Akoto felt it.
It wasn't just the impact.
It was as if something inside him had come undone—unlocked.
His mind opened.
Cursed energy was no longer something he had to force, regulate, or compress. It simply flowed. Natural. Instinctive. Like breathing.
The world seemed to slow down. Sounds became clearer.
Movements more predictable. Every fluctuation of energy within the arena was perceptible.
Everything felt as though it revolved around him.
And in that instant, everyone seemed beneath him.
This was the true effect of Black Flash.
Upon entering "the Zone," the brain shifted into a state of extreme clarity and focus. The connection between body and cursed energy became absolute. Adrenaline flooded the senses—but instead of turning them chaotic, it refined them into perfection.
A dangerous sensation spread through his consciousness.
'I am capable…'
Tap!
Shin, as he stepped back, placed his foot carelessly.
The sound was minimal.
But to Akoto, it roared like thunder.
His eyes shifted instantly.
"I can land it again."
He didn't merely believe it.
He knew.
Boom!
An explosion of cursed energy ruptured the ground beneath his feet. Grass was torn away by the pressure of his advance.
Akoto appeared in front of Shin before the Kamo heir could fully process the movement.
Instinctively, Shin reacted.
A wall of blood rose before him—dense, compressed to the extreme, multiple layers compacted until they carried a steel-like resistance.
But—
『Black Flash!』
Crack!
The sound was sharp and dry.
Black sparks tore through the air once more.
The condensed blood shattered like glass struck by an invisible hammer. The spatial distortion from the impact pierced through the defense and struck Shin directly.
But it wasn't just physical force.
Akoto's cursed energy carried special properties.
At the moment of impact, the resonance struck not only the body—
But the soul.
The damage was amplified.
The damage amplified by Black Flash struck Shin's soul core with triple intensity.
Boom!
The Kamo heir's body was hurled against Tengen's barrier, colliding violently before dropping to his knees, blood spilling from his mouth.
'I was still injured?!'
Shin's eyes widened as he felt something wrong within himself.
It wasn't just muscular pain.
'What the hell kind of attack is that?!'
Immediately, he began manipulating his own blood—forcing circulation, sealing ruptured vessels, preventing internal hemorrhaging.
In the arena, Akoto remained still after the second impact.
The black sparks slowly faded around his fist.
His eyes were different now.
He was still in the Zone.
'At the most basic level…'
Akoto slowly closed his eyes as he felt his own energy expand once more, feeding his Cursed Energy Reinforcement to its absolute limit. His muscles vibrated. The ground beneath his feet began to crack.
'Focus. The basics are…'
Suddenly, the immense amount of cursed energy overflowing from his body began to diminish.
Not because he was weakening—
But because it was being refined.
What had once been a violent torrent became a compact flow. The energy that had filled the arena was drawn back, compressed, folded onto itself, until only a thin veil remained around Akoto.
An almost invisible film.
In the stands, Tengen's eyes widened.
'Could it be…?'
She understood perfectly what was happening.
Normally, the greater the output of cursed energy, the harder it became to distribute it efficiently. Excessive release created instability. Waste. Loss of precision.
But Akoto—
He had fused Emission, Distribution, and Compression into a single continuous flow.
It was absurd.
A feat that could only be born from the state of extreme lucidity granted by Black Flash.
Zoom!
He vanished.
Only a streak of white slicing through the air remained.
Akoto was flying toward Shin once more.
But at that exact instant, Sato Gojo made a decision.
His teeth ground together.
"Cursed Technique Lapse…"
The energy around him twisted violently.
Before him, a deep blue vortex formed—the space itself compressing into a singular point. The distortion was visible, as if the air were being dragged into a hole.
It was a desperate measure.
『Blue!』
The vortex detonated into attraction.
"Huh?"
Akoto, advancing in a straight line, felt his body abruptly pulled.
His trajectory was broken midair.
The space ahead collapsed toward the blue point, and he was violently drawn into the center of the vortex.
