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CHAPTER START---
---Iceland, 11 AM…
Nestled within an outcrop of boulders, Yuki Tsukumo sits on a plastic lawn chair, leaning toward a small fire while wrapped in a thick winter coat.
Her blonde hair is neatly tucked into her hood as she shivers, feeling the northern chill seep into her bones with each breath.
"Of all the places," she mutters while retrieving her phone from her hiking bag, checking the GPS on it.
She sees Mei Mei's signal growing closer by the minute, within a few miles of her location and moving directly toward her.
"I should have told her to lure him somewhere warm, damn it."
Reaching into her camping bag, she grabs a thermos of coffee and chugs some of it, enjoying the warmth spreading through her before she gets up.
Yuki takes a minute to shed her winter clothes, much to her annoyance, revealing the black crop top and boots with long grey cargo pants, her preferred combat attire.
She also ties up her hair in a tight bun and double-checks her preparations.
"Everything looks good," she reads the updates on her phone. "A dozen miles from the nearest civilians. I can go all out here without getting in trouble from any governments."
She carefully steps toward the entrance of her campsite, poking her head out from between the boulder enough to see the vast sloped plains expanding beyond the horizon in front of her.
Covered in a thin layer of snow as the Icelandic winter season is ending, but even as she sees small patches of green, the winter chill carried by biting winds floods her with doubt.
'Why would any living thing want to live in the snow? If I were a tree, I'd learn to walk just to leave here…'
She retreats back into cover and watches Mei Mei's signals on her phone, getting her binoculars ready as they're within a few hundred meters of each other.
Mei Mei then sends her a short message, and Yuki moves to the entrance with her binoculars, looking out at the landscape to see the duo happily strolling through the snow.
Both Mei Mei and Taiyo are dressed casually, confusing and annoying her, with the man carrying a large backpack with all their items.
'How the hell did she even set this up?' Yuki asks for what felt like the billionth time, then sees Mei Mei excitedly point to a small natural hot spring ahead of them. 'With that?'
She then sees Mei Mei turn on her heel and give Taiyo a passionate kiss.
It takes a surprising amount of willpower for Yuki to suppress her gasp, eyes widening at the sight.
'What the hell? Did Mei Mei offer him her body in exchange for meeting her here? No, her body is priceless to her, so she'd never do that. Something isn't right. Whatever, I'll ask her when this is all over.'
Yuki sets an automated call timer on her phone, then retreats a few steps into cover, lining herself up with the duo as they disrobe to enter the hot springs.
She takes a sprinter's stance, not shifting her gaze from Taiyo, considering every variable.
'No civilians. No Higher-Ups. No Gojo. No Geto. Nobody to save him. I won't allow another Suguru Geto to exist…'
Focusing her mind, she continues to suppress her Cursed Energy to avoid detection, but prepares physically and mentally to release her maximum output to open the fight.
Down at the hot spring, Taiyo secures their bag on a set of rocks before disrobing, down to only a pair of red shorts.
He gazes out at the vast plains ahead and can't help but laugh, spotting the patches of lush grass dotting the landscape, and the clear trail he made while they were hiking to this secluded pool.
"Pretty green for a place called 'Iceland'. We should come back during the summer. I bet this place is gorgeous then."
"Are you saying it's not gorgeous now?" Mei Mei asks from behind him before he hears water splashing about.
"Well. We're going to see the northern lights later, assuming they show up. But aside from that—" Taiyo turns around to see her in the pool.
Long, pale-blue hair, loose and flowing down her back, as her tiny black bikini barely covers anything while clinging to her curvaceous body.
"—Yeah. Gorgeous," he smiles at her. "Definitely worth the trip."
Mei Mei gives a toothy grin, then lowers herself in the steaming water, gesturing for him to join her.
Taiyo wastes no time in walking to the pool and using Cursed Energy to walk across the surface to reach her faster, then dropping into the water in front of her.
Mei Mei looks away as steaming water splashes her, then shakes her head at him. "You just can't help it, can you?"
"Jujutsu is my favourite toy, of course I'll use it every chance I have."
She draped her arms around his shoulders and wraps her legs around his waist, allowing him to hold her while lowering them into the water.
