Black Flash.
The spatial distortion amplified the strike to two-point-five times its normal power, and Shien felt himself launched through the air. His reinforced skull saved him from immediate death—without the cursed energy and the serum's enhancements, Naoya's strike would have caved his head in completely.
Instead, Shien's body ragdolled backward, crashing through a wooden training wall in an explosion of splinters.
He hit the ground hard, vision swimming.
Fucking coward! Shien realized with cold clarity. I am going to skin that snake.
Naoya appeared in front of him, moving with impossible speed. His cursed technique activated visibly now—Shien could see the frames, the way Naoya's movement broke down into discrete images like a stop-motion film.
Projection Sorcery.
Naoya's cursed technique divided motion into frames, and once he reached twenty-four frames of movement, his speed increased exponentially. He could "freeze" opponents by forcing them into his frame rate, If opponents did not move at the frame rate set by Naoya they would freeze for a second. And in a jujutsu battle a second might as well be a lifetime.
And right now, Naoya was so fast building up momentum by continuously using his technique.
"You bastard," Naoya snarled, appearing behind Shien and driving a knee into his spine. "Whore's son. You think you can humiliate me? I AM THE HEIR TO THE ZENIN CLAN!"
The impact sent Shien flying again. He reinforced his body desperately, cursed energy flooding his skeleton and muscles. Shien was weathering the punches, his brain calculating how to retaliate. Naoya was too fast. Shien had to predict rather than react. In most fights, Shien's superior reflexes meant he could react, allowing the enemy to take the initiative before Shien counter-finished them off. With Naoya's supersonic speed, this was not possible.
"You're not worthy of the Zenin name!" Naoya appeared above him, descending with a hammer fist.
Shien twisted, barely avoiding the full impact. The strike grazed his cheek, and he felt bone crack despite his reinforcement. Shien froze in a frame for a second helpless as he watched punch coming.
Reality distorted again.
Black Flash.
Naoya's fist connected with Shien's ribs, spatial distortion amplifying the impact. Shien was launched through the air like a missile, crashing through trees at the edge of the training yard, his body carving a trench through the forest floor.
He came to rest thirty meters away, breathing hard, ribs screaming.
Two Black Flashes, Shien thought, pushing himself upright. He's in the zone now. This is dangerous.
His cursed energy reserves were dangerously low. The domain expansion practice had drained him, and the binding vow restricted him to fifty percent normally. He was running on fumes.
But he could fix that.
He could release the binding vow. Activate Prime Time. Get two hundred percent of his cursed energy reserves flooding back in an instant. Crush Naoya with overwhelming power.
No, Shien decided, pride flaring hot in his chest. To release Prime Time for a bum like Naoya? That would be admitting he's worth taking seriously. I won't give him that satisfaction.
He'd beat Naoya with what he had left. On principle.
Naoya appeared in the distance, gathering speed, his cursed technique creating sonic booms as he accelerated. The ground cracked beneath his feet, trees bending from the displaced air. His face was twisted with rage, eyes wild.
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Naoya roared, charging.
Shien watched him come, analyzing. Projection Sorcery makes him fast, but it's predictable. He has to build speed through consecutive movements, and once he commits to an attack vector, he cannot change direction.
Naoya closed the distance in seconds, fist drawn back for a devastating blow aimed at Shien's head.
"You're so predictable, nii-san," Shien said calmly.
Then he did something completely unorthodox.
He flattened himself to the ground in a motion no normal human body could manage—spine bending at angles that would break bones, muscles moving in ways that defied anatomy. The serum-enhanced brain allowed him to execute movements his perfect memory had catalogued from hundreds of hours of study.
Naoya's fist passed over him by millimeters.
Shien executed a capoeira kick from his prone position, spinning his body with explosive force, his toe grazing Naoya's ankle.
Naoya's cursed technique stuttered.
The "freeze frame" effect activated in reverse—touching Naoya mid-technique while he was moving at high speed forced him into a moment of temporal lag, his body locked into a single frame.
Now.
Shien poured everything he had left into his fist, feeling for that infinitesimal window, that perfect alignment of physical impact and cursed energy.
One millionth of a second.
Black Flash.
His fist connected with Naoya's knee. The spatial distortion rippled outward, and Naoya's leg bent at a wrong angle with an audible crack. He collapsed, screaming.
Shien stood slowly, breathing hard. His face throbbed where the cheekbone was fractured. He reached up, placed his hand over the injury, and guided his cursed energy into reversal.
Reverse Cursed Technique flowed smoothly, negative meeting negative to create positive healing energy. The bones clicked back together within seconds.
Shien approached Naoya, who was clutching his shattered knee, face pale with pain.
"Weakling," Shien said quietly. "I didn't even need to use my cursed technique. If you are going to hit the king you better kill him."
