Chapter 183 - Three-Pronged Advance

The dial tone kept droning from the phone. Nobody spoke in the basement. Toji pocketed his phone, stepped over the pile of broken bricks on the floor, and walked straight up to Hana Kurusu.

"Kid." His tone left no room for argument. "Pack up, bring that Purifying Light of yours, and come with me. We're going to crush that brain — and spring that idiot Gojo while we're at it."

There was no time to drag their feet. Tengen had been taken. Every barrier in Japan was now just meat sitting on Kenjaku's chopping board. They had to rip that thousand-year-old scheming bastard's head off before he made his next move. Hana Kurusu took half a step back, still shaken by the savage sight of Toji beating Yorozu half to death moments ago.

A mouth split open on the right side of Hana Kurusu's cheek, and Angel's voice rose from it: "We agree to help unseal Prison Realm. But in exchange, I have one condition."

"Talk." Toji dug a finger in his ear.

"The Culling Game is still ongoing."

Angel's voice was grave. "Those ancient sorcerers who have been reborn are massacring modern people across the colonies. As the price of purifying this world, your Jujutsu High must send people into the colonies and exterminate every last one of those rampaging ancient sorcerers. Stop the killing."

"Deal." Toji didn't hesitate for a second.

"I'll go!" Yuji was the first to shoot his hand up, fist clenched white-knuckle tight. "I've been sick of that Culling Game for a long time!"

"How could this happen without me?" Naoya shouldered through from the side and shot Yuji a look of pure contempt. "The title of top disciple — I'm taking it back this time. Those ancient-sorcerer scraps, I'll kick them down one by one!"

Toji looked at these fired-up little brats and gave a satisfied nod.

"Good. That's the spirit!" He swept a hand through the air. "Megumi, Yuji, Naoya — you three form the sweep team. Head out immediately for the No. 3 Colony, where the Cursed Energy readings are most concentrated. I want every piece of ancient filth in there cleaned out. Not one left standing."

"As for our side..." Toji turned to look at Fumihiko Takaba, who was still striking poses off to the side. "Class clown. You're with me."

Takaba's eyes lit up, and a folding fan snapped open from nowhere. "Kyoto? Fantastic! I heard the takoyaki over there is incredibly authentic! I need to change into a Shinsengumi samurai outfit first, and then I'll tell a joke about how octopuses don't have legs!"

Bringing this one along, Kenjaku's dirty tricks might just get neutralized by that completely unreasonable technique of Takaba's.

"Yuta, Todo." Toji made his final call. "You two take Tsumiki and Hakari back to the Jujutsu High infirmary."

Three teams. Three directions. That settled it. Kyoto Jujutsu High. Underground infirmary. The blood smell was thick enough to choke on. Shoko Ieiri had an unlit cigarette clamped between her teeth, both hands pressed against Suguru Geto's chest, torn open across most of its width, pushing a steady stream of positive Reverse Cursed Technique into him.

Both eyes were shot through with red. The dark circles under them were as heavy as fresh bruises.

"Don't rush me," Shoko rasped. "Rush me again and I'll snip out whatever intestines you have left."

Shoko was completely spent. Every injury that had come in today was life-threatening. If Utahime Iori hadn't been there helping, Shoko would have already collapsed from Cursed Energy depletion. Utahime Iori was dressed in a red-and-white shrine maiden's outfit, dancing the kagura continuously in the center of the infirmary.

Solo Forbidden Area, running at full power, forcibly boosting the effectiveness of Shoko's Reverse Cursed Technique by one hundred and twenty percent. Suguru Geto lay on the bed, wrapped head to toe in bandages, dragging air into his lungs in ragged heaves.

"Sorry, Shoko. I've caused you trouble." A bitter smile crossed his face.

His condition was at its absolute worst. Half the stock inside his Cursed Spirit Manipulation had been wiped out. Even the strongest of his Special Grade Cursed Spirits had been crushed outright.

