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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
I'm putting this a/n here so that I don't interrupt the flow for these next 4 chaps (for when they're all posted ofc not rn)
But I will once more be shilling for my patreon, cuz I genuinely think these 4 chapters alone are worth the 5 bucks. Like I'd pay for them, so y'know.
Plus I'm moving house tomorrow so I certainly wouldn't mind being less worried about paying rent, but that's a side-benefit :P
Anywho, enjoy!
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Suzaku
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The capital is in chaos.
Suzaku watches it all from a vantage in the air, Genbu standing by her side in similar observation.
The Curse that has chosen to attack is unlike any she has seen before, distinctly humanoid for all that it is inhuman. More importantly, she has heard it talking. Not just the usual Curse flair either, where they simply mimic speech enough to say whatever will cause the most emotional harm.
No, this one seems genuinely intelligent. That would be a bad omen by itself even if the creature wasn't broadcasting enough power that she briefly mistook it for a Yōkai.
It truly is powerful, for a Curse. Nearing the level of a Daiyōkai if she isn't mistaken.
Worrying, but not insurmountable.
Ironically, with how close this Curse is to that level, it might actually be better for her if it were a Daiyōkai instead. The increase in strength would be offset by the fact that her bloodline has been exterminating Yōkai for over a thousand years.
There is a reason that the Daiyōkai haven't run roughshod over humanity by now, they have plenty of tricks to use. It is just that many of those tricks are only as potent as they are because hey are exclusively specialised to Yōkai.
So when facing a Curse this powerful, Suzaku can only really fight it the same as the Sorcerers below.
She's still confident that she would win, but it would be a challenge and she'd likely need Suzaku's assistance.
Either way, she isn't certain if she will need to. This Curse has picked perhaps the worst time to attack this city and is currently suffering for it as it faces half a dozen Special Grade or near enough Sorcerers at once.
There is a parallel to be made between what she is seeing now and the show that Narauko-sama had put on earlier. The differences are that this Curse is also facing Jujutsu Sorcerers and that it will not hesitate to go for a kill shot. There is also the matter of area of effect. The range of this Curse's ability is similar to what Narauko-sama displayed, it is just that there is quite the difference between bunnies and immolation.
The way that Suzaku sees it, if she does nothing, then the condition for defeat for this Curse would lie in Nanami Shiki. That woman is deadly. The issue is that this Curse is not just strong but fast, and the aforementioned area of effect makes it questionable if Nanami can even get close enough.
Were it not for Tachibana no Nagayasu leading the charge, able to recover from every attack thrown his way, and Uro Takako isolating the fighting from the surrounding capital, then the capital would be ashes by now.
As it is, Suzaku believes that the Sorcerers will come out ahead in the end. She simply doubts their ability to do so without sustaining casualties.
Well, more casualties. A number of weaker Sorcerers and Nobles have already fallen, but they are of little concern to Suzaku.
There is also the matter that Abe no Yasuchika brought up with her, but that is obviously not quite so time-sensitive.
"We should intervene." Suzaku feels no surprise when Genbu responds to her words with only a dismissive scoff.
"Our duty is only to eradicate Yōkai. Cursed Spirits are the duty of Jujutsu Sorcerers and Onmyōji. It is more important that we be prepared should the Traitor be detected by our clansmen in the chaos."
"People are dying," Suzaku counters. "If they lose control of the situation, that Curse could burn down the entire capital and end countless lives."
"A moral argument," Genbu waves her words away. "They have their duty, we have ours, and nowhere in our duties is there a moral obligation. If you want to be proactive, then we should seek that woman that the Abe boy pointed out."
"Yasuchika-kun is only three years your junior, Genbu-kun, and moral obligation should not be a matter of profession but humanity. Regardless, he only felt a suspicion, not a certainty. The potential Yōkai is not even aware of our suspicion in the first place; we can track her down after this mess and discover the truth then."
"You do not think it is suspicious that an anomalous Curse like this would attack right as Abe would point out a Yōkai infiltrator?"
"Of course I do, but priorities must be—"
Suzaku cuts herself off with a deep frown as she watches the Curse open its Domain, subsequently causing five separate Domains to open at the same time in defence.
The Domains clash and almost immediately fall apart, but that is of lesser importance to Suzaku than the feeling of her ears popping as Uro-chan's Technique burns out. There is a distinct, indescribable swiping sound as the sky snaps back into place, leaving the Curse suddenly a lot closer to the surrounding capital than a moment ago.
