Ti seed to stop in that instant. Mai Zenin had never imagined it.
That young master, arrogant to the extre. That heir of the Zenin Clan. That noble standing so high above everyone else.
He would actually be willing to do this for her.
For a lowly woman like her.
For a useless student like her.
For a worthless failure like her, he had chosen to waste three hours and twenty-seven precious minutes of his life.
Naoya Zenin's gaze was as cold as ever.
His eyes were always like that. Always unwavering. Always arrogant and full of confidence. Even when no one else could be sure whether the road ahead was right or wrong, that man would keep moving forward exactly as he always had.
Fear, regret, doubt, hesitation...
Those negative emotions that belonged to the weak could not be found on Naoya Zenin at all.
There was an elegance to the strong, and even his arrogance and conceit gave off an endless sort of charisma.
Naoya Zenin was that perfect, without a single flaw. No one would ever suspect him of being so despicable villain.
Only Mai, as his cousin, knew the truth hidden beneath that perfection.
She knew he took pleasure in bullying the weak. She knew he saw every woman in the world as nothing more than a tool for childbirth. Since childhood, he had constantly abused both her and Maki.
He was that twisted, closed-off Zenin Clan itself. The absolute emperor born from feudalism.
Mai had to hate Naoya Zenin.
His eyes, his nose, his lips, his coat, his scent, even his smile.
Everything about him, Mai Zenin had to hate from the bottom of her heart.
Because only that way...could she face her sister with a clear conscience.
"...It has been a long ti, Naoya-sama."
Mai did not have the courage to et Naoya Zenin's blazing stare head-on. She could only give in to old instinct and show submission to her cousin.
"You ca all the way here from the Zenin Clan, and even wasted so much ti on a lowly servant like . I am deeply ashad, overwheld, and truly grateful."
"Hmph."
Naoya Zenin rely raised his chin and let out a cold snort.
"I have no interest in rekindling any family bond with you. I am only asking you this, Mai Zenin. Exactly how much more of my ti do you intend to waste?"
"...Why?"
Mai was silent for a long ti, but in the end she still gathered the courage to ask.
"Hadn't you already said I failed? Then why are you still waiting for ?"
"Indeed. In my eyes, you are a completely unqualified inferior product. Compared to the precious ti I have wasted on you, it is nothing short of a disgraceful waste."
Naoya Zenin did not soften it in the slightest.
His words were cold and rciless, and the thick mockery that leaked so casually into his tone made Mai grit her teeth in humiliation.
...
He really did stay behind just to mock .
He has always been like this.
As long as he got to see miserable, Naoya Zenin would wear a satisfied smile no matter how much ti he had wasted.
Mai felt like a complete idiot.
Just a mont ago, for one brief instant, she had actually thought that Naoya Zenin had truly felt a trace of pity, or that for so other reason he had stayed to wait for her, to wait for her to pull herself out of her own self-destruction.
But maybe this was better.
Naoya Zenin's long-overdue humiliation felt like a shot in the arm. It finally let the girl breathe again.
This was the correct version of him. This was the kind of scum he was supposed to be.
Not so reformist leader supporting modern jujutsu. Not so decent teacher with strange hopes for her.
Naoya Zenin had to be this sadistic cousin.
Only then would the hatred in her heart toward Naoya Zenin never waver. Only then would she not betray the words her sister had once spoken with absolute certainty while looking down over the Zenin Clan from the back mountain.
And yet, just as Mai reaffird that conviction, the very next words out of Naoya Zenin's mouth shattered the resolve she had only just managed to steady.
"However, that was rely the death sentence handed down by the heir of the Zenin Clan to a clanswoman who had given up on herself."
Naoya Zenin's face remained expressionless.
"Mai Zenin, you are indeed an unqualified little sister. Since childhood you have been clumsy and indecisive in everything you do. You are neither the Yamato Nadeshiko your mother wanted you to beco, nor a Jujutsu Sorcerer capable of standing on your own. A failure like that is not needed by the Zenin Clan."
