[While the Zenin estate's front courtyard had likely descended into chaos from the commotion, the rear mountain training grounds told a different story. Nestled at the deepest point of the compound, swallowed by dense vegetation, the place was wrapped in a silence.]
[This was where generations of the Zenin clan's direct heirs had been forged, body and Cursed Energy alike. Centuries had carved their weight into the soil.]
["Hah... hah..."]
[The only sound left in the ancient grove was Megumi Fushiguro's breathing, ragged and far too heavy for a child his size, echoing across the empty grounds.]
[A first-grader. That was all he was. His small frame pressed against a thick tree trunk, the dark fabric of his child-sized Jujutsu High uniform soaked through with sweat.]
[There were no bruises on his body, no visible wounds. But his face was white as paper, his lips tinged purple, his mind shoved to the crumbling edge of collapse.]
[In front of him, Divine Dog: White and Divine Dog: Black crouched low, both the size of full-grown wolves, whimpering in hoarse, agonized voices.]
[The black and white Cursed Energy that formed their bodies flickered violently, threatening to dissolve at any moment, to collapse back into lifeless pools of shadow.]
[They were afraid. Or rather, the gap in power was so absolute that the capacity for resistance had been beaten out of them. All that remained was instinct, driving them to shield the small figure at their backs.]
["Too slow."]
[A languid voice drifted from the heavy shadows ahead, dripping with the kind of arrogance that turned the stomach.]
[Wooden clogs crunched softly over fallen leaves as Naoya Zenin stepped into the dappled moonlight. Hands tucked into his sleeves. Moving with the easy grace of a man strolling through his private garden to admire the flowers.]
["This is what the old man's been dreaming of bringing back to the main house? The Ten Shadows Technique? The supreme Cursed Technique that every Zenin clan chronicle has spent centuries hyping up as having limitless potential?"]
[He stopped. Less than ten meters from Megumi and the two Divine Dogs.]
[His head tilted, and he swept that gaze over the dying Shikigami the way a buyer might inspect defective merchandise. Then came a laugh, high and grating.]
["That's it? Summoning a pair of mutts that couldn't scare anyone but civilians? I could stand here and not move a muscle, and their pathetic reaction time wouldn't let them graze the hem of my sleeve. This sad little parlor trick gets to call itself the pinnacle of the Big Three Sorcerer Families? What a joke."]
["Grrrr..."]
[Divine Dog: Black, the more aggressive of the pair, dragged its shuddering body upright. Fangs bared, it tried to lunge at the sneering man one more time.]
[But Megumi clenched his jaw. Young as he was, too young to untangle the jujutsu world's labyrinth of politics and grudges, he possessed an animal instinct all his own.]
[He knew. One more hit from that invisible, impossibly fast strike, and both Shikigami would be destroyed for good.]
["Come back."]
[The boy's voice cut through the night wind. Young and hoarse.]
[His trembling fingers released the hand seal. Both massive Divine Dogs let out a low, pained whine, then collapsed into twin pools of black shadow that rushed back like retreating tide into the darkness beneath his feet.]
[Severing the link by force sent another wave of weakness crashing through his already-drained body. Vertigo hit. His legs buckled, and he slid down the tree trunk to the ground.]
[But those eyes. Dark, unblinking, locked onto Naoya Zenin with the fixed intensity of a wolf cornered and refusing to look away from the thing that cornered it.]
["Oh? Called them back, did you?"]
[The sight didn't disappoint Naoya. It delighted him. He stared down at the boy on the ground, and the twist of his smile deepened.]
[Dragging Megumi Fushiguro to this deserted mountainside had never been about killing him.]
[He'd deliberately pulled his punches, brutalizing the two Shikigami while leaving the boy himself untouched. Not a hair out of place, not a scratch on his skin.]
[Because butchering a child who hadn't even finished developing his technique, who could barely read, offered no satisfaction. It would only create problems within the clan.]
[What Naoya wanted to destroy was the halo. The mystique of the Ten Shadows Technique clinging to this so-called young heir, and whatever pitiful scrap of confidence the boy had as a sorcerer.]
[He would prove it right here, in front of Toji's son, through the most brutal, most one-sided display of dominance imaginable: that his Projection Sorcery was the true apex of speed and power, the technique fit to look down on the entire jujutsu world, the real strongest art of the Big Three Sorcerer Families.]
[The Ten Shadows, passed down for centuries. The potential that even clan head Naobito feared. Before his absolute speed, all of it was a sandcastle waiting to be kicked apart.]
["Know why I brought you here, kid?"]
[Step by step, Naoya closed the distance. No technique this time. He slowed deliberately, letting each footfall land heavy with menace, compressing the boy's psychological space inch by inch.]
["They say you've got that man's blood in you, Toji Zenin's. They say those eyes of yours are a dead match for that traitor who turned his back on the family."]
[Something tangled and toxic threaded through his voice. Worship and envy, fermented together into poison.]
[Deep down, the image of Toji haunted him. A man born without a shred of Cursed Energy who had ground every self-proclaimed genius into the dirt through raw physical supremacy alone. That silhouette was the shadow Naoya could never outrun, the obsession he could never shed.]
