Chapter 176: Emiya: Who's in Favor, and Who Objects?
In truth, no matter how one looks at it, Fushiguro Megumi has been working hard enough.
In just a few short days, he had roughly grasped the usage of the unique power known as Binding Vows and even successfully summoned the ultimate shikigami that the Zen'in family had failed to subjugate for a thousand years—Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga.
Even if this achievement was reached after Emiya provided the crucial ideas and conditions, it was more than enough to prove his talent. Just imagine: that Divine General Mahoraga was the ultimate shikigami capable of taking down the previous heads of both the Zen'in and Gojo families simultaneously many years ago.
The Gojo head of that era certainly didn't possess the extremely specific combination of the Six Eyes and the Limitless technique, but it was enough to place Mahoraga's combat power on par with the standard definition of a Special Grade.
However, the tragedy of the situation lay in the fact that Fushiguro Megumi was simply too talented.
When he was merely in the Chimera Beast state, Emiya could still properly control his strength to avoid causing Megumi too much harm. But the moment Mahoraga stood forth, even Emiya could no longer eliminate it with a light touch; he had to use absolute techniques to truly erase the opponent.
To Emiya, the Mahoraga with 0 Attack Power was like an excellent whetstone, and a moment of carelessness led to an explosive result.
Emiya himself hadn't expected the Black Flash to accurately stack onto the Noble Phantasm release of Nine Lives Shooting the Hundred Heads, resulting in explosive damage that directly erased Mahoraga—despite its extreme learning and recovery abilities.
The most pitiful part was that Fushiguro Megumi happened to have Chimera Shadow Garden active, requiring him to bear all the weight generated within the Domain. Naturally, the force produced by Nine Lives in that single instant was included in the calculation.
It was fortunate that Megumi had also established a Binding Vow to reduce the proportion of damage he sustained, and that the Domain automatically deactivated the moment it reached his endurance limit. Otherwise, Megumi's body could never have compared to a mountain being shattered into pieces.
As for why he was considered unlucky?
That was because the stacking of Nine Lives and Black Flash is still a high-coincidence event, completely unlike the "correct" effect of Hrunting that works every time. Even if Emiya tried again, there was a high probability he couldn't replicate it; it was like being blessed with a 2% chance to trigger a 1500% critical hit.
Wait...
The Axe-Sword cannot accurately trigger the critical hit of a Black Flash, but isn't Nine Lives a special martial art that reaches the realm of the gods?
Although Emiya could only use the Axe-Sword to resonate with Heracles' sword skills for Nine Lives, couldn't he just use Hrunting in his other hand to execute it?
In this way, the final power might be much less than what just occurred, but it would be a stable burst strategy, capable of reaching at least a five-fold amplification.
Looking at it this way, Megumi's sacrifice wasn't entirely meaningless; at least he allowed Emiya to find a feasible plan for rapidly increasing his own strength.
Now, Emiya was truly drifting further and further down the path of a "stat monster."
The key point was that the doctors at Jujutsu High had already checked the situation; Fushiguro Megumi had merely fallen into a self-protective coma due to extreme exhaustion and would wake up by tomorrow morning at the latest. The Binding Vow plan Romm formulated was indeed rigorous enough to account for the possibility of the Domain being forcibly destroyed by external force.
As for these two who dared to burst into the ward shouting and hollering...?
Emiya turned his head and looked at Itadori Yuji and Kugisaki Nobara, whose faces were full of righteous indignation.
"Follow me."
Leaving only those words, Emiya turned and left the room without looking back.
Gulp.
Though he didn't know exactly what had happened, the moment he saw Emiya's serious expression, Itadori's student instincts and sharp intuition made him start to feel afraid. When they reached a spot not far outside the ward, ensuring they wouldn't interfere with the environment there, Emiya finally stopped.
"Do you want to know why Fushiguro Megumi ended up like this?"
"!"
Yuji Itadori looked at the expressionless Emiya. He couldn't help but feel a bit intimidated, but he still nodded his head firmly.
"Then I'll tell you the reason—the reason he's like this is that I slightly tested his recent training results. And you've seen the outcome."
The current Emiya looked exactly like a cold-blooded instructor who would train his students into a state of collapse. Indeed, this was a technique Emiya had learned from "Archer Emiya" and "Emiya Alter."
"So... you mean... Fushiguro was beaten into a coma and hospitalized by you, Emiya-sensei?" After gathering his courage to ask this question, Itadori's back began to feel cold as he broke into a sweat.
"That's exactly right. I believe a certain level of training and testing is absolutely necessary.
I might be soft-hearted toward you, but the Cursed Spirits and Curse Users won't be. They are coming for your lives.
The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.
So, there's no time like the present. I intend to test the training results of you two as well...
Who's in favor, and who objects?"
Emiya's sharp gaze swept across Itadori and Nobara, giving them a vivid experience of what it felt like to have "thorns in one's back."
Indeed, they were completely caught in a dilemma. If they agreed, the most likely outcome was that they would end up as miserable as Megumi, lying on a hospital bed—and that ward happened to have enough room for two more.
But if they didn't agree, wouldn't that give Emiya an even more legitimate reason to "teach" them a lesson?
It seemed that no matter which path they chose, they couldn't escape the fate of being sent to a hospital ward to lie down for a whole day.
How did it come to this? This was completely unreasonable! The Emiya-sensei of the past wasn't like this at all.
Where did the Emiya-sensei who was kind to everyone go? What kind of demon has possessed him?!
"It seems you two have already made your choice, right?"
Noticing that Itadori and Nobara hadn't responded for a long time, Emiya proactively revealed a "kind" smile and helped them complete this crucial decision.
"Come, let's go. As a concession, I'll actually let you two take me on together."
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