Chapter 213: I Will Protect You, Jogo
The strong should ruthlessly humiliate the weak—this was exactly the kind of thing Jogo would say.
Unfortunately, at a time like this, the victim of this domineering rule had become itself. It was the pathetic wretch being pressed underfoot, unable to resist.
Moreover, compared to various forms of failure, the scenario of being humiliated yet powerless to fight back was the thing it found most unacceptable.
Ever since the last failure where it was beaten by Emiya until only its head remained, Jogo had endured a long, long period of hardship back at their base.
After being carried back by Hanami as nothing but a head, Hanami hadn't given it a single good look. The reason was that this fellow had burned down an unknown amount of forest during the battle.
Hanami, who valued loyalty and friendship, naturally wouldn't kill a comrade, but what was wrong with using Jogo's immobile head as a soccer ball for a bit of "waste utilization"?
Having lost its body, Jogo had no ability to resist, and thus passed a long period of extreme humiliation... It naturally placed all its anger and hatred onto Emiya.
In this short month, perhaps because its anger had been converted into motivation, Jogo's strength had improved far beyond its own imagination. To describe it as "worlds apart" might be an error, but it certainly lived up to the saying "after three days' absence, one should be viewed with new eyes."
At its level of strength, even a ten-percent increase was terrifying enough. An opponent who was once an equal match might not even last very long against it now.
Yet, despite such a massive improvement, it was still easily handled by Emiya—and in a posture several times more unsightly than the last time.
Jogo was completely unwilling to believe that the opponent's growth in strength had far exceeded its own, yet the fact remained: the opponent had reached a level it could no longer hope to attain. Now, not only was there no hope for revenge, but it had to be humiliated like this again!
If cursed spirits could commit suicide by biting their tongues, it would have done so long ago.
"You really only think of yourself. Isn't the option of killing you directly only beneficial to you?"
If we're talking about cruelty, Emiya was certainly not that kind of person. Otherwise, at the very least, he would have sliced a fellow like Jogo—who had killed untold numbers of people—into pieces and sent them to the Jujutsu Headquarters for research.
But for such a creature, he naturally felt no need for mercy or respect toward an enemy.
When it should be killed, it would be killed; and while it could still provide some "remaining heat" like this, he would naturally let it contribute something in its final moments.
Besides, with him here, no major accidents would happen regardless.
"Damn it... I will, I will definitely make you regret this..."
Its anger continued to surge, and it was thanks to this surging emotion that Jogo, in its heavily injured state, managed to crawl up from the ground and re-accumulate cursed energy to aim at Itadori.
It knew that in its current state, it absolutely couldn't threaten Emiya himself, so it was better to play along with the opponent's wishes; only then might it have a chance to kill one of the others in a moment when the opponent wasn't paying attention.
"Huh? Is the battle starting already?"
Seeing himself being targeted, Itadori immediately raised his shield-axe to block. But in the end, he didn't wait for flames; instead, he was met by a sudden impact of waves—
BOOM!
Water pouring down from the sky instantly exploded into a mass, forming a vast wave that obscured everyone's vision, making it impossible to see the surroundings clearly.
The first to realize what had happened was actually Jogo, whose mobility hadn't fully recovered, because it was the primary target hit by the wave, and it saw the figure dragging it up.
"You are... Dagon?!"
Because the figure before it was so different from the image in its memory, Jogo—despite the scent of the cursed energy being unchanged—was dazed for several moments before finally daring to make a judgment.
The newcomer was the one among the cursed spirits who had never officially shown its face: the one representing the ocean—Dagon.
It had previously been in its Cursed Womb state and thus had almost no direct combat ability, so it had always been well-protected by the remaining cursed spirits. The reason it had remained a Cursed Womb wasn't because it was weak, but because its total volume of cursed energy was so massive that it was trapped in that state, unable to hatch successfully.
After all, one only needs to imagine it: the concept of the ocean is clearly much vaster than things like volcanoes or forests, and human fear of the ocean has always far surpassed the former two. In terms of comparison, perhaps only Mahito—the cursed spirit representing human mutual hatred—could truly compare.
In Jogo's memory, the youngest, Dagon, should have always been that slightly cute, doll-like creature, but now it had transformed into a not-so-cute, burly man. The price of growth was vividly etched into its form.
"Don't move. I will get you out of here."
Dagon, holding Jogo in its arms, reminded it in a voice that Jogo found quite unfamiliar.
"Escape? No, that's not right!
With that guy here, it's impossible for the two of us to...!"
Realizing something was wrong, Jogo was only halfway through its sentence when Emiya's figure suddenly broke through a wave and appeared before the two of them.
"Found you."
BOOM!!!
Emiya, projecting an axe-sword with one hand, smashed the two cursed spirits back to their original position at an even faster speed. After tumbling dozens of times, Dagon finally halted their rout.
"I will stop him. Jogo, you run."
Dagon was still not very proficient in human speech, but the meaning it expressed was clear enough.
"You?! No, there's no way you can beat this guy!"
In Jogo's eyes now, Emiya's strength was already at the level of an irresistible monster. The only way to counter him was to successfully resurrect Ryomen Sukuna. Even if they fought with everything they had, it would be lucky if even one of them escaped.
Since it was already heavily injured, rather than let Dagon sacrifice itself to protect it, it would rather sacrifice itself to exchange for an opportunity. To achieve success, sacrifice is necessary... even if the person being sacrificed is itself, it didn't matter.
"No, I will protect you."
Dagon stood resolutely in front of Jogo, refusing to retreat a single step.
Perhaps cursed spirits really do possess emotions, but that was not something Emiya needed to care about.
"In that case... then you don't need to worry."
Emiya waved his hand slightly toward Itadori and the others, stating: "I'll handle this new cursed spirit. You just need to follow the original plan and defeat that other one.
Don't let me down."
Announcement!
Hello everyone, I'm VarieTL 😊
I'm happy to announce that I have posted 2 new Fanfiction!
You can find them in my second account VarieTL02(an account can only have a max of 20 fanfiction it seems)
Hikigaya and the Witches' Romantic Comedy
Hikigaya Hachiman, a high school student and staunch believer in celibacy, lives by the motto "Loneliness is freedom."
That's how it should be.
However, on his first day of high school, this motto is shattered.
A gyaru who transferred for him, an incredibly cute pink-haired girl sitting next to him who's always secretly watching him, a perfect superhero with long, straight black hair and an overflowing sense of justice, a childhood friend who always smiles and approaches him in a kimono, and that lone wolf with no boundaries…
Hikigaya Hachiman's daily life is completely disrupted.
Even more absurdly, all these girls are witches.
Crossover Oregairu/Manosoba (Magical Girl Witch Trials)
The Trash Returned from Warhammer
Shinji Ikari awakens in Neo Tokyo-2 with his memories and iron will as a Space Marine Librarian who served the Imperium for a century.
When a letter arrives from his estranged father, Gendo Ikari, summoning him to Neo Tokyo-3, Shinji ignores his past traumas. Instead, he interprets the summons as a holy mission from the God-Emperor. The former Astartes sets out to defend humanity once more, treating the events of Evangelion as his next theater of war.
Read ahead (60 chapters) by supporting me on buymeacoffee com/varietl or ko-fi edwriting