[Volume One: Hidden Inventory]

......

Tokyo, Shibuya, 22:51

Crumbling walls. Rubble. Devastation in every direction.

A disoriented young man stared at the unfamiliar street before him, memories of his past life surging in waves, one unanswerable question after another assembling themselves in his mind.

In a no-limits Gojo versus an unconditionally Binding-Vow-boosted Sukuna, who would win the Shinjuku showdown?

Is Hajime Kashimo the strongest of 400 years ago, or just the strongest in his village?

Did Ryu Ishigori's earth-shattering send-off actually knock Yuta Okkotsu out of the debate circuit?

Between Toji Fushiguro and Jogo, who better deserves the title of Special Grade gatekeeper?

And which weighs more, a house or an elephant?

As the second male lead, is Megumi Fushiguro a passionate genius or a cold, useless deadweight?

After a long moment, the young man finally let out a heavy breath, and the clarity came back to his eyes.

Hei Hui. Twenty-first-century internet streamer. Pulled traffic by casually dropping bombshell takes and sparking debates. Kashimo stans, Rika, Miwa, Uraume, none of them could survive three rounds against Hei Hui. As long as there were no limits, Hei Hui was the tallest mountain and the longest river in the debate scene.

But right now, the stench of blood soaking the street was making the young man's stomach turn. He staggered, pressing a hand hard against his forehead.

Then, a flash of pink broke through the haze. A familiar voice came from right beside him.

"Are you okay? I've been calling out to you and you weren't responding at all."

Itadori?

Even through the dizziness, the young man couldn't possibly be mistaken. Standing right in front of him was the main character of the hit anime Jujutsu Kaisen.

Yuji Itadori.

"Hey, hey — say something, Megumi?"

Megumi. He's calling me Megumi?

I'm Megumi?

That single thought hit the young man's mind like a bullet.

A new set of memories rose from the depths of his consciousness. The young man winced and pressed his fingers against his temple.

He stared at his reflection in Yuji Itadori's eyes.

Spiky black hair like a sea urchin. Pale cheeks. And a hand pressing against a temple in exactly the same motion he was making right now.

Shadow and substance, memory and reality, in this moment, they overlapped completely and locked into place.

I've become Megumi Fushiguro!

Sure, it was funny online.

But who actually wanted to get dragged into a real house-versus-elephant debate!

Online commenters: playing as Special Grade sorcerer Gojo.

And me: playing as Grade 2 sorcerer Megumi.

Which is just...

Is this what they call a hellish joke?

"Megumi, now is not the time to space out!"

Yuji Itadori's voice yanked him back to reality. Yuji pointed to the side.

The massive owl-shaped shikigami Nue crouched on the ground, and draped across its back was Inumaki, barely clinging to life.

"You're the one who has to get Inumaki-senpai to Shoko Ieiri, fast!"

More memory fragments snapped into place on their own.

Right. The Shibuya Incident.

Satoru Gojo had been sealed. The "curtain" had just dissolved.

Faced with Inumaki-senpai on the verge of death, Yuji Itadori had proposed splitting up...

And right now was exactly the moment before they went their separate ways.

No cheat codes. No time to clown around.

This was the reality Megumi Fushiguro now had to face.

"What a hellish dungeon," Megumi said, and forced out a grim smile.

Yuji Itadori was going after the Prison Realm and Satoru Gojo. And the Dagon battlefield had already cut off Megumi's options, if Megumi didn't move, then the reincarnated Toji Fushiguro, Kento Nanami, and the old clan head would all die inside Dagon's domain.

Sure, Megumi had the all-knowing perspective of someone who'd transmigrated here.

But the body was still a genuine Grade 2 sorcerer's.

With stats like mine, I'm supposed to fight three Special Grades back-to-back, Dagon, Toji Fushiguro, and Jogo!

So what could he actually do to change the battles ahead?

Thinking that far, Megumi jabbed at his temple.

"If there are no conditions, create them. If there is no advantage, manufacture variables."

That was the creed that had never failed him in countless online debates. If Megumi put his mind to it, he could make even Hajime Kashimo sound like someone capable of one-shotting Sukuna.

Pfft. A mere Shibuya Incident? That's nothing.

Dagon... Toji Fushiguro... Jogo...

Toji Fushiguro... Jogo...

Toji Fushiguro... Jogo...

Toji Fushiguro... Jogo!

A mind-blowing idea formed instantly inside Megumi's debate-honed, devil-brained skull. The corner of his mouth curled up on its own.

If he managed things carefully and dragged out the Dagon and Toji Fushiguro fight, at the exact moment when Toji Fushiguro, a pure automated killing machine, lost Dagon as a target and started hunting for a new one, what if Jogo happened to show up at just the right time?

Toji Fushiguro's lock-on target would no longer be the weaklings of Jujutsu High.

It would be the far more powerful Cursed Spirit, Jogo...

Toji Fushiguro vs. Jogo!

A proper serialized showdown!

Once that image surfaced in his mind, it could never be wiped away.

Then more possibilities came surging in, wave after wave:

Save the old clan head and Kento Nanami.

Let Toji Fushiguro and Jogo fight one-on-one.

If Jogo were dealt with, Megumi would have a shot at claiming the 10 fingers Jogo was carrying.

Restrict Ryomen Sukuna's full revival in Shibuya.

The Shibuya massacre would never happen.

And more combat power would survive to enter the Culling Game.

Countless possibilities flooded Megumi's mind.

"Very well. Let me start right here — and rewrite the entire Incident."

The butterfly in Shibuya that flaps its wings will become the typhoon that sweeps through the entire jujutsu world.

"Itadori."

Megumi raised his head. Whatever confusion and bewilderment had been in his eyes was gone, replaced by cold, decisive resolve.

"You'd better not die."

Yuji Itadori paused for just a moment. Then he broke into a grin, wide and completely unclouded.

"Ha! Of course!"

The pink-haired young man turned, launched off the crumbling building face with explosive force, and was gone, swallowed by the dark depths of the night after just a few bounds.

Megumi withdrew his gaze. He took one last look at the unconscious Inumaki lying on Nue's back, then looked down at the dark, yawning entrance beneath his feet, the mouth of hell.

The stench of blood grew sharper.

He pulled the corner of his mouth into a grim smile. The look of someone with absolutely nothing left to lose.

"Alright... The hunt begins."

The next instant, Megumi's figure merged with the spreading shadow beneath his feet and slipped silently into the darkness of the station.

.......

At the same time, four figures had already appeared inside the station, where seawater had swallowed everything.

The fifth underground level had become a vast, murky ocean.

"Two Grade 1 sorcerers and neither has been able to exorcise it, this is no small matter."

Inside the underground platform, watching a battlefield where an advantage seemed almost impossible to find, Naobito couldn't help but furrow his brow.

"Not a chance!"

Once again, an unstoppable thrust, a jab wrapped in cursed energy, drove straight into Dagon's palms, successfully breaking Dagon's hand seal. The partially formed cursed seal hands were pinned firmly against Dagon's abdomen by Naobito.

Rip.

The sound of tearing flesh echoed through the underground platform.

"Wha..."

Before the three of them could react, the gray walls and fluorescent lights vanished without a trace. In their place, a boundless, endless sea.

As a Grade 1 sorcerer, Kento Nanami processed the jujutsu implications in an instant.

"It's a Domain Expansion!"

Before Kento Nanami could even take a stance, the bite of a shikigami impossible to see with the naked eye had already torn through cursed-energy-reinforced flesh.

"Shikigami, this is the domain's sure-hit effect. They don't exist until the moment they land!"

Maki assessed the situation too. Under this overwhelming domain ability, everyone here would likely be buried.

Even Naobito, who possessed the secret anti-domain technique and kept deploying Falling Blossom Emotion over and over, couldn't help but furrow his brow even deeper.

The clan head, drawing on decades of combat experience, quickly concluded that this entire string of attacks was nothing but probing.

Sure enough, another cursed seal appeared in Dagon's hands.

"The probing is over."

Dagon's voice carried not a trace of emotion.

"Technique Release — Death Swarm."

FLASH!

Cursed energy boiled over. The seawater churned violently. Fish-shaped shikigami, several times more numerous than before, erupted into a dense swarm, like a legion poised to charge. They blotted out the sky, and the terrifying cursed energy locked instantly onto the three figures below.

The aura of death was thick as ink.

The very instant Dagon moved to deliver the killing blow,

The false sky at the top of the domain cracked open without warning.

BOOM!

