Chapter Forty-Nine: Two Against One - Part Two
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There was no time for hesitation in this moment. Geto poured his cursed energy to the absolute maximum possible limit, and the sound it made was like a dam finally breaking—a deep, resonant THRUUUUM that vibrated through the concrete beneath their feet and rattled teeth in jaws. The curses formed around him, dozens of them, assembling with military precision, spiraling into formation like living ammunition belts feeding into an impossibly dangerous gun.
Geto looked at them—at Obito, at Yuta—watching them watch this spectacle he had created. His lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. More like the expression a cat makes when it's finished playing with its food and remembered it's actually hungry.
"I'll raise the pressure to maximum level," Geto announced, and his voice carried harmonics now, layered with the collective consciousness of his thousand servants. "Witness now the power of a special grade shaman."
The pressure that followed wasn't metaphorical. It was physical—a weight that pressed down on shoulders, compressed lungs, made each breath a conscious effort. Obito felt his knees threaten to buckle. Yuta's enhanced physiology kept him upright, but barely. Even Rika, that manifestation of infinite devotion, seemed to shrink slightly under the weight of so much concentrated cursed energy.
There's only pressure at this moment, Obito noted, his Sharingan spinning desperately to process the impossible density of cursed energy now filling the space. Both of us feel it. But he's in a ready position for what's coming.
He watched the curses transform. Their forms shifted, melted, compressed—bodies that had once been semi-solid nightmare fuel now collapsing inward like dying stars, becoming spheres. Tiny spheres. Dense spheres. Spheres that hummed with the particular vibration of violence waiting to happen.
"Yuuta," Obito said, and his voice emerged calmer than he felt, steadier than his hammering heart deserved. "Be ready. That's a bomb formation. He's compressing cursed spirits and turning them into bombs that can explode at any moment. The power of these bombs is certainly very strong. If we're caught off guard..."
He didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.
One of those spheres launched before his words fully left his mouth.
The trajectory was absurd—impossibly fast, directly at them, a tiny projectile no larger than a tennis ball crossing fifty meters in what felt like negative time. The sound of its passage was a CRACK that left afterimages on eardrums, followed by the particular whine of something moving faster than sound should reasonably allow.
"Rika!" Yuta's command snapped through the chaos. "Deflect it as fast as possible!"
The Queen of Curses moved.
Her hand—massive, terrifying, beautiful in its violence—swung with precision that belied her size. The WHUMP of impact echoed through the training ground as her palm connected with the sphere at exactly the right angle. Her fingers curled. Her muscles tensed. And she threw that sphere back into the air with the casual ease of someone discarding garbage.
Then it exploded.
BOOM.
Black and red bloomed across the sky—colors that shouldn't exist together, violence painted in impossible hues. The shockwave rippled outward in perfect circle, annihilating air, sound, and any illusion that this was still a manageable situation. Yuta watched the explosion's power with eyes that had gone slightly wider than professionally advisable.
"Holy shit," he breathed, and the words felt inadequate for what he'd just witnessed. "That's some high destructive power."
He wasn wrong. The explosion had struck part of the Academy's roof—correction: had annihilated part of the Academy's roof. Where solid concrete and reinforced steel had existed moments ago, now there was only debris, dust, and the particular pitter-patter of fragments raining down like the world's most lethal hailstorm. The technique had converted cursed spirit power into actual explosive force, and the results were... impressive. Terrifying. Pick your adjective.
This technique, Obito thought, already moving, already calculating, his Sharingan recording every variable for later analysis (assuming there was a later), can convert his cursed technique and curse manipulation into actual bombs. Detonation-ready bombs. The power of these bombs is so immense that proximity has become extremely dangerous. But there's something more dangerous than that—
His current speed, enhanced by Black Flash's residual effects, allowed him to compete with Geto in direct combat. The black lightning had done something to his muscles, his reflexes, his entire physical being—he was faster now, operating at levels his body shouldn't have been capable of sustaining.
But speed meant nothing against explosions.
