In the underground warehouse of Tokyo Jujutsu High, within dea's temple.
"So, it still ca to this?"
Suguru looked at dea in front of him, still carrying a hint of hesitation.
"Oh my, are you still hesitating? That's not like you."
dea looked at Suguru with surprise.
"No hesitation, really."
Suguru shook his head.
"Satoru and I were already prepared to fight Tengen last year. I just thought we wouldn't need to anymore."
A flicker of mory passed through Suguru's eyes.
'I wonder how Amanai is doing now…'
The internet still wasn't very developed, so keeping in touch hadn't been easy. And with the peak season for Cursed Spirits recently, everyone had been busy.
Suguru hadn't heard from Amanai Riko in months.
"You even prepared a trump card against Tengen?"
dea raised her brow.
"No."
Suguru spread his hands.
"Then what did you prepare?"
dea asked curiously.
"The resolve to protect Amanai from the entire Jujutsu world."
"…"
Not sure how to respond, dea simply echoed a line Eichi often used.
"Well then, let's make the final preparations."
As she spoke, dea extended her hand toward Suguru.
"No problem."
Suguru relaxed, completely withdrawing his Cursed Energy.
A cylindrical barrier ford around him, and dea began manipulating the surrounding space.
Suguru's figure gradually shrank until he could fit in the palm of her hand.
With her temple's amplification, dea quickly completed the spatial compression using magecraft.
After securing Suguru and ensuring she could summon him along, she took out her Noble Phantasm:
Rule Breaker.
Then, dea waited quietly for Eichi's call.
One hour. Two hours...
"If you could see through people's hearts, today would be much more troubleso."
As Eichi's voice fell, one Command Spell on the back of his hand vanished.
At the sa ti, his shadow moved.
"Hmm?"
Tengen's eyes widened.
She imdiately recognized the effect of the Command Spell.
Crack.
The teacup in her hand fell and shattered against the floor.
The air around them shifted.
To Eichi's left, space twisted, revealing dea's figure. Mahoraga erged from Eichi's shadow.
The ground beneath Eichi rose, forming a cage-like barrier. Cracks began to spread beneath his feet.
Although she didn't know why Eichi suddenly attacked, Tengen acted imdiately, preparing to eject them from Tombs of the Star Corridor.
dea threw the object in her hand toward Tengen.
'A barrier? No, compressed space. There's sothing inside!'
Tengen instantly identified dea's move and diverted power to intercept the cylindrical object flying her way.
Mahoraga struck the rising barrier with his fist.
The barrier ant to trap them shattered instantly.
More barriers began to rise, but dea had already taken advantage of Tengen's split focus to flash directly in front of her.
Crack.
An omamori-style magical tool on dea's body shattered.
It was a one-ti-use Mystic Code dea had prepared specifically for this operation.
Though single-use, it was powerful enough to bring her right in front of Tengen.
Tengen's two left eyes stayed still, while the two right eyes locked onto the suddenly appearing dea.
It had been a long ti since she'd experienced real combat.
Having been secluded in the Tombs of the Star Corridor for years, her reflexes dulled. She failed to respond in ti.
Rule Breaker pierced into her body.
"Damn it!"
Tengen felt her connection to the barrier sever instantly.
The nearly completed barriers around them shattered.
To accelerate construction, Tengen had borrowed the barrier that ford her body to build new ones.
But once that connection was cut, the in-progress barriers collapsed.
Tengen's hands began to deform, attempting to release new barriers by drawing from her own structure again.
This thod was much faster than constructing from nothing.
But dea and Eichi didn't give her the chance.
Shadows crawled up from Tengen's feet, climbing along her robe-like body.
Mahoraga stopped attacking the barriers and redirected his focus.
His casserole-sized fist slamd toward Tengen.
dea hovered behind her, magical patterns spreading across Tengen's body.
Her barrier-constructed body housed her consciousness.
Eichi didn't intend to destroy it—doing so would scatter Tengen's mind.
Instead, he had dea temporarily seal her consciousness.
Just temporarily.
Tengen's body dropped to her knees, then was swallowed by Eichi's shadow.
dea imdiately scanned the surroundings.
"That direction!"
Mahoraga slamd his fist toward where dea pointed.
Crack.
A barrier shattered, revealing the entrance to the central chamber of the Tombs of the Star Corridor, where the great tree stood.
At the sa ti, the compressed space holding Suguru broke open.
Suguru reappeared midair, arms protecting his head.
"Rainbow Dragon!"
He summoned the Rainbow Dragon beneath him and imdiately flew toward the central chamber.
dea spread her bat-like wings and followed closely behind.
Eichi, being the underhanded one, stayed behind with Mahoraga to guard the sealed ancient elder, Tengen.
He stayed behind because he simply couldn't trust her.
Not with her history in the original tiline.
And not with her behavior in this one.
Kenjaku had collected ten million Cursed Spirits before the Culling Ga.
Not a thousand. Not ten thousand. Ten million.
And Tengen claid she had no idea?
Eichi didn't know what she was really thinking.
Maybe she had made so sort of deal with Kenjaku.
Or maybe she'd just lived too long. So long that she no longer cared what happened—to herself or to Japan.
In the old ways of thinking, soone like that was either a fool or evil.
And either way, Eichi wasn't going to leave that kind of ti bomb unchecked.
Soon, Suguru and dea returned with Tengen's physical body.
Suguru had already completed the subjugation.
Eichi then released the barrier body containing her consciousness.
He had no intention of killing Tengen. If she died, the barrier covering the entire country could collapse.
He still needed those barriers.
So instead, he chose to control her through Suguru and dea.
"Speaking of which, dea."
"What is it, Eichi?"
"Your Territory Creation lets you build temples, right? Now that you've got Tengen's barrier as a foundation, can you turn the entire country's barrier into your temple?"
(To be continued.)
◇◇◇
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