Frieren: Himmel — Chapter 180 - It's Actually! Mahoraga Unit Two!
Flashes of light burst across the city skyline in rapid succession.
BOOM! BLAST!
Light exploded again and again, each burst instantly swallowed by churning smoke.
Commercial buildings collapsed. Overpasses swayed violently under the tremors, their frames twisting out of shape. Shockwaves rolled in from every direction, stacking on top of each other. Scattered damage cascaded into wholesale collapse, dragging the entire city down with it.
BANG!
Another heavy impact. A black shadow punched through several office towers in a row and went hurtling into the distance, trailing a thin wake of pale dust.
The buildings tilted slowly, then crashed to the ground. Billowing plumes of gray-white dust rolled into the sky.
Sukuna hit the ground at almost the same moment the buildings did. The earth shook beneath him and his knees buckled, nearly dropping him entirely.
It wasn't that his balance had failed him. It was that his condition was simply that bad.
A large gash cut diagonally across his chest. Half his face was a ruin of blood and torn flesh. One arm hung limp at his side.
The fight with Mahoraga had lasted only a few minutes.
Sukuna was being taken apart.
CRACK-BOOM!
[Thud]
[Thud]
[Thud!]
The enormous white figure bulldozed straight through the heaped wreckage of collapsed office buildings, its footsteps unhurried, steady, closing the distance.
The two of them stood on an expressway bridge at the edge of the city. The gap between them kept narrowing.
(I did come into this with a playful mindset, but...)
Sukuna showed no fatigue. No fear. He kept watching Mahoraga with the same sharp, hungry interest.
(It's confirmed now.)
(Mahoraga's ability is, )
He raised a hand and flung a Dismantle at it.
SHING,!
The slash carved the ground apart down its entire path. Mahoraga faced the incoming strike head-on.
And stepped forward.
The invisible blade, moving faster than sound, sliced through its skin. A bloodline appeared instantly.
But...
[Thud]
Its foot came down. Mahoraga...
[Did not take a single step back.]
"An ability similar to the Yamata-no-Orochi. The Dharma Wheel represents absolute circulation and harmony."
"Continuously adapting to my attacks. The ultimate counterpunching insect fist."
"Heh... heh heh heh ha ha ha ha!"
Sukuna was delighted.
"Isn't this magnificent! Fushiguro Megumi!"
He kicked off the ground and charged. Mahoraga finally settled into a full combat stance.
SHING SHING SHING SHING!
Blade-light bloomed in every direction.
The thick concrete couldn't hold up under this. The surface was brutally gouged open, plowed into long furrows of varying depth. Grayish-white stone dust scattered the length of the road. The clean, flat pavement that Riben's urban engineers took pride in was reduced to a ravaged scar in seconds.
But once again, it was Sukuna who pulled back first.
He retreated, his body covered in wounds.
(As I thought. Mahoraga has already adapted to my Cursed Technique.)
(And in terms of raw physical ability, Mahoraga far outstrips my current state.)
Sukuna will lose.
That possibility echoed through everyone watching.
Uraume, observing from a distance, felt their whole chest clench, lips moving in a low, anxious murmur of Sukuna's name.
And even Sukuna himself...
(At this rate, I lose.)
Had reached the same conclusion.
[To defeat Mahoraga, one must end the fight in a single strike with absolute firepower, before it adapts to one's Cursed Technique.]
[But Sukuna, with only 7 fingers, relying on Reverse Cursed Technique and superhuman jujutsu skill to keep pace with Mahoraga at all, that is already his limit.]
[Even a full-power Dismantle would not be enough to kill Mahoraga.]
[Upon realizing this, the King of Curses felt genuine joy, from the bottom of his heart.]
[And in a very short time.]
[He arrived at the one and only answer.]
"Fushiguro Megumi. You've really done well."
It sounded like he was talking to himself. He wasn't. He was speaking to the Fushiguro Megumi trapped inside his own body.
Sukuna weaved through several of Mahoraga's slashes without urgency, carrying on the conversation.
"You're right that I can't defeat Mahoraga with Malevolent Shrine in this state."
