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Nanami walked out of the barrier and was met by the gazes of the Tokyo students.
"Sorry for losing like that..." muttered Nanami.
"You know where you messed up?" asked Geto.
"...I got too preoccupied with what I had to do and didn't take into consideration what my opponent could do," replied Nanami.
Geto gave a nod and then stepped forward.
"Don't worry. Reflect on it and learn from this. For now, leave the match to me," said Geto and entered the cursed barrier.
-----
Geto walked through the battlefield and remembered the Goodwill event from last year....He was not going to show a bad performance like last year's.
He will show that he can step above everyone's expectations of him.
After walking for a while, he came across his opponent, Hideaki Kamo.
Seeing him, Hideaki's eyes widened in surprise.
'...Why the hell is the senior here?' thought Hideaki.
Suguru Geto was not that well-known, but he still had the reputation of being strong. Not close to Naoya Zenin or Satoru Gojo, but he was not someone most sorcerers could take on.
"Kamo-kun, no hard feelings, alright?" asked Geto with a smile.
Hideaki gulped and gave a nod.
Outside the barrier, the Kytoto students were already offering a silent prayer for their unfortunate teammate.
"Are both participants ready?" The voice echoed throughout the barrier.
Geto gave a confident nod while Hideaki took his stance and nodded as well.
"3,2,1 START!!!"
Immediately, Hideaki leapt behind and decided to activate his CT.
However, a cursed spirit behind him crashed into him, sending him flying towards Geto, who, with his CE reinforced arm, grabbed Hideaki by the collar and slammed him into the ground.
"AHH!!!"
Hideaki spat out as pain coursed through his body.
He glared at Geto, who was simply smiling at him with a horde of strong, cursed spirits behind him, ready to attack Hideaki at a moment's notice.
"I think you are smart enough to know what to do after this," said Geto.
Hideaki looked at Geto's smug face and, for a moment, thought of retaliating.
However, a cursed spirit inched closer to his face and bared its fangs at him.
"...I surrender," muttered Hideaki.
"Winner Tokyo! 1-minute break starts now. 2nd participant from Kyoto, be ready!"
The announcement came, and Geto let go of Hideaki and offered his hand for him to stand up.
Hideaki begrudgingly took his hand.
"Remember, no hard feelings," said Geto.
"*Sigh*, whatever."
Hideaki walked out of the battlefield.
Geto looked at Hideaki's retreating figure and then checked himself. Not a single scratch and barely any CE used.
Last year, he decided to take things too cautiously and paid for that. He tried to test the waters first, but this time he wasn't going to do that. He would be taking things seriously from the start.
-----
Hideaki stepped out of the barrier and was greeted by his teammates.
"Don't mind, Hideaki."
"You did well."
"Peanut."
The three of them gave him reassuring words, though that didn't make him feel better. He was beaten quite easily in the previous fight. He couldn't do anything at all.
Shion wanted to cheer up his friend, but Naoya stopped him and shook his head.
Sometimes moping over one's losses is a good thing for growth.
"It's your turn next, Shion....Be careful," warned Naoya.
Shion looked towards his playful and jolly senior, who was looking at him seriously and turned serious as well.
'Not a fight I can go to being easy...' thought Shion and gave a pat on Hideaki's shoulder and walked inside the dome.
-----
Later, Shion stood in front of Geto, who was sitting on top of a curse, waiting for his next opponent.
The moment Shion arrived, he cancelled all his curses back to the storage and got ready to fight.
Shion looked at Geto seriously and opened the zipper that was covering his mouth.
"Cashew Hazelnut," muttered Shion, warming up his throat.
"Both participants ready?"
Shion and Geto nodded.
"3,2,1, START!!!!"
Before Geto could even summon a curse, he heard a voice echo.
[Blast away!]
Geto found his body flying away at great speed, heading straight towards the forest and crashing through the trees.
Curses sprouted behind him to cushion him, and a second unit of curses headed towards Shion.
"Cursed speech is a bit problematic," muttered Geto and got ready to jump back into the fight.
Shion waited for Geto to make a move. Going after him was not safe since the closer he got to the cursed spirit user, the more surrounded he could get.
Moments later, a horde of curses came rushing towards him. They were weak, but their numbers were too much.
Shion glanced at them and then got ready to use his technique once again.
[Exp-]
As he opened his mouth, he found his movements stopping.
He looked around and noticed a cursed spirit that looked like a lady looking at him.
"A-Am I pretty?" asked the curse.
Shion was a bit confused and momentarily stopped.
Though, because of his confusion, Geto got his opportunity.
