Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 36 - Throughout Heaven and Earth, I Alone Am the Honored One!

"Don't say that. Satoru's been muttering to himself in the dorm for days — he might actually have something up his sleeve." Suguru Geto chuckled and cracked open a can of cola.

Toji ignored the spectators entirely. His attention was locked on Satoru Gojo.

Excitement.

Pure, electric excitement.

Since crossing back, the only time he'd used his body at all was loosening up while exorcising a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit. This body of his, completely rebuilt by the Eight Gates Released Formation, had never once truly stretched its legs.

"You think you're safe hiding inside Limitless?" Toji walked toward Satoru Gojo one step at a time, his dress shoes crunching softly against the sandy ground. "Your cursed technique is genuinely troublesome. Right now, my fists can't punch through that conceptual distance."

Satoru Gojo scoffed.

"At least you know your place."

"But." Toji stopped 3 meters away. "Maintaining computation at that freak level puts an enormous strain on your brain. If I keep hammering your barrier with ultra-high-frequency physical attacks, your Cursed Energy bottoms out, and your brain burns out from the overload."

Toji bared his teeth.

"Ordinary training has already plateaued for you. So today, I've prepared a special 'Near-Death Experience Package.' The goal is simple: beat you unconscious. If you're scared, surrender now while you still can."

Satoru Gojo laughed.

He didn't step back. He spread his arms wide.

"Come on then. Last time I was careless. Today, if I retreat even half a step, I'll write my name backward."

Insane.

Suguru Geto watched Satoru Gojo's unhinged confidence and frowned.

What is Satoru actually planning? No matter how massive his Cursed Energy reserves, against Toji's pure physical barrage, Limitless absolutely won't hold.

"Fine."

Toji yanked his tank top off. Beneath it, an enviable set of eight-pack abs.

He closed both fists and crossed them over his chest.

The air around him went heavy.

Not the pressure of Cursed Energy. Something else entirely. A pure, twisting distortion born from life force swelling past its limits.

The sand and gravel on the ground began to stir without any wind, drifting slowly upward.

"What the hell is that..." Shoko's lollipop dropped from her mouth and hit the ground. She stiffened, fixed on the transformation consuming Toji's body.

A brilliant, heart-stopping green energy erupted from every pore of his skin, blazing like open flame.

Not Cursed Energy. Every sorcerer present could see that clearly.

It was something more primal. Physical potential wrung to its absolute limit and converted directly into a tangible, explosive force.

"First Gate: Gate of Opening! Open!"

"Second Gate: Gate of Rest! Open!"

Two deafening roars detonated from Toji's throat.

The raging green surge instantly became a physical gale, sweeping outward in every direction with Toji at its center.

The tree nearby, thick enough that three people couldn't wrap their arms around it, was ripped clean from the earth and hurled into the far wall.

Suguru Geto threw up a defensive Cursed Spirit and barely stayed on his feet.

Megumi got knocked across the ground, rolling twice before grabbing onto Suguru Geto's leg. His eyes never left his father at the center of the storm.

"Now we're talking." Satoru Gojo's hair whipped backward in the gale, but his eyes burned with terrifying brightness. "Show me everything you've got, you muscle-headed idiot!"

Toji raised his head slowly. Those eyes held nothing left but the pure desire to fight.

BOOM!

The green chakra surge doubled in an instant. The ground beneath Toji's feet caved with a thunderous crack, leaving a crater 5 meters across.

He didn't say another word.

Before the sound could even travel.

Toji vanished.

The next instant, a thick fist carrying a sonic boom that tore the air apart was pressed 2 centimeters from Satoru Gojo's face.

Limitless screamed.

Satoru Gojo's pale-blue pupils slammed shut to pinpoints, locked onto that fist wrapped in wild green force.

2 centimeters from the tip of his nose.

In that instant, 2 centimeters was wider than the Pacific Ocean.

The concept of Limitless churned frantically, trying to drag that horrifying kinetic force into the abyss of infinite deceleration.

Blocked? Satoru Gojo clenched his jaw. A needle-sharp pain lanced through the depths of his brain.

No.

The brilliant green chakra covering Toji's body exploded like boiling water.

Light strobed. His entire being became a streak of green lightning the naked eye couldn't track.

One punch can't break through? Then a hundred. A hundred isn't enough? A thousand.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

The sonic booms merged into one continuous death-roar. The hyper-compressed air around them ruptured in rapid succession.

Satoru Gojo's world was swallowed whole by a wall of wild green afterimages.

Toji's iron fists hammered from every angle in a 360-degree, no-blind-spot annihilation.

Each heavy punch against the barrier was like industrial vise grips twisting Satoru Gojo's cranial nerves.

Too fast. Too heavy.

To maintain absolute defense, the Six Eyes had to analyze every attack's trajectory and force within milliseconds, then direct Limitless to intercept. Every single one.

This green-skinned monster was using nothing but pure physical force to burn out Satoru Gojo's brain.

"Feel the pain of youth, brat!" Toji's beast-like roar tore through the sonic booms. "Don't you dare fold on me! This is the near-death experience you wanted!"

