Frieren: Himmel — Chapter 185 - If You Don't Arrive at the Very Last Moment, the Hero's Landing Pose Is Compl...
BOOM!
BOOM!
What do people see when death is closing in?
That thing they call your life flashing before your eyes?
Itadori Yuji saw it.
A father whose face had blurred with time. A birth mother whose features were clear but left him with a feeling he couldn't name. A grandfather who was strict, demanding, and never once failed him.
Childhood sightseeing in Iwate.
The precious, ordinary days with his classmates.
And probably the deepest of all, the time at Jujutsu High.
Fushiguro, who always said the opposite of what he meant. Nobara, who acted like nothing bothered her but was surprisingly gentle when it counted. Gojo-sensei, who never stopped acting like a child but somehow kept a firmer moral line than anyone. Himmel-sensei, who held everyone in without effort, steady as an open sky.
Nanami-sensei. Okkotsu-senpai. The second-years.
Itadori Yuji's life was made of other people.
He was saying goodbye to each of them, one by one. All he could do was,
"Idiot! Like I'd let some brat go throw his life away!"
Behind him, Kusakabe grabbed his shoulder hard.
"Listen. We are Jujutsu Sorcerers, not heroes of justice. We're stalling Mahoraga because letting that fight run unchecked would level Tokyo. But when it starts costing us our lives, that's a different conversation entirely!"
"You're still young! Follow my lead! We're pulling back, now—"
"Kusakabe-sensei."
Itadori cut him off.
His eyes hadn't moved from the battlefield once.
"I know I'm not a hero of justice."
"But right now... I can't run. If I do..." He paused. "I won't even understand why I became a Jujutsu Sorcerer anymore."
He shoved Kusakabe's hand aside and jumped.
His feet hit the slope and broke through the surface. Sand and soil swept past his clothes. Loose clods of dirt scattered behind him as his body picked up speed, faster than he could control.
The moment he landed in the basin, Itadori Yuji was already moving forward at a full stride.
Slow to fast. Fast to afterimage.
Light stretched long. The world fell away behind him.
"OHHHHHHH!"
Just before Mahoraga swung its blade down to cut through Hakari Kinji and Miguel,
"Black Flash!"
One big step. One punch.
The boy genuinely had a gift.
Under concentrated focus, the probability of those black sparks choosing him was far higher than for anyone else alive.
Brute force at the level of a Grade 1 Sorcerer, amplified through Cursed Energy, drove straight into Mahoraga's jaw.
CRACK!
The Cursed Energy burst apart on impact, scattering like invisible air pockets detonating across Mahoraga's skin.
BOOM!
That single punch flattened its jaw and knocked Mahoraga back an entire step, its body stumbling without control.
"Itadori!"
"Senpai — get Miguel out of here!"
Itadori planted his feet.
He squared off against the second Mahoraga and settled into a Jeet Kune Do stance. Textbook-clean.
The second Mahoraga looked at this new threat and answered the same way it answered everything: a simple, direct punch.
A straight right.
But the wind pressure behind it hit like an avalanche.
As the fist closed in, Itadori stepped diagonally left, just a small step. His entire body slid off the attack axis. He waited until the blow went completely wide, then snapped his waist to the right and drove his rear left fist forward in a hook aimed at the side of Mahoraga's jaw.
BAM!
No Black Flash this time. But Mahoraga's body rocked.
Itadori was already pulling back, his pulse hammering.
(Damn, I couldn't chain another Black Flash.)
If any other Jujutsu Sorcerer found out that Itadori was actually trying to intentionally string Black Flashes together, they'd all laugh themselves sick. All of them except Todo, Himmel, and Gojo Satoru.
Because Black Flash is a spatial distortion. It happens when the gap between the physical impact and the Cursed Energy surge falls within 0.000001 seconds. That's it. That's the whole mechanism.
At its core, it's a physics problem.
It has less to do with strength or how much Cursed Energy you have. It cares about timing.
For nearly everyone, that timing is luck.
But Itadori Yuji had been feeling something, vague and persistent.
[That he could reach out and catch that "luck" himself.]
Come on. I've got both of them.
Itadori pulled aggro off both Mahoragas and took a breath.
The first one came straight at him again, a blunt, linear drive. Itadori's feet shifted underneath him and he slid out along the edge of the fist wind like a fish through current, just barely clear as the massive fist cratered the ground beneath him.
Gravel and dust exploded outward. Mahoraga couldn't stop its momentum, its body lurching forward.
Itadori took the opening. He stepped onto its knee, jumped, grabbed the muscle ridge at its shoulder, and started climbing the thing like it was a hill.
Then the second Mahoraga threw a punch.
BAM!
It hit the first Mahoraga square in the back. The first one let out a sound. Itadori used the broad back muscles beneath him as a platform and kicked out hard.
In a normal PE class, that kick could put a soccer ball from his school's field all the way into the municipal gymnasium. With Cursed Energy behind it, it sent the second Mahoraga staggering.
Agile as a monkey. Precise, controlled, and still hitting hard.
Itadori Yuji's talent was genuinely something else.
But.
"That's... not going to work."
