The Devils of Jujutsu

Chapter 29: Bloody Diamonds and The Voodoo sorcerer

(Fushiguro's p.o.v.)

After 4 weeks of training Mars and Ladros, as well as ourselves, for the upcoming battle. We were as ready as could be, though the two Diamond mages are only at the level of a 2nd Grade sorcerer, and since they were surprisingly quick learners, they were able to tell how strong their opponents cursed energy was without the need for us to teach them to do so. For that reason, we asked them to take down only the cursed spirits that were Grade 2 or lower, while we fought the ones that were Grade 1 and higher and they agreed.

At noon, the army of cursed spirits arrived. We waited for them to enter the perimeter we set up before we met Mars and Ladros. The second the last one crossed the line, me and Kugisaki made a hand sign and said the chant:

"Emerge from darkness, blacker still. Purify that which is impure."

The veil began to cover the area, and Mars and Ladros were looking at it in awe. "Day's turning into night?" Ladros asked. I answered, "That's part of the veil, we normally use it conceal our actions while fighting curses, but this one has a couple extra effects. For example, anyone with high level cursed energy can't leave, so these cursed spirits are trapped in here, so we won't have to worry about them escaping." Ladros' only reply was, "I see." With that out of the way we all took our stances and got ready for the curses to charge us. When then they did, we all rushed to meet them head-on. Mars used his magic to launch Kugisaki and myself into the air to get us past the 2nd Grades, and straight to the 1st and Special Grades in the back.

(Mars' p.o.v.)

I threw Fushiguro and Kugisaki towards the stronger enemies while me and Ladros fought the infantry. Honestly, we were both nervous about facing those monsters. From what Fushiguro told us, it's a good thing if they leave a corpse behind, albeit mutilated. And since we have no experience fighting these creatures, nor do we have the proper defenses against them, we didn't know how well we would fair against them at the time. However, we had no time to waste on feeling insecure. We had to focus on the enemy in front of us, and defending the capital.

As the curses came at us, Ladros and I slashed all that came within our range with the cursed tools that Fushiguro lent us. We almost dodged every attack that came at us. If we had to put some distance between us, we would use our magic to improve our mobility. Since magic has no effect on curses, that was it's only use in that battle.

(Ladros' p.o.v.)

I used to only absorb magic from an opponent's spell, but after fighting Asta 4 years ago, I trained myself to learn how to absorb mana from the surrounding atmosphere. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about running out of power, though I only used it if the need arises. And against being who don't use magic, that was as good a time as any.

After about 2 hours, me and Mars finally killed all of the 2nd Grade cursed spirits, 392 to be specific. We were both exhausted from that fight, and since we couldn't help Fushiguro and Kugisaki anymore than we already did, all we could do is rest and recover.

  (Kugisaki's p.o.v.)

'I gotta admit, I'm impressed they held out that long' I thought, looking at Mars and Ladros. I honestly didn't think they could take all of the 2nd Grades out, and that was their first time fighting curses, and they took out hundreds of them without using cursed energy. I knew then that they had great potential. But, I didn't have to time to remain impressed. In the 2 hours since the battle began, Me and Fushiguro had exorcised all 1,278 1 Grade cursed spirits. All that was left were the remaining Special Grades. Thanks to our friends from Diamond, we weren't very beat up, so we able to fight the Special Grades. Just as the curses were slowly walking towards us, Fushiguro asked me, "Kugisaki, do you have enough nails left?" I answered, "Not enough for all of them."

My cursed technique is called Straw Doll Technique, a technique used for fighting at middle to long range. I fire off nails by striking them with a hammer, and once they hit, I'm able to concentrate my cursed energy and expand it to give my nails a great destructive force. Straw Doll Technique, has two expanded techniques that increase the range of it's effectiveness. They are:

Resonance: an ability to curses my opponent by using a straw Doll as a proxy for the target, and for it to be effective, I need a piece of my opponent.

Hairpin: a move that exceeds the limit of the nails' cursed energy, causing them to detonate with explosive force and expanding the reach of the violent cursed energy beyond what I can normally achieve.

When we were packing up to go to Diamond Kingdom, I brought enough nails to put a two story house together, but since I don't have many nails left I had to switch to my cursed tool, a sword with a long straight and stiff blade with no cutting edge called an estoc. My technique is about piercing the opponent with nails, so I chose a weapon that narrow, sharp tip, and imbued it with a technique similar to Straw Doll, that activates as soon a the sword pierces the target. Meaning even if I don't have any more nails, I can just use my power at close range.

When the curses sped up, I said to Fushiguro, "I'm gonna charge at them, have your demon dogs back me. I'll try to split them up so both of us can take them on in our Domains." He reluctantly agreed with my hair brained plan, and sent his twin shikigami, the demon dogs with me to charge the Special Grades. With me estoc in hand, myself and the dogs rush the remaining some 800 curses of Geto's army.