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*BOOM*
The people in the observation room saw the destruction caused by the two Special Grade Sorcerers in a matter of seconds and had their mouths wide open.
"Nii-Nii destroy more!!!!!" cheered Maki.
"More than Satoru!!!!" added Mai.
The twins were looking at the screen with their eyes twinkling. They just hoped that Naoya would drop the big black ball on Satoru as well.
Kagenori looked at the screen with a smirk. The Zenin clan's Special Grade caused more damage than the Gojo anomaly, and it was proved by the giant crater formed by Naoya's attack.
"Who the hell said that Zenin was level-headed?!" asked one of the barrier experts.
"Are these kids okay in the head? Do they not care about getting themselves and their friends caught in their attacks?" asked another barrier expert.
Nagino and Yaga, the teachers of the two students, facepalmed and sighed in frustration.
Gakuganji looked at the scene with shock. He was simply hoping that the barriers wouldn't get destroyed and his school would remain intact.
He turned towards the scoreboard to check the results.
Kyoto - 67 points Tokyo - 43
All the cursed spirits that were captured for the group event were destroyed in an instant. Kyoto was in the lead, which gave Gakuganji some sort of relief, and he decided to calm his nerves a bit and focus back on the screen.
-----
Back at the match field
Naoya lowered the shadow barrier after he felt that things were calm.
The Kyoto students looked at the destruction caused by Naoya and turned towards him.
Naoya looked at the scene and gave a sagely nod before walking towards Kuroko.
"Tetsuya, take a picture of me with the crater in the background," said Naoya and handed his phone over to Kuroko.
Kuroko dumbly nodded, took the phone and clicked the picture of Naoya ironically doing a peace sign with the scene of destruction behind him.
Suddenly, as if realisation dawned upon them, they blinked in surprise.
"It's not the time to be taking pictures!!!! You absolute idiot!!!! What would you have done if we got caught in the attack!!!!" yelled Utahime and rushed to smack her junior.
Naoya simply raised a solid shadow barrier to block the hit, making Utahime being the one to wince in pain.
"Ah!! Just let me hit you!!!" complained Utahime.
"Get better and do it. No one's stopping you," replied Naoya and took her hand and started to heal her after partially summoning Senzu.
A nerve popped up on Utahime's forehead, hearing the response, and the frustration only deepened when she realised that what Naoya said was true.
"I had it under control. I would have protected you all," replied Naoya and flicked her forehead after he was done healing her hand.
"Anyways," said Yuki, gathering everyone's attention.
"Now that the opening strike is done, it is our turn to let loose!" said Yuki enthusiastically.
Kuroko and Utahime turned serious and gave a nod.
Naoya slowly made his way towards their flag and looked at the other three.
"Leave its protection to me. Go and wreck them up!" said Naoya.
"No! No more wre-" started Utahime
"OH!!!! WRECK THEM UP!!!!" declared Yuki.
"Wreck them!!!" joined Kuroko and Naoya making Utahime wonder why she was stuck with a bunch of idiots.
On Tokyo's side:
Satoru was fast enough to block the impact from Naoya's attack using his cursed technique.
He soon landed on the ground and looked at the destroyed battlefield.
"Which one of us destroyed more?" muttered Satoru, not able to guess.
Geto and the others looked at the destruction and didn't know what to say. They knew that Gojo was immensely strong, but even then, they had never witnessed him use such power.... The worst part was that there was someone comparable to Gojo on the enemy side, and they had witnessed him unleash an equally powerful attack.
'Is this a battle we should be fighting?' thought Mei Mei, but soon shook her head and took out the axe.
"Let's start. We need to get the momentum first," said Mei Mei.
The juniors gave a nod.
Geto started summoning cursed spirits to protect the flag as well as Shoko, who was not much of a fighter. She was one of the few people who could heal others with RCT, so she was an extremely important supporter of the group and letting her go down on the front lines was not something they could afford. They would stop the attackers before they could even reach her and the flag.
Satoru, Geto, and Mei Mei gave a knowing look to each other and rushed towards the enemies.
-----
Satoru was rushing straight towards Yuki. With his [Six Eyes], he could easily point out where she was, and as he promised Naoya earlier, he would make the cheater realise that cheating is wrong by showing how much of a cheater he was.
Soon, he spotted the Special Grade sorcerer waiting for him with her arms crossed and her shikigami flying around her.
"Satoru Gojo," called Yuki with a smirk.
"Yuki Tsukomo senpai," replied Satoru with a smirk as well.
The two stared at each other for a while before Yuki suddenly activated her technique and smashed the ground, making debris fly everywhere.
