Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 103 - I Summoned Sukuna?
Megumi stared at the deformed monster before him.
Cold sweat dripped from his chin.
That pressure.
It wasn't on the same level as Jogo, whom he'd encountered on Mount Odokumo yesterday, but it was carrying at least sixty percent of that thing's strength.
"Delicious..."
The monster cocked its head. That lipless, gaping maw spat out garbled syllables.
"Tasty..."
BOOM!
Without warning, a surge of dense, almost tangible dark-green Cursed Energy erupted skyward from its body.
The surrounding iron pipes were crushed flat on the spot.
Megumi's pupils constricted.
He knew that texture. He knew it too well.
The Cursed Energy Yuta Okkotsu had erupted with on the training ground yesterday had this exact quality, viscous, saturated with despair.
Rika.
Inside this monstrous thing, a fragment of Rika Orimoto's Cursed Energy residue had been forcibly stitched in.
No wonder it was still in the Cursed Womb stage and already hit like a Special Grade. This wasn't a natural creature. It was something that had been force-fed into existence.
"Run!"
Megumi whipped around, tearing his throat raw.
"We're no match for it. Find an escape route!"
He was already fumbling for his phone as he shouted.
No signal.
The bars in the corner of the screen had gone completely dark.
The Innate Domain had sealed this place off from the outside world entirely. Two dimensions that would never intersect again.
Damn it.
Megumi's back teeth ached from grinding.
No way to call for help. They were locked in with it.
"Watch out!"
Yuji's shout cracked through the air.
The monster vanished.
The next second, a piercing shriek split the silence.
That pale, webbed claw appeared directly in front of Nobara Kugisaki's face.
Too fast.
Nobara had no time to swing her hammer. She could only jerk her head aside on instinct.
SHHK!
The claw grazed her shoulder and drew a spray of blood.
"Bastard, don't underestimate me!"
Gritting through the pain, Nobara backhanded a Cursed Energy-laced nail deep into the monster's arm.
"Straw Doll Technique: Resonance!"
A muffled thud.
The monster stalled for less than half a second.
Then the wound burst open, spewing a cloud of purple-black toxic mist directly into Nobara's face.
"Ugh..."
Nobara's eyes rolled back. The hammer slipped from her hand and hit the ground.
She crumpled, her entire body going limp, the exposed skin turning a deathly gray at a visible, stomach-dropping speed.
"Nobara!"
Yuji's eyes blazed blood-red. The muscles in his legs detonated.
"First Gate, Gate of Opening — open!"
Pink Cursed Energy and raw kinetic force ignited together in an instant.
Yuji launched himself like a cannonball and drove a full-force punch into the side of the monster's face.
BAM!
The monster skidded back over a dozen meters, shattering three water pipes.
It didn't matter.
It straightened up as if nothing had touched it, rolled its neck, and the massive dent across its face healed over in 2 seconds flat.
Super-speed regeneration.
Standard issue for a Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
"Don't go in alone! Yuji!"
Megumi ripped off his uniform jacket.
He knew. There was no walking away clean today.
He had to go all out. Even if all he managed was a single crack in the domain wall, he was getting Yuji and Nobara through it.
"Third Gate!"
Megumi crossed his hands. His knuckles cracked.
"Gate of Life — open!"
Green steam peeled off his skin in billowing clouds.
The surge of blood and qi scoured through him like it was stripping the flesh from his bones.
His hands flew through seals.
"Divine Dogs!"
"Nue!"
"Rabbit Escape!"
"Max Elephant!"
The shadows went wild.
High above, the massive Nue plunged down wrapped in lightning.
On the ground, hundreds upon thousands of rabbits crashed forward like a white tsunami, swallowing the monster whole and killing its sight lines.
Max Elephant came down from above with a sound that shook the whole space, its stout front hooves driving straight down onto the monster's skull.
"Smash it!"
Yuji used the shikigami as cover and launched himself into the air.
His knee, trailing a sonic boom, drove straight for the monster's throat.
BOOM!
Max Elephant's full weight from above. Yuji's knee at the absolute limit.
The floor of the entire area caved in.
Dust and smoke swallowed everything.
Megumi panted hard, eyes locked on the wreckage.
Did it work?
The blood and qi inside him churned furiously. The strain from the Gate of Life was pushing toward the edge.
3 minutes.
With his body the way it was, 3 minutes was the ceiling for Gate of Life.
"Hee hee hee..."
An eerily infantile laugh drifted up from the rubble.
A pulse of dark-green Cursed Energy, even more massive than before, detonated outward.
Max Elephant and Nue were hurled away by the blast.
The monster stood in the center of the destruction, completely untouched.
Not a single hair out of place.
Its pupil-less eyes locked onto Megumi.
"My turn now."
The monster spoke a complete sentence.
Then it was gone.
It's over.
Alarm bells screamed through Megumi's skull.
He had just started to raise his hand.
PFFT!
The Gate of Life's time ran out.
The backlash hit him like a wave breaking over a cliff. It swept through his entire body at once.
Megumi's vision went black. His legs buckled. He went straight down to his knees.
