Gazing Northwest, Shooting the Heavenly Wolf

The power of that last blast of Uzumaki had burned itself deep into Chúgǒu's soul.

Even on the brink of death, she still had the leisure to savor it, carefully pondering how that attack had forcibly fused curses of utterly different natures together to unleash power greater than the sum of its parts.

She could even vaguely sense that it contained the secret to evolving into her complete form.

Then an unpleasant suction interrupted her thoughts.

Her eyes focused, and she saw the boy with the bun trying to use his cursed technique to turn her into a Cursed Spirit Orb.

She put up a token resistance, then felt nothing but exhaustion.

I'm so tired...

After fighting this hard, surely I've done enough...

Maybe I can start over in the next cycle?

No. That's wrong!

A shudder born deep within her swept through her entire body. She suddenly remembered that the boy's innate cursed technique seemed to be Cursed Spirit Manipulation. If a technique like that captured her, she might never get another cycle!

She was the proud, untamable wolf king of the grasslands. She would never become a house dog wagging its tail for scraps!

So she shoved Suguru Geto away with her relatively intact left hand, forcibly interrupting her transformation into a Cursed Spirit Orb.

Intense anger, defiance, and resentment surged in the depths of her soul like ceaseless, raging waves. Those powerful negative emotions squeezed the last trace of cursed energy from her body, giving her a chance to fight back.

Geto staggered under the force of her shove, shock flashing through his narrow, foxlike eyes.

Then Chúgǒu dipped the tips of her claws into the cursed spirit blood flowing from her severed body and gently drew on the fur of her abdomen.

What she drew was a hand sign, and the shape that hand sign formed was the simplest possible... wolf's head.

It was a cursed seal... a substitute for the hand sign required to expand a domain!

"Thank you..." With her fur disheveled, Chúgǒu bared her teeth and panted like a wild wolf driven to her limit. "For letting me reach..."

"The core of cursed energy!"

"Domain Expansion!" Dragging her mutilated body upright, she threw her head back and howled in fury. "Shadow Wolf Tomb!"

Under the force of those intense negative emotions, she surpassed her limits, forcibly breaking through the cursed womb stage at the likely cost of never being able to develop any further!

First, her mutilated body returned to its original state. Then shadows as black as ink spread rapidly across the muddy ground from Chúgǒu's paws, like ink bleeding outward, gradually engulfing her and Kano's group opposite her.

Once the shadowy shell settled into a perfect sphere and the domain's boundaries appeared, the surroundings changed as well.

A gloomy forest, swept by chilling winds.

The group of four cast aside their differences and huddled together. Kano, Slit-Mouthed Woman, and Geto gripped their cursed tools tightly, relying on them in this unfamiliar environment.

Even Rainbow Dragon behaved himself. He dared not fly too high, only circling low above their heads.

Shoko Ieiri even clutched Tamamo-no-Mae Incarnate's sleeve, hoping her classmate's special grade cursed spirit could give her a little sense of security.

Chúgǒu's domain resembled a forest clearing surrounded by strange trees none of them could name. The sky was dark and overcast; it was not night, yet it felt darker than night.

Several ruined graves dotted the clearing encircled by trees. The inscriptions on their headstones were illegible, but the withered bones faintly visible in those little mounds lent the place an eerie air of death.

Information flooded into Chúgǒu's mind, informing her of the domain's properties.

First came its type: Shadow Wolf Tomb was a closed domain. Beyond the forest stood pitch-black walls of shadow, forming its outer shell.

Then came its sure-hit effect: Chúgǒu's innate cursed technique, Shadow Wolf Technique, received an unprecedented boost within this domain. Furthermore, anywhere a shadow could possibly form, a wolf-shaped shadow would appear-and these shadow wolves served as the medium for activating her technique.

Chúgǒu stood with her paws on one of the headstones, her ruby-like wolf eyes regarding this hastily assembled team of four with near indifference, neither pleased nor saddened.

"Geto," Shoko Ieiri said, feeling utterly numb. This was her first mission abroad, and she had already run into an opponent this tough. "Do you think we'll ever get back to Japan?"

Kano cracked a wildly inappropriate joke. "If all else fails, you two can visit Gojo in his dreams. He'll probably burn some paper offerings for you."

Shoko Ieiri immediately lost her composure, her face flushing red. At that moment, "a girl's blush spoke louder than any sweet words," and Shoichi Kano vaguely sensed that his entire family tree had nearly come under an indiscriminate verbal bombardment.

Geto was about to say, "Kano, that's not appropriate," but Shoichi Kano immediately added to Shoko, "Being angry is a good thing. At least you're less scared now, right?"

"Miss Miyano, do something about him!!!!" Shoko cried, exasperated.

Slit-Mouthed Woman had no choice but to give Kano a moderate smack on the forehead as punishment. "Enough wisecracks. Think about what we should do now! I don't want to end up in a wolf's stomach!"