Satoru simply stood still with his hands in his pockets.
Seeing the boy relaxed, Yuki's anger rose as she started running around while using the scattered debris as cover.
Satoru remained calm as ever and continued staring straight.
Seeing him relaxed, Yuki jumped up on him, ready to pummel him to the ground.
"Hm? C'mon. You can do it, senpai. Ganbare Ganbare senpai," cheered Satoru with excitement as if he was not the one blocking her fist just an inch away from him using Infinity.
"What the hell is this?!" demanded Yuki.
Satoru looked at her in mock confusion and then raised his palm directly in front of her face.
"Performance issue, I guess. Anyway, boom," said Satoru and blasted her away using his cursed energy.
Yuki was fast enough to dodge the attack and jump away.
"Where are you going, senpai? Come back," said Satoru, and pulled her back using his technique.
Once she was in front of him, he punched her with all his strength.
Yuki, though, was not that inexperienced. Even though she had no ground to move on, she summoned Garuda to be her stepping stone and used it to change her position and used her technique on her own fist to intercept the incoming fist from Satoru.
Not thinking much of it, Satoru continued with his attack and stopped Yuki's attack just an inch away from him once again.
"What? Did you think I would let you touch me? Too bad. You got baited. What can I say? I am a master baiter. Many fall for my baits."
"You talk too much! What the hell is wrong with this technique of yours?"
"Nothing. I am just too strong. Anyway, if you don't like my talking, then let me get serious," replied Satoru as a swirling blue orb started to form in his hand.
[Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue]
The swirling mass of cursed energy was lauched towards Yuki.
Yuki, seeing the attack, activated her own cursed technique.
Garuda transformed into its cursed tool form and, with its mass increased immensely, was fired towards the swirling attack by Yuki, breaking through it immediately and heading straight towards Gojo.
Satoru blocked the shikgami from approaching and narrowed his eyes. His Blue was destroyed effortlessly by Yuki and her cursed technique.
Yuki smirked and summoned Garuda back to her side.
"My Technique allows me to add imaginary mass to myself and my shikigami. This gives both of us monstrous force without affecting our movement speed at all," explained Yuki, revealing her hand and completing the Binding Vow to improve her technique's effectiveness.
"Hm? So you just hit hard....well, not effective against someone your attacks can't reach," replied Satoru.
"My technique allows me to slow things down infinitely as they reach me to the point that things come to a theoretical stop," added Satoru, completing the binding vow as well.
Hearing him say that her technique would be ineffective against him, Yuki decided to make sure to beat the cockiness out of Gojo.
Gojo continued smiling, though he realised that his Blue would not be effective since it could not crush the shikigami or Yuki before they broke through with excessive force. If she were a special grade, she ought to be able to produce catastrophic levels of force.
Both of them kept their guards up, both thinking of ways to take their opponent down.
-----
Mei Mei was moving straight towards the enemy base while being guided by the crows. Her technique was [Black Bird Manipulation]. It allowed her to take control of crows by giving them her cursed energy, and she could also share the birds' vision, making her reconnaissance ability very high.
She was keeping tabs on the entire battlefield and could see that Gojo was busy battling Yuki, while the Zenin Special Grade was guarding the flag.
'Taking the flag would be quite a difficult job...' thought Mei Mei, but soon came to a halt. She knew an enemy was hiding there and decided to deal with it.
"Come out, Iori. I know you are there," said Mei Mei.
"...Those crows of yours are really annoying," replied Utahime.
Both of them knew each other, having participated in last year's goodwill event and done multiple missions together as well.
"So, how are we doing this? You surrendering?" asked Mei Mei. She knew that she was the stronger of the two.
Utahime got serious; she knew that she was about to face a Grade-1 sorcerer, and one who was quite adept at fighting as well.
She raised her hand and started chanting.
[Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure-
Seeing her starting to chant, Mei Mei got the cue that she was going to fight her and got ready to strike her before she could complete the chant.
She raised her axe and was about to launch an attack at Utahime, however, out of nowhere, she found herself being pushed away.
"Agh!"
A pained grunt escaped her lips as she glared at the spot where she was trying to find the culprit behind the attack, but all she saw was an empty space.
She turned her gaze towards Utahime, thinking that it was she who was responsible for the attack, but the miko was busy chanting.
She stabilised herself and got ready to attack, but the moment she got a footinf another strike out of nowhere landed on her legs, making her fall.
The moment she fell, another strike landed that sent her crashing into a tree.
'What's going on?!' thought Mei Mei in panic.
She tried to look around, trying to wonder where the attacks were coming from.
