Duel

The instant Naoya Zenin vanished, Sakurada Niji reacted. He used Flash Step to rush straight to the spot Naoya had disappeared from. A moment later, Naoya reached the place Niji had just been standing, while Niji arrived at Naoya's original position.

Against Projection Sorcery, which relied on preset movements, the key was to disrupt those presets with movements no ordinary person could anticipate. That was why Niji chose to swap positions.

Once Naoya finished his preset movements, he found that Niji was not in front of him where his programmed attack should have struck. He looked back and saw Niji, who had traded places with him.

"Is dodging all you can do?!" Naoya shouted furiously.

"Your cursed technique is pretty easy to counter~ Why not try going a little faster?" Niji taunted.

As long as I start dodging at the moment he attacks me within those twenty-four movements, his cursed technique won't affect me.

"As you wish!" Naoya's anger boiled over, veins bulging on his forehead.

He plotted his movements again, vanished from where he stood, and attacked Niji.

Niji simply kicked his right foot with his left, tripping himself. Just before his body hit the ground, he used his cursed technique to fix himself in midair, evading Naoya's swinging knife.

Disbelief covered Naoya's face. He turned around, eyes wide, and watched Niji slowly straighten up behind him.

"Impossible!" Naoya could not believe it.

"Maybe I'm just lucky~" Niji said calmly.

"Fine, then let's see how long your luck lasts!" The moment Naoya finished speaking, he vanished.

Naoya's "afterimages"-or perhaps "frames"-appeared intermittently around Niji.

Naoya aimed his preset movements at Niji, attacking him relentlessly. At first, he still included blocking and dodging movements in his sequences.

But as Niji kept evading his preset movements with maneuvers that defied common sense, Naoya completely abandoned adding defensive and counterattacking movements to his sequences.

Why?! Why can he dodge them?! How does he see them coming?! And if he can see them coming, why won't he counterattack?! Naoya roared inwardly in frustration.

His preset movements became simple and direct. Abandoning counterattacks and defense entirely, he continued attacking Niji with the fastest, most efficient movements possible.

Niji merely moved freely around the Training Ground in ways beyond human expectation, evading each preset attack in a manner Naoya could never have imagined.

"Why are Niji's movements so strange? Isn't he breaking the laws of physics?" Utahime suddenly asked. At some point, she had made her way over to the Tokyo school's side to watch.

"Utahime actually infiltrated enemy territory for her student! How moving~! Go, Miss Utahime~~!" Noticing Utahime, Satoru Gojo lifted Suguru Geto's hand beside him and started doing cheerleading motions.

"Ah~ There's no reason we can't tell you~ After all, even if you understand how Niji's moves work, you still can't counter them."

Shoko spoke from beside them. The fighting technique Niji was using was actually a special method of manipulating space. She had assisted him and treated him while he developed it, so she fully understood its principles.

"Niji developed this movement technique by combining his own theories with his cursed technique. It lets him create spatial barriers wherever he likes around himself to support his movement, evasions, and counterattacks. When necessary, he can also use his cursed technique to fix his limbs in place or briefly store up force to accelerate their movements."

"He combined that with the incredible flexibility he could only train because I was there to treat him, and eventually developed this special method of moving through space."

"This movement method lets Niji exert force under any circumstances, maneuver in confined spaces, dodge with almost no time to spare, and counterattack instantly at the right moment. He can also suddenly turn, move backward, or stop dead while traveling at high speed-things ordinary people can't do."

"Its defining feature is how fast and bizarre his movements are. Since they defy common sense and the laws of physics, enemies can't predict them or adapt to them."

"Niji named this spatial movement technique Flash Walk."

"That's practically a perfect combat technique," Suguru Geto remarked. A master of close combat himself, he immediately recognized the intricacies of the movement method.

After attacking for so long without landing a single hit, Naoya's cursed energy was nearly depleted.

Naoya said nothing. He decided to stake everything on one last attempt.

He used his cursed technique to put distance between himself and Niji, then began using it again from afar.

Outside the field, Yu Haibara suddenly asked, "Why is that blond guy moving away from Niji?"

"Projection Sorcery can use distance to increase speed, provided you 'follow a movement trajectory'-in other words, your movements have to flow smoothly. The twenty-four preset movements must form one complete sequence. Traveling a hundred meters in one second is possible, but the movements have to connect. You can't have the first movement be starting at the starting line and the second be appearing at the finish. There has to be a logical process," Suguru explained. He always memorized information like this.

As Naoya activated his cursed technique, he charged at Niji several times faster than before. Niji, however, did not panic. He sheathed his sword where he stood, positioned it with the blunt edge facing forward, and assumed a sword-drawing stance, preparing to use his new move: New Shadow Style - Simple Domain - Modified.