A darkness that swallowed every ray of light expanded at breathtaking speed, slamming into Dagon's ocean domain and tearing through it!

Seeing that the three hadn't taken damage yet, Megumi felt relief wash over him. It was all those debates that had made him know the original Jujutsu Kaisen inside and out, and that knowledge had let him save precious seconds and breach Dagon's domain that much faster.

The young man's silhouette flickered through the shadows and dropped into the domain like a dancer making a grand entrance onstage.

In that moment, every fish-shaped shikigami was eclipsed.

And Megumi could finally shout it out loud, the ultimate technique, the symbol of Jujutsu Kaisen's absolute peak,

"Domain Expansion —"

"Chimera Shadow Garden!"

Do you have any idea how significant it is to open a domain at sixteen?!

Go ahead and try talking trash about Megumi one more time.

Oh, you're saying even I'm disrespecting Megumi? Fine. Never mind then.

"Zen'in clan head, use this!"

The shadow shot past Dagon's defenses and materialized in front of Naobito with a cold gleam.

Naturally, Playful Cloud was staying hidden.

What emerged from the shadow was nothing more than Megumi's most commonly used black blade.

But a clan head at full strength and armed with a cursed tool was already more than enough to handle Dagon without its sure-hit effect.

A cold flash of blade light appeared as if from nowhere, cutting effortlessly through the thick, viscous cursed energy surrounding Dagon and sweeping across its bloated midsection.

Splat!

Blood reeking of the sea burst outward like a water balloon, splashing a gruesome arc through the murky ocean.

Dagon let out an inhuman howl of pain. The domain shook violently.

The worldline, in this moment, deviated completely.

➤ Next: Dad, It's Me, Megumi, Don't Go!

Chapter 2 - Dad, It's Me, Megumi, Don't Go!

SHHK!

The blade tore through flesh and cursed energy defenses, producing a dull impact that set teeth on edge.

Naobito's figure dissolved into countless afterimages, circling Dagon at high speed, cutting on every pass.

With each flash, a new wound burst open across the cursed spirit's torso.

Yet Dagon's roars held little pain. Mostly fury.

Even without the domain's guaranteed-hit boost, on its home turf the seawater kept feeding it power and cover without end.

In a gap between the storm of slashes, Dagon's bloated body suddenly lurched downward. The surrounding seawater instantly boiled.

Hundreds of fish-shaped shikigami surged out like a living barrier, throwing themselves into the path of Naobito's follow-up assault.

"Fushiguro brat!"

The afterimages snapped back. Naobito withdrew to a slightly farther stretch of sea and shook the black blade in hand — already cracking, tone flat with displeasure.

"Don't you have any decent cursed tools?"

"Sorry." Megumi's voice was matter-of-fact. "This is the best blade I have."

He wasn't lying.

Playful Cloud was a staff, not a blade.

And Playful Cloud, that special-grade cursed tool, was a key piece he'd been saving for the real performance still to come. He wasn't ready to show it yet.

Relying on Naobito alone, a seasoned main-force fighter with top-tier combat power, a cursed tool in hand, and the opponent's guaranteed-hit stripped away,

They could win.

"Hmph!"

Naobito said nothing more. A sharp gleam cut through those cloudy old eyes as the target was locked again.

But Dagon had clearly changed its strategy.

"Gurr... glurgh..."

A hum soaked in cursed resentment rose from the deep.

Dagon's pair of pure-black eyes, no whites, not even a trace, slid past the high-speed Naobito and fixed dead on Megumi.

The cursed spirit had found the key.

This incomplete domain. The source of the entire chaos. It was the fulcrum holding everything together.

BOOM!

The sea surface surged upward. Thousands of fish-shaped shikigami stopped scattering and converged into a single destructive torrent, a wall of water dozens of meters high, crashing down on the immobile Megumi with everything it had.

Was this the end?

No.

A figure appeared without warning, planting itself between Megumi and the killing wave like the most solid wall in the world.

A crisp suit. Meticulously groomed blond hair. Standing directly before Megumi.

"Ratio Technique!"

The short-handled cursed tool wrapped in bandages completed its cursed energy allocation in an instant.

A swing of the blade.

A slash condensed to the absolute limit sank silently into the oncoming torrent.

A continuous chain of muffled detonations rang out.

The slash tore through unstoppably, splitting the vast torrent clean down the middle.

Seawater and debris crashed down on either side of Megumi. Nanami stood exactly where they'd been, hair and suit lifted by the blast wave, not a scratch on Megumi.

"Fushiguro-kun."

Nanami's voice was steady.

"Please continue maintaining the domain. Leave the rest to us."

A reliable, dependable adult.

That indescribable sense of reassurance scattered the ice in Megumi's chest.

"Megumi! Don't you dare get cocky!"

On the other side, Maki Zen'in swung her naginata in wide arcs, flanking Nanami in a pincer formation, cutting down every shikigami that slipped through, holding Megumi's flank rock-solid.

Afterimages again, faster, fiercer.

Within the absolute defensive line Nanami and Maki had built, Naobito pushed Projection Sorcery to its absolute limit. Blade-light spread like a net, adding wound after wound to Dagon's body.

Dagon let out an enraged shriek. Its massive body plunged downward and vanished completely into the bottomless dark, leaving only churning whirlpools behind.

"Trying to run?"

Naobito frowned and moved to pursue, then stopped. At that speed, the water generated massive resistance and refraction interference, throwing off trajectory and bleeding momentum dry.

"It's stalling!"

Nanami's voice dropped low, cutting through the noise.

"Fushiguro-kun's domain can't hold forever. Once it collapses and its guaranteed-hit recovers, we're finished."

The seawater churned. Dagon's shadow faded into the dark depths, taking full advantage of its home field, swimming, recovering, waiting for the moment Megumi ran dry.

The pressure came crashing back down onto Megumi's shoulders.

The hands holding the hand sign had already started to shake.

Why is this body so damn weak!

Haki-Megumi, you idiot, Gojo's been training you since you were a kid, so how are you still running on a Grade 2 sorcerer's stats?!

He could feel it. His Chimera Shadow Garden was slowly crumbling under the sustained clash against Horizon of the Captivating Skandha.

The edges of the shadow were blurring. The seawater was reclaiming ground.

Time was not on their side.

Megumi's mind ran at a speed he'd never hit before. Dagon was deep underwater. Naobito's speed was crippled by the current. Direct assault was off the table. He had to force it out, had to make it surface on its own. What was there that it couldn't endure? What would make it break cover no matter what?

Lightning-quick, an image from his memories of the original work flashed through his mind.

There it was.

"Nue."

He said it quietly.

The shadow beneath his feet writhed. The shikigami didn't fully emerge, instead, it kept half its body submerged in the shadow, extending only its talons and long beak out, both flickering with unstable blue-white electricity.

"Maki-senpai, Nanami-san, Clan Head — get out of the water. Now!"

"What?" A split second of stunned stillness, then everyone moved.

And in that same instant, Nue, merged into the sea, drove its lightning-wreathed talons deep into the water below.

BZZZZT!

Deafening electrical crackling exploded across the entire domain. Blinding blue-white light flooded the dim seabed.

Thick arcs of electricity shot out from Nue in every direction, tearing through the water, spreading indiscriminately toward every corner where Dagon might be hiding, detonating as they went.

Seawater is an excellent conductor.

[Maximum]

[Hajime Kashimo's True Teachings]

"Electrify the water!"

"ROOAAR!"

A roar twisted beyond recognition with agony erupted from the deep.

The massive shadow thrashed violently. Countless fish-shaped shikigami floated belly-up to the surface, paralyzed, some carbonized outright.

Dagon, a cursed spirit born from the ocean's resentment, had nowhere near the electrical resistance it had to physical attacks.

The searing paralysis was too much. It couldn't stay hidden any longer.

"Well done, brat!"

Naobito's laugh was sharp. The already-coiled figure vanished in an instant.

Predicting the arc of Dagon's instinctive rise through pain and paralysis, Naobito appeared directly above where it would break the surface.

"It's over."

The old clan head's voice was flat.

The cracked black blade raised into the most standard thrusting grip, both hands, tip pointing down.

All the cursed energy in that body. A lifetime of combat experience. Every ounce of kinetic force generated by Projection Sorcery's extreme speed. All of it poured into one plain, unadorned thrust.

Dagon's ferocious head breaking the surface.

Naobito's figure dropping from above.

The crack-covered tip of the black blade.

Three things. One instant. Perfect convergence.

PUCHI!

