Yuki didn't reply. Her lip curled—not in fear, but in disgust.
She stood.
Cursed energy surged, wild and electric. The ground beneath her cracked like fractured glass, the air thick with pressure. The weight of her presence dropped like a landslide.
"Star Rage—sixty percent."
The words left her lips.
A pulse of cursed energy exploded from her back as Garuda unfurled, slithering free from her clothes like a serpent uncoiling after slumber. It hovered behind her—bone-white, serpent-bodied, with eight wings rotating in slow orbit, like blades of some divine machine.
Virtual mass loaded.
Garuda's form shimmered, taking on a terrifying gravitational density. The air distorted. Rocks floated, then shattered. Every flap of its wings carried the weight of a crashing meteor.
Naoya tilted his head, smirking.
"You said the system's garbage, rotten, broken?" he said, voice low. "You're completely right."
He leaned forward, vanishing.
"But guess what—I like it that way."
BOOM.
Yuki exploded forward.
She moved like a missile—fists like tectonic events. Every strike warped the space behind it, pulverizing the forest into nothing but shockwaves and splinters. Trees cracked and were ripped from the ground by the force of her pressure.
Naoya dodged the first punch. But the second clipped his shoulder—
He grunted, body skidding across the battlefield, skipping like a flat stone across a storm-tossed ocean. He caught himself mid-air, twisted, and landed on a branch—
Crack.
It snapped beneath the weight of his cursed energy the moment his feet touched it.
"She got faster?" he thought, eyebrows lifting. "Interesting."
He flickered out of view again—
Above.
He came down like judgment—leg swinging into an axe kick.
CRACK.
Yuki raised both arms, catching the blow with her forearms—but the impact gouged out a crater the size of a parking lot. Soil geysered upward. The shockwave collapsed trees in every direction, the forest bowing under the pressure of two special grades colliding.
Naoya stood above her, perfectly balanced, his leg still pressing down against her guard.
"You must be exhausted," he said casually, almost bored. "All that thinking about the meaning of cursed energy—"
He twisted without warning.
Vanished.
Tap.
His palm brushed against her right flank.
"—while doing absolutely nothing with it."
Yuki's body locked into an animated frame.
CRACK.
Naoya's heel collided with her frozen chest like a missile.
The frame shattered—not just her cursed energy, but her momentum and posture. Yuki was blasted backward, crashing through trees and stone like a pinball. The entire forest shook from the force.
CRACK.
Her back slammed into a massive boulder, splitting it down the middle. For a moment, there was only silence—then she coughed, blood splattering the ground.
But she moved.
Reverse Cursed Technique bloomed beneath her skin, mending her injuries with glowing threads of cursed energy.
Naoya syanding above the destruction, utterly calm.
"If anyone stood around doing nothing long enough, would they make them a special grade too?" he said sarcastically.
Yuki stood, breathing heavily, blood on her lip and fire in her eyes.
"You talk a lot for someone with no original thoughts," she growled, spitting to the side. "All that speed, and you still couldn't shut me up."
He's strong, she thought. Stronger than I expected… but there's no way he can use Domain Expansion and Reverse Cursed Technique. One clean hit. That's all I need.
Garuda floated behind her, its wings spread wide, eyes locked onto Naoya like a predator.
Naoya tilted his head, amused.
"You call that standing?"
Yuki surged forward.
Star Rage: 80%.
The air distorted around her fists. Every step she took shattered the ground beneath her feet. But this time, she wasn't aiming where Naoya stood.
She aimed where he'd move.
BOOM!
A spinning backfist caught Naoya mid-step—perfect timing. Garuda coiled in from the opposite side, striking like a pincer trap. Naoya caught the shikigami's beak with both hands, but its added virtual mass made the clash feel like trying to stop a crashing freight train.
His feet dragged through the earth, carving trenches.
Yuki didn't let up.
She leapt with a roar, her knee crashing into his guard. The impact sent a shockwave across the field, trees shuddering, air howling.
Naoya grinned.
"Better."
He split into afterimages—Projection Sorcery in overdrive—his form flickering through multiple motion frames like snapshots in a film reel.
He ducked beneath her punch.
Tap.
His palm brushed her thigh.
Yuki froze mid-kick.
CRACK!
Naoya launched an uppercut into her frozen frame, shattering it and sending her rocketing into the sky.
Blood sprayed from her mouth mid-air, but her hands came together.
"Garuda—now!"
Garuda shot up like a coiled serpent, wrapping around her waist. Yuki twisted in mid-air, redirecting herself downward—a cursed-energy-charged divebomb.
Her fist exploded with power as she closed in on Naoya from above.
"This is it—"
Her punch slammed into—
Nothing.
Yuki's eyes widened in shock. Her fist phased clean through Naoya as if he wasn't even there.
A moment later—
BOOM!!
Her attack still hit the ground with overwhelming force, carving out a crater the size of a city bus. Trees disintegrated. Dust and debris erupted skyward, swallowing the battlefield in smoke and shattered stone.
Naoya looked down at her, perfectly composed.
"You know, for someone obsessed with change… you're real slow at adapting."
Yuki hit the ground hard. She skidded across the cracked terrain, coughing up blood. Her limbs felt heavier now—not just from damage, but from realization.
That… wasn't just Projection Sorcery.
Her legs trembled beneath her.
Naoya began to speak.
"You call cursed energy the poison. I call it the truth. There is no peace without power, and no power without pain. You just want the world to feel safe—without paying the price for it."
Yuki raised her eyes, steady and unflinching.
"No. I want a world that doesn't need people like you to keep it safe."
"If power requires suffering… then maybe it's the wrong kind of power."
Naoya placed a hand under his chin, mock-thoughtful.
"Huh… after thinking about it again, maybe the system isn't broken. Maybe it's just fine as it is."
Yuki's expression hardened. She slowly formed a hand sign, cursed energy building like a rising tide.
"The system is completely broken."
Naoya tilted his head.
"Hmm… maybe you're right. The system is broken."
"They let you talk in meetings, after all."
Yuki's cursed energy flared. Her voice was steady, filled with the weight of everything she had endured.
"Domain Expansion."
A flash of cursed energy spiraled from beneath her feet—her Domain taking form.
But then—
Naoya's voice came, cool and casual.
"Domain Expansion."
Yuki's eyes snapped open in shock.
Naoya spoke again, casually, as the light of his Domain coiled around her like a noose.
"When you die, no one's going to say, 'She changed the world.'""They'll say, 'Oh yeah, she was around sometimes.'"
The world around them fractured—two Domains colliding, swallowing the forest in cursed light.
........................................................................ ......
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