Faced with the twisted cursed energy swirling frantically in the palm of Mahito's clone, Nobara Kugisaki wasted no words and swung her hammer with everything she had!
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Three nails infused with cursed energy shot out like lightning in a tight triangular formation, aimed with lethal precision at the clone's forehead, heart, and abdomen.
"Too slow, too slow!"
Mahito's clone didn't even bother to dodge.
The moment the nails were about to hit, his body suddenly melted and stretched like sludge.
His originally humanoid form instantly flattened into a paper-thin sheet of flesh, sliding along the ground to easily evade Nobara's attack.
"What?!"
Nobara's pupils shrank.
Though she had read about Mahito's abilities in the mission briefings, facing a Special Grade Cursed Spirit that could freely alter the shape of its soul and body firsthand brought a suffocating sense of powerlessness.
"Hee hee hee, where are you looking?"
A chilling voice suddenly echoed from above her.
The clone's flattened body had somehow launched itself into the air like a coiled spring.
His arms instantly ballooned and hardened, transforming into two massive, barbed bone blades that swung down toward Nobara's head with savage force!
"Damn it!"
Nobara gritted her teeth and threw her body back into a desperate bridge pose. The bone blades grazed the tip of her nose as they slammed into the ground, carving deep gouges into the hard asphalt.
Debris sprayed everywhere, cutting her cheek and drawing thin lines of blood.
But Nobara didn't retreat.
Even as she leaned back, her left hand had already slammed onto the pavement.
"Straw Doll Technique: Hairpin!"
Boom!
The three nails that had previously missed and embedded themselves in the ruins behind the clone suddenly erupted with a violent burst of cursed energy!
The shockwave from the explosion sent the airborne clone tumbling away, slamming him hard into a crumbling wall.
"A hit!" Nobara thought, a flash of joy crossing her mind as she prepared to press the advantage.
"Oh my, that was actually quite dangerous."
From within the rubble, Mahito's clone slowly stood up.
His head and shoulder, which had been half-blown away, writhed and healed like liquid in a matter of heartbeats, returning to their original state.
"Your innate technique is quite refined. If that hit my main body, the soul resonance might have actually caused me some trouble."
The clone tilted his neck, producing a sickening sound of grinding bones as the smile on his face grew increasingly distorted.
"Unfortunately, I'm just a clone."
"I don't have a complete soul. Your Resonance is nothing more than a tickle to me!"
Before he had even finished speaking, the clone's body mutated again.
His legs transformed into the digitigrade structure of a feline, boosting his explosive power several times over!
Bang!
The ground shattered under the pressure as the clone crossed dozens of meters in a flash, appearing directly in front of Nobara as if he had teleported!
He was too fast!
So fast that Nobara's nerves couldn't even register a reaction!
"Got you."
The clone reached out with a pale, nauseatingly clammy palm, pressing it toward Nobara's face.
"Idle Transfiguration!"
If that hand touched her even for a fraction of a second, Nobara's soul would be forcibly twisted, turning her into a mindless, grotesque monster!
'Move... move! Get moving!'
Nobara's pupils trembled violently as she screamed in her head.
But her body felt as if it had been pinned in place. Under the absolute pressure of a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, she couldn't even twitch a finger.
The shadow of death—and a fate far worse than death—loomed over her in an instant.
At that critical moment!
"Sun Breathing, First Form..."
A cold, raspy voice saturated with pure rage suddenly rang out from behind Nobara.
"Dance!"
Zing!
A sword's cry, sharp enough to split the air, resonated through the street.
Immediately following it, a brilliant arc of crimson flame—vibrant enough to ignite the night sky—swept past Nobara's ear at an unbelievable speed!
Squelch!
The clone's hand, which was mere millimeters from Nobara's face, was severed cleanly at the wrist the moment it touched the red flames!
Not only that, the terrifying heat surged up the wound, spreading frantically toward the clone's arm!
"Aaaaaah!"
The clone let out a piercing scream, his body recoiling as if struck by high-voltage electricity.
He looked at his severed wrist in horror.
No blood flowed from the wound; instead, there was only a layer of charred, carbonized tissue and a cluster of golden flames that stubbornly refused to let his body regenerate!
"This feeling... these disgusting flames..."
For the first time, a look of utter terror appeared on the clone's distorted face.
He could never forget that night at Satozakura High School—the demon with a broken iron sword who had almost completely annihilated his main body!
"Sorry I'm late."
A hand, radiating warmth and the faint scent of blood, pressed gently against Nobara's trembling shoulder.
Nobara whipped her head around.
Yoru was standing before her.
His black uniform was in tatters, revealing a body covered in scars and wounds.
His right hand, gripping Shiranui, was trembling slightly, and his breathing was ragged from extreme exhaustion.
But his crimson eyes were like two burning pyres, locked firmly onto the clone ahead.
"Yoru..."
Nobara exhaled, her tensed nerves finally beginning to relax.
But in the next second, a sharp, stabbing pain shot through her left eye.
A single drop of bright red blood trickled slowly down from the corner of her left eyelid.
"Ngh..."
Nobara clutched her eye, letting out a pained groan.
Yoru frowned. Though his vision through the Transparent World was blurry, he could still see the extent of her injury.
Even though the clone's Idle Transfiguration hadn't made direct contact, the cursed energy that twisted the soul had still grazed her left eye at that final moment.
Fortunately, because Yoru had severed the limb just in time, the damage hadn't spread to her entire soul.
"Don't move. Let Shoko handle this,"
Yoru said in a low voice, positioning himself protectively in front of her.
He turned his gaze toward the clone, who was desperately trying to cut off his own burning arm, and his eyes turned cold as ice.
"It seems the lesson I gave you at Satozakura High wasn't deep enough."
Yoru slowly raised Shiranui.
The crimson glow on the blade, which had previously dimmed, flared up once again!
While the light wasn't nearly as dazzling as when he fought Sukuna, for a curse like Mahito that relied on soul manipulation, this light was nothing short of a divine judgment from a natural enemy!
"Yo... Yoru!"
The clone finally managed to hack off his burning arm. He stared at the approaching Yoru, who looked like an Asura, his voice turning shrill with fear.
"You should be completely drained! Why... why can you still swing that sword?!"
Yoru didn't give him an answer.
He simply took a deep breath, squeezing the last remnants of oxygen from his lungs.
The faint Slayer Mark on his forehead began to glow with a weak, red light once more.
"To kill you..."
Yoru's figure vanished from the spot.
"...is more than enough."
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