However—
That was far too convenient a scenario for Akoto Kisaragi.
"I'm already getting tired of this," he muttered at the center of the gravitational pull.
His eyes shone in a shade of purple.
Boom!
Blue unraveled.
Its gravitational core imploded, the spatial distortion collapsing into itself before bursting outward in a shockwave that swept across the arena.
The ground split. The air trembled.
In the stands, Tengen abruptly rose from her seat.
Her eyes were wide.
"So you finally used it, you brat," she remarked, a slow smile forming on her face.
In the arena, Sato stepped back, confused.
His Blue… failed?
No.
He had clearly felt something interfere.
Something had struck the core of the technique.
The artificial gravity point sustaining Blue had simply collapsed—as if it had been forced to.
On the highest platform, Kanaede Abe's eyes widened.
Beside her, Jugo Fujiwara frowned.
"Is he a failure or what?" Jugo muttered, pointing toward Sato. "He messed up the same technique again."
"No," Kanaede replied without taking her eyes off the arena.
"Huh?"
"That's not what happened," she stated firmly.
Her gaze was locked onto Akoto.
On the faint purple glow that was still slowly fading.
"It was his innate technique."
In the arena, Akoto remained still.
The thin veil of energy around him was still under perfect control.
But now there was something different.
The space around him seemed to… oscillate.
"Then let's begin," Jugo said, slowly withdrawing his hands from the wide sleeves of his haori, revealing long, tense fingers already prepared to shape cursed energy.
"Yes," Kanaede agreed.
Behind her, wings made of white feathers emerged one by one, as if sprouting from the air itself. They were not mere projections—each feather appeared solid, vibrating with a sacred energy that clashed violently against the arena's dense atmosphere.
Akoto brushed the dust off his shoulder with two light taps and let out a low, almost bored sigh.
"Kamo, Gojo, and Zenin… That was disappointing, to be optimistic." He began walking toward Sato, his steps firm and controlled. "Your techniques are incredible. But you, as a whole… are deplorable."
His eyes were calm.
But there was something in them.
Genuine disappointment.
"If you trained more, maybe you could make me consider using my technique more often." He stopped a few meters from where Sato had been. "Tell me… is there any satisfaction in being this weak?"
"Don't lump me together with those idiots."
The voice came from the side.
Jugo appeared next to Sato as if he had always been there. His fingers touched the Gojo sorcerer's shoulder.
Sato vanished.
There was no flash.
No sound.
He simply ceased to occupy that point in space.
"Oh~" Akoto arched an eyebrow slightly. "A transportation technique?"
Jugo smirked faintly.
"Close. But it leans more toward distortion."
The air around them seemed to bend subtly, like fabric being twisted.
"Hm?"
Suddenly, an absurd pressure fell upon Akoto's body.
His shoulders dropped a few centimeters.
The ground beneath his feet cracked.
His knees almost buckled.
Almost.
But he remained standing.
Motionless.
The thin veil of energy around his body wavered once—and stabilized.
Jugo's eyes widened.
'He endured my technique? Impossible!'
It was spatial compression. An attempt to force the target's body to align with a distorted point in space.
The air around Akoto trembled.
The cracks in the ground deepened.
Yet he was still there, slowly lifting his face.
His eyes now calm.
Almost bored.
"Is that all?"
No immediate response came.
Akoto didn't need one.
The silence was enough.
"Alright then."
Zoom!
The air exploded in a sharp displacement.
In one instant, Akoto stood beneath the spatial pressure.
In the next—
He and Jugo had vanished from their original position.
The arena wall shook violently as Jugo's body was slammed into it, Akoto's fingers wrapped around his throat, crushing his trachea with cruel precision.
Cracks spread across the surface behind him.
Akoto pulled back his free arm.
As he clenched his fist, cursed energy began to vibrate around his knuckles.
'He's going to unleash those black flashes again!'
Desperation flashed through Jugo's eyes.
Instinctively, he activated his technique.
