Chapter 170: My Turn!!!
The power of Binding Vows is undoubtedly formidable, but greatness often implies corresponding side effects—especially for power obtained without much effort.
Take, for instance, sorcerers born with Heavenly Restrictions. Their abilities receive an empowerment that would be absolutely impossible under normal circumstances, yet the physical toll on their bodies is irreversible.
Throughout history, sorcerers with Heavenly Restrictions have not been rare; in almost every era, there were dozens of individuals born with congenital deficiencies due to the power of a "Vow."
Ultimately, they lived their entire lives unable to find a way to liberate themselves.
This is because the power of a Binding Vow acts directly upon the form of the soul. Yet, the Jujutsu world, despite its thousand-year history, has not even been able to definitively prove the reality of the soul's existence.
A specialized technique like Idle Transfiguration, which allows the user to alter the world through the perspective of the soul, has only one recorded instance in the entire history of Jujutsu—and it manifested in a Cursed Spirit.
If this uniqueness could truly be replicated, why would Kenjaku have waited a thousand years until the present to finally harvest Mahito's technique?
It's possible he never even imagined such a technique existed before this.
Aside from vows made with oneself, sorcerers frequently use Binding Vows with others to ensure mutual reliability. The simplest example is: "One party provides a large sum of money, and the other kills a designated target."
Vows made with oneself are generally permanent and do not carry extra side effects if maintained.
For example, using a Vow that limits the time a technique can be used in exchange for a power boost during that window. If a sorcerer who has sacrificed nothing active violates the conditions, the worst-case scenario is usually just losing the means to gain power that way again.
Similarly, trading "never being able to use something again" for power means the sorcerer only loses that specific thing.
However, if one violates a Binding Vow made with another person, the backlash is incredibly potent—you can never be certain when or how that restrictive force will explode.
It is predictable that the backlash of a Vow is never easy.
At best, it leaves you unable to use Cursed Energy for a long time, or results in a permanent weakening of your total Cursed Energy reserves.
In short, there is at least a 20% chance that a Vow's backlash will directly or indirectly take a sorcerer's life. Even other negative impacts are things no sorcerer is willing to endure, which is why few are willing to break the constraints of a Vow.
Up to this point, the basic theory of Binding Vows is quite clear; a thousand years of research by sorcerers hasn't been entirely in vain. However, once the rules of the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game were applied to the conditions of a Binding Vow, all the effects became blurred again.
If the stacking and chaining of various special effects are considered college-level teaching, the Jujutsu world's original exploration of Binding Vows could, at most, be called toddler arithmetic like 1 + 1 = 2. No sorcerer had ever dared to use Vows in such a "Russian nesting doll" fashion before; such behavior was practically suicidal.
Therefore, to prevent Megumi Fushiguro from accidentally falling into an irreversible abyss, Romm strictly forbade him from using these Vow powers directly in actual combat for now.
After all, no sorcerer had ever used the power of a Vow in such a refined, wordplay-heavy manner. Who knew if using a similar effect in battle would be counted as a "Constraint" established with the opponent?
Furthermore, who knew if the backlash for breaking such a refined Vow would be the same as a standard one?
Only after Megumi became familiar with the various rules of Yu-Gi-Oh! and could understand the effect chains and negations between cards did Romm help him establish a very basic, yet powerful Binding Vow.
That rule was the most fundamental rule of Yu-Gi-Oh!: Only one monster can be Normal Summoned per turn.
The actual effect manifested in the Ten Shadows Technique was this: Every time the opponent completes a turn with a clear intent, Megumi can summon one ordinary shadow shikigami.
As for the concept of a "turn"? A coherent round of attacks, or a single meaningful attack or defense—all these actions by the enemy would be classified as one "turn."
As long as Megumi summoned his shikigami one by one within the rules of this Vow, the various costs of maintaining the shikigami's existence would be reduced to a minimum. Theoretically, he could summon all ten shikigami simultaneously without any issue. If he wanted to further increase his offensive power, couldn't the "Fusion" spells of Yu-Gi-Oh! perfectly match the innate ability of the Ten Shadows shikigami to inherit each other's powers?
It could be said that after grasping this method of using Vows, Megumi's potential for improvement could be described as boundless.
Of course, true strength cannot be calculated solely on paper; real combat is required to see the results. Romm himself couldn't do this; his raw strength couldn't even match Megumi before the power-up.
Thus, this responsibility naturally fell to Emiya.
After all, he was the one who originally proposed the Megumi Fushiguro modification plan, so it was only natural for him to inspect the results.
"Are you ready, Fushiguro?
Since the ultimate goal of this match is to test your current technique's capabilities, I don't mind making concessions—such as only taking defensive actions to let you stack your number of shikigami.
That way, we can accurately test the power of your strongest state. Isn't it better to improve from that perspective?"
The ordinary training grounds in Jujutsu High could not withstand the turmoil the two of them would cause, so the location for this instructional spar was set in the back mountains—the same place where Satoru Gojo and Emiya had dueled.
Emiya felt this duel was somewhat unfair because the most important aspect of Megumi's current ability was hiding his information.
Only by keeping the intelligence completely concealed could he potentially accumulate enough shadow shikigami in the early stages of battle.
Once the number of shikigami reached a sufficient level, whether or not to boost his strength by "Revealing One's Hand" would depend entirely on the situation.
This version of the Ten Shadows Technique had completely transcended the original limitations of the Zen'in clan. Even deep knowledge of the original technique's effects would be useless. However, since Emiya already understood how this Vow functioned, how much effect would it still have?
"There's no need to indulge me like that, Emiya-sensei. What I want to test is its combat capability, not its theoretical limit... that's something stupid and useless, just like the original Mahoraga, which could only be seen but never used."
It was clear that Megumi's mindset had become more mature under Emiya's earnest teachings; he would no longer resort to his original suicidal combat style.
"So, Emiya-sensei only needs to control his strength to a certain extent; there's no need to go easy on me during the fight."
Fortunately, Megumi wasn't so blindly confident that he didn't realize that if Emiya didn't limit his strength, Megumi might not last even a few dozen seconds.
"Is that so? Then I think I know what to do."
After shaking out his arms to complete his final warm-up, Emiya extended his hand and beckoned toward Megumi: "Come. Naturally, I'll let you have the first turn."
From Emiya's known perspective, if he were to strike first, his first instinct would be to directly stop Megumi from summoning any shikigami. That would not only be unfair but also difficult to hold back on.
"Then I shall accept, Emiya-sensei!"
Upon receiving the command, Megumi clapped his hands together to form a cursed seal and shouted his move—
"It's my turn! I Normal Summon... DIVINE DOG!!!"
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