After my first mission, I was raring to go at another one. Not only because I wanted to keep the people of France and the whole world safe, but also because of the very thing that made me able to undertake those missions.
My training was top notch in every single way because of the thousands of years of accumulated Jujutsu knowledge. And in turn, it was equally as harsh. Although the training methods were so efficient that I gained triple in a day than without the methods, I felt they were… a little extreme.
Extreme methods, such as one of the harsher ones, fighting against two opponents of my strength level, with all of us using T grade BEBs.
Blocking a kick with my arms, I groaned in pain slightly before barely managing to dodge a punch coming my way. Circling around me were my two opponents. Two S grade sorcerers hired to be my sparring partners all the way from the Philippines. One man, one woman. Twins.
In the past year and a half of them being here, each day I had been beaten black and blue by their hands. Although with each day that passed I returned the favor in increasing amounts. Eventually, I started to be able to hold my own, and now I could feel it. Today was my victory.
Analyzing their formation as I had done so many times, I found the weakness within it: the woman, Mayumi, was slightly off center and I should be able to break through from there. And then, I charged directly at the brother, shocking both of them.
Throwing an overhand punch, I flooded my cursed energy into it before lashing out with my leg in a manner that made it impossible for the brother to fully defend both attacks. Although he could have potentially grabbed my overhand punch and tanked the weak leg hit, he didn't based on instinct.
Instinct was a very potent tool to take advantage of. For instance, any person with a flighty mentality would dodge attacks almost always rather than take a hit for an advantageous position. And the reverse was true for headstrong people. Only true masters in the art of fighting could completely wipe out these instincts. While decent fighters such as myself could take advantage of them, we could not get rid of our own.
Smirking as the brother chose to block the overhand attack and reinforce his leg with cursed energy, I knew I had succeeded. The palm of my overhead attack opened as I latched onto the guard of the brother and kicked the upper body of the brother, creating a repelling force that was applied to both me and the man as we spiraled in the air towards Mayumi. Grasping onto the brother with my other hand, I activated barrier manipulation.
Barrier manipulation had one use: to manipulate barriers. Barriers were a broad term, however, as a barrier could be a Domain Expansion, a BEB, or… it could be the skin that served as a barrier to containing all of your blood and organs.
In this case, I was simply deactivating the BEB he was using. Although this sounded really helpful, it wasn't. I had to touch a barrier to manipulate it, and that usually left me wide open for attacks. And even then, it reactivated moments after I let go. But with what I had planned, it was enough.
After deactivating the brother's BEB, I contracted both of my arms and flooded them with cursed energy before pushing myself off the brother and violently into the air. Now what came after this would decide whether I won the fight or not.
The cursed technique of the twins was simple yet deadly at the same time. Rock encasement allowed the user to encase whatever was covered in their cursed energy with rocks of varying durability. Although it took a very brief moment to create, the rocks were incredibly durable. Enough so that an S grade would have trouble breaking through it.
And my plan entirely hinged upon said cursed technique. The plan was simple: in an attempt to not take a great deal of damage from the fall, the brother would encase himself in rock on instinct, not realizing his sister was behind him and trying to catch him. Overall, the plan relied on instinct taking over the better judgment of the twins. If the sister forgot her instincts, she would know that her brother would encase himself in rocks. And if the brother remembered his sister, he should know that she would be there to catch him.
From what I had observed from my battles with them, when I planned, I did better. And when I went entirely with the flow, I ended up in the most pain.
As I eagerly awaited the outcome of my plot, I was not disappointed when Mayumi ran behind her brother, Bayani, to catch him. Without his BEB active and no time for major cursed energy reinforcement, he would certainly be injured. And the moment after that was when my smile grew even wider. Rocks started to form around Bayani as he crashed into his sister, who was attempting to retreat the moment she realized what her brother was doing.
Rolling over his sister in a manner that was assuredly very painful with all of the rocky edges sticking out of him. I smirked a for a little but longer, but not trying to let my opponents recuperate, I rushed forward and slammed my elbow on top of the dazed and confused Mayumi's temple. "Ladies first," I said out loud the moment before my elbow landed, knocking Mayumi out cold.
Grabbing her prone body, I hefted the grown woman onto my shoulder. Before throwing her body to the side where she was caught by one of my instructors and taken out of the arena we were in.
Backing away from the moving rock on the floor, I managed to dodge from a punch into another punch. My staggering self was then hit with a leg sweep.
Not wanting to get nitty-gritty on the floor, I rolled to the side and somersaulted upwards, entering back into my fighting stance. Now that I had injured Bayani and eliminated Mayumi, it was my only chance to win. Usually, I was at a grievous disadvantage due to being outnumbered and my shorter reach thanks to my height, but I had adapted to these disadvantages and made them advantages instead.
And now it was time to put to the test my years of arduous training. Could I beat two S grade sorcerers while also being S grade? And if I could… what would happen to my training? Would I fight them again and again until I could win 99% of the time? Or would something else happen?
I would find out.
Closing in slowly on the brother, we eventually were in reaching distance of each other. Or well, reaching distance for him. Attempting to further shorten the gap between us while Bayani furthered it and peppered me with quick jabs, making sure I couldn't grapple him, we eventually came to the wall of the arena where there was no more room to run.
Deflecting a jab, I made use of my shortness by grabbing Bayani's arm, which needed to be overextended to reach me all the way down here. The arm I grabbed suddenly started to sprout rocks, and I took another hit to the face from Bayani, but it was all worth it as I managed to heft the body of Bayani off the ground and into the air.
Knowing what was coming and not even bothering to test my and my BEBs durability, he encased himself in a full suit of unmoving rocks. But, this was yet again part of my plan. Throughout my five months of training, I had always remembered vividly what my main trainer had told me all so long ago.
'How you win drawn out fights is by keeping cards close to your chest. If your enemy doesn't know your exact capabilities, then they won't be able to react to them.'
Mayumi and Bayani were foreign sorcerers who had never heard a drop about my barrier manipulation cursed technique. And although I had made plenty of conversation with them in the past to train my English and social skills, them also being pretty good friends of mine, I never told them exactly what my cursed technique was. So all they knew was that I could turn off their BEBs with a touch.
A war of attrition, if you will.
So Bayani was currently sitting in his stone encasement without fear, because he had a barrier separating him and me. But that was exactly when he was at his most vulnerable. Infusing my own cursed energy into the rock encasement, I started to manipulate it.
Starting off by dismantling the part covering his gut, I rapidly smashed my fists into his vulnerable self. The force of my barrage of punches keeping Bayani floating in the air. After a few moments of this, I shifted my focus towards his face. Destroying that section of his armor when one of my gut punches landed, I saw the dazed and in pain face of Bayani. After another few seconds of my gut barrage, I readied my most powerful attack yet. Strong punching into his gut, he flew into the air and began to fall downwards. Right into my punch moving at blinding speeds.
Shaking my now hurting hands and getting ready to go for round two, I found that Bayani had already been forcefully knocked unconscious. His stone encasement fading to the wind and his limp body falling to the floor.
I had... I had won?