Strong.
That was the first thought the young sorcerers had when they faced Uraume of Frozen Star.
Ice-based techniques were rare, and because of that, they were powerful.
Neither their destructive force nor their versatility lagged behind any of the better-known techniques.
Much less when the user was a formidable sorcerer who had made a name for themself a thousand years ago in the Heian era, that inhuman, hellish age, as Sukuna’s right hand.
With Uraume’s true abilities, there was no reason this should drag on.
One blast of maximum-output frost could freeze the entire street, or they could just deploy a Domain.
If they’d gone all out without caring who got hurt, Junpei and Nobara would have become frozen food a long time ago.
There was only one reason they were holding back.
They had to make sure Sukuna didn’t die before he was fully revived.
Unlike Jogo, the other special-grade vengeful spirits weren’t pleased about Sukuna’s resurrection. Even if they all came at them together, Uraume was confident they could win, but they didn’t know what Kenjaku had prepared, so they had to conserve their strength.
“Frost Calm!”
“Sediment Moon!”
The essence of the ice-binding technique, which sent out supercooled cursed energy to freeze whatever it touched on contact, collided with Junpei’s jellyfish.
Crack-crack-crack!
Uraume’s cursed energy climbed up Sediment Moon and formed a massive glacier.
But Junpei, who had already roughly figured out Uraume’s technique by sight, hadn’t used his shikigami as a shield without thinking.
“Shedding!”
He had long since been studying his shikigami’s abilities in depth with Megumi’s help.
Among those experiments were tests on Sediment Moon’s regenerative power.
He had shaved away at it little by little, pushing it to its limit, and before long he learned that as long as more than a quarter of its body remained, it could regenerate freely.
He applied that regenerative ability to create a technique extension.
It was an improvised, incomplete move, but it was effective enough.
Bang!
By raising the pressure inside its body and bursting the frozen shell, Sediment Moon charged at Uraume again, now a little smaller than before.
As the tentacles surged in from all directions, Uraume braced one frost-covered hand against the ground.
“Direct Burst.”
A circle spread across the floor around Uraume, and jagged chunks of ice erupted upward.
The tentacles that slammed into the glacier in front of them began to frost over from the tips, and Sediment Moon’s movements slowed.
Without a moment’s pause between creation and control, Uraume kept manipulating the ice, and the newly formed chunks became bullets aimed at Junpei and Nobara.
Ping!
Trusting the defense of the black-lin armor he had already transformed, Junpei pulled Nobara into his arms and took the attack head-on.
A heavy mass of ice slammed into his back while he held her tightly enough to keep her fully in his embrace.
Crack!
“Tch!”
He couldn’t absorb the impact completely, but this much was manageable.
That was what Junpei thought, until a cold sensation suddenly spread from his back.
The ice bullet that had lodged itself in his armor didn’t stop at the point of impact; it kept growing, spreading until Junpei was covered in transparent ice.
“Junpei!”
“I’m fine! I can take it!”
Uraume’s Direct Burst was terrifying because it didn’t end with the hit itself; a follow-up effect kept coming after.
Junpei had only allowed one attack, and yet half his upper body had frozen over, leaving him unable to straighten his waist.
As the next attack came in, Nobara threw herself over Junpei, shielding him.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
“Damn it! Give me a second to breathe!”
“Just give me a little time. I think I can break it!”
“You’ve got a plan?”
“Yeah. But you absolutely can’t let it show.”
At least, that was one of the advantages of being a shikigami user.
While Junpei, the sorcerer, was separated from it, Sediment Moon steadily shattered the ice and advanced on Uraume.
Should they focus on quickly taking down the sorcerer, or interfere with Sediment Moon’s advance?
Should they keep the chance to land a hit on Uraume, or break the ice binding Junpei’s body?
For both Uraume and Junpei, it was a moment of choice, and each made their decision quickly.
“Technique Extension: Resonant Ember Prison.”
“Direct Burst.”
Junpei’s armor vibrated violently, pulverizing the ice, and at the same time the ice chunks that followed struck him with a delay.
Watching Junpei get blown backward by the impact, Uraume smiled thinly.
“So that armor was a shikigami too. During the transformation, he can’t use another shikigami at the same time.”
Sediment Moon, which had been about to reach his body, had already been unsummoned and vanished long ago.
Uraume judged that targeting the body itself had been the right call, since even if they were hit, they could recover with reverse cursed technique.
There was a crack in Junpei’s seemingly impregnable defense.
Just as Uraume was certain victory was within reach,
“You shouldn’t forget about me.”
Nobara, who had been recovering her stamina and staying out of the fight, snapped her fingers.
Up until then, Uraume hadn’t paid Nobara much attention.
She was weak. At best, she was around Grade 2 sorcerer level.
Her attack methods seemed to be limited to a hammer and nails, and that sort of thing would only work on low-level curse spirits, not on them.
So the best course was to take a few hits, heal with reverse cursed technique, and focus on the more dangerous man.
That was the plan, right up until they deliberately lured Uraume into that very assumption.
Looking around, Uraume realized nails had been scattered all around them without their noticing.
“When did she...!? She never moved!”
As time seemed to slow, Uraume recalled Sediment Moon being unsummoned near them just moments ago.
So that was why it had insisted on close combat despite being so soft.
What Uraume had dismissed as a foolish move born from inexperience was all a trick for this moment.
“You hid them inside the jellyfish shikigami!”
“Correct~!”
All Nobara had shown until now was close-quarters combat.
Uraume hadn’t known she could attack from a distance, and their reaction had naturally been a beat too slow.
Clack!
“Hairpin!”
Papapapapapapap!
