12 Death match(edited)

"Hey Spiiiiirrits! The sorcerers are here!", yelled Rei, his hands cupped around his mouth to carry the sound further. Nobara quickly punched the back of his head.

"What the hell was that for! Are you an idiot!"

"I'm sorry, I was just trying to lighten the mood", Rei attempted to defend his position.

"Sigh, whatever let's just go", Nobara continued on towards the staircase, followed closely by Yuji, Rei came next carrying a dejected expression, meanwhile Kanami nervously looking around.

Suddenly, Nobara stopped and turned around to face the boys, "Hey, I just had a brilliant idea.."

"You wanna split up.", interrupted Rei, knowing full well what she was going to say.

"Huh... uh yea, how did you know...?"

"Cause that's literally the most cliche scenario in every horror movie, which kinda fits the mood of the building don't ya think?", explained Rei. Kanami immediately piped into the conversation, not wishing to separate from his teammates.

"Wait.. isn't that how everybody dies? We should just stay together... please?", Kanami pleaded, with earnest.

"Yea, but if we split up we could probably take care of more spirits. I don't think Gojo-sensei would give us a super hard assignment."

"Yea, I gotta agree with Yuji there.", supported Rei. 'I think Kanami could handle a couple of grade 4 curses, right?'

With that the group came to a unanimous decision to split up, with some protests from Kanami.

(5 minutes later)

"Ow! Goddamn it!", Rei shouted as he accidently smacked his head with playful cloud. For the past 5 minutes, Rei had mostly been practicing on using playful clouds.

'Alright so, nunchaku techniques don't work', he noted, still rubbing the back of his head. This time, he grabbed the two ends of the staff.

'How the hell do you use such a cumbersome weapon, wouldn't a club or even a normal staff be much better', after finishing his complaints, Rei grabbed the middle staff and quickly spun it around.

'I have to perform the movements at full speed, breathe in and breathe out...', Having spent the past 5 minutes practicing with the weapon, Rei had come up with a couple of rules for using the weapon through trial and error.

Rule 1: Swing the staff at full speed, or else the lack of momentum will cause you to hurt yourself.

Rule 2: No hesitation or else you'll hurt yourself.

Rule 3: Probably should wear protection next time.

As the staff was rotating at full speed, Rei attempted to move forward. Unfortunately, the act of multitasking resulted in Rei losing control of the weapon.

"GODDAMNIT! WHAT DUMBASS MADE THIS WEAPON, JUST MAKE A DAMN MACE!", Rei angrily slammed the weapon causing a small fissure to form from the impact.

Staring at the damage, "Sigh, I guess I'll just beat the shit out of it with the weapon'. As Rei walked off in an attempt to cool off, he failed to notice a pair of eyes carefully stalking him.

It was a quadruped monster, with an elongated body. There were short tusks, and a long, tough tail. Long, thin nails indicated that the monster seemed to be a hunter. It was staring at Rei, with its large dark-red eyes. A predator, staring at its prey and carefully stalking it.

As Rei rounded the corner, the monster carefully crept behind. Its tail raised, in order to balance its body and silently following its prey.

It quickly turned the corner, scrunching its body, ready to launch itself at the unsuspecting human. It quickly jumped out in an attempt to attack its prey, only to end up biting nothing. Looking around, the monster was suprised to find its prey had disappeared. It made a low growl in curiosity.

"Whatcha looking for?", came a sudden voice from behind the monster. The frightened curse quickly swung its tail in the direction of the voice, lonely to end up smacking what seemed like a a metal slab. It spun around in order to get a better look at what was behind it, only to find its supposed prey staring back at it.

"Hi there", it waved. The spirit continued to stare at it, not moving a single muscle, in an attempt to study the person. It was surprised to see an icy-cold stare, instead of the usual frightened expression that was written on its preys' faces. The spirit quickly got into attack position, letting out a loud growl.

Rei responded back by closing his weapon, holding like a club instead of a staff. Both enemies stared at each other, none of them attacking the other, waiting for their opponents to lower their guard.

Suddenly, the monster quickly spun around and sprinted away, leaving Rei in a daze. "Huh?"

The spirit was barreling away, consistently tripping over itself, all to get away from the thing behind it. It had never felt such an overwhelming presence in its life emanating from a human, no that thing was not a human. It was just like its own, an overwhelmingly evil presence birthed from humanity's darkest emotions. It didn't even bother turning around in order to check for the monster, for it knew that even a single misstep will spell immediate death.

Unfortunately, the creature ended up at a dead end. Without even a moment of hesitation, it frantically clawed at the concrete tiles; Attempting to dig its way out of the situation. Its tough claws, enhanced by the cursed energy that made up its body, easily tore through the concrete. There was a large sewer system below, which it could use to navigate out of the building and escape its predator.

As it finally got the tile off, it attempted to dive down only to be met by a pair of emerald, green eyes.

"Where are you going, friend?", its predator was right below , staring at it. The monster attempted to run away, but its long tail was swiftly grabbed and used to pull himself out of the sewers.

"Did you really think running away would work? With someone who can run faster than a car?", laughed Rei, as he stared at the panicking cursed spirit.

Understanding how screwed it was, the monster made a split second decision; If it was going to die, may as well die fighting. The monster lunged at him, attempting to use its tusk to skewer him. Unfortunately, Rei was too fast, with a single swing from playful cloud, the monster was sent flying uninhibited by any walls in the way.

'Hmmm... was that too much?', Rei thought, as he stared at the destruction before looking at playful cloud resting on his hand.

-----------------------------------------------------

While Rei was busy chasing the cursed spirit, the roles were simply reversed just a couple of floors above. Up there, Kanami was frantically running away.

