Chapter 37: Mai Zenin's Gun and Yami's Blade
Beside the vending machines, the air felt heavy enough to choke on.
Maki Zenin gripped her staff so tightly her knuckles had gone pale.
Standing across from her was a short haired girl with cold eyes and a mocking smile.
Mai Zenin.
She toyed with the revolver in her hand, the dark muzzle drifting across Maki's face with deliberate carelessness.
"What's wrong, Maki?"
Her voice carried that same familiar sneer, the kind that always went straight for the wound.
"I heard you're still clinging to that ridiculous fantasy of becoming head of the Zenin clan."
She laughed softly.
"Don't be stupid."
"A useless failure like you, with no cursed energy, no ability to even see curses, should have lived a normal life from the start."
"So why do you keep crawling around the jujutsu world, embarrassing the Zenin name?"
Every word was a blade.
Not new.
Not surprising.
Just the same curse Maki had heard since childhood, repeated so many times it had become part of the air she breathed.
Her grip on the staff tightened.
"Shut up."
Her voice was low and cold, but her eyes did not waver.
"I'll prove you wrong."
"Prove it?"
Mai covered her mouth as if she'd just heard the funniest joke in the world.
"With what? Your pathetic little physical tricks?"
"Maki, you really are naïve."
Her smile slowly faded.
"In this world, having no cursed energy is the original sin."
Then her eyes turned cold.
She raised the revolver and aimed it directly at Maki's forehead.
"If you're this stubborn, I'll wake you up myself."
Cursed energy gathered.
Mai's technique was Construction.
Though her reserves were pitifully small, small enough that she could only create one bullet per day, that single bullet was still the real thing.
A cursed tool bullet.
Enough to seriously wound Maki if it landed cleanly.
"Stop!"
A sharp voice rang out from the path behind them.
Nobara Kugisaki and Megumi Fushiguro were sprinting toward them at full speed, but they were too far away.
Nobara's face twisted with fury.
Was this lunatic seriously pointing live rounds at her own sister?
"Too slow."
Mai didn't even turn her head.
Her finger slowly tightened on the trigger.
Something ugly flickered in her eyes.
Jealousy.
Hatred.
Resentment twisted into pleasure.
As long as she destroyed Maki here, she would not need to keep chasing after that infuriating back anymore.
Maki clenched her teeth.
With no cursed energy, no curse reinforced senses, and no room to move, all she could do was rely on instinct.
But instinct alone was not enough to outrun a bullet.
Then, just before the trigger could fully depress
a blinding streak of gold tore through the air.
Crackle!
A brilliant bolt, as fierce as lightning and as scorching as the sun, split open the suffocating silence.
Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap Flash, Godspeed.
It was too fast.
Far too fast.
In the same instant the golden blur arrived, a black scabbard settled gently against the barrel of the gun.
Time seemed to freeze.
Mai's finger stopped.
No matter how much force she tried to apply, the trigger would not move.
The seemingly ordinary scabbard resting against the gun felt like an immovable mountain.
"What"
She spun around in shock.
Then the blood in her body seemed to turn cold.
There was no killing intent.
No surge of cursed energy.
No warning at all.
Only a figure standing beside her in the light.
A boy in a high school uniform.
Black hair.
Red eyes.
Flower patterned earrings moving softly in the breeze.
His expression was calm.
Too calm.
He looked at her the way one might look at a stone by the roadside.
And that calmness was exactly what made terror creep into her bones.
Mai had the sudden, absolute certainty that if she moved so much as one finger the wrong way, her head would leave her shoulders.
"Pointing a gun at your own comrade," Yami said softly, "is dangerous."
His voice was gentle.
It hit harder than a shout.
Then came the sound.
Clink.
A metallic groan that set everyone's teeth on edge.
Under the stunned eyes of everyone present, the specially made revolver in Mai's hand bent.
The barrel twisted sideways under the pressure of the scabbard like soft metal left too long in a furnace.
That was not ordinary steel.
It was a cursed tool made from reinforced alloy.
And he had bent it as easily as if it were wax.
Mai's fingers spasmed.
The ruined revolver slipped from her hand and hit the ground.
She staggered back two steps, then her legs gave out completely and she fell.
Cold sweat drenched her back.
"You... who are you?"
Her voice shook.
She had never seen anyone like this.
Even without cursed energy, the pressure he gave off felt more terrifying than many curses she had encountered.
"Yami."
He slid the scabbard back and no longer spared her a glance.
Instead, he turned to Maki.
"Maki senpai, are you alright?"
Maki finally came back to herself.
She looked at the figure standing in front of her, at the broad stillness of his back, and her expression turned complicated.
He had saved her again.
A boy with no cursed energy, just like her.
"I'm fine."
She steadied her breathing and adjusted her grip on the staff.
"Thanks."
"No need."
Yami shook his head.
Then he turned and looked down at Mai, who was still sitting on the ground in a daze.
There was no anger in his eyes.
Only a faint, quiet pity.
"Power isn't meant to be used against your comrades."
His gaze stayed on her.
"And it isn't something you use to hide weakness."
The words landed like nails.
Mai stiffened.
Hide weakness.
So he had seen straight through her.
Her lip trembled.
She wanted to retort.
Wanted to sneer.
Wanted to spit something sharp back into his face.
But under that all seeing red gaze, not a single complete sentence could make it past her throat.
He was too strong.
Not just physically.
Mentally, too.
So this was Yami.
The swordsman people whispered about.
The one who had killed a Special Grade.
"Let's go."
Yami turned away from her and gestured lightly toward Maki and Nobara.
"Todo's already gone."
"We should head back too."
Mai remained where she was, unable to move.
Her hands still trembled.
For a moment, she had truly believed she was going to die.
She never wanted to feel that kind of fear again.
"Yami..."
She stared at his retreating back and carved that name deep into her mind.
Nearby, Nobara quickly caught up, excitement and disbelief fighting across her face.
"Hey, Yami!"
She smacked his shoulder lightly.
"That was insane!"
"How did you even do that? You bent the barrel with a scabbard! Are you some kind of monster?"
Yami touched the side of his nose and blinked with pure innocence.
"I just used a little force."
Nobara stared at him.
"A little?"
She rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful.
"You seriously have a broken understanding of what a little means."
Maki walked beside them in silence, but the way she looked at Yami had changed.
It was no longer just gratitude.
There was something closer to recognition in it now.
Not only because he had saved her.
But because of what he had said.
Power is not something you use to disguise weakness.
That line had cut deeper than anything Mai had said.
Maki's hand tightened around her staff.
A confident smile slowly formed at the corner of her lips.
"This exchange event..."
She looked ahead, eyes sharp.
"We're going to win."
"And we're going to win properly."
Because they had Yami.
A sun moving through the darkness.
The strongest variable of them all.
TL: Check out my newly released fanfic:
Transmigrated into The Legendary Mechanic
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