The sharp cursed energy that burst from the nails scattered on the ground pierced Uraume’s entire body.
“Ghk!”
“Junpei, now!”
As Uraume’s stance collapsed, Junpei, riding on the yellow shikigami, shot toward them at incredible speed.
Racing beyond what the naked eye could barely catch, he looked like a yellow comet.
He slipped through the ice that spread between them as if gliding over it, closing the distance in an instant.
Whoosh!
Letting him get close was a disadvantage.
If they weren’t careful, they could get caught in their own ice, and it was obvious that the bastard in that invincible-looking armor would have the advantage.
Uraume, now panicked, began focusing all their firepower on Junpei as he flew through the air.
Papapapapapapap!
Countless ice chunks flew toward Junpei, forming a barrage.
Ice bullets that felt even faster because of the shikigami’s speed.
But he couldn’t stop.
Rather than twisting away, Junpei accelerated and drove straight forward.
He knocked aside the ice chunks flying toward his vital spots. A few hits were fine.
As long as he could reach them, he could endure this kind of trash attack as many times as necessary.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop...!
“You stubborn bastard...!”
Uraume was stunned by Junpei’s refusal to break, even with most of his body covered in ice.
Before long, Junpei had reached point-blank range and leapt off the shikigami, spreading both arms wide.
Ice fragments and black-lin shards, broken by the force of his body movement, scattered beautifully through the air.
“I’ll hold you.”
“Get lost!”
The distance between the falling Junpei and Uraume was now about one meter.
With the two already this close, close combat could no longer be avoided.
Then I’ll pierce the gaps in that armor at point-blank range with condensed ice!
Uraume’s right hand moved swiftly as they pulled a maximum-hardness ice dagger from inside their sleeve.
They meant to strike at the opening created the moment Junpei landed and cut his throat.
And Junpei was very familiar with this setup.
His first battle after awakening as a sorcerer.
That bastard was trying to copy the exact mistake Junpei had once made against Yuji.
He still remembered clearly how Yuji had dealt with it back then.
Instead of settling into a landing stance, Junpei formed hand signs and raised the hardness of the black-lin on his feet to the maximum.
With added weight and the force of his fall, his heel drove down and split Uraume’s ice, slamming into the ground.
Boom!
It was a crude method, but the effect was certain.
Shaken by the unimaginable vibration, Uraume, who had been rushing in directly beneath Junpei, lost their balance and staggered.
At last, the perfect opening had arrived, and Junpei immediately tried to pounce on Uraume, but something grabbed his foot.
Ice? When did that happen!
“Did you think I wouldn’t anticipate that much!”
Ice flowers had bloomed around his ankle, which was embedded in the ground.
No matter how careless they were, and no matter that they hadn’t gone all out, the position of Sukuna’s right hand was not something to be taken lightly.
The moment that perfect opening slipped away, Uraume decided to show this reckless upstart the difference in their levels.
An ice blade flashed as it flew toward Junpei’s throat.
They had confirmed that he couldn’t use reverse cursed technique, so the target was his carotid artery, a fatal weak point.
Unless a miracle happened, there was no chance he would survive.
Today, the young sorcerers would die here, and Uraume would witness Sukuna’s revival with their own eyes.
But something was strange.
Why...
Were they both smiling?
At the brink of death, the first decisive hit determined everything.
“Ghk...”
Just before Uraume’s blade reached Junpei’s throat, they suddenly felt a violent wave of dizziness and nausea, and the knife slipped from their hand.
Black spots bloomed across their entire body, throwing their control of their flesh into disarray.
The nails Nobara had used for Hairpin had been carried through Sediment Moon’s body.
From that moment on, Junpei’s cursed energy had already mixed into those nails, and once they pierced Uraume’s body, it naturally flowed into their blood vessels.
Poison.
Junpei’s main attack had been steadily gnawing away at Uraume from the very beginning of the fight.
Dangerous. This is dangerous!
As a final desperate measure, Uraume gathered maximum-output frost in their right hand, intending to freeze Junpei whole.
It would take time to neutralize the poison, but if they could just deal with the immediate threat in front of them, they could buy that time.
In truth, their judgment wasn’t bad.
Except for forgetting that there had been two opponents the whole time.
Nobara had already concluded through the fight that it was impossible to face Uraume head-on the way Junpei did.
So instead, she focused on what she could do: relentless support and ambushes timed to the perfect moment.
Like right now.
“I told you not to forget about me.”
Thud!
The nail Nobara fired pierced Uraume’s right hand.
Then the cursed energy stored in the nail exploded, blowing away half of Uraume’s right hand.
“Aaaagh! You bitch!”
For a moment, Uraume’s rage at being struck by another surprise attack flared up, but then Junpei, who had finally torn his foot free and charged, slammed into them like a bull.
He drove his head into their waist to break their center of gravity, while his arms wrapped around their hips and yanked them toward him.
Junpei’s perfectly executed tackle lifted Uraume off the ground and smashed them down onto the pavement.
Crack!
“Kheh!”
Uraume hit the ground headfirst and couldn’t breathe properly.
With their brain starved of oxygen, their vision went white for an instant, and now that even the option of bursting the ice to create distance had been sealed off...
There was no way out.
Uraume spat foam and rolled their eyes back, but from the angle Junpei couldn’t see their face.
Pressed so tightly together they were practically one body, Junpei chuckled and tossed out a pointless joke.
“So, are you a guy or a girl?”
“Grrk... gurgle...”
“What? Why are you doing that? Fine, let’s just call you a guy.”
It would feel like cheating if he hugged a girl, after all.
“Resonant Ember Prison.”
Kwakagagagagak!!
The sharply raised black-lin blade crushed Uraume’s body.
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