Chapter 127 - Megumi Fushiguro's Domain

The fighting had reached this level. The casualties were severe. Was the monitoring room blind? Why hadn't they forcibly ended the match? Could it be that even a monster of this caliber was being treated as just another part of their test? These adults were completely irresponsible. Monitoring room. The wall of screens showed peaceful, undisturbed footage. Toji Fushiguro was doing a handstand in the corner.

One index finger. Full bodyweight. He knocked out one-finger push-ups at a rapid clip, counting quietly. Satoru Gojo's chair was empty. Half a dessert wrapper sat on the table. He'd slipped out ages ago to line up for some limited-edition sweets. Yoshinobu Gakuganji sat in his armchair and took a contented sip of hot tea.

In the real forest, the stench of blood was sharp enough to gag. Megumi Fushiguro looked at Yuji and Maki lying in their own blood and understood. No rescue was coming. Then they would die together. His hands came together on instinct, fingers beginning to form that seal. If he could drag this monster into the Taming Ritual.

Even if he was torn apart, they would go down together. Then a scene flashed through his mind.

"Always so quick to throw your life away. You think this old man's sweat and iron fists taught you nothing?"

Toji Fushiguro's maddening grin filled his vision. Then came the knuckle rap. Hard, square on top of his head.

"Remember this, Megumi. True youth is fighting with everything you have to stay alive. Not dragging an enemy down with you. If you don't even want to survive, what damn Eight Gates are you going to open?"

Megumi Fushiguro's hands froze. His old man hadn't ground them into the dirt day and night to watch them throw themselves away. The scene shifted. Satoru Gojo, blindfold on, tossing a piece of chalk and catching it.

"Megumi, you always treat your Shikigami like they're separate from you."

He tapped his own temple. "The pinnacle of jujutsu is the Domain. Inside a Domain, you are the rule itself. Stop thinking. Use instinct. Feel the end of the shadows."

Domain. Megumi Fushiguro looked down at the pool of shadow beneath his feet. Shadows weren't boxes to store Shikigami. The shadow was him. The Long-Horned Cursed Spirit had closed to three meters. Its pitch-black claws rose high.

"Dodge!" Noritoshi Kamo screamed from behind.

Megumi Fushiguro didn't move. He released the seal for Mahoraga. The index and middle fingers of both hands crossed into a shape he had never used before. All of his Cursed Energy sank. Every last drop fed into the shadow beneath his feet.

"Domain Expansion."

He raised his head. Across a face covered in blood, a completely unhinged grin split wide.

"Chimera Shadow Garden!"

Black shadow erupted from under his feet. Within thirty meters, the forest floor became a viscous, churning black ocean in an instant. Yuji's eyes went wide. The students from Tokyo and Kyoto gaped.

"Megumi awakened a Domain?!"

The Long-Horned Cursed Spirit stepped onto nothing. Its massive body sank straight down, half a meter deep into the shadow. It thrashed its arms, raging, trying to wrench its legs free.

"Inside my Domain," Megumi Fushiguro said, hands locked in the seal, "don't get cocky."

RIBBIT.

Hundreds of enormous winged toads burst from the black shadow. A writhing mass of tongues snapped around the Cursed Spirit's limbs and throat in an instant. The monster roared. It surged with force and snapped a dozen tongues clean through. More toads piled in without hesitation, filling every gap.

"Pin it down!" The corners of Megumi Fushiguro's eyes split open. Blood ran down his chin.

Above. A massive pink Max Elephant dropped out of nowhere. It came down with crushing, merciless weight and slammed into the Cursed Spirit's back.

BOOM.

The Long-Horned Cursed Spirit's knees buckled. It was driven straight down into the shadow mire.

"Stop standing there — go, now!" Megumi Fushiguro roared.

The shout snapped everyone out of it.

"Nice work, Fushiguro!"

Yuji Itadori launched off a pile of broken rubble. Inside him, the Eight Gates had pushed his body to its absolute limit. Muscles tearing. Bones creaking under the strain. He drove every ounce of rampaging power through his entire body and condensed it into the knuckles of his right fist. Feeling each cell breathe.

Pinned under Max Elephant's crushing weight, the Cursed Spirit forced its head up and spat a pitch-black blast of Cursed Energy straight at Yuji's face. The distance was nothing.

CLAP.

A crisp crack of palms rang through the trees. Aoi Todo, shirtless, pressed his hands together.

"Don't forget about me, monster."

Boogie Woogie, activated. Yuji Itadori vanished. The black energy blast hit a swapped-in toad and detonated it into a shower of blood and flesh. Yuji appeared directly above the Cursed Spirit.

"Eight Gates — Black Flash!"

He dropped. His right fist screamed through the air and hammered into the Long-Horned Cursed Spirit's supposedly impenetrable skull. Space warped. Black-red lightning erupted from his knuckles. The flash lit up the dark forest in an instant. The ultimate Black Flash, stacked on top of the full explosive output of the Eight Gates Released Formation.

CRACK.

The pale horn on the Cursed Spirit's forehead shattered clean off. The physical force drove through the skull and reached the chest cavity. The Cursed Spirit screamed. Its massive body went slack. The wound in its brain began to twitch. Accelerated regeneration clawed desperately at the damage, still trying to repair it. Megumi Fushiguro dismissed Max Elephant. His seal shifted in an instant.

"It's over."

The shadows churned. A massive bull's head in bone-plate armor charged out from the dark. Shikigami, Piercing Ox. The greater the distance, the greater the force. Piercing Ox ran a full twenty meters along the edge of the Domain, building to full speed.

BOOM.

Its horn drove without reservation into the Cursed Spirit's already broken chest. This time, the physical defense collapsed entirely. The three-meter body was punched straight through. The mangled corpse flew dozens of meters and crashed into an ancient tree. It didn't move again. Domain released. The black shadow flowed back beneath Megumi Fushiguro's feet. His legs gave out. He hit the ground on both knees.

He gulped air in ragged pulls. The corners of his mouth wouldn't stop curling up. He'd done it. No self-destruction. They won. Yuji Itadori lay flat on his back in the mud. The green steam faded. His right arm was swollen and bent wrong.

"Brilliant work, best friend!" Aoi Todo sprinted over, caught sight of that ruined arm, and stopped dead.

Noritoshi Kamo's bow hand was shaking. Cross-tier combat coordination at this level would be considered monstrous even by the standards of the Three Great Families.

"That's it?" Maki Zenin leaned on her broken spear and wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.

Everyone breathed. Then it changed. The shattered corpse in the distance exploded without any warning. Dense, dark purple smoke billowed up. It turned hard in midair and shot straight for Yuji Itadori lying in the mud.

"Yuji! Move!" Megumi Fushiguro's eyes locked on the cloud. His voice came out raw.

Too late. The purple smoke poured in through Yuji's nose. Every wisp of it. Yuji Itadori's eyes snapped open. His torso convulsed once, violently, then went rigid. The wind stopped. A crushing aura of pure, savage malice slammed down. A hundred times worse than anything the monster before had put out. The figure on the ground slowly sat up.

Head down. He reached out and rotated the blood-soaked right arm. Bones ground against each other. The swollen, torn muscle healed instantly under Reverse Cursed Technique. Black tattoo markings crawled up from his neck. Spreading across his entire face. A second set of eyelids opened beneath the first. Crimson pupils stared out.

"Long time no see, everyone."

➤ Next: Toji Fushiguro, Come Out and Face Your Death