The blade tip drove through the crown of Dagon's head, punching through every cursed energy core, every trace of life it had left, and emerged half a foot from the lower jaw.

Dagon stopped moving.

In those pure-black eyes, the violent, venomous fury drained away. Hollow.

The massive body began to come apart. From the wound outward, it dissolved into the most primal cursed dust, mixing with the seawater and drifting down in silence.

The sky. The sea. The shikigami. Everything started to peel away and scatter, like a painting left out in the rain.

"...We did it?"

Maki stared at the underground station slowly re-emerging from beneath the fading domain, at the dissipating remains of the cursed spirit, and couldn't quite believe it.

"For now, yes."

Nanami adjusted their glasses and swept a wary look across the platform, now settling back under dim fluorescent light. The crisis appeared resolved. The unease in their chest had not.

Naobito landed on a nearby snapped load-bearing pillar, shook out an empty hand, and clicked their tongue.

"Blade's gone. Still — not bad, Fushiguro brat..."

"Fushiguro..."

"Fushiguro?!"

Something was wrong.

Everyone felt it at the same moment.

Dagon was dead. The domain should have dissolved completely, leaving nothing but a ruined underground station.

But at the center of the station, a radius of roughly twenty meters, shadow still clung to the space. Dense, impossible shadow that seemed to swallow light whole.

Megumi Fushiguro's domain.

Chimera Shadow Garden.

"Why hasn't he released it?!"

As everyone stared in stunned silence, Chimera Shadow Garden still held its corner of the station.

And within that shadow, within the domain that had deliberately used the station's load-bearing walls and pillars as its physical boundary,

Megumi had used the building's own structure as his shell and kept it standing.

Alongside Megumi, a second figure stood silently in the dark.

Tall. Lean. Muscle lines like bronze sculpture from ancient Greece.

Short black hair hanging loose, half-covering the face. A pair of vacant, pure-black eyes.

The Sorcerer Killer. Toji Fushiguro.

"Right on time."

Using everything he knew about the original story, Megumi had controlled the pace of the fight against Dagon down to the second.

Finished Dagon before Toji arrived.

Then kept the domain running, and locked the tyrant inside it.

"Sorry. But you're going to have to stay in here with me for a little while."

A body shaped by Heavenly Restriction shouldn't be capturable. Shouldn't be trappable by any domain.

And yet, trapped.

Because Megumi's domain was incomplete.

That was exactly the exploit. An incomplete domain needs physical structures as its outer shell. Not a barrier built from pure cursed technique. Physical isolation.

And that was enough to cage the Sorcerer Killer, who had not one drop of cursed energy to resist it with.

"Theory viable. Practice..." Megumi's eyes blazed as he looked at Toji, looked at what he'd built. "Complete."

Try talking trash about incomplete domains now.

"Buy me one minute!"

But even as the words left his mouth,

The figure standing motionless in the domain was gone.

No. Not gone.

Pure physical force detonating at the absolute limit of speed.

Megumi didn't even track the movement. He only felt a wall of force slam against his face,

His entire field of vision filled with a fist. Getting bigger.

At this moment, the tyrant was still nothing but a killing machine.

In that razor-thin instant, what tore out of Megumi was a voice-cracking scream:

"Dad! It's me — Fushiguro! Don't elbow me!"

➤ Next: Jogo vs. Toji — The Serialization Continues in Full Force!

Chapter 3 - Jogo vs. Toji — The Serialization Continues in Full Force!

"Damn it, what the hell is Megumi doing!"

Outside the domain, Maki slammed a furious fist against its outer shell, a structure fused from shadow and concrete.

"Calm down, Maki. I've heard Fushiguro's domain is fairly unstable and incomplete."

"Don't touch it until we can confirm he's safe. We could end up hurting him."

Nanami's assessment drew on a considerable base of jujutsu knowledge.

The three of them had just scraped through a brutal fight. Their cursed energy and stamina were both heavily depleted.

All they could do now was force themselves to stay sharp, standing watch outside this eerie shadow domain.

The silence didn't last.

In the deathly stillness of the platform, an unfamiliar voice intruded:

"So you're dead too, Dagon."

"What!"

The cursed spirit walked straight through their perimeter. A single eye swept over the dissipating remnants of Dagon on the ground, and it spoke to nothing but dust and ash.

Three fully alert sorcerers. Completely ignored.

The air nearly solidified. The only sound was the faint hiss of steam venting from the top of the cursed spirit's head.

Sweat barely seeped from their skin before it evaporated.

In that absolute silence, a bone-deep pressure settled over all three of them.

"Stronger than the last one — far stronger!"

Naobito's clouded old eyes narrowed to slits.

Every last trace of drunkenness had been burned away by this terrifying force.

Naobito's lean body coiled, ready. But somewhere deep inside, a long-dormant instinct was hammering with one message: death.

"See you on the wasteland, a hundred years from now!"

No hand seals. No warning. The torrent of flames was already overhead, the scorching wind already singeing their hair.

Inside the shadowed domain.

"Fushiguro?"

"Not Zen'in. What a relief."

Toji Fushiguro.

Or rather, the killing machine driven by a possessing spirit, known as the Sorcerer Killer.

The murderous intent from moments ago had faltered. Just barely. Just for an instant, right after Megumi had screamed that desperate "Dad."

An expression of near-relief crossed the face. Like an illusion.

Then the halted fist slowly changed direction and swung toward Toji's own temple.

"Dad, don't die!"

Megumi grabbed Toji before the relief could take hold. Toji couldn't actually be allowed to let go, or there'd be four skewers lined up outside soon enough.

First things first: get this dad properly sorted out.

Thoughts raced through Megumi's mind as cold sweat mixed with blood trickled down his face. Holding the domain had reached its absolute limit. He had to move fast...

Just then.

From outside the domain, a hoarse, scorching voice punched straight through the incomplete barrier and came through clean:

Here it comes.

Megumi's focus snapped. He locked onto the information bleeding through from beyond the walls.

This was the advantage of an unsealed domain, it didn't cut off the outside world. Megumi could still read what was happening out there.

What other barrier could do that besides an incomplete domain?

Maybe steal a semi-sealed domain next and try it out?

"Dad — get ready!"

Megumi released the hands holding the cursed seals.

He sidestepped to dodge, dissolving the domain, and three red-and-black forms emerged from the shadows at the same moment.

The instant the domain fell, Toji's pitch-black eyes locked onto the direction Megumi had pointed.

The domain's outer wall was already warping violently, hammered from inside by the collapsing structure and from outside by terrifying heat, it pulsed with a faint crimson glow.

Then it was gone. The domain dissolved completely.

Reality crashed in like a dam breaking open, sights, sounds, and searing heat all at once.

And Megumi caught just a glimpse.

Midair, Jogo's palm cradled a mass of flame capable of melting everything. A death sentence.

Blazing white fire spread across the sky in rivers of flame, so intense Megumi could barely keep his eyes open.

What followed wasn't an explosion.

It was Playful Cloud tearing through the air, shattering bone, a dull, bone-splitting impact that set every tooth on edge.

The blazing white flames collapsed.

Toji Fushiguro's figure ripped straight through the torrent of fire and cut into Jogo's close range, driving hard.

"The ambush — that's Toji's doing."

Megumi dissolved the domain fully and sagged against the wall, too ragged to pretend otherwise. He watched the spectacle begin to unfold.

"What is going on!"

Nanami and Maki stared at each other, struck speechless. Only Naobito showed genuine shock at the appearance of this walking corpse.

Above the building, the two figures suspended in mid-air clashed without pause.

"Ugh!"

Jogo let out a muffled grunt. The hideous dent Playful Cloud had hammered into its chest swelled and filled back out rapidly, wrapped in coursing cursed energy.

But the shock and fury in Jogo's single eye didn't fade. It burned hotter, stoked by something it had never encountered before.

"A sorcerer? No."

Jogo kept its gaze locked on the figure that closed the distance again like a phantom.

Zero cursed energy.

The conclusion was absurd.

The bare-chested man before it showed no trace of cursed energy whatsoever, none in motion, none in reserve.

And yet the speed and strength on display had completely shattered Jogo's frame of reference.

"This speed."

A flicker of disbelief crossed Jogo's single eye.

Among the four calamities, Jogo prided itself on being the fastest. Its explosive flame power and agility surpassed both Dagon and Hanami.

A storm of attacks that could put this kind of pressure on it, Jogo had only ever seen that from Satoru Gojo.

WHOOSH!

Toji Fushiguro vanished from the spot. Pure, unaugmented physical power erupted with full force.