Tentacles sprouted out of the ground and restrained Shion, and a few of them even shoved themselves in Shion's mouth.
"Can't speak anymore now, can you?" asked Geto, smiling. Unaware of the fact that the scene he made looked quite questionable to the audience.
-----
On Tokyo's side, Gojo lowered his glasses to make sure that what he was seeing was true or not. Suguru Geto was publicly doing Tentacle play on a 'girl'.
Haibara and Nanami were looking at the scene with their eyes widened in horror. They were not able to believe how Geto could do such an awful thing to a cute girl like Shion. Haibara was even smacking the barrier to let him in and punching Geto in the face.
Shoko was facepalming, deciding that she would act like she was not friends with the pervert.
-----
In the audience room, Utahime was covering Maki's and Mai's eyes, making sure the kids didn't see the perverted play.
The higher-ups were already showing their displeasure at such a distasteful display... though internally, many of them were looking intently.
-----
The Kyoto side was even more shocked by the scene. They didn't know what to feel.
On one hand, they knew that Shion was a boy.
On the other hand, the whole thing looked quite lewd to them.
The three of them, in unison, slapped themselves to snap out of their thoughts.
------
"...Winner Tokyo... 1-minute break starts now. 3rd participant from Kyoto, be ready..."
A rather low announcement came, making Geto stop his tentacle play and let go of Shion.
As Shion was freed, he started coughing violently, his jaw was hurting, and his throat was hurting a lot, too.
Shion glared at Geto and then, without saying anything, walked away in anger.
"Raisin!"
Geto looked a bit confused but shrugged since he didn't understand what Shion meant anyway.
-----
"Cashew Almond!"
Shion ran up to his students, tearing up a bit.
"There, there. Don't cry. That pervert is not here. Don't worry," muttered Hideaki, hugging Shion and patting his back.
"I didn't know Geto-san had such tastes..." muttered Kuroko.
"Despicable," added Naoya.
The three of them nodded in agreement.
"It's my turn next...." muttered Kuroko.
"Stay safe there, bro. The world is not safe with people like them," said Naoya.
Kuroko nodded seriously. He didn't want to get entangled in Geto's fetishes.
-----
Kuroko stood face-to-face against Geto, looking at the Tokyo student with caution.
Geto, seeing that Kuroko was acting cautiously, felt a bit satisfied.
'Looks like seeing my prowess in the previous matches made them a bit cautious of me. Well, can't blame them now, can I?' thought Geto.
"Both participants ready?"
Kuroko and Geto nodded.
"3,2,1 START!!!"
[Dead Space]
Without wasting any time, Kuroko activated his technique and removed his presence from Geto's head.
Geto, though, was not going to let last year's mess take place once again.
He summoned the Kuchisake Onna and rushed towards Kuroko.
Together, the two of them moved closer to Kuroko's location.
[Simple Domain]
Both of them activated their Simple Domains.
Kuroko's technique messes with the target's heads and makes them not register him in their brains. This effectively makes him undetectable to enemies.
However, a [Simple Domain] does not depend on the user's understanding of their surroundings. If someone or something foreign is present or enters the domain, it will react and inform the user.
If the fight had started with both of them starting from anywhere they wanted, Kuroko would not have been caught so easily, but since they started from proximity, Geto had enough information to track him.
The [Simple Domain] gave away Kuroko's location, and immediately, Geto launched a series of curses at Kuroko, trapping him and effectively rendering him useless-
As the curses started spamming Kuroko, making Geto feel a bit relieved, he felt that some of his curses stopped existing.
This made Geto snap out of his thoughts and focus towards Kuroko, but he couldn't see anything because of the wall of curses, not to mention the domain just gave him the rough location of the target; he was still not able to see Kuroko since his brain was not registering him.
The curses had it worse, since they didn't even know what they were attacking. They were simply attacking the location that Geto ordered them to do. They could not sense through Geto's domain sensing.
Last year, Kuroko was frailer than most trained sorcerers; because of that, the only way he could kill curses was by catching them off guard.
However, because of the endless missions that the HQ had sent him on in the guise of evaluation, it allowed him to train and hone himself. He might not think that much has changed about him, but Naoya could testify that Kuroko has improved quite a lot. His control over his CE and CT was good from the start, and with the experience gained from missions, he was quite a formidable foe.
Kuroko, with his daggers, started slashing his way through the horde of clueless curses without panicking. He was aware of the [Simple Domain] giving away his position to Geto, but this was not something he was unfamiliar with. Naoya and Utahime had helped him train under these conditions as well.
