Space pieced itself back together as the black sparks faded, Yuji watching on as the curse was blown backward, flying over Naobito and into the bottom of a flipped-over truck. With a clap, Naobito disappeared, replaced with a small, cursed energy-infused rock.
Yuji swung around, confused and glad at the same time. It was only now that he registered exactly what happened. He hadn't noticed he was swapped by Todo's cursed technique. He just saw the curse and punched. Yuji's face was split by a smile as Isamu and Nanami approached him, Todo visible behind them.
Naobito coughed up blood, his arm thrown over Todo's shoulder as his weight was supported. His robes were slightly burnt at the ends, the heat of friction so intense the curse's punch was able to burn right through it and strike the bare skin beneath. Said skin was now a dark purple with hints of red here and there.
Isamu was surprised he hadn't been impaled by the punch if he was being completely honest. But upon further investigation, he understood why it hadn't. The clan head had focused all the cursed energy already infused in the rest of his body to the exact point the curse had hit. This left every other part of his body vulnerable but had beefed up the defenses of his abdomen significantly, saving his life.
Todo reached into his back pocket, taking out a rectangular sheet of paper a few inches long, its surface covered by a single large kanji reading "saru" or monkey. Maybe ape? Isamu was unsure. Either way, once infused with cursed energy, a shikigami was summoned.
It was actually a pretty decent one in Isamu's opinion. Comparable to a grade-two cursed spirit. It was basic looking, just a gorilla with completely black hair and muscles denser than normal.
"Take him to Shoko," Todo said simply, the gorilla nodded just as simply and grabbed the Clan Head of the Zenin Clan in a princess carry before running off. If the man hadn't already passed out from his injuries, he might've died from embarrassment.
'Nanami' Isamu signed, getting his attention. 'Lighten up on your defenses a bit.'
Trusting him, Nanami did so without question. He wasn't really worried about a surprise attack from the curse with Yuji and Todo around.
"egamad ekat." Isamu said in the reverse nature of his cursed technique reversal. Within a second, Nanami's entire body was as good as new, as if he hadn't fought a single opponent all night and was only now stepping onto the battlefield.
'With that, I'm on my last legs. Don't expect another Domain Expansion or heal.' Isamu signed before Nanami could thank him, his attention already shifting from Nanami to the cursed spirit who was digging itself out of the truck its body had reduced to metal scarps.
"That…" it began in its usual childish but sinister inflection, "was unexpected."
The moment after the words left its mouth, the curse clapped its hands together before releasing a wave of a dozen of the weird black transfigured humans. Just as the transfigured humans began charging the group of four sorcerers, the cursed spirit placed both hands on its face.
Nanami blocked an attack from one of the transfigured humans before being swapped by Todo with another of the monsters, putting him in the perfect position to cleave an arm from one of them using his technique. At the same moment the arm was cut off it was swapped with Yuji, opening the transfigured human up for a haymaker to the abdomen which tore right through its flesh and out its back, completely shattering whatever passed for a spine in the transfigured body.
In the time it took Todo, Nanami, and Yuji to take out a single transfigured human, Isamu had already blitzed his way through seven of the annoyances, B-lining it straight for the curse before it could do whatever it was planning.
Isamu tossed Maya straight for the curse's head. Acting quickly, Todo swapped the cursed tool and Isamu. With a flash of blue cursed energy, Isamu appeared directly in front of the curse, Saraswati already in motion.
Just before Isamu could decapitate the cursed spirit, its form suddenly expanded. Isamu's blade plunged into the hastily expanding flesh to little effect. The curse became a mountain of flesh, of wriggling eyes and gaping mouths, of lashing tongues and grotesque ears.
Isamu used his sword to keep himself attached to the giant blob, his feet eventually finding a foothold. But as soon as he found it, it disappeared beneath him. In the blink of an eye, the mountain disappeared, snapping back into a humanoid form. As Isamu fell a few dozen feet back toward the ground, he got a good look at the cursed spirit.
Its eyes appeared to be covered by a crown-like plate crudely attached to its lower jaw. Not only its face but its body's overall shape altered greatly with a much tougher and bulkier exterior. It sported a thick tail and long black blades that extended from both its elbows with multiple loose black tendrils at the back of its head. Additionally, its legs as well as the area around its neck and forearms were completely black.
Isamu smiled, a little relieved he wouldn't have to fight a mountain of flesh. At least he knew where to cut when he wanted to finish the battle. A battle getting way too long for his taste. He would finish it soon.
Condensing cursed energy below his feet, Isamu sprung towards the curse, Saraswati gripped in both hands. The black elbow blade of the cursed spirit whipped out, meeting Isamu's silver blade.
