"Gah...!"
Crimson spatters of blood sprayed across the tatami mats like ink on a fresh scroll.
Sugawara no Enju clutched his skull with both hands, writhing upon the floor like a wounded beast. Thick, dark clots of gore erupted from his mouth and nostrils, defiling the exquisite silk of his robes.
"Aaaaagh...!"
A blinding, white-hot agony surged through him, as if his very cranium were being split asunder by a dull wedge.
The Limitless.
It was the ultimate jujutsu of the Sugawara Clan, a technique that divided space unto infinity to manifest absolute defense, repulsion, and attraction. Yet, for Enju—who lacked the Six Eyes—this technique was no blessing; it was a divine malediction.
To bifurcate space eternally, the brain was forced to endure a tide of information processing and celestial calculations that transcended the human soul. To attempt the Limitless without the Six Eyes, which allowed for the manipulation of cursed energy at an atomic level, was nothing short of a protracted suicide.
It was as if he were plunging his bare hands into a roaring furnace to retrieve a single ember. The charring stench of his own brain matter burning under the strain of the cursed energy wafted into his nostrils.
His vision flickered in a bloody haze, and the very air before him began to warp and shimmer in a grotesque mirage.
'Just a little more... if I can just hold on for a moment longer...'
Weeping tears of blood, Enju forced his arm forward, reaching into the void. The cursed energy gathering at his fingertips failed to take shape, roiling instead with a violent, unstable frequency.
C-crack!
The distorted space emitted a sickening, discordant pop before shattering into nothingness. It was a failure.
"Hah... hah... Guh!"
Enju slammed his fist against the blood-stained tatami. His nails cracked and his knuckles split, weeping ichor, yet he felt no physical pain. The suffocating weight of his own incompetence—the poison of inferiority that gnawed at his heart—was a thousand times more agonizing than any wound.
By contrast, Utsugi was a different creature entirely.
Utsugi was a hollow husk who possessed no innate technique, yet with the Six Eyes as his foundation, he dictated the very flow of the world through pure cursed energy manipulation and taijutsu. Should he be wounded, the Reverse Cursed Technique mended his flesh in an instant. His consumption of cursed energy was perpetually optimized, dwindling toward a perfect zero.
He was a monster who exuded overwhelming strength as naturally as one breathes. Those azure eyes... the eyes that pierced through the very fabric of reality and truth.
'Those eyes... they were meant for my elder brother.'
Enju’s eyes turned a hideous, blood-rimmed red as a murderous intent bloomed within them. His elder brother, the one who had been born with both the Limitless and the Six Eyes, only to be assassinated a mere month after his birth.
Had his brother lived, Utsugi would have spent his days wallowing in the dirt of some forgotten branch house. Enju himself would never have been forced to sear his own brain as the heir to the Clan Head, groaning under the crushing mantle of expectations.
In Enju’s mind, that empty shell named Utsugi had stolen his brother's vacant place, usurping the glory of the clan for himself.
"Nngh..."
Enju stumbled to his feet, wiping the gore from his face with his sleeve. One of his eyes was occluded by a crimson veil from a ruptured vessel, obscuring his sight. Driven by a parching, internal thirst, he began to stagger down the dark corridors of the estate.
The night was deep and the manor silent. However, a faint glimmer of light spilling from a tea room in the depths of the main house caused Enju to freeze in his tracks.
Beyond the shoji doors, he could hear the hushed, secret voices of the clan elders—those who held the true reins of power within the Sugawara.
"Regarding the heir... how long must we maintain that half-measure in the seat of succession?"
Enju’s heart turned to ice. His feet felt rooted to the floor like stone, and he found he could not even draw breath.
"There is no other choice for now," another elder clicked his tongue, his voice sharp and dismissive. "Legitimacy rests with Lord Enju, the legitimate son of the main house."
"Regardless, the Limitless without the Six Eyes is nothing but a hollow boast. Lord Enju's life force is shaved away every time he attempts to force the technique. He will not live a long life."
"True. The only true pillar sustaining the Sugawara today is Utsugi."
"If not for that monster's eyes and his martial prowess, the Fujiwara dogs would have devoured us by tomorrow morning. Did you hear? He just purged a swarm of curse users in the west entirely on his own."
"It would serve the clan's future better to simply adopt Utsugi into the main house and formally crown him as the next head."
"But that boy is uncontrollable. He is a beast whose heart cannot be fathomed."
"Indeed. Legitimacy must be preserved. We are not some lowly provincial clan from the borders. That is why we keep Lord Enju in place—as a justification, a leash to ensure that beast does not turn its fangs upon the clan."
Thrum.
Inside Enju’s mind, the final thread of reason snapped. It was a silent, wretched sound.
'A half-measure.'
'One who will not live long.'
'The true pillar is Utsugi.'
He had spent his life struggling, coughing up blood to meet the clan’s expectations. Even as his vision blurred and his lifespan withered, he never once abandoned the Limitless—the pride of the Sugawara. He had endured this hell purely out of a sense of duty, believing that if he fell, the direct bloodline would cease to exist.