"I am going," Suzaku informs Genbu, not waiting for a response before she is rocketing down to the fight.
The Imperial Palace is still multiple kilometres wide, so without Uro to isolate things, what matters is keeping the Curse within the walls of the Palace, so as to save the rest of the capital.
The current Palace is only recently built anyway, it can be rebuilt even quicker with the same workers still alive.
She arrives just in time to see the Kiyohara woman be thrown back with what would have been a lethal wound were it not for the fact that she knows the woman to be capable of Reverse Cursed Technique.
The Curse is clearly smart enough to target those with troublesome Techniques in these seconds that they are down, and it has the ability to do so, physically surpassing the other Sorcerers. That much is evident from how it immediately went for Kiyohara-dono.
It's clearly some form of volcano Curse—like an evil Kagutsuchi-sama—so even if its Technique is burnt out for the next few seconds, there isn't much point in attacking it with fire. Luckily, her Technique is suited to avoiding that trapping.
It would be best if she can end this fight in the next few seconds, while she is the only one with her Technique active. It would have been even better if the Sorcerers were more coordinated and only one or two of them countered the Curse's Domain so the others could keep fighting, but what more can she expect from Sorcerers outside of the Principle Clans?
It's not that she looks down on them necessarily, just that the level of opposition they are trained for is entirely different. What is a Curse or Curse User compared to a Yōkai, after all? She doubts any of them are used to seeing destruction on this scale before.
Regardless, Suzaku shakes the useless thoughts away and focuses, rushing to the falling Uro—unable to remain in the air without her Technique aiding her—and blocking a decapitation kick from the Curse.
The air cracks around the point of impact, and her arm almost folds before Suzaku reinforces it for her. She is surprised by the numbing pain that lances through her, and mentally ups the threat level of this Curse, who clicks its tongue at her block.
Stronger than I thought. Thanks for catching me, Suzaku, that'll bruise.
The warm feeling of the Vermillion Bird's attention flows through her before abruptly flipping into ice in her veins as blue fire erupts around her and out, exploding forward in a torrent that turns all it touches into windswept sculptures of ice.
All but her target, whose speed still surprises her, allowing him to duck close under the blast and spin his blocked kick into a rising roundhouse.
Suzaku brings a shin engulfed in blue flame up to block at the same time that she snaps an arm out to catch the fast little thing, but she falters in hesitation as its kick connects and a burst of Positive Energy emits from the Curse.
What?
"Aaaagh!!!" The Curse roars in pain, a natural result of interacting with Positive Energy, "Again!?!"
'Again'?
Suzaku's momentary hesitation passes and she grabs a hold of the Curse by an upper arm before it can recover from its apparent shock; scorching it with Suzaku's inverted fire until its form starts to blacken from the cold and snow starts to fall from the change in atmosphere.
However, right before the Curse would be exorcised, ending this engagement with the haste expected of her personal intervention; a fucking fishing pole impacts the side of her head hard enough to knock her to the side and force the Curse out of her hand.
A fishing pole!
Suzaku's head snaps back to trace the impact to its source, but that only leaves her staring at the clouds above, wondering who the fuck threw a fishing pole at her?
A burst of heat pulls her mind back to the fight to see the Curse glaring at her, radiating that sort of wild, uncontrolled malice so typical of their kind. Not a second later, a staff snaps into being above the Curse already mid-swing.
As she watches it plummet to the earth below, Suzaku replays the previous exchange in her head.
The Positive Energy only came after it landed a hit on me. It's obviously not its own ability, being a Curse, so has it been affected by a Technique? It said 'Again', so this wasn't the first time, how many came before? The Positive Energy only came on its second hit, so it's not 'a Technique that harms the target when they land an attack'. A required number of hits then? Or is there a different condition? Too many potential answers, it could be a matter of elevation or angle of attack for all I know. I need more information.
Looking down, she sees the Tachibana boy and Kiyohara-dono reengaging the Curse in close-quarters, Uro is back to isolating the fight from the capital, Nanami is missing. There are plenty of Sorcerers surrounding, ready for an opportunity but ultimately out-classed and mostly limited to damage control. They could likely win if it came down to it, but she does not intend for it to go that far. These students are talented enough anyway.