Slash and kill a curse, jump away as curses came rushing towards him, old location and then move to a different location and kill again.
*SCREECH*
Kuchisake Onna screeched at the curses to give her a way.
The curses followed, and seeing the opening, Kuroko started running around.
Kuchisake Onna glared at Kuroko, more specifically, the location where Kuroko was, since she, too, could not register him in her brain, and as long as she could not do so, her technique could not be activated.
Kuroko ran away with all he got, trying to get out of the [Simple Domain]'s range and then start his attack.
"Not so fast!" yelled Geto as curses rushed out and started spreading around.
In a moment, a wall of curses surrounded the perimeter of his [Simple Domain].
Kuroko, though, didn't bother with the curse wall.
He gripped the Knuckle Duster that Naoya gave him, and with as much CE reinforcement as he could muster, he punched the curse in front of him.
His hand pierced through the curse, and Kuroko felt that he was about to break through.
However, before he could feel relieved, he felt his hand getting stuck as a strange liquid sprayed out of the curse.
"THERE!" ordered Geto as he noticed one of his curses vanish.
Immediately, the army of curses swarmed towards the stuck Kuroko.
Unable to move because of being stuck in the curse, Kuroko found himself being restrained by the curses that got on top of his body, making even breathing difficult for him.
He tried for a bit to get away, but after multiple unsuccessful attempts, he deactivated his technique.
"I surrender!" yelled Kuroko in panic. He was almost out of breath.
"Winner Tokyo! 1-minute break starts now. 4th participant from Kyoto, be ready!"
Geto called back his curses once the announcement was made and looked at Kuroko, who was plastered to the ground by the curses.
"...Sorry about that," muttered Kuroko, feeling a bit apologetic for almost knocking the boy unconscious by suffocating him.
"...It's okay....I got it better than Shion..." muttered Kuroko as he took in deep breaths.
Geto looked a bit confused by Kuroko's words. What does he mean by he got it better than Shion?
He thought for a while, but soon shook his thoughts away. For now, it was not the time to focus on these things.
It was, after all, the turn for the strongest member of Kyoto to enter the field.
-----
After that, Kuroko walked out of the field and apologised for not being able to take down the enemy.
Hideaki and Shion didn't say anything since they, too, got defeated by Geto in a worse way than Kuroko at that.
Naoya, though, didn't mind at all. Geto was not a weak sorcerer; frankly, he was stronger than many Grade-1s nearing Special Grade levels of strength, so it was not an inevitable thing that his teammates lost to him.
What mattered more was whether they learned something from this loss.
With that being said, he didn't point that out just yet. He will help with their training later. Right now, it was time to kick some ass.
Naoya entered the barrier and stood in front of Geto.
"On a hot streak, are you, Suguru?" asked Naoya with a smile.
"Haha, I am. I trained quite a bit during this year," replied Geto.
"It seems that way. Well, ready to go back to the audience side? You have stayed here quite a bit," said Naoya and started stretching his body.
Geto didn't say anything and simply stopped laughing and stared at Naoya, who was stretching his body.
Although indirectly, he fought him yesterday in the team event. Just two of his shikigami were able to keep him and his army of curses at bay.
Now, even more shikigami and, more importantly, the Special Grade summoner would be joining the fight. He didn't want to accept it, but he knew very well what that clash would result in.
"Naoya."
"Hm?"
"I know very well that in a clash between us and our shikigami, curses result in my loss," started Geto.
"What is this? Already giving up? Or are you asking me to go easy on you?" asked Naoya.
"No. Nothing like that," replied Geto and laughed a bit.
"...In our battle. I will come at you with my strongest move from the start. If even that doesn't do anything, I will give up," said Geto seriously.
Naoya stared at Geto. He looked dead serious.
"So what is it? Do you want me to give you time to set up this super powerful final move of yours or what?"
"Yes," replied Geto shamelessly.
"..."
Naoya was momentarily speechless. Shamelessness was strong with this one.
"...Well, considering you accepted that I am waystronger than you, sure," said Naoya and shrugged his shoulders.
"Huh? Wait. When did I say that-"
"Want me to disagree?" interrupted Naoya.
Geto shut his lips sealed.
Seeing that Naoya smiled.
Both of them took some distance from each other and looked towards the sky, and gave a nod.
"3,2,1. START!!!!"
Geto immediately started the preparation for his ultimate move.
He raised his hand as cursed energy started gathering near it.
"This move is my conviction to show the world that I am going to surpass and sacrifice myself to stand at the top," muttered Geto.
Black cracks in space appeared around Geto as cursed spirits started to pour out of it and swirl near his hands towards the mass of the cursed energy.