Isamu slid his blade off the curse's just in time to block its other blade. Isamu endured a truly threatening assault as the curse slashed and stabbed and chopped, both of their arms and blades becoming a blur. For the first time in their fight, Isamu was at a disadvantage.
It seemed the curse's new form increased its speed and strength. By Isamu's estimate, a boost of around 100%. The curse's new blades were tricky too. They could extend and shorten, causing Isamu to misread their reach and suffer multiple shallow cuts across his body. Cuts he didn't bother healing, he just couldn't afford to lose any more cursed energy. That on top of Isamu's rapidly dwindling cursed energy levels and his lack of Maya resulted in a pretty disadvantageous situation.
Luckily, it seemed his allies were done dealing with the transfigured humans. With a clap, the curse and Isamu's positions were swapped, Isamu slashing behind himself without even looking, landing a cut on the side of the curse's head, shallow but still something.
With another clap, Yuji appeared in front of the curse, striking forward as the curse met him with its black blade. A blade blocked by Isamu who took his place in the next moment, Yuji's fist finding purchase in the curse's back. Nanami's wrapped cleaver suddenly struck the side of the curse's head, dealing no damage but still causing the curse some irritation.
Todo swapped himself with Nanami, Nanami appearing on the opposite side of the curse's body as its blades lashed out, stopping whatever plan Todo was trying to execute. Todo was cut in the side before he was able to clap himself away, Maya appearing in his place.
Isamu grabbed it just before he was swapped for Nanami, blocking three slashes from the curse. Nanami stuck the curse in the face, Yuji landing two more blows in its back before a series of claps ran out just as the curse went on the offensive.
Todo would swap Isamu for whoever was in the most danger, using Isamu as a shield to protect himself, Yuji, or Nanami due to his superior speed and ability to keep up with the curse. Todo did this while finding the perfect pocket for Yuji to take advantage of. There were just two problems with this.
One, the curse was now insanely durable, whatever it had done to itself worked magic on every one of its physical abilities. Isamu would even say it was now more durable than the weed. This made the few punches Yuji was able to land much less effective.
Two, the group still took damage. Even if Todo was able to save them from the worst of it, the curse could still target multiple people. Nanami got the worst of it. The curse's new tail had struck the former businessman multiple times while Isamu was preoccupied with its blades.
These two flaws meant one thing. If nothing changed, they would lose. Nanami would eventually be too worn out to keep fighting. And without Nanami, Todo had one less target for his technique, making landing more hits even harder. To put it simply, Nanami just couldn't keep up.
Isamu sighed as he was swapped again, blocking both of the curse's blades simultaneously with both of his. At the same time, its tail struck out towards Nanami, directly for his chest, the appendage too fast to be blocked.
"Nanami! Fight!" Infusing his cursed technique with a large fraction of his remaining cursed energy, Isamu was able to raise Nanami's physical capabilities by 20%.
Nanami blocked the tail with his cleaver before using his other hand to grab the pale limb. Raising his cleaver above his head, Nanami used his technique to cleave through the tail near its base. Without a moment of hesitation, Todo clapped, replacing the tail for Yuji.
Yuji punched the curse in the small of its back. The curse snarled in pain, reaching behind itself and grabbing Yuji by the throat as its other blade lashed out at Isamu.
The prodigy of the Inumaki clan smiled as he ducked the horizontal slash, throwing Saraswati into the curse's foot before plunging Maya into its gut. The curse retracted its blade, stabbing down at Isamu's before a clap rang out.
Swapping Nanami and Isamu, Nanami blocked the strike meant for Isamu as Isamu activated domain amplification, striking the curse in the chin. The curse's head bucked to the left as Yuji punched it in the face from opposite Isamu. The curse's impaled leg buckled before it threw Yuji away dismissively, its other blade whipping out towards Nanami to finish off one of the annoying ants. At the same time, the black tendrils behind its head lashed out toward Isamu like a whip.
Before the blade could reach Nanami, he was swapped away, Todo taking his place. He pulled Maya out of the curse's gut, blocking the slash. The curse cut towards him with its other arm, the blade Nanami had been blocking before he was teleported away now free. Todo raised his left arm, blocking the blade with it. The blade cut halfway through his forearm, stopping at the bone.
Isamu, having ducked the whip-like tendrils, grabbed the attacking body part with his left hand, pulling the curses head towards him as his right hand struck out. The curse was rocked in the face, blood spilling from its mouth.
