Hanami

Just as Mashiro was about to exorcise Jogo, a dark blur shot toward her from deep within the woods.

It was no Cursed Technique. It was a hand.

A pale arm flew out of the woods, its five fingers spread wide. Five slender bone spikes sprouted from its fingertips, thrusting straight at Mashiro's face.

It was so fast that by the time the shriek of torn air reached her ears, the hand was already right before her eyes.

Mashiro's pupils contracted sharply. She did not retreat, nor did she have time to.

Her right hand released the sword's hilt, and she snapped her upper body backward. The bone spikes skimmed past the tip of her nose, severing a few strands of silver hair.

At the same time, her left hand swept upward, drawing Murasame out of Jogo's body. A silver-white flash of steel slashed toward the severed arm.

The blade cut into the middle of the arm, but the sensation was strange.

Rather than the usual resistance of cutting through muscle and bone, it felt like slicing into a lump of constantly shifting modeling clay.

The hand changed shape as the slash struck it. Its muscles slid away on either side of the blade, letting Murasame pass through the middle of the arm.

Then the arm contracted violently and burst apart.

Each of its five fingers became a separate tendril. The skin of its palm split open, releasing countless tiny bone needles that rained down on Mashiro.

Mashiro knocked some of the spikes away with Murasame, then swept her right hand before her, deploying Water Wall.

The bone needles struck the Water Wall and were ground to powder by its sonic vibrations.

But attacking her had never been the arm's true purpose.

In the fraction of a second Mashiro spent defending herself, the fragments of the severed arm passed her and re-formed into a hand, seizing Jogo's charred remains.

The moment its fingertips touched Jogo, they transformed, sprouting barbs that pierced his skin and held him fast.

Then, ignoring Jogo's cries of pain, it rapidly withdrew toward the woods, dragging him along.

"That's Mahito's hand." Mashiro recognized its owner.

Only that twisted lunatic could use his own body like this.

She shifted Murasame to her right hand and lowered her center of gravity. The ground exploded beneath her feet as she shot after it.

At the edge of the woods, three figures stepped out of the shadows.

Mahito led the way, his right arm severed at the elbow-the price of launching that hand earlier.

Though he could regrow it with Idle Transfiguration.

He wore a smile, his eyes curved into strange arcs. "Jogo, how did you end up pinned to the ground? Didn't you say you were going to kill Satoru Gojo? How did you get yourself buried instead?"

Jogo could not answer. He was still groaning when the severed hand dragged him before Mahito.

Hanami followed behind Mahito and silently extended an arm.

Vines emerged from Hanami's sleeve, swiftly wrapping around Jogo and pulling him into Hanami's arms. Dagon stood at the rear, red skin pulsing in the moonlight.

"Three Special Grades." Mashiro stopped, held her sword across her body, and settled into a fighting stance.

Satoru Gojo walked up from behind her, both hands in his pockets, his stance relaxed.

Hanami's two branchlike horns swept toward Satoru Gojo through the gaps between the branches, without any wasted movement.

Hanami's arms suddenly split open, releasing a mass of vines in an instant. Every vine's tip rapidly transformed into a sharp wooden spearhead.

The Cursed Energy coating the spearheads was extremely dense. This was far more than a simple entangling attack.

Ten vine spearheads shot out simultaneously, each following a different trajectory.

The spearheads approaching from the front accelerated to their limits before splitting in midair. More slender branches sprouted from their tips, forming a thorn-covered net.

The rest attacked from the left and right.

For a moment, wooden spikes filled the air.

Hanami had no intention of fighting them one at a time. The aim was to catch both Satoru Gojo and Mashiro within the attack, overwhelming them with sheer numbers to create as many openings as possible.

Satoru Gojo did not retreat. He pulled a finger from his pocket and lightly traced it through the air.

Limitless activated, and the vines stopped less than half a meter from him.

The thorn-covered net hung in midair, the spikes at the ends of its branches writhing along the boundary of Limitless, trying to get around the invisible barrier.

The spearheads on either side curved around and burrowed into the ground, racing through the soil before bursting out beneath Satoru Gojo's feet.

"Oh." Satoru Gojo glanced down at the vines beneath him. "Coming around from below. Pretty clever."

He raised his foot and stamped down. The vines were instantly crushed into the soil and shattered.

Hanami did not stop. The moment those vines were suppressed, more shot out, all turning toward Mashiro.

She was the true target.

Faced with the blue-silver entanglement, Mashiro chose not to dodge.

Click, click.

She charged straight into the vines. A vine spearhead struck her left shoulder, but left no wound.

"What?" Mahito stared in surprise. That was a Special Grade's piercing attack. How could a mere Grade One like her have such strong defenses?

Mashiro picked up a vine or two. Flames bearing a will to curse flared to life, and the flame lances were complete.

"Piercing Star Lance!"

Mashiro unleashed her strength, hurling several flame lances at Hanami.

Hanami did not dare take them head-on. Instead, Mahito suddenly darted out, extending his arm to grab the ends of the lances and halt their advance.

In that instant, Hanami chose not to keep attacking, but seized Mahito and yanked him back.

The ground cracked. Four vines burst from the soil between the two combatants, raising a hard wooden barrier between Mashiro and Mahito and briefly cutting them off from each other.

At the same time, Hanami's body began retreating rapidly. The rooted legs grew back in reverse, contracting into their normal form.

"❈✲❈."

Though Mahito could not understand the words, Hanami's movements made the intention clear.

He dropped his childish smile, hopped back two steps, and grabbed Hanami's vines, letting them drag him deeper into the woods.

Dagon remained on the outermost edge, deploying Water Formation Wall as a barrier in an attempt to block their attacks.

Satoru Gojo saw through it at a glance. He extended a finger and aimed at Dagon.

Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.

A blue-black sphere of attraction gathered at his fingertip. The earth split open, and trees flew through the air.

Dagon's Water Formation Wall was destroyed instantly. Their bodies would be next.

Frantic at the sight, Hanami lashed out with more vines while retreating, hoping only to obstruct Blue's pull.

Twenty vines, then thirty, surged from the ground, weaving layer upon layer of wooden walls before Mashiro and Satoru Gojo.

Each layer was woven at a different angle, with gaps of less than a centimeter between the vines.

Mashiro did not wait for Satoru Gojo's Blue to blast through the barriers.

She pushed off with her right foot and skirted around the vine curtain from the side, spinning Murasame twice in her hand.

The Dharma Wheel above her head whirred at high speed as she continually adapted to the battlefield's changing conditions.

Hanami doesn't excel at offense. The goal is to slow me and Satoru Gojo down, so any counterattack now has to be weak.

Mashiro's judgment was confirmed a second later. As she rounded the final vine wall, Hanami had already tossed Jogo to Dagon and turned half of that wooden body toward her.

Hanami's entire left arm split open, growing in different directions from shoulder to fingertips all at once. The vines twisted and coiled, forming a spiral drill.