The blast radius. The shockwave propagation. The sheer scale of destruction these bombs could produce—these were problems speed couldn't solve. He could dodge the initial impact, yes. But the explosion's spread was too fast, too wide. His physical body, enhanced as it was, couldn't compete with that level of area denial.
And that's not even the worst problem, Obito acknowledged grimly.
Another bomb launched.
Yuta dove right, his body twisting mid-air to avoid the projectile's trajectory. The sphere passed close enough to ruffle his hair, close enough that he could see his own reflection in its compressed surface, close enough that he understood exactly how close "almost dead" actually was.
"Senpai!" Yuta's voice cut through the chaos. "Let's go to the forest! There's no point staying here—it's too exposed!"
He's right, Obito realized. Staying here is suicide. Too exposed means he can rain endless bombs on us. Convert curses continuously. And his body is injured—he won't engage in direct combat now. He'll heal while using this technique to kill us from range.
Obito moved.
His feet pushed off debris-scattered concrete with scrrrrape that sent fragments scattering. Behind him, he heard Yuta's enhanced footsteps following, the heavier thud-thud-thud of someone pushing their body beyond normal limits. Together they plunged into the forest—if "forest" was the right word for the overgrown training grounds surrounding the Academy.
Trees. Shadows. Cover.
Better, Obito thought. Not perfect, but better.
He used one of the trees to change direction—a sharp pivot that shifted his trajectory at the last possible moment, buying precious microseconds. Behind him, the bomb struck exactly where he would have been.
BOOM.
The tree exploded into splinters. Not broke—exploded. Wood became projectiles. Leaves became confetti. The sound was less explosion and more RIP-SHATTER-CRASH, a symphony of destruction that left a crater where solid oak had stood moments ago.
Obito protected his body behind another tree, pressing his back against rough bark as debris rained around him. His breathing was controlled. His heart was not. The thump-thump-thump in his chest had nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with understanding exactly how close that had been.
The cursed spirits are flying in the sky too, he noted, his Sharingan tracking the aerial threat through gaps in the canopy. The quantity is enormous. That means Geto is using a much larger number of these spirits.
He possesses immense cursed energy thanks to absorbing many spirits over a long period. Plus, he can control cursed energy very well and compensate for the damage I caused to his body with Black Flash. Additionally, he can adapt to that quickly. Damn him.
Obito's jaw tightened. His fingers, wrapped around his katana's hilt, shifted grip fractionally.
There's no way I can approach him. If an explosion goes off directly in my face, I won't be able to use reverse cursed technique to heal the damage. And I can't have Yuta heal me either, because at that moment I'll face compatibility issues.
The reason Yuta's technique had healed him so efficiently—almost as if healing Yuta's own original body—was because he'd been copying Yuta's cursed energy usage method and style. No opposition between two different cursed energies. Perfect compatibility. Perfect healing.
But I used Black Flash. Increased cursed energy flow. Accelerated healing. And I sacrificed the copy ability for five minutes. During that period, I can't use that copying technique. For a period of time.
His breathing slowed. His thoughts accelerated.
Five minutes of vulnerability. Five minutes without my best defense against his best attack.
Wonderful.
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While Obito thought, he failed to notice several strange things happening in the area.
The cursed spirits were gathering around the perimeter—more than before, circling like vultures at a buffet. Their formations shifted with purpose, not random milling but organized movement. And Geto was smiling. Constantly. Without reason.
Except there was reason.
Geto was planning to use a bomb of cursed spirits—maximum output of Cursed Spirit Manipulation—to eliminate Yuta Okkotsu and Obito Zenin in one catastrophic detonation. His smile wasn't madness. It was anticipation.
Obito, busy thinking of approach strategies, didn't notice the cursed energy rising. Even with Sharingan, even with enhanced perception, he missed it. Too focused on solutions. Too distracted by problems.
Then—critical moment—a bomb launched.
Not toward Obito.
Toward Yuta.
The trajectory was perfect. The timing was immaculate. Geto had sent it with focused anger and high precision, and Yuta, caught mid-maneuver, couldn't dodge.
