"Talk about bad timing."
Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the canopy, casting dappled silver patches across the forest floor. Kashimo stood his ground, unmoving.
He watched the man in white robes, his gaze fixed on those brilliant blue eyes that seed to hum with light in the darkness. The Six Eyes were focused on him, and Kashimo could feel the subtle, skin-crawling sensation of being picked apart from the inside out.
"You're Kashimo, right?" Arashi Gojo was the first to speak. His tone was casual, as if he were greeting an old friend on a walk. Yet, his body remained still. He didn't even drop into a stance.
It wasn't because he didn't want to. It was because he couldn't.
In the vision provided by the Six Eyes, Arashi could see a violent, chaotic shroud of cursed energy clinging to Kashimo. It churned and crackled like a thunderstorm, nearly physical in its intensity.
A third-rate sorcerer's energy flared at the skin, making their attacks easy to read. A first-rate sorcerer could suppress it, revealing their hand only at the mont of impact.
But this man was different.
He didn't suppress anything. Or perhaps, he simply didn't need to. That lightning-like energy was a part of him, as natural as his breathing and as constant as his heartbeat.
Arashi's pupils narrowed. He was certain his eyes could capture Kashimo's movent from any angle. But being able to see an attack and being able to stop it were two entirely different things.
"Yeah," Kashimo finally replied. He lowered the erald staff from his shoulder and let it thud against the dirt, tilting his head as he studied Arashi. "The head of the Gojo clan?"
"The very sa." Arashi's smile was thinner than the moonlight. "I've heard much about you. The strongest of the era, Kashimo."
"You're too kind," Kashimo grinned. "The Six Eyes of the age, Arashi Gojo."
They stared at one another across a dozen paces. The night wind sighed through the trees, carrying a few dead leaves that spiraled between them.
"Your Limitless... it isn't automatic yet, is it?"
Kashimo's voice hung in the air, but the wind didn't stop. Arashi didn't answer. The light of the moon caught the sudden gravity in his blue eyes.
Kashimo was right. He couldn't do it.
The records spoke of an automatic defense, a state where the technique was honed to perfection and carved into the user's very instincts. Arashi was nowhere near that level.
Seeing the silence, Kashimo's smirk widened. He adjusted his grip on the staff. If the defense wasn't automatic, then this could be settled right here.
Arashi felt a twitch in his vision. He took a step forward. The Six Eyes captured the shift instantly: the energy surrounding Kashimo had suddenly condensed, the silence before a storm.
Then, the ground exploded.
Kashimo launched himself forward like a cannonball. The erald staff swept through the air, trailing arcs of lightning.
Arashi didn't move.
The staff stopped an inch from his face. It wasn't blocked by a physical object; it had slamd into an invisible mire. The violent force was stripped away layer by layer by sothing unseen, eventually dissipating into nothing before it could even touch his collar.
Kashimo's brow twitched. Before he could even pull back, he followed up with a side kick aid at Arashi's ribs.
Again, an inch.
That single inch felt like a canyon, keeping his entire weight on the other side. Kashimo didn't overextend. He snapped his leg back and retreated, putting ten paces between them in a heartbeat. He stood in the moonlight, his eyes locked on the white-haired man.
"As I thought," Kashimo said, twirling the staff. "Infinity is a pain in the ass."
Arashi stood his ground. He didn't chase. It wasn't that he didn't want to; it was that those two exchanges had pushed his technique to its absolute limit. The staff and the kick had co with such speed that he'd had no ti to think. He'd survived solely on the instinct of pushing his technique to its maximum output.
A thin layer of sweat broke out on his forehead, invisible under the moon.
"Your speed is just as much of a headache," Arashi said, keeping his voice lazy and bored. "I almost didn't catch that."
"Almost?" Kashimo tilted his head. "Then you didn't."
The wind kept blowing. Kashimo's grip on the wood tightened. Those strikes hadn't been probes; he'd intended to end the Six Eyes right then and there. If he could finish the Gojo head here, everything that followed would be easy. But Limitless was more of a nuisance than he'd imagined.
Just one inch. One inch he couldn't cross.
Arashi waited. He was looking for a gap in the lightning, a mont where Kashimo's energy cycle faltered. The Six Eyes could see it: for all the violent power, there was a microscopic stagnation after every attack.
If he could just catch that mont.
Kashimo laughed suddenly. "Trying to find a hole in my rhythm?"
Arashi's pupils shrunk. "You can see that?"
"I guessed." Kashimo shouldered the staff. "But the look on your face tells I'm right."
Silence returned. The distant hum of the festival drifted through the trees, but in this clearing, there was only the sound of two n breathing and the rustle of leaves. Neither moved. They both knew this wouldn't be settled quickly.
Kashimo's mind was racing. Arashi stood there, wrapped in a transparent shell of space, the Six Eyes burning like twin stars. Kashimo didn't have a domain, which ant he had no direct way to bypass the barrier. He went through his ntal inventory. Hollow Wicker Basket? That only neutralized a domain's sure-hit effect. Cursed tools? The Inverted Spear of Heaven was probably buried in so hole in the ground kiloters away.
That left one option.
Domain Amplification.
He'd seen the concept in his past life, a high-level barrier technique where a sorcerer wraps an empty domain around their body like a suit of clothes. By keeping the domain empty, it forces the opponent's technique to flow into it, neutralizing the effect upon contact.
He'd never tried it.
Kashimo's lips curled into a grin. It didn't matter. He was a man of practice, not theory.
He flicked his wrist, and the erald staff flew from his hand, hurtling straight toward Arashi's head. Arashi's eyes instinctively followed the weapon for a fraction of a second.
That was the window.
Kashimo vanished. An instant later, he was in Arashi's space.
He threw a punch. Arashi's reaction was perfect; the Infinity barrier flared to life, the transparent wall forming in front of the fist.
But this ti, it was different.
Kashimo's fist was shrouded in a thin, rhythmic vibration of energy. It was a blank void. When the Infinity barrier t that energy, it wasn't pushed back.
It was neutralized.
The barrier lted like ice against fire. The punch broke through the space and slamd directly into Arashi's stomach.
Arashi's body doubled over. A spray of saliva escaped his lips as the air was punched out of his lungs. His blue eyes were wide with total disbelief.
Teleportation? No, it was too fast for that. How? And more importantly... why did the Infinity fail?
Kashimo didn't linger. He retreated imdiately, putting distance between them as he watched the man clutching his midsection.
His smile was jagged and bright. It worked.
Domain Amplification. By wrapping himself in a hollow domain, he could bypass techniques that relied on the concept of space. Normally, this would prevent him from using his own technique, but Kashimo didn't have a traditional innate technique to lose.
His lightning wasn't a technique. it was his nature. It was the electricity inherent in his cursed energy.
Kashimo dropped back into a low stance.
"Now," he said, the air crackling around him. "We can finally start the fight."
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