"But as a teacher at Jujutsu High, no matter how much you wallow in self-pity, no matter how dull your aptitude may be, I have the duty to guide you back onto the right path. That is why I am standing here wasting ti waiting for you. Because you have not given up yet. Because you have not left this classroom. So no matter how unqualified a failure you are, I still have to wait for you."
"W-What are you even talking about?!"
Mai's eyes widened as she stared at Naoya Zenin.
And yet all she could see was his back.
"You do not need to be surprised, and you do not need to feel grateful either. This is simply a responsibility I cannot shirk as a teacher."
The cold nobleman set the pocket watch in his hand on the desk, adjusted his clothes, then turned and opened the classroom door.
"Mai, I still hate you from the bottom of my heart. You and Maki are stains on the thousand-year history of the Zenin Clan. You were born with faces that make people want to cherish you, yet inside you are like mad dogs, always waiting for a chance to tear out your master's throat. But disobedient bitches like you are truly rare. Even I, a man who hates won, have at tis been tempted to drag the two of you back to the Zenin Clan."
Naoya Zenin let out a low, delighted laugh.
"Just imagining the miserable sight of the two of you shackled up and kept in a dog kennel, where all I would need to do is toss in a single bone to make you sisters hang your tongues out and tear at each other. That kind of future would fit perfectly with what your mother always wanted for you."
Mai only felt her hands and feet go ice-cold.
What Naoya Zenin had just said was not so fantasy born of his own arrogance.
It was her mother's most genuine wish for what her daughters would beco after they grew up.
Because before modern civilization was established, sorcerer families often practiced in-family marriages between close relatives in order to preserve the purity of their bloodlines.
Under those rotten, ignorant feudal traditions, even biological brothers and sisters would be arranged to marry and have children, let alone cousins like Naoya Zenin and Mai Zenin.
But children born from unions like that were often congenitally disabled or ntally impaired, so as modern science spread, that tradition gradually disappeared.
But Mai and Maki were different.
Their father, Ogi Zenin, loathed the twin sisters so intensely that on the very day they were born, he once tried to drown them in water. It was only because their mother found strength in being a mother that the two girls were able to grow up safely.
And precisely because their father despised Mai and Maki so much, their mother pinned her hopes on Naoya Zenin instead.
Because he was destined to beco the heir of the Zenin Clan.
That was why Mai and Maki, those two sisters, had been assigned to Naoya Zenin since childhood as his personal maids, responsible for every aspect of his daily life.
An ordinary man with no backbone might have simply gone along with such an arrangent.
But what kind of person was Naoya Zenin?
From childhood, he had been a thoroughgoing male chauvinist, and an arrogant master who feared nothing.
"You, a bitch hanging around Ogi Zenin, think you're qualified to ddle in the affairs of the clan heir?"
So Naoya Zenin had hated Mai and Maki since they were little. Every ti they were sent to him, the young master would fly into a rage and kick and beat his two cousins. The more he beat them until they cried and sobbed, the more satisfied and pleased he felt.
"I have no need for useless trash by my side, and I have even less need for so sex slave who only knows how to spread her legs in bed. Things like that are everywhere, as common as stray dogs on the roadside!"
Naoya Zenin burst into wild laughter.
"What I want is talent! My foolish little cousin. Compared to that useless Maki, you at least do have a bit of talent. Your [Construction Technique] is an indispensable part for , a necessity that will let ascend to the pinnacle of the Jujutsu World!!!"
That madness, overflowing with greedy obsession, instantly awakened the miserable mories sealed deep in Mai's heart. Her legs gave out and she dropped to her knees on the spot.
"But it seems I was wrong about you. You're trash. Complete and utter trash."
His smile vanished in an instant, and his eyes showed extre disappointnt and contempt.
"In that case, there is no need to treat you roughly anymore. You are nothing but an outsider, an irrelevant passerby. Do you only want to beco a degenerate piece of trash? Do you only want to hide under my protection and barely survive? Hmph. How utterly stupid. Woman, then go on drowning in that pathetic little dream of yours."
With that, Naoya Zenin turned and left.
But his words continued to echo through the classroom, lingering without end.
What exactly had Naoya Zenin expected from her?
And why had he been disappointed?
All of it...
Today, at last, Mai got her answer.