"What in the hell happened?" Toji had just arrived at Kyoto Jujutsu High to find everyone in this state.

"You had Special Grades holding the line. How did Tengen still get taken?"

Suguru drew a slow breath and recalled the one-sided beatdown that had just taken place.

"It was Chikage's barrier." Suguru's voice was tight. "Kenjaku used Chikage's technique to completely block out all presence and Cursed Energy signatures. By the time we noticed, he was already standing in front of Tengen."

There had been no time to react.

"Yuki opened a Domain by force to hold him off so I could escape with the front gate of Prison Realm." Suguru squeezed his eyes shut. "I couldn't bring her out with me."

Masamichi Yaga pushed the infirmary door open and walked in. The principal, who was never one to smile lightly, wore an ashen expression. He held a battered, broken radio in his hand, Yuki Tsukumo's communicator.

"Confirmed." Yaga's voice was flat and dry. "Yuki Tsukumo... has fallen."

The infirmary went quiet all at once. The only sounds left were the rustle of Utahime Iori's kagura robes and the heavy labor of Shoko's breathing. Toji leaned against the doorframe and raised his head. Mourning could wait until after he'd cut the enemy down.

"Do you know which direction that brain ran off to?" Toji asked.

Yaga reached into his wide sleeve and pulled out a palm-sized Shiba Inu plush doll. The tip of its nose was glowing.

"This is a custom tracking cursed corpse I made." Yaga tossed the doll to Toji. "It memorized the last traces of Cursed Energy residue Kenjaku left behind. Follow it, and you'll find his hiding place."

Toji caught the doll one-handed and shoved it into Chimera's mouth.

"All right. Wipe those miserable looks off your faces."

"I'm going to go pop that brain right now."

He turned and walked out. Fumihiko Takaba had somehow already changed into an eye-searing pink samurai outfit, a topknot shooting straight up from the crown of the head, and was following along in high spirits. Hana Kurusu let out a sigh, spread both wings, and followed. The decapitation squad, moving out. Tokyo No. 3 Colony.

The barrier wall at the edge rippled open like the surface of water. Megumi Fushiguro, Yuji Itadori, and Naoya Zenin stepped through one by one. The moment their feet hit the asphalt of the abandoned street, the thick, raw reek of blood slammed straight into their heads. This place looked like a slaughterhouse.

Every shop window lining both sides of the street had been smashed in. Dozens of bodies, modern sorcerers and civilians alike, were strewn haphazardly across the ground. Strange totems drawn in blood covered every wall. Megumi furrowed his brow and immediately formed a hand seal.

"Divine Dogs."

Two enormous shikigami wolves, one black, one white, leaped out from the shadows and flanked the three of them on either side, low rumbling growls in their throats.

"The residue here is too dense." Megumi scanned the area. "All of it is that crude but massively powerful Cursed Energy signature. Thousand-year-old stuff."

Kogane came drifting through the air and announced in its flat electronic tone: "Welcome to the No. 3 Colony. Current players remaining: 142. High-scoring players have congregated at the central plaza ahead."

Yuji rolled his neck. His bones crackled and popped.

"No need to search." He fixed his gaze on the far end of the street. "They've already come to us."

At the ruined intersection ahead, dozens of figures were slowly walking out. They wore all manner of clothing, some draped in tattered Heian-era hunting robes, others bare-chested, bodies covered in tattoos. But without exception, every one of them radiated a bloodlust that could only be bred through endless slaughter. They were the ancient sorcerers awakened inside the Culling Game.

Leading them was a heavily scarred man dragging a massive axe the size of a door plank. Blood was still dripping from the blade. Scarface tilted his head and looked the three young people over.

"Modern sorcerers." A grin split the scarred face wide, baring a mouth full of yellow teeth. "Pathetically scrawny. You think three little brats who haven't even finished growing are going to walk into our hunting ground?"

