That same day, 6:53 pm..
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Yuji and Maki were out training, while Megumi and Choso watch. Choso is watching Yuji’s every move, his every strike, his every counter, his every step. Megumi is also observing, albeit not as intensely as Choso.
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Choso (Thoughts): “Now that I actually watch closely. It seems that his form of combat here is completely different from when he fought with me. He’s more calculated, more precise.. Like he’s trying not to go crazy, like he’s actively trying to control that drive for battle so he doesn’t overdo it.”
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Maki stumbles back after being kicked. Maki had no time to react before Yuji already rushed up to her, punching her across the field. Maki crashes against some boulders, she wipes some blood off her lips.
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Maki: “Damn, just what the hell have you been doing to be this skilled? You been training in secret?”
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Yuji: “Not at all, I’m just now trying to control myself. I’ve been told about how reckless I act when in a frenzy, so I’m trying to tap into that and control it.”
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Maki regains her composure, tightening her grip on her weapon.
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Maki: “I see, we’ll I’m certain not the one for that. You should train with the one who pushed you to such lengths. I’ve taught you all I can, it’s good to see you’re growing from it too.” She smiles.
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Yuji: “So that means..”
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Yuji turns his attention to Choso, who’s already stood up.
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Choso: “I’ve been waiting for a rematch. I’ve observed your combat style, and I believe I have a chance now..”
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Choso, collects some blood forming spheres behind him, he grabs one of them and he shapes into a blade. Yuji holds up his hand, covering his hand in the cursed energy flames. Yuji grabs the flames and forms them into a blade. Maki watched in disbelief.
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Maki (Thoughts): “No way! He can turn his cursed energy into actual weapons? I knew he could use actual flames to do that, but those? How is it even possible..”
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Yuji (Thoughts): “I still haven’t named this Technique yet..”
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Yuji rubs his chin, trying to think of a name. Choso notices Yuji stopping to think.
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Choso: “What are you thinking about?”
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Yuji: “I’m trying to pick a name for my Technique..”
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Choso: “Just call it Flame Manipulation.. It’s not that complicated really, the only hard part is coming up with the name of your moves, which you should create on your own instead of copying from others.”
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Yuji shrugs, taking back his position.
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Yuji (Thoughts): “Since this blade is made up of my cursed energy and partially of flames, I should be able to shape it however I please to fit each circumstance.. I’ll call it, The Cursed Shift.. Yeah! Alright let's do this!”
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Yuji: “Cursed Shift Morph: Inferno Whip..”
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The Cursed Shift pulses, and melts down into a whip at his command. Choso gets on guard, and starts rushing in. Yuji pulls his arm back, and cracks the whip at Choso, the small sonic boom sending out a burst of cursed flames. Choso dodged the initial crack, and narrowly avoided the flame burst. Yuji acts quickly and in a swift motion wraps the whip around Choso, and slams him against the ground.
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Choso grunts upon impact and with his blade slashes through the whip, setting himself free. He throws the blade at Yuji, though he dodges it. But behind him the blade floats and forms into a sphere. Yuji quickly turned around.
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Yuji: “Shield!!”
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Yuji’s cursed energy wraps around him in a bubble shield. Choso quickly closed his fist causing the sphere to burst into tiny blood shards that fly everywhere but fail to get through Yuji’s shield. Yuji’ spins around, facing Choso, who is kneeling down.
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Choso: “Slicing Exorcism.”
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Blood emerges from Choso face marking, and at a rapid pace flies towards Yuji.
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Yuji: “Reinforce!!”
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Yuji’s bubble shield grows bigger, and the blood collectively tries to break through it, only to run out. Yuji takes down the shield.
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Yuji: “Cursed Shift Morph: Kamikaze Kunai!”
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The Cursed Shift melts out of its initial whip form into a kunai. Choso hears his words and sees the kunai form. He clasps his hands together, all the blood spheres moving in between.
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Choso: “Piercing Blood!”
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Choso fires off a beam of blood at Yuji, who in turn throws his Kunai, it flaring with cursed energy. Incredibly the Kuni pierces through Choso’s beam much to hsi shock. Right before it reaches him he jumps up as the Kunai hits a tree and creates a gigantic explosion.
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Choso (Thoughts): “Damn, if that were to hit me..”
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Choso looks down at Yuji, who throws another Kamikaze Kuni at him. Choso, unable to dodge hold up his arms to shield, the kunai hits him and blows up at the same level as the first one. Choso crashes into the ground, but quickly gets up, his clothes tattered and burned. He rips off his shirt, and takes a deep breath
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Choso: “Flowing Red Scale: Stack..”
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Both of his arms fully turn red and a few parts of his exposed torso, he puts up his fists.
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Yuji (Thoughts): “Looks like that technique increases blood flow if I’m not mistaken.. Since his arms are more red than they should be with normal blood flow.. So how can I replicate that? Perhaps I could substitute my blood for cursed energy.. Let's try it..”
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Yuji takes a breath, closing his eyes. He focuses his energy, forcing it to consume and replace the blood in his veins. He grunts and falls down onto one knee In pain.
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Yuji (Thoughts): “Damn, this hurts like hell.. I feel so weak, I believe it’s because cursed energy only does damage.. So what if there’s a way to make this energy positive, so that it only heals.. Only one way to find out, I’ll just have to keep on adding more energy.”
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Choso is confused by his sudden fall, but is suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of Yuji’s impending death. He clenches his head tightly in confusion and distortion.
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Choso (Thoughts): “What is this?! Why can I feel this?! Yuji?! What is happening??!!”
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Choso drops to his knees, struggling to process this. Megumi watches in complete confusion, Maki does as well, but neither stepping in out of caution. Yuji continues to add more and more cursed energy into his veins, but his eyes widen a bit.
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Yuji (Thought): “Wait, I’m just adding more.. It’s faster to multiply.. But by what? I don’t have another source..” He pauses for a moment. “Well if that's the case.. I’ll just make one..”
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Yuji focuses, straining as hard as possible. Choso can’t understand what all is going on, sensing the upcoming fate of Yuji, despite not even knowing him that well.
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Choso (Thoughts): “It just isn’t possible, how can he be.. My brother..?”
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Choso suddenly stops sensing Yuji, he looks at Yuji who rises to his feet. Yuji had done it, he had replaced his very blood with positive energy, and now is in the greatest state he’s ever been in. Choso slowly gets up, looking at Yuji in disbelief. Yuji puts up his fists, and smiles.
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Yuji: “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.. It was so confusing at first.. When I saw that flowing red scale I realized what you were doing, pushing your body to pump blood faster in certain areas to increase your performance. So I just had to replicate it, then I realized that you can simply do that because you’re technically a cursed spirit. So I decided to replace all of my blood with cursed energy.”
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Everyone was left in shock, their mouths hanging wide open.
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Megumi (Thoughts): “He did what? How is he alive? cursed energy can’t be used as a substitute for blood!”
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Yuji: “But of course, cursed energy can’t be a substitute for blood. So I came to the conclusion that maybe positive energy could. So all I had to do was figure out how to make it. So while my blood was slowly being replaced, and I was slowly dying, I kept adding more and more energy. But I realized, multiplying is faster, but I didn’t have a second source of energy, so I made one and multiplied it by itself. This made a positive energy, and now flowing through my veins instead of blood, is positive energy.”
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Megumi: “There's no way!! You replaced your blood with reversed cursed energy?! Just what the hell are you Yuji?!”
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Yuji smirks.
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Yuji: “Good question.. I wouldn’t know the answer to that..”
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