Miguel had barely scraped back a shred of consciousness. Hakari Kinji was holding him up at the edge of the battlefield. He looked back and said it quietly.
And the battlefield seemed to agree.
Step.
The second Mahoraga had stumbled back from the kick, retreating several steps. But the first one, the one that had seemed clumsy moments ago, twisted its whole body and threw Itadori off.
The fist that could punch through reinforced concrete had only been the opening bell.
It had lit Mahoraga's instincts up.
The first Mahoraga brought the Sword of Extermination down in a sweeping cut. Itadori backpedaled with shuffle steps, slipped sideways, and at one point ducked directly between its legs.
He gave it everything.
Let his brain burn. Let it boil.
Adrenaline kept the engine running, kept pulling superhuman moments out of his body, one after another.
But the things he was facing were two supreme monsters.
In the moment Itadori dodged the second Mahoraga's downward smash with a lunge, then immediately pushed off its chest into a backflip,
The first Mahoraga faked.
It wound up for a punch, then stomped forward and used the reaction force to kill its own momentum, and swung its sword from that awkward half-committed stance.
Fast, precise, and vicious. And the blade behind it didn't just cut through iron, that description didn't come close.
Itadori's heart shot into his throat.
No way out.
He threw both arms forward. He'd lose one arm. That was fine. As long as he could take the hit.
But not everyone standing at the edge of the battlefield was just watching.
"AAAARGH! I've had ENOUGH of this!"
CLANG!
Two pieces of metal crashed together so hard the blades rang for seconds afterward.
"Kusakabe-sensei!" The relief in Itadori's voice was raw.
"Don't just stand there yelling! Get your head back in it — or we die here together!"
Kusakabe was already moving, his expression grim, his sword swinging.
Both feet dug into the ground. The air around him shifted, a domain of faint fluorescent light spreading outward.
[New Shadow Style: Simple Domain]
His wrist turned, the long sword slashing in clean horizontal and vertical arcs.
Arc after arc of cold, hard light wove together in front of him, the sound of split air layering into a continuous roar.
Countless cold shadows scraped shallow marks across the first Mahoraga's body and pushed it back.
Kusakabe held the title of the strongest Grade 1 Sorcerer. Against someone like Uraume, he couldn't do much. But in close quarters, his swordwork was more than enough.
Itadori let out a breath when he saw Kusakabe. He turned his focus back to the second Mahoraga.
(It's fine.)
(Just one... I'm not at the senpais' level, but a minute or two? I can do that.)
(I just need to stay alive long enou, )
"!"
His thinking stopped.
Because the Mahoraga in front of him was...
Step. Step.
Starting to dance.
"...It's here." Itadori's whole body locked up.
[Mahoraga, before its summoning ends, retains every result of its "adaptation."]
And the second Mahoraga, to overwhelm Miguel, had already learned to use rhythm as a weapon.
Layered on top of a body that was already physically superior to Itadori's in every measurable way.
BOOM!
Thick radial speed lines tore the image apart.
Mahoraga closed the distance in an instant.
Its shape swelled in Itadori's vision. The fist wrapped in howling air came straight at his face, filling his pupils, getting bigger, bigger,
The knotted sinews on the back of that hand. The air buzzing and humming as it was compressed by the fist wind.
Itadori Yuji couldn't react.
Point-blank. Nowhere to go.
(Damn, )
It hit him in the face.
Itadori became a cannonball and buried himself into the earthen wall.
"Itadori!"
Kusakabe screamed, but the first Mahoraga was already bringing its blade down again.
[Simple Domain]
The domain Kusakabe had modified to fire automatic counters caught it for him, and his blade went out.
A silver-white arc. The sound of steel cutting air, enveloping Mahoraga.
But as the sword swung, Kusakabe's face shifted. The expression got stranger, then stranger, and then all the blood left it.
Because he'd remembered.
The first Mahoraga.
[~~]
The great white god bared all its teeth. A healthy grin.
[Had long since "adapted" to slashing attacks.]
BOOM!
Another body hit the earthen wall hard enough to shake the ground.
Itadori felt the tremor through the earth beneath him and came back, slow and swimming.
He was on his stomach. He didn't know when that had happened. His head screamed at him. His face was pressed into the rough dirt. Half his field of vision was red. The other half was a churning smear of colors.
BOOM. BOOM.
Something heavy. Getting closer.
(Right... I was... fighting...)
Survival instinct was stitching his memory back together fast.
He'd been fighting Mahoraga. And in the final instant before the punch hit his face, some part of him had dropped his knees and leaned into it. He'd moved to meet the fist before it could finish accelerating, let his skull absorb the blow instead of his face taking the full committed impact.
That was the last calculation a combat genius made when life and death were the same distance apart.
It was the right call.
It wasn't enough.
The sheer force had still broken something in Itadori's skull. His cranium was nearly shattered. Blood was soaking through his scalp. He couldn't get up.
His fingers twitched. His fingertips moved against the ground. He couldn't feel anything.
It was over.
(That last hit... did Kusakabe-sensei lose too?)
Mahoraga had grown faster than anyone imagined.
(Am I... going to die?)
.
