[Your voice, calm and low, sent a chill crawling across Naoya Zenin's scalp, something primal and unstoppable rising from the pit of his soul.]
[Footsteps crunched through dead leaves with an unhurried rhythm. Your tall frame emerged from the shadows.]
[You wore the signature black uniform of the college. At the collar, a single clean slash marked where a blade had caught the fabric.]
[Beyond that, not a speck of dust clung to you. You looked like someone who'd just excused themselves from a dinner party, not someone who'd carved a path through the fortress that was the Zenin estate.]
[No fighting stance. Your hands hung loose at your sides, completely natural. Defenseless, even.]
[But beneath that stillness, you were running Cursed Technique Reversal. It spread outward like a dead sea of absolute zero, swallowing and erasing the Projection Sorcery Naoya prided himself on, pinning that self-proclaimed genius where he stood.]
["Hayase..."]
[Megumi Fushiguro, wound tight as a hedgehog with every spike raised, caught sight of you. In those dead, hopeless eyes, the faintest flicker of light sparked to life.]
[His spine, held rigid in anticipation of the agony of broken legs, softened by a fraction.]
[You didn't spare a glance at Naoya, still frozen in that ridiculous stance, eyes swimming with disbelief. You walked right past him and knelt beside Megumi.]
["Hah..."]
[Then you shrugged off your oversized college jacket and draped it over his thin, trembling shoulders, shaking from Cursed Energy exhaustion and the cold.]
["You did good, Megumi. You're tough."]
[Your voice was soft. Nothing but quiet pride for his stubbornness.]
["Leave the rest to me. If you're tired, close your eyes for a bit. It's okay."]
[Only after he settled did you rise and turn.]
[The warmth in your gaze froze over in an instant. That placid, fathomless stare landed on Naoya, whose face had twisted beyond recognition.]
["You... it's you again, you goddamn bastard!!!"]
[Old grudges and new fury surged together.]
[He couldn't comprehend it. He couldn't accept it.]
[How had you slipped past every layered barrier around the Zenin main house without a sound? How had you ghosted past the patrolling Hei and the Kukuru Unit guards to materialize here like a phantom?]
[And what terrified him most: whatever trick you'd pulled a moment ago had gutted his Projection Sorcery outright. That sickening stillness, the sensation of even his momentum being erased, still clung to his bones like nausea.]
["How could you break my technique?! That's a rule even the old man can't override! No... impossible! It was a fluke! You must've used some dirty trick!"]
[Naoya screamed, his voice cracking into something shrill and ugly.]
["A lowborn commoner like you, ruining my plans over and over, breaking into the Zenin estate! I'll skin you alive! I'll peel your hide off and hang it from the front gate like a lantern!!"]
[In the perfect script Naoya had written for tonight, you were supposed to be on your knees at the Zenin gates, begging for Megumi's release. The Hei and Kukuru Unit would've beaten you bloody, dragged your broken body before him like a dead dog. He'd have made you watch as he crippled Megumi's legs, savoring the guilt and helpless tears streaming down your pathetic face.]
[But reality had gone off-script, and that loss of control was something Naoya Zenin had never tasted before.]
[Refusing to accept it, he clawed at the vast reservoir of Cursed Energy inside him, trying to brute-force through your suppression field and reignite the 24-frame that could shred the air itself. To prove he was still the strongest.]
[You watched him thrash and spit, a cat with its tail stepped on, hissing threats it couldn't back up. Nothing stirred in your expression. Not anger. Not even mockery.]
["You told this kid that the Ten Shadows Technique is... a parlor trick. A stray dog's power. Isn't that right?"]
[Your right hand rose, slow and deliberate. No need for the elaborate hand-shadow seals the Zenin clan used. No need to consciously draw on vast wells of Cursed Energy.]
[You did something absurdly simple. Thumb crossed over middle finger, and in the silent night air, you snapped.]
[Crack.]
[The sound rang clean through the trees.]
["Since you think so little of it..."]
["Open your eyes wide and take a good look."]
[The moment those words left your lips, the already dim sky above the rear training ground went black.]
[Not clouds blocking the moon. Something enormous beyond comprehension, massive enough to devour light and sound alike, materialized high overhead and swallowed the entire area whole. The sky itself seemed to collapse.]
[KRAKOOOM!!!]
[Without warning, a roar of thunder tore the heavens apart directly above Naoya's head.]
["Wha...?!"]
[Naoya's head snapped up. Those eyes blew wide open, pupils contracting to pinpoints under the blinding flash. His jaw hung slack, and his throat produced nothing but strangled, meaningless sounds.]