[But he would never, ever accept that the man's son could steal his attention, his resources, his rightful claim to the clan head seat, all on the strength of some inherited technique encoded in his bloodline.]
["But look at you now..."]
[Three steps away. At this range, the massive cursed pressure rolling off a Special Grade 1 sorcerer bore down on Megumi's small body like an invisible mountain. Every breath sent a spike of pain through his chest.]
["Besides that face, you're not worth one of that man's fingers. You're so weak it makes me sick. You think this little shadow puppet show is enough to earn your place in the Zenin clan? You think the old man wants you back because you're special?"]
[Malice glinted in those half-lidded eyes. Naoya leaned down slightly, his smile soaked in the pleasure of grinding something helpless beneath his heel.]
["Since your Shikigami can't even touch me, this so-called Ten Shadows Technique has no reason to exist anymore. Let me make something clear: as long as you're in this clan, as long as I'm breathing, you will never be anything more than a worthless..."]
[Any ordinary first-grader, pinned under this kind of venomous abuse and suffocating cursed pressure from a grown sorcerer, would have been sobbing and shaking long ago. Megumi Fushiguro was not any ordinary first-grader.]
[His small hands trembled from exhaustion. Cold sweat sheeted his forehead. But on that young, sharp-featured face, there was nothing Naoya wanted to see. No fear. No begging. No surrender.]
[The boy was a cold stone. Wind and rain could batter it all they wanted; the stubborn core wouldn't change.]
[His head hung low, dark hair falling over his eyes, hiding whatever burned behind them.]
[Naoya thought the pressure had finally broken him.]
[Then Megumi looked up.]
[Those eyes. Stripped of every trace of childhood innocence, holding nothing but the clarity of someone who had seen through to something pathetic at the bottom of it all.]
[No shouting. No desperate retort. He held Naoya's gaze in perfect silence.]
["Are you jealous... is that what this is?"]
[No fancy rhetoric. No Cursed Energy behind it.]
[Jealous.]
[The word hit like poison, piercing Naoya Zenin's arrogance and exposing the fragile insecurity beneath.]
[The air itself seemed to drain from the clearing.]
[That effortless, mocking smirk shattered. In the space of a single second, Naoya's face, handsome enough when it was still, contorted into something that made the skin crawl.]
[Veins flooded his eyes red. His pupils tremored wildly. Humiliation and fury at being seen erupted into a blaze that roared straight to the crown of his skull and incinerated every remaining thread of self-control.]
[A brat. A brat pulled out of some slum who couldn't read half the words on a page, who couldn't protect a single dog, had looked at him with those eyes. Had thrown back the words some lowborn civilian teacher had taught him and laughed at him.]
["You... you... ignorant... little... animal!!!"]
[The sound that tore from Naoya's throat was barely human. The last string of reason snapped clean. He'd forgotten clan protocol. Forgotten that the boy was bait meant to draw out his useless teacher. Forgotten that Satoru Gojo stood behind this child. There was only one thought left in his skull.]
[Tear that insufferable mouth apart. Snap every limb, inch by inch. Make him pay in blood for his arrogance.]
["I'll show you what happens when you make me angry!!!"]
[In the next second, at the absolute limit of 24 frames, he would stomp Megumi Fushiguro's kneecap to powder. The boy would never stand again.]
["Die!!!"]
[Naoya's body blurred and vanished, leaving nothing but an afterimage the naked eye couldn't hope to track. Carrying enough kinetic force to demolish anything in his path, he rocketed straight at the defenseless boy.]
[Too close. At this speed, Megumi couldn't even manage to shut his eyes before Naoya's Cursed-Energy-laden leg filled his vision.]
[And then, in the last hundredth of a second before Naoya expected to hear bone splinter, before the stubborn boy would finally scream, the world changed without warning.]
[No deafening explosion. No dazzling light show. No violent clash of Cursed Energy.]
[What happened was stranger than any of those things. A stillness that defied every law of physics.]
[A faint chime rang out, delicate as a fingertip flicking a paper-thin sheet of ice, and an invisible, vast, irresistible force settled over the space between them like a held breath.]
[Naoya's subjective time, already carved into 24 rigid frames and hurtling at maximum velocity, hit that force the way a precision gearbox running at full speed would hit an indestructible steel rod jammed between its teeth.]
[Click.]
[In that instant, Projection Sorcery's preset trajectory was forcibly overridden and reset to zero.]
["...What?!"]
[His body, nothing but a blur an instant ago, was wrenched out of top speed by a power that brooked no negotiation.]
[What terrified him most was this: the kinetic energy behind his kick, force enough to shatter rock, vanished the moment it touched the invisible wall of air in front of Megumi. Gone without a trace, as though the concept of motion had been stripped from the fabric of time itself.]
[With all momentum erased so completely, he didn't even stumble forward from inertia. Instead he froze in a posture that was almost comical, right leg raised high, locked rigid in the air less than half a meter from the boy's face.]
[His eyes bulged wide as coins. His brain crashed.]
[What the hell is this?!]
[His technique... had been shut down in an instant? The same way it had happened that time.]
[No. Not shut down, but denied.. By some rule that simply refused to acknowledge it.]
[Into the eerie silence, a cold voice descended from above.]
["You seem... rather unhappy with my student."]