[The massive Shikigami erupted from the shadows, and Naoya clutched his bleeding wrist, shock written across every line of his face.]
[What stood guard before Megumi was no ordinary hound. This was Divine Dog: Totality, the merged power of both the black and white dogs fused into one.]
["A Shikigami-based Cursed Technique...? That level of pressure, from a kid?"]
[But if Naoya was merely stunned by the creature's power, the man seated behind him had been struck far deeper. Naobito's composure didn't crack. It shattered.]
[As the current head of the clan, a man whose experience ran fathoms deep, what staggered him wasn't that a child this young could wield a Cursed Technique with such proficiency. It was what his razor-sharp eyes had caught in the space of a single heartbeat, the critical detail hidden beneath the surface of this encounter, one with the power to upend the entire jujutsu world.]
[His gaze locked onto the enormous Shikigami. Then it swept, fast, to the inky shadows still churning like boiling water beneath Megumi's feet. And finally, his stare drove itself like a nail into the boy's hands, fingers interlaced in that distinctive summoning gesture.]
[Shadows as a medium. A canine Shikigami. That unique hand sign for subjugation. Every piece slammed together inside Naobito's mind like a thunderclap, jolting awake records buried in the Zenin Clan's most classified texts.]
[The supreme treasure of the Zenin bloodline. The one technique that could stand equal against the Gojo Clan's Limitless.]
[Naobito's eyes, bleary with alcohol moments ago, blazed with a ferocity that burned the haze clean away. His voice trembled.]
["That's... the Ten Shadows Technique?!"]
["The Ten Shadows Technique?!"]
[Naoya's body went rigid.]
[He lacked his father's piercing eye for detail. Blinded by rage from the bite, he hadn't let his thoughts wander anywhere near the realm of legend.]
[But that stunned outburst from Naobito was all it took. A cascade of connections flooded Naoya's mind.]
[He looked again at Megumi and the black hound. Shadows... hand sign... shikigami... Everything this brat had displayed matched the descriptions in the family archives down to the last detail.]
[Yet within that realization lurked a variable that made Naoya's blood run cold. Compared to the basic pair of Divine Dogs described in the clan's texts as the starting point of the Ten Shadows Technique, the beast guarding Megumi now, with its monstrous frame and enough raw force to tear through a Grade 1 sorcerer's body, was something else entirely. It had been enhanced by some unknown means.]
[In that instant, every trace of shock drained from Naoya's face. What replaced it was something frigid, deeply shadowed, edged with killing intent.]
[Because he had finally recognized, in this child he'd dismissed as trash and defective goods, a threat that was lethally real.]
[Not the physical danger of those fangs and claws alone, though that was considerable. What truly chilled him was that Megumi Fushiguro, not yet ten years old, already fought at a level that had no business existing. And more important than any of that were the words "Ten Shadows Technique" and what they meant for the Zenin Clan. Legitimacy, birthright, an unassailable claim to the highest seat of power.]
[Naoya's teeth ground together until they creaked. Before today, he had been the Zenin Clan's undisputed genius. The sole heir. The only future.]
[Now a wild card had appeared, one who carried that man's blood and had awakened the clan's most powerful Innate Technique. He would not tolerate it.]
["Looks like you really do need to be taught some manners, you feral little mongrel." Naoya's narrow eyes glinted with something venomous. His voice dropped low, cruelty undisguised. "Get it through your skull who you're baring your teeth at."]
["Naoya! Stand down!"]
[Naobito's brow furrowed hard the moment the words left his son's mouth. He recognized the loss of control instantly.]
[A bloodline that had awakened the Ten Shadows Technique was invaluable beyond measure. Even by force, he could not allow irreversible harm to come to the boy now.]
[But the command came a beat too late.]
[Naoya didn't so much as acknowledge his father's voice. Cursed Energy erupted through his body like a volcanic detonation, and his prized Projection Sorcery roared to full output.]
[An Innate Technique was something carved into a sorcerer from birth. Even among the clan's hereditary techniques, the Ten Shadows Technique occupied a strategic tier that no other ability, Projection Sorcery included, could be measured against.]