[At the heart of the lightning storm, a black beast the size of a hill plummeted earthward, trailing destruction like a falling meteor.]
[A wolf, sleek and powerful, every muscle corded like black iron. But unlike the ordinary Divine Dogs Megumi had summoned earlier, from its back spread a pair of vast dark wings, their tips crackling with annihilating lightning.]
[Having completed its diversionary assault and cleanup in the front courtyard, it answered your call. A loyal and savage knight, crossing the battlefield to reach you.]
[It descended in the most brutal, domineering, unreasonable way possible, tearing open the night sky over the rear mountain and landing on this tiny training ground.]
[BOOM!!!]
[The earth heaved. Murky Plume, wreathed in crackling electricity, slammed down like a boulder less than five meters from where Naoya stood.]
[As the dust and lightning faded, Naoya remained rooted in place.]
[Gone was every trace of his earlier elegance and arrogance..]
[Murky Plume lowered its massive wolf head, a maw large enough to swallow a man whole, locked onto the insignificant insect before it.]
[It didn't even bother to growl. From between fangs like rows of blades, it exhaled a slow breath laced with blue arcs of electricity and scorching heat.]
[Whoooosh...]
[The hot wave hit Naoya's face, thick with the stench of sulfur.]
[The sheer cursed pressure radiating from it, effortless and bottomless, ground his vaunted Cursed Energy circulation to a complete halt. A mouse staring up at a true dragon.]
[It felt like standing face to face with a powerful Special Grade Cursed Spirit.]
[All sensation left his legs. Only the raw survival instinct of a creature at death's door kept him upright. He couldn't have retreated a single step if his life depended on it.]
[Terror gripped Naoya's heart and tightened until every breath became agony.]
[His precious Projection Sorcery. Before this monster that looked capable of blotting out the sky, they were an ant trying to stop a speeding truck.]
[Every taunt he'd thrown at Megumi about the Ten Shadows now cracked back across his own face, stripping him of every last shred of dignity.]
[You stood beside that towering black monster. Your expression betrayed nothing, no grief, no joy. Something divine that had wandered into the mortal world.]
[No verbal jabs. No victory speech.]
[You simply watched ashen-faced, trembling Naoya Zenin with those calm eyes, the way someone might regard a speck of dust.]
["Nothing to say now, Young Master Naoya?"]
[In that suffocating silence, you delivered the most thorough negation of his existence. Enough to haunt him for the rest of his life.]
[This rear training ground you knew so well, every inch of its soil branded into your bones.]
[It wasn't just where the Zenin clan tempered its disciples. It was the burial ground of who you used to be, that wretched version ground down to nothing.]
[Staring at Naoya's bloodless, rigid face, time seemed to fold in on itself.]
[You saw the ghost of your former self.]
[The one who bent his spine to survive in this family of wolves. Who obeyed every command from the arrogant man standing before him. Who wagged his tail and begged. A loyal dog.]
[The one Naoya kicked into the path of a Semi-Grade 1 Cursed Spirit as a willing meat shield, buying himself a few precious seconds to attack.]
[Back then, Naoya had stood above you just like this, looking down at your blood-soaked body with that gaze reserved for garbage, a cruel smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.]
[You weren't that dog anymore. Not the obedient hound. Not the disposable shield.]
[The roles in this little play had simply reversed.]
[All you had to do was give Murky Plume, still crackling with savage lightning at your side, one simple command. "Attack."]
[It wouldn't matter that he was a Special Grade 1 sorcerer. It wouldn't matter that he had those instincts he bragged about.]
[Against absolute power and absolute suppression, he was nothing but a lamb for the slaughter.]
[One heartbeat later, you could watch it happen.]
[Watch those claws, strong enough to shred a tank, punch clean through Naoya Zenin's expensive robes, through his sternum, through his heart.]
[You could already picture it in vivid detail. Warm red spattering across your cold face. Those fox eyes, always looking down on everyone, bulging in the terror of death. That mouth, always spitting venom, reduced to pitiful gurgling as a torn throat choked on its own blood.]
[But...]
[If you gave in to unchecked violence. If you let hatred spill without aim or reason. If you became the same kind of beast just to savor a moment's satisfaction.]
[Then what would separate you from this soulless, powerful piece of trash?]
[You weren't Naoya Zenin.]
[And you had no intention of becoming the next one.]
[So this cheap kill would never be your choice.]
---
Next target 400PS :)