Every muscle seized and convulsed. He couldn't lift a single finger.
That pale claw expanded in his vision, rushing toward his heart.
So this is it.
The thought had barely formed.
A green figure crashed into his line of sight.
"Get out of the way!"
From some reserve he shouldn't have had left, Yuji threw himself between Megumi and the claw.
SHRRRK —
The sound of a blade tearing through flesh rang out sharp and ugly in the dead silence of the domain.
Scorching blood sprayed across Megumi's face.
Time stretched.
Megumi stared.
Yuji's left arm was severed clean at the root and sent spinning through the air.
His right leg below the knee was sheared off in a single smooth cut.
His body lost its footing and slammed down on top of Megumi.
"Ru... run..."
The pain had twisted Yuji's face into something unrecognizable. He had his teeth clenched so hard it looked like they might shatter.
Blood was pouring out of his mouth.
His remaining right hand pushed against Megumi's chest.
"Fushiguro... take Nobara... run..."
Megumi stopped breathing.
Something in his brain simply broke.
"You idiot...!"
His eyes flooded. Tears and Yuji's blood ran down his face together.
He had always known. His old man, that hot-blooded fool, carried a dream.
That man wanted to pass the Youth Taijutsu on, the one that had broken every rule the Jujutsu world thought was set in stone.
But he himself was a failure.
No matter how hard he trained, his body hit its ceiling and stayed there.
He was a waste who had to hide behind his Shadow Technique and let others do the real fighting.
Then this pink-haired idiot Yuji showed up.
The perfect inheritor.
The perfect disciple. The one person who could take his old man's Eight Gates and make them mean something.
Honestly.
Megumi had been jealous of Yuji.
Jealous that he could outrun a car without a drop of Cursed Energy. Jealous of how naturally his old man's techniques flowed through him.
But.
Every time he watched that idiot throw himself forward without holding a single thing back.
Every time Yuji turned and flashed him that stupid grin.
Megumi couldn't hold onto the jealousy.
He was just a genuinely likeable guy. It was infuriating in the least satisfying way possible.
And now.
To save a waste like him.
The one his old man had staked everything on, the most valuable thing the Jujutsu world didn't know it had, had been cut down to a stump.
If Yuji died here, what would his old man's face look like?
What would the Jujutsu world lose, and never get back?
The monster let out a piercing shriek and lifted that blood-soaked claw again.
Still aimed at their heads.
There was no dodging it.
His body was locked down by the backlash. He couldn't move at all.
Then something shifted in Megumi. He went quiet — unnervingly, completely quiet.
He looked at Yuji pinning him down, still spending his last scraps of strength trying to push him away to safety.
The corner of Megumi's mouth pulled into something that was uglier than crying.
So be it.
His old man's legacy was not going to end here.
"Yuji."
His voice was soft. But there was something underneath it that could cut bone.
"The Eight Gates. You need to carry them on."
He raised both hands with effort. His fingers interlocked.
"Yuji. Live."
Both hands curled into fists.
The seal was almost complete.
"No!"
Yuji felt the death coming off of Megumi like a physical thing.
He shook his head frantically. Tears spilled down his face.
"Fushiguro! Stop!"
Megumi's eyes didn't waver.
Yuji looked at the bone claw closing in, getting bigger by the second.
No time.
He couldn't save Fushiguro.
Not unless he used that.
He didn't hesitate for a single moment.
As long as he could save him.
Yuji threw open every door he had ever kept closed on his soul and roared.
"Don't underestimate... the bond between us!"
Deep within the Innate Domain.
The man seated on a throne of white bone snapped open four blood-red eyes.
"HAHAHAHA!"
Arrogant. Savage. Utterly untouchable. The laughter detonated from somewhere deep beneath the soul.
In the real world.
At the exact instant Megumi's seal was about to close,
BAM!
A thick hand swatted the nuisance brat out of the way.
Megumi flew several meters and hit the ground. He looked up.
Blank.
That wasn't Mahoraga.
That was the King of Curses. That was Ryomen Sukuna.
I summoned Ryomen Sukuna?!
Megumi Fushiguro stared in horror at the figure of Yuji before him.
The severed left arm and right leg were erupting with blinding purple-black light.
Blood reversed its flow. Bone and flesh rebuilt themselves.
In the span of a single breath, the severed limbs were whole again.
Dense black cursed markings crawled up Yuji's neck and spread across his face.
The clear eyes were gone. Blood-red filled them instead.
Two new eye slits cracked open beneath the corners of his eyes.
A malevolent pressure a hundred times greater than that deformed monster poured out of him, like a black hole made real, swallowing every trace of light in the domain in an instant.
That untouchable creature, the thing that had torn them apart without effort, was slammed flat to the ground by the sheer weight of that presence. Its whole body shook.
"Finally..."
He rose to his feet and rolled his regenerated shoulders.
Four blood-red eyes looked down at Megumi Fushiguro from above.
The corner of his mouth split open, wide as it would go.
"It's my turn."
➤ Next: Grotesque Crawlers, the Abyssal Mother