"Rika!"
The Queen moved.
She became shield—massive form interposing itself between Yuta and annihilation. The bomb struck her with sound like CRAAAACK-BOOM, and the explosion that followed was... significant. Catastrophic. The kind of blast that leaves craters and questions in equal measure.
Yuta and Obito were thrown. Their bodies became projectiles, tumbling through air, through branches, through leaves that cracked and snapped under impact. They struck tree after tree after tree—THUD against oak, CRACK through pine, SMASH into undergrowth—before finally, mercifully, stopping.
They stood. Slowly. Painfully.
And looked toward where the bomb had come from.
What the—
Geto was flying.
Not metaphorically. Not "moving really fast." Actual, literal, flying. He hovered before them atop a massive curse that resembled an enraged dragon—all scales and teeth and malevolent intent. Its wings spread wide, blocking out what little moonlight penetrated the canopy. Its cursed energy radiated everywhere, saturating the atmosphere with violence.
Geto laughed.
The sound wasn't controlled anymore. Wasn't calculated. It was madness—the particular laughter of a man who's stopped caring about appearances and started caring only about destruction.
"I can't believe I took all this damage," Geto howled, and his voice echoed across the forest, bouncing off trees, multiplying into chorus of insane amusement. "I should have ended this place in record time. Before I return to watch those monkeys die."
Bastard, Obito snarled internally. Crazy bastard.
Above the trees, Obito ground his teeth while deflecting scattered debris from the bombs. The power of these explosives was certainly serious—terrifyingly serious for him—but he'd managed to handle them thanks to enhanced reflexes and cursed energy sensing through the Sharingan.
Tick-tick-tick of fragments hitting his blade. Shing-shing-shing of deflected debris. The rhythm of survival.
"Senpai!" Yuta called out, his voice carrying over the chaos. "We need to get through this faster!"
Yuta had grown stronger after using reverse cursed technique. No more weakness issues. No more endurance problems—he compensated by using reverse cursed technique to restore his stamina continuously. Plus, Rika was facing an enormous group of curses restricting her movement, so she couldn't come help Yuta in this confrontation at the moment.
But still, Yuta thought, we can win. We have to.
"Don't worry," Obito replied, and his voice carried certainty that surprised even him. "There's still a way for us to win."
There has to be.
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Obito's mind was operating at maximum energy capacity. His thoughts raced through possibilities, strategies, contingencies—and one question kept surfacing, nagging, demanding attention.
Why are the Zenin taking so long?
He was certain that Naoya wouldn't hesitate to send his strongest soldiers to help in this battle. Eliminating Geto was critically important—it could affect the entire shaman world. So where was the support? Where was the backup? Where was the—
What Obito didn't know at this moment was that while he fought Geto all this time, Yurami was fighting Naoya.
The situation was... complicated.
Naoya, despite his incredible speed, was in a very difficult state thanks to the ice skills of the white-haired woman. Yurami possessed the ability to create and manipulate ice, launching it with precision while simultaneously generating cold air that could paralyze even his superhuman speed. So he was in a difficult survival battle, unable to come to this place and provide assistance.
If Obito knew, his thoughts would have gone something like, he'd be shocked. Because he'd think one thing: how did Yurami come to this place? And if she came, doesn't that mean Kenjaku is responsible for her presence? And if that man is here...
If Kenjaku was present, that would mean the ancient sorcerer wanted to directly protect Geto's body at this moment. Which would certainly, impossibly, prevent Obito from killing him and completely destroying Geto's body.
Unfortunately, Obito didn't know this.
So he kept wondering why support forces were taking so damn long to arrive.
Where the hell are they?
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But this wasn't the only event happening at this moment.
The battle was occurring in all regions. Shinjuku. Tokyo. Hokkaido. The remaining areas were also being attacked comprehensively by curse forces released everywhere. Most shamans thought these curses were under Geto's control, but in reality, they were being released automatically due to the Cursed Spirit Manipulation technique he possessed.
