Frieren: — Chapter 101 - Ryomen Sukuna, A Grand and Glorious Birth!
Just by manifesting, Orimoto Rika completely demolished the school building reinforced by Barrier Techniques, her height reaching an unprecedented twenty meters and still rising.
Jagged rubble blasted through the sky in every direction, rampaging and colliding like a swarm of meteorites hammering into the earth.
On one of those scattered fragments, Itadori Kaori barely clung on.
Through the ragged curtain of smoke, the youngest Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer of the modern era and the most heinous Curse User in history locked eyes.
The one who moved first,
was the former.
"Rika."
Calm. Crisp.
He raised his palm. With the direction Okkotsu's finger pointed as the firing port, Cursed Energy compressed in an instant.
BOOM!
Pitch-black turned to dark purple in a heartbeat.
Then, fired.
FWOOSH,!.
Light refracted through its medium like a blade carving through space, spiraling, accelerating, rapidly expanding in Itadori Kaori's vision.
Scalding, violent wind pressure flooded her entire field of view in an instant.
"!."
The beam of light punched straight through her body.
She stared at the greater half of her obliterated flesh, eyes blown wide.
(So fast..... I couldn't react at all.)
[Accompanying Okkotsu and Rika's "Re-contract"]
[Because the mood of Okkotsu as "Master" was soaring, the Special Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit Orimoto Rika, after Complete Manifestation,]
[Once again, raised her output and precision.]
"Mr. Larue! Itadori-kun!"
Having cleanly stripped Kenjaku of combat capability, Okkotsu's composed expression shattered. He went frantic.
He stood on Rika's shoulder. Rika held Itadori in one hand and cradled Larue in the other giant palm.
Itadori's body was uninjured, so Okkotsu prioritized Larue.
Reverse Cursed Technique, Output.
With his Cursed Energy reserves, pulling someone from the edge of death back to stable was well within reach.
Worth restating: Reverse Cursed Technique consumes far more than any conventional technique to begin with. Outputting it externally carries terrible efficiency, which means the cost multiplies. To drag someone back from the brink would be enough to completely drain a Semi-Grade 1 Sorcerer's total reserves.
But for Okkotsu,
he felt nothing.
"Haibara-san..... even now, I'm still grateful you were willing to reach out to me back then."
He kept talking while he healed. "Even if everything was a lie, the salvation I felt in that moment was real. And it was because of you that I got to meet Manami-san, Mr. Larue, and Mr. Miguel."
"But....."
The reverse healing ended.
Larue was almost completely renewed.
And Okkotsu pressed his hand over his own face.
His fingers tightened, gradually.
Red marks pressed into his skin.
"You actually.... dared to hurt my comrades........"
His pupils dilated. Bloodshot veins crawled across them.
"On this matter alone — I..... cannot forgive you!."
He raised his hand again.
A contorted expression. An anger he could no longer contain.
Directed Cursed Energy output. One more strike, and the enemy's combat capability would be gone completely.
The youngest Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer.
The most heinous Curse User in history.
A single instant was all it would take.
.
BOOM,!.
But in the next moment, a biting wind scraped across the side of Okkotsu's face.
The atmosphere changed.
Pain hit. Okkotsu's expression shifted, and the Cursed Energy building in his hand was cut off.
Blood scattered into the air, along with several white claw tips.
[AAAAAHHHH!]
"Rika!"
The Cursed Queen screamed in pain and reeled backward. Okkotsu's eyes snapped to the source of the attack.
A hand.
Rika's hand.
That was..... where Itadori was.
"Heh."
There..... at some point, an unimaginably dense mass of Cursed Energy had accumulated.........
Plop.
"Itadori Yuji" landed back on the ground after severing Rika's fingers, head hanging low, body trembling without stop.
And then...
"Heh... haha heh hehe hahahahahahahahaha!"
Incoherent. Manic.
"Itadori-kun...."
Okkotsu stared in disbelief at that familiar face.
The once easygoing, gentle face was completely broken now. Brutal. Ferocious.
For a moment, he could almost see something behind Itadori, a delusory crimson bleeding across his entire vision, no horizon, no boundary between sky and earth. Only blood, thick and congealed, flooding in. The limbs of the dead tangled and piled, stacked into uneven mountains, high and low.
Dense beyond count. Endless and infinite.
"Ugh!"
Cursed Energy so utterly vile it could strip a person of the will to resist, yet Okkotsu showed a calm that had no business belonging to someone his age.
His face, still slightly twisted from the anger of moments ago, now absorbed a few shades of stillness from that viscous killing intent. His eyes stayed fixed on Itadori.
