Chapter 157 - Mahito Unhinged

"Master! You're here!"

Naoya called out, practically buzzing with excitement.

"Yo! Naoya, good work!"

Naoya thumped a fist hard against his own chest.

"It's all thanks to Master's guidance!"

"Can you stop making an entrance like you're the lead in a tokusatsu show every single time?" He pressed a hand against his badly burned arm, face sour.

"You little punk, the main character always shows up last!" Toji laughed out loud, grabbed Megumi by the collar, and flung him backward like picking up a cat by the scruff. "Catch the seedling of Tokyo Jujutsu High."

Suguru Geto caught Megumi cleanly out of midair, expression still grave. Kusakabe, Nobara Kugisaki, and the others let out a breath, but not one of them loosened the grip on their weapons. The surrounding air was searing hot, and the shockwave from the earlier Maximum: Meteor explosion was still burning. Up above, the atmosphere had shifted completely. At the top of the Signal Tower.

The hand propping up Sukuna's chin went still. He stared down at the man below. The cruel smile on his face receded little by little. His red irises roiled with a palpable, solidified malice. Two revivals. Two beatings at the hands of that same man. Humiliation. A disgrace impossible to wash away.

The muscles at the corner of Sukuna's eyes twitched. He dug his nails into his palm and forced down the urge to leap off the tower and tear the man apart piece by piece. Not yet. If he went down now and that lunatic pinned him down again with that unreasonable taijutsu, where would the King of Curses put his face?

Three times was too many. He had to be careful this time. He needed someone else to wear that man down first. Drain every last card, drain every last drop of stamina, and then crush his skull personally.

"Jogo. Mahito." Sukuna's voice was cold as shards of ice.

"Both of you. Go keep that monkey entertained for a while."

Jogo hung suspended in the air, his single eye laced with red. The volcanic crater atop his head abruptly stopped erupting. A single bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead, hit the scorching asphalt, and evaporated on contact. Was this a joke? This was the monster who had smashed Maximum: Meteor with his bare hands.

"Lord Sukuna, this..." Jogo started to protest.

Sukuna cut him off without a pause. "Kill him, or the two of you die."

"Heh heh heh... that sounds like a lot of fun!"

From the rubble nearby, Mahito stepped out. He tilted his head, blue-gray eyes glinting with a frenzied, almost delirious excitement. Mahito's gaze moved across Toji's body like a slow, sticky tongue — greedy, thorough, savoring. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. This flesh. This vitality. And that special constitution that shut out Cursed Energy entirely. What did his soul look like?

It must be incredibly, incredibly delicious. Just one touch. Idle Transfiguration against even a single finger, and a toy of this caliber is mine.

"Leave it to me." Mahito split into a wide grin, all madman. "I'll turn him into the finest Transfigured Human."

Jogo looked at Mahito's profile and silently cursed the idiot. This kid had no idea how terrifying that man was. In the center of the field. Toji rolled his neck. His cervical vertebrae cracked and popped in a rapid, staccato burst.

"Geto, take the kids back a thousand meters." Toji didn't turn around. He waved a hand toward Suguru Geto behind him. "The practical lesson coming up is a bit beyond the syllabus."

"Are you alright on your own?" Geto frowned. Two Special Grade Cursed Spirits.

"Hey, old man, don't steal the spotlight!" Nobara called out. "We can still fight!"

"Give them hell, Master! Show these lowlifes what the strongest really looks like!" Naoya pumped a fist.

Toji pointed at Mahito and Jogo.

Then turned his head and jutted his chin toward Geto. "Geto, get ready."

Geto. "?"

Toji grinned. "Heard you lost a fair number of your Special Grade shikigami. Consider these two a little gift to restock your collection."

The corner of Geto's mouth twitched. "Whatever makes you happy."

Megumi rolled his eyes.

"When the old man starts showing off, even Gojo-sensei has to step aside."

That's what his mouth said. But somewhere inside, Megumi felt an inexplicable wave of relief wash over him. No matter how desperate things looked, the moment the old man was standing there, that suffocating pressure just dissolved. Geto summoned a Cursed Spirit, swept everyone up, and pulled back fast. Only Toji remained at the center of the field, facing Mahito and Jogo across the open ground.

"Come on then." Mahito's hands transformed into two enormous blades. His legs coiled like springs. He lunged. "Let me have a taste of your soul!"

"Too slow."

Toji didn't move from where he stood. He didn't even take a defensive stance.

BOOM!

All Mahito registered was a burst of green light exploding in front of his face. His field of vision lurched violently upward. A wave of pain detonated in his jaw, pain so complete his mind couldn't process it. His entire head, neck and all, snapped straight back at a ninety-degree angle.