(Good.)
Deep in the shadows, Sukuna exhaled slowly and narrowed his eyes.
(If Mahoraga can push Itadori Yuji to the edge of death, I might be able to take his body.)
(Extract my fingers from where they're stored as cursed objects. Stuff them back into Fushiguro Megumi's body.)
(That gets my strength back to 17 fingers.)
(Then I deal with Mahoraga myself.)
That was the plan of Sukuna, the King of Curses.
He'd been standing in the abyss and found a way out anyway.
But as he was running the numbers, something snagged his attention.
(Tch.)
Sukuna clicked his tongue.
(The one who likes to ruin things... is he about to show up?)
(The plan... may need adjusting.)
.
[In the Distance]
"!"
"Big brother?"
"Big brother! What's wrong — why'd you just stop?"
The eldest of the three brothers of the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings had been in the middle of running. Then Choso suddenly stopped cold and whipped his head around.
"Wait. Something — something's wrong."
His face had been hard and controlled a moment ago. Now cold sweat was pouring down the side of his forehead.
"I feel... I... AAAHHHH!"
[Inside Choso's Mind]
[Memories that should not exist, surged in.]
.
[On the Battlefield]
None of it mattered.
Nothing anyone thought or felt outside this place could stop Mahoraga from walking forward.
BOOM. BOOM.
Slow. Heavy.
The footsteps of something coming to finish the job.
Itadori could just barely make out Mahoraga's shins.
But he wasn't particularly afraid. That surprised him a little.
Maybe he was just too tired.
Or maybe it was because,
(I stalled this long already...)
(Should be about time...)
"Sen... sei..."
[If you ever end up somewhere where people you have to protect are right behind you, and you have no choice but to fight, but you can't win, call out your teacher's name.]
[Will the teacher actually show up?]
[I'll get there as fast as I can!]
The second Mahoraga bent its knees.
Raised its fist.
That thick arm threw a shadow down over Itadori's entire body.
There was no dodge left. The sorcerers at the edge of the battlefield would never close the distance in time.
Under normal circumstances.
[!]
Mahoraga's fist stopped.
It jerked its head up toward the sky.
All around, the battle had reduced things to rubble. Broken walls and collapsed structures stretched in every direction. Jagged edges of wreckage tilted up toward the sky like severed limbs still reaching.
But in the strongest Shikigami's perception, there was only one thing in the sky.
A dying sun. Hanging at the edge of the horizon, soaking the clouds a deep, heavy crimson.
And that sun, it seemed like it was getting closer.
No. That wasn't,
HUM,!,
The sound started low and built fast, boring straight into the eardrums.
Blinding light swallowed the entire field of view.
Mahoraga's body was already starting the motion to evade. It didn't matter. The beam wrapped around its massive frame completely before it could finish.
BOOM,!
The light didn't stop. It swept forward in a hard diagonal.
The earth split open. Walls of compressed air rolled out toward both sides of the trench. The light finally bled away at the basin's edge, the last of the airflow going quiet.
Tap.
A figure dropped from above and landed without a sound.
Itadori Yuji could see the edge of a wide cloak.
"Teacher..."
His voice came out small and exhausted and a little wronged.
"Next time... could you come a little sooner?"
"I'm sorry. Truly."
That clear, familiar voice settled in front of him.
The cloak moved in the air.
Something about that presence made his chest unclench.
That was,
[One of Jujutsu High's Strongest Teachers]
[The Hero, Himmel]
[Enters the Battlefield]
HUM,
A forest-green light wrapped around Itadori's body. His wounds sealed themselves closed.
Himmel healed Itadori in [Priest] mode, then turned and looked at what was waiting for him.
HISS!
"Built like a wall, aren't they."
He said it almost admiringly.
From the moment he'd gotten the message, he'd flown the whole way here in [Mage] state and opened with a [Killing Magic] blast straight down from the sky.
And the result:
On Mahoraga's perfect, dense skin, there were faint scorch marks. A thin haze of heat was rising along its muscle lines, curling upward in slow wisps.
The heat across its whole body was still visible as Mahoraga turned its attention toward Himmel.
"Give me a second."
Without waiting for a response, the cross on his back began to turn. Himmel raised one hand. A second beam fired past the second Mahoraga directly in front of him and hit the first one, sending it flying.
His shape blurred.
Tap.
Somehow, the unconscious Kusakabe and Itadori were both in his arms.
[?]
The second Mahoraga hadn't tracked the movement. Maybe that was why, for just a moment, it actually stepped back half a step.
Then it steadied itself.
[.......~]
Same teeth.
Same grin.
[So. This time, it's you?]
That's what the look said.
"Ah."
The first Mahoraga climbed back to its feet, uninjured by the beam. It fixed its gaze on the [Stella Cross] turning behind Himmel.
Himmel looked back at the two Mahoragas. At the Dharma wheels rotating above their heads.
"Well then. Since you had the nerve to put your hands on my students—"
[CLANG]
"I hope you're ready for this."
As the words left his mouth, the [Cross] behind the Hero...
turned.
➤ Next: The Strongest Battle Scars, Etched into Ikebukuro