The air compressed into a cone-shaped vapor cloud. The sonic boom hadn't even arrived when the red-and-black Playful Cloud was already thrusting toward Jogo's head!

"Don't underestimate me!"

The pride and fury of a calamity ignited completely.

Jogo stopped trying to block or dodge the unpredictable close-range strikes. Its single eye snapped wide open, and terrifying cursed energy compressed and detonated all at once.

Blazing white light swallowed them both.

Below, the onlookers were instantly blinded. Violent waves of heat swept down, pelting them with molten debris like rain.

Watching the collision of raw violence and absolute cursed power. Watching Playful Cloud weave through curtains of flame.

Megumi finally let everything go.

A jujutsu sorcerer's reason. Composure. All of it, gone.

What remained was only the hunger from the twenty-first century, and the blazing gaze that came with it.

The irrepressible trembling and frenzy of watching ultimate power meet ultimate power.

The unhinged, manic high of turning a life-and-death gamble into pure combat euphoria.

The absolute, all-consuming desire, beyond allegiance, beyond life and death, wanting nothing more than to witness and dissect this dream match down to its final second.

"Is this my dessert? Toji versus Jogo!"

"How absolutely delicious!"

The debate persona, online!

➤ Next: The Tyrant and the Calamity

Chapter 4 - The Tyrant and the Calamity

Who was stronger — Toji or Jogo?

"Either is possible!" Fushiguro declared.

As if to confirm the fervent thought racing through Fushiguro's mind.

BOOM!

A violent explosion detonated at low altitude. Turbulent cursed energy swept outward like a storm, and scorching blasts of air mixed with shattered concrete came raining down on everything below.

The battle had hit a fever pitch.

In the original work, when facing a reincarnated Toji, Dagon's assessment of Toji's speed was that it might surpass Jogo's.

But before the smoke had even settled, a figure came hurtling backward from within at shocking speed, slamming hard into a pillar behind that hadn't yet fully collapsed. A dull, heavy thud echoed through the ruins.

It was Jogo.

A thin streak of dark red blood already clung to the corner of its mouth.

It propped itself up with one hand, cursed energy surging. The arm that Playful Cloud had just shattered and warped cracked sharply and rapidly restored itself.

But its aura was clearly disrupted for just an instant.

Their speeds might be neck and neck, but the difference in how each attack was initiated tilted the scales of momentum.

Gathering cursed energy. Activating the technique. Releasing the attack. Even honed to its absolute limit, the process still took time.

The tyrant facing it needed only to move.

Swing. Thrust.

No windup, no incantation. Every strike driven purely by physical reflex and killing instinct came a hairsbreadth faster than any cursed technique could be gathered.

And it was precisely that hairsbreadth of difference that, in a clash between two absolute peaks, was amplified infinitely, pinning Jogo into helpless defense, forcing it to scramble just to keep up.

The ultimate physique granted by Heavenly Restriction held an overwhelming advantage in pure close-quarters combat!

At last, the smoke cleared.

From the center of what remained of flame and churning air, the bare-torso figure walked slowly forward.

Toji's body had collected several new char-black scorch marks, stubborn remnant flames still clinging and burning along their edges, emitting a faint, persistent hiss.

But those footsteps were steady as bedrock, as if injuries that would have any Grade 1 sorcerer screaming in agony were no more than a dusting of ash.

No expression on that face. Those pure-black eyes reflected Jogo's form in cold silence.

That gaze.

Jogo had felt it from only one other being.

That white-haired, Six Eyes monster, like the living embodiment of law itself,

Satoru Gojo!

And now that same spine-chilling pressure descended again. From a human with not a single drop of cursed energy.

"Don't underestimate me!"

A roar born from the deepest shame and fear tore up from the depths of Jogo's throat.

The pride of a cursed spirit. The dignity of one who had declared itself a new humanity. It would not allow itself to be trampled like this.

BOOM!

Centered on Jogo, the temperature within a hundred-meter radius surged wildly once more. The pooled water on the ground vaporized instantly.

Concrete began to soften and drip. Twisted rebar glowed dark red.

"How delightful!"

Unlike the trio whose hearts were hammering out of their chests, Fushiguro had completely given over to wanting to savor every second of this fight.

Even so, Fushiguro couldn't help feeling a twinge of unease for Toji, who had seized the upper hand on the battlefield.

The Heavenly Restriction physique holding the edge in close-range combat was one thing. But a clash of techniques could never be decided by raw stats alone.

Matchup advantages, in-the-moment performance, environmental factors, all were variables.

This was the true essence of a great battle of wits!

Only infinite, ever-shifting possibility!

Facing the tyrant charging in again, Jogo neither dodged nor stepped aside. A fierce light flashed in that single eye, and both hands slammed together in front of its chest.

"Technique — Ember Insects!"

BUZZ!

The flames and cursed energy surrounding Jogo did not detonate outward. They compressed inward and split apart.

Transforming into countless fist-sized miniature shikigami in the shape of crimson beetles!

They flooded the space dozens of meters in front of Jogo in an instant, coalescing into a dense, buzzing insect cloud!

The resonant drone raised the hairs on the back of your neck.

Toji faltered for just an instant, then thrust forward regardless, crashing straight into the insect cloud.

Pfft!

The tip of Playful Cloud easily detonated several Ember Insects, bursting them into small pockets of flame.

But there were simply too many. They came in endless waves.

Vast numbers of them nimbly evaded the staff's edge, latched onto the shaft, and began spreading upward along Toji's arm.

That wasn't even the most lethal part.

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ!

Every Ember Insect vibrated in unison at the same frequency, emitting high-frequency waves beyond the upper limit of human hearing!

Against Satoru Gojo, this technique would be useless. That much was true.

But how many things in this world could actually hurt Gojo?

Pure sonic impact erupted all at once. The air visibly twisted and shuddered.

Watching from below, Nanami, Maki, and Naobito were instantly hit with a wave of intense dizziness and nausea. Their eardrums stung. Their internal organs churned. They were forced to immediately channel cursed energy to shield their hearing and their entire bodies.

And Toji Fushiguro bore the full brunt of it.

That charging figure stiffened, just barely, just for an instant.

Heavenly Restriction granted a superhuman physique with extreme resistance to physical force, curses, intense heat, and poison.

But against invisible sonic vibration acting directly on nerve reflexes, and on the brain itself, the resistance was clearly not limitless.

Especially under this kind of dense, high-frequency, concentrated assault.

That stiffness may have lasted only a tenth of a second. Perhaps even less.

Against an opponent of Jogo's caliber, it was enough.

"Got you."

Without a moment's hesitation, Jogo seized the instant, the sonic impact causing Toji's movement to falter, the forward thrust of Playful Cloud fractionally slowing.

The right fist, fully loaded and waiting, hammered hard toward the gap left open in Toji's chest by the forward charge.

It landed squarely, dead center between the chest and abdomen.

Time seemed to freeze for one frame before the blazing white light detonated.

BANG!

No cursed energy to protect the body. Pure flesh meeting a maximally compressed flame fist head-on.

"A direct hit!"

Jogo could feel it clearly through its knuckles, the sensation of something hard shattering.

No matter how powerful the Heavenly Restriction body was, the internal organs remained vulnerable.

The heat and impact of a single flame-fist strike was enough to melt a deep hole through steel.

The impact was a horrifyingly low thud. Blazing white light erupted from the point of contact and swallowed Toji's upper body whole. A terrifying shockwave blasted outward in a ring, launching the entire figure backward like a cannonball.

It punched through several twisted rebar rods and half a crumbling wall before finally coming to rest inside a cloud of billowing dust.

"Hmph."

To Fushiguro's surprise, what came first was a soft scoff from Naobito beside him.

As if Naobito had already read the doubt on Fushiguro's face, the seasoned clan head offered his answer.

"If that landed on this old man, I'd be finished — but for that wraith, it's probably..."

As if to confirm Naobito's assessment.

Click.

The sound of rubble being shifted came again, from deep within the drifting smoke.

➤ Next: The Unconfirmed Variable

Chapter 5 - The Unconfirmed Variable

"Cough, cough..."

From within the smoke and dust came a wheezing, rattling cough, like a broken bellows being dragged open.

Toji Fushiguro stood up again.

This was the ultimate physical form purchased at the cost of zero cursed energy, a body that transcended every conventional limit.

Even with the grotesque, horrific wounds torn across chest and abdomen, this shell born solely for battle continued to faithfully execute its killing routine.