A Golden Era indeed.
Suzaku hops over to Uro, who is once more in the sky.
"Have you see the Curse explode with Positive Energy?" She asks, keeping an eye on the fight. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere good, the students are barely holding on and doing little more than stalling it. Where is Nanami?
Uro's eyes only briefly glance at Suzaku before dismissing her with blatant scorn, which rankles, but as she said to Genbu, priorities.
"It did. Near the beginning once, a second with you."
"Details, Uro-san. Were there any clear conditions to it? How many blows did it land first?"
Uro shrugs. "Figure it out yourself."
Fucking Sorcerers, Suzaku mentally complains.
Suzaku pauses as a wide pulse of Cursed Energy swells around them, forming an enormous dome over a significant portion of the capital before locking in place.
Tengen-sama no doubt. Good. That makes things easier.
///
Ki no Tokibumi
///
Tokibumi wonders if he should be grateful to have been publicly shamed by Narauko just the other day. He didn't take it too personally, but there's no denying that it looks bad for him and his peers to have been handled with such ease.
However, facing this abomination of a Curse here and now; he is fairly sure that without having first witnessed Narauko, he would have felt overwhelmed by its sheer speed. Even the absurd display of power can be understood more than the speed, it's unreal how strong this thing is.
It's scary as Yomi! If not for the fact that he has a little cousin that he likes in the capital right now, he'd have already run away. He's technically still a student, so he probably wouldn't even get into too much trouble from abandoning his duty. He hasn't sworn the same oaths yet, so he wouldn't technically b dishonouring his family name.
Technically.
Regardless, such fantasies are only for his mind. He is here now, and he has little choice but to fight.
It sucks.
Alas, there is nothing for it. So Tokibumi masters his fear as he always has, and he gets back to it.
He feels his burnt out Technique return only moments after the Curse in the sky ignites into an inferno. He was really hoping that the Himejima would handle it, but he's hardly shocked that they would fumble in their arrogance.
Please take this seriously, I'm scared over here!
Tokibumi swings his staff down, judging the distance and extending it in the moment before impact, slamming the burning Curse straight into the floor.
He blinks at the feeling of danger that immediately follows and retracts his staff, twirling it vertical and extending again to throw himself into the air as the floor beneath him lights up like iron in the forge.
Even falling through the air, he feels the heat suffocating him, a thick, cloying sensation like the air itself has melted into pitch. What trees don't collapse into the heat like melting wax light up as if a hundred giant bonfires, changing the very hue of the world into a shade of angry red.
Isn't this a little bit absurd? He can't help but complain. Should there be such a discrepancy between Special Grades?
He knows that he is deserving of the rank, but it's hard to feel that way when in the span of less than a week, he is forced to face two individuals who match against him as he does a Grade One.
Down below, he watches twin blurs hurtle themselves at the Curse, Kiyohara and Tachibana.
He's glad they're around, since the two of them are more or less impossible to kill. Assuming they have their Techniques available anyway.
A presence approaches from behind him before he can re-join the fray, and Tokibumi turns slightly, not letting the Curse out of his line-of-sight, to regard Ashiya Dōman.
"Give me your stick," Ashiya absently demands. "I don't know all the details myself, just hurry."
Tokibumi moves off of his staff to step on the air and shrinks it back into his hand before passing it over without a word. There is a time and place for pride.
"Kiyohara seems to think Tayū-chan will show up somehow," Ashiya explains as he takes the staff and slaps a talisman over the shaft near one end, and he shrugs at the look Tokibumi sends him for his words. "I don't know either. Her father's just died though, so I guess she deserves a break. When Tayū-chan appears, I'll disable the Curse for a moment, use this to spear through Tayū-chan and get her away. She's good with Reverse Cursed Technique."
The talisman flashes and a small barrier appears around his staff like a guard and Tokibumi more or less understands.
Tayū-chan—he assumes that to be Ise no Tayū—is likely too weak to survive against this Curse, but skilled enough with Reverse Cursed Technique to survive the rather violent exit strategy being recommended.
"Alright, I gotta—" Ashiya interrupts himself as they both wince seeing Tachibana be melted near down to the bone with an agonised scream before managing to catch himself with his Technique and snapping back to health. "Where in Yomi did this Curse come from?"
Tokibumi finds himself nodding along with Ashiya's muttered words before the man shakes his head and leaps closer to the fighting.