An ordinary New Shadow Style - Simple Domain allowed its user to automatically attack targets that entered the domain, but if a target was too fast, it could evade the attack.

The fundamental reason was that New Shadow Style's sword-drawing technique merely used cursed energy to accelerate the blade inside the sheath, increasing its drawing speed. Its attack speed left much to be desired. It was adequate against ordinary people and low-level jujutsu sorcerers, but proved largely useless against other jujutsu sorcerers. As a result, New Shadow Style - Simple Domain was mostly only useful as a stopgap against an enemy's domain.

The cursed tool Niji wielded, Skyward Support, could ignore most air resistance when swung, greatly increasing the blade's speed. Meanwhile, using Godspeed through his Fixing Cursed Technique allowed him to continuously accumulate the force of his draw, likewise greatly increasing his swinging speed.

After careful study, the ingenious Niji successfully linked Godspeed's charge-release mechanism to New Shadow Style - Simple Domain's automatic counterattack upon detecting an enemy.

His cursed tool, Skyward Support, and his Fixing Cursed Technique perfectly complemented New Shadow Style - Simple Domain's sword-drawing technique. The result of combining all three went far beyond a simple sum of their parts.

Now, New Shadow Style - Simple Domain - Modified automatically began charging Godspeed upon activation. When an enemy entered the domain, it automatically triggered Godspeed to release the accumulated force and counterattack instantly, without requiring Niji to anticipate anything himself.

The moment Naoya entered Niji's Simple Domain at tremendous speed, New Shadow Style - Simple Domain - Modified automatically counterattacked. The result of one plus one plus one was a sword swing that instantly surpassed the speed of sound. The blade's blunt edge struck Naoya as he performed his final movement in that twenty-fourth of a second.

"Guh...!" Naoya stopped a short distance from Niji, frozen in a running pose. Since Niji's strike had interrupted his preset movements, his own cursed technique had frozen him in place.

Niji sheathed his sword, shook out his arm, and used Flash Step to move behind Naoya. He pressed Skyward Support's blunt edge against Naoya's neck and asked:

"Well? Do you concede?" Niji used his cursed technique to fix Naoya's body in place, leaving only his head free to move so that his injuries would not overwhelm him and knock him unconscious.

"I lost..." Naoya felt utterly defeated. From beginning to end, he had not landed a single hit. His opponent's bizarre footwork had turned his preset attacks into a joke, and he had beaten him using nothing more than something as commonplace as New Shadow Style. Naoya had not even seen his opponent's cursed technique.

For Naoya, who had only ever acknowledged Satoru Gojo and Toji, the blow was devastating. Such a crushing defeat left him exhausted in body and mind, and he began to question his own talent.

Ever since I was little, everyone in the family kept telling me I was a genius. Then I met Satoru Gojo and my cousin Toji. I thought only those two were special, but then Suguru Geto and Sakurada Niji appeared. Looks like I'm just ordinary after all. I've been fooling myself for so long.

Watching Naoya suddenly grow despondent, Niji remembered that he was still only a teenager-at a rebellious age, and at a turning point in his life.

If I guide him properly, maybe he could become a decent person. Maybe I could even get him to look after Maki and Mai.

"Hey~ What are you spacing out for? Feeling crushed?" Niji nudged Naoya's neck with the blunt edge of his sword and asked.

"..." Naoya said nothing, merely shooting Niji a vicious glare.

"Sorry... I've spent so much time around Satoru that I slipped up..." Only then did Niji realize that what he had just done was rather rude, and he hurriedly apologized.

"Hmph!" Naoya snorted coldly and turned his head away from Niji.

Oh~! Quite the tsundere, aren't you~ Niji thought.

"All right. If you want, you can come find me anytime to exchange ideas and spar." Niji decided to personally guide this still-salvageable kid, even though he was younger than Naoya himself.

Naoya looked utterly bewildered. Looking at Niji's serious face, he could not tell whether the guy in front of him was provoking him or was simply an idiot.

"Also, if you'd like to learn about that special footwork I used, come find me once your injuries have healed." Niji intended to use Flash Walk as bait to encourage Naoya to come talk to him, giving him a chance to change his personality. If Naoya proved salvageable, he planned to privately tell him about Toji. With both Toji and himself guiding him, they could finally turn this rotten person around.

Though Flash Walk involves so many movements that it probably won't improve his abilities all that much. He felt a little unethical.

I have to admire my own talent. I'm just too clever~! Niji smiled, convinced he could pull it off.

"...Are you some kind of hopeless do-gooder?" Naoya looked confused. Hadn't all the hopeless do-gooders in Jujutsu Society died out already?