And yet, these rotting old men were mocking him behind his back, ridiculing him as a pitiable decoy. They worshiped a branch-family upstart who had stolen the place of his dead brother, while treating the legitimate heir as a mere tool to keep a monster in check.
"I will kill him."
A grotesque, metallic rasp escaped Enju’s trembling lips. Jealousy and inferiority had turned into a lethal venom, completely corroding his soul.
'Everyone has gone mad. The noble blood of the Sugawara seeks to kneel and surrender before the primitive violence of a lowly branch-family mongrel. They have cast aside their pride as the pinnacle of jujutsu, becoming mere dogs wagging their tails to the logic of raw power. I must set this right. I must take the head of the monster that threatens our legitimacy. I must prove the absolute majesty of the Limitless.'
It was the only salvation left to save himself from this wretched misery. Enju clenched his blood-dripping fists and turned away, his precarious steps leading him toward the detached annex where Utsugi dwelt in solitude.
The veranda of the annex lay bathed in cold moonlight. Utsugi sat there alone, wordlessly polishing the blade of an aged tachi. The chill night air swirled around him, as if washing away the lingering scent of slaughter.
Tramp, tramp.
Harsh, irregular footsteps shattered the silence of the garden. Utsugi did not turn his head. His Six Eyes had already perfectly read the murderous and unstable cursed energy approaching from the distance.
"Utsugi."
It was Enju. He looked abominable. His once-immaculate hair was disheveled like a wild animal's, and the dark stains of blood from his nose and eyes remained uncleaned. Above all, the cursed energy radiating from his form was boiling over like molten lava—a ticking time bomb of power that was currently consuming its own vessel.
Utsugi rubbed the blade one last time with his cloth before slowly ceasing his movement.
"To what do I owe this visit?"
The voice was cold and dry, utterly devoid of emotion or agitation. To Enju, this tone was the height of arrogance—the look of one who viewed the legitimate heir not as a superior, but as a bothersome insect buzzing in the night.
Enju’s face contorted with malice.
"Those filthy eyes of yours."
Enju spat blood-mixed saliva onto the wooden porch. "I have come to tear out those disgusting eyes that stole my brother's glory and trampled upon my grief."
Utsugi remained silent, the blade of his tachi glinting under the moon like a shard of ice.
"They all laugh at me, calling me a half-measure!" Enju erupted into a fit of hysterical laughter, taking a step forward. "While they grovel before you, calling you the monster that sustains the Sugawara!"
The space around Enju began to distort strangely, heat hazes shimmering into existence. He was forcibly manifesting the Limitless, dragging it to its absolute brink as his vessels ruptured and his brain cells scorched.
"Today, I shall silence those lies with my own hands."
Enju spread his arms, veins bulging beneath the skin. Fresh blood finally leaked from both eyes, soaking his chin. His brain was screaming in protest, yet consumed by madness, he could no longer feel the pain.
"Come to the training grounds, you branch-family dregs." It was a pathetic, tragic declaration of war, offered at the cost of his own life.
"I will carve into your very marrow the true lineage of the Sugawara, and the true terror of the Limitless. Then, I will gouge out those precious eyes and cast them before the feet of those prattling elders."
Only then did Utsugi slowly turn his head to look at him. His brilliant, azure Six Eyes were revealed.
He saw a man swallowed by his own sense of inferiority, driving himself into the abyss of ruin. A half-measure who had been shattered by the wall of an overwhelming talent that no amount of bone-breaking effort could ever hope to reach. Yet, Utsugi’s gaze held no pity, no mockery, and not even a trace of anger. It was a gaze that was perfectly hollow, as if he were looking at a pebble on the side of the road.
"You will die."
Utsugi spoke as he slid his tachi back into its scabbard. It was not an expression of concern; it was a simple statement of the insurmountable gap between them.
Utsugi rose to his feet, looking down with those frigid blue eyes. "If you challenge me with such an incomplete technique, your brain will explode and kill you before my blade even touches your throat."
A simple, dry mockery that dismissed Enju’s life-risking resolve as a mere act of foolish self-mutilation. Those words set an unquenchable fire within Enju’s hollow chest.
"Silence!! You piece of filth!!"
Enju howled like a tortured beast. "My Limitless will tear your arrogant life right out of the dimensions and shred you into pieces!"
Enju whirled around. With blood dripping from his every step, he marched toward the training grounds.
Utsugi followed that wretched, pitiable silhouette. He was well-acquainted with the act of mercilessly cutting down enemies who lunged at him with murderous intent. But to deal with a pathetic animal driven mad by jealousy, seeking to throw its life away... even for Utsugi, it was a foul affair.
In the end, the time for the shedding of meaningless blood had arrived once more.
As the moon was swallowed by thick, ink-black clouds, the night of Heian-kyo descended into a darkness so profound that one could not see even an inch ahead. The unavoidable duel between two of the Sugawara bloodline drew nigh.
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