"You're not Itadori-kun...... who — are you?"
No answer.
Itadori tore the sports hoodie from his body and discarded it. His five fingers extended pitch-black claws, gripping his entire face.
"Haah —"
His palm covered his brows and eyes. He dragged it downward along the contours of his cheeks, hard.
As his skin and flesh were pulled taut, a sinister grin bloomed at the corner of his lips.
"Haha! Hahaha!"
A series of wet, squelching sounds. Then compound eyes opened across Itadori's face, madness and arrogance that scorned everything swimming in those eyeballs. Mocking brutality tore through his throat:
"Not bad! Truly not bad! Is this a new era?!"
"Women! Where are the children?!"
The unbridled voice made the air tremble. Every move, every gesture, reeked of heedless, deranged superiority.
"That is...."
Okkotsu's knowledge of the Jujutsu world was shallow. But even a student who had studied for only a week would recognize those compound eyes and arrive at the same guess.
Black markings. Extra eyes.
The traces of Incarnation.
He had been possessed by a Cursed Object.
And whatever had taken him, with that outrageous Cursed Energy, was clearly......
The most wicked Curse in history.
The most powerful Curse to ever exist.....
"Oh my."
Controlling Itadori Yuji, He looked back at the enraged Rika and the boy staring him down.
"Women and children, they're both right here, aren't they~"
[The King of Curses]
[Ryomen Sukuna]
[A Grand Entrance!]
.
.
Rika had torn the school building to rubble.
Atop the ruins, Sukuna shredded what remained of Itadori Yuji's hoodie and tossed it aside, then surveyed his surroundings with open arrogance.
He fixed his gaze on Okkotsu first, a gleam of interest lighting in his eyes. Then he tilted his head and cackled toward Itadori Kaori in the wreckage, "Those suture lines... are you Kenjaku? You bastard really know how to get things done, huh..... wait."
He stopped mid-sentence. His eyes narrowed slightly. The wild grin pulled back by half.
"You..... ah. So that's what happened."
Sukuna had seemed ready to banter with an old acquaintance. That interest died on the spot.
He withdrew his gaze and looked back at Okkotsu.
"Brat. You, and that Cursed Spirit over there..... names?"
The grin returned. He raised his hand and beckoned with a lazy finger.
"So you're the sorcerer of this era? I'll use you to warm up first~ Then I'll go slaughter everyone in this city."
"Rika, back me up."
No intention of conversation.
White steam hissed through Okkotsu's teeth. He forced down the irritation that had been screaming inside him since this started. But the depths of his eyes were already churning with something unhinged.
One after another.....
They all want to lay a hand on my friends...... don't screw with me...........
The modern prodigy and the strongest in history, facing each other.
[Zero-point-one seconds]
Both minds ran at full speed.
(The brat in front of me... an incredible volume of Cursed Energy, even exceeding my own when I was alive? No. That's unlikely. My case was a special one. A human with no mutation can't reach that level of Cursed Energy.)
Sukuna studied Okkotsu with amused curiosity.
(This guy.... is it a Binding Vow he relies on?)
(Interesting.)
He raised his hand, nails stained pitch-black, clenching it slightly, then relaxing. Getting a feel for the flesh.
(Let's have a taste, then~)
.
(Sukuna's Cursed Energy reserves are less than mine. But I haven't seen anyone except Himmel-sensei damage Rika in Complete Manifestation with something that straightforward.)
(His Cursed Energy output is astonishing. Slashing-type technique, I think... I didn't get a clean look. If this is Sukuna, how much of his full strength does he actually have right now?)
(But..... with Reverse Cursed Technique, there should be room to probe.)
Clack.
Okkotsu raised his sword. His gaze swept the ground below.
(I don't sense Manami-san's presence. This Curtain...... is it the type that lets people pass through freely? Then news of what's happening in here should have already reached outside.)
(Whatever preparations Haibara-san has made, with both Himmel-sensei and Gojo-sensei outside, any prolonged fight ends with us at an absolute advantage.)
(But....)
Okkotsu gritted his teeth.
(Is this really okay?)
(Leaving everything to the teachers..... this incident started because of me. Because of this power, I was targeted and used by Haibara-san.......)
He closed his eyes.
The teachers' care, everything they had done for him until now, flashed through his mind.
He reached his conclusion,
(I can't let those two carry everything alone.)
So,
The boy opened his eyes.
Sukuna: Right here,
Okkotsu: This bastard,
((Kill him!))