Megumi Of Ten Shadows: CH023 (Patreon)

-CHAPTER 23-

-FUSHIGURO MEGUMI POV-

I quietly climbed back up the stairs of the school, lost in thought. Now that only leaves Mahoraga…

I was both terrified and excited for the battle we would inevitably have… And it would be a short one… it had to be a short one if I wanted to win.

Unfortunately I had not developed a sure-kill method of taming him yet. Even my Abyssal Laser wouldn’t disintegrate him fully… it would only cut him in half… and that’s if it even hit.

Countless ideas went through my mind. I guess a sure way for the attack to hit would be… Domain Expansion. But I had only a vague idea of how to achieve that- though I reckoned that my adeptness at employing Barriers would probably help…

But it probably wouldn’t be that hard as canon Megumi had achieved it pretty easily…

Sigh… I sighed as I shook my head, wincing and massaging my forehead as I began to feel the growing headache. All these thoughts are making me too confused… I should probably get a Cola or something. It was my go to way to handle a headache.

So rather than going back to the dorms I went towards where a bunch of vending machines were. Good thing about Japan, you can get basically anything from wending machines.

And as I sit on a nearby bench and munch on potato chips and drink cola, I relax as the headache considerably lessens. I let out a breath in satisfaction. Nothing beats a late night snack!

Bam! Bam! Bam!

-But soon a noise attracts my attention. What’s that? And so late at night at that…  it was currently 2 AM after all. Normal people weren’t awake at this time of the night.

But Jujutsu Sorcerers aren’t normal people again, are they?

Now curious, I quickly finished with my snacks and was soon walking towards the source of that noise, soon recognizing that it was the sound of someone familiar training.

“Ha!” Maki knee kicks the wooden dummy, soon following up with a jab to its left then right and finishing with an uppercut. Wearing a white sports bra and some black yoga pants as she practiced her moves in the closed gymnasium.

Seeing her practice so hard, my respect for her increased. It was admirable to see someone so dedicated to something.  Seeing her sweat filled body also brought forth my buried feeling to the forefront. It was hot… Muscled, strong women were very hot…

These lustful thoughts were unfortunately becoming common for me, maybe because of the hormones that were acting up or because I was new to feeling something like this. Whatever it may be, I stood frozen as I couldn’t remove my eyes from the bouncy and thick behind of my bespectacled classmate.

I had no resistance against such things…

But as I quickly regained control of myself and shook off these thoughts, and moved to leave-

Crack!

-I accidentally stepped on a branch, the noise generated by it attracting the attention of the girl that I was admiring not a few seconds past.

“Who’s there?” Maki yelled out as she stopped her training.

Deciding that there was no use hiding, I walked towards the green haired girl naturally and fully relied on my top notch acting skills to hide the fact that I was basically stalking her not moments before. “It’s just me, Maki-san. I was coming back after a midnight snack when I heard the noise…”

“Oh, it’s just you Fushiguro.” Maki relaxed but a glint of worry went through her eyes when she noticed the prominent scars on the left side of my face. “What happened Fushiguro?! How did you get those scars?! You were alright a few hours ago?”

Ah right… I forgot about those. I rubbed the back of my head embarrassedly. “Well… it is probably against the rules but I sneaked out of the school.”

Maki’s eyes widened. “What!? Why?”

I bit my lip in thought as I pondered whether I should tell her. You know what, fuck it! It’s not like it’s much of a secret anyway. “It’s a long story so why don’t we sit down.” I plopped down on the matted ground as Maki followed me, now curious to hear the story now less worried as she notices the scar was healed.

“So I told you how my technique works right?” I started to which Maki sarcastically responded with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah that it only lets you summon Shikigami and use shadows?”

Cough!

I cough into my fist as I blushed. “Yeah, I admit that was a bit of misdirection.” Then I continued. “So unlike what I implied before, I don’t instantly gain the Shikigami like many other Shikigami-users do, instead I have to defeat them in a one-on-one ritualistic combat where nobody else can help me, if I do defeat them then they are forever tamed by me and I can summon them anytime. This was called a Subjugation Ritual.”

Maki nods as if she knew this already. “I know, so what you’re meaning to say is-“

“-That I am just coming from taming a Shikigami, yeah.” I smiled and nodded.

Maki nods in understanding, and seeing that I was fine she moves on to another topic, curiously asking. “So how many Shikigami do you have tamed right now?”

I smiled teasingly. “Oh? Maki-san if you wanted to know my secrets you could at least ask me out on a date first?”

Maki gains a light blush as she glares at me. “You don’t have to tell if you don’t want to! Who wants to know more about you anyway!? Hmph!” She turns her head in anger.

Cute!

But to my eyes she honestly couldn’t look more cuter. I almost melted from the cuteness displayed by her. I smiled genuinely as I disclosed. “I have tamed 9 Shikigami out of all ten.”

Maki’s eyes widen as her head whips back to look at me in shock. “So many!?”

“Yep!” I nodded humbly.

“But how could you do that at such a young age? Shouldn’t it have taken longer?” Maki asks me with focus.

