A flick of my wing, and I observed Megumi's features. His expression was a cocktail of fear, worry, and shock. This was why I had not let him in on the plan, because no matter how it was explained, no matter the proof, even if he was forced to sit and understand that the woman he was facing was not his sister, when it came down to it, when it came down to actually fighting her, I doubted the strength of his resolve.
Sukuna killing her by controlling his body had been enough to make him lose all interest in life. So what hope did I have of him actually being able to fight her, hurt her without halting or hesitating every two seconds? My wing flickered again, taking in his still-frozen form, which was enough of an answer.
None.
Megumi's presence here was a handicap, one that Yoruzu was not going to ignore. She was already appealing to his emotions, and that was enough to freeze him in place.
Megumi turned to me, and I tilted my head to him. He had a question on his lips.
"Wha—"
Yoruzu shot forward like a missile, her insectoid wings propelling her towards me at my seeming distraction. I turned back to her and braced, but adaptation was more progressive resistance than complete immunity, as I'd come to learn. The Heian-era sorcerer hit me like an offended linebacker, her insectoid bulk slamming into me, her shoulder leading the charge and folding me over.
We shot out from the bridge and into the barely standing forest once more, my well-muscled back a battering ram breaking tree after tree after tree, till I finally found my feet, carving a trench into the ground till we came to a stop. Then she used her good foot, digging it into my calf, and sprang backward. Her wings gave her distance. She halted midair for only a second, wings beating faster than even I could see to hold up that massive exoskeleton. Then she juked to the side and disappeared among the trees.
I let out a low growl of annoyance as I rolled my massive shoulders to get a kink out of them. Like most, Yoruzu made the same mistake of assuming I saw like a human. Assumed that I saw with mundane vision that required line of sight to keep track of my target, despite my inhuman physiology, despite the literal wings I had for eyes. More than one opponent had made that same mistake.
Yoruzu shot out from somewhere behind me, and I made a deliberate stuttering movement to juke to my right, ignoring the thin lines her claws dug in my bicep as she shot forward and past me to disappear into the forest once more. I turned around, slowly, like I was searching for her, and she made another pass. Hunting like the dragonfly her wings were modeled after.
She tore another trio of lines in my calves, but these were deeper. More committed. The third pass she made, she ripped deeply into my shoulder muscles, and I let out a false grunt of pain as she sped past me once again, her laughter echoing through the trees. I knew the next attack she was going to overcommit, confident in her hit-and-run tactics granted to her by her speed and wings, so when she shot from the forest behind me, I spun in time to grin into her face and step forward, causing her to mistime her attack.
I could feel her surprise despite the armor.
Yet Yoruzu was not a sorcerer of the Golden Age of sorcery for nothing. Her vast combat experience turned what was supposed to be an attack into a shoulder charge, but I was prepared for that, and unlike the first time, this time I was completely ready for it, and I braced.
The strength and speed of her charge turned us into a bolt of pure force and percussion as we tore our way through the forest in a straight line, but neither of us refused to give up.
My toes dug in, carving ten thin trenches into the soft, moist ground, knowing that with each second all that speed, all that momentum was dwindling until finally it was spent, and we came to a halt. My feet dug in on either side, my body as rigid as I could make it. Yoruzu looked up at me from an uncomfortable position, and I gave her a mad grin in response.
Then I locked my hands above my head and swung them down like the wrath of God given manifest. The first strike was a thunderous crash that sent a massive shudder through the insectoid armor, as well as displacing the air for fifty meters around us. The second was a cataclysmic blow that sent cracks running through the chitin, and the third I was certain would've broken Yoruzu's back, armor or not.
She knew it too, because she immediately released my hips and tried to dodge back, but there was never a third strike coming. Yoruzu still did not realize I didn't want Tsumiki dead, and without Reverse Cursed Technique, a broken spine was an expedited journey to the afterlife.
Her confusion was not completely her fault. I had not held back much. I had purposely broken one of her legs in our initial clash to show I was not above hurting her, and that was what she was basing her actions on.
A carefully planned miscalculation, because I had noticed something the first time I broke her leg. The moment my grip had tightened enough to pulp muscle and break bone, in the depths of the black sea where Tsumiki had made a watery grave, that innocent girl had stirred. The pain got to her and drew her attention for a split second.
Insectoid wings came to life and tried to fling Yoruzu's massive bulk back, but I did something I was rapidly coming to favor. One massive foot came down, heel first, slamming into her one good foot and pinning her to the ground like a bug. I flicked my wrist, and the Blade of Extermination slipped out of the wrap it hid in, and Yoruzu's visible eye widened in recognition.
"What are you doing with that!"
I responded with my threadmark grin.