At this moment, he only controlled a small portion of the curse quantity. He'd released the rest randomly to all regions and incited rampage. Those cursed creatures surged through the sky without stopping, heading in multiple random directions.
The material losses at this moment were immense. Thanks to barriers, however, the number of ordinary people who'd been evacuated and made to escape was very large. Additionally, ordinary people couldn't see what was happening outside because curses couldn't be seen by non-shamans. Normal people simply couldn't perceive curses.
This is fine, Maki thought, already moving.
She surged forward at tremendous speed toward a third-grade curse. Her blade moved—SHING—and the curse separated into pieces before it understood what had happened. Then events continued rapidly as she eliminated dozens of these curses quickly, thanks to her speed, agility, and the spear's ability to transform into three sections in one second.
Slash. Stab. Spin. Repeat.
But she was exhausting herself. The fighting had continued for several hours now, thanks to the massive rampage that had been released. She felt her breath coming in shorter gasps, her muscles screaming protest with each movement. But she didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Kept telling herself that she couldn't stop before eliminating this quantity—otherwise she wouldn't deserve to be strong in the future.
One more. One more. One more.
At the same time, she noticed her colleagues were also fighting. Panda was using hybrid mode at this moment—fighting harder, stronger, more controlled. His massive form crashed through curses with CRASH and SMASH and the particular CRUNCH of something breaking that probably deserved to break.
Inumaki was bleeding slightly from his mouth. He'd been using cursed speech extensively, and the cost was visible—trickles of red running down his chin, staining his collar. But he controlled the bleeding amount by using simple words, avoiding exhaustion while continuing to fight.
'Stop.' 'Fall.' 'Break.'
Each word cost him. Each word bought them time.
But the curse numbers certainly weren't decreasing. It was becoming clear that his endurance would drop over time. But Inumaki wasn't stupid—he took breaths in a way that allowed his physical strength to return at low levels. This way, he could maintain his power and help his colleagues.
From above, however, Maki could glimpse things exploding—blue-colored detonations tearing through the sky. She made a low sound while looking at that explosion that seemed to tear space itself in the sky.
That's Gojo's eye, she realized. He's continuing to eliminate them without stopping. But even he can't destroy all this quantity if they're in so many places.
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In another direction, all shamans could see the strongest shaman launching through all locations.
Gojo Satoru would vanish and reappear with blue light—using Blue from Infinity to compress space and transport himself between multiple battlefields. He deployed his extensive technique to maximum extent, ensuring he crushed all the strong curses while leaving the weak ones for other shamans to handle clearly.
FWIP—disappear.
BOOM—appear.
CRACKLE—destroy.
But even with that, the curse quantity was so excessive that he had to sarcastically remark while eliminating some first-grade curses:
"Ten years," Gojo muttered, his voice carrying that particular tone of annoyed superiority that was uniquely his. "And in the end, you produce this pathetic quantity? You don't even control them, Geto."
In one second, he analyzed the situation. Geto must be unable to control this massive amount of cursed spirits. So it seemed he'd simply activated their desire to attack in all regions and left them to eliminate every living creature.
Gojo's gaze turned cold while looking at that.
"But where are you now?" he wondered, Six Eyes scanning constantly. "Why haven't you appeared yet? Where is your location?"
Of course, he didn't know there was a battle happening completely at the Jujutsu Academy. He was too focused on destroying curses, and additionally, no one had contacted him at this moment. His concentration was entirely devoted to finding and destroying the strongest curses while accelerating to eliminate the weak ones simultaneously—all to end this long night.
Where are you, Geto?
What are you planning?
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Back in the forest, Obito took a deep breath.
He directed his defense toward continuous evasion, trying to maintain his position. Only three minutes had passed since using Black Flash, but he'd been constantly running, unable to reach Geto. The man had become crazy at this moment.
He's releasing cursed energy without limits, Obito observed, Sharingan tracking the impossible flow. Plus, he's not targeting anything specific—he's destroying his own curses. That reduces his cursed energy loss. He's sacrificing them to kill us.