Tokibumi continues to watch as he lowers himself as close to the ground as he is willing to get with he heat rolling off of it.
Watching a titanic spear of icy-blue fire fall from the sky onto the Curse like Divine Punishment, Tokibumi is more than happy to be relegated to a role that keeps him away from all of that. A feeling that is only reinforced when two equally enormous hands of pure magma rise from the earth and fucking catch it.
Realistically, Tokibumi himself is confident that he could have done the same in that Curse's position. He just really would rather not be in the position to do so.
His hair and clothes whip violently as the echo of force from the impact passes him by, nearly deafening him with the roar of fire, and then a lot of things happen at near the same time.
First, he watches Tachibana's body hurtle out of the dust cloud the previous impact wrought, immediately followed by another echo of force dispersing the dust entirely. Presumably, the force of whatever blow knocked Tachibana away being the cause.
Then, with the air cleared, Tokibumi has no trouble watching as the Curse erupts with Positive Energy again, this time to a significantly higher degree, to the point that he hears the Curse screeching in agony even with the not insignificant distance separating them.
Then, as that is happening, the Himejima woman sends down another lance of blue fire, only for Kiyohara to throw herself into the path of the attack, defending the Curse.
He doesn't even have the time to process that as Ashiya drops from the sky like a comet and crashes into the earth behind the Curse and lays a palm on its back. As he does, the Curse vomits forward and a woman slides out of its mouth, landing on her hands into a forward roll that leaves a strip of melted flesh behind her as her bare skin touches superheated earth.
Tokibumi doesn't let the many building thoughts distract him from acting, pointing his staff at the woman and activating his Technique in the same moment that the Curse throws a hand forward at the woman in question.
However no fire comes, and in fact the temperature rapidly lowers, leaving the Curse blinking in confusion as Tokibumi's spear snaps across the distance, piercing the naked woman and—thanks to Ashiya's talisman—yanking her along with it and throwing her far into the distance.
What the fuck is going on, Tokibumi finally manages to think, yet that brief moment of inattention costs him as he watches Ashiya be backhanded out of the fight before blinking at a blur shooting in his direction.
His brain only manages to recognise the movement after the impact, and he stumbles back, nearly falling out of the sky as he turns his had down to see some weird, giant insect sticking into his stomach.
Huh? He blinks dumbly at the expanding spot of red. What?
A shaky hand reaches to pull the thing out as a ringing, high pitched sound echoes in his skull, and then it starts to bulge and there is light and heat and pain and then... darkness.
///
Himejima no Suzaku
///
There is no time for useless distractions in the middle of a battle, so Suzaku does not stop to ask why a woman fell out of the Curse. She just acknowledges that she was likely the cause of the Positive Energy, that knowledge of this fact is the reason that Kiyohara-dono blocked her attack, and that she shouldn't expect the Curse to suffer any more bouts of Positive Energy.
With that in mind, she dives straight back into battle, forming wings of fire on her back to aid her manoeuvrability and twin spears in her hands to make it harder for anyone to stop her attacks from reaching the Curse.
Kiyohara-dono is one step ahead of her, but the Curse has learned its lesson and doesn't even bother trying to fight her. Instead, it just leaps away, moving just too fast for Kiyohara-dono to keep up with.
Yet, its course is near immediately inversed as Uro—no longer occupied with damage control thanks to Tengen-sama—twists the sky in a way that hurts to observe and hammers the Curse straight back into Kiyohara.
The Curse snarls, but moves fast enough to flip and vault over the woman with one hand, straight into Suzaku's path. Her spears both slam through the Curse's torso and pin the creature into the floor with enough power to crater it.
The creature glares at her with its sole abominable eye as frostbite once more burns through its body in lances of flame.
But instead of wailing as expected, it grins at her through blackened teeth, an expression that shares no resemblance to what it represents when used by a human. This is an expression of malice alone by a creature that knows no other emotion.
"We are the true humanity."
Suzaku almost recoils at what a vile statement that is to hear from a Curse of all things, only to be distracted as between one moment and the next, a volcano appears beneath the Curse's back and immediately gouts a torrent of unnaturally heavy fire that throws her off of it.
Her own armour of frozen fire protects her from taking any actual damage, but that does little to soothe her ire at the bastard escaping death a third time.