Then my fist shot down, aiming towards the exposed gap in the armor, but before my fist reached it, the liquid metal came to life, moving with insane alacrity to cover that wide, scared pupil that exposed Tsumiki's true feelings about how the fight was going.
The Blade of Extermination deflected off the carapace with a ringing sound. I twisted my hand, changing from a stab to a swing aimed at the side of the head, but I was met with a screech as the sharp edge of the blade slid across her armor.
I needed to break this stupid shell if I wanted to actually hit her soul, and I could not do that without actually touching her physical body first, which the cursed insectoid exoskeleton did not count as. So I changed tactics. A flick of my wrist sent the blade back into my forearm. Then my fist slammed into the completed insectoid head hard enough to rock it, and it cracked in response. If I had eyes, they would have widened at that revelation. The armor was more brittle. It was still ridiculously hard, but either Yoruzu was running out of cursed energy, or she was focusing it on something else.
The second blow hit the same place, another devastating jab that forced a wider crack. The third was dodged as she twisted to the side and lashed out with a massive haymaker that I blocked with a raised shoulder that deflected her blow sideways, leaving her open. Then I surprised her by slamming a left hook into her stomach. She had angled her head downward to deflect the predicted jab, but while Yoruzu was a competent fighter, she was not a brawler. Her expertise rested more in her ability to construct and manipulate cursed energy than it did in being a fighter.
Against most sorcerers, the strength and bulk of her insectoid exoskeleton would've been more than enough. Against someone in the same weight class as her?
I rolled over her.
My arm shot up in an uppercut that slammed into her bulbous visor, cracking the multifaceted structure and doing the job of knocking her head and brain backward, leaving her open for the final haymaker to break her guard. Then a stinger buried itself into my calf, freezing me in place for a second.
I thought the insect butt behind her was completely ornamental.
I lashed out with a knife hand to sever the stinger at its root, then shot forward with a jab, but that split second had been enough for Yoruzu to retreat, and I was blocked by a spiked forearm. But I was not done. Instead, I changed fighting styles. I caught the forearm and released my hold on her foot in time to spin her around, Aikido style, and trap her hand in a lock.
There were few ways to get out of an armlock from behind, and in none of those ways did your shoulders survive it.
"Let me go, you bastard."
Yoruzu grunted out in pain as I forced her to a knee, her position awkward, a hand twisted behind her. No matter how strong an armor was, its joints were always going to be a weakness, at least if the wearer wanted more mobility than a golem. I put more pressure on her shoulder and pressed down, and she made a scream that was so pain-filled I nearly released my grip on the armlock, but I could hear the armor groan more in response as cracks began to spread around it, negating its structural integrity.
The armor was getting weaker.
Then all of a sudden, the pressure began to ease off as Yoruzu began to rise slowly, and my brows narrowed in response. When the armlock technique was originally created, it had never accounted for people with wings and the strength to lift themselves up with it, but there was an easy response to this new divergence.
I released my grip enough to lunge forward, my massive jaws opening like the maws of a shark, then I slammed them shut over the thin cuticular membrane. My teeth dug in, ridiculously sharp incisors tearing through the thin insectoid wing, then I jerked my head back, like a shark that had had its first bite of a particularly succulent whale, ripping the entire wing right from its roots.
The scream Yoruzu let out was the scream to end all screams. It was less a scream and more of a screech. Her throat was torn raw in one single moment as she made her pain known to the world in one haunting and terrific sound. Then the foot I had broken a few minutes ago shot backward like an irate horse and slammed into my ribs with all the accumulated fury and pain in a cursed-energy-enhanced strike that forced me to release my grip on her arm as I was sent flying... but not without my price.
There would be no flying anymore.
I shot backward, rolling over rocks, broken trees, and other outgrowths before flipping sideways, twirling midair and coming to a stop as I landed on my feet in a low crouch. My features were still twisted into a wide grin that exposed my teeth, and the pair of wings still stuck in them. I chewed down on it for a second, while I thought on how she managed to get that leg working once more without reverse curse energy.
Remote controlling the limb by manipulating her insect armour itself. Guts from Berserk inspired.
The chewing action was more instinctive than anything, my tongue slipping out to have a taste. Then I spat it out to the side, just in time to hear a sound I'd been waiting for.
KLNK
The dull bronze of the wheel spun above me, reflecting off the fading sunlight that slipped through the trees. The spin finished, then settled, and I felt that familiar metaphysical weight as I adapted exactly what I needed. I flexed my wrist automatically, and I looked at the Blade of Extermination as it extended from my forearm.
It felt different.
My grin would've made babies cry in their crib. Finally!
"Yoruzu!"
