The dust hadn't even begun to settle from their initial explosive collision before Aoi Todo was moving again. The massive spiderweb of fractured soil beneath their feet groaned as Todo threw his weight forward, his face twisted into an expression of pure, ecstatic adrenaline. He loved this. He lived for the moments when a battle transcended simple physical violence and became a profound communion of spirits.
"Magnificent, Oden!" Todo bellowed, his voice booming over the sound of snapping roots. "Your cursed energy is like a boundless ocean, yet you compress it tightly around your frame with the precision of a master craftsman! Let us see how that immaculate silhouette holds up against the unyielding weight of my passion!"
Todo unleashed a blinding barrage of heavy, close-quarter strikes. A devastating left hook tore through the air, carrying enough raw kinetic force to uproot a nearby maple tree from the sheer wind pressure alone.
Oden didn't flinch. His dark hoodie remained pulled firmly up over his head, and the white cloth over his eyes didn't shift a millimeter as he leaned his torso back with fluid, liquid grace. The left hook grazed past his chin, missing by a mere fraction of an inch. Through the shared senses of the small pale snake wrapped tightly around his neck, Oden could perceive the entire battlefield in a flawless, three-dimensional sensory layout. He didn't need his own eyes; the golden-eyed Shikigami tracking Todo's muscle twitches provided him with a perfect roadmap of every single incoming attack.
"You're fast for a big guy, Todo," Oden remarked smoothly, his voice completely level as he slid his right foot back, pivoting his body to avoid a crushing downward axe kick that shattered a massive boulder into a million jagged fragments. "But you're throwing a lot of unnecessary weight into those swings. Are you trying to hit me, or are you just trying to remodel the entire forest?"
"A true man leaves his mark upon the world!" Todo shouted with a massive, toothy grin.
He lunged forward, executing a flawless double-leg takedown attempt. Oden anticipated the movement perfectly via his snake's elevated vantage point, bringing his knee up sharply to intercept Todo's chest. Todo caught the knee with his massive forearms, the impact ringing out like a heavy iron bell. Seizing the momentum, Todo twisted his hips and hurled Oden straight toward a dense thicket of thick, ancient cedar trees.
Oden soared through the air with effortless composure. Mid-flight, he twisted his body, extending his boots to plant them firmly against the trunk of a massive tree. The wood creaked violently under the sudden transfer of energy, but Oden didn't break a single bone. Instead, he used the tree like a massive springboard, detonating himself backward straight toward Todo with twice the velocity, his left fist completely shrouded in a dense, rippling aura of cursed energy.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Todo laughed fiercely.
As Oden closed the distance like a dark meteor, Todo raised his hands, his palms flat.
Clap!
The sharp, distinct sound of a single handclap echoed through the clearing. In an absolute, instantaneous blink of an eye, the space coordinates of the battlefield inverted. Oden's fist, which had been aimed squarely at Todo's chest, suddenly slammed directly into the solid, heavy trunk of the cedar tree Todo had been standing in front of. The massive tree completely exploded into a shower of splinters and loose bark under the sheer weight of Oden's massive cursed energy.
Todo was suddenly standing ten yards away, occupying the exact spatial position a loose, soccer-ball-sized rock had held just a millisecond prior.
'What the!?,' Oden thought, his pale snake quickly swiveling its golden head to lock onto Todo's new position. 'Was that a technique?'
"Surprised?!" Todo yelled, already closing the distance from the flank, his massive arm cocked back for a devastating clothesline strike.
"Not particularly," Oden replied lazily.
Without turning his body around, Oden dropped to the floor in a sweeping low crouch. Todo's massive arm swung harmlessly through the empty air where Oden's neck had been. From his low position, Oden executed a fierce, sweeping kick aimed directly at Todo's ankles. Todo hopped over the sweep with surprising agility for his massive frame, but Oden was already shifting his weight, driving a palm strike infused with cursed energy straight up into Todo's exposed midsection.
