Auction (3)

Masuru awakened and looked around. His head had a constant ringing noise while he had minor wounds all over his body. He touched his forehead and found his blood dripping down. Looking around, all he saw was destruction with the occasional body of random civilians and his bodyguards with them.

"Just what the hell happened here?" Forcing himself to stand up, he then remembered what Isao had told him.

'Get yourself out of here, a barrier has been formed trapping us all. I don't doubt that there will be a battle here. If you don't want to get caught in the crossfire then you better get to a safe place as far away from here. Well that is if there is even a place inside this veil.'

Masuru had planned on hiding somewhere but then the building came crashing down. Now all his guards were dead and he knew he was far from where he should be. A battle between sorcerers should always to be avoided at all costs.

"I better get out of here." He muttered before trying to find a safe haven.

His ears began picking up on something, loud sounds of metal clashing began being audible to him and they seemed to get closer to him. His eyes widened as he immediately jumped to the ground covering his head with his arms while the air above him was cut blowing the wind.

Masuru looked up to see Arai and Malenia clashing their blades at one another but one notable thing he realized was that Malenia was being pushed back. Seeing this, Masuru laughed nervously and smiled. "You never cease to amaze me, Isao."

Malenia after being pushed back clicked her tongue in frustration. Malenia realized that she was at a disadvantage as Arai was pushing her back.

'He has yet been overpowered by me. Even if my cursed energy has a unique property to always be sharp like a blade, it does not actually increase my output. So even though I clash with him, he's the one pushing me back and worse is that I can't tell how much cursed energy he has. I can never know which moves he's going to make since I can't read his cursed energy.

The longer we go, the worst it's going to get for me but I can't use my cursed technique. This will be too difficult, I will have to use the Waterfowl Dance.'

Arai who was walking up to her stopped as he saw her jump to the air gracefully while pulling her blade as far back as she could. 'She's doing the same thing as earlier.' He thought before running as far away as he could.

But he could not get far enough from her range, Malenia's attack was called Waterfowl Dance. A technique that she had learnt, it was divided into three stages. The first one was made a dud as Arai was too far away making it easy to dodge the attacks.

But then came the second flurry of attacks, Arai was right in front of her and was now within her range. The flurry of attacks hit him at full speed, so fast that even Arai could not accurately protect all of it. Prioritizing to defend his vitals, Arai managed to block or divert the attacks elsewhere. His body was now slump because of the pain and cuts everywhere.

'This is it, my one and only chance!' Malenia thought as the third stage of the attack came from behind him.

But before the blade could reach him, Arai ducked narrowly dodging the blade and sheathed his katana. "Finally, a good test dummy to try this on."

[Anti Domain: Falling Blossom Emotion!]

A trade he had made with the Zen'in clan was to exchange this very technique. Though he could not fully take all of its contents, he was able to be given the foundation of its technique. With a little of work, he managed to recreate it after years of work.

Unlike Domain Expansions, in which the user manifests their own territory while imbuing their techniques causing an auto-hit attack to whoever is inside of it, Falling Blossom Emotion shrouds the user in an armor of cursed energy that counter-attacks the moment an attack makes contact. The cursed energy will defend the user automatically, countering any attack with equal force to nullify it.

But when Falling Blossom Emotion is applied to swordplay. Not only is the user shrouded in cursed energy, but their sword is as well. This allows the blade to automatically strike anything the cursed energy comes into contact with.

The strikes from Malenia soon came in contact with Arai's body. It's sharp nature even with his cursed energy protecting broke through but his sword which was on auto reflex pushed the attack away. Malenia who saw this was pushed back gritting her teeth from the power displayed from Arai. Though ultimately, the technique was an iai, a technique to focus on one strike to deal with your opponent.

His blade sheathed again as he pushed his body to its utmost limit. The sword expelled from its sheath and aimed directly at her stomach. This time, she could not protect herself and Arai knew that.

He pushed himself forward with his legs and slashed open her stomach making the blood gush out everywhere.

"It's over." Arai said turning back to see Malenia drop down while clutching her stomach. Her strength leaving her as she then fell to the ground. Arai then looked at the nearby rubble and said in a loud voice. "You can come out now Masuru."

Masuru who was hiding rubbed his head awkwardly as he made his way to Arai. "You did it, Isao. Congratulations on your victory. Do you want me to send my men to wrap this incident up?"

Arai nodded. "Please do. I'm tired of this crap, I'll be taking her as well."

"Wait." The two who heard this turned back to see Malenia slowly standing up.

"Just give up, Malenia. Those wounds are too much for you, you're no threat anymore." Arai said but saw her still showing no signs of surrender. He knew that she wasn't going to give in so easily, so with a deep sigh he made his way to her.

