Chapter 61: The Oppressive Aura of a Special Grade
Silence spread across the battlefield.
A moment earlier, the forest had been roaring with collapsing roots, cracking earth, and the hiss of cursed energy. Now, only a few yellow leaves drifted through the air, scraping softly over the ground as they fell.
Megumi Fushiguro stared at the back standing in front of them, his eyes wide.
So did Maki. So did Kamo Noritoshi. Even Toge Inumaki, still hunched over and clutching his throat in the distance, looked up in stunned silence.
Hanami's attack had not been blocked.
It had not been deflected.
It had simply disappeared.
The mass of roots, the violent surge of cursed energy, the overwhelming killing force that had driven them to the edge of despair... all of it had been erased the instant it entered that quiet, invisible range around the boy.
No collision. No shockwave. No grand display.
Just stillness.
Kamo swallowed hard, his mouth dry.
"Water Breathing... Eleventh Form. Dead Calm."
The words slipped out before he realized he was speaking.
His gaze stayed fixed on Yami's back, and something cold settled in his chest.
So this was the strength Gojo Satoru had been smiling about.
So this was the monster they had all dismissed as some glorified first-year with no cursed energy.
Kamo had always assumed the title was exaggerated. A taunt. A joke made flesh, used by Gojo to mock the old guard.
After all, in the jujutsu world, cursed energy was everything. The amount you had, the quality of it, the way you shaped it. That was the foundation of power. Without cursed energy, how far could a person possibly go?
Now reality stood in front of him with a sword at its waist and proved that everything he thought he knew could be cut apart.
Hanami watched Yami without moving.
The branches where its eyes should have been twitched slightly, and its voice brushed against everyone's minds.
"You are not a sorcerer."
It was not a question.
Hanami could feel it clearly. The human before it carried no cursed energy. Not even the faintest fluctuation.
And yet, the sense of danger radiating from him was heavier than any sorcerer present. It was not the pressure of cursed energy. It was something else. Something more direct. More primal.
Like fire at the center of a drought.
Like the thing every forest feared most.
"For the future of this planet... you must die."
Hanami raised its left arm again.
The flower bud at its shoulder, wrapped in white cloth, bloomed wider.
A huge pulse of cursed energy rolled outward, heavier than before. The ground groaned beneath it. The nearby trees began to wither in patches, their bark cracking, their leaves curling in on themselves. Even the weeds at their feet turned yellow and collapsed.
Specks of green light rose from the dying plants and flowed into Hanami's body.
Megumi's breathing caught.
"It's draining the life out of the forest..."
Among all of them, he felt it most clearly. This was not just cursed energy. This was theft. Hanami was ripping vitality from everything around it and feeding it into its own body.
Its skin darkened with a strange, flushed hue. Its frame thickened. The pressure it gave off grew heavier with each passing second until the air itself seemed to thicken around them.
Maki tightened her grip on Playful Cloud. Blood still dripped from the split skin at her palm.
"If we let it finish, we're dead."
There was no disagreement.
The four of them moved at once.
Kamo burst a blood bag and shaped the blood into spinning blades, sending them screaming toward Hanami's neck.
Megumi formed a seal and forced Nue into existence. The shikigami dove from above in a crackle of electricity, aiming to blind and distract.
Maki lunged forward with brute force alone, Playful Cloud howling through the air as she drove it toward Hanami's leg.
And Toge, throat torn raw, forced cursed speech through blood and pain.
"Stop."
For an instant, the attacks converged.
Then they shattered.
Kamo's blood blades struck Hanami and exploded into useless spray.
Hanami swatted Nue aside with one motion. The shikigami burst into shadow before it could even land cleanly.
Maki's strike hit with enough force to break stone, but the impact only rang out with a heavy metallic clang. The rebound tore through her arms and shoulders, and she was launched backward, crashing into a tree hard enough to split the trunk.
Toge bent double, blood running from the corner of his mouth.
Nobody had even managed to wound it.
Hanami lowered its arm slowly, as if disappointed.
"Humans are fragile."
A black seed formed in its palm.
At first it was no larger than a stone. Then cursed energy poured into it, layer after layer, until the thing pulsed with a density that made their skin crawl.
Megumi's hands shook.
That thing was death. Simple as that.
If Hanami released it here, none of them would survive.
His fingers began to form a final seal in the shadows.
If it came to that, then he would summon it.
The forbidden shikigami. The one even he could not control.
If he was going to die, then he would drag this monster down with him.
Then he heard it.
A breath.
Soft. Even. Almost quiet enough to miss.
Yet it cut through the battlefield more sharply than a shout.
"Haa..."
Heat spread with it.
The oppressive weight of Hanami's cursed energy was suddenly split apart by a different force. A hot wind rolled across the clearing. The grass at their feet curled and smoked. The black seed in Hanami's palm trembled.
Megumi's hands stopped.
Maki looked up.
Kamo's breath caught.
Yami stood in front of them.
He had moved without any of them seeing when.
One hand rested on the hilt of Shiranui. He had not drawn it. Not fully. But the air around him had already begun to twist under the heat spilling from his body. The light itself seemed warped, as if some invisible furnace had been lit inside his chest.
Hanami took half a step back.
Just half a step.
But everyone saw it.
The special-grade cursed spirit... had retreated.
Yami did not look away from it.
"Stand back."
His tone was quiet. Steady. There was no strain in it, no unnecessary bravado. It was not encouragement. It was instruction.
No one argued.
No one even thought to.
Because in that instant, with the heat rising around him and his red eyes fixed on Hanami, he no longer looked like a first-year student.
He looked like the only sane thing in a world that had gone mad.
"I'll handle this."
Hanami's hand tightened around the black seed.
The cursed spirit's body was rigid now, the earlier contempt gone from its posture.
For the first time since it had entered the battlefield, it was not looking at prey.
It was looking at danger.
A true one.
And in Hanami's mind, the human standing before it was no longer a boy.
He was sunrise.
A blazing horizon lifting over a burning world.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 10–50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]