Heavenly Restriction

A dull tearing sound erupted inside the tatami room.

Kawamaru's thick, barbed claws swept precisely across the neck that looked almost slender above the dark blue jacket, with enough force to snap a human spine.

Yet the expected spray of blood and shattering of bone never came.

Under the tremendous physical impact, Feng's loose jacket whipped backward, but his feet remained planted steadily on the threshold, his stance unchanged.

At the point where the claws swept through his neck, however, flesh and bone disintegrated on contact, turning into a splash of clear liquid.

"Tch..." Feng frowned slightly. He felt no pain, but that did not mean he would simply take a beating without fighting back.

The droplets suspended in midair refracted a cold, dim gleam in the poor light.

A moment later, the liquid scattered in random directions defied the laws of physics, abruptly condensing and stretching under the pull of cursed energy.

Dozens of soft droplets instantly became a dense array of sharp, translucent water blades. They slashed back at incredible speed, heading straight for Kawamaru's face at point-blank range.

Seated on the tatami, Masamichi Yaga's pupils contracted sharply.

The fleeting sight of that "decapitation" made his heart instinctively skip a beat, but the bizarre phenomenon that followed immediately prompted a tactical judgment from the battle-hardened principal.

His thick fingers swiftly turned the sewing needle, tugging the invisible threads of cursed energy connected to the cursed corpse.

Facing the incoming water blades, the airborne Kawamaru forcibly twisted out of its forward lunge under that tremendous pull.

Its huge, frenzied body abruptly curled inward in midair, crossing its two thick, plush arms in front of its vulnerable compound eyes.

Shhk-rrrip!

A succession of slicing sounds filled the room. The water blades cut cleanly through the tough, specially made fabric covering Kawamaru's arms.

Green stuffing, scraps of cloth, and the powdered cursed energy crystals packed inside sprayed from the gashes left by the water blades.

The tremendous momentum sent the rampaging cursed corpse tumbling twice through the air before it crashed heavily onto the tatami. It slid several meters backward, gouging two deep furrows into the floor before barely regaining its balance.

Masamichi Yaga remained seated cross-legged, but his upper body leaned slightly forward, every muscle taut.

Behind his sunglasses, he stared fixedly at the figure in the doorway, whose severed neck was being rebuilt by surging water.

"There was no preliminary fluctuation of cursed energy indicating Reverse Cursed Technique..."

Yaga muttered under his breath. The anger in his voice had faded, replaced by cold scrutiny and analysis.

As a master craftsman of cursed corpses, he had a profound understanding of the structure of bodies and souls.

"The part struck by a physical attack liquefies directly to dissipate the force, then turns that momentum into an attack.

"Your body... is it made of cursed energy and water?"

He rested his hands on his knees. Rather than ordering the damaged Kawamaru to attack again, he carefully assessed the situation.

"To counterattack that effectively while completely unprepared-your instincts are ruthless, without a moment's hesitation.

"It seems your claim that you 'don't want to die at a monster's hands' wasn't just empty talk."

Leaning beside the door, Satoru Gojo gave an utterly insincere whistle and pushed his slipping sunglasses back up his nose with his slender fingers.

Satoru Gojo knew how Feng defended himself. The Six Eyes' powers of observation were no empty boast, after all, and he had already seen Feng construct his body from liquid.

"Of course the diamond in the rough I brought back wouldn't disappoint.

"Principal, a trait that makes cursed energy the body itself would be rare among rarities, even across the entire history of the Jujutsu Society.

"And if that last strike had hit an ordinary sorcerer without any means of defense, it probably would've sliced their throat open."

Satoru Gojo slipped both hands back into his pockets, strode past Feng on his long legs, and walked straight into the room, stepping on the pile of stuffing the water blades had sliced off.

"So, does that count as passing your 'test of resolve,' Principal Yaga?

"He's the type who can keep fighting even after losing his head, after all."

Masamichi Yaga regarded Satoru Gojo coldly, then turned his gaze back to Feng.

The oppressive cursed energy in the room had not completely dissipated, but its hair-trigger aggression had subsided considerably.

Masamichi Yaga narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. Rather than becoming angry at the potentially lethal counterattack, he fell into calm thought, scrutinizing it with a professional eye.

He looked down at Kawamaru, whose sliced-open arms were still spilling stuffing, then back up at the boy in the doorway who was reconstructing his body.

The humidity had risen sharply after that wide-ranging volley of water blades. In the candlelight, wisps of white mist could even be seen rising between them.

"Cursed energy is flesh, and flesh is cursed energy... This isn't a secondary effect of some cursed technique. The very definition of 'human' has been rewritten at its foundation."

Yaga's voice was low and forceful, as though he were talking to himself-or passing some kind of judgment on Feng.

His right hand abruptly pulled the invisible thread of cursed energy taut, forcing the backward-sliding Kawamaru to halt at his command.

The cursed corpse kicked hard against the floor with a dull thud. Propelled by that explosive force, its body twisted unnaturally in the air, and its remaining intact claw reached out again. This time, however, it was not an attack, but an attempt to cut off Feng's retreat along a sweeping arc.

"A so-called 'heavenly restriction' usually takes away one kind of gift in exchange for another power pushed to its limit.

"But you... Feng, did you sacrifice your physiological structure as a 'living organism' in exchange for this inhuman body, one that can disregard even fatal physical injuries?"

A trace of conflicting emotion appeared in Yaga's eyes.

As a jujutsu sorcerer who gave souls to inanimate objects through artificial means, he knew better than anyone what such a "structural change" meant.

It meant that once this boy exhausted his cursed energy, he would disperse completely into the air like a puddle of water with nothing to anchor it, beyond any hope of rescue.