[Naoya understood this perfectly. And that was precisely why the twisted pride and resentment inside him burned white-hot.]
[He would prove it. His Projection Sorcery, honed through years of obsessive refinement, was the absolute force that could crush anything, the Ten Shadows Technique included, beneath its heel.]
[He refused to let even the slightest wrinkle appear in the future he'd already claimed as his own. Inheriting the position of clan head was a foregone conclusion, and it would stay that way.]
[He would show his father and every last member of this family that no matter what legendary technique this brat wielded, his impossible speed could bypass any Shikigami, however powerful, however strange. All he had to do was get past the beast and wrap his hand around that scrawny neck, and this farce was over.]
[Crack.]
[A sonic boom split the air. Naoya's body dissolved into an afterimage the naked eye could barely register.]
[Inside the absolute speed domain where a single second fractured into twenty-four frames, he cut a jagged, impossible zigzag trajectory, blowing past the snarling Divine Dog: Totality and closing on Megumi behind it.]
["Got you, brat!"]
[A deranged grin stretched across Naoya's face. His uninjured hand shot forward like a raptor's talon, reaching for Megumi's collar.]
[And in the same microsecond his fingers were about to graze the fabric, Naoya felt his body lurch.]
[His front foot found nothing.]
[Not empty air. Worse. His foot had plunged into a depthless void.]
[The solid wooden tatami, at some point he couldn't pinpoint, had been swallowed whole by the shadow spreading out from beneath Megumi's feet.]
[It was no longer a flat silhouette on the floor. It had become a liquid swamp saturated with Cursed Energy.]
[The fatal step Naoya had taken at full sprint sank deep into Megumi's carefully laid trap.]
["What?!"]
[Before his brain could even process the sensation of weightlessness underfoot, the technique's merciless recoil struck.]
[Projection Sorcery's core rule: map twenty-four frames of movement within one second and execute them without deviation. The moment the caster violated physical law or the sequence was disrupted, backlash was absolute.]
[Naoya's foot had sunk into shadow. The running motion he'd preprogrammed shattered mid-execution, breaking the trajectory Projection Sorcery demanded.]
[CRACK.]
[A sound like glass splintering rang through the room, and the grin on Naoya's face froze solid.]
[An invisible force of pure rule-bound logic compressed his body flat, sealing him inside a two-dimensional plane suspended in midair. A frozen frame. A living portrait trapped in acrylic.]
[During that locked, lethal second...]
[Not a ripple crossed Megumi's eyes. As though he had known all of this would happen. As though someone had told him, in advance, exactly how this moment would unfold.]
[And Divine Dog: Totality, blazing with protective fury, unleashed a deafening howl.]
[Its powerful hind legs stamped through the floorboards. That pitch-black claw, curved like a reaper's scythe, rose high and came hammering down on the frozen two-dimensional plane with force enough to break the world.]
[BOOM.]
[A strike capable of shredding a Special Grade Cursed Spirit's defenses. The flat plane shattered on contact like thin ice, the explosion of sound deafening. Naoya, unfrozen and defenseless, took the full brunt of the blow head-on.]
[His expensive traditional kimono disintegrated into a storm of shredded silk. Bones cracked. Deep gashes, carved to the bone, tore across his chest.]
[Under Naobito's contracting pupils, Naoya's body rocketed out of the room like a cannonball.]
["Naoya!"]
[Naobito's roar tore from his throat, but everything had happened too fast. He hadn't even had time to intervene.]
[Amid the collapsed rubble and swirling dust, Divine Dog: Totality did not press the attack.]
[The loyal beast lowered its massive head with surprising gentleness, caught the back of Megumi's shirt in its jaws, and swung the small body up onto its broad, steel-bristled back.]
[Megumi lay flat against the Shikigami, both hands clenched tight in the fur at its neck.]
[From that height, he spared one cold glance down at Naoya's crumpled form in the garden, its fate uncertain. Then he patted the beast's neck.]
["Let's go."]
[Shikigami loosed a long, piercing cry, coiled its hind legs, and launched skyward, clearing the high walls of the Zenin estate in a single bound.]
---
Join my Patreon for early access to chapters: patreon.com/rivyura
Next Target 200PS :)