Chapter 103: Panda: I Have No Idea What He's Babbling About
Frankly, if Cursed Tools could genuinely be customized and mass-produced, selling them to Jujutsu Sorcerers would be a low-end operation.
While controlling sales and inflating prices could certainly reap huge profits, the scope would still be too small.
If one could mass-produce Cursed Tools that embodied the concepts of 'seeing Curses' and 'harming Curses', a trained force of non-sorcerers could completely suppress Curses below Grade 1, freeing most Jujutsu Sorcerers from complex assignments.
Of course, what the newly idle Sorcerers would do then is anyone's guess.
Studying the limits of Cursed Techniques, the difference between Curses and Sorcerers, and the truth of the world... people interested in such things are a minority.
No one in the monitoring room had yet thought to such an exaggerated extent; their speculation about Emiya's abilities was tentatively limited to the ability to create Cursed Tools.
What are the requirements and materials, and how much time and investment are needed?
They didn't know any of these things.
Their curiosity was present but quite limited, so they quickly turned their attention back to everything happening in the competition arena—
At this moment, the jungle in an area of several tens of meters had been practically leveled by Itadori Yuji's imposing giant sword, and his opponent, Todo Aoi, was covered in bloody marks.
But that man still stood firm, lowering his blocking arms to reveal a smile full of excitement.
"This kind of heart-pumping Exchange Event is exactly what I expected!"
"Now, tell me, Itadori Yuji, what kind of woman do you like!"
"... Huh?"
"Why are you asking that now?"
Itadori Yuji, in the thick of the excitement, was stunned by the question.
"Don't worry about it, I just want to see what kind of person you are."
"Hmm... I'm not quite sure. If I had to say, a tall girl with a big butt... like Jennifer Lawrence?"
"!!!?"
Even though Itadori Yuji's answer was tentative, upon hearing the response, Todo Aoi suddenly felt as if something had pierced his heart.
In a trance, he saw another parallel world without Curses—
In that world, he and Itadori Yuji were best friends living in the same school. After he was rejected when confessing to his beloved Takada-chan, it was Itadori Yuji who comforted him!
[Is it possible that the "someone she likes" she mentioned was referring to me?]
[How could that be? Alright, let's go.]
[My treat for ramen.]
Under the setting sun, their figures walked further and further down the street, and in the end, Itadori Yuji even patted his back reassuringly...
Just thinking of such a beautiful scene made him want to cry. No...
He was already crying!
"It seems we are best friends... Itadori Yuji."
"... Huh?"
This scene in the arena was quite abstract. Fortunately, due to the restrictions of the Cursed Technique, the sound from there could not be transmitted to the monitoring room.
And most people were focused on another matter: the Tokyo High students were indeed splitting up according to the original plan to clear the Curses in the arena, but the Kyoto High students were consistently moving according to a predetermined route.
This meant that at this rate, they would soon reach the battlefield of Itadori Yuji and Todo Aoi.
"Gojo-sensei?"
Remembering Gojo Satoru's last words, Emiya subconsciously looked at him, and the latter simply waved his hand.
"It's fine, isn't Itadori Yuji obviously different now? Just believe in him.
And a more important point—haven't you also given special training to all the rest of them?"
"..."
That's true, but Emiya was still somewhat worried about the situation there.
Perhaps he prepared too few weapons for them; should he try forging some more formidable ones?
Soon, the scene on the screen progressed to where all the Kyoto High students arrived on the battlefield, creating a scenario of six people besieging one.
Just as Itadori Yuji was gradually being surrounded and cornered by the five latecomers, Todo Aoi suddenly attacked his own classmates, clearing the battlefield again.
Clearly, he intended to fight Itadori Yuji, whom he had recognized as his best friend, alone.
The Tokyo High students, having not encountered the Kyoto High students at all, immediately realized something was wrong.
Divided into two groups, they both concluded that the opponents were likely targeting Itadori Yuji, and they no longer bothered with the task of clearing Curses, quickly rushing back towards the original battle location.
