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Momo stared down at the smoking crater, flying above the sight of devastation, feeling no small amount of guilt, 'This couldn't have ended up any other way.'
"Something's wrong."
Momo's head perked up as Mechamaru's voice transmitted through the earpiece that he had created for all of them to communicate, "Momo, do you have any visuals on the target?"
"N-no," Momo stammered after a second, "There's too much smoke; what's going on?"
"One of my puppets is down." Mechamaru replied with a cautious tone, "And just before that, I felt a strange fluctuation of cursed energy. I've never encountered something like it before."
"What are you trying to say?" Noritoshi's voice joined the call as he peered down at the crater from his vantage point perched in a tree.
"I don't think he's dead," Mechamaru said plainly, making the hearts of those listening drop.
"B-but you said that not even a special grade curse would be able to survive the combined output of your puppets!" Kasumi's panicked voice made Momo wince.
"It is probable that the attack never landed; even with the little we know of Kiniro's capabilities, it is reasonable to suspect that his ability to sense cursed energy is second only to Satoru Gojo." Mechamaru replied steadily despite the tense situation, "Even after creating puppets that specialize in outputting cursed energy, I can't make it instant. But now is not the time to dwell on what went wrong. Momo, clear the air and prepare to execute our contingency plan."
"Got it!" Momo quickly agreed before generating a powerful gust of air with her broom that dispelled the lingering cloud of smoke and dust, revealing the aftermath of Mechamaru's ambush.
The combined force of his puppets had struck with the force of a heavy ballistic missile, forming a near-perfect crater in the ground, twenty feet across, with a perfectly smooth surface where the rock had turned to glass. But even more concerning was the fact that the crater was completely empty.
"I don't see anything." Momo reported as she swept her eyes over the crater, "Is that bad?"
"Yes, even if it was a direct hit, you should see some kind of residue or bone ash from the carbonization. Our enemy is still alive and most likely considering his next move." Mechamaru explained, "Update: I've confirmed that the puppet I lost contact with has been dispatched, and even more concerning, it's been completely drained of cursed energy."
Noritoshi's jaw clenched at Mechamaru's announcement. All their information about Kiniro came from their principal, who had explained why Kiniro needed to be assassinated, 'The ability to drain cursed energy from cursed objects and even people is evil incarnate. And given his attitude, there's no telling if he may one day decide to turn that ability against jujutsu society. For that reason, he can not be allowed to exist.'
"Is there any sign of him?" Noritoshi asked as he reached behind his back and unslung his bow, preparing for the fight of his life and the future of jujutsu society, "If he used some technique, then he should have left behind a residue."
"No, there's nothing; he's vanished like a-He's here!" Mechamaru suddenly exclaimed, "Kiniro is engaging with my accessory puppets; we need to converge on their location immediately. They're not designed for close-quarters combat! We can't allow him to slip between our fingers! Momo, I'm sending up a flare!"
"I'm on it!" Momo replied urgently as she watched a blast of cursed energy shoot up into the air from the middle of the bamboo forest on campus.
Flying on her broom, it only took Momo a few seconds to arrive at the sight of the battle just in time to watch Kiniro dispatch the last cursed puppet with his hand wrapped around its head, hoisting it into the air as its cursed energy drained into him.
While the sight was disturbing enough, it was made all the worse by Kiniro's expression, one of twisted euphoria and indulgence.
"Kasumi, Noritoshi, how far out are you? He just destroyed the last-" Momo started to advise only to freeze as Kiniro dropped the puppet in his hand and looked up directly at her with a broad smile across his face, "I've been spotted!"
"Momo, get out of there!" Kasumi cried out, the stress clear in her voice.
"I should be fine," Momo said somewhat uneasily as Kiniro continued to stare at her through the dense canopy, "I'm nearly a hundred feet in the air; there's no way he should be able to reach-"
Kiniro immediately proved Momo wrong as he threw out his arm.
Yanking her broom to the side, Momo rolled through the air just in time to avoid the long needle-like blade and the serrated chain trailing behind it that would have skewered her had she not moved.
'So fast!' Momo thought as a bead of sweat rolled down from her temple, 'If I had been just a second slower.'
But before Momo could fully reflect on her brush with death, she felt something shift in the air around her as if someone was staring at her. Looking over her shoulder, Momo was just in time to watch Kiniro's knife curve around and correct its trajectory to pursue her once more.
'No way, it's tracking me?!' Momo panicked as she hastily infused her broom with cursed energy and took off, hoping to outrun the chained blade, "Guys, I'm in trouble; he's somehow controlling his knife to chase me through the air. I don't know how long I can stay ahead of it!"
"Just hold on, I'm about to reach him!" Kasumi called out with determination in her voice.
"Kasumi, no, do not engage Kiniro alone!" Mechamaru protested, "Wait for Noritoshi to arrive, and then fight him together; that's the only chance you have at winning!"
"I'm only a minute out!" Noritoshi announced, his footsteps pounding audibly against the ground.
"That's too much time to leave Momo fending for herself," Kasumi countered, "I'm going in; I just need to hold him off for a minute. I can at least do that much."
"Kasumi no!"
---
Peering through the trees, Kiniro's eyes were moving back and forth at a dizzying speed as he tracked Momo's flight through the air despite her many evasive maneuvers. 'It looks like I was right to make my knives into my next Cursed Tool.'
Imbued with the sin of Lust, Kiniro's knives had become far more deadly and the perfect vessel for his unique combative style. Lust's main cursed technique was desire. As long as Kiniro could see, his intended target Lust would pursue the object of his desire to the very ends of the earth, extending infinitely in a relentless pursuit, a true manifestation of its namesake. The same requirement could also be fulfilled if Kiniro could see the shape of his opponent's soul through his Marks of Sin or the Gaze of a Demonic Prince. But there was also a far more sinister side to Lust as well, one that was only revealed once its object of desire was finally within its grasp.
'Almost there,' Kiniro thought with a smile as he watched Lust quickly eat up the distance between it and Momo, but just as the needle tip was about to graze the straw of Momo's broom, Kiniro was forced to look away as he sensed a spike of hostile intent.
Spinning around, Kinrio's other knife slid into his palm held in a reverse grip, allowing him to parry the blistering fast drawing strike that had been aimed at his neck.
Looking from the sword to its wielder, Kiniro smiled as he stared at the blue-haired girl who glared back at him with a vengeful look in her eyes, "A disciple of the New Shadow Style…I was wondering if I was ever going to run into one of your kind again."
Kasumi's jaw clenched as she tried to break Kiniro's guard using her longer sword as leverage, but no matter how much force she applied, he didn't budge in the slightest.
Smiling at her efforts, Kiniro couldn't help but be intrigued, "Let's make this interesting, shall we?"
Before Kasumi could react, Kiniro twisted his wrist, changing the angle of his knife and redirecting Kasumi's sword. The sudden change caught her off guard, and before she could recover, Kiniro took a step forward as he dropped his knife.
Kasumi's eyes widened as she suddenly found Kiniro inside her guard, as one of his hands wrapped around her wrist while the other struck her sternum with the edge of his palm.
The blow sent Kasumi flying back, and her grip shattered, letting Kiniro swipe her sword right out of the air.