Chapter 156 - The Protagonist Enters the Stage

On the ruins of Dogenzaka, only the crackling of flames remained. Jogo held both arms raised high. That twenty-meter fireball hung frozen dead in midair. The incandescent light lit up his bloodshot single eye. Mahito, still mid-shout a moment ago, stood rooted to the spot. Suguru Geto, Nobara Kugisaki, and Kusakabe each tightened their grip on their weapons. Megumi stared hard at Sukuna above.

Cold sweat dripped from his chin onto the scorched asphalt. What was this monster trying to do?

"1v1."

Sukuna rose to his feet unhurriedly and held up one finger.

"Sorcerers, and these two Cursed Spirits. One-on-one duels."

"Nobody stops until I say stop."

His voice was not loud. It landed in everyone's ears anyway. Enormous Cursed Energy crashed down from the top of the tower, and the ground trembled faintly beneath it.

"Whoever wins, I let them walk away alive. Anyone who tries to run, or dares interfere in someone else's fight—" Sukuna's mouth split into a grin. "I'll slaughter everyone here."

Completely insane. Megumi clenched his teeth. The burn blisters on the back of his hand were stinging fiercely. He was treating everyone here like monkeys in a gladiatorial arena. Win and whether you lived depended entirely on his mood. Lose and you turned to ash on the spot. Where the hell had that bastard old man gone?

If he didn't show up soon, there really would be a corpse to collect.

"Not starting yet?" Sukuna tilted his head.

BOOM!

Before the words faded, the fireball above Jogo's head drove sharply downward. A wall of heat locked directly onto Megumi.

"Die!" Jogo let out a roar that didn't sound remotely human.

Every shred of humiliation from being ground underfoot by Sukuna moments ago transformed in an instant into a sky-high killing intent aimed squarely at the sorcerer before him. He didn't dare defy Sukuna. So he poured every drop of fury out on Megumi instead. Couldn't beat the King of Curses, but couldn't he kill one little brat like this?

"Scatter!" Geto bellowed and maneuvered a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit to block in front of him.

Megumi had no time to retreat. The green steam of the Gate of Life surged and churned across his body.

"Max Elephant!"

He rapidly formed hand signs. A colossal pink elephant crashed down to the ground. It raised its trunk and a massive torrent of water erupted from it, slamming head-on into the descending fireball. Water and fire collided with a thunderous crash. Vast sheets of white steam smothered the entire street in an instant, stripping away all visibility.

"You think a little water can stop me?!" Jogo's voice detonated through the dense fog.

The extreme heat evaporated the water column instantly. Jogo punched through the white mist, his right fist wreathed in flames driving straight for Megumi's chest. Megumi twisted aside.

BANG!

The flaming fist grazed his shoulder and pulverized the load-bearing wall behind him. The wall came down in a thunderous collapse. Megumi used the blast of air to roll backward, flinging out several dark shadows in the same motion.

"Divine Dog: Totality!"

A massive wolf of intertwined black and white leapt from the shadows, jaws gaping wide, lunging for Jogo's throat.

"Get lost!" Jogo swept his arm back and a pillar of lava erupted from the ground, blasting the Divine Dog away.

Right at that moment, Mahito appeared behind Geto. A pale blue palm drove straight for the back of his head.

"Then it's our turn, old man who plays with Cursed Spirits."

The battle split in an instant into two separate fronts. Megumi weaved at high speed through the thick smoke and raging fire. He pushed the Gate of Life's speed to its absolute limit. Every collision against Jogo sent his internal organs shaking violently. This was too much of a stretch.

Killing a Special Grade Cursed Spirit solo. Even with the Gate of Life behind him, this old monster's Cursed Energy reserves were absurdly deep. He needed to finish it in one decisive blow. Megumi dodged lava pillars while calculating at lightning speed in his head the optimal moment for Domain Expansion. Meanwhile. On the outer edge of Shibuya, in a pitch-black dead-end alley.

Toji stopped in his tracks. He looked at the two-meter brick wall in front of him. Then he looked down at the communicator on his wrist. The red dot was blinking frantically, the arrow pointing right, but to the right was an izakaya with its shutters firmly rolled down.

"Is this broken piece of junk busted?"

He tapped the communicator. The screen flickered twice and went dark. What the hell. He'd just punched through a hundred-meter mutated behemoth with the Gate of Wonder. His whole body was still venting residual blue steam. He had intended to cut straight into the heart of the battle. Instead he'd been going in circles in this damn alley for ten minutes.

How did all these buildings look exactly the same. Zzt zzt— The communicator on his wrist suddenly emitted a sharp burst of electrical static. Immediately after came a string of ear-splitting explosions. The shockwaves made even the communicator casing vibrate.

"You bastard old man!"

Megumi's voice, raw and tearing, blasted from the speaker. The background was nothing but collapsing buildings and crackling fire.

"Where the hell are you?! If you don't get here now, just come collect my body!"

Toji rubbed his ear. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Full of energy. Still not dead.

"What's the rush." He spoke into the communicator at an unhurried pace. "This is your youth trial, Megumi. How does a man grow without getting knocked around a little."

"Youth trial my ass! The other side is a Special Grade Cursed Spirit! And there's a King of Curses watching from above! I can't hold on!"

Megumi's torrent of cursing cut straight through Toji's words.

BOOM!

Another massive explosion from the other end of the communicator. Then Megumi's pain grunt, too raw to suppress. The amusement in Toji's eyes vanished instantly. The gaze beneath his short black hair went cold and sharp. A Special Grade Cursed Spirit. A King of Curses. You dare touch my son?

"Hold on. Dad's coming right now."

