Zenin Daisuke’s body was bound.
Kitano Minami’s original jujutsu, created by applying the principles of barrier techniques. It was known as the Minami-style Binding Technique.
On top of that, there was a 2,048-layered barrier inspired by croissant dough.
Among modern sorcerers, no one could match Minami’s barrier techniques anymore.
Even to Gojo Satoru’s Six Eyes, which he had brought to bear to assist with the ritual, it was astonishingly precise barrier work.
"Well, damn. Looks like there’s nothing left for me to teach you."
Once every binding technique and barrier had been deployed, Zenin Daisuke’s consciousness began to sink.
After a brief silence, violent cursed energy surged forth.
As a lightning storm raged around Daisuke, the binding techniques restraining his limbs began to peel away one by one.
"This is way more dangerous than it sounded. Megumi, did it feel like this when you subjugated them?"
"Not even close!"
Once every restraint had been destroyed and Nue regained the freedom of Daisuke’s limbs, the storm of cursed energy it unleashed began to rip apart even the barriers as if they were sheets of paper.
Even with 2,048 layers, it was only a matter of time before every barrier broke.
"Minami, just drop the barriers."
"What?!"
"W-Wait, what is that man thinking?!"
Minami hesitated for a moment, but she decided to release the barriers, trusting the reputation of Gojo Satoru that Daisuke had told her so much about.
If a sorcerer of that caliber had told her to drop the barriers, surely he had something in mind.
Of course, Gojo Satoru himself was simply thinking:
Found a punching bag worth beating up for the first time in a while.
That was all.
The 2,048 layers of barriers had been roughly calculated to keep Daisuke’s rampaging body restrained while the subjugation proceeded.
There were seven shikigami besides Mahoraga, whose subjugation was effectively impossible, and the already-subjugated Divine Dogs and Toad.
Assuming roughly two minutes per shikigami, the design was meant to hold out for around fourteen minutes.
Gojo Satoru was nothing more than insurance in case that calculation proved wrong.
It was just that Zenin Daisuke had never anticipated a scenario in which that insurance would sweep aside the main plan and personally step in.
"Ha-ha! Time to get some exercise for the first time in ages!"
"Shyaaaaaah!!!"
As the barriers vanished, Nue, which had taken control of Daisuke’s body, rose from its crouch.
Under Nue’s influence, countless feathers had grown from both arms, forming the shape of wings.
In an instant, Nue took flight and closed in on Gojo Satoru.
Crackle—
"?"
"Sorry, but you’re supposed to be the one getting hit."
Booom!
An attack that would have sent the usual Daisuke straight to the grave.
It was not simple hand-to-hand combat, but a punch powered by the attractive force of Limitless.
"Grrrrrrrr..."
An ominous sound came from where Nue had been hurled into the ground.
As the dust cleared, Daisuke appeared, somewhat larger than before, with horns sprouting from his head.
In the meantime, he had finished subjugating Nue and moved on to subjugating Piercing Ox.
After assuming a sprinter’s stance, Piercing Ox charged straight at Gojo Satoru.
Piercing Ox’s ability enhanced its attack power through a binding.
It could only run in a straight line, but its damage increased in proportion to the distance it covered.
Since it could not harm Gojo Satoru without breaking through Limitless, it was a meaningless charge. But deciding that would be no fun, Gojo Satoru intended to meet Piercing Ox’s charge head-on.
A pure fist filled with cursed energy—neither Limitless nor anything else—collided with Piercing Ox’s forehead.
"This is the best!"
Naturally, Gojo was the only one enjoying himself.
-
"Divine Dogs, Toad, Nue, Piercing Ox, Rabbit Escape, Max Elephant, Great Serpent, and Round Deer. That makes seven subjugations in total."
Inside Daisuke’s innate domain.
He was immediately proceeding with the subjugation of the next shikigami.
Daisuke already knew all the information about the shikigami in advance. On top of that, the location was inside his own innate domain, giving him conditions that could not have been more ideal for subjugation.