As the fire dissipates, she looks down to see the Curse running from Kiyohara-dono once more, shooting beams of fire back at her to no effect. Tachibana closes in, but is near immediately flung straight back out of the fight by an insectile Shikigami the Curse throws at him.
"Enough of this!" The Curse yells out its frustrations, not stopping its rapid movement as a pulse of power brings its aura to even greater heights. "Maximum Technique: Meteor!"
A Maximum? Curses are capable of that?
The idea that Curses might be evolving is as ridiculous as it is worrying, but Suzaku doesn't have the time to think about that as a rapidly growing trail of destruction follows in the Curse's wake until a boulder the size of a small mountain, a meteor rises into the air and flies ahead of it.
It moves with such speed and mass that the air ignites around it as it ascends into the Heavens, an act that Suzaku finds more insulting than any other for the sheer temerity to trespass the halls of the Ōkami.
"What are you doing!?!" Kiyohara abruptly yells out, and Suzaku looks down in confusion as the words are aimed at her. "Move!?"
Suzaku turns her eyes back up to the now falling meteor and she finds herself questioning the other woman's estimation of her ability. She has plenty of time to avoid—
...Something is off.
Suzaku blinks as the Vermillion Bird within her flares in power, banishing a haze from her mind she did not even notice was there and immediately she is hit by the sensation of heat and the sight of burning stone bare metres above her nose.
An illusion? This feeling...
Eyes wide with revelation, Suzaku is able to spare only one more thought before her world becomes one of heat and pressure and pain, and she Curses the word with all the vitriol in her heart.
Yōjutsu!!
///
Tamamo-no-Mae
///
Hidden amongst the more adventurous of the Nobility—mostly just Lady Shōshi and a couple others really, only allowed to stay and watch in the first place because of Lady Shōshi's influence—Tamamo cannot help the satisfied grin on her lips as she watches the Himejima whore be slapped out of the sky like an insect.
It feels like justice. Millenia of slaughter repaid in force, and Tamamo will always remember for the rest of her life that moment of impact, where the entire world seemed to tilt and crumble from the force of it. Earth and magma in equal parts echoing from the point of impact like a splash in water, leaving roughly half of the entire Imperial Palace's multi-kilometre wide grounds in utter ruin.
It is an attack that she would not come away unscathed from receiving herself, even as she is now. Assuming it would actually hit her of course. So seeing that land on a Principle Clan Matriarch?
It's a sight better than sex.
The only reason the people around her don't suffer any aftereffects is because of a number of Techniques being deployed to keep the ground stable and the air undisturbed. Even then, there is nothing to stop the mix of awe and fear flaring from every human around her without exception.
Those feelings do not fade as the Curse ramps up the show, beginning to throw around geysers of liquid fire that tower all the way to the clouds. They will likely have to leave soon, as the area of danger continues to grow larger. To the point that Tamamo is even beginning to revise her estimation of how this fight will end.
She is still sure the Curse will lose in the end, but it seems to be a lot closer than she first thought. It is also simply an enjoyable spectacle, though maybe that is still just the lingering vindication at the Himejima Matriarch's probable death.
Tamamo drops to her knees and blinks at the sudden lethargy infecting her bones. She looks down to see glowing golden rings coiling around her torso, locking her arms close and draining her strength to a degree she hadn't thought possible.
"I knew it," a smug voice claims from her side. Not from any of the men and women she knew to be in her vicinity.
She tests the bonds lightly as she turns to face it, finding that Abe boy standing behind her, both arms held horizontally in her direction. One hand holds a talisman up, while the other holds a Ritual staff directly below the talisman and parallel to the earth.
How did he get there without me noticing? Teleportation?
The Minamoto clan do have a history of spatial related Techniques and they are in the capital, so it isn't an unreasonable assumption. Still, she feels that for all they are weakening her, that she can break these bonds.
Of course, turning her head the other way, she takes in the sight of Dōman no Genbu and knows that this won't be so simple.
If it's only the one, I can probably win. He must have sensed the illusion, since it wasn't his senses it was intended to obscure. Careless of me.
She can't help that she is inexperienced, being not even a century old. Next time she uses a targeted illusion like that, she will ensure to cast a wide-area minor illusion on anyone else present in order to hide it.