Even as Jogo strained to reconsolidate dispersed cursed energy, the murderous intent in Toji's eyes locked back onto its target.

The moment the second round of the death match was about to ignite,

BOOM!

A terrifying wave of cursed energy, thick with savage violence, surged into the sky above Shibuya in an instant.

It erupted without warning from a distant district on the far side of Shibuya!

Its sheer intensity instantly overwhelmed the residual shockwaves of the fierce battle here, and the entire ruined cityscape trembled.

22:55.

Megumi glanced at the remains of an electronic clock in the rubble, one that hadn't quite stopped yet, and understood in an instant.

It was time.

Right now was the precise moment of the five-finger Sukuna's liberation.

Suguru Geto's remnant faction was feeding the fifth of Sukuna's fingers into Yuji Itadori's body.

Good. The plot hadn't been entirely derailed by the upheaval here.

"Suku — that's Itadori, isn't it."

The sharp-minded Kento Nanami assessed the situation immediately, concluding that something had activated the seal within Yuji's body.

"Nanami, Maki — could I ask you both to split up and go check on Itadori's condition?"

Megumi took the initiative, putting the proposal on the table before anyone else could.

He had to ensure Nanami and Maki left this area.

According to the original story, Yuji had only swallowed one finger, he should be able to suppress Sukuna's brief awakening.

Sending Nanami and Maki, who hadn't sustained serious injuries, meant the worst case was an encounter with Geto's remnants and some wandering cursed spirits.

No risk of facing a fully manifested Sukuna. The threat was manageable.

As for why he needed to get the two of them out of the way?

Megumi needed to create a space to be alone with Naobito.

He needed this old clan head's power, and he needed Naobito isolated from the information network in order to execute the next stage of the plan.

That stage: the Zen'in Clan upheaval.

The world line continued to shift.

The chain of plans meshed together at high speed inside his mind.

It can work.

"Understood. Please take care of yourself, Fushiguro."

Kento Nanami didn't hesitate for even a moment, only looked at Megumi for one long beat before turning away.

This seasoned sorcerer always showed impeccable reliability at the crucial moment.

"Don't you dare die on me, Megumi!"

Maki pulled a smile across her face, one mixed with worry.

The stench of death still hung thick over Shibuya, but a comrade's farewell was a rare and precious thing in this night.

Don't worry, I've still got the invincible Mahoraga on my side.

Megumi pulled a smile in return. He didn't put his plans into words.

Before the echo had even faded,

BOOM!

An even fiercer explosion detonated overhead, columns of fire and smoke shooting skyward, chaotic cursed energy surging wildly in all directions.

The blast and the billowing smoke instantly separated the four of them. Like an invisible boundary, it divided them into two distinct battlefields.

Nanami and Maki charged without hesitation toward the source of Sukuna's erupting aura and vanished quickly into broken walls and thick smoke.

"They're fighting further and further away."

Naobito's observation pulled Megumi back to the battle between Toji and Jogo.

"Fushiguro kid, can we catch up to them?"

Naobito watched the two figures receding in the distance and began settling into a running stance.

"Yes — please get on!"

No wasted words. The shadow beneath Megumi's feet expanded abruptly, and the great owl-type shikigami Nue shrieked as it rose from the darkness.

He vaulted onto Nue's back and extended a hand toward Naobito.

Gazing up at the imposing Nue, a flash of complicated emotion crossed Naobito Zen'in's gaunt face.

"The Ten Shadows Technique, hmph."

Perhaps it was a wave of feeling stirred by the sight. Perhaps grief for the fallen souls of the Zen'in Clan, or sorrow at the weight of complicated bloodline ties.

Naobito moved with swift agility and leaped up onto Nue's back, but those eyes drifted, lost in thought.

Exactly what Megumi had been counting on.

In the very instant Nue spread its wings and was about to lift off in pursuit of the distant battlefield, a flicker crossed Megumi's expression. The cursed energy output controlling Nue shifted by an almost imperceptibly small degree.

Crackle.

A thread of extremely faint blue-white electricity slipped quietly out from between the feathers at Nue's neck.

It lightly struck a spot on the inner lining of Naobito's clothing, the location of a slightly bulging hard object.

The jujutsu-grade special mobile phone Naobito carried for emergency contact.

The faint crackling sound was perfectly masked by the wind and the distant explosions. The phone's delicate internal components, under that precise electrical stimulus, instantly overloaded and burned out completely.

The channel for transmitting information was silently severed.

Taking the risk of earning the resentment of one of the Three Clan heads, Megumi had gone this far, all for the sake of everything that was to come next.

Fingers tapped rapidly across his phone. A message he had composed well in advance was sent with a light tap of his fingertip.

The recipient was the Jujutsu High rear base where Masamichi Yaga and Shoko Ieiri were stationed.

The message read:

"Zen'in Clan head, Naobito Zen'in, confirmed dead."

"Wounds too severe; unable to save. Scene is in chaos, body cannot be recovered at this time."

From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Naobito sitting right beside him, completely unaware, eyes fixed intently on the distant battlefield.

The old clan head's condition was far from peak at the moment, but death was clearly a hundred thousand miles away.

The intelligence was false.

But there would be those who believed it. Even those who hoped for it. And through them, it would twist itself into something real.

Once this piece of disinformation spread to the Zen'in Clan, a clan already riddled with mutual suspicion and unceasing internal power struggles, what kind of waves would it stir?

This was going to be a spectacular show.

Megumi naturally didn't expect that a single false message could instantly shatter a clan as massive as the Zen'in Clan or set father against son. But at minimum, driven by desire and ambition, it would set off unexpected whirlpools and undercurrents.

At minimum, it was enough to reshape the dynamics within the Zen'in Clan.

The fuse laid for the future Zen'in Clan upheaval had been quietly set in place.

Now, it was time to return to the matter at hand.

To return to the true feast he had personally set in motion and had been looking forward to for so long.

Nue cut through the smoke-filled night sky, rapidly closing in on the core of that battlefield, a place that looked like hell itself.

Below, amid soaring flames and endlessly crumbling buildings, two figures were still locked in a savage, frenzied exchange of blows!

Fist-winds and raging fire intertwined, turning that stretch of city into an absolute no-man's-land for the living.

The scene of destruction reflected in Megumi's pupils. Cold analysis and blazing anticipation burned in silence behind those eyes.

The outcome between Jogo and the Sorcerer Killer had yet to be decided.

Megumi said:

"Don't keep me waiting too long!"

A fierce grin spread across his face.

➤ Next: Skill-Spam B, It's So Over

Chapter 6 - Skill-Spam B, It's So Over

Cursed energy turbulence churned overhead.

Both of them were showing wounds that weren't healing.

Jogo — the undisputed glass cannon of the Four Disaster Curses, had been taking Toji's relentless Playful Cloud onslaught with no room to breathe. The damage was stacking. More than one gash sat open and raw where cursed energy restoration simply couldn't keep pace. Pale bone had been wrenched all the way to the surface by the sheer brutality of the impacts, exposed and jagged and wrong.

A flicker of agitation crossed Jogo's eye. Its form shot upward, trying once again to widen the gap, to use aerial dominance and reset.

Staying airborne was supposed to be a cursed spirit's birthright.

The sky, however, had never belonged to cursed spirits alone.

BOOM!

Toji drove force through both feet. The ground exploded. The figure launched skyward.

The terrifying power granted by the Heavenly Restriction, pushed once again to its absolute limit.

Using the sky itself as a foothold.

Borrowing impossible momentum in midair, vaulting between the towering ruins, movement that mocked gravity, that laughed at the laws of physics.

But right now, something more troublesome than gravity was clinging to Toji.

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ.

The Ember Insects Jogo had released had surged to a number that blotted out the sky.

It was the one advantage Jogo could still manufacture in close combat, so Jogo committed to it. Keep repeating the sequence that had landed. Keep hammering the same play.

Fushiguro's take on it, translated loosely: skill spammer. Unbelievable.

Though in fairness, a deep skill pool was one of Jogo's genuine strengths. That was exactly why, back in his old life, countless people online had wanted to see Jogo go head-to-head with Ryu Ishigori, the Players' undisputed top damage dealer.

Now that would've been a meal.

Fushiguro licked the corner of his mouth and kept his gaze locked on the two figures above.

The high-frequency sonic assault continued without pause. Like countless fine needles drilling toward Toji's skull. Disrupting balance, reaction time, the most basic motor coordination.

Toji was still standing, but the crispness of those movements, the fluid snap of that explosiveness, had degraded. Not much. Just enough to notice.

