Barrier technique

* Anime
* Manga

### User(s)

Minoru Tatsuishi, Shinichi Saimori, Kiyoka Kudou, Arata Usuba, Yoshito Godou, Special Anti-Grotesquerie Unit members, Ministry of the Imperial Household practitioners

## Debut

### Anime

Episode 3

**Barrier technique** (結界術, *Kekkai jutsu*?) is the technique to create, shape, and manipulate barriers.

## Description

The technique allows a Gift-user to create and manipulate a barrier that can be in the shape of a shield, wall, dome or bubble. The quality of the created barriers depends on the user's ability, including how strong and delicate a barrier can be. The barriers aren't always impenetrable and could weaken or disappear by energy drain of the user who created it or can be destroyed through brute force by an exceptionally strong opponent, as is evident when Kiyoka easily forces his way through such a barrier. A barrier can also be broken by dispelling the technique used to create it.

A barrier can be created for different purposes, including protection, defence, expulsion and suppression.

### Protective barrier

A protective barrier is designed to protect an area from external intrusion. It can be conjured around a building or area to prevent entities or designated objects from slipping in. Some barriers can also repel supernatural powers.

* Kiyoka Kudou has surrounded his house with an invisible barrier impenetrable to paper familiars that has been spying on him. When something manages to slip inside the barrier around the house, Gift-users like Kiyoka and his sister Hazuki Kudou are able to detect its presence at once.
* The Kudou villa is enveloped by a protective barrier to safeguard its inhabitants from outsiders seeking to inflict harm.
* Upon the revelation of Naoshi Usui's plot to overthrow the government, the Ministry of the Imperial Household mobilized its resources to erect a barrier around the residence of Prince Takaihito. This barrier serves as an impervious shield, not only warding off Gifts and occult forces of similar nature but also rejecting a designated category of substances outright. The barrier's settings can only be modified from within its confines, and once Naoshi was marked as persona non grata, his entry became an insurmountable challenge. While this safeguard isn't infallible, it certainly presents a formidable obstacle. In order to erect such a barrier, it requires at least ten or more practitioners, along with just as many people to maintain it. The wider the barrier becomes, the greater the number of practitioners it takes to maintain it, so it isn't realistic to place one around both Takaihito and the Emperor.
* The Special Anti-Grotesquerie Unit station initially lacks a protective barrier, which is entirely deliberate, as the army turned the base into a trap where the Gift-users can dispose of Grotesqueries outside the public eye. After the threat of Naoshi against Miyo Saimori is exposed, Miyo has been staying at the station during Kiyoka's working hours. A barrier is conjured around the station similar to the one surrounding Takaihito. As the station is also a den of Gift-wielding warriors, no matter how powerful Naoshi's Gift may have been, it would be almost impossible for him to get his hands on her. It is only after an insider, Kaoruko Jinnouchi, tampered with the barrier from within the station that it broke and Naoshi could pass through.
* The deserted shack located on the outskirts of a farming village near the Kudou villa is suspected by Kiyoka to have a protective barrier around it, which could have been erected by a Gift-user, prompting him to maintain a heightened state of vigilance during his investigation of the shack. Nevertheless, his scrutiny yields no signs of any supernatural trickery, nor does he discover any physical traps set in the vicinity.

### Defensive barrier

A barrier can be temporarily conjured around one's own body or that of others during battle, to prevent objects or forces from damaging or even touching them if desired, acting as an armor or shield.

* When Kiyoka and Kouji Tatsuishi went to the Saimori estate to rescue Miyo after she has been kidnapped, Minoru Tatsuishi and Shinichi Saimori lose their composure when facing Kiyoka in battle and conjure a defensive barrier in a panic. However, Kiyoka continues marching forward and rips through their magical barriers as if they are mere tissue paper. This did far more than just unsettle his opponents. Realizing how much more powerful Kiyoka is compared with them, Minoru and Shinichi succumb to pure terror.
* When Minoru attacks Kiyoka and Kouji with a fast-advancing vortex of flames, the latter doesn't know how to react, nor could he do anything to shield himself. But Kiyoka quickly conjures an invisible wall, a barrier, that separates Kouji from the vortex. The flame vortex then crashes into the impenetrable magical barrier, and expands left and right. The building walls catch fire immediately, and the conflagration quickly spreads to engulf the inner courtyards, burning down trees, scorching grass.
* During Kiyoka's duel with Arata at the Usuba estate over who would take Miyo with them, Kiyoka conjures up some sort of barrier to block Arata's next attack after being wounded by a shot from the former's revolver.
* During a military raid on one of the Gifted Communion's bases on the outskirts of the Imperial Capital, Yoshito Godou urgently commands his subordinates from the Special Anti-Grotesquerie Unit to activate their defensive barriers upon detecting a densely packed container of gunpowder with a lit fuse. However, it is too late, and a colossal explosion engulfs the area just a moment later, resulting in numerous casualties, including Yoshito himself.

### Expulsion barrier

An expulsive barrier is a barrier that can also be conjured around someone or something to repel or eject the enclosed subject out of an area forcefully. It does not harm the enclosed subject.

* After Kiyoka loses his duel against Arata, he is repelled from inside the Usuba estate's barrier and forcefully ejected.

### Suppressive barrier

A suppressive barrier is a barrier designed to keep supernatural abilities from running out of control. It serves the purpose of maintaining control and preventing unintended consequences or overuse of supernatural powers.

* The Usuba estate has a special magic barrier that suppresses Miyo's power of Dream-Sight from going out of control and keeping her nightmares at bay.

## References

1. ↑  Novel, Volume 5 Chapter 3
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2  Novel, Volume 1 Chapter 4
3. ↑  Novel, Volume 1 Chapter 3
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4  Novel, Volume 2 Chapter 3
5. ↑  Novel, Volume 3 Chapter 1
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1  Novel, Volume 4 Chapter 5
7. ↑  Novel, Volume 1 Chapter 2
8. ↑  Novel, Volume 3 Chapter 3
9. ↑  Novel, Volume 3 Epilogue
10. ↑  Novel, Volume 4 Chapter 1