"DOMAIN EXPANSION: COFFIN OF THE IRON MOUNTAIN!"
Jogo wasted no time. As the obsidian walls of his domain materialized, the courtroom was violently replaced by the suffocating interior of an active volcano. Fissures groaned in the stone, and geysers of magma erupted with a roar that drowned out all sound. To an average sorcerer, the sheer ambient heat would have caused spontaneous combustion in seconds. Jogo's eyes burned with sadistic pride; with Hanami's root dome narrowing the escape routes and his own guaranteed-hit factor, the human was nothing more than a rat in a furnace.
Jogo still didn't fully understand the fuss Mahito had made. Yes, the boy's technique—specifically that Tiger Shikigami—was troublesome, but his raw cursed energy reserves seemed pathetic by comparison. Jogo estimated he had at least five times the capacity of this human.
"I can't believe it..." Ethan's voice cut through the roar of the magma. He was stretching his arms, looking utterly bored. "Your domain is just as useless as I remember."
Before the magma could touch him, Ethan shattered an incoming molten rock with a casual backhand, sending shards of glass-like obsidian flying.
What?! Jogo froze. He didn't have time to process the insult because, suddenly, he felt it: nothing.
The presence of Ethan Park—the distinct "flavor" of his cursed energy—had vanished. Standing right where Jogo could see him, the boy had become a void. Did he lose his cursed energy too? Jogo wondered, his mind racing. Is he truly that weak?
Ethan hadn't lost his energy; he had refined its application to an impossible degree. The moment the domain deployed, he activated two specific techniques:
* Falling Blossom Emotion: Unlike a Simple Domain, this does not neutralize the domain's barrier or the sure-hit. Instead, it blankets the user in a reactive layer of Cursed Energy that automatically counters incoming attacks at the moment of contact. It is the ultimate "point-defense" for a master martial artist.
* Hollow Trace: This was the trump card. Developed by Ethan and Tora after witnessing the masking effects of the Ancient Boat artifact, it was a mobile seal that suppressed his cursed energy signature to zero.
To the heightened senses of a Cursed Spirit, Ethan was now a ghost. He was "invisible" to their tracking, though his physical body still occupied the space within the barrier.
"HE IS MASKING HIS CURSED ENERGY!" Mahito screamed from outside the volcanic domain, his soul-warping senses picking up the subtle shift that Jogo's primal instincts had missed.
Jogo snapped his head toward the voice, then glanced at Hanami. When they both looked back toward their target, the center of the domain was empty.
Where is he?! A gust of movement to the right—gone. A blur to the left—gone. Ethan was moving with a speed that defied the heavy, heat-thickened air. Mahito remained outside the domain, guarding Lex Mortis, while Jogo gripped the Executioner's Sword with white-knuckled intensity. He only needed one hit.
"He hasn't left the dome... I would have felt the barrier breach," Hanami spoke in that distorting, melodic tone that echoed directly in the mind.
"AHHHHHHH!"
The next moment, a guttural scream tore through the volcanic chamber. Jogo spun around. Hanami was on the ground, clutching the side of her head. Both of her eye branches—the most vulnerable part of her reinforced body—lay snapped and steaming on the stone floor.
"HANAMI!" Jogo roared, his single eye darting wildly.
He couldn't see the sorcerer. He couldn't feel the sorcerer. He was in his own domain, the peak of a Cursed Spirit's power, and he was being hunted by a phantom. Ethan had kept Hollow Trace hidden until this exact moment, knowing that against these three, the element of surprise was more valuable than any technique.
Through the steam and the smoke, a low voice whispered from the shadows of a magma vent.
"One down. Next?"
The air didn't just vibrate; it curdled. Jogo sensed the displacement a fraction of a second too late—a catastrophic buildup of cursed energy surging from his blind spot. It was a tidal wave compressed into a single point.
Graphite Blast.
BOOM!!
The entire right side of Jogo's frame evaporated. Shards of volcanic rock and blackened flesh sprayed across the interior of the domain as he was slammed into the charred earth. Through the ringing in his ears and his hazy vision, Jogo saw it: the Executioner's Sword, glowing with a faint, lethal hum, resting against the domain's floor.
Ethan didn't run. He moved with a rhythmic stillness. He retrieved the blade, his fingers closing around the hilt with a terrifying finality. A few yards away, Hanami lay writhing, her wooden limbs splintered and leaking sap-like blood. Ethan stood over her for a heartbeat—not out of hesitation, but to let the weight of the moment sink in. Then, with cold, mechanical precision, he drove the sword through her center mass.