The space around Akoto twisted.
A distorted repulsive force shoved the young Kisaragi backward, tearing him away from the point of impact before the punch could be launched.
"Tsk."
Akoto clicked his tongue midair, his body rotating with absurd control before landing on his feet at the center of the arena, the impact creating only a shallow depression in the ground.
'What an irritating technique…'
His eyes analyzed carefully.
'It's like Blue… it creates a point of attraction. But within a circular area… more stable…'
He adjusted his stance.
'And it doesn't require the Six Eyes to control. It's like a Limitless… only weaker.'
Zoom!
"Hey~"
Akoto turned his head over his shoulder.
Noa Zenin stood behind him, wearing a strange smile.
And then—
Zoom!
The world turned transparent.
Akoto was encapsulated inside a perfect glass frame—prismatic, smooth as polished mirror. The structure sealed around him seamlessly, slightly distorting his image as though he were a painting inside a frame.
"Now!"
Jugo and Noa charged simultaneously.
Their fists collided against the frame.
The surface shattered into thousands of gleaming fragments—
But at the very instant of impact—
Catch.
Akoto grabbed both fists.
The shards were still suspended in the air when his fingers closed around their hands, completely halting their advance. His eyes were cold.
"You're not synchronized."
He yanked Jugo forward brutally.
Black sparks erupted.
『Black Flash!』
The air was torn apart.
Jugo was launched like a projectile, flying across the arena.
But mid-flight, he twisted his body, distorting the space behind him and drastically reducing the impact against the wall—though he still carved a deep crater into it.
"Bleh!" Blood spilled from his lips. He touched the area that had been struck. "Y-you bastard…"
Akoto slowly turned his face toward Noa.
That single glance made the Zenin heir shudder.
Out of fear and instinct.
Without hesitation, Noa touched his own chest.
His body rippled like a liquid surface.
In the next instant, he transformed once more into a large glass frame, his own image stamped across its surface like a living painting.
"TAKE THIS, YOU ARROGANT BASTARD!"
A fist collided against the frame.
The impact echoed.
Crack!
The frame shattered violently.
Akoto was hurled out of the structure as if spat from it, rolling across the arena floor while fragments sliced his skin and cursed energy dispersed in small explosions around his body.
He came to a stop several meters away.
His entire body tingled.
A spreading numbness.
Superficial.
"Nothing serious…"
But then—
Hm?
A metallic, familiar scent.
Akoto twisted his body on the ground almost by reflex and saw it.
A condensed red projectile, thin as a needle, compressed to absurd levels of pressure.
Shin stood in the distance.
The blood that had once spilled from him had been forcibly sealed by his own technique.
His eyes were focused.
He had executed the most famous spell of the Kamo Clan.
『Piercing Blood!』
The shot sliced through the air in a straight line.
No oscillation.
No loss of pressure.
It was already centimeters from Akoto's forehead.
Too fast to dodge normally.
The sound of the air being pierced came late.
The impact was inevitable.
Or it should have been.
In the final microsecond—
Akoto's eyes narrowed.
The cursed energy around his head condensed into an absurdly dense point.
It wasn't a full barrier.
It was pure reinforcement.
Maximum compression applied to a single point.
The projectile struck.
BOOM!
A red-and-black explosion spread outward.
Dust rose.
The ground behind Akoto was pierced, carving a deep tunnel through the arena.
Shin panted, but he was smiling.
'I hit him…'
The smoke began to dissipate.
A silhouette remained standing.
Completely still.
One thought crossed everyone's mind.
'Impossible…'
When the dust settled—
Akoto was there.
A thin stream of blood ran down the side of his forehead; the skin had been slightly pierced.
But the projectile had not gone through.
He raised his hand and touched the wound.
He looked at the blood on his fingertip.
"…Ah."
His eyes returned to Shin—calm as a river and cold as ice.
"So this is Piercing Blood."
The ground beneath his feet cracked faintly as the energy around his body began to expand once more.
"Good attempt."