Battle of the Sisters

Maki's voice echoed through the woods, but she received no response at all.

"Huh? Where'd she go?"

When no answer came, a hint of surprise crossed Maki's face.

She lifted her head and looked around, scanning the densely packed trunks for Mai Zenin, but all she found were overlapping leaves. There was nothing else to be found, only tree after tree filling her vision.

Yet as she continued searching in vain, a voice drifted down from high in the distance.

"Hey, where are you looking? I'm over here."

Maki turned toward the voice and narrowed her eyes, searching carefully for quite some time before finally making out Mai Zenin's figure on a branch near the top of a massive tree in the distance.

"What'd you run so far away for?" Maki frowned and shouted up at Mai Zenin, who was so far away that she could barely see her.

"The view's better up high. Makes shooting easier. Besides, you're so good at close combat, I'm not stupid enough to stay down there and fight you head-on. Only an idiot would do that." Mai Zenin's voice floated down on the wind, carrying a faint, lingering echo.

"Pretty smart of you. But you think you're safe up there?" Maki slowly unwound the bindings around her blade, exposing its cold gleam, then raised it to point straight at Mai Zenin on the branch.

"Do you still want to fight or not?"

"Of course I do. We can start right now," Mai Zenin said with a cold smile, raising her revolver.

As her words fell, Mai Zenin pulled the trigger. The revolver fired, sending a bullet whistling straight toward Maki on the ground.

Maki did not dodge the incoming bullet.

She raised her now-unwrapped blade and abruptly slashed it across in front of her. A cold light flashed, and the incoming bullet was cut cleanly in two.

Seeing that her first shot had failed, Mai Zenin immediately fired again, sending a second bullet toward Maki.

This time, however, Maki did not stand there like an idiot. She twisted sideways and leaped high, hooking onto a branch of a massive tree in front of her to evade the bullet, then used her momentum to close in, step by step, on the high branch where Mai stood.

A surge of panic swept through Mai Zenin as she watched Maki keep propelling herself closer, but she forced her emotions down and steadied herself.

She raised her revolver again, held the muzzle steady on the approaching Maki, and predicted her path before firing a third shot.

"Too slow!!!" Maki laughed wildly.

She swung her blade again, deflecting the incoming bullet.

Maki kept leaping and twisting between the towering trees, using each foothold to propel herself onward. Her figure darted through the woods like a phantom, and her blade's reflections traced brief streaks of light through the trees.

Standing on the branch, Mai Zenin raised her gun and struggled to track Maki's movements so she could fire.

But Maki was too fast. With the trees blocking her view as well, she could barely catch her afterimages, let alone aim her revolver.

Mai Zenin hastily fired at Maki, but the shot only shattered a branch Maki had stepped on. It accomplished nothing except wasting a bullet.

The revolver held only six bullets in total, and now just two remained.

Just as Mai Zenin focused on watching her surroundings, the support beneath her feet suddenly vanished.

At some point, Maki had moved beneath Mai Zenin and severed the thick branch at its base with one slash.

With nothing left to support her, Mai Zenin plunged straight toward the ground.

Only then did she finally catch sight of Maki, who was now hanging from the spot where she had just been standing.

Feeling herself fall, Mai Zenin forced her body into position in midair and sent her fifth bullet straight at Maki as she hung from the tree.

Maki clearly had not expected Mai Zenin to aim and fire while falling. Unable to dodge in time, she took a graze to the shoulder. Sharp pain struck, and her hand involuntarily released the branch, sending her falling toward the ground as well.

Maki landed on one knee. Feeling the pain in her shoulder, she wiped a hand over the wound and looked at the bright red blood on her fingers.

Maki slowly slipped her bloodstained fingers into her mouth, and the rusty taste of blood spread across her tongue.

"You've improved a little, at least," she murmured to herself.

Mai Zenin's landing nearby was far less graceful. With her frail body, aiming and firing in midair had already been her limit. She slammed heavily into the ground and felt as though she was about to fall apart.

Now there was only one bullet left in her revolver.

Watching Maki approach step by step with her blade in hand, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to stand.

She raised her arm, already aching and weak, and fired her final bullet at the charging Maki.

The revolver was now completely empty.

Maki merely tilted her body slightly, effortlessly evading the bullet that had not even been properly aimed.

Maki swept a kick into Mai Zenin's stomach, sending her flying and tumbling backward over and over.

"Hey, I bet you're out of bullets now. Don't even think about reloading."

Maki did not stop. Instead, she pressed her advantage, intending to defeat Mai Zenin outright in this exchange.