They share a long and passionate kiss before she pulls away, allowing him to find a shallow spot and sit with her straddling his lap.
"When this is all over, I'd like you to meet Ui Ui," she says.
"Your brother? Why?"
"Why not?" She narrows her eyes at him.
"Sorry, I'm just surprised. You always call him your most important asset."
"He is, but I think his Innate Technique can help with your research. And if you help us understand it—"
"His value increases," Taiyo nods, and can almost see the dollar signs in her eyes. "Got it."
"See, win-win."
"Normally, when a girl asks you to meet her family, it means the relationship is getting serious."
"Then can I meet yours?"
"Should have asked before I killed them."
She rests her head against his chest, allowing him to gently scoop up warm water and pour it onto her head. "You were worthless before Jujutsu, so I had no reason before that."
"Ouch."
"Oh, please, you were only human before awakening Immolation."
"Don't remind me. But what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Mei Mei?"
"This again."
"I can't help but be curious."
"My job works better with the 'Mei Mei' alias. No living person knows my real name, not even Ui Ui—"
"Which is also a fake name."
"Yes, well, some of us decided to start from zero after handling our family. We don't all want to be the celebrity Taiyo Daburu."
Taiyo laughs and leans down to kiss her, which Mei Mei happily reciprocates.
As their passion grows, before they could truly begin enjoying each other in the biting Icelandic air, Taiyo's phone begins to ring.
He groans and tries to ignore it, focusing on Mei Mei, but she pulls away.
"What?"
"That's the other part of your surprise. You should go get it."
He quirks a brow at her, but thinks nothing of it. Taiyo leaves the steaming water and walks over to their items, assuming someone was calling to confirm an item she purchased or traded for him.
Taiyo dries his hands with Immolation and grabs his phone, but only hears dead silence from the other end of the call.
"Hello?" He looks down at the number, not recognizing it, then lifts the phone back to his ear. "Is any—"
He feels an immense surge of Cursed Energy to his right, closing in faster than he could get away, faster than he could even turn to see what was happening.
"—NGH!" Taiyo's pained groan is short-lived, giving way to the cacophony of bones shattering and land being unearthed as his body is sent carving through the landscape.
In less than a second, Yuki had rushed from her campsite and planted both feet into his right shoulder, dropkicking him with more force than Satoru Gojo's Black Flash thanks to her preparations.
Taiyo melts the snow for a dozen meters around him as he's sent skipping across the earth, eventually carving a trench in the dirt with his body while smashing through rocks and boulders.
He leaves a trail of blackened, scorched earth behind him by the time he comes to a stop, lying at the end of his soft dirt trench as a mangled mess.
The entire right side of his body is shattered. Leg, arm, ribs, even his skull and jaw. His vision was blurry at best, with his right eye having been knocked cleanly out of his fractured skull and lost somewhere across the plains.
Taiyo's Cursed Energy defense, currently second only to Satoru Gojo's, was the only reason her attack didn't rip him in two.
Had any living person but he or Satoru Gojo been in this situation, there would be nothing more than red mist and mud as evidence of their existence.
He tries to sit up, head still spinning, while Reversed Cursed Technique frantically tries to heal him, knitting and regenerating only the most essential pieces first.
Pushing off the dirt with his right hand, he crumbles and lands face-first in the dirt, expecting that whatever hit him would be here any moment. Because in this state, his attacker had the perfect opportunity to kill him quickly.
This was precisely her plan, however, Yuki Tsukumo was currently on her knees in the dirt back at the pool.
After landing her kick, she adjusted in mid-air and watched him crash and tumble through the land like a wrecking ball, leaving blood, gore, and destruction in his wake.
Yuki smiles and motions to run and leap after him, intending to continue the beatdown before he could even understand what was happening.
But she fell over when trying to take a single step.
Confused by her body's disobedience, she looked down at her feet and was mortified by what she saw.
Both feet, the only body part to make direct contact with him, had been charred down to the bone.
Below her ankles was nothing but fragments of dried, charred bones, reflexively immolated upon contact with him.
All happening too fast for her nerves to even register the pain.
Yuki immediately sits up and focuses on her legs, using RCT to rebuild them, all while sensing a monstrous ocean of Cursed Energy boiling in the distance…
END CHAPTER---
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pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
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