Chapter 193

Reborn as a stronger grudge curse, Naoya forces Maki and Noritoshi to keep stacking their techniques. The trouble is the velocity and force he keeps adding, which may soon outrun anything the two can throw back at him.

Hurled away, Noritoshi crashes through a gate and snaps his bow yet walks off mostly whole, because blood softened a strike that would otherwise have ripped off his head and arm. Spotting the burn left on his own knuckles, Naoya salutes the younger man for cancelling a clan head's punch. Knowing how thin that margin was, Noritoshi flips on Flowing Red Scale. The curse lunges; Maki cuts in with the Split Soul Katana while Noritoshi pins him through Crimson Binding. Her next swing misses when Naoya whirls fast enough to swat the blade aside.

Once Maki names their enemy as Naoya Zenin, Noritoshi is startled that so much arrogance survived into the curse, unlike Rika, whose conduct is much closer to a normal cursed spirit. The reminder that Naoya still owns his innate ability makes Noritoshi realize Projection Sorcery has been running the whole fight. Naoya weaponizes it, freezing the surrounding air as a run of animation frames and then striking those frames, so the resulting blast scatters the pair, opening a gap for him to slip through and rise. He is not fleeing, he says, only winding up, and both fighters grasp that the true charge lands once he tops out.

Maki decides to set a counter and lure Naoya onto it, the same ploy that beat him once. He pulls his fleshy limbs into the shell, draws air through the rear intake, and breaks the sound barrier, smashing whatever he passes as he loops to gather centrifugal force, drawing on thrust pressure plus cursed energy to squeeze the air and fire it back out for drive. At a speed beyond triple that of sound, his final pass shreds the ground near Maki, and he collides with her before she reacts. The hit buries her, leaving her bleeding from the mouth and gravely hurt while Naoya stands over her, sneering that someone this weak ever defeated him.