"Heavenly restriction?"

Feng was poised for combat, every nerve taut. His center of gravity was slightly lowered, the night breeze from the corridor pressed his dark blue uniform jacket against his back, and his dark red eyes tracked every tiny movement Kawamaru made in the dim light.

As the cursed corpse closed in again, glistening droplets began faintly gathering at the boy's fingertips.

"If this trait gives you an innate exemption from something as fundamental as 'cursed technique burnout,' then your weakness is just as fatal."

Yaga analyzed him coldly. Discovering some of his opponent's secrets did not make him ease up; instead, he ordered Kawamaru to launch an even denser barrage of suppressive attacks.

Kawamaru darted nimbly through the air, using the mountains of cursed corpses piled around the room as springboards. It continually tested Feng with slashing attacks and heavy blows from every blind spot, trying to deplete his reserves of cursed energy.

"Weakness?"

Feng paid it no mind. The water blades continued automatically countering Kawamaru's attacks.

"Against opponents who can attack the soul directly, or possess means of large-scale evaporation or sealing, this 'heavenly restriction' of yours will only become a cage that hastens your death."

Satoru Gojo leaned casually against the wall, idly toying with the white hair beside his ear. His Six Eyes, however, remained fixed on the speck of blue light that continually liquefied, reconstructed itself, and counterattacked amid the chaotic assault.

"The principal's absolutely right. This fragile balance built entirely from cursed energy is like dancing on a powder keg."

The corners of Satoru Gojo's mouth lifted slightly. His delivery was light, yet carried the cold clarity of someone who saw straight to the heart of things.

"Still, that 'inhuman' quality also gives you a degree of the unpredictability those old fossils fear most.

"Feng, the 'limit' you want to show the principal isn't just this little trick for barely keeping yourself alive, is it?"

"Hmm..." Feng thought quickly, beginning to mobilize the cursed energy within him as he worked out his tactics.

He's right. Fighting endlessly like this is pointless. If I can figure out how to deploy that domain...

My domain seems to have a neutralizing effect that can suppress an opponent's cursed technique. If I compress the rain within the domain into a smaller area, could I strengthen that neutralizing power?

Feng's gaze sharpened. The next moment, his cursed energy began surging in accordance with the design in his mind.

The swarm of water blades whistling through the air abruptly disintegrated, turning into countless tiny, sparkling droplets that drifted chaotically on the air currents.

That momentary break in the offensive made Masamichi Yaga's pupils contract sharply behind his sunglasses.

But before his tactical instincts could assess this sudden change, Feng had already shifted his center of gravity.

The boy drove his right hand downward, and an intensely condensed mass of blue cursed energy, like the crushing pressure of the deep sea, instantly covered his entire right arm.

This was not simple cursed energy reinforcement, but the product of compressing his domain's "neutralization" and "repulsion" properties to an extreme degree.

As that thin film of water coated his arm, the air around Feng seemed to sink into a strange mire. Even the candlelight warped slightly as it passed near his right arm.

The furiously lunging Kawamaru was caught in the gap between expending its previous burst of force and generating the next. Its left claw was mere inches from Feng's chest.

Just as the claw was about to make contact, Feng planted his right foot firmly, crushing the tatami beneath it.

His entire body shot forward like a fully drawn bow releasing. The right arm wrapped in concentrated domain energy slipped precisely and ruthlessly through the gaps in the claw's sweep, and his fingers clamped onto Kawamaru's plush neck like steel hooks.

Bzzzt!

A low, piercing buzz erupted from the point of contact. Yaga's cursed energy, which had surged continuously through Kawamaru to sustain its life and movement, touched the fragment of the "Rainfall" domain coating Feng's right arm. Like ice meeting boiling oil, it was swiftly and violently stripped away and neutralized.

The frenzied scarlet glow in the cursed corpse's compound eyes instantly went out, as though its power had been cut.

In less than a second, this terrifying killing machine became nothing more than a huge, lifeless green stuffed toy in Feng's hand.

Holding the heavy cursed corpse in one hand, Feng crouched with his right knee nearly touching the floor. His dark red eyes flickered briefly beneath his hair as he looked at Masamichi Yaga with relative calm-and a hint of delighted surprise.

Did I really pull it off?

Masamichi Yaga's right hand, still holding the sewing needle, froze in midair from sheer shock.

He could feel that his soul connection with the cursed corpse remained intact, but every command vanished without a trace, forcibly intercepted by some higher-order manipulation of a cursed technique.

"Domain Amplification? No... Did you drape the undeveloped embryo of a domain over yourself like 'armor'?"

Yaga could not conceal the shock in his voice. He slowly rose, his tall, dark shadow falling across the wall and making him look even more imposing.

"Immersing yourself in a shrunken domain to neutralize an enemy's cursed technique... That isn't something a novice with no formal education should be able to do.

"Just how terrifying are the instincts that 'heavenly restriction' body of yours has given you?"

Leaning against the wall, Satoru Gojo burst into a brief, delighted laugh.

He reached up to scratch his tousled white hair, his azure Six Eyes brimming with the fervor of someone who had discovered a priceless treasure.

"Brilliant. That's practically a textbook example of a 'cheating' tactic.

"Erasing the principal's control by deploying your domain over just part of your body... Oh, now even I'm starting to wonder what kind of 'hell' your still-incomplete domain, 'Rainfall,' will become once you fully expand it."

Satoru Gojo slowly strode toward Feng. With each step, his cursed energy seemed to enter a subtle interplay of resonance and contention with Feng's thin layer of domain.

"Principal, with this level of 'resolve' and 'skill,' those old fossils would probably lose sleep regretting it if we didn't admit him, wouldn't they?"