"Mahoraga has nearly fully adapted to slashing attacks. The rest of this fight would just be the gap widening, one-sided."
"You wanted to stall me long enough for Gojo Satoru and Okkotsu Yuta to arrive. Didn't you."
"But it seems you — have underestimated curses."
Clap.
[Dragon Scale]
[Recoil]
Sukuna planted his feet and drove both hands upward in a crossing slash.
The incantation landed. The output spiked.
The strike couldn't deal real damage to Mahoraga, but it forced the creature back several meters.
And in the space that bought him...
Clap.
Sukuna closed his fist.
One above?
One below!
[An incarnated body, after overwriting the original host's body, forms new circuits.]
[Though it carries the imprint of the other's Cursed Technique, the two sets are completely independent.]
[Which means, ]
[Fushiguro Megumi's Ten Shadows and Sukuna's Ten Shadows are the same technique. But they are not the same set.]
[Sukuna can use the Ten Shadows on his own.]
"Buryura."
Maybe it was an illusion.
But even on the face of the Mahoraga that Fushiguro Megumi had summoned, there was something that looked like shock. It immediately tried to charge through the blades and stop him.
Sukuna's combat mind ran circles around Mahoraga.
CRACK,
The battle had left the entire bridge riddled with damage. And that final crossing slash Sukuna had unleashed wasn't aimed at Mahoraga.
It was aimed at the bridge beneath their feet.
When Mahoraga stamped down and lunged forward, the sheer force of it shattered the last intact connection point.
The bridge gave way. Mahoraga lost its footing.
In that sliver of time.
Sukuna finished the chant.
The speed of it surprised even him.
He felt it.
This body's abnormally high summoning proficiency.
"Yura Yura."
"Eight-Handled Sword, Divergent Sila Divine General... Mahoraga."
[!]
Steel frames buckled. The road surface caved. The entire bridge came down in sections, smoke and dust surging upward.
On either side of the wreckage.
Two colossal white deities stood facing each other.
BOOM!
The dust wave thrown up by the wreckage hitting the ground swirled around the 2 near-identical figures.
Mahoraga VS Mahoraga.
Starting now.
Submerged in the shadows below, Sukuna raised a hand to cover his face.
"Don't disappoint me, Mahoraga."
.
BOOM!
BOOM! BOOM!
The ferocity of the battle reached the clouds from somewhere far away.
Kusakabe finally tore free of the ice crystal.
He glanced over at Kuro Minashiro, who looked completely dead, gritted his teeth, and drew his blade. There was nothing else he could do but look around and try to think.
He genuinely had no moves left. He'd given everything this time and still gotten strung up and beaten to a pulp.
But the situation had changed.
What he could do now was,
"Kusakabe-sensei!"
He spun around. Itadori.
The boy had clearly sprinted here, his body visibly steaming with heat. Beside him stood a stern man in a black suit, holding a gavel.
Kusakabe didn't know who that was. But right now it didn't matter.
He took a deep breath.
"Right now, Sukuna has taken over Fushiguro's body! But before he went under, Fushiguro summoned the Ten Shadows' monster shikigami! He pulled Uraume and Sukuna into the subjugation ritual! And that thing called Mahoraga — its ability seems to be adapting to everything!"
"Sukuna couldn't beat it, so he summoned his own Mahoraga. Now the 2 monsters are fighting each other!"
He got it all out in one breath. Even Kusakabe got a headache just saying it.
What in the hell. Two creatures that adapt to everything are brawling it out? How much stronger does the world need to get?!
"Fushiguro, he...!" Itadori couldn't believe it.
Nobody could have seen this coming. Nobody could have predicted that Fushiguro Megumi would be Sukuna's target.
(No. Think. What do I do right now?!)
(I... I, )
"Hey." Higuruma's voice cut in from beside them, steady. "This isn't the time for that."
He pointed toward the 2 monsters.
"You've both been inside the Culling Games long enough that you might have forgotten, but Tokyo still has civilians in it."
"If those 2 shikigami keep going."
"They'll reach the populated areas soon."
"We have to stop them. Us."
Kusakabe sucked in a sharp breath.
"W— We?!"
➤ Next: Makora vs Makora