The buzzing climbed higher, sharper, winding up for an even denser barrage, sonic waves layered with other cursed techniques, a sustained effort to grind the opponent down to nothing.

"Don't you dare fall, beast with zero cursed energy!"

Fushiguro's brows drew together.

Far back behind the shelter of the buildings, Naobito and Fushiguro were already being crushed by the sonic pressure. They could barely breathe. And they were on the outside.

The Sorcerer Killer was at the center of it.

Then Fushiguro saw something he would never forget.

Faced with that all-pervasive sonic interference.

Toji Fushiguro, whose Heavenly Restriction body carried hearing that shattered every limit of human perception, made a choice that was brutally, perfectly direct.

Both palms simply cupped together.

Calmly. Without hurry.

Then, without a moment of hesitation, drove them straight into the ear canals on both sides.

A double palm strike. To both ears.

Blood burst instantly from the ear canals and around the fingertips, running down along Toji's jaw.

The expression barely changed. Brows creased, just barely, just for a fraction of a second as pain hit a threshold it had no business hitting, and then relaxed.

Self-mutilation.

The permanent loss of a vital sense. In exchange for absolute immunity to all sonic interference.

The Heavenly Restriction's enhancement was total. Hearing wasn't just a luxury: it was a critical battlefield tool, one that exceeded ordinary human capacity by a staggering margin. Maki had survived Sukuna's World Cutting Slash in his original body precisely because of hearing that outstripped any sorcerer's enhancement.

Losing hearing was not a small sacrifice for the Sorcerer Killer. That much was beyond argument.

And a zero-cursed-energy constitution meant there was no way back. No Reverse Cursed Technique. No cursed energy recovery. No fixing what was done.

Toji gave a slight shake of the head. Adapting to the sudden silence.

Pitch-black eyes refocused.

Every sound, gone. Shut out completely.

What remained: visual lock. And the body's most fundamental instinct.

The Sorcerer Killer moved.

This time, not a trace of the micro-hesitation that the sonic interference had been forcing. Gone. Nothing.

The figure blasted forward, faster than before the injury. Sharper.

The ground turned to powder the instant Toji kicked off.

Straight at Jogo.

Horror flashed through Jogo's eye.

It hadn't expected this. That extreme. That solution.

Toji was charging in with the Ember Insects reforming to block, ignoring them entirely, moving with even more ferocity than before. Jogo switched tactics immediately.

"With only your eyes left — how are you going to catch me!"

"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"

Walls of superheated flame erupted from the ground. Multiple, massive, spanning every angle between them.

Sight, severed.

As a Disaster Curse, as a self-proclaimed member of a new humanity, Jogo despised tactics like this. Indirect. Evasive. Beneath it.

But its survival instinct was screaming. This was the only move left.

Both hands forming seals, the scattered Ember Insects stopped emitting sound waves and detonated, violent self-destructions that scattered small clouds of cursed energy disintegration dust. Behind the flame walls. Layered. Compounding. Something to blur perception, to disrupt cursed energy flow.

Jogo's form vanished into the layered walls of fire and cursed smoke.

No rush to attack. Instead, it used the cover. Cursed energy flooded through its body at full speed, both hands settling into a stance in front of it.

If Fushiguro could see through those walls, he would've recognized the stance immediately, the same one that had traded firepower blow for blow against fifteen-finger Sukuna.

The flames and cursed energy around Jogo's body began to compress and condense in a mode it had never used before. Denser. More dangerous.

Not crowned with the name of Maximum. But this was still Jogo's heaviest gun.

Inside the flame walls: silence.

Just the sound of fire burning.

Scrape... scrape...

And then another sound. Coming from outside the walls. Metal dragged slowly, repeatedly, across rough stone. A sharpening sound.

Jogo's cursed technique was reaching its critical window. Its single eye fixed on the flame wall's direction. But doubt crept in.

Why hasn't Toji attacked?

The speed and destructive force just shown, these flame walls and interference clouds could buy a moment, not stop Toji. Nothing here could actually hold the Sorcerer Killer.

So what was the wait?

Or had the self-mutilation and accumulated injuries hit harder than they looked?

Scrape... scrape...

Unhurried. Steady.

Against the roar of the flames, the sound was completely out of place, and razor-sharp in its clarity.

An inexplicable unease wound its way into Jogo's chest.

Its single eye stayed locked on the walls.

The silence lasted less than half a second.

WHOOSH!

A black-red afterimage, faster than any attack before it, sharper than anything before it, tore through the innermost flame wall without warning.

Through the cursed energy smoke. Through the air. Through the shock just forming in Jogo's eye and the hastily raised cursed energy defense behind it.

It wasn't the staff.

The joints connecting the end sections of the three-part weapon had been ground into spiral-shaped protrusions. Jagged. Tapered.

The entire weapon had become a spike. Long and brutal and hideous.

The black-red afterimage ripped through open air, every ounce of force funneled and compressed into that spiraling tip.

The scraping sound, that was Toji, outside the flame walls, reshaping Playful Cloud by hand.

Part of the weapon's fluid adaptability had been traded away. Converted, temporarily, into something that existed for a single purpose: one thrust. An unmatched armor-piercing spike.

The same strike that had finished Dagon.

And now that spike, carrying every last burst of explosive force Toji had left, hit dead center.

It drove straight through the cursed energy Jogo had frantically condensed across its chest.

"Gh—!"

Jogo's single eye bulged. Unbearable agony. Complete bewilderment.

It looked down.

The hideous weapon jutted from its own chest.

The spiraling tip churned through its body of cursed energy, tearing, grinding, consuming.

Slowly disintegrating.

➤ Next: The Meteor That Flies in Reverse

Chapter 7 - The Meteor That Flies in Reverse

Blood mixed with fragments of viscera poured ceaselessly from the cracked corners of Jogo's mouth.

Dripping down onto the Playful Cloud that had pierced clean through its chest.

The single eye had gone dim by more than half.

Its vast reserves of cursed energy were dissipating rapidly alongside the ebbing of blood and life.

That ruined body looked like it could collapse at any second, dissolving into cursed energy dust.

"The outcome is already..."

Even Megumi, watching from a distance, had almost drawn a final period in his mind on this brutally intense clash.

And yet.

At that very instant, consciousness fading, death within reach,

The single eye left with only a dim flicker of flame blazed again with a brilliance unlike anything before.

Not a dying flare. This was premeditated.

"Maximum!"

The incantation forced its way out of Jogo's mouth with great difficulty.

"Meteor!"

BOOM!

The impact didn't come from Jogo. Didn't come from the sky.

It came from below.

The ground heaved upward and exploded.

"The attack surged from underground?!"

Megumi's face went white.

The shockwave fanned outward in a ring, instantly shredding apart the remaining sea of flames and thick smoke. From the depths of that bottomless crater, a massive meteorite with lava flowing across its surface, defying gravity, carrying temperatures that could grind everything to nothing, shot upward in reverse and burst violently through the earth.

"What?!"

Megumi's pupils snapped tight. His gaze swept urgently across the battlefield.

Only now did he realize, from the very moment Jogo had seemed to be desperately scattering flames trying to flush Toji out,

Every one of those flame barrages had appeared to miss or target Toji. But their true points of impact had, in fact, cleverly concentrated on the half-collapsed underground entrances leading down to the subway station.

The magma and flames hadn't been wasted.

They had silently flowed through the cracks in the shattered stairways, pouring into the spacious underground platform below, a space where cursed energy fluctuations were easy to conceal.

From the moment Jogo discovered it couldn't win in close combat. That its flame technique was suppressed by sheer speed. That its sound-wave shikigami had been nullified through self-harm.

Jogo had already been preparing this final Maximum.

Megumi was struck cold.

The true process of charging and concentrating had been hidden entirely underground. The station's structure blocking perception. The outward display of desperation and crisis serving as camouflage. All of it waiting for the moment Toji moved in close again.

The meteorite, in reverse!

The instant it burst through the earth, it had already locked onto the two figures grappling desperately on the surface.

"Don't even think about escaping!"

Jogo lurched forward again, crashing into the Playful Cloud, driving its chest straight onto Toji's thick-muscled arm to restrict Toji's movement. Using its own body and bones as a cage to pin the Sorcerer Killer in place, dragging them both into the inferno together.

"Using its own flesh as a cage, leveraging shared-cursed-energy-source damage reduction, swallowing Maximum together from the inside?!"

This one... this cursed spirit's combat intelligence is no less than mine!

