura within him began to change again.
It was no longer water.
It was the sun.
A sun brighter, hotter, and more terrifying than before.
.....
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