Satoru Gojo's jaw was locked. He couldn't speak.

His brain felt like it was about to boil. His vision fractured into layers of ghost images. His eardrums rang with nothing but high-pitched detonations.

Something warm and sticky flooded backward from his nasal passage into his throat. The taste of rust coated the back of his tongue instantly.

Not just his nose. Blood was pouring from the corners of his eyes, from his ear canals. His Cursed Energy was draining at the speed of a waterfall in freefall.

This green-skinned gorilla is actually going to kill me.

Surrender?

Fuck surrender. I'm Satoru Gojo.

If I get beaten into begging for mercy again by this zero-Cursed-Energy monkey uncle using taijutsu, how the hell do I ever show my face again?

Suguru and Shoko will never let me live it down.

Under the shade of the tree, the iced cola in Shoko Ieiri's hand hit the ground with a crack.

"Hey, Suguru." Shoko was on her feet, voice tight. "Satoru's in trouble. He's bleeding from all 7 orifices. His brain load has already crossed the lethal threshold."

Suguru Geto's brows were locked in a hard knot. The shadows at his feet churned wildly. The Rainbow Dragon's massive body was already coiled taut, ready to explode forward.

"Fushiguro-sensei! That's enough!" Suguru Geto's shout cracked sharp through the air as he moved to charge into the green storm.

"Stay back!"

Satoru Gojo's voice was raw and broken, screaming back with everything he had. "Nobody interfere! I haven't lost yet!"

"Now that's what I like to hear!"

Toji's laughter split the air, feverish and unhinged, wild enough to make your scalp crawl. "Then I'll give you exactly what you asked for!"

BANG!

Toji's right leg snapped back. The rock beneath his foot pulverized to dust.

Green chakra surged into his right arm like a tsunami. Muscle fibers swelled to the edge of tearing. Veins bulged and writhed beneath the skin like black serpents.

This was no sparring move.

This was a killing blow. The kind that splits mountains.

CRACK!

A clean, sharp sound exploded beside Satoru Gojo's ear.

His Limitless barrier shattered completely.

Spiderweb fractures crawled across every inch of its surface in an instant, then burst apart into a cascade of drifting light.

It was gone.

The lethal gale tore the skin of his cheek open. Blood beads were shredded by the air current before they could even form. The shadow of death pressed flat against Satoru Gojo's chest.

Any other time, he would have squeezed out every last drop of Cursed Energy to patch Limitless back together. He'd have taken the punch even if it burned his brain to ash.

But his overloaded brain had crashed.

Satoru Gojo closed his eyes.

In an instant, the roaring, the wind, Suguru Geto's shouts — everything stripped away.

Dead silence. Only his heartbeat, hammering against his ribs.

Thump. Thump.

What is Cursed Energy? Negative emotions. Resentment. Fear. Killing intent.

Born for destruction.

Then what is Reverse Cursed Technique?

Not addition. Not subtraction.

Multiplication.

Take the most nauseating negative emotions. Crash them together. Tear them apart. Grind them to nothing.

Negative times negative equals positive.

He had it.

The corner of Satoru Gojo's mouth pulled into a manic grin.

In the deepest reaches of his mind, two torrents of negative Cursed Energy, each wound past the breaking point, were ripped out and slammed together under the direction of Limitless.

No explosion.

From the heart of that collision, a ceaseless, warm, pure positive energy burst free.

Reverse Cursed Technique, activated.

It hit his nearly scorched brain stem like a dam breaking.

Severed neural synapses. Burst microvessels. They reconnected and sealed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The tinnitus was gone. The pain dissolved.

Satoru Gojo's eyes snapped open.

His pale-blue Six Eyes blazed with a divine light that pierced through everything.

The bleeding stopped cold. The gash across his cheek sealed shut in an instant, without leaving so much as a white scar.

BOOM!

A dull, world-shaking impact.

Toji's killing blow, a punch that could flatten a tank, stopped dead in mid-air.

It did not touch Satoru Gojo's chest.

A hand, pale and slender with sharp-defined knuckles, had closed around Toji's exploding wrist and held it.

The raging green energy wave and the freshly reset Limitless crushed against each other at the point of contact, whipping a tornado up from the ground between them.

Satoru Gojo caught the punch with one hand.

He hadn't retreated half a step. His shoulders hadn't even shifted.

Toji's pupils contracted to a point.

The feedback from his fist was completely different. Not hitting a barrier. Something clamped down on him, a flawless, absolute force with no gap to find.

Every trace of weakness and near-death was gone from the boy in front of him. What replaced it sent a chill crawling up the spine — a sense of absolute, terrifying wholeness.

"So that's it." Toji's shock lasted half a second. "You've awakened."

He twisted his fist, broke the grip, and stepped back fast.

Then a laugh exploded from his throat, bigger and more unhinged than anything before.

"Well done! That is the miracle of youth! God, I actually want to beat you half to death right now!"

Satoru Gojo's body lifted from the ground.

He looked down at Toji from above. His pale-blue eyes held nothing but absolute arrogance and total command.

"Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honored one."

➤ Next: Gate of Life Erupts — The Ferocious Blade That Tears Infinity