He cut the communicator off, clean and quick. He raised his head, looked at the maze of buildings ahead, and his palm drove down with sudden force. Crack. The communicator crushed to splinters in his grip. Finding a path? The straight line between two points is the fastest route.

BOOM—!

A torrent of Cursed Energy mixed with vital force, violent beyond all limits, exploded out from inside Toji Fushiguro. The blue steam that had just faded surged back out. Denser than before, and threaded through with a terrifying green radiance.

"Eight Gates, Sixth Gate — Gate of View!"

Open! The cobblestone road beneath his feet cracked apart inch by inch. The blast wave hurled every piece of debris along both sides of the alley into the air. Toji's legs drove down in a violent kick.

BANG!

The air beneath his feet detonated outright, exploding into a ring of white sonic boom cloud. Toji became a blur and slammed directly into the brick wall in front of him. Without the slightest pause, the two-meter-thick wall was smashed to rubble by a single headlong charge.

Then the izakaya's back wall. The load-bearing columns. The office building across the street. The department store beyond it. A straight line. No need to turn. Anything standing directly in his path — smashed through. A continuous roar spread across the outer edge of Shibuya. A perfectly straight corridor of wreckage was carving toward the core area with devastating, unstoppable force. The view cut back to Dogenzaka.

Megumi slammed hard onto the hood of a wrecked sedan. Something sweet flooded his throat and he coughed up a mouthful of blood. The green steam of the Gate of Life had grown extremely dim.

"What's wrong, little brat? Where did all that swagger go?!"

Jogo hovered in midair. The volcanic crater atop his head spewed black smoke furiously, his entire face twisted with rage.

"Where's your Domain?! Where are your Shikigami?! Use them! Show me what you've got!"

Jogo slammed both hands together hard in front of his chest. The clouds overhead scorched to blazing crimson in an instant. A suffocating wave of heat descended from above. The remaining glass curtain walls nearby melted to liquid.

"It ends here! Burn to ash along with this era!"

Jogo had fallen completely into madness. He knew he couldn't beat Sukuna. He only wanted, in this desperate corner, to personally crush this genius sorcerer before him with his own hands. The clouds split apart. A meteor twice the size of the last one, dragging a long incandescent tail of fire, slowly pushed its head out from the clouds. Maximum: Meteor.

"Die!"

Jogo drove both hands sharply downward through the air. The massive meteor came crashing down. The ground of wreckage below began caving in and collapsing on a massive scale under that crushing weight. Sukuna sat atop the signal tower, propping his chin with one hand, watching with keen interest.

"Breaking out the big move already?"

If this meteor hit, even Jogo would be swept into the heart of the explosion. Megumi lay on the hood, clenching his teeth with everything he had. He strained to push himself upright. His legs wouldn't move. No way to dodge. Even with the Gate of Life running, he couldn't get out of this meteor's blast radius.

"Domain... Expansion..."

Megumi overlapped both hands. His finger joints cracked loudly under the strain. Forcibly deploying an incomplete Domain to take the hit head-on. It was the only way to survive. Right at that life-or-death instant.

BOOM!

At the base of a twenty-story commercial tower on the right side of Dogenzaka, a terrifying hole ten meters across erupted outward. Concrete chunks and steel rebar blasted in every direction. A blinding green radiance mixed with blue steam, carrying a deafening sonic boom, burst from the ruins without any warning. The speed carved a pale white vacuum channel straight through the air.

"Megumi! Get your ass down!"

That shout buried the roar of the falling meteor. Megumi's pupils snapped tight. He yanked his hand signs back, wrapped both arms around his head, and rolled beneath the car chassis. In midair. Jogo's vision blurred. A man venting green-blue steam from every inch of his body had already materialized directly beneath the meteor.

Not a single trace of Cursed Energy, yet radiating a pressure that was overwhelmingly, unmistakably dangerous. Toji Fushiguro. He tilted his head back and looked up at the enormous meteor capable of leveling several city blocks. His mouth stretched all the way to his ears in a wild, unrestrained grin.

"You dared to touch my son."

Toji drove both legs down in a fierce stomp against nothing but air. The air instantly solidified into a ring of ripples beneath his feet. He used the rebound to launch himself skyward, surging directly to meet the burning meteor.

"Go to hell, you fire-spewing piece of trash!"

He pulled both fists back to his sides. The vital force in his chest churned furiously, all of it pouring into his arms. The next second. Both fists launched in rapid, relentless succession. No Cursed Energy needed. Purely through punch speed that surpassed all limits, his fists tore into violent friction with the air itself.

"Morning Peacock!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Countless brilliant fireballs born from friction erupted from between Toji's fists. Every single one carried terrifying kinetic force. Dense and endless, they surged forward like an overwhelming tide and slammed head-on into the falling meteor.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

Hundreds upon thousands of Morning Peacock fireballs landed precisely on the underside of the meteor. No resistance. No stalemate. The enormous meteor jolted to a sudden stop in midair, its surface instantly splitting with cracks. Then. The unrelenting barrage of physical fireballs punched clean through it from below.

BOOM!

The Maximum Technique came apart completely in midair. It shattered into countless fragments and scattered in every direction. The shockwave swept across the entire sky above Shibuya, blowing smoke and cloud layers apart. Toji stopped throwing punches. He flipped once in midair and landed squarely on the roof of the sedan where Megumi was hiding. The car roof buckled inward with a groan of protesting metal.

Green-blue steam drifted and curled around his body. He brushed the ash off his hands. He looked down at Megumi beneath the car.

"Hey. Dad's not late, is he?"

➤ Next: Mahito Unhinged