"Ha... na... mi..."
The name was a ragged wheeze. Jogo, forced to divert every ounce of his focus into frantic regeneration, watched through the steam of his knitting flesh. Mahito had lied. Or worse, Mahito had been a fool.
Those cursed energy cannons weren't just a trick of efficiency; the sheer volume of that discharge required a reservoir that defied logic. To output that much power meant Ethan wasn't just any sorcerer. And Hanami—the gentlest of their kind—had paid the ultimate price for that miscalculation.
Panic, a sensation Jogo hadn't felt in centuries, flared hotter than his own lava. He collapsed the domain, the obsidian walls shattering into ash as he scrambled backward toward Mahito.
"Hey... Hey! This isn't what you told us!" Jogo spat, his voice cracking. "Hanami is dead! He ended her with that sword!" He turned his frantic gaze toward Lex Mortis, who stood nearby, beads of sweat tracking down his pale forehead. "Can you cancel it? Cancel the sword now!"
Lex flinched, his composure fraying. "I can," he hissed, "but the moment the sword vanishes, the restriction on his Innate Technique breaks. You'd be trading the blade for his Domain Expansion. Is that a gamble you want to take?"
The atmosphere had shifted from a calculated execution to a desperate scramble for survival. Mahito, ever the opportunist, felt the prickle of dread. He had prepared for a setback, but Ethan Park holding the Executioner's Sword was a variable that threatened to erase them all.
We have to move, Mahito thought. Now.
He looked at his Binding Vow—the ancient shackle that prevented him from leaving a one-mile radius. It was a masterpiece of spiritual law, but even laws had fine print. By shrinking his soul to a microscopic speck, he could "hitch a ride" on another soul, effectively bypassing the movement restriction as long as he remained a passenger.
"Hehe... Ethan Park," Mahito's voice took on a sing-song quality, a mask for his desperation. "I brought a souvenir from your time in New York."
From the shadows of a nearby alley, a gargantuan, worm-like cursed spirit lurched forward. Its jaw unhinged with a wet, sickening crack, vomiting a limp figure onto the pavement. Ethan's breath hitched. The cold mask of the executioner cracked.
Miss Andler.
She lay there, the woman who had looked out for him in the Children's Village Orphanage, her skin a mottled, sickly grey.
"I've seen your records, Ethan," Mahito chirped, his body already beginning to compress and liquefy, drifting toward Jogo's shoulder like a shroud of mist. "You love to play the hero with your Reverse Cursed Technique. Miss Andler has just ingested thirteen distinct, high-grade poisons. You can chase us... or you can spend precious seconds trying to knit her back together. Do what you will."
As Ethan dove toward the dying woman, Mahito's soul vanished into Jogo, and the two curses blurred into the horizon. They left Lex Mortis behind as a disposable shield. Lex only needed to buy them a few seconds, but with Jogo's speed and Mahito's soul-erasing signature, they would soon be gone.
Ethan placed an RCT valve over Miss Andler and looked at the Law Spirit. Lex Mortis didn't have time to react; in an instant, his body was severed down the middle, along with his Lady Justice construct. The Executioner's Sword vanished into nothingness.
Ethan tried sensing the disaster curses, but they were gone. Mahito could have used any civilian, but he had used Miss Andler as a hostage. It was a message: Mahito knew him, and he wanted Ethan to know that no one was safe.
Now, as Ethan sits beside Miss Andler, her pale face slowly regaining its color under the glow of his technique, he begins to sing a lullaby from his youth. Max had loved it—the boy couldn't sleep without it—and Ethan found a strange, grounding comfort in its melody.
A Smile and a Ribbon
(Song by Patience and Prudence, 1956)
A smile is something special
A ribbon is something rare
So I'll be special and I'll be rare
With a smile and a ribbon in my hair...
As the last notes of the lullaby fade, the silence that follows is different. It's not the silence of fear, but the cold silence of a hunter. Ethan knows he cannot simply react anymore. Mahito knows his face, his heart, and his weaknesses. To protect the smile and the ribbon, Ethan will have to become something the Disaster Curses never calculated for.
He looked down at his hands, still glowing with the fading embers of the Reverse Cursed Technique. The time for hesitation had passed. To gain the power necessary—to ensure that no one like Mahito could ever reach those he loved again—there was only one path left.
He had to undergo the 10th subjugation ritual.
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