Slowly, more and more cursed spirits started gathering, and as time passed, the swirling orb of cursed energy kept getting bigger and bigger.
Naoya looked at the mass of cursed energy that Geto was converging. He could feel the amount that was present within it.
If it hits him, it will surely cause him a lot of injuries. He should probably dodge it.
"...But that will not befitting of me, who is way stronger than him."
"Suguru!" called Naoya.
Geto looked at Naoya. Was Naoya giving up on giving him time to set up?
"I acknowledge your effort....For that, I will crush your strongest with my strongest!" declared Naoya and took a stance.
He looked towards the sky and took a deep breath.
"I wanted to use this move on Satoru first....let's call this its test drive," muttered Naoya.
"GRANDPA!!!!!" yelled Naoya.
"Right here! Right now! I will show you that I have surpassed you!!!!" declared Naoya with enthusiasm.
-----
In the spectator room, Kagenori was taken aback by the declaration. He didn't know what his crazy grandson was saying; the only thing he knew was that he was not going to blink for even a second.
-----
Naoya took a deep breath and looked towards Geto seriously.
"Saying that now is a bit late. I am already done with my preparations. I don't know what you are pla-"
"Stop wasting time and fire," said Naoya in a calm tone.
Geto looked at Naoya, not even bothered by the massive cursed energy attack that he had, and felt a bit frustrated.
"You asked for it," muttered Geto.
[Maximum Technique: Uzumaki]
A massive swirling orb of supercondensed cursed energy comprising all spirits between Grade 4 and Semi Grade 2 in Geto's arsenal and most of his own CE flew straight towards Naoya.
Naoya, though, wasn't panicked at all.
He simply opened his eyes and looked towards the [Uzumaki] with amusement.
[Projection Sorcery] was a technique that had just recently become an inherited technique in the Zenin clan. It is quite a new technique, so not much is known about it. The only known uses of it to the masses were that it made the users go fast, and to most of them who don't actually use that technique or have the knowledge of it, that statement was true.
In actuality, the technique broke movements into frames and allowed users to move according to a set of pre-assigned movements. The advantage these frames gave was that they massively gave a boost in speed, and if the technique is stacked over it again and again, it gave even more boost to the momentum.
Because of that, the known users of this technique used it primarily to increase their acceleration and thereby strengthen their blows.
However, the essence of this technique is the frames. Each frame carries a movement. Doesn't matter how big or small, a movement in that frame will be considered. Even an eye blink or just chewing can be termed as a frame of movement. Though those things don't give advantages in battle, that part of the technique is mostly overlooked.
But if every movement is considered a frame.....won't chanting for Binding vow rituals be used for Projection Sorcery movements?
Naoya activated his [Projection Sorcery]
[From the depth where the light goes to die,
From the footprint of the mountain and the cast of the eye,
Rise, O ink of the earth, unburdened and blind,
Untethered from the shape that the sun has defined.
Reject the jagged, the edge, and the line,
Let the Euler's limit and the circle entwine.
Subtract the distance, eliminate the flaw,
Bending the dark to a singular law.
An infinite surface with nowhere to start,
A hollowed-out void with a crushing heart.
Neither beginning nor end to be found,
In the velvet silence of the lightless bound.
A zero-point horizon, a curve without cease,
The chaos of shadows now folded in peace.
Be the mirror of nothing, the weight of the all,
Stand as the pillar, though the heavens may fall.
Absolute.
Symmetrical.
Eternal.
Cursed Technique Black: Absolute Null Sphere]
The entire chant sounded like gibberish to others, but to the world, the ritual was complete.
From Naoya's hand, a singular gigantic sphere made of shadows without a single flaw launched forward.
Naoya wasted no time and used his shadows to move Geto out of the way.
The sphere blasted forward.
Uzumaki Destroyed.
Terrain Destroyed.
Barrier Destroyed.
The sphere moved without making any sound, but the destruction it caused was not silent at all.
Satoru was looking straight towards Naoya, who was looking back at him.
The sphere just went past him, as if challenging him.
The two continued to stare at each other, and soon a smirk appeared on their faces.
-----
Meanwhile, Gakuganji looked at the destruction that a single attack had done to his school and fainted.
Nagino went to support him, but he was no better.
All the higher-ups were in panic seeing the attack, and the entire spectator room was in chaos.
Twins were looking at the scene with stars in their eyes, while Utahime was trying to hold them back.
The only one who looked calm was Kagenori.
He was simply staring at the screen that went black the moment the barrier broke and was smiling....with pride.