A fist shining with a dark glow sent Mahoraga flying in the direction of Piercing Ox.
Piercing Ox successfully charged into Mahoraga and sent it flying into the distance.
The distance between them widened, and after using Black Flash, his previously somewhat stiff Cursed Energy became perfectly obedient.
The running Piercing Ox dissipated just before Mahoraga's attack arrived.
Eichi once again formed the hand seal for Tiger Funeral.
A fierce wind began gathering in Eichi's hand.
'What is this?'
Megumi looked at the ball of wind in Eichi's hand in surprise.
As a Shikigami of the Ten Shadows Technique, Megumi was very familiar with Tiger Funeral's ability.
But when Eichi used Tiger Funeral's ability, it gave him a strange sense of unfamiliarity.
'These winds are very strange.'
Crack, crack.
Megumi heard a sound like shattering glass.
Megumi quickly found the source of the sound.
It was the edge of the wind ball in Eichi's hand.
There, several tiny cracks were constantly expanding.
This was something Megumi had never seen when summoning Tiger Funeral for battle.
Crack.
A crack shattered, revealing the dark space behind it.
Megumi suddenly remembered the shadow space he had entered out of curiosity to examine.
Shadow space... space!
'You're expanding the target of your Cursed Technique to space!'
Megumi said in disbelief.
"Yes, that's right."
Eichi looked at Mahoraga, who was rushing toward him, with a somewhat crazed expression, his feet rooted to the spot.
The inspiration for this attack came from Sukuna's spatial slash, which he used to bisect Satoru.
Its principle was to expand the target of the Cursed Technique from a normal enemy to the space in front of the caster.
Because the target of the attack was space, everything within that space would be destroyed along with the space itself.
In other words, this was an attack that ignored defenses.
Normally, expanding the target of a Cursed Technique was not difficult. For example, Nanami had once used Cursed Technique expansion in his battle with Mahito.
He expanded the target of his Cursed Technique to an entire wall as needed.
The shattered rubble, carrying a large amount of undissipated Cursed Energy, crushed Mahito into a pulp.
Unfortunately, due to Mahito's characteristics, Nanami was unable to successfully exorcise him.
What truly surprised Megumi was that Eichi had set space as the target for his Cursed Technique expansion.
This proved one thing. The incredibly mysterious concept of space to others was not mysterious in Eichi's eyes.
Actually, that was indeed the case.
Medea could manipulate space inside her temple.
Eichi had also mastered the method of compressing space with barriers under the guidance of Medea and Tengen.
Plus, he had Mahoraga's help.
If Sukuna could learn the spatial slash, which expanded the target of his Cursed Technique to space, with Mahoraga's help, then Eichi naturally could too.
Ten meters, five meters, one meter...
Mahoraga rapidly closed the distance between them.
The Sword of Exorcism was about to pierce Eichi's eyeball.
"Scatter!"
The wind ball in Eichi's hand, already pushed to its limit, suddenly exploded. A terrifying storm, mixed with wind blades that severed space, shredded Mahoraga's body.
Mahoraga's body was split into more than ten pieces.
The part of its head connected to half of its chest quickly began to regenerate.
Rumble!
Nue, who had been accumulating power in the air for a long time, made its move.
A huge purple lightning bolt struck Mahoraga, who had just begun to regenerate.
Countless lightning bolts followed Mahoraga's severed wounds, wantonly destroying everything inside Mahoraga's body.
"Hoo, hoo, we won."
First, use Tiger Funeral's extremely compressed and somewhat difficult-to-control attack to severely wound Mahoraga, then have Nue use the massive lightning it had generated beforehand to precisely snipe Mahoraga.
This was Eichi's Operation Plan No. 1.
Wind was free. It was easy to control when dealing with a small number of wind blades or small currents of energy.
But once the speed became too fast or the volume of wind became too large, completely controlling its trajectory became very difficult.
This was both an advantage and a disadvantage.
The advantage was that even Eichi himself did not know which areas of this wind attack had high damage and which had low damage, so the enemy would definitely be even more confused.
The disadvantage was precision.
But it did not matter. Nue made up for the lack of precision.
Normally, Nue would find it difficult to break through Mahoraga's defenses, but once those defenses were broken, Nue's precise attack became very deadly.