Suguru Geto's combat intelligence took command once again. "Logically speaking, our combined attack just now should have used up most of this cursed spirit's strength. Even if she can expand a domain now, she's probably on her last legs."

"According to what our teacher explained in class," Geto continued calmly, "we just need to find a way to neutralize any sure-hit technique within the domain and buy time. That will give us an opening."

"Maintaining a domain expansion consumes enormous amounts of cursed energy. This cursed spirit probably doesn't have enough left to sustain that level of expenditure."

"Good point," Slit-Mouthed Woman agreed. "So what can you do?"

"Satoru Gojo once taught me the Zenin Clan's anti-domain technique, Falling Blossom Emotion. Protecting myself inside a domain shouldn't be difficult, but Shoko might..."

Slit-Mouthed Woman nodded. "I can also use my Simple Domain to partially neutralize the domain's sure-hit effect. As long as someone stands with me, I can include them within its protection."

"Then let's get through the first wave and take it from there." Geto had no further questions.

"How did the young master of the Gojo Clan learn a Zenin Clan technique?" Shoichi Kano wondered.

"Is that really the point?" Geto didn't even know what to say.

Naturally, their loud scheming had mostly reached Chúgǒu's ears, but she had no intention of arguing.

"...You will all die here." Those were the only words she spoke after expanding her domain.

The shadow wolves appeared again.

But unlike on the grasslands, the pack no longer needed to form at a distance and then run over to inflict damage.

This time, the shadow wolves spawned practically in their faces. They might suddenly burst out of a shadow beside them, or materialize out of thin air from any direction, seemingly without the slightest regard for reason.

And the moment they appeared, they attacked the group of four in perfect coordination, without a trace of hesitation.

Geto had barely cut down one with his katana when another wolf lunged at his face. Shoko Ieiri was no better off, forced to keep using Cursed Technique Reversal: Output to counter the endless shadow wolves.

Crack! At last, his katana snapped completely, reduced to scrap metal.

Geto was stunned too. He circulated cursed energy throughout his body, spread his feet shoulder-width apart, and sank into a horse stance. The characteristic glow of his Cursed Spirit Manipulation surged around him.

"Secret art: Falling Blossom Emotion!"

The Zenin Clan's anti-domain technique posed little difficulty for a gifted jujutsu sorcerer like him. With its theoretical principles already mastered, he grasped the knack on his first attempt. Put simply, it used a binding vow that kept both feet on the ground while cursed energy circulated throughout the body to sense the surroundings. The instant a domain's sure-hit attack was about to connect, an equal, opposing force of cursed energy would deflect it.

Geto had already knocked away several shadow wolves lunging at him. But as their numbers increased, his blocks and counters grew sluggish and weak.

"Simple Domain!" Slit-Mouthed Woman planted her scythe in the ground and began forming hand signs. A gray glow of cursed energy spread beneath her feet, seeping into the soil of Shadow Wolf Tomb and contesting control over the domain's rules.

"Hold on to me and don't move!" she shouted to Kano and Shoko.

As the two placed their hands on Slit-Mouthed Woman while she maintained her hand sign, the Simple Domain's protection extended over Kano and Shoko as well.

Now, as long as their feet stayed on the ground, Shadow Wolf Technique's sure-hit effect could not lock on to them. The shadow wolves could not even spawn nearby, while those that had already appeared prowled outside the Simple Domain, unable to find their targets.

Shoko Ieiri rested one hand on Slit-Mouthed Woman's shoulder, sweat beading on her forehead as she nervously scanned their surroundings.

"Young lady, you can loosen your grip," Slit-Mouthed Woman said. Shoko was clutching her so tightly that it actually hurt a little. "Any physical contact will do."

Once Shoko saw that the shadow wolves really had stopped actively attacking them, the tension on her face eased a little.

But Chúgǒu was no idiot. When she discovered that the domain's sure-hit effect had failed, she chose to control the attacks herself.

"Shadow Wolf Technique: Shadow Strike-Devour!"

Shadow Wolf jaws formed beneath their feet, trying to tear into their lower bodies.

Startled, Shoko immediately coated her shoes with the power of Reverse Cursed Technique and stomped furiously on the shadows beneath her. Although she destroyed some of the wolf fangs constructed from shadow, the resulting ripples of positive energy also made Slit-Mouthed Woman uncomfortable.

Geto and Kano fared worse. The wolf jaws disrupted Geto's stance, breaking Falling Blossom Emotion on the spot. Countless shadow wolves immediately locked on to him, forcing him to rely on Rainbow Dragon and Tamamo-no-Mae Incarnate to barely protect himself.

Kano failed to dodge in time and was launched away by a wolf's head that suddenly formed beneath his feet. By the time he realized what had happened, he was already outside the Simple Domain.