He seems to be running out of time.
Of course, Geto was afraid. Terrified that Satoru would discover he was attacking Jujutsu Academy at any moment and come to this place. He understood he had no chance of winning against Infinity's power, which wouldn't even allow him to get close. So he wanted to obtain Rika—the Queen of Curses—and leave this place.
But Obito's speed. Yuta's skills. Their awakening of reverse cursed technique. All of this had made the situation several times more difficult.
How long will this continue?
Geto launched another explosive bomb—compressing a first-grade curse—causing destruction of many trees and creating a crater 50 meters wide with released explosive force. The BOOM echoed across the forest, followed by the particular CRACKLE of dying vegetation and the THUD-THUD-THUD of falling debris.
Even that was avoided.
That boy can read movements and cursed energy flow with extreme precision, Geto acknowledged, his smile turning cold. But that means nothing if I affect multiple attacks and make them wide-range. No matter his speed, it becomes useless.
He adopted a cautious stance.
Even if he reaches me, if I detonate my technique in the right place, I can absorb the damage because the technique is made of cursed energy. This way I can absorb 50% of the damage while directly eliminating that boy.
He was using one of technique's laws: they don't affect users the same way they affect opponents. Only some fierce offensive techniques can affect the user, but simultaneously, the impact amount and damage are much less than for opponents.
Geto's plan now depends on eliminating Obito, he decided. That annoying boy who's been supporting Yuta. At the same time, he wants to eliminate Yuta Okkotsu—he feels the boy's power is increasing with the battle. His talent has no limits. His mastery of reverse cursed technique, plus his cursed energy quantity, means he can heal himself for longer periods.
While the other boy can't do that. Even after using Black Flash, he'll need a long period before using it continuously. The cursed energy quantity difference between them makes targeting the weaker one at this moment the priority.
Geto was bleeding. He also felt immense pain in his back after Black Flash. But despite that, his plan was clear, and he still had the chance to win and maintain the upper hand.
His fingers moved. More curses compressed. More bombs formed.
Tick-tock, Geto thought. Time's running out. For all of us.
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Obito's Sharingan tracked every movement, every compression, every potential trajectory. His body screamed exhaustion. His cursed energy reserves hovered near empty. But his mind kept working, kept calculating, kept searching for the solution that had to exist.
Two minutes left, he calculated. Two minutes until copy ability returns.
Two minutes of survival.
Two minutes of not dying.
He looked at Yuta—saw the younger sorcerer's determination, saw Rika's protective form, saw two people who refused to die despite every reason to do exactly that.
We can do this, Obito told himself. We have to do this.
For everyone counting on us.
For everyone fighting elsewhere.
For everyone who can't fight at all.
His grip on his katana tightened. His stance shifted. His eyes—those crimson eyes with their spinning tomoe—fixed on Geto with absolute focus.
"Yuuta," he called out. "Get ready. We're going on offense."
"But senpai, his bombs—"
"I know." Obito's voice carried certainty that felt almost like madness. "Trust me."
Yuta looked at him for a long moment. Then nodded.
"Rika," he said quietly. "With me."
The Queen of Curses roared—a sound that wasn't sound but presence, overwhelming and absolute.
And in the forest, under the moonlight, with explosions still echoing and death still hunting, two young men prepared to do something very stupid.
Very brave.
Very necessary.
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Kenjaku watched from his hidden position.
His ancient eyes tracked everything—the bombs, the evasions, the desperate strategies. His fingers tapped against his thigh in that same rhythmic pattern. Tap-tap-tap. Counting seconds toward something.
Interesting, he thought. Very interesting.
Two boys against a special grade.
One with infinite energy and a curse queen.
One with eyes that steal techniques and refuse to die.
Geto Suguru, former special grade, current special grade, future...?
Kenjaku's lips curved slightly. Not quite a smile. Not quite amusement. Something in between.
This will be educational indeed.
The battle continued.
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End of Chapter.
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