The curse's left blade retracted, its hand lunging forward in an attempt to transfigure Todo. Todo just smiled up at the curse with a knowing look in his eye. Before the curse could kill him, Nanami ran past the curse, striking the curses left arm as he did, a flash of black filing every fighter's eyes.
Nanami, boosted to 140% of his maximum strength active his technique at the same moment space distorted. The combined amplification of his power worked together, resulting in just enough strength to cut completely through the curse's arm around its mid-bicep.
Isamu smiled too, striking the curse once more. It seemed to be annoyed, angry, and undoubtedly hurt as its only remaining blade stabbed towards Isamu's. Isamu couldn't help but laugh as the black blade plunged itself between his abs.
Isamu's glowing hands grabbed the curse's arm, even pulling the blade deeper into his gut as he activated his reverse curse technique. Isamu clenched his muscles as his body healed around the blade, trapping it in his abdomen. Todo laughed as well as their plan came together, their faith in each other paying off, as he stabbed Maya into the curse's only healthy leg.
With both legs heavily damaged, its left arm cut off, its right arm trapped, and its tail destroyed, the curse could only watch as Todo clapped. Yuji appeared in a flash of blue, giving Mahito flashbacks to only minutes before. Yuji's hand sprung forward as Isamu and the cursed spirit yelled simultaneously.
"NO!!!"
"DO IT!!"
Truly scrapping the bottom of the barrel, Isamu used the last of his cursed energy to amplify Yuji's strength by 100% for a single instance. Now raised to 220% of his maximum power for the briefest of moments, Yuji distorted space as he too yelled.
"BLACK FLASH!"
The curse was blasted back, his biological armor shattered and the vulnerable skin below torn through. The rest of the armor fell off as the curse skidded across the concrete of the street, its elbow blade shattering.
Isamu joined the curse on the ground, coughing up blood as he barely caught himself. His right hand clutched at his abdominal wound. He'd only had reverse cursed technique for a few hours and he'd already forgotten how fragile humans were. Without any cursed energy to transform into positive energy, the wound could very well spell his end.
Nanami rushed to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Come. We need to get you to Shoko." Nanami said, worry and a slight inflection of helplessness infusing his voice.
'No. Give me some of your-' Isamu was unable to finish his sentence of signs before the pain erupting through his gut at the action forced him to stop.
Isamu had never tried it before. But if he could absorb any dense cursed energy in the environment, shouldn't he also be able to absorb cursed energy directly injected into his body? As long as it wasn't done with the intent to harm, Isamu should be able to use it to heal himself.
Nanami got the gist of Isamu's request by simply piecing together context clues, but those clues gave him no idea why he would want him to infuse the prodigy with cursed energy. Nevertheless, Nanami did so, seeing no real harm in it.
Lifting a hand to Isamu's chest, Nanami's open palm burst into blue flames as he focused his cursed energy into his junior.
Isamu focused on the cursed energy entering his body, trying his best to claim it for his own. He tried to recall the feeling he got whenever he absorbed the cursed energy of his fallen foes but couldn't quite get the gist of it. After a minute or two, it was his experience with the volcano cursed spirit that set him on the correct path.
That feeling of claiming something that wasn't his. With the passive absorption, the cursed energy had no will, had no user to direct it. But this cursed energy did, even if it was a passive will with the base intent of entering Isamu's body, he still had to rest control of the cursed energy.
He had to be selfish. So leech off the energy of another living thing. It was a scummy feeling, like he was defying some natural right of the creature. But at that moment, he didn't care. He needed to live, too many people counted on him for a simple stab wound to do him in.
Isamu clamped down on the cursed energy, cutting off any potential escape routes. He pushed Nanami away with any remaining strength he possessed, curling into a ball as he clutched his chest. After a moment of the cursed energy struggling to escape and return to its master, Isamu was able to "break it in" like it was some unruly mare.
Once it was finally his own, he spent it immediately, multiplying it against itself to form positive energy. His stab wound, the one he was only a few dozen seconds away from dying too, stitched itself back together as his blood levels returned to normal.
Isamu pushed himself back onto his knees, turning his head towards Nanami. But the grade one sorcerer wasn't focused on him, but staring directly in front of them. Turning his gaze as well, Isamu's face turned to shock, then anger, before finally falling a bit hopeless.
For in front of the white-haired sorcerer was an individual he held no confidence in defeating in his current state. Especially if he was about to do what he thought he was about to do.
In front of the group of four high-level jujutsu sorcerers was Suguru Geto, standing over the dying and nearly unconscious body of the patch-faced cursed spirit. Plans to absorb it into his vast arsenal of curses no doubt running through his head.