The thought flashed through Megumi's mind and was immediately swamped by an even more urgent question.

Could the Sorcerer Killer dodge this? Point-blank. Inescapable. Devastating?

The pale radiance of the meteorite swallowed everything in sight.

...

...

Dead silence.

Silence as if centuries had passed.

Megumi scrambled up from the collapsed rubble in a sorry state, heedless of the dust, and looked urgently toward the center of the battlefield.

At the meteorite's impact site, in the center of the molten crater, a single figure stood.

Jogo.

Its single eye was dim. The massive wound through its chest was grotesque and horrifying. Its cursed energy fluctuations were barely a flicker, faint as a dying candle.

But in its hand, unmistakably, Jogo gripped a length of Playful Cloud still attached to a severed fragment of a forearm.

Toji's severed arm.

"Fushiguro kid — get ready!"

Naobito's brow furrowed hard, body drawn taut as a bowstring, cursed energy beginning to flow.

Jogo was clearly running on fumes. But a Special Grade cursed spirit's death-throes counterattack was still lethal.

"Look at the cross-section of the arm."

Megumi's tone was calm. He summoned Nue back from the shadows and vaulted to a tall building at the edge of the battlefield.

Naobito's aged eyes narrowed sharply.

The cut was too clean.

Not the ragged, irregular damage left by explosion or flame.

More like something impossibly sharp had made a single precise cut in an instant.

A sharp whistle of split air came from the shadow of a half-collapsed building to the side and behind.

The bare-chested figure appeared again, landing steadily on a tilted steel beam nearby.

Toji Fushiguro.

The entire right arm was gone. The right shoulder bore the same clean, neat cut, blood dripping in slow drops. In the remaining left hand, Toji gripped the two surviving sections of Playful Cloud.

No expression on the face. Those pure-black eyes were locked on Jogo in the crater, as if losing an arm was nothing more than an acceptable cost.

"Discarded the entire right arm just like that?"

Naobito let out a cold laugh.

At the instant the meteorite erupted, Toji had decisively used what remained of Playful Cloud to sever one arm, break free from Jogo's grip, and escape the blast's core.

What ruthlessly decisive battlefield judgment. Worthy of the Sorcerer Killer.

Now Toji had lost one arm. The weapon was damaged. Jogo was carrying near-fatal wounds, cursed energy nearly gone. Both sides stood at the edge of the cliff.

Except Jogo's opponents still included Megumi and Naobito, standing alert at the perimeter this whole time.

Expand a Domain?

No.

Jogo's single eye flickered.

Launching a Domain Expansion and then having to face two Jujutsu High sorcerers in a near-burned-out state, not worth it. And Jogo wasn't certain its Domain could fully contain this anomaly: someone with no cursed energy whatsoever, relying entirely on the flesh.

Toji didn't give Jogo time to think.

The figure flickered and vanished back into the shadows and broken walls of the ruins.

Even with one arm, Toji chose guerrilla tactics, the style most natural to them. Zero cursed energy made Toji invisible to cursed energy perception, and Toji was using exactly that, hunting for the next, and final, lethal opening.

But this time, Jogo didn't panic.

Jogo closed its single eye.

Just stood there quietly, the charged fire arrow held in its palm, still for a long moment.

"Is it because cursed energy is nearly gone, it can't afford to attack recklessly, so it can only strike precisely?"

Megumi thought.

Then Jogo moved. No massive flame. Just the last trace of fire gathered in its palm, compressed into a flame arrow refined to its absolute limit, fired without a sound at a certain window from a cunning angle.

The flame arrow pierced through the wall.

The soft hiss of flesh being seared through came with a brief, muffled grunt.

A figure flashed out urgently from behind the window and landed on another broken wall. Toji Fushiguro, a charred hole now on the outer edge of the left shoulder, deep enough to see bone.

"How did it detect them!"

Naobito was astonished.

As someone who had truly spent time alongside Toji and even crossed blades with Toji, even Naobito couldn't guarantee being able to consistently pinpoint someone with zero cursed energy.

"Thanks to you, I've grasped the core of cursed energy."

Jogo bared a vicious grin, already charging up the next flame, letting Toji continue to move through the buildings.

"I truly... cannot lock onto you."

A hoarse voice. The single eye fixed unblinkingly on the damaged Playful Cloud in Toji's hand.

"But I can sense the cursed energy on your cursed tool. And through that, I can lock onto your position."

"So. Choose."

Jogo raised a trembling arm. The last flicker of flame danced at its fingertip, pointed toward Toji.

"Drop that last burden. Use that body — with not a drop of cursed energy — to throw punches that won't even sting."

"Or keep holding it. And wait to be burned to ash by my flames."

Cornered and desperate, Jogo had finally found its leverage against the Sorcerer Killer.

The Sorcerer Killer was not entirely without a trace to follow.

As long as Toji still relied on a cursed tool, the tool's fluctuations were the leash to tether this beast.

Above the ruins, the wind moaned.

Toji Fushiguro stood silently on the broken wall. Those pure-black eyes, utterly still.

A glance down at the two damaged sections of Playful Cloud in the left hand.

Then, under the gaze of Jogo's single eye, Megumi Fushiguro, Naobito, under every consciousness present on this battlefield,

Five fingers. Slowly tightening.

Gripping what remained of Playful Cloud.

Tighter.

➤ Next: Sword-Swallowing

Chapter 8 - Sword-Swallowing

One more strike would decide life and death.

Above the ruins, the wind howled.

Toji gripped the damaged Playful Cloud, now reduced to only two sections, in one arm.

Eyes locked on the distant Special Grade Cursed Spirit, whose form was equally on the verge of collapse.

The body lowered slightly. The muscles of the remaining left arm coiled tight once more. The tip of the staff leveled forward, settling back into a stance.

Head-on.

Toji chose not to throw away the Playful Cloud that could be tracked and targeted.

The Sorcerer Killer's battered body became a blurred afterimage that tore through the air!

The jagged tip of Playful Cloud sliced through the scorching air, driving forward with the resolve of mutual annihilation, aimed straight at Jogo's chest!

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

At the exact instant Toji launched, several massive walls of flame erupted without warning from ahead, from the sides, and even from directly above the charge path!

The raging fire churned. The extreme heat warped the air into rippling distortions, instantly building a blazing wall that completely cut Toji off from Jogo!

"You've lost your hearing."

Jogo's triumphant roar carried through from behind the wall of fire.

"How will you find my true form amid the flames and smoke?!"

Before the words had faded, the entire area transformed into a hellish inferno.

Every flame was saturated with the last dregs of Jogo's cursed energy, not at full strength, but the sheer destructive force and heat remained lethal.

The dying Special Grade's final gambit was ferocious enough that Naobito and Fushiguro, watching from a distance, were wound tight with tension, unable to find a single opening to intervene in that storm of death.

All they could do was watch how the Sorcerer Killer would break through.

Flames and thick smoke swallowed Toji whole.

Explosions, the roar of burning, the crash of collapsing structures, all merged into one continuous cacophony. The entire field of view was nothing but rolling firelight.

Yet at the heart of that chaos, through the gaps torn open by shock waves, a figure's stance was clearly visible.

Toji still held the opening form of the thrust.

One knee slightly bent. Single arm drawn back. The broken staff leveled forward like a javelin. Flames grazed past. Thick smoke engulfed and battered. Concussive blasts nudged the body with the faintest tremors.

That stance was immovable as bedrock.

Behind the fire wall, Jogo's single eye was fixed unblinking on the churning flames.

As long as the attacks were aimed at Playful Cloud —

Hit or miss, once Toji lost the weapon, a purely physical body would have no way to threaten Jogo.

Within the gaps in the flames, that figure, still as a statue, moved.

Toji chose the thrust!

Afterimage and firelight collided head-on in the next instant!

BOOM!

A blast far more violent than anything before rang out!

A terrifying shockwave detonated and tore through everything, completely leveling, pulverizing, and vaporizing every remaining structure within a hundred meters!

A massive scorched crater, a scar gouged into the earth, appeared in an instant!

Dust and dying embers rose slowly into the air.

Silence.

A suffocating silence blanketed the newly made wasteland.

At the center of the crater, the dust slowly settled.

What emerged first was a charred metallic husk, the faintest outline of Playful Cloud still visible in its shape.

It jutted alone from the ground, trailing thin wisps of scorched smoke.

Playful Cloud.

And beside that wreckage, a figure staggered upright.

Jogo.

"Ha... ha ha..."