"So it seems, Abe." The Dōman bastard begins, his eyes not straying from her form. Tamamo pushes aside the instinctive hate for all that he represents for just a moment to notice how odd he is. For one, the lack of honorific with Abe seems strange in this tone, but mostly... She doesn't feel any hostility from him, despite his clear intentions. "I will see your clan commended for this."
The Abe radiates a mixture of pride and annoyance at that, and Tamamo can't help but find it pathetic.
"What is the meaning of this?" Lady Shōshi's cutting voice interrupts from further afield. Of the half dozen or so humans around her, they have all moved a distance away from her with these two appearing.
Tamamo can't help but raise a brow in the woman's direction, not understanding this interruption.
"Under my authority as the Patriarch of the Dōman clan, I am sentencing this Yōkai to death." Genbu matches actions to words by drawing a sword that almost causes Tamamo to hiss as her skin fizzles from its aura alone. It is a sword specifically made to kill Yōkai, that much is clear, and she does not want to know how it feels to be cut by such a blade. "Do not interfere."
"Do not think yourself above me, boy," Lady Shōshi immediately retorts, actually managing to make the Dōman pause at the same time that the four other Sorcerers present all move to defensive positions before the woman, headed by Akazome Emon. "Your Clans may have plenty of latitude to act as you please, but you are not beyond reproach."
The Dōman is visibly struggling to understand her words, or rather, why they are being spoken, and honestly, Tamamo isn't faring much better.
Why is she doing this? Is she... defending me?
"This is a Yōkai," Genbu emphasises as if explaining to a child while gesturing at her. "It is my duty to eliminate Yōkai, no one but the Emperor or the Kami themselves have the authority to stop me."
"Yet I posses the ability to petaton the Emperor and have that boy listen," Lady Shōshi once more counters without a care, before turning her eyes to Tamamo herself and disregarding Genbu entirely. "You can speak for yourself, Nariko-chan. Are you a Yōkai?"
Tamamo... Tamamo just finds herself staring. Just for a moment.
Because she knows what this is. What is being offered.
Lady Shōshi is sticking her neck out for her. All she has to do is deny the accusation, and Lady Shōshi will support her claim, even if doing so will invariably damage her own standing, because no one will misunderstand what is happening.
She is a Yōkai, and that point is all but cemented as fact by now, everyone here knows it. Yet despite that, Lady Shōshi still makes this offer. Still puts herself in the fire for her sake.
Tamamo finds herself smiling, and she is sure that she sees some mischief hidden in those eyes despite the woman's stern expression.
She thinks that she gets it, now. The point Narauko was trying to get across to her. At least in part.
So Tamamo looks this Human in the eyes, and she smiles and she nods her head.
"Yes. I am."
Lady Shōshi frowns a little deeper at her words, and meets her eyes with a glare that quickly folds into amused acceptance. She understands.
"It seems I was mistaken," Lady Shōshi forces herself to say. "As you were, Dōman-kun."
Genbu seems conflicted between the desire to kill a Yōkai and the desire to not be seen as 'losing' to Lady Shōshi by acquiescing to her. However, the decision is taken out of his hands by yet another interruption to Tamamo's execution.
Her head snaps to the side—followed a fraction of a moment later by Genbu and then again by the rest—as she feels a whisper against her senses that resolves into yet another Sorcerer appearing beside her. Only, this one did not teleport. That was just pure speed, and even then, the Cursed Energy he is giving off is so minuscule compared to the demonstrated ability that she almost thinks it's Narauko for a second.
It is not, unfortunately. Or perhaps fortunately, considering the situation. Instead, it is a pink-haired young man in Jujutsu robes.
Tamamo has an inkling that she may know the identity of the latest arrival.
That inkling becomes a near certainty when the man smiles.
Tamamo knows malice. She can still feel an endless font of it rampaging in the distance. She knows hate too. She still feels it burning away in her chest every second she spends in the presence of this Dōman scum.
The expression she sees on this man makes it clear to her that he is Sukuna, the 'friend' Narauko has spoken of. Because Narauko is a man who Loves, and he does so sincerely and purely. He has also called Sukuna his equal opposite on numerous occasions, and so Tamamo knows that this is Sukuna without a shadow of a doubt.
Because that smile is not just malice or hate. No, it is more pure than the animal malice of Curses or the justified hatred of Tamamo's.
This expression is just Evil. Not out of any injustice or animal instinct or great cause.
Just pure, unprompted, Evil.