The girl only felt an enormous sadness rising from the bottom of her heart.
No matter how much Naoya Zenin abused her, mocked her, or hated her...in the end, they were still blood relatives.
Family bound by blood.
So no matter how much Mai hated Naoya Zenin, sowhere deep inside, she had always clung to a tiny fantasy. The fantasy that the Naoya Zenin who always bullied her still, in his heart, treated her as a little sister.
When she thought of it that way, all the humiliation Naoya Zenin had piled on her could at least find an outlet, a place to be released.
But now, that bond of blood, thicker than water, had been severed by him completely.
Because Mai was a Jujutsu Sorcerer who gave up too easily.
A sorcerer like that was not worthy of love at all.
If even your enemy is disappointed in you, then what in this world could possibly be more crushing than that?
Her dignity had already been ground into dust, shattered so completely that not a trace of it could be found anymore.
Mai slowly walked up to the podium.
She looked at the pocket watch, then lowered her eyes to her grade sheet. The word fail on it was painfully glaring.
"...Naoya Zenin, do you know?"
Tears stread uncontrollably down Mai's face.
They ran down her beautiful cheeks and blurred across the grade sheet.
"In this world, the person I least wanted to be denied by... was you."
Even Mai herself had denied herself.
But only now did she finally realize it.
Naoya Zenin's denial was what hurt her the most.
"I won't forgive you. I absolutely won't forgive you!!!"
The girl clenched the pocket watch tightly in her small hand, and words full of hatred burst out between her teeth.
"What do you an disappointnt?! What do you an you were wrong about ?! You dared to humiliate like this. You dared to tornt like this. I swear on my sister's na, I'll make you regret ever saying those words to !!!"
Mai roughly wiped away her tears and ground out each word through clenched teeth.
"I'm not your accessory! I'm not so crybaby who only knows how to hide behind my sister! And I'm definitely not so cheap woman who only knows how to sell her body! I am Mai Zenin! I am Ogi Zenin's daughter! I am a daughter of the Zenin Clan! I am a genius with [Construction Technique]! No matter what, I will never submit to you! No matter what, I will succeed! No matter what, I will do it and make you see it!!!"
Those overflowing negative emotions.
The suffering that had taken root since birth, nourished by the thousand-year darkness of the Zenin Clan. The humiliation of not being acknowledged by her family. The despair of being abandoned by her own sister. Her hatred toward Naoya Zenin...
At this mont, all of it was being accepted by the girl who had rejected it for so long, at a speed a thousand tis, ten thousand tis greater, turning into overwhelming Cursed Energy that surged forth like a raging dragon.
Mai began heating up her Cursed Energy.
Even though every part of her body was already exhausted, she still drove her Cursed Energy forward like a madwoman.
Every blood vessel, every pore, every inch of flesh in her body began roaring wildly under the force of the hatred inside her.
If tonight was not enough, then she would endure until dawn.
If dawn was not enough, then she would endure until tomorrow.
Until the day death finally ca.
No.
Even if she died, she would still succeed!!!
Because in Mai Zenin's mind, the word surrender had completely disappeared.
Naoya Zenin had erased it with his own hands.
Erased it in that humiliating way, like wiping sothing away with a filthy rag.
"I won't cry again! I won't shed even one more tear because of soone like you, or because of anything you say!!!"
Mai Zenin tried with all her might to hold back her tears.
And astonishingly, the tears really did disappear.
Even those tears of humiliation were seized by the girl's resolve, turned into fuel, and began burning fiercely with those powerful emotions.
Drop by drop...
From every pore, the tears turned into blood and slowly flowed down again.
"I can do this."
Mai closed her eyes.
In her mind, she recalled the words Naoya Zenin had spoken during class that afternoon.
"Don't try to understand [Innate Technique]. Feel [Innate Technique] instead."
That teacher's guidance now whispered in her ear like an illusion.
"Imagine it. Use your heart to imagine what [Innate Technique] looks like."
Mai began focusing on sketching the image in her mind.
The first thing to appear was a vast, boundless sea.
Her older sister Maki was walking along the shore.
"Mai, do you rember?" her sister said with a sigh.
