Chapter 125 - United Front — Clash

"Hungry..."

That wet, gurgling voice hung in the trees.

"Move!" Megumi Fushiguro barked.

They could not let this thing strike first. Every alarm from that near-death moment in the Juvenile Detention Center was screaming at him right now. A tenth of a second too slow and he'd be in pieces. Black shadows churned violently in the muck beneath his feet. Divine Dog: White bared its fangs and lunged from the flank's blind spot, wind shrieking, straight for the monster's nape.

Nobara Kugisaki was already moving. She stepped forward, half a pace, and drove her hammer down onto the suspended nail with a screaming crack. Straw Doll Technique! Three silver streaks shot straight for the Cursed Spirit's murky left eye.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Sparks burst through the dark woods. Nobara Kugisaki's eyes went wide. The nails, loaded with concentrated, piercing Cursed Energy, slammed into the Cursed Spirit's black hide and bounced clean back into the air. Not a single scratch left behind. How?! What was this thing's skin made of? Even focused piercing strikes couldn't punch through.

Divine Dog: White arrived. Its claws raked through the air and slashed into the thick cables of muscle across the Cursed Spirit's neck. No tearing sound. No flinch. The Cursed Spirit's neck muscle flexed, barely, and that was enough. Divine Dog: White yelped as its claws snapped backward. The raw physical recoil launched its entire body through the air. They couldn't hurt it.

The blood in Megumi Fushiguro's veins went ice-cold. This thing was even more off the charts than the Special Grade from the detention center. Pure physical force, standard Cursed Technique output, none of it mattered. The Horned Cursed Spirit cracked open its mouth. Black mucus dripped from its lips and hit the mud, hissing white smoke where it landed. Its right arm rose slowly. Shiiing...

Pitch-black claws erupted from its fingertips. It slashed. The air split open. Three arcs of black light came scything through the dark, moving too fast for human eyes to track.

"Get down!" Maki Zenin screamed.

Megumi Fushiguro threw himself flat into the rotting mud. Wind sheared past above his head. A few strands of black hair drifted down into the muck. Two tenths of a second longer and it would have been his skull. Nobara Kugisaki was closest. Her hammer was already halfway back, no time for any defensive move. The three black blades were locked on her waist. It's over.

Can't dodge this. I'm about to get sliced in half right in front of everyone.

"Gate of Rest — open!"

A savage roar exploded from the side. Green steam erupted from the ground like a wall. Maki Zenin lunged forward and hauled Nobara Kugisaki into her arms. Her spear, driven by the overloaded force of the Eight Gates Released Formation, swung to meet all three streaks.

BOOM!

The shockwave ripped three feet of topsoil off the ground. The spear shaft bent into a horrifying arc. Both of Maki Zenin's hands split open at the webbing between thumb and forefinger. Blood soaked the shaft. The opponent's force was absurd. The full-burst power of the Gate of Rest had cut less than half of those three streaks' momentum.

The leftover recoil hit her chest like a battering ram. Maki Zenin and Nobara Kugisaki slammed into the moss-covered boulder behind them and shattered it. Cough! Maki Zenin spat a mouthful of bloody froth, drove her spear into the dirt, and held her knees locked through sheer will alone.

Nobara Kugisaki's forearm, still gripping her hammer, shook violently and went bone-white. Every trace of color had drained from her lips. Can't beat it. Not even close to the same tier. Megumi Fushiguro pushed himself up out of the mud, hands already rising to rebuild his hand seals.

He needed Max Elephant in the air right now, pressing down from above, killing this thing's movement rhythm. Otherwise none of them were leaving this forest today. The Horned Cursed Spirit didn't care what they were preparing. Both arms went up at once. Ten black claws drove downward in a crossing slash, all at once.

Six curtains of black death sealed every angle and wove into a single massive net, slicing down across the mud from every direction. No time. Megumi Fushiguro's whole field of vision filled with rapidly expanding black blades. The kind that cut through solid rock.