Todo managed to cross his massive forearms just in time to block the blow. The sheer volume of Oden's compressed energy detonated against Todo's guard, sending the giant Kyoto student skidding backward across the dirt for twenty full yards, his heavy boots carving two deep, parallel trenches into the earth before he finally came to a halt.
Todo lowered his smoking forearms, his eyes wider than ever, a drop of sweat rolling down his scarred cheek. He wasn't angry; he was utterly intoxicated by the sheer quality of the exchange. Neither of them was going all out. Oden hadn't summoned any of his high-tier entities, and Todo was keeping his physical pacing within a structured, competitive rhythm. Yet the level of their hand-to-hand combat was absolutely peerless.
"Splendid! Absolutely splendid!" Todo cheered, wiping a stray smear of dirt from his chin. "Your reaction time is utterly unnatural, Oden! Even with your eyes fully covered by that white cloth, you navigate my Boogie Woogie as if you can see the future! Is it the little serpent friend around your neck? Do you share your visual consciousness with a curse?!"
"Something like that," Oden chuckled, casually dusting off a few stray wood splinters from his dark hoodie. "We're a package deal. It makes it pretty difficult for anyone to catch me from a blind spot. So, are we going to keep dancing, or do you need a minute to figure out a new choreography?"
"A true idol of the battlefield never requests an intermission!" Todo bellowed, his aura flaring to life once more as he prepared to sprint forward.
Back in the secure executive monitoring room, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Satoru Gojo was practically bouncing out of his high-backed leather chair, his hands firmly gripping his empty bucket of popcorn as he pointed aggressively at the central monitor display.
"Look at that transition! Did you see how cleanly Oden absorbed the kinetic recoil from that tree springboard?! And Todo's spatial tracking is absolutely top-tier today! This is pure, unadulterated artistry, Utahime! This is what real youth looks like when it's allowed to run wild!" Gojo cheered, his voice filling the entire administrative chamber.
Utahime crossed her arms, her jaw clenched as she watched the sheer destruction of the school's historical forest reserve. "They're completely obliterating the southern perimeter, Satoru. If they keep throwing each other through centuries-old cedar trees, the environmental repair costs are going to be absolutely astronomical."
Suddenly, the central screen, which had been displaying a beautifully crisp, high-definition tracking shot of Oden and Todo's fierce exchange, violently flickered. The image cut away entirely, replaced by a visual feed of Maki Zenin, Inumaki, and Panda running methodically through a quiet bamboo grove several miles away.
Gojo's enthusiastic smile instantly collapsed into a look of absolute, dramatic betrayal. He threw his arms up into the air, letting out a loud, agonized whine that caused several nearby papers to flutter.
"Eeeeh?! Mei-mei! What the hell are you doing?!" Gojo complained loudly, leaning across the console and pointing a finger at the screen. "Change it back! Change it back right now! Nobody wants to watch a slow, strategic cross-country jog through the bamboo! We were right in the middle of a high-impact, Special Grade physical masterclass! Bring back the heavy hitters!"
Mei Mei sat back comfortably in her swivel chair, a smooth, completely unbothered expression on her face as she casually adjusted her long silver braid. Her fingers tapped rhythmically against her smartphone screen.
"Calm yourself, Satoru," Mei Mei replied smoothly, her tone dripping with professional indifference. "As the designated visual supervisor of this event, I have a strict administrative obligation to provide equal, comprehensive coverage of all participating students from both academic institutions. We cannot simply dedicate all of our black crows to a single clearing just because you enjoy high-intensity physical choreography. The parents and conservative sponsors want to see the collective tactical progression of the entire roster."
"That is an absolute lie and you know it!" Gojo groaned, crossing his arms and pouting like a giant child. "You're just doing this to mess with me!"
However, beneath her calm, professional demeanor, Mei Mei's eyes remained sharply focused on a smaller, secondary handheld monitor concealed right beneath her primary desk space. The feed on that private screen wasn't showing Maki's team at all. It was tracking the outer perimeter of the southern clearing, where the rest of the Kyoto students were currently moving through the shadows of the dense foliage with absolute tactical precision.