He drove his knee into Naoya's stomach with brutal precision. Ribs cracked audibly. Naoya coughed blood.
Shien raised his foot, preparing to stomp Naoya's face into the dirt—
—and found himself completely paralyzed.
His body locked up, muscles refusing to respond. Cursed energy wrapped around him like invisible chains, holding him in place.
Ranta, he thought.
Shien's eyes darted to the side.
Ranta stood twenty meters away, hands clasped in a binding seal, blood streaming from his eyes. The Hei member's face was twisted with effort, tears of blood running down his cheeks as he poured his cursed energy into restraining Shien.
"Shien-sama," Ranta gasped. "Please... stop..."
Around the training yard, more figures had arrived. Naobito stood at the front, moving with supernatural speed. Behind him: Ogi, Jinichi, and half the Hei unit, all tense and ready.
"Enough!" Naobito's voice cracked like a whip.
Shien's rage crystallized into something cold and sharp.
"Shien," Naobito said, approaching carefully. "Stop. Don't kill him. He's your brother—"
"Half-brother," Shien corrected, voice deadly calm. "And he started it, and I am finishing it."
"You have made your point!" Naobito commanded. "Stand down."
Shien was weak now. The Black Flash was the only reason he had any cursed energy left. If Shien killed Naoya, he would be openly undermining Naobito, weakening his father in front of the clan. Shien needed his father to be in charge of the clan, at least until he grew up. But in the Zenin clan, there was no sin greater than weakness.
Shien released the binding vow.
Prime Time activated.
Cursed energy erupted from him like a tidal wave, two hundred percent of his reserves flooding back in an instant. The sheer pressure made the air shimmer, made the ground crack beneath his feet, made every member of the Hei stumble backward in terror.
Ranta's binding technique shattered like glass. The man fell to his knees, blood pouring from his ruined eyes, the backlash of trying to restrain that much cursed energy destroying his sight completely.
"Shien!" Naobito said, his voice full of panic.
Everyone else was frozen, paralyzed by the overwhelming presence of Shien's full power. Even Ogi, typically arrogant and confrontational, looked pale. The Hei members had expressions of absolute terror etched on their faces, some trembling visibly.
Shien's foot came down.
Not on Naoya's face—he'd moved at the last second, driven by pure spite—but in a devastating kick to Naoya's jaw. Bone crunched. Teeth shattered. Naoya's head snapped to the side, and he went limp, unconscious.
Shien turned to face the assembled clan members, cursed energy still radiating off him in waves. He walked over to where Ranta knelt, blood streaming from his destroyed eyes. The man was crying from pain. Shien liked Ranta—he was a loyal man and a good soldier.
He placed his hand on Ranta's face and activated Reverse Cursed Technique. The healing energy flowed through Ranta's optic nerves, repairing the catastrophic damage. It took a few seconds longer than usual—healing others was delicate work. Ranta blinked, vision restored.
Before Ranta could speak, Shien punched him in the gut.
Not hard enough to do serious damage. Just hard enough to double Ranta over and collapse him to the ground, gasping for air.
Shien turned to face his father and the Hei, his expression cold and imperious. His eyes swept across them with undisguised contempt.
"Maki and Mai are mine," he declared, voice cutting through the silence like a blade. He scowled at the Hei members, watching them flinch. "Any insult to them is an insult to me. And anyone who insults me will die." Shien looked at his father. "If I see him again"—gesturing to the passed-out Naoya—"I will kill him."
Then Shien raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The sky erupted.
One hundred feet above them, a massive explosion of cursed energy detonated, a sphere of roiling flame and force that painted the training yard in hellish purple light. The shockwave slammed down like the fist of an angry god, a wall of compressed air and heat that hit the ground with devastating force.
Every member of the Hei was thrown from their feet, bodies ragdolling across the training yard. Even Naobito staggered, forced to brace himself against the overwhelming pressure. Trees bent nearly horizontal. The ground cracked in spiderweb patterns. The air itself screamed.
The explosion faded, leaving only smoke and ringing silence.
Shien disappeared in a blur of speed. He entered his quarters, Prime Time still active but beginning to wind down. The hour-long window was already fifteen minutes gone, and his cursed energy would soon crash back to ten percent.
Why didn't I kill him?
The question surfaced unbidden as he walked through the hallway. Shien turned it over in his mind, examining it from multiple angles.
Part of me knows that Naoya is a powerful sorcerer. Killing him would weaken the clan. Despite being a coward who attacks from behind, he has his uses. Naoya worships power over everything, and he will learn his place like Masato Zenin learned his place under Naobito despite being older. Masato Zenin was passed over despite being older because Naobito was the much stronger. ( A.N Masato Zenin is Toji Zenin's father. Gege mentioned this in an interview, I created a name as Gege did not mention the name of Toji's father. Naobito was the middle son. Ogi being the younger son. Toji is Naobito's nephew and the oldest son of his brother. Jinichi Zenin is Toji Zenin's younger brother.)