Yet as she drew closer, Mai Zenin, who had already exhausted her bullets, made an unexpected move.

She raised her empty revolver and pulled the trigger. A gunshot rang out, and the revolver that should have been out of ammunition fired another bullet.

This was her cursed technique-Construction. As its name suggested, it allowed her to create matter from nothing using cursed energy, and the matter she created would not disappear even after the technique ended. However, her limited cursed energy meant she could create only one bullet per day.

She used a revolver precisely to mislead her opponents. When an enemy thought she had run out of bullets, this extra bullet formed from cursed energy could catch them off guard.

Her cursed energy drained drastically, and blood gushed unstoppably from her nose, but a smile of assured victory spread across Mai Zenin's face.

At this range, not even Maki could dodge this bullet. I won this time!!!

Yet what happened next shattered every chance she had of winning and left her dumbfounded.

Faced with the bullet, Maki neither dodged nor fell to the ground after being hit.

Maki reached out and caught the high-speed bullet firmly in her hand.

"Hiss-ow, ow, ow. Guess I really shouldn't catch bullets barehanded." Maki sucked in a sharp breath, her expression twisting involuntarily at the pain in her palm.

She opened her hand, and the bullet constructed from cursed energy fell to the ground. Her palm was only slightly red.

Seeing the bullet she had poured all her cursed energy into caught barehanded without doing any harm, Mai Zenin completely lost her composure.

She abandoned her fighting style as a shooter, charged up to Maki with her gun in hand, and began fighting her hand to hand.

The corners of Maki's mouth kept twitching. She could not understand why Mai was coming at her so desperately.

Mai Zenin raised the butt of her gun high and smashed it down at Maki, only for her to dodge easily. In Maki's eyes, her attacks were absurdly slow.

Maki caught Mai's hand and used her momentum to fling her away again, but Mai seemed to have lost all sense of pain. She scrambled up the instant she hit the ground and charged at Maki again.

Mai Zenin had now lost all reason and simply kept throwing wild, uncoordinated punches at Maki.

Seeing that Mai Zenin had lost her reason, Maki brought up her blade and slammed its blunt edge hard into Mai Zenin's back.

Under that heavy blow, Mai Zenin lost all ability to resist and slumped weakly against a nearby tree trunk.

Maki pointed her blade at her.

"The fight's decided. You don't have any objections, do you?"

Mai Zenin seemed not to hear her. She hung her head and stared at the ground, then spoke quietly.

"Why did you leave home?"

Maki looked at her in surprise, as though she had misheard.

"Huh? You should know even without me saying it, right? Didn't you come to Jujutsu High too?"

But Mai Zenin suddenly raised her head, her voice bursting out through her tears:

"I never wanted to be a jujutsu sorcerer! It's all your fault! You kept trying so hard that I had no choice but to push myself this much!"

"The effort, the pain-I've had enough of all of it! What was so bad about being ordered around at home? We could've just done a few chores and drifted through life. Wouldn't that have been fine? Why-couldn't you-sink down with me?!!" Mai Zenin lowered her head forlornly, looking as though she was about to shatter.

Looking at Mai crying before her, Maki did not quite know what to say. After hesitating for a moment, she slowly spoke:

"Because I'd end up hating myself that way. That's all. Sorry."

Hearing those words, Mai bit down hard on her lip.

"Sorry-is that it? You liar! I hate you more than anyone!!!"

Mai Zenin suddenly lifted her head and roared at Maki.

Maki was immediately at a loss.

"Sis, I..."

"Don't call me your sister! Just get out of here! I don't want to see you!"

Looking at the emotionally shattered Mai, Maki wanted to say something, but her mouth opened and closed, and in the end, no words came out.

She took a deep breath and finally said one thing:

"I'm sorry-"

Then she turned and left, leaving Mai Zenin sitting alone beneath the great tree, crying quietly.

Seeing that the battle had ended, Akutagawa Shang walked over to Maki and treated the wound on her shoulder.

"Are you all right?"

But Maki remained silent, her expression heavy.

"Will she be all right over there on her own?" Akutagawa Shang pointed toward Mai Zenin in the distance, crying with her arms wrapped around her legs.

"Leave her alone. Let's hurry up and finish the match." Maki seemed like a different person now. Both her expression and her words had become exceptionally cold, and she seemed deeply upset.

Akutagawa Shang said no more. He activated Reverse Cursed Technique and pressed his hand against the cursed spirit's head, ending his life once and for all.

At the same time, the loudspeakers, which had been silent for a long while, issued an announcement that echoed throughout the mountain behind Jujutsu High.

"The Goodwill Event team competition is now over!!!"