With a thunderous crash, Mahito launched like a cannonball, smashing clean through a row of storefronts at the far end of the street.

"First lesson: don't go jumping around in front of your physical combat instructor."

Toji slowly drew his right leg back. The deep green steam of the Gate of View surged across the surface of his body. The surrounding air warped under the heat, and even breathing carried a scorching, stinging bite. Jogo's scalp prickled. What just happened? The movement had been completely unreadable.

"What are you spacing out for, one-eyed freak."

The words detonated right beside his ear, low and quiet as a devil's whisper. Jogo snapped his head around. Somehow, at some point, Toji had appeared at his left side. Less than half a meter away. No warning. No signal. Pure speed, swallowing the distance between them whole.

"Die!" Jogo roared.

His right arm transformed instantly into boiling lava and drove straight toward Toji's face. Toji tilted his head. The lava grazed past his ear and burned a gaping hole clean through the ground behind him. At the same moment, Toji's right fist, trailing a sonic boom that tore open the air, slammed hard into Jogo's abdomen.

BOOM!

Jogo's eyes looked ready to burst out of his skull. It didn't feel like a fist. It felt like a high-speed train slamming into him head-on. His Cursed Energy core shuddered violently under the impact, within a hair's breadth of shattering on the spot. Jogo's massive body was hurled backward. It plowed a hundred-meter-long trench into the asphalt.

"Too weak, too weak! Is this what youth looks like for a Special Grade Cursed Spirit? You're not even worth using as a punching bag!" Toji laughed, bent his knees, and prepared to give chase.

He had to deal with the fire-user first. That kind of firepower coverage was far too likely to catch the students in the back. Just as Toji was about to launch himself forward. The asphalt beneath his feet began to writhe. More than a dozen pale white arms, covered in eyes and mouths, burst from the ground and locked around Toji's ankles.

"Got you!"

Mahito's upper body erupted from underground. The neck that had been snapped clean back moments ago was fully restored. Not a mark on it. Both palms slammed toward Toji's shins. Idle Transfiguration! One touch was all it took to forcibly reshape a soul. Whether he ends up as a pile of pulp or an obedient dog, that's entirely up to me.

"Watch out for his hands!"

Megumi's warning came at full volume. Toji's brow furrowed. His ankles jerked sharply.

CRACK!

The pale arms coiled around him exploded into pulped flesh, blasted apart by the sheer force of his vitality. Toji used the momentum to flip backward, put distance between them, and landed steady on a section of collapsed wall a few meters back.

"Disgusting." He shook the bits of flesh off his shoe with open contempt.

This slippery, elusive Cursed Technique was exactly what he hated most. Like a fly you could never quite swat, buzzing endlessly around your ear.

"So you dodged it. Sharp instincts." Mahito got to his feet and dusted himself off. The smile on his face kept spreading. "But it's useless."

Mahito pointed to his own neck.

"No matter how strong you are, no matter how fast — pure physical attacks mean nothing to me."

"Without the ability to perceive souls, you can never kill me. I can afford to fail an infinite number of times. You only get one chance."

Open, undisguised mockery ran through every word. From the distant rubble, Jogo had also dragged itself upright, clutching its abdomen and breathing in ragged, heaving gasps. As badly beaten as Jogo was, there was no arguing with what Mahito had said. Against Mahito, physical damage counted for zero. This guy was born to counter pure physical powerhouses.

"Give it up, old man." Mahito spread both arms wide. Countless tentacles unfurled from his back, thrashing through the air like pythons. "Hand your flesh over to me, and I'll let you experience eternal 'youth'!"

Toji stood on the collapsed wall and listened to Mahito's rambling. Then he smiled. Can't kill him? He patted his shoulder. Chimera, coiled around his neck all this time, suddenly opened its eyes.

"Bleh—"

Chimera opened its mouth wide. A long blade slid out from between its jaws — ancient, unadorned, without refinement. Toji caught the hilt with a reverse grip. The blade was wide. It held no shine. Strange dark engravings ran across its surface. The instant Toji's hand closed around the hilt. Mahito, who had been ranting and shrieking a moment before, went completely silent. His soul... was trembling.

The blade in that monkey's hand seemed to hold an absolute counter to him. For the first time, a flicker of fear surfaced in Mahito's eyes. Toji held the long blade loosely in one hand, its tip angled toward the ground. Green-blue steam coiled along the edge of the blade.

He looked at Mahito. The smile on his face was more savage than anything a Cursed Spirit had ever worn.

"What was it you just said?"

➤ Next: Slaughter — Clash