I look straight into her eyes, my expression serious. “Maki-san, in the past few weeks I learnt an important lesson. It’s that talent doesn’t matter much if you don’t work hard to realize it. It would just remain a vague potential that everyone will tell you have, but unless you work hard to bring it into reality it would never amount to anything. You would just remain as a ‘Potential Man’.”

Maki nodded, an unknown look passing from her eyes, before she chuckles and doubles over as she starts laughing. “Pfft-! HAHAHAHAHAHA!” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Oh man! Your message was good but the ending line-! That ending line is just too funny! HAHAHA!”

I chuckled along with her, soon finding myself genuinely laughing alongside her seeing her point. What is this…? Is this true happiness I am feeling? I thought I was only capable of feeling this with the exhilaration of a fight… Who knew that you could achieve that outside of battle?

I looked at the laughing Maki. How can you do something like this to me Maki? What do I feel about you?

Maki stops as we look into each other’s eyes, blushing and breaking the eye contact as she starts. “Well, I was having trouble going to sleep so I decided to pass the time training. I should probably get back to it now…”

I broke my stare too as I looked down in thought. “Yeah…” Should I just give up on this today? I probably have time to explore this feeling more later on…

But I denied that. Because that’s the way of a boring dense loser! “Hey, wouldn’t it be better to have a partner to spar against compared to a dummy?” I suggested nonchalantly, hoping that she would agree so that I can spend time with her and understand more about what I was feeling.

Maki thinks about it. “Yeah, you are right about that but aren’t you tired after your ritual?”

I look into her gaze confidently and smirk. “Not at all.”

Maki smirks back at me. “Suit yourself then.” She walks back and takes out a katana cursed tool from her bag, a white cloth wrapping around its sharp blade and blunting it. Maki turns her face and looks back at me from the corner of her eyes with a challenging smirk. “Though we’ll be sparring with Cursed Tools if it’s alright with you.”

I kneel down, putting both of my arms into my shadow and pulling them back out a moment later equipped with my red claw gauntlets Cursed Tool, I reply back with a challenging smirk of my own. “No problem.” And I entered a martial art stance- not strengthening myself with CE because this was just a spar.

In terms of choice of weapons we are pretty evenly matched because a katana’s strength lies in precise clean attacks, pretty structured. On the other hand I would be fighting like a brawler which is a pretty vague and chaotic way of fighting, so she would have to be on the defensive.

This brought us to the age-old question of who would win between a Japanese swordsman and a martial artist. Arguments could be made for both.

Maki entered a drawing stance as both of us circled one another, looking for openings in each other’s stances.

Then I sprinted towards the bespectacled girl, but just as I entered her range Maki instantly drew out her katana in a slashing motion which I had to sidestep as she went on the offensive.

And a katana’s strength can’t be ruled out as it was a very powerful weapon in skilled hands, in hands like Maki’s.

She’s really quick with this. I thought as I narrowly dodge her strike, parrying it with the forearms guards of my gauntlets and taking the opportunity to deliver a punch to her gut.

Clang! Bam!

Maki grits her teeth as she skids back a few feet, but not wasting anytime she rockets towards me as she begins to aggressively deliver strikes from her katana.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

I see so that’s her strategy… to keep delivering blows after blows so that I don’t have any choice but to either dodge or endure. This would tire me out so that she could finish me off easily later… And her constant attacks wouldn’t give me the time to think about counterattacks as I would be too busy dodging. I inwardly nodded. It would've been a good strategy… If this was a real fight.

Maki’s eyes widen as I intentionally don’t block the strike of her blunted katana which hits my collarbone, but not giving any regard to the pain I use that opportunity to grab her katana holding arm- effectively disarming her –and begin pummeling her with palm strikes to her midsection.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

“Gah-!” Maki lets out from the pain but I use the generated momentum to grab the dark green haired girl by her upper arm and throw her away in a perfect Judo throw.

“Ugh!” Maki gets out as she lands on the mat. I give her time to recover as I begin to say.

“Your style is perfect, but you forget that this is a spar and you are fighting with a blunted blade. I am not afraid of taking a strike from that.” I said idly.

Maki grits her teeth as she stands back up. “Is that right?” She rips off the cloth around the katana, revealing its sharp edge. “I guess you’ll just have to fight a real katana then!”

I smile, my battle lust showing its face. “That’s more like it.” And we charge at each other quickly, meeting in a fast clash of multiple blows.

BAM! CLANG! BAM! CLANG! BAM! CLANG!

I laugh as I sidestep her swinging katana. “Now this is much more exciting!”

“You’re really a battle crazy idiot, you know that?” Maki says as she blocks my chop with her blade, deflecting my hit and following up with a downward slash.

-Which I catch with both of my hands- the gauntlets protecting my hands from being cut up- as I grab the katana in a grip. “You say that but your eyes reveal you’re having just as much fun as me!”

Maki lets go of the katana, quickly using her legs she throws a high kick straight at my face. She laughs. “Maybe I am!”

I give up on holding the katana and block the strike as I am pushed back, the katana falls right back into Maki’s hands as she predicted. She holds the sword straight and pointing towards me.

“Let’s dance then!” I charge back at her as we once again meet in a flurry of blows both of laughing in enjoyment as we fight, our emotions flying high as sweat covers our bodies.

