Maki Zenin & Noritoshi Kamo vs. Naoya Zenin

Maki Zenin & Noritoshi Kamo vs. Cursed Naoya is a battle fought by Tokyo Jujutsu High second-year student, Maki Zenin and Kyoto Jujutsu High third-year student, Noritoshi Kamo against the vengeful cursed spirit, Naoya Zenin. It takes place in the Sakurajima Colony after Naoya invades the colony in search of Maki. 
== Prologue ==
Noritoshi meets Maki inside the Sakurajima Colony after she defeats the remaining players and cursed spirits. They discuss how much one another has changed until their conversation is interrupted by the appearance of a mysterious curse. As the curse descends, Noritoshi expresses that he has an off feeling, asking Maki to confirm whether what their encountering is even a cursed spirit. Maki understands his confusion as she shares the same ominous feeling about the creature. 
== Battle == 
The cursed spirit spots the sorcerers and repeats "ma!" over and over. Suddenly, it rushes down towards Maki and Noritoshi at high speed, breaking the sound barrier and breaking buildings apart as it approaches. In an instant, the curse zooms right past Noritoshi and uses all its momentum to ram into Maki with incredible force. She crashes into the cliffside and is pinned down by the long caterpillar-like curse. 
Maki tries to punch it off of her but the curse disappears in an instant. It reappears as quickly as it disappears and hits Maki from the side. Maki acknowledges that her opponent is fast but can sense there is more to it. An arm appears from the cursed spirit's body and throws a speeding punch that Maki avoids. The curse swing's the back end of its worm-like body to pin Maki back against the mountainside. While it has Maki immobilized, the curse clarifies that "ma!" was short for Maki and reveals its identity as none other than Naoya Zenin, who became a curse after death.
 
Noritoshi fires cursed energy-reinforced arrows from a moderate distance away. He guides them using Blood Manipulation and sends them at Naoya, forcing him to back off so the arrows don't hit. This gives Maki enough space to move away and she's luckily not hit by any of the arrows. Noritoshi can't sense Maki's location and needed to rely on intuition to avoid hitting her, which she picked up on. Noritoshi fires three more arrows simultaneously and guides them on an arcing path out of the trees and down on Naoya. Dipped in the blood of a Blood Manipulator, the arrows are poisonous to cursed spirits and the effect stuns Naoya. Maki capitalizes while Naoya is stunned and slashes his body with her sword. Naoya appears seriously injured by the cut, enough so for Noritoshi to question whether or not the wound is fatal. 
Naoya floats higher into the sky as he bleeds out when suddenly his cursed spirit body implodes and metamorphosizes into a cocoon-like state. Maki can't reach Naoya at the height he's risen to and asks Noritoshi to shoot him. Noritoshi uses Convergence on the full contents blood pack and fires Piercing Blood through the cursed womb in one shot. Naoya appears to suffer greatly from the hit, bleeding from the wound and screaming out in pain. The cocoon burns away and Noritoshi believes he's exorcised it, but it is revealed that Naoya remains, and he's reached his final form. 
In his evolved state, Naoya uses pseudo-arm appendages made of thick tentacles to strike Noritoshi. His attack has enough power to send Noritoshi crashing through the forest. Noritoshi avoids a fatal blow by using blood outside his body to guard his head and arm, which he would've lost had Naoya's hit landed clean. 
In response to the do-or-die situation, Noritoshi activates Flowing Red Scale as Naoya rushes toward him. Maki intercepts Naoya's path and slashes him, stopping the curse in his tracks. Noritoshi wraps blood around Naoya and activates Crimson Binding to restrain him. Maki tries to capitalize by slashing Naoya again but he rotates his body at high speed to deflect the blade. Then Naoya breaks out of Crimson Binding and freezes the air into multiple layers of animation frames using the 24FPS application of Projection Sorcery. Naoya destroys all the frames with a straight punch to create an explosion that serves as a diversion, allowing him to dash past his opponents and speed up as he flies away across the city. 
Naoya's cursed spirit body curls up into its shell and picks up speed by taking in air through its inlets and ejecting it back out with cursed energy. By flying in circles through the air at high speed, Naoya propels himself to Mach 3 and crashes Maki. Not even she can defend the supersonic attack and is severely injured by it. 
Noritoshi throws two of his arrows into Naoya's tentacle-based arms to save Maki. She gets up and kicks Naoya away from her while Noritoshi comes up from behind him and uses a slashing attack made of blood. Noaya notices Noritoshi bleeding from his neck and wonders how he can expend so much blood without dying. He realizes that Noritoshi is accomplishing this by circulating blood in and out of his body. This is exhausting Noritoshi and Naoya tells him he's going to die fighting this way before re-engaging. 
 
With little hope for victory, Noritoshi tells Maki to leave the colony. Maki refuses and asks him to buy her time to recover, assuring him she just needs a short while to recover. Naoya rushes at Maki but Noritoshi creates a fence made of blood to impede him. Maki disappears and Noritoshi mentally compares Naoya's toughness to Hanami's, who was a much more durable opponent. Outside of his propulsion mode, Naoya's cursed spirit body isn't that tough and it reacts negatively to Blood Manipulation as any curse would. 
 
Naoya interrupts Noritoshi's train of thought with another strike, knocking Noritoshi back across the forest again. He follows up by ramming into Noritoshi, but the sorcerer grabs his opponent's skull-like face and spits blood from his mouth into Naoya's inlet. This forces Naoya to stop and Noritoshi falls off of him down to the ground. Naoya expresses his disgust while Noritoshi regains his footing and prepares to counterattack. Noritoshi believes his opponent is underestimating his willingness to use big moves out of fear of blood loss. Contrarily, Noritoshi is ready to sacrifice himself and uses Piercing Blood at point-blank range on Naoya as the curse rushes in. Naoya blocks it with his tentacle arms and while they're completely torn away by the attack, Naoya's body is unharmed. 
 
Naoya arrogantly awards Noritoshi a hypothetical prize for his effort before ramming into him again. Noritoshi remains on his feet and spits more blood from his mouth onto his knuckles, shaping them as spikes between his fingers. Naoya regrows his arms and strikes Noritoshi's face and body with a large cluster of tentacles. Still, Noritoshi remains on his feet, declaring that he only exists to burn away his life for his allies. Before Naoya strikes again, two newcomers randomly enter the fray, with one yelling about sumo and the other about katanas. 
Naoya ignores the two newcomers and attacks Noritoshi again. Maki reappears and cuts off one of Naoya's arms to protect Noritoshi. It hasn't even been three minutes since Maki went into hiding and it's obvious she hasn't fully healed. Noritoshi implores Maki to leave the colony again but he's interrupted by the older newcomer yelling for Maki's katana. Unable to best Naoya, Maki breaks the stalemate by lending her katana to the old man.
== Aftermath ==
The old man catches the blade and everyone around him is overcome with a frightening sensation. The old man is Hagane Daido, an outlier among Culling Game players who is peerless with a sword but cannot use jujutsu. It was not cursed energy that overcame everyone nearby, but the sense of sheer lethality that Hagane emanated. The old samurai slashes at Naoya, who mostly avoids the blow but is slightly grazed by the blade. 
Hagane asks Maki if the blade chooses the wielder and turns his attention to the "bewitched blade" for disobeying him and missing their target. Naoya retaliates while Hagane is distracted and Maki tries to warn him before its too late.
== References ==
== Navigation ==
Category:Maki Zenin Battles
Category:Noritoshi Kamo Battles
Category:Naoya Zenin Battles