Listening to Tan Man, Naobito Zenin found the brat increasingly interesting and could not help growing curious about the mother who had raised such a child.
For the sake of that curiosity alone, Naobito Zenin temporarily set aside the question of whether Tan Man was his own flesh and blood.
After all, confirming their blood relationship was hardly complicated. A paternity test would easily settle the matter.
Stroking his mustache, Naobito Zenin looked down at Tan Man with interest and asked,
"Tell me, how do you intend to demonstrate your worth?"
Tan Man raised his hand and pointed straight at Naobito Zenin a short distance away, his gaze resolute as he solemnly chanted.
"Deathless." "Plow and Dipper." "Seek rebirth as before." "Hell of Equal Lives."
Naobito Zenin was mildly surprised. He had not expected Tan Man to have mastered the incantation as well.
A Cursed Technique unleashed through a full incantation was far more powerful than one cast through an abbreviated process.
Tan Man had done this to compensate for his lack of proficiency and make the most effective use of his cursed energy.
As the incantation and hand sign were completed, three skeletal corpses wreathed in black flames appeared before Tan Man.
[Despite the full enhancement of the incantation and hand sign, his underlying proficiency was still low, limiting the effect Equal Lives could ultimately produce.]
Naobito Zenin's first reaction upon seeing the three corpses was to assume they were shikigami, but he soon noticed something unusual and tentatively rejected that conclusion.
The aura emanating from the corpses was utterly unfamiliar to Naobito Zenin. It was clearly different from that of cursed spirits, yet did not quite resemble shikigami either. Instead, he could faintly sense something "human" about them.
Yet in their current abnormal state, it was difficult to describe them as alive.
At the sight of Naobito Zenin, a living person, one of the corpses immediately let out an excited roar and charged.
Naobito Zenin did not mind Tan Man's impudence. After all, there was no better way to demonstrate his worth than through combat.
Experienced as he was, however, Naobito Zenin would not get careless around something unknown. He immediately used Projection Sorcery to trap one of the attacking corpses in a flat frame and freeze it, then crushed it beneath a heavy stomp.
As the corpse was stomped in two at the chest, some of the black flames covering its bones still clung to Naobito Zenin's body.
Naobito Zenin carefully used Projection Sorcery to strip the black flames from his foot, then studied the shattered corpse in thought.
Judging by how it took an attack reinforced with cursed energy to break them, the corpses were reasonably durable, and multiple could be summoned at once.
Those black flames were also somewhat more troublesome than ordinary fire.
Taking those two points together, he could give it a seven out of ten. With practice, it should prove fairly effective, though it was hardly spectacular.
But before Naobito Zenin could finalize his assessment, the other two corpses attacked him together, and he noticed with surprise that the shattered corpse was reassembling at an astonishing speed.
"...What's this?"
Naobito Zenin's eyes lit up. If these corpses could regenerate, he could raise his assessment of Tan Man by another half point.
The inheritance mechanism of the Ten Shadows Technique compensated for the drawback of "death in battle" by improving quality.
On that point alone, this was superior to the Ten Shadows Technique, allowing the summons to fight prolonged battles of attrition.
As for why he only added half a point, that was mainly because the individual corpses were not particularly strong at present, limiting the power of Tan Man's Cursed Technique.
Unfortunately, Tan Man currently had the body of a six-year-old, and a frail one at that. He could not coordinate with the corpses to pose a threat to Naobito Zenin.
But from the outset, he had never intended to satisfy Naobito Zenin with Equal Lives alone.
"Eight Hot Hells: Great Hell of Black Rope."
As Tan Man activated it, a long whip made of black flames instantly appeared in his hand, slipping through a gap between the corpses at a tricky angle and striking straight at Naobito Zenin.
Unfortunately, Naobito Zenin could still easily react to and evade an attack of that speed.
Yet surprise remained in Naobito Zenin's eyes. He had not expected Tan Man's Cursed Technique to have branching extensions as well. That earned him another half point.
Furthermore, based on the information available, Tan Man had mastered his Cursed Technique to this degree on his own in just a single day. From a certain perspective, he certainly qualified as a genius.
But Black Rope's offensive capabilities were not so simple.
Both Black Rope itself and the black flames left by its lashes instantly sprouted dense spikes over a meter long, severely restricting Naobito Zenin's movement and forcing him to retreat.
And retreating into the space behind him, free of the corpses and Black Rope, was exactly what Tan Man wanted Naobito Zenin to do.
"Eight Hot Hells: Great Hell of Crushing."