BAM! CLANG! BAM! CLANG! BAM! CLANG! BAM! CLANG!

But it finally comes to a close when-

“HA!” I throw a punch at her midsection which she easily blocks and deflects but taking the opportunity of that little second I step even closely towards her. Close enough that she has a hard time using that katana of hers…

CLANG!

Seeing what I was about to do, Maki quickly brings her sword down my head before I get too much into her zone.

BAM!

-But it was a feint all along! Taking that opportunity I grab the sword by its blade and palm strike the surprised Maki in the stomach as I use her weakness to yank the katana out and throw it away in the opposite direction.

I breathed heavily as I announced. “I win.”

Maki smiles a smile not of defeat but of viciousness as she enters a martial arts stance. “No, we're just getting started!”

“What are you waiting for then?” I said as I laughed and engaged with her in a fist to fist fight, enjoying even more now.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

I throw a chop right at her chest, which she easily dodges and responds with a sweeping kick.

-quickly I flip back, side kicking the dark green haired girl as she stands back up.

BAM!

She doesn’t take that lying down, charging back at me we butt our heads together and begin grappling. But my bigger size becomes useful as I easily overpower her and throw her down to the mat, not giving her time to recover. I grab her by the waist- intending to power bomb her down to the mat with force.

-But she doesn’t let me finish, quickly using her more agile physique to her advantage she maneuvers around my body as we both lock our arms with each other, and she throws her legs around me. Using the momentum generated to-

BAM!

-Headbutt me strongly on my forehead. “Ugh!” I let out as I fell to the floor but I still didn't let her escape the hold as we fall down to the mat.

Now both of us were caught in a lock, with me down while Maki sat on top of me. Neither of us let the other one out of the lock, pressing our bodies tightly against each other.

And that was when both of us realized…

Both of our faces were very close as we felt our hot breaths on each other’s skins. Our eyes met as the intensity of the situation skyrocketed.

“Haaa~” “Haaa~” Her hazel eyes met my black ones as we felt the shape of one another’s bodies, her clothed cameltoe directly upon my quickly hardening member.

-But as quickly as that moment comes, it is gone just as quickly as both of us let go of each other and stand up.

The atmosphere is filled with a complicated mood, almost awkward as both of us embarrassedly turn our heads away from each other as we blushed thinking about the “incident”.

We were so occupied with our thoughts that we had forgotten that we were sparring in the first place.

Deciding to break the awkward atmosphere I decided to compliment her fighting skills. “That was nice…” But I don’t think I said it right…

A prominent blush rises on Maki’s face as she narrows her eyes at me, but I'm quick to understand the double meaning and reiterate. “I meant the spar… it was a nice spar.” I blush as I look down.

Seeing me look so shy and embarrassed for the first time, Maki chuckles. “Yeah… it was a nice spar.” She smiles

Like that the awkward atmosphere gave away to something much warmer as we smiled at each other.

But soon Maki gains a teasing smile and she walks towards me like a lioness stalking her prey, looking me in the eyes as she smirks. Reaching me in just a few strides, she looks up deep into my eyes as she rises using her toes, angling her face to my own as she brings herself closer to me.

Ba-dum! Ba-dum! Ba-dum!

“M-Maki!?” I let out in panic as my heart beats like it was going to burst itself out of my chest. But I am unable to look away, and unable to move away.

Kiss!? This is a kiss right!? Shouldn’t this come later after we’ve been on a few dates or something!? Isn’t this too fast!?

I'm not sure I WANT to move away in the first place… So I do the only thing I can, that is close my eyes and bring my face closer to hers.

Just as both of our lips were about to meet-

Maki tilts her head and whispers in my ears, her hot breath making me shiver subconsciously. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you checking me out. And now this… I didn’t know you were such a pervert Megumi-kun~”

But just as quickly as she was there, she was just as quick in leaving while smiling like a fox towards me, but her red blushing face was enough of a clue to me that she had enjoyed it.

I was left frozen as I watched her walk away.

And to put even more salt to the wound, she intentionally started to hypnotically sway her thick behind as she walked away, leaving me totally entranced as she walked back to her dorm.

W-Was Maki always like that!? I couldn’t help but yell to myself because now I could remove the image of her sensually moving thick ass and her bouncy chest from my mind.

“… What do I do now?” I was truly clueless. This had never happened to me before after all.

“I may need some advice…” But I forgot the thought when I realized that I couldn’t really ask about advice on this from anybody I knew. Gojo would tease me to high heaven, Yuta would just stutter shyly, Panda was Panda and probably didn’t know anything about romance…

Perhaps only Inumaki might know something about this… I sighed but couldn’t help but smile like an idiot when remembering what had transpired in this gymnasium a few moments before…

Even the thought of not getting a kiss was forgotten from my mind. Baby steps, Megumi. Baby steps.

A building made on a firm and strong foundation was much tougher than one made quickly on a weak foundation. At least I believed that love was this.

…

[EDITED FOR SPELLING MISTAKES]

…

A/N- Maybe I'll write a canon omake to better show Maki's feelings... Thoughts?