Fortunately, with Todo Aoi's sudden turncoat, the Kyoto High group failed to successfully threaten Itadori Yuji.
Kasumi Miwa, the small inside operative, was even happy about this for a moment.
After all, from her perspective as an ordinary person, they were all Jujutsu Sorcerers, partners whose goal was to eliminate Curses. There was truly no need to resort to such fighting and killing at the slightest disagreement.
Aren't we all just high school students?!
Since the numbers on both sides were quite balanced at six people each, the subsequent development was highly gratifying.
Including the combination of Itadori Yuji and Todo Aoi, the students from Tokyo High and Kyoto High also formed quite balanced 1-on-1 matchups, respectively.
Of course, the 'balance' here is predicated on Emiya not having interfered with the Tokyo students' combat plan.
Battles between Jujutsu Sorcerers were originally quite straightforward.
Concealing or revealing information about Cursed Techniques, and then comparing raw power based on this intelligence gap; there were rarely too many twists and turns, because the two factors of Cursed Energy amount and Cursed Technique compatibility were often enough to decide the winner.
But with Emiya's technical support, the Tokyo High students each received at least two blades—weapons that could be called Cursed Tools in the Jujutsu world.
For Sorcerers with similar original strength, the outcome would be completely different once one side gained the enhancement of a handy Cursed Tool.
For example, for Zen'in Maki, who is already skilled in using cold weapons for combat, what an exaggerated enhancement are the dozens of blades available for her to choose from?
It would be more appropriate to ask Kasumi Miwa, who is fighting against Zen'in Maki.
A little while ago, she was happy that everyone finally didn't have to kill each other, but when she saw her opponent appear before her carrying one long and one short tachi, she instantly felt uneasy.
She had never seen such a six-foot-long Nodachi in her life! Could this type of Cursed Tool truly exist in the world?!
How much of a deviant must the Jujutsu Sorcerer be who carries this kind of sword to exorcise Curses?
And with that length, wouldn't a stab kill a person?!
I mean, is there a possibility... that she could stab her even outside of her Simple Domain?
However, in terms of weapon oddity, the most unique one had to be the object in Panda's hand.
Because he said that a panda's palm wasn't very good for gripping a hilt, and adhering to the principle of "equally distributing the benefits," Emiya specially crafted a simpler weapon according to his request.
The one fighting Panda right now is Kyoto High's student, Mechamaru, who is visibly quite unusual just by looking at him.
When he first came into contact with him, Panda subconsciously mistook the opponent for a fellow Cursed Corpse like himself. Who would have thought that not only did he fail to gain recognition, but he also triggered a fierce surge of emotion in Mechamaru.
Then, when faced with Panda analyzing that the pilot was likely nearby and saying he was going to smash the Mechamaru, Mechamaru started to explain himself.
"You can't do either of your choices. This is my 'Heavenly Restriction'.
Ordinary 'Restrictions' are self-imposed, but I am different. My physical body was forcibly 'Restricted' at birth.
I was born without a right hand and the body below my knees, and I have no sensation below the waist. My skin is so fragile that even exposure to moonlight will burn it... In exchange for this, I was granted a vast range of Cursed Technique and Cursed Energy output that exceeds my actual strength...
This is not the power I willingly obtained; if I could exchange my Cursed Energy for my physical body, I would gladly do so.
A mere Cursed Corpse looks down on me, casually walking under the sun... I cannot tolerate this from the bottom of my heart!!"
The more he spoke, the more Mechamaru's Cursed Energy began to surge with his emotions, even overflowing into the remotely controlled mechanical body.
But when he looked back at Panda, he found that the latter was just stealthily equipping himself with a weapon—
A custom-made handle tightly gripped by his thick but somewhat inflexible palm, with the truly sharp part being a section of blade protruding from the back of his hand. Claws... No, a knuckle-blade would be more accurate, right?
"Are you done talking?
If you're done, I'm going to start."
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