Moreover, to prevent the wind blades from scattering randomly and failing to severely wound Mahoraga, Eichi had also set a Binding Vow.
By not moving before the attack was launched, he exchanged it for the storm stably enveloping the area in front of him at the moment the attack was launched.
It was like playing a shooting game where you stood still with a sniper rifle, aimed at a corner, and fired when you spotted an enemy.
For anyone other than experts, meaning those whose Cursed Technique itself could interfere with space, doing this could improve accuracy.
But there were also risks. Since he could not move, the opponent could hit him more accurately.
For example, Eichi had almost had his head pierced just now in order to expand the target area enough to envelop Mahoraga.
Looking at Mahoraga slowly dissipating in front of him, Eichi received the message that the subjugation ritual was complete.
In the Ten Shadows Technique, the subjugation ritual was very different from normal summoning.
For example, during the Shibuya Incident, Sukuna used his Domain's slashes to mix Cursed Energy into the surroundings and even onto Mahoraga.
Then he used the explosion to directly blast Mahoraga to pieces.
But later, after Sukuna possessed Megumi's body, he could still summon Mahoraga for subjugation.
Actually, this was understandable, because for a normal Ten Shadows Technique user, performing a subjugation ritual itself was meant to acquire Shikigami to enhance their strength.
If they had to constantly worry about not damaging the Shikigami while doing it, that would be too unreasonable.
I am here to subdue Shikigami and get stronger, not to catch mascots.
If I wanted a cute pet, wouldn't it be better to catch a little tiger and raise it?
Oh, there were no native wild tigers in Japan, then never mind.
Eichi summoned Mahoraga, nodded in satisfaction, then directly returned control of the body to Megumi.
Then Megumi knelt on the ground and performed a grand bow to Mahoraga in front of him.
'...Is it necessary to kowtow the moment you meet? Ah, I understand. You're going to acknowledge Mahoraga as your godfather. I get it.'
Megumi felt Eichi's Soul pat his own Soul on the shoulder.
This feeling was... quite magical.
"It's not like you didn't switch bodies back without saying anything."
Whether from shame or anger, a "#" seemed to appear above Megumi's head.
Before they switched back, Megumi had still been immersed in the scene of Mahoraga's Sword of Exorcism about to pierce his eyeball.
This caused Megumi to fail to react when Eichi suddenly returned control of the body, leaving him feeling a bit weak, with his hands and feet cold.
'Oh, I see. Then let's do it again.'
After saying that, Eichi began to seize control of Megumi's body.
Megumi, who had just stood up, knelt on the ground again due to the sudden change.
"That's enough, no need to do it again!"
He's teasing me. He's definitely teasing me. Why do all the teachers at Tokyo Jujutsu High like teasing their students?
Megumi felt utterly speechless.
'Alright, then make some space. I'll go out first.'
"How do I get out?"
Hearing that Eichi was finally leaving his body, Megumi breathed a sigh of relief.
Although he knew Eichi meant well, having a grown man enter his body still gave him a strange sense of shame.
'Shrink your Soul a bit and lean against the corner of the wall.'
"Where does a Soul have a corner of a wall?"
'It's just a metaphor, a metaphor. Just move your Soul toward the boundary of your body and leave me some space to get out.'
"Like this?"
Because Eichi's Soul and Megumi's Soul were close together, he could clearly feel the outline of his own Soul.
He tried to make his Soul flatter, creating room for Eichi's Soul.
The reduced contact area between his Soul and body made Megumi's control over his body a little unstable.
Eichi's mouth curved into a mischievous smile. He lifted his foot, stepped on Megumi's Soul, then jumped up with force.
Eichi's Soul rushed out of Megumi's body and flew toward his own body in the distance.
Megumi, on the other hand, temporarily lost control of his body due to Eichi's kick, and his body fell forward.
When he came back to his senses, Megumi had already knelt before Mahoraga for the third time.
Mahoraga scratched its cheek. It was now a little worried about its new master's mental state.
Rumble!
Just as Megumi knelt on the ground, unsure what expression to show,
a huge sound came from the distance.
"That direction... could it be Gojo-sensei and the second-year Senpais?"
(To be continued.)