The dozens of ancient sorcerers erupted in laughter behind Scarface, eyes on their prey, utterly undisguised. Naoya Zenin stood at the front, pressing a hand over his nose with an expression of pure disgust.

"What an annoying racket." Naoya straightened a sleeve cuff, eyes cold as if looking at a heap of garbage. "A bunch of thousand-year-old country bumpkins who don't even know what the Eight Gates are, and you think you have the right to make all this noise?"

The grin dropped off Scarface's face. The massive axe slammed down into the asphalt and gouged out a deep crater.

"Kid, you're looking for death!"

Dozens of ancient sorcerers erupted simultaneously with enormous Cursed Energy. Howling like a pack of wild dogs that had caught the scent of blood, they charged. Not one of the three retreated so much as half a step. Naoya drew a deep breath. Blinding green steam exploded from the surface of Naoya's body. The air was shoved apart by that purely physical pressure with a sharp, piercing shriek.

"Eight Gates — Fourth Gate, Gate of Pain, open!"

Naoya's speed broke the sound barrier in the blink of an eye. Projection Sorcery combined with the explosive force of the Eight Gates turned Naoya into a streak of green light no naked eye could follow. The three ancient sorcerers charging at the very front had no time to react. They saw nothing but a blur.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Three heavy, thunderous impacts rang out almost simultaneously. Three chests were punched clean through, Naoya's Projection Sorcery-reinforced blows reducing organs and bones to pulp. All three went flying like cannonballs and collapsed an entire wall at the street corner.

"Too slow! Too slow! Useless trash, all of you!"

Naoya laughed wildly in mid-air, then vanished again. Yuji drove both legs hard into the ground. Calf muscles bulged. The pavement cracked beneath him into a web-shaped crater half a meter deep.

"Eight Gates — Third Gate, Gate of Life, open!"

Green flames surged up from Yuji's body. Rather than falling back, he charged forward, slamming straight into the center of the enemy formation like a rhinoceros at full gallop. Scarface bellowed and swung the massive axe overhead, bringing it down toward Yuji's skull. The axe carried a technique that reinforced its mass. It had enough force to split an armored vehicle clean in two.

Yuji didn't even think about dodging. He tracked the arc of the falling blade, pulled back his right fist, drove power up from the hips, and met it head-on with a plain, unadorned uppercut. Cursed Energy surged furiously at the point of the fist, compressed to its absolute limit. Black lightning cracked out of thin air.

"Black Flash!"

Fist connected with the broad flat of the blade. That Cursed Tool, weighing a thousand jin, loaded with a technique, turned to scrap metal the instant it touched the Black Flash. Like a biscuit snapping in half. The residual force punched clean through the axe and struck Scarface squarely on the chin.

Scarface's head, along with half a neck, was completely obliterated by that single punch into a spray of blood mist. The headless body toppled straight down. The remaining ancient sorcerers froze. What kind of monster was this? One exchange. Their strongest leader, one-shot. Megumi stood at the rear, watching the terror-stricken ancient sorcerers with an expressionless face.

Both hands held steady in the hand seal position. The shadow beneath his feet began churning like boiling water, spreading rapidly outward in every direction, blanketing the entire intersection.

"Stop standing there." His voice was cold, without a trace of warmth. "This is our turf."

From within the shadows, an enormous black bull, its body the size of an elephant, came roaring out. Ten Shadows Technique, Piercing Ox! It lowered its head. Its two sharp horns plowed through the crowd like a bulldozer, flattening more than ten ancient sorcerers who couldn't get clear into a smear on the ground. This was not an evenly matched battle. This was a one-sided slaughter.

These three monsters, forged in Toji's hellish training, today finally bared their sharpest fangs at the ancient sorcerers of the Culling Game. Yuji shook the blood off his fist and grinned.

"Nice work, Megumi."

➤ Next: A Formidable Foe — The Demon