"Oya~, what is this~?" Tamamo is caught entirely off-guard by Sukuna's tone, as his voice and his words do not at all match with the entirely unconcealed feelings beneath. "An innocent young lady is being assailed~? I suppose I should intervene~."
An uneasy feeling settles in her gut the more he speaks. She would perhaps find it amusing that she finds this more concerning than the little trap and execution she had already been in, if not for the undirected feeling of growing dread in her stomach. She still isn't worried for herself, of course, but there is something. She just has no idea what.
"There is no need, Sorcerer-dono," the Abe boy answers, clearly understanding enough that he is outclassed, even if Sukuna remains barely a whisper of Cursed Energy. Tamamo is a little bit vindicated to know that this Abe boy really does just have good senses. "This is not an innocent woman, it is a Yōkai. Dōman-sama will execute her under the authority of the Principle Clans, so there is no need to interfere."
She does wish they would stop referring to her as an it.
Sukuna looks at the man, blinks, and then he holds a hand up to his ear and makes an expression as if he didn't hear a word said.
Tamamo fails to stifle a snort at the affronted expression that grows on the Abe boy, and Sukuna turns to send her a grin in response.
That has her amusement drying up quickly.
There is nothing positive about that smile.
What is he planning?
Whatever his intentions are, Tamamo is certain that no good will come of them, and that she will soon learn them regardless.
In an attempt to avert whatever Narauko's 'friend?' is planning, Tamamo releases the illusion covering her form. Nearly every Human flinches upon seeing her, that same instinctual reaction she once expected to see in Narauko. The only ones that don't are Shōshi and Sukuna, the former seeming intrigued while the latter clearly just doesn't give a fuck.
"I really am a Yōkai," Tamamo once more admits, meeting Sukuna's eyes with a calm smile, no matter how his own eyes unnerve her. Part of that, she thinks, is because of how uncomfortably they remind her of Narauko, even in their differences.
I think I would have preferred if you were exaggerating, Narauko dear.
"Hmmmmm~," Sukuna tilts his head hither and thither, humming in exaggerated thought before snapping his fingers and pointing a finger to sky as if in revelation. "Slander! Tsk, how disappointing, I can't believe you'd frame a poor innocent girl like this, even illusioning her into a Yōkai! How shameful~. I suppose I will just have to be a Hero~."
He is very clearly just choosing to see and hear exactly what he wants to, which is a pretty tough attitude to beat insofar as her desire to circumvent whatever he is planning. Tamamo also is not fond of the way he said 'Hero'. She has never heard a word so insincerely spoken.
Yet still, she can't help a niggling feeling in the back of her mind.
Why does this feel familiar...
"Hero?" Genbu scoffs, seeming to be the only one somehow not picking up on the subtext. Everything Sukuna is presenting makes it clear that he is barely restraining himself from violence. Everything except for his insincere words. "To defend a Yōkai would make you a traitor of Humanity. If that is your choice, then I shall take two heads today."
"Woah~, that's a cool line, do you practice it in the mirror~?" Sukuna taunts with a brevity that still unsettles her for the violence barely hidden beneath. "Don't you know? To be kind is to put the needs of others above one's self." Sukuna drops his lecturing expression into a bland shrug. "Probably, I don't really get it myself."
Those words are the only ones she has heard of him so far that feel even remotely truthful.
It is only with that contrast that Tamamo realises what has been gnawing at her about him...
A titanic explosion shakes the earth beyond the ability of the Sorcerers to prevent, and all eyes turn to the resting meteor to see it shatter into shrapnel as an enormous Phoenix of pure flame emerges from the stone. Its fiery form is split down the centre, half burning hot and the other icy blue.
"Yōkaiiiiii!!!!!"
The manifestation's screech grates against the ear and drowns out all other sounds, while the sheer presence of the Vermilion Bird weighs down on all beings like a blanket of iron, flattening every remaining tree within these walls. Tamamo is disappointed by what its emergence means.
"Scary~," Sukuna comments once the sound passes. "Don't worry though, Little Lady, I'll keep the big bad bird away~."
...This is how Narauko would act.
That's what it is. He is saying all the words that Narauko would say, acting as Narauko would. Just... twisted. Like a monster wearing the skin of her lover, saying all the right things but not meaning any of it. A mockery more personal than any insult he could give.