I spoke for the first time, my voice a directed thundering bellow that forced trees to fold over and bend away, leaving me a clear path to the incarnated and grounded sorcerer. Her first instinct had been to fly, but just as I guessed, her wings were drastically more complicated structures compared to her exoskeleton, and she had not even managed to regrow more than an inch.
In response, I flung myself towards her in a lunge that ate up the earth beneath my feet till I was inches away from her, and despite how useless the Blade of Extermination had been earlier, some instinct told her to twist out of the way, but I was not done. I dug my feet into the ground and spun, diverting my momentum from a thrust to a slash that scored a line across her chest.
The first cut went through the carapace like a hot knife through butter. It was a cut so clean and neat, without any of the screeching or deflections, that when the arc of the cut was done, it took her body two whole seconds to realize she had been cut, her exoskeleton rendered useless, and blood spurted out, staining my pale skin with that vivid coloration.
Yoruzu's next scream was music to my ears, and I could tell she understood immediately. I felt it in the way her cursed energy spiked.
The liquid metal surged to cover the gap the first cut had opened, filling it before I could exploit it, but I swung again.
This time my aim was different. I carved into her left shoulder. The liquid metal was still redistributing from the first gap when the second cut opened, and this time I didn't allow her to simply redistribute or recreate more liquid metal. I went at her like a butcher at the slaughter.
She tried to dodge only to be kicked in the knee, then she tried to slip back, only for my hand to grab onto her shoulder and hold her in place. I did not stop carving.
The carapace came apart in seconds, bits of its outer structure shaving off as I went through it. It would've been an easy thing to kill her now, and if she wasn't so frantic trying to survive and dodge, she would be wondering why I had not simply buried the blade in her heart or her head.
Instead, I kept on shaving at the exoskeleton, only making sure to leave thin enough cuts for pain.
Yoruzu was screaming now, fury and anger turning words unintelligible as she felt death coming. I could feel her armor change as we fought, desperation forcing innovation as she began to lose the bulk of the original exoskeleton. Instead, she began to compress it, make herself less of a target, molding and twisting the insectoid armor into a feminine form instead of the hulking construct.
What she lost in strength in this new form, she gained in durability, as my blade stopped cutting through it just as easily, but it was all for naught. She could not turtle her way out of this fight, and the moment she lashed out, the moment she left just a slight gap open, the Blade of Extermination was there to shave off liquid metal.
It was in one of those overextensions that the inevitable happened. A frantic slash at my wings to blind me left her open enough for a precise swing to cleave off enough of her midsection, and suddenly I could see the original body beneath all that armor.
Tsumiki's body.
The flesh pale from the cold, from the coma she just barely woke from, from everything the past weeks had done to it. The sudden realization that she could feel the air on her skin made her redistribute her armor again, but she would not make it.
I twisted my forearm.
The plan was simple, and I had been building toward it for this entire fight. I needed to touch her soul to separate the two beings. My first adaptation in the fight had been the culmination of what I had started with that unknown monk and continued with Uraume. The ability to not just see souls, not just attack or hit souls, but to actually cut at souls.
I flicked a switch in my head, and the wheel hummed in response and spun anticlockwise with a heavy groan, switching adaptation mid-battle.
It was part of the mechanism of the technique as I changed the essence of the Blade of Extermination from cutting through Construction Technique to cutting at souls.
Then my hand shot forward and sideways in a cleaving motion as I aimed for the precise seam, that boundary between Yoruzu and the body she wore. Yoruzu moved the liquid metal covering her face, redistributing it and sending it towards her stomach, then she screamed.
"Megumi!"
The voice was Tsumiki's.
Inches.
The blade was inches from contact when my shadow moved beneath my feet. It spread outward from beneath me, shifting the solid ground beneath me from solid to liquid, and I stumbled to the right, while the Blade of Extermination deflected off the liquid armor that formed a breastplate instead of penetrating skin.
Yoruzu used the force of the blow to roll back and flip to her feet, the liquid armor slipping off her body, and I knew what was coming next. I knew what she was going to do as the liquid metal rapidly began to coalesce into a perfect spherical ball behind her, something I had not given her the breathing room to do before now. My shadow solidified beneath my feet once more, and I tilted my head to the side.
Megumi stood at the edge of the clearing. His hands were extended, one partially raised as though he had moved them without deciding to move them, the posture of someone who had done something instinctively and was now staring at the result. I almost didn't blame him. He had endured hearing his sister scream and be hurt multiple times, and from his point of view, I was about to shank her in the gut.
He looked so surprised, so confused, so guilty.
Then Yoruzu spoke once more, and her voice changed back.
There was a casual cruelty in it, a twisted, sick sense of humor in the tone of her voice as she once more shed the soft feminine voice of Tsumiki.
"Domain Expansion: Three Fold Affliction."