In the meantime, Utahime had completed her chant and a curtain barrier was formed around them. She also made it so that the crows that were outside the barrier won't be able to enter inside, limiting Mei Mei's long-range capabilities a bit.
"Iori, you learnt some nasty technique or something? How are you attacking me like that?" asked Mei Mei, standing back on her feet and reinforcing her body with cursed energy. She was on the lookout, now cautious of Utahime.
Utahime stared at Mei Mei for a while before she, too, reinforced herself with cursed energy and started moving towards the cautious Mei Mei.
Mei Mei's eyes narrowed. Seeing that Utahime was not giving her any answers made her more wary of her.
'If she is not answering, then I need to get rid of her as fast as possible,' thought Mei Mei and prepared to launch an attack at Utahime.
Seeing her coming closer, Mei Mei too took a step forward, but found herself tripping over absolutely nothing.
'Huh?' thought Mei Mei as she saw herself falling face-first on the ground.
'What the hell is happening here?!' thought the Grade 1 sorcerer as she saw Utahime appearing directly in front of her and landing a solid, cursed energy-reinforced kick on her face, sending her flying.
Skidding a bit on the ground, Mei Mei immediately focused on getting control of her body and soon got back on her feet.
Something was definitely wrong there; she just couldn't point out what.
'Does she learn a new application of her technique? The attacks keep coming from random directions.....or is it someone else?' thought Mei Mei and used her cursed technique to survey the area around the barrier while a few birds who were still inside started looking around, trying to find the supposed other enemy.
She soon got the results.
Yuki Tsukumo was engaged with Gojo.
Naoya Zenin was keeping guard without any seriousness.
...Tetsuya Kuroko was nowhere to be found.
"Is it Kuroko?" asked Mei Mei out loud, trying to test the waters.
It was brief, but Utahime's brows twitched a bit.
'It's Kuroko!' thought Mei Mei as she realised and started looking around, only to feel a punch land on her cheek.
However, this time, instead of falling, she was prepared and held herself back with her axe and kicked the space from where the attack came from.
But this time, too, her attack only struck empty space, and she got struck again in the gut, and because of her posture, was sent back.
"He has some sort of invisibility technique.... Got it," muttered Mei Mei as she hypothesised their attack plan.
"I cannot see you, so it's difficult to hit you....Let me show you how High Grade Sorcerers work," said Mei Mei and dropped her axe on the ground.
Without any delay, with her cursed energy-reinforced body, she started running around haphazardly, making it difficult for Utahime to catch sight of her movement.
The same was the case with Kuroko. He could strike her earlier since he caught her off guard, but now that she was moving at superhuman speeds, it was difficult for him to keep track of her, and now he waited for her to give him an opportunity.
However while his focus was on finding where Mei Mei would be, he failed to notice the crows that were scattered around inside the curtain, starting to gather.
Utahime looked around warily, and a moment later, a solid punch landed on her, sending her flying, crashing through the debris.
Kuroko looked at the scene with surprise. In an instant, Utahime was sent flying by Mei Mei. He decided to intercept her once again since he saw her stop once again.
Though instead of wariness, Mei Mei looked smug.
"Come," ordered Mei Mei.
Kuroko got confused, wondering why she was calling him. Though he soon realised that the order was not for him.
*KAW KAW*
The murder of crows surrounded the skies. They were a fraction of the crows that she brought, but even still, around 50 crows were flying around.
Kuroko looked around, trying to figure out what Mei Mei was doing.
"KUROKO RUN!!!!" came Utahime's warning.
"Too late," muttered Mei Mei as the crows started revolving around Mei Mei rapidly and slowly started to expand the radius, and in a matter of moments, multiple crows, reinforced with cursed energy, struck Kuroko.
"There you are!" exclaimed Mei Mei with excitement. She could not see the boy, but the crows gave his position away.
Without waiting a moment, she lauched forward and punched Kuroko with her cursed energy-reinforced fist, sending him flying even further than Utahime.
*CRASH!!!*
"That's what you get for hitting me, you brat!" said Mei Mei and ordered her crows to fly straight towards the place she punched the boy earlier.
Utahime looked at the murder of crows in horror. She got up and started running away. She knew that the crows, just like Naoya's rabbits, could explode, which was strong enough to bring down most Grade-1 curses in a single hit, and she by no means wanted to check that claim.
"Kuroko!!! Run!!!! Plan B!!! Nigerundayo!!!!"
Kuroko felt a lot of blood in his mouth and even felt that there was some bone damage, but still, he persevered and got back in action. Plan A, which was to deal with an enemy by surprise, failed, and now they needed to shift to Plan B.
