Chapter 177 - 177: Sit Upon the Frozen Heavens, Hyorinmaru

Cursed Energy originates from negative emotions generated within the human heart. Things like fear, sadness, anger, and the like...

This is precisely why ordinary people, who normally cannot see Curses, gain the ability to see them when they are on the verge of being killed by one. At that moment, the emotion of fear almost entirely saturates their brain. The resulting Cursed Energy, converted from negative emotion, doesn't even require deliberate control; it surges through their entire body in that instant of explosive release.

Though, as a result, the consumption of Cursed Energy becomes massive.

Consequently, the first lesson a sorcerer receives in orthodox education at a school like Jujutsu High is learning how to control their own emotions. They cannot be too agitated, which would waste Cursed Energy, nor can they be too calm, which would fail to generate the negative emotions necessary to produce it. Instead, they must refine and control this energy from subtle emotions within a specific mental state.

Even though Fushiguro Toji had nothing to do with sorcerer-related curriculum due to the limitations of his [Heavenly Restriction] constitution, having been born into the Zen'in family—a sorcerer clan with a long history—he enjoyed the few benefits of his birth: he didn't need to struggle to gather intelligence to understand the basic common sense of the jujutsu world.

After all, back when he fought Gojo Satoru, even though Gojo only realized the Reverse Cursed Technique later—enabling him to use Cursed Technique Reversal to flip the "stopping force" of the [Limitless] into a "repelling force"—Toji was able to immediately retrieve the name, effect, and weaknesses of Gojo's new technique from his information network the moment it was used.

In other words, Fushiguro Toji knew exactly what sorcerer training looked like. He never intended to use simple emotional stimulation to exhaust Okkotsu Yuta's Cursed Energy.

His goal had always been clear: to make Okkotsu Yuta think that was his plan. Once Yuta's attention shifted toward managing his emotions and he began to ignore what a normal injury felt like, Toji would decapitate him in a single stroke. This would prevent the Reverse Cursed Technique from healing him in time and cause Yuta to lose consciousness entirely, rendering him unable to generate more Cursed Energy.

...That is how it should have gone.

But now, Fushiguro Toji, who had followed this plan to the letter, found his eyes wide with shock.

"...!?"

When!?

His sight, smell, hearing, and even his sense of touch—which could clearly perceive the slight tactile sensation of the air being pushed aside by a moving object—all seemed to fail him at this moment. He hadn't sensed Emiya Shirou's approach at all.

However... without a moment's hesitation, Fushiguro Toji abandoned the two Cursed Tools he had stolen and retreated desperately.

Because in the very next second...

"—Sit upon the frozen heavens, Hyorinmaru."

The moment Emiya Shirou, holding that strange katana, uttered those words, pillars of extreme cold erupted using his blade as a medium, frantically expanding and freezing everything in the vicinity!

If Toji's movements had been even a second slower, he undoubtedly would have been flash-frozen inside those ice pillars!

"Oh, you dodged it?"

Speaking with a voice that lacked even a hint of surprise, Emiya Shirou calmly lowered his katana. Following up with a tone that sounded like a genuine compliment, he looked at the retreating Fushiguro Toji and said, "As expected of the [Heavenly Restriction], you can even react to that? I consciously controlled the temperature before using the ability. I didn't expect you to sense the brief window of thermal conduction and react... truly remarkable."

At this point, Shirou even began to clap proactively.

Clap, clap!

But Fushiguro Toji's face didn't show the slightest hint of joy at the praise. He didn't even breathe a sigh of relief for having dodged the freezing attack in time. On the contrary, since Emiya Shirou appeared, he had been staring at him tensely, as if trying to lock Shirou firmly within his pupils.

'Remarkable? ...No, that's a line I should be saying. You monster...'

Fushiguro Toji, who had always been viewed by others as a monster, was once again looking at a true monster. But soon, Toji realized he had misunderstood—misunderstood quite egregiously.

Emiya Shirou was never a monster in the same vein as Gojo Satoru. He was a monster far more monstrous than Gojo Satoru!

Boom!!

A powerful reactionary force instantly swept through Toji's entire body the moment that thought surfaced. Then, by the time Toji finally understood what this impact was, Emiya Shirou's voice reached him, accompanied by the action of Shirou grabbing his face with one hand and dragging him forward with sheer, violent force.

"We could fight here, but Gojo Satoru is a bit petty. The reason he sent all his students to the High School at this time wasn't just because he didn't want them involved in the dangerous operations ahead, but because I was here. If anything happened, I could step in at any time to resolve those troublesome matters.

So, if Gojo comes back and sees the High School in a shambles, he'll definitely have something to say. Therefore..."

Rumble!!

The hand Emiya Shirou used to grip his face finally let go. Freed from the restraint, Fushiguro Toji was finally able to rely on the powerful physical stats of his [Heavenly Restriction] during the process of being flung away. By using a rolling motion to bleed off the momentum, he managed to barely stabilize himself, carving two deep, long trenches into the ground with his feet.

He listened to the rest of Shirou's words: "Let's change the location of our battle slightly."

'This guy...'

Toji looked at Emiya Shirou in silence. Just now, when he was grabbed by Shirou, it wasn't that he hadn't thought about resisting. But at that moment, he couldn't even fight against the air resistance of the high-speed movement. Even though Shirou hadn't seemingly done anything, Toji himself was imprisoned by the force of "Physics," rendered unable to move by the wind resistance of their velocity.

Just how exaggerated was this? No one understood better than he, the [Heavenly Restriction].

And now...

"...This guy actually refers to this kind of 'playing around' as a 'battle'!?"

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