Mei Mei had intentionally switched the main public broadcast feed to hide the sudden, coordinated arrival of the Kyoto team on Oden's position. It was a calculated, quiet adjustment, one that ensured the higher-ups got exactly what they wanted without Gojo immediately leaping out of his chair to intervene.
What Gojo couldn't see on the main screen was the dark reality of the Kyoto team's movements. They weren't hunting cursed spirits for points. They were hunting Oden.
Back in the shattered clearing, Oden and Todo had paused their physical exchange for a brief second, both boys catching their breath as they stood amidst the ruined terrain. The air was still thick with the residual heat of their clashing cursed energy.
Suddenly, the small pale snake around Oden's neck stiffened violently. Its tiny golden eyes swiveled sharply toward the thick canopy of leaves directly above the southern ridge line. Through their shared sensory link, Oden instantly perceived three distinct, high-velocity masses cutting through the mountain breeze with lethal intent.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Three traditional Japanese hunting arrows came bursting through the dense leaves, tearing toward Oden's exposed throat and chest at supersonic speeds. Each arrow was coated in a deep, crimson shroud of cursed energy. A signature manifestation of Noritoshi Kamo's Blood Manipulation technique, specifically accelerated and hardened to act as a lethal execution tool.
Oden didn't even shift his footing. His dark hoodie remained completely still, his white blindfold facing forward.
With three lightning-fast, casual movements of his right hand, Oden intercepted the incoming projectiles mid-air. The physical execution was so blindingly fast that to a standard observer, it looked as though the lethal arrows had simply stopped existing. Oden caught all three arrows barehanded, his fingers clamping down firmly around the wooden shafts just inches away from his flesh. The crimson blood-infused cursed energy flared violently against his palms, trying desperately to pierce his defenses, but it failed to leave even a single scratch on his skin, completely neutralized by the dense, impenetrable wall of his massive reserves.
Oden calmly closed his fist, applying a brief, casual squeeze of raw physical force.
Crack!
The high-quality wooden shafts and steel tips were instantly crushed into a harmless handful of splintered debris and dust, drifting lazily out of his palm and scattering onto the ruined dirt below.
"Well, well," Oden said lazily, shaking his hand out to clear the remaining dust. "It looks like our private conversation has been thoroughly crashed by people who don't know how to mind their own business."
From the edge of the dense foliage, Noritoshi Kamo stepped out into the open clearing, his bow fully drawn with a fourth blood-coated arrow locked onto the string. Right behind him, Mai Zenin emerged from the brush, her revolver raised and aimed directly at Oden's head, her finger tightening on the trigger with lethal intent.
Before Kamo could even open his mouth to coordinate the next lethal volley, a heavy, suffocating wave of pure, unadulterated fury filled the entire clearing. It didn't come from Oden. It came from Todo.
Todo slowly turned his head around, his face completely dark, a massive, prominent vein throbbing violently on his forehead. His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were audibly popping under the immense strain. He glared at his own classmates with a terrifying, murderous expression that made Mai instantly freeze in absolute terror.
"Kamo..." Todo whispered, his voice dangerously low, vibrating with an absolute, terrifying rage. "What did I explicitly tell all of you before we even set foot into this forest?"
Kamo kept his eyes narrowed, trying to maintain his composure despite the sweat dripping down his neck. "Todo, stand down. This is an official directive from the higher-ups. We have a mandate to eliminate him here and now. Do not let your personal eccentricities jeopardize the mission."
"I told you I don't care about your pathetic mission!" Todo roared, his voice shaking the entire southern sector of the forest. "I explicitly told you not to get in my way! To interrupt a sacred duel of souls with a cowardly, state-sponsored assassination... you are an absolute disgrace to the path of a warrior! I told you I would decide his fate! If a single one of you steps another inch into this clearing, I will consider you my enemy and beat you within an inch of your miserable lives!"
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