"Gojo-sensei is busy, so I need to get as many subjugations done as I can while I can use him. That way, I can put him to work later."
Now only Tiger Funeral remained, a shikigami that had not even shown its face in the original work.
"Come forth, Tiger Funeral!"
This would probably be today’s final subjugation.
At his cry, Tiger Funeral appeared.
A female humanoid shikigami with a tiger’s head and paws.
Even the furless parts of her body bore tiger stripes, as if she were aggressively advertising, I’m a tiger shikigami.
Tiger Funeral rushed at Daisuke.
When Daisuke and Tiger Funeral collided, it was Daisuke who was pushed back.
"This prickling cursed energy feels similar to Nue’s."
In Japan, Nue was originally a yokai portrayed in two forms: that of a four-legged beast and that of a bird.
Perhaps Tiger Funeral was a shikigami born from an enhanced manifestation of Nue’s four-legged-beast aspect.
"And this is..."
Daisuke recalled the instant just before they had collided.
What had met his fist was not a fist, but an open hand with its fingers spread wide.
No. That alone could not explain why he had been pushed back this far.
Realizing he needed more data, Zenin Daisuke decided to keep crashing into her, come what may.
Booom!
"I figured it out!"
After charging in like a brainless, headbutting dinosaur several dozen times,
Daisuke finally figured out Tiger Funeral’s true nature.
"It’s rock-paper-scissors!"
More precisely, Tiger Funeral’s ability was the deployment of a Simple Domain.
Depending on the conditions imposed within the domain, the damage of an attack would plummet or skyrocket.
The rule currently imposed within Tiger Funeral’s domain was a simple game of rock-paper-scissors.
Daisuke took a stance with paper in one hand and a fist in the other.
If Tiger Funeral threw rock, he would answer with paper in his left hand. If she threw scissors, he would answer with the rock of his right fist. He would answer paper with paper as well.
Because scissors, by the nature of that hand shape, carried a high risk of injuring his fingers in a fight, he deliberately excluded it.
The strategy truly worked, and Tiger Funeral no longer had the upper hand in their clashes. Rather, Daisuke was driving her back.
Tiger Funeral read Daisuke’s attack pattern and changed both of her hands into paper.
Since Daisuke had used only paper and rock without using scissors, she had decided to respond using paper alone.
But this was exactly what Daisuke had been waiting for.
Once Tiger Funeral began throwing only paper, he abruptly changed his pattern and threw scissors.
"My victory."
Daisuke’s scissors shredded both of Tiger Funeral’s arms with cutting power that could not possibly have come from a mere hand gesture, and the subjugation was smoothly completed.
-
"Mission complete. I have subjugated all nine of the Ten Shadows except Mahoraga."
"We saw it too. Every time you completed a subjugation, we watched the shikigami possessing your body change in real time."
"Still, it was pretty fun, Daisuke! How about subjugating Mahoraga now while you’re at it?"
"Don’t say something like that, even as a joke."
Immediately afterward, Zenin Daisuke collapsed flat on his back as though he had fainted.
He had not realized it himself, but the shikigami had freely borrowed his body and fought Gojo Satoru in a fierce battle—or rather, endured a one-sided beating.
As Minami carried the fallen Daisuke away to Ieiri, Gojo approached Fushiguro Megumi.
"So? What did you think of what you saw?"
"It was amazing. I’ve realized that I haven’t even drawn out half of the Ten Shadows Technique’s potential myself."
"Daisuke’s technique has a structure where he himself becomes the shikigami. It may not seem that way right now, but in terms of how versatile the technique is, the original Ten Shadows is more valuable since it lets you gang up on people.
You know what I mean, right?"
Megumi silently nodded at Gojo’s words.
Seeing that, Gojo Satoru could tell instinctively.
That today’s stimulation would exponentially accelerate Megumi’s pace of subjugating shikigami.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register