HUFF

HUFF

"oh... god", Kanami managed to grunt out in the middle of panting. "Fuck... HUFF... did I lose that... thing".

The sound was answered by a loud shriek coming from the end of the hallway along with the sound of metal grinding along the tile.

Kanami slowly backed away as he heard the shrieking and sparking growing closer and closer. Out from the corner popped out the cursed spirit that was hunting Kanami.

It was a tall, pale humanoid. Its possessed an incredibly emaciated image with its ribcage jutting out, cheeks sunken, and hollow eye sockets. Its frail right arm appeared to be dragging something behind it. As soon as it saw Kanami at the end of the hallway, it let out a loud guttural shriek.

As Kanami warily stared at it, the spirit clumsily moved forward still dragging along whatever it had in its right arm.

"MoMma, I waAnt my mOmMa", the monster echoed out. As it came closer, Kanami could make it more of its features. The monster had the appearance of an emaciated old man with it being completely bald and possessing a deformed mouth that revealed the flesh. Kanami noticed that it towered above him and any normal human for that matter. However, it was what it was dragging along with its right arm that made Kanami nearly throw up his breakfast.

There was a crescent shaped metallic blade coming out from its right arm. The blade was almost entirely covered by a pink mass of tumor-like flesh.

The odd shape of the fleshy growth reminded Kanami of a certain body part, '... is that... its placenta?'. Immediately, Kanami's cheeks inflated and he could feel his stomach lurch from the realization. It took all his willpower to calm his nerves and get rid of the sick feeling.

Immediately the cursed spirit lifted up its weapon, a feat of near impossibility given its frame, and managed to swing at Kanami. However, the narrow walls of the hallway they were situated in caused the weapon to be stuck to one of the walls.

"Hahaha", Kanami laughed, sticking the middle finger as the spirit was busy getting its weapon unstuck from the wall. "Didn't your momma tell you not to swing big ass weapons in close quarters".

As the creature was attempted to get its weapon unstuck, Kanami attempted to gather cursed energy in his arms. Unfortunately, it was a feat that was easier said than done. Kanami found it much harder to control the cursed energy, especially without the rush of adrenaline he had experienced against the three-headed curse.

'come on, come on', Kanami tried to close his eyes, and feel the energy inside of him. Unfortunately, it was all for naught.

The spirit was finally able to free itself, ripping out a segment of its weapon. The monster's placenta-weapon was now only half its original size, however the monster was now much lighter and more balanced than before.

"MoMma comE BaCk", it moaned, before charging at Kanami. Staring at a naked, white humanoid monster would have made anyone freeze in fear, however Kanami had already experienced this situation before so he was able to react fast enough to dodge its incoming strike.

Falling on his back, Kanami attempted to back away, dodging another strike that would have torn through the bottom half of his body. Unfortunately for Kanami, the spirit could now strike without much difficulty thanks to the dramatic reduction in size.

Suddenly, Kanami toppled down the stairs. He had not been paying attention to what was behind him, and had inadvertently fell to the lowest floor.

"aargh", he groaned, rubbing the back of his head. The cursed spirit continued its pursuit, also falling down the stairs when it attempted to attack him while climbing down. 'This guy is an idiot', Kanami thought, as he took of sprinting again. The spirit quickly chased after him, faltering in its path due to the speed it was running at and the inconveniently heavy weapon.

'Why... why can't I control it', Kanami cried, as he continued to practice accessing his cursed energy. He was below average in physical ability, and was rapidly burning away his stamina as he dodged the continuous attacks.

"Aargh", he yelled, falling backward. He had bumped into something rock solid, not paying attention to what he was running into while being chased by the spirit.

'Crap! Is this the end!', Kanami knew he had reached the end of the hallway. Turning back, he was surprised to see the pale spirit staring at something in front of them, not even moving a muscle.

"Hey man, you okay", he heard a familiar voice call to him. Strangely enough, it was coming from right behind him. Turning back, Kanami saw the tall, imposing figure of Rei offering his palm to him.

"Yea... I'm fine", Kanami whispered, a saddened expression written on his face. Again, he had to rely on his friend to help him.

The monster swung at Rei, ready to cleave him in half. Unfortunately, it was too slow and its weapon was easily caught by Rei.

"Damn, you're slow", yawned Rei, still holding onto the blade, as the spirit attempted to escape from the iron grip. Finishing the minor scuffle, Rei punctured the monster's face with Playful Cloud and watched as it simply disappeared into nothingness. Just like that, a monster that had given Kanami difficulty was quite easily taken out by Rei.

"Hey Kanami, let's go. The others are probably waiting outside", Rei gestured. However Kanami did not budge a single inch, his face indicated he was deep in thought. "What's wrong buddy?"

"Rei... how come, I'm so weak. You were able to easily deal with that monster, but I- I couldn't do anything", Kanami's voice began to shake. He had come to the school in order to grow stronger and be useful, but time and time again he had to be saved by his friends. A truly pathetic life, he believed.

Rei merely sighed at his friend's self-esteem issues, "Come on Kanami, you can't expect to face those monster when you just learned about them a few days ago. Its fine to be weak, what's important is that you learn to grow and improve yourself over time".

The small words of encouragements pushed him out of his depressive state, "I-I guess you're right", he whispered nervously scratching his arm.

"Sigh, come on man, how about we go to my room and watch a movie tonight? I just got 'Big tit cougars 2'.", Rei offered, trying to lighten the mood.

"Hahaha", Kanami laughed. "Big tit cougars 2. Is that the one with Papriko?'.

"I think so... yea it is.", Rei responded, walking outside with Kanami.

"Sigh, fine I'll accept your invitation", Kanami accepted, feeling a little better about himself as he went to greet his sensei and classmates outside.

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