Kashimo let go of the Soul Split Katana.
The blade hit the ground with a dull thud. He didn't look back at it. The earth shattered beneath his feet as he lunged toward Sawara. Sawara pivoted, slipping past the incoming punch and driving a counter into Kashimo's ribs, but he had walked straight into a trap.
Kashimo didn't flinch. He absorbed the impact, his fingers locking around Sawara's wrist like an iron trap. Using the montum of the strike, Kashimo twisted his entire fra and hurled the Zenin clan head across the road.
A heavy wind whistled from behind him. Agito's massive fist descended with enough force to shatter stone. Kashimo reached up with his one remaining hand, palm open.
Clap.
The blow that should have crushed his skull stopped dead in his palm. Agito roared, its muscles bulging and veins pulsing as it doubled its effort, but Kashimo's hand was like solid iron. No matter how much the beast strained, the fist didn't move an inch.
Kashimo looked up, a wild laugh breaking from his throat. The sound was a jagged roar that harmonized with the thunder overhead. At his empty right shoulder, flesh began to churn. Bone extended and vessels wove together in a frantic, visceral dance as a new arm sprouted from the stump. Before the fingers had even fully ford, he balled them into a fist and drove it upward into Agito's stomach.
The electrical charge detonated instantly.
A massive hole was blown through the beast's center, spraying blood and shredded organs across the dirt. The chiric beast froze, standing like a broken statue as its life poured out.
"Ox!" Sawara's scream echoed from behind.
The Piercing Ox erupted from the shadows, its hooves tearing the earth as it leveled its horns at Kashimo's back. It moved with the montum of a landslide.
But it was too late.
Kashimo pushed off the ground, launching himself into the air. The Ox thundered beneath him, its horns catching nothing but the hem of his robes. As he reached the apex of his leap, the dark clouds overhead began to boil.
Sawara looked up, his one good eye tracking the silhouette as it rose higher. He stayed focused, ready to react to whatever move ca next. He watched Kashimo like a predator waiting for a single flaw in the man's defense.
Then, Kashimo fired a strand of cursed energy, not a strike but a single, hair-thin filant of negative charge, shot from his fingertip into the swirling storm clouds above. It vanished into the dark, a tiny spark tossed into a powder keg.
A second later, the clouds ignited.
The pent-up energy of the storm was drawn to the negative filant, lightning coiling from every corner of the sky. Blue-white light tore through the clouds, sounding like a thousand dragons roaring in the deep, ready to fall.
Sawara's pupils constricted. He realized the trap.
"Agito! Ox!" he scread, his voice raw with desperation.
Agito struggled forward, dragging its mangled lower half through the dirt. The Piercing Ox skidded and turned, its hooves carving deep into the stone as it prepared to charge where Kashimo would land. They moved to cut off every possible exit.
But Kashimo had no intention of running.
The mont his feet hit the ground, his left hand shot out and caught the Ox by the horn. The beast shrieked, its hooves digging into the dirt as it tried to shake him off, but he was immovable. He twisted his body, using his core to heave the massive creature into the air.
The Ox's massive fra beca a shield, flying straight into the path of the high-pressure water jet erupting from Sawara's palms.
The Piercing Water hit the beast instead of the lightning guide. Blood misted the air as the water tore through the Ox's torso. The jet was forced off course, whistling past the electrical strand and vanishing into the horizon.
Kashimo stood steady, his new right hand closing into a fist. He looked at Sawara.
"You're a step too late."
Overhead, the lightning reached its breaking point. A tear opened in the clouds, and a pillar of blue-white light poured down, illuminating the entire mountain pass and the look of sheer horror on Sawara's face.
"Moonlight."
"Thunder."
"The lake and the sky."
"Piercing Lightning."
Kashimo spoke each word with a cold, rhythmic precision.
This strike was not built on his own energy. It was a harvest of the storm, drawn from the clouds and refined through his own current, layer upon layer of pressure building into an impossible discharge. It was the absolute peak of what his technique could achieve.
A thunderbolt like a nuclear strike detonated over Izumo, bleaching the valley in a blinding, absolute white.
Among the shattered stone and splintered trees, Sawara lay broken against a boulder. Half his body was a charred ruin. One leg was entirely gone, leaving only a blackened stump. He was no longer a jujutsu sorcerer or a clan head. He was just a dying man.
Kashimo stood over him, his breathing heavy and his own face a mask of blood and burns. He looked down at the wreckage, his lips curling into a jagged smile.
Kashimo was the one left standing.
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A/n: Your bonus chapter is here. New goal: 800 power stones = 1 bonus chapter.
For early access to 15 chapters ahead: p@tre~~/Demonic_Fiction (Link is in the synopsis and my profile).
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