Heavenly Restriction

I began the second stage of my hand-to-hand combat lessons.

Only after experiencing it firsthand did I realize just how much the Seventh Elder had been holding back before.

When he knocked me to the ground yet again and I could no longer get up, the Seventh Elder looked even more hopeless than I felt. "After all this training, you still can't kick a wooden post apart... You're not even half as good as Satoru Gojo now."

He was so dispirited that he didn't even address me respectfully as "Miss Kuang Wu" or "Young Master."

Feeling guilty, I took the initiative to apologize. "I'm sorry. I'm not very healthy. I'll get it next time."

The Seventh Elder sprang to his feet and pointed at me, finally unable to hold back his swearing. "Next time?! When the fuck have you ever not said 'next time'?! I just don't understand... You run every day, train your stamina, and learn the techniques, so how do you manage to be this useless?!"

I had no answer.

After all these days of training, there was one fact I really didn't want to admit, but had to. "Maybe I really don't have any talent for hand-to-hand combat. Maybe all my talent went into jujutsu?"

Nobody was perfect.

In the Jujutsu Society, belief in "balance" was widespread.

When an immensely powerful jujutsu sorcerer was born, cursed spirits would grow stronger as well. That was the world's "balance."

-Satoru Gojo's birth, which had raised the overall grades of cursed spirits, was a classic example.

Someone with an exceptionally powerful body might have no talent for jujutsu at all; someone with extraordinarily powerful cursed energy, on the other hand, might have an especially frail body.

This was a special kind of "balance" manifested in a person. Those who possessed such a "balance" had a unique constitution, known in the Jujutsu Society by a particular name-

"Heavenly restriction."

The Seventh Elder had clearly thought of this possibility too. He fell silent.

That evening, the Zenin Clan's higher-ups held another meeting.

I didn't know what they discussed, but in any case, the next day, the Seventh Elder stopped strictly demanding that I complete every hand-to-hand combat drill.

He only said, "Miss Kuang Wu, from now on, just learn as much hand-to-hand combat as you can."

Then the focus of our lessons shifted from offense to defense and... running away.

To the Seventh Elder's surprise, I picked up those two things quite quickly.

Another three months passed, and I was finally allowed to take on high-level missions. But because my hand-to-hand combat skills were abysmal, the clan still decided to send some people to protect me.

I didn't want to make such a big production of it, and I genuinely felt it was unnecessary.

But the moment I refused, the Seventh Elder started crying. An old man with a face full of wrinkles gazed at me through tear-filled eyes, repeating things like, "The Zenin Clan cannot bear the consequences of losing Miss Kuang Wu," and "Miss Kuang Wu is very important"...

Me: ew.jpg

At that moment, I began to understand how Satoru Gojo had felt a year ago, when they'd tricked him into believing assassination attempts were on the rise and forcibly confined him to a courtyard enclosed by several layers of barriers.

He'd even said, "There's no need."

So I told those overly anxious elders the same thing. "There's no need."

...But after all our back-and-forth, they still ended up assigning one person to accompany me.

It was someone chosen by my father in name only, whom I hadn't seen in ages.

His name was... Toji Zenin?

After I returned to my courtyard, the steward in charge of the clan registry brought me Toji Zenin's file.

Only after reading it did I learn that Toji Zenin was actually an older cousin of both Naoya Zenin and mine, born into the main line with a distinguished status.

But... because he had no cursed energy whatsoever, he lived worse than a servant, constantly subjected to ridicule and ostracism.

...I didn't understand.

Having read so much material on the basics of jujutsu, only now did I fully grasp just how powerful this cousin of mine was.

-This was the ultimate heavenly restriction.

He had traded all his cursed energy for the ultimate body. Which of those useless fools could possibly match him in hand-to-hand combat?

They dared to act with impunity just because they had a pathetic little bit of cursed energy. I wondered if they were prepared to face the consequences.

Why could the weak look down on the strong so naturally? Especially when the strong person in question was a member of the clan's main line.

My cousin Toji was far too even-tempered.