Two massive boulders of black flame, each nearly three meters tall, appeared in an instant. The sides facing Naobito Zenin were perfectly flat, as though a single stone had been split in two.
They targeted the spot where Naobito Zenin would land and slammed together at astonishing speed.
What?
Tan Man's attack had indeed caught Naobito Zenin off guard. With no time left to evade Sanghata Hell's crushing attack, he could only resort to an extremely risky maneuver.
He deliberately made his own Projection Sorcery fail, sealing himself within a flat frame and aligning it with the planes where Sanghata Hell's boulders would collide to reduce the damage he would take from the impact.
Naobito Zenin admitted that he had underestimated this brat, Tan Man.
Had he taken him seriously from the beginning, Tan Man would never have gotten an opportunity like this.
In a serious fight, Naobito Zenin would have appeared right before him the moment Tan Man used Equal Lives, never giving him a chance to do anything beyond close-quarters combat.
For a moment, Naobito Zenin wondered whether Tan Man had accounted for even his arrogance in his plan from the very beginning.
Sanghata Hell's boulders collided and crashed together with a tremendous boom, making even the ground tremble slightly.
Even sealed within the frame, Naobito Zenin still took considerable damage.
The instant the frame shattered, Naobito Zenin touched both of Sanghata Hell's massive boulders with his hands and briefly sealed them in frames, escaping their enclosure with as little damage as possible.
Still, Naobito Zenin was far from unscathed. His formerly exquisite clothes were burning with black flames, and both his palms had suffered burns of varying severity.
Looking at Tan Man, who lay unconscious on the ground with his fists still clenched, Naobito Zenin could not help reflecting inwardly.
This brat really gave it everything. If Naoya faced him now, he probably wouldn't have an easy time of it.
[After all, Naoya was no longer someone who had only just awakened his Cursed Technique, and the Zenin Clan's standard training had given him far more combat experience than Tan Man.]
Taken individually, the three techniques were not particularly outstanding. Strictly speaking, aside from the somewhat unusual immortality of the Equal Lives corpses, Black Rope and Sanghata Hell were mainly concerned with inflicting damage.
But if he could think this far ahead after only just awakening his Cursed Technique, then Tan Man's combat instincts were certainly commendable.
Honestly, Naobito Zenin was quite curious about the limits of Tan Man's Cursed Technique.
Did the Eight Hot Hells have more than three derived effects, like the Ten Shadows Technique, or could they become even stronger with proficient use?
Hearing the tremendous crash as Sanghata Hell's boulders slammed shut, Yaga finally could not help pushing open the abandoned factory's doors.
The sight before him startled him. Black flames scattered everywhere cast an eerie light across the room.
Only Naobito Zenin remained standing in the room, looking somewhat disheveled as he tore at his burning clothes.
Lying before Naobito Zenin was the brat named Tan Man.
Yaga asked cautiously, "What exactly happened here?"
Naobito Zenin walked over to Tan Man, bent down, and hoisted him onto his shoulder. Rather than answering Yaga's question directly, he said,
"Since he claims to be my child, I'll be taking him with me."
Remembering that evening's disturbance, Yaga immediately pressed him.
"But if you take him away, how are we supposed to deal with all that?"
Without looking back, Naobito Zenin casually told Yaga,
"Don't worry about that. If anyone asks, tell them the Zenin Clan will handle the rest."
"..."
From Naobito Zenin's attitude-settling that evening's major disturbance in the Zenin Clan's name-Yaga could more or less tell that Tan Man really was connected to him.
But as the representative of the Jujutsu side who had dealt directly with this incident, Yaga knew very well that this was not something that could be settled by merely having someone put in a few words.
Even if the Zenin Clan, represented by Naobito Zenin, intervened, the price of fully resolving this incident would not be low.
Watching Naobito Zenin's somewhat scorched figure recede, Yaga could not help remarking,
"A child who only just awakened his technique was enough to injure the head of the Zenin Clan..."
Yaga could not help comparing Tan Man to the Gojo Clan's prodigy.
In truth, Naobito Zenin had his own calculations. Although he was already fairly satisfied with Tan Man, they had yet to conduct a paternity test. An outstanding heir to the Zenin Clan and an outstanding member of the Zenin Clan would lead him to handle this matter in two entirely different ways.
As long as Tan Man obediently followed his instructions, settling this disturbance would indeed be a worthwhile deal for Naobito Zenin.
Whether he had Tan Man assist Naoya or serve as a catalyst to spur Naoya's growth, either would be a good outcome.
At least in Naobito Zenin's subconscious at present, Tan Man had absolutely no chance of becoming the Zenin Clan's next head...
Before you continue