Chapter 9: Anomaly

As Tsubaki and Angel walked away from the clearing, an unsettling feeling filled the air. Even as the creature lay motionless, the Gojo clan heiress's instincts alerted her to something deeper, something they hadn't anticipated.

"Tsubaki..." Angel said, stopping suddenly. "Do you feel it?"

Tsubaki closed her eyes and expanded her perception of cursed energy. What she found made her frown.

"It's not over yet..." she muttered, turning around to look at the body that, minutes before, had seemed defeated.

The creature, which had been motionless moments before, began to glow faintly from within. Its cursed energy core, though damaged, pulsed with a dark, slow light, like a weak heart that still beats. Angel's technique had slowed the regeneration, but had not destroyed the core completely.

"Its ability to regenerate is impaired, but it is not out of the fight," Tsubaki warned. "We need to destroy its core before it fully recovers."

Angel nodded, preparing for another round of combat. He knew they had no time to waste. If that anomaly managed to complete its regeneration, the consequences could be catastrophic.

"I will use my technique again to immobilize it," Angel said, as he raised his hands in a combat stance.

"It won't be enough," Tsubaki interrupted, tensing his spiritual power as he focused his energy. "This time we really finish it."

The creature, though partially regenerated, began to move slowly. Its eyes flashed with renewed fury, aware of the danger the two sorceresses posed.

"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red" Tsubaki invoked her ability, generating an energy field that compressed the space around the creature's core.

Angel, for his part, conjured a powerful technique, meant to stop the regeneration. His eyes lit up with determination, knowing that they couldn't afford to fail.

"Cursed Technique: Divine Extinction," Angel shouted, directing a blast of energy towards the creature's core.

The creature let out a deafening roar, trying to withstand the combined attack. The cursed energy fluctuated violently around it, but with each passing second, the pressure of both techniques combined increased, slowly breaking through its defense.

Finally, the creature's core began to heal, sending waves of cursed energy all over the place. One last scream from the anomaly echoed through the air before its body was completed in a massive cloud of electricity, leaving only a rumble in its place.

Angel breathed heavily, his body exhausted from the extreme use of the cursed technique. The air was still charged with the creature's residual energy, and the echo of the final rumble rang in his ears. However, an unsettling feeling enveloped him; the chubby Pikachu, which had been a crucial part of the anomaly, had not been completely destroyed.

"It can't be…" Angel muttered, looking at the place where the Pikachu had disappeared in the cloud of energy.

Suddenly, he felt a strong pulse in the air, as if something was moving at high speed again. A yellow figure flashed in the distance, emerging from the shadows. The cursed Pikachu, severely injured but still alive, was releasing sparks of cursed energy from its body, each one more unstable than the last.

"Damn it, that monster doesn't give up," Angel growled, as he tried to gather what little power remained of his.

The Pikachu released a new burst of lightning, this time much more unpredictable and erratic. With each discharge, the surroundings were destroyed in a mix of fire and darkness, while the cursed energies overflowed out of control. The creature was losing control of itself, but that only made it more dangerous.

Tsubaki knew she had to end this before it was too late. If she didn't stop the cursed Pikachu now, its final explosion could wipe out everything around it.

—I have to... concentrate everything on a single attack... Angel, it's best if you use your wings to fly out of the area... —She said, her eyes half-closed from the exhaustion of using infinity for days. Her mind quickly reviewed the techniques she had left, looking for one last chance.

—Maximum cursed technique: Blue—Using all her energy she began to distort all the space within the forest touched by the creature with her rays, burning much of it with the technique attracting absolutely everything to the desired point, sending everything flying into the sky along with the cause of it. Tsubaki fell to her knees, exhausted. The Ultimate Cursed Technique: Blue had consumed almost all of her strength, but it still hadn't been enough to completely stop the cursed Pikachu. The environment around her was a mess. The trees of the forest charred, the ground cracked and burned by the intense energy that had been released, and the air charged with residual electricity.

"No... how could he have survived?" Tsubaki muttered, breathing heavily as she looked at the direction in which the injured Pikachu had fled. She knew that her enemy was seriously injured, but she was also aware that letting him escape would be a fatal mistake. If he regenerated and regained his strength, no one would be able to stop him next time.

With her body weakened, she tried to stand up, but her legs barely supported her. At that moment, she heard hurried footsteps behind him. She turned around and saw her companion who was running towards her with a mix of worry and determination on his face.

"Tsubaki!" "Angel shouted as he reached her side, helping her up. "Are you okay? I saw the explosion from a distance! The cursed spirit… did you stop it?"

"No… it escaped," Tsubaki said, gritting her teeth in frustration. "I was close, but it's stronger than I thought. And now, it's probably already looking for a way to regenerate."

She looked at her seriously, understanding what that meant. The cursed Pikachu wasn't just an anomaly. It had been able to take down wizards with sheer cursed energy, capable of unleashing unimaginable destruction if left unchecked. But, despite the gravity of the situation, not all was lost.

"We have to find it before it's too late," Angel said, looking at Tsubaki with renewed firmness. "We still have a chance. While it's weakened, we can track it."

"I don't know if I can keep going…" Tsubaki muttered, feeling the weight of exhaustion in every fiber of her body. I've used too much energy these days without rest, and my reserves have never been great. I don't know if I'll be able to fight again if we find it.

The six eyes were advantageous, granting a view of the world in a way that a normal sorcerer could never see. Thanks to that perspective, the albino's mind could not find an explanation for what her eyes saw in the creature faced earlier, but her mind quickly came to a specific point.

"No... Maybe Kenjaku is behind the creation of this creature," Tsubaki murmured.

"I don't think it's possible to create a spirit or a shikigami of that level," said the emerald-eyed girl, deactivating her ritual along with her wings.

"Normally, every being with a soul has a defined form, but that creature looked like a living being trapped in a body by force."

"Such a thing is not impossible?"

—In a normal world, far from jujutsu, it would seem impossible, but I have heard of a man capable of living in the bodies of others with cursed techniques.

Tsubaki and Angel stood in silence, observing the remains of what had been a battle. Although the creature was lost, Tsubaki's words echoed in their minds.

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