The sure-hit shadow wolves locked on to him too, lunging at him from every angle.

A cage woven from spider silk materialized out of thin air, shredding the first wave of shadow wolves that tried to pounce on him.

But the pack was endless.

"Get back here!" Slit-Mouthed Woman cried urgently.

If her Simple Domain hadn't also required a binding vow that kept both feet on the ground to maintain its sure-hit neutralization, she would have rushed over to save Kano!

Kano glanced at the Simple Domain nearby, then at Chúgǒu, who stood atop a headstone with killing intent filling her wolf eyes.

Hiding inside a turtle shell and waiting for the domain to end on its own was certainly a fine option-but that was how a loser thought!

He decided to make one enormous gamble!!!

He would rush in close, force her into cursed technique burnout, and then find a way to exorcise her!!!!

With a thought, Kano firmly gripped the collapsible baton Geto had given him earlier.

With his cage raised against the nearly endless pack of wolves that had become a surging tide, he struggled upstream, moving toward Chúgǒu one step at a time with almost stubborn determination.

If you had ever watched salmon swimming upstream to spawn in a wildlife documentary, you could probably picture Kano's situation. Shoichi Kano was that salmon, and the endless shadow wolves were the opposing currents and waves.

The wolves constantly destroyed his spider silk, and he constantly regenerated it. Any shadow wolf that occasionally slipped through the barrier had its skull smashed by his baton.

At first, bursting wolf heads with the baton felt satisfying. After doing it so many times, however, Kano felt only numbness.

"What are you doing?!" Geto's voice-transmitting cursed spirit activated its technique, and Geto's voice rang inside Kano's head.

Kano's response was-

"What jujutsu sorcerer isn't crazy? I might as well go crazy today too."

When he suddenly felt the space around him clear, he realized that he had finally reached Chúgǒu.

"I'm going to kill you." The boy simply announced it, then swung his baton through the air in a dense shower of blows that hammered toward the female werewolf before him.

Chúgǒu casually blocked a few strikes, then drifted backward as though weightless. Her tone was relaxed. "You mean 'exorcise,' don't you?"

"Why won't you fight me head-on anymore?" Kano pressed forward with his cage active, only for Chúgǒu to rip apart the dense web of threads with her bare hands.

She tried to claw out Kano's heart, but he noticed...

She had slowed considerably, and the cursed energy reinforcing her body had weakened a great deal!

She was on her last legs too!

The ensuing fight confirmed his suspicion.

Chúgǒu still used those moves resembling Mongolian wrestling, repeatedly slipping past Kano's baton at close range, grabbing him, and tripping him with her legs. But Shoichi Kano noticed that her throws were growing weaker and weaker. At first, being thrown hurt so much that he couldn't get up for ages. After it happened enough times, however, he could practically spring back up within half a second of hitting the ground and resume their furious brawl.

Chúgǒu's initial irritation turned into fear. "Why won't you stay down?!"

In truth, barely any part of Kano's body was uninjured by now. He could hardly even feel pain anymore. It was like being in a dream, all five senses hazy and distorted. He was holding on through adrenaline alone.

But was Chúgǒu any better off? Her cursed energy reserves had bottomed out. Everyone could sense the pack of shadow wolves thinning noticeably. Even the shadows forming the domain's outer shell had weakened, and they could almost make out the grasslands outside.

Crack! Gritting his teeth, Shoichi Kano swung his baton one last time and slammed it into Chúgǒu's shoulder, making her stagger.

At the same time, the collapsible baton finally buckled under the strain and broke into three pieces.

Chúgǒu was still clinging to life, and Kano had no finishing move left.

Panting heavily, Shoichi Kano turned toward the Simple Domain.

An idea flashed through his mind.

Using the last of his cursed energy, he produced sticky spider silk to hamper Chúgǒu's movements while twisting a sturdy rope with Thread Manipulation. He hurled it like a lasso, wrapped it around Shoko Ieiri's waist, and forcibly hauled her over.

"Waaaaah!" Caught completely off guard by the rope, Shoko Ieiri flailed her limbs frantically in midair.

"Ieiri, use Reverse Cursed Technique!!!"

"I'm not a Pokémon!!!" Despite her protest, Shoko still tried to find her balance in midair. In the end, she securely hugged Chúgǒu's upper body in a very peculiar flying embrace, like a child leaping into a parent's arms after a long separation.

Chúgǒu had only just broken free of the sticky spider silk when Shoko's arms wrapped around her. She had no time to react.

Shoko had no time to appreciate the furry sensation either. She simply released Reverse Cursed Technique outward on instinct.

Pop! A soft white light flashed, and Chúgǒu's upper body burst apart like a bubble punctured by a toothpick.

In Chúgǒu's final vision, she saw primitive humans cheering and leaping around a campfire as they lit one for the first time.

So the moment humans first learned to use fire, they had already defeated the beasts.