And then it is worsened all the more as Sukuna stops hiding his own presence in response to the Himejima's emergence, and Tamamo almost chokes on the cloying sense of cruel anticipation she tastes on the back of her tongue.
This is your friend?!?!?! Tamamo finds herself thinking, heavy with disbelief. How!?!
She doesn't have the time to ponder that insanity, as in the same instant that Sukuna let his true colours fly freely, Genbu attacks on pure instinct, sending a horizontal slash at the pink-haired man.
Sukuna steps into and under the blow, twisting so fast as to be a blur before landing a heavy kick on Genbu's stomach, cracking the air and sending the man flying. The Abe boy only has time to stumble back from the aftershock before freezing as Sukuna comes to a stop resting a palm on the boy's chest.
"W-Why are you doing this?" The Abe asks, staring with wide eyes at the hand that he just knows will be his end.
"Because~," Sukuna trails off, leaning just a bit closer and grinning a wide, manic smile, "I am kind~."
The low, sadistic laughter that follows the claim immediately discredits it, but the Abe has no time to appreciate that before Sukuna turns him into a fine red mist with only a twist of power.
Sukuna glances at the towering Phoenix briefly before turning back to the rest of them.
"Tamamo, right?" He asks, not waiting for an answer before moving his attention to the Humans behind her. "Don't worry~, I will save you."
Tamamo's bindings—already weakened from the one holding them in place turning into soup—shatter around her as she surges up and in the way of a barely perceptible slash of Cursed Energy, batting it away with the back of her hand before it can kill all of the Humans behind her.
"Oi, can't you see I'm trying to save you here?" Sukuna complains, and his glare is a lot more honest than his promises. "It would defeat the point if I hurt that idiot's lover."
That is an interesting choice of phrasing, Tamamo finds herself thinking. But they only have so much time before the Principle Clansmen attack, so she just follows her hunch and gets to the point by nodding at Lady Shōshi and speaking quietly enough that he should be the only one to hear her.
"That is Narauko's grandmother." The 'probably' remains unsaid, but if he is here ostensibly to protect her because of her relation with Narauko, then telling him this should keep him from attacking Lady Shōshi.
Sukuna hums thoughtfully before shrugging with a thoughtful mutter. "I suppose there would be no sense to risking it."
Another interesting phrasing, Tamamo thinks before blinking and turning around to see everyone but Lady Shōshi fall apart, haphazard cuts cleanly separating them all into chunks.
Woodenly, Tamamo turns her glare back to Sukuna, who seems to take the look as one of questioning as he absently flicks his fore and middle fingers like scissors.
"Monomolecular edge," he tells her, though she doesn't know what that means. "I used to think of my Technique like a sword, but I've realised that you don't really need a whole blade to cut something. It's only the very edge that's required to separate something into two. Though, if you make it too thin then it'll just go through without touching anything at all, apparently. Quantum tunnelling or something." Another helpless shrug and smile, "To be honest, I barely understand half the nonsense that idiot says."
"Why," Tamamo asks, conscious of the suddenly sharp attention being paid her way by the Principle Clansmen, "Did you do that?"
"Hmmm~? Didn't I already say~?" Sukuna leans forward and grins that manacle, savage grin at her, a total contrast to Narauko's smile in every way imaginable. Even his rich voice pitches upwards as he speaks with clear, unfiltered sadistic joy. "This is kindness~. HehehehahahahaHAHAHAHA! I'M HERE TO SAVE YOU! HAHAHAHAHA~!!"
He's insane. No, any Jujutsu Sorcerer is insane. He's worse. An abomination. A culmination of every prejudice I've been trying to forgive.
If she had more time, perhaps she would have pursued that, but there is no more time. It's clear to her now that the two Sacred Beast Inheritors have only waited this long to see if they would kill one another, and that time has run out.
So Tamamo turns away from the monster in human skin and she detaches one of her tails, sending the clone to carry Lady Shōshi away to safety.
She can feel the Himejima's glare on her skin. That towering Phoenix in the sky looking down on her with distain and rage for the attempt on her life. Or perhaps just because Tamamo is a Yōkai, it could go either way.
Regardless, it's clear that the woman is going to be her foe, so Tamamo can only hope that Sukuna can delay the Dōman long enough for Tamamo to win, and then promptly die before she can be in a position of blame for not offering help.
She really does think that would be the best outcome.
There is no place in the world for beings like him.