He approached Utahime and tapped her shoulder, and started running along with her, cloaking her presence along with him.
Mei Mei saw her target literally disappear from her sight and ordered the crows to fly farther, but the birds soon reached the edge of the barrier without crashing into anyone.
"Tch. Got away," muttered Mei Mei, but soon sighed. She wasn't one to dwell on small things. Right now, she had a bigger mission to fulfil.
-----
Naoya, who was waiting by the flag with Cupcake and Frosting beside him, was playing around with them noticed someone approaching him.
Cupcake and Frosting got ready as well, knowing that an enemy was approaching.
"Hm? Geto, the ball devourer?" called Naoya.
"That's not my title!!!" complained Geto as he was the first from his team to reach the enemy base.
"Haha. Don't worry. I am just joking. So need anything?" asked Naoya casually and took out a gun from his shadow and fired it at a cursed spirit that was getting closer to the flag.
"....I wanted the flag behind you," replied Geto and stared intently at the gun in Naoya's hand.
"Oh. Sorry, not for sale. You already have a flag back at your base, right? Be content with that one...Though I don't think you will have that for long," replied Naoya.
"...Looks like we are doing it the hard way?" asked Geto, and started taking his cursed spirits out and soon flooded the area with an army of curses. Though most of them were Semi Grade 2 and lower, there were some Grade 2, Grade 1 and even a Special Grade Cursed Spirit in his roster.
"...Just asking, but do you want me to annihilate all these curses? It is just a friendly match. But if you want to, we can go at it seriously. Your arsenal will get significantly weaker, though," asked Naoya in a serious tone.
"Hm? As far as I can see, I am outnumbering you by quite some margin," replied Geto.
Naoya didn't say anything and simply started making hand signs to summon the shikigami out of his shadows.
[Rabbit Escape] [Toad] [Nue] [Max Mammoth] [Great Serpent] [Piercing Ox] [Funeral Tiger] [Zankyo]
The army of shikigami stood beside Naoya and glared at Geto and his army of curses.
Geto, though, looked at the shikigami with astonishment.
Except for the rabbit, he could feel that all these shikigami were Semi-Grade 1 or stronger, with the Snake, Mammoth, Ox, Tiger, and the humanoid cursed spirit being Special Grade levels.
"Maou," ordered Naoya, and the rabbit who was standing on Zankyo's shoulder immediately summoned the demon rabbit army, flooding the area with each of the rabbits looking intently at the cursed spirits ready to go boom at a moment's notice.
Zankyo smirked and raised his hand, seeing which Maou high-fived him.
"So? Still sure about outnumbering me? Want to have a go?" asked Naoya.
Geto gulped. Five rabbits had already latched onto him, one of them even being on top of his head, looking straight into his eyes.
'Don't you dare, you bastard....' was the message that Geto seemed to be getting from the Rabbit's gaze.
He didn't know that the rabbits could go boom, but his intuition was telling him not to take this rabbit just for granted.
"I-"
"Too bad. Already too late," replied Naoya, making Geto look at him with shock. Were they seriously going to fight?
Naoya bent down a bit, and his hands passed through his shadows and from inside it he took out a flag that had 'Tokyo' written on it.
Surprise appeared on Geto's face, not able to understand what the hell just happened.
Without hesitation, Naoya planted the flag right beside theirs.
"MATCH OVER!!!! WINNER KYOTO BRANCH!!!!"
Hearing the announcement, the entire battlefield came to a halt.
Shoko, who was guarding the flag, blinked in surprise and looked around in panic. Her gaze then moved towards the flag, only to see that it was not there.
"Huh? What?" muttered Shoko in surprise.
"Yay! We won!" came a voice, making Shoko snap out of her trance and turn towards the source. There she spotted a battered Utahime and Kuroko standing there. Both seemed to be in a pretty bad shape, Kuroko more than Utahime.
Kuroko sighed and felt pain all over his body, but still, he looked at the darkened shadow below him.
His shadow was connected by Naoya's shadows through solid shadow, making it an extension of Naoya's. It was their plan from the start. Get the flag secretly, inform Naoya, by sending cursed energy to the shadows and storing the flag in the shadows. Naoya will then take it out from his shadow and end the game in an instant.
'...I am not built for this...' thought Kuroko and soon collapsed. The damages were finally starting to show an effect.
Shoko blinked in confusion....should she heal her enemies when they snuck their flag from right under her nose....
'...Gojo and Geto are going to annoy me so much for this....' thought Shoko and sighed at the future that was in store for her.