"No!" He could only scream.

Clap. A single sharp clap rang in from the trees. All six arcs of black light drove straight into the muck. Ten-meter trenches carved through the earth. Shattered soil burst skyward like shrapnel. The people were gone. On the pile of broken rocks where Maki Zenin and Nobara Kugisaki had just been lying, there was only a rotting log furred with yellow mushrooms.

In the muddy pit where Megumi Fushiguro had stood, there was a stone. Thirty meters away. Dry grass. Yuji Itadori crouched low and reached out both hands to grab Maki Zenin's and Nobara Kugisaki's shoulders.

"Hey! You good? All arms and legs still attached?" The boy's face was soaked in sweat.

"Hurts like hell, but not dead! Where did you come from, you idiot? Almost gave me a heart attack!"

Nobara Kugisaki clutched her hammer and hacked out the words between violent coughs. Maki Zenin flicked the blood off her chin and used her thumb to push her round glasses back up her nose. Alive. That counted for something. Megumi Fushiguro stood frozen a short distance behind them. The cold sweat down his spine had dried hard. Aoi Todo stepped out from behind a shattered tree. Bare-chested.

His expression was grave. Bushes rustled at the rear. Noritoshi Kamo strode into the clearing in his black school uniform, longbow in hand. Kasumi Miwa, Momo Nishimiya, and Mechamaru followed close behind. Noritoshi Kamo locked his gaze onto the massive horned monster thirty meters out and didn't move it.

"Why, why is that thing here?!" Momo Nishimiya gripped her broom handle, her voice climbing fast and sharp.

"Stop the infighting." Noritoshi Kamo raised his longbow and drew the string to its absolute limit in one smooth pull. "All units. Maximum range. Kill shot."

The veins in his eyes stood out red. He compressed everything, every drop of refined blood in his body, into the arrow between his fingers. Blood Manipulation! The hatch on Mechamaru's right arm blew open with a clang. A thick particle-pulse barrel swung toward the long-horned head across the clearing.

The veins across the backs of Kasumi Miwa's hands rose as she locked her grip on her katana and dropped into her Iaido stance in one sharp motion.

"Fire!"

The blood-wrapped arrowhead screamed out, trailing crimson light. The particle-pulse cannon tore a thick column of white-hot flame straight through the forest. Razor sword energy plowed three deep diagonal furrows into the earth. Three strikes, all of them far beyond the ceiling of ordinary close-range combat, bloomed across the Horned Cursed Spirit's back in overlapping explosions.

The detonations rolled one into the next without stopping. Flames and thick smoke swallowed the giant's silhouette whole.

"Direct hit!" Kasumi Miwa shouted.

Too green. Megumi Fushiguro didn't even blink. That kind of long-range saturation against an ordinary Special Grade, sure. Against this thing? It didn't qualify as a scratch. From inside the white ash, a single black hand. It swept forward, easy and loose, brushing aside the entire skyful of cascading fire. Like an old man swatting a mosquito with a folded fan.

The smoke cleared. The Horned Cursed Spirit stood untouched. What the hell was this thing. The palm of Noritoshi Kamo's right hand prickled and went numb.

"Anyone below Grade 1, stay back. Don't waste your lives."

Aoi Todo's low, rough voice cut through the silence. Then he turned and roared into the tree pit beside him.

"Let's go, Best Friend!"

"Right!"

Yuji Itadori drove off his heel. Every muscle in his body blew wide open and fired at once.

"Gate of Life — open!"

Deep green, high-density steam ignited around him like a sudden flame. Aoi Todo grinned. Clap! The Horned Cursed Spirit's vision lurched. Yuji Itadori, who had been over thirty meters away a heartbeat ago, was standing right in front of it. Less than two feet. No warning. No sound. Close enough to see the blood-red violence filling his eyes.

"Eat this — Youthful Straight Punch!"

➤ Next: A Desperate Battle