But there was more to it than cold pragmatism.
As a member of the Hei and the third most powerful sorcerer in the clan, Naoya was well within his rights to chastise Maki. She has no cursed energy. She's considered worthless by clan standards. I find her insolence amusing, but other clan members would not. They'd see it as disrespect that requires correction.
The logic was sound. The clan hierarchy demanded it. By their rules, Naoya had done nothing wrong.
So why does it still feel like I should have crushed his skull?
Shien didn't have an answer.
He headed for his room, intending to collapse on his bed and resume playing video games until the adrenaline wore off—
—and stopped.
Maki sat on the couch in the common area, Sayo tending to her injuries with careful hands, a damp cloth wiping away blood from her face. Bruises were already forming. Her lip was split, her nose swollen.
Mai sat beside them, eyes red from crying, holding her sister's hand.
All three looked up when Shien entered.
Shien didn't say anything. He walked directly to Maki and knelt in front of her, reaching out.
"What—" Maki started, her tone sounding like she was bracing for a scolding.
"Let me see," Shien said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Maki hesitated, glancing at Sayo, who paused in her ministrations and nodded slowly.
Shien placed his hands on Maki's face, guiding his cursed energy into reversal. The split lip closed first, then the swelling in her nose reduced. Bruises faded to nothing. Within a few seconds, Maki looked completely healed.
"There," Shien said, sitting back.
Maki touched her face, surprised. Then her expression hardened. "Tha... Thank you."
"You're strong. Physically, you're stronger than most adults," Shien interrupted, his voice flat and clinical. "Your technique is good. Amazing reflexes—you have a talent for fighting. But you have no cursed energy. Against a grade two curse or against a sorcerer, you'll die. That's just something you need to accept."
Maki's hands clenched into fists. "Then I'll—"
"You can't," Shien said flatly. "There's a ceiling to what you can achieve without cursed energy. And Naoya is above that ceiling. Accept it. There is a lot more to life than jujutsu."
The words landed like physical blows. Maki's face went through several emotions—anger, frustration, despair—before settling into stubborn defiance.
"So what?" Maki's voice was tight. "I should just give up? Accept that I'm useless?"
Shien was quiet for a moment and sighed. "I know you can find something else where you can excel at."
He stood, the dismissal clear.
Why does that feel... wrong?
The thought came unbidden, a strange discomfort settling in his chest. He'd stated facts. Objective reality. There was nothing cruel about truth. He did not want Maki to die fighting monsters.
So why did it feel bad?
Mai, who'd been silent this whole time, spoke up quietly. "Thank you, Shien-chan. For stopping Naoya-san."
"He won't bother you again," Shien said with absolute certainty. "I made that very clear."
"Shien-chan," Sayo said softly, finally looking up at her son properly.
Her eyes widened.
"You're hurt," she said, rising from her seat. Her hands reached for him, hovering over the dried blood soaking through his clothes. "Oh, Shien-chan—when did this—how badly—"
"I'm fine, Mother," Shien said, catching her hands gently. "RCT. I healed myself already. It's just dried blood."
Sayo's expression was troubled, her eyes searching his face for any sign of injury. "What happened out there? The servants are saying you destroyed half the training yard. That you fought Naoya and—"
"I won," Shien said simply. "He attacked me from behind. Like a coward. I defended myself. It's over now."
"Is Naoya... did you ki..."
"Unconscious. Probably in the infirmary." Shien's tone was dismissive. "And if he's smart, he'll stay there."
Sayo studied her son's face, worry evident in her eyes. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine, Mother. Really." Shien managed a small smile. "I'm going to go play video games until dinner. Call me when it's ready."
He headed toward his room, pausing only briefly at the door. He didn't look back at Maki. Didn't offer any comfort or reassurance.
He simply went into his room, closed the door, and collapsed onto his bed with his controller.
Prime Time was winding down. His cursed energy would crash soon.
But for now, he'd won. Even an idiot like Naoya should be able to read the writing on the wall. It was the best that could be done considering the circumstances. So much drama over nothing.
Shien started up his game.
Outside his room, he heard quiet voices, but couldn't make out the words. Mai saying something. Maki responding. Sayo's gentle murmur.
That strange feeling in his chest remained, that inexplicable discomfort from telling Maki the truth.
Why does stating reality feel bad? She needed to hear it. It is for her own good.
He pushed the thought aside and focused on his game.
It doesn't matter.
But the feeling didn't quite go away.