The Second Heavenly Tyrant

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"Mai!"

The sight of bright red blood left on the ground drove every Kyoto student into fury.

Maki stared blankly at her sister's blood and felt the cursed energy inside her body being drawn away bit by bit.

For the first time, her shaking hands raised her blade and pointed it at Itsuki.

Boom!

Before Maki could move, attacks from Kyoto's sorcerers shot forward.

A blood arrow nearly as fast as sound.

A wind blade sharp enough to cut flesh.

Air exploded. Rubble scattered.

Itsuki did not move.

Not even the hem of his robe lifted.

Their attacks did not qualify to touch him.

Behind Itsuki, Kenjaku frowned slightly.

Did he truly have no weakness?

That strike just now had not pierced Mai's heart head-on, but it was unquestionably fatal.

Even with Reverse Cursed Technique, healing her would require extraordinary skill.

If more than three seconds passed, even Shoko Ieiri from Geto's memories would have no chance of saving Mai Zenin.

Did being swallowed into the void mean certain death?

Kenjaku, who had never experienced Kamui, was uncertain.

As for White Zetsu being transferred into the void earlier, Kenjaku did not suspect that case.

No matter how powerful or strange White Zetsu was, a cursed spirit could not learn Reverse Cursed Technique.

Cursed spirits were born from negative emotions. When their bodies were damaged, they needed only cursed energy to recover.

The positive energy produced by Reverse Cursed Technique was poison to them.

The Sword of Extermination bound to Mahoraga's right arm was a special weapon wrapped in positive energy.

No matter how powerful a cursed spirit was, destroying it completely was only a matter of how many slashes were needed.

For a cursed spirit, learning Reverse Cursed Technique would be suicide.

The stronger the reversal, the faster it would die.

Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses, had two faces and four arms in legend.

But he had once been a real human from a thousand years ago, not a cursed spirit.

After death, he made a pact with Kenjaku, split his soul into twenty pieces, and became cursed objects.

After Yuji swallowed one of them, Sukuna became an incarnated sorcerer once more.

Because Sukuna was not a cursed spirit, he could control advanced Reverse Cursed Technique.

Kenjaku was not a cursed spirit either.

His true form was a mass of brain tissue, but that was only the manifestation of his body-swapping technique.

Like Tengen, he was a human sorcerer who had lived for a thousand years.

That was why Kenjaku could use Reverse Cursed Technique as well.

Healing someone else was something White Zetsu should not have been able to do.

White Zetsu could not do it, and Itsuki's real body had never left Kenjaku's sight.

...

Whether that was true or not...

There was still another target he could use to test it.

Before Itsuki could move, Kenjaku raised his arm and pointed at Maki.

Cursed energy surged.

"Hm?"

In the single second Kenjaku had spent thinking, he suddenly lost track of Maki's position.

He fired the gathered cursed energy toward the crowd and increased the range of his senses with a frown.

Boom!

The casual attack detonated among the sorcerers and sent rubble flying.

Kusakabe opened a Simple Domain and raised his blade in front of Utahime, Momo, and the others.

Even one careless blast from Kenjaku left the Grade 1 sorcerer gasping, blood sliding down his forehead.

While Kenjaku was still searching for Maki's position, cold light flashed beneath the corner of his eye.

Clang!

A long cut opened across his wide sleeve, and a thin line of blood appeared at his waist.

Even if it was only an insignificant graze, it was enough to surprise Kenjaku.

Draw the blade.

Kick.

Maki's clean, ruthless attacks came down like a storm.

Kenjaku ducked and blocked the whip kick aimed at his waist.

Feeling the terrifying physical strength behind it, and watching a figure he could only track with his eyes, understanding settled over his face.

There was no need to probe any further.

Itsuki Zenin was the same kind of being as him.

Emotion would not shake him.

The state Maki Zenin had reached now was the same as Toji Zenin's.

Heavenly Restriction.

Kenjaku did not use his technique or his cursed spirits.

Ordinary cursed spirits could not track Maki's cursed energy.

As for powerful or special cursed spirits, Kenjaku had no intention of exposing them in front of Itsuki.

Facing a Heavenly Restriction that had only just awakened, Kenjaku relied purely on hand-to-hand combat and still handled her with ease.

Maki Zenin's transformation was monumental.

The awakening of a second Heavenly Tyrant.

In the jujutsu world, twins were considered ominous.

A bad sign.

They were clearly two separate people, yet they shared the cursed energy of a single individual.

That could not be changed.

It could not be transferred.

Mai Zenin's innate technique was Construction.

Because Maki existed, Mai's cursed energy was incomplete.

Each day, she could construct only one bullet.

Her cursed energy was low, and it recovered slowly.

She would never have the chance to touch the core of cursed energy.

As for Maki, she had been born with a Heavenly Restriction like Toji.

But because Mai existed, Maki's restriction was not pure.

Only when one twin died, or when the connection between them was severed, could the other become whole.

Kenjaku, a thousand-year-old monster, naturally understood that truth.

Ominous twins.

A bad sign.

It had been that way a thousand years ago, and Kenjaku had conducted research in that area himself.

Maki's awakening meant that her sister's connection to this world had been...

Completely severed.

...

Inside the boundless Kamui Dimension.

Mai opened her eyes and saw the ancient tree stretching into the darkness above, and the three people bound tightly beneath it.

She instinctively touched the pain in her chest, still dazed.

Only her uniform had been torn.

The flesh on her chest had already been restored.

More than that, she could clearly feel cursed energy inside her body far beyond anything she had possessed before.

Her memory still stopped at the instant her body had been pierced.

Mai could not make sense of what had happened.

"Awake, Niece?"

She turned sharply.

Beside White Zetsu stood a massive shikigami.

The antlers on Round Deer's head glowed faintly.

"Stupid deer!"

"Stop leaking positive energy every five seconds. That stuff is bad for Uncle Zetsu, got it?"

White Zetsu shot a disgusted look at Round Deer's antlers, then walked to Mai's side in two quick steps.

"White Zetsu, what exactly happened?"

Mai stood and asked blankly.

"Hmph."

White Zetsu lifted his brows and grinned, smug from head to toe.

"What kind of person do you think Uncle Zetsu is?"

"Upgrading you two sisters and messing with that brainless idiot at the same time?"

"Easy."

"Not to brag," White Zetsu said, pointing at his head with absolute confidence, "but an IQ of six million isn't just for show."

'Who said that?'

'You?'

Feeling the sheer stupidity radiating from White Zetsu, Mai shook her head in silence.

...

White Zetsu could use Domain Expansion almost like a normal attack, and he was not afraid of cursed energy consumption.

One trip back to the Kamui Dimension refilled his reserves.

He could have kept Maki, Nobara, and Megumi trapped until the battle ended.

Instead, he had released them at the crucial moment so they could join the fight.

Everything had been under control from the beginning.

Upgrade the sisters.

Trick Kenjaku.

Confirm a few facts along the way.

If the Kamui Dimension, while used through the Sharingan, could not completely sever the twins' connection to this world, then the Rinnegan could deceive the will of the world itself.

Back in reality, Itsuki was leisurely enjoying the sight of Kenjaku being surrounded.

Maki's sudden appearances.

Todo's critical rescues.

Utahime enhancing Kamo's technique from a distance while he fired blood arrows.

Kenjaku did not look troubled.

Only mildly inconvenienced.

"Convergence: Piercing Blood!"

A compressed line of blood, reinforced with cursed energy and faster than sound, shot toward Kenjaku's head.

The timing was perfect.

Choso, the eldest of the Death Paintings, had finally arrived late.

"Noritoshi Kamo!"

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