But then, a red almost smoke like aura was released from her body. This action made Arai stop as he realized something big was about to happen. The red aura now formed into a crimson lotus flower blooming whilst it covered her entire body not making her visible to Arai and Masuru.

Part of why Arai had fought her instead of fleeing was that he could accurately guess an opponent danger with his Heavenly Pact. His pact told him the level of danger that she possessed was lower than his but due to this, he had been too reliant on it. The Heavenly Pact worked in the way that it could designate everything in a level of danger. So how dangerous something was, depended on their current state of danger and not how dangerous they could be.

As the lotus bloomed, the shape of a woman could now be seen. Slowly the lotus became transparent as Malenia was now clear to see. Though her appearance had changed, one could tell that she was Malenia.

The helmet was nowhere to be seen, the upper half of her face was dark red as if it was rotted. Wings were behind her though the particular thing was that they were made from butterflies. The wound that was supposedly be at her stomach was now covered in rotted flesh.

"The scarlet flowers blooms once more." The wings flapped leaving her airborne as she looked down at Arai. The moment he had witnessed her new form, Arai knew he was in trouble. Sweat ran down his face as he realized that his Heavenly Pact had placed her as a greater sorcerer than him.

"You will witness true horror, now rot!"

"Damn it." Arai muttered before dashing off.

"Wait for me!" He yelled out to the escaping figure of Arai but he had not stopped. His head slowly rotated to see Malenia's gaze upon him glaring him down. She had no eyes but he was sure that she was looking at him.

Masuru covered his face with his arms awaiting pain. Yet pain had never arrived, he quickly peeked out and saw Malenia ignoring him completely and chasing after Arai.

"You won't be able to escape Isao Arai. Your death is imminent." Malenia spoke before sending out butterflies. These butterflies gathered together to form the same figure as Malenia's. Now looking back, Arai could see six clone figures of Malenia diving at him.

Arai's danger sense warned him, not even glancing back, he dodged the attacks whilst continuing to run. 'Clones made out of butterflies, eh? That's interesting, but with my sense, attacks from a long range is easier to avoid than closer range ones.'

Malenia who was flying frowned seeing her technique not working. Deciding to discard the idea of long range attacks, her figure slowly transformed into the same lotus that she had made earlier.

'That again! This move is the most dangerous ability I've seen her use. I'm sure of it, if that thing hits me then I'll be in trouble.'

Malenia's lotus formed before she dove at him at an incredible speed. Barely managing to dodge it, Arai gritted his teeth as he knew he was in trouble. With this, the flower bloomed, spreading a red aura around and upon contact with Arai's skin, it began being rotted at a visible rate. His arms now completely exposing the muscles with no skin left.

"Shit, that rot hurts!" The pain he felt was as if his arms were on fire.

"There is no escape." He heard her call out from behind him.

In an instant he had shrouded his body in cursed energy made a quickdraw and slashed behind him only for his sword to be stopped.

It wasn't Malenia who clashed with her own blade but the butterflies had cushioned the blow slowing its force until it was obsolete.

Arai who realized this tried to jump back but her butterflies had caught hold of his leg. His leg began being rotted at a rapid pace as even the clothes was slowly fell off.

Her other arm grabbed his face making the rot start affecting it. As the rot slowly got to him, Arai could feel his muscles begin contracting, not moving the way he wanted them to. The pain and rot made it difficult to move his muscles correctly.

'Is this it?' Arai thought.

His panic heightened to its limit.

'Is this the end of my life?' The muscles within his leg began peeling off his bones and the skin of his face started decaying.

There was so much pain that it weirdly felt lethargic. Like he didn't care about it anymore, it was an odd sensation for Arai.

In the face of death, Arai always thought he would start remembering his life and how it arrived into his current situation. He had always thought that he would think of his parents. Maybe his friends as well.

Shoko, Gojo, Nanami, Haibara.

Or maybe his new daughters, Maki and Mai.

But now that he in the face of death, he did not think of them.

Not because he did not care about them but simply because he knew how to get out of this situation. As if his soul was telling him that it was alright, everything would be fine. Like an instinct buried deep inside him now being released, he smiled at full moon now showing itself.

He could feel Malenia's movements coming closer with every moment. Her sword aiming for his neck but his cursed energy invisible to her was running rampant and being released out of his body.

'Control. I've always been the controlling type. I hate letting people out of my grasps. I want everything to be in my hands and be controlled by me. I will always have that desire but... just for now, for a bit. I'll be patient, I'll let everyone have their freedom, just for a time.'

The cursed energy slowly formed into something tangible making Malenia widen her eyes in surprise.

'Gojo may be the honored one, he may be the strongest, he may be the greatest but everything has an end and everything has a beginning.'

The height of Jujutsu technique was one technique and one alone.

[Domain Expansion: Absolute Authority!]