"When we were little, you were always insisting that you wanted to see the sea. No matter how much Mom scolded you, you absolutely had to go see it. In the end, she could not win against your stubbornness, so while Dad was away on a mission, she secretly took us to see the ocean."
"...I don't rember anymore."
"Haha, I still rember that day. Storm clouds were pressing down overhead, and the mont you saw them, you got scared and refused to go anywhere near the water. You were the one who made all that fuss about wanting to see the sea, but you were also the first one who wanted to go ho and hide under the blankets."
Her sister pointed toward the horizon over the water.
"But after we got ho, it cleared up not long after. It was so frustrating. Tell , if we had walked forward against the wind back then, would everything have turned out differently?"
"That's why nothing good ever happens to ! I can't do any of the things I want to do! Not a single wish I ever made has co true! It's not fair!!!"
"Mai, do you believe this? Luck cos in good and bad. Once you have suffered through all the bitterness, all that is left are good things."
"...All you do is lie."
Mai lowered her head and clenched her fists, letting the seawater wash over her ankles.
"You promised you would stay with for the rest of my life, but in the end, you still left on your own without a word! You still abandoned ! Didn't you say that one day, sooner or later, you would make everyone in the Zenin Clan look up to us?!"
"Mai, stop using as your shield."
Her sister's face was stern.
"Stop staring so hard at my back. Stop imagining as soone so strong. I'm just a woman too, exactly the sa as you."
"I'm not!"
Mai stamped her foot.
"I don't admire you! I don't look up to you! I've never wanted to beco you, not even a little!!!"
"Is that so?"
Her sister smiled gently.
"That's good, then. Stop dreaming about ."
"Hey! Don't go! Maki! Traitor! Sis!!!"
Mai reached for her sister, but her figure kept walking toward the sea, step by step, until the water swallowed her completely.
"Take care, little sister."
"H-How can you...?!"
The next mont, what appeared before the girl was Naoya Zenin, wearing a cold sneer.
"Trash. How long are you going to stay over there wallowing in self-pity and crying? Trash grows up into trash. Don't disgrace the Zenin Clan."
"I-I'm not trash!"
"Good. Then prove it to ."
Her cousin only narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Co at with everything you have. Try to kill ."
"You don't need to tell . I was already going to!!!"
At last, Mai opened her eyes.
She had succeeded.
Those endless mories, that endless past, had finally condensed into the purest Cursed Energy in the world.
At that mont, a tremor rose from the deepest part of her heart.
It was not emotional turbulence.
Nor was it a resonance of Cursed Energy.
It felt more like recognition, as if a gentle consciousness had entered her thoughts. In that endless darkness, a single, brightest light appeared, and within that light, a door opened.
Mai Zenin felt as though she had passed through that door. She saw the ancestors of the Zenin Clan. She saw Abe no Seii, the god of Onmyōji. In the forms they had worn in life, they nodded and smiled at her, their eyes full of encouragent and approval.
At that mont, from the forests of Shiretoko in Hokkaido to the foothills of Arashiyama in Kyoto, from beneath Tokyo Skytree to the shores of Shonan, and even as far as Matsuyama in Shikoku, sorcerers living across this land all felt that strange fluctuation.
In an instant, it was like a pebble had been dropped into a lake as still as a mirror.
Ripples spread outward layer by layer, clear concentric circles radiating slowly in every direction.
"What is this...?"
Satoru Gojo, who had been standing in line to buy sweets, pulled off his blindfold in disbelief, his indigo Six Eyes filled with shock.
"What terrifying Cursed Energy. Did so Special Grade Cursed Spirit just co into being?"
Far away in so hidden corner, Kenjaku held a brush in one hand. The tip hovered motionless over parchnt covered in cursed script for so long that the ink soaked through the expensive lambskin, leaving a dark blot.
This thousand-year-old monster stared blankly out the window, unaware of anything else.
"A technique I've never felt before... Is it Yorozu's [Construction Technique]? No, it's far more terrifying than that. It's as if sothing has been completely erased from this world..."
If [Construction Technique] had built, for Mai, a wall that could never be crossed, then now, that wall had completely collapsed.
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