A hoarse, broken laugh. Filled with boundless satisfaction.

The single eye was fixed hard on the charred husk of Playful Cloud.

"I... I won!"

Using the body as bait, using the last of its strength to build a wall of fire, forcing that cursed-energy-less monster to charge straight through!

Then concentrating all firepower onto the cursed tool and pouring it all out!

The result: Toji and the last cursed tool, both completely destroyed here!

However—

At the very moment the declaration of victory left Jogo's mouth, before the joy could fully permeate Jogo's near-shattered consciousness,

A hand.

A blood-soaked hand reached out silently from the shadows at Jogo's back and rested lightly upon Jogo's cracked body.

Jogo's wild laughter cut off abruptly.

The single eye snapped toward the back. The pupil constricted sharply.

And then Jogo saw it.

Saw Toji Fushiguro, already pressed close from behind, unnoticed until now.

Saw that face, still entirely expressionless yet more unsettling than any twisted grimace, a blank mask that made the chest clench.

But the Sorcerer Killer's hands held nothing.

To evade Jogo's flames, the weapon had been abandoned.

"...Hmph."

"All posturing!"

Jogo laughed.

"Playful Cloud has been completely burned to ash. What are you going to use to hurt me!"

Pure physical attacks with zero cursed energy cannot affect a Cursed Spirit.

Jogo struck the pose of a victor and, without a shred of concern, let Toji charge again.

"Fushiguro kid, looks like it's our turn now."

Naobito quickly assessed the situation and had already concluded that Toji, without a cursed tool, had lost.

Yet at this moment, the Sorcerer Killer broke into a savage, wicked grin.

Within that smile, a terrifying cursed energy aura surged once more.

From deep in the throat, a chilling black-red gleam of cursed energy was slowly rising.

The outline pressing through the throat, clearly visible.

Sword-swallowing.

An uncanny martial art from the ancient East. Through supreme mastery of the body, concealing a lethal weapon within.

Playful Cloud originally consisted of three sections.

One was torn off.

One was burned to ash.

And the last remaining section of Playful Cloud was hidden inside Toji's throat, and with Toji's next swing, it bared its deadly gleam!

Jogo instantly understood why the flames had failed to touch Toji.

The Sorcerer Killer had left one wrecked section of Playful Cloud in place as bait, drawing all attention and the final counterattack onto it.

The true final section had long since been swallowed down by a method that defied all reason.

Sheer physical mastery suppressing its cursed energy fluctuations, completely concealing the last trace of its presence.

Every charge. Every standoff. Plunging into the sea of fire as bait...

All of it for this, point-blank—

Piercing thrust!

The blade pierced through flesh.

That section lodged in the throat, wound through with Toji's last resolve.

Expelled from Toji's mouth, it became a black-red streak of death.

With absolute precision, it drove deep into Jogo's single eye, that eye which now reflected nothing but boundless horror and blank disbelief.

Through the eye. Through the brain. Out the other side.

Jogo's ruined body stiffened violently.

The last light in that single eye, like a punctured bubble, rapidly scattered and went dark.

Jogo's mouth opened, seemed to want to say something, but could only manage a hollow, rattling exhale.

The Special Grade Cursed Spirit's aura, like a dam bursting.

It poured wildly from the pierced eye, from the massive wound in the chest, from every crack across the body, dissolving into sparks and cursed embers scattered through the air.

"Szzz..."

Toji Fushiguro slowly withdrew the arm. Drew back the weapon that had pierced the eye.

In those pitch-black eyes, nothing remained but an all-consuming void.

The hunt was over.

The Cursed Spirit had fallen to the pinnacle of what the human body's technique could achieve.

...

...

"I'm full."

In a shadowed corner of the ruins, Fushiguro had held his breath through every moment of that world-shaking strike. Now a deeply contented smile bloomed slowly across his face.

To witness with his own eyes a peak showdown that surpassed all imagination.

The satisfaction and exhilaration Fushiguro felt at this moment was probably even richer than anything felt by Ryu Ishigori, the man famous for always having his fill.

Yet that loosened brow and the curve at the corner of his lips didn't even last half a second.

"Ugh... hgh..."

A low groan carried from the center of the battlefield.

In the constricted pupils of everyone watching, the Cursed Spirit that should have been completely pinned through by Playful Cloud.

Using those arms riddled with holes, it reached up and gripped the spiraling spike protruding from its skull.

Gripped it hard.

"What the..."

"There's more?!"

➤ Next: You Want to Come Back From the Brink Too?

Chapter 9 - You Want to Come Back From the Brink Too?

The one-eyed cursed spirit's body remained pinned to the ground by Playful Cloud.

......

Pure white. Boundless silence.

Jogo's consciousness seemed to plunge into a vast, featureless white expanse.

Within that absolute void, two familiar presences slowly took shape.

A quiet silhouette woven from twisted branches, blooming in silence.

A drifting expanse of ocean, surging without sound.

Hanami.

Dagon.

Jogo's former companions, appearing within this chaos in the form of lingering regrets, or perhaps near-death hallucinations.

Like two silent tombstones. Or two pairs of eyes watching in wordless vigil.

Give up... to simply fade away might also be a release.

As long as the ones still standing on the wasteland a hundred years from now are cursed spirits, then this isn't defeat.

Yet just as the impulse to surrender was about to devour the last flicker of clarity,

An irregular rhythm stirring inside Jogo's chest called it back.

Those were the ten fingers of Sukuna. The ones Kenjaku had personally entrusted to Jogo before the battle.

If Jogo fell here, then the greatest contingency they were all so proud of, the scheme to resurrect the King of Curses, how would it ever move forward?

The Heavenly Restriction before Jogo's eyes was also teetering on the edge of collapse.

But there were still two Jujutsu High sorcerers watching with predatory intent.

If Jogo died here, those fingers would return to Jujutsu High's hands.

"I cannot die."

Jogo's consciousness surged back.

"I cannot die!"

"There are still goals left unrealized! The age of cursed spirits, the dawn of a new humanity..."

"If I fall here, a hundred years from now, no, even ten years from now, there will be no trace of us cursed spirits left on this wasteland!"

"There are still powerful enemies left to eliminate!"

"There are still goals left unrealized!"

"The ideal of becoming the new humanity... someone must see it through!"

"That someone is me!"

"ROAR!"

In the waking world, the dying Jogo unleashed a howl of obsession that transcended all pain.

Within Jogo's punctured chest, the terrifying wellspring of cursed energy held as its final trump card detonated with a thunderous blast.

Those were the ten fingers of Ryomen Sukuna that Jogo had always kept close.

At the threshold of life and death, Jogo threw all caution aside.

Using its own foundational cursed energy as the ignition, it forcibly devoured the ancient curses sealed within those ten Special Grade cursed objects.

"You want to come back from the brink too?!"

This resurrected Jogo had clearly exceeded Megumi's predictions.

How are you still going, are you the protagonist here or am I?!

Don't make this so dramatic!

But aside from the vessel, the consequence of forcibly seizing Sukuna's fingers was always the same.

Slow suicide. Nothing more.

Still, white-hot, near-blue flames erupted skyward once more and blasted the Playful Cloud clean out of Jogo's chest. The surrounding ruins vanished in an instant, swallowed by an ever-expanding volcanic eruption.

Toji had already leapt back the moment the explosion began.

That silhouette melted like a phantom into the shadows of the partially standing buildings nearby, decisive, without a shred of hesitation.

Toji had clearly read that the opponent had entered some kind of dangerous burst state, and chose to pull back and wait it out.

But Jogo's single eye no longer held fury or bewilderment. It burned with unshakable resolve.

And just as even the watching Naobito tensed every muscle, cursed energy quietly surging, poised to seize the gap the burst would leave,

Another transformation erupted.

"HMMM!"

An indescribable tremor of the soul blasted outward from Jogo's shattered body as its epicenter.

Overwhelming, suffocating cursed energy surged into view alongside the awakening of cursed markings, blanketing the sky across hundreds of meters in every direction in an instant.

"Is this real..."

Megumi's pupils shook violently. He whispered in disbelief.

Jogo, in that condition... could still manage this?!

"Domain Expansion!"

Jogo's fractured voice rang out clearly in every person's ears.

"Coffin—"

"—Iron Mountain!"

A pitch-black barrier snapped into shape and sealed shut in an instant, Jogo at its center.

A complete Domain.

Nothing like Megumi's own half-closed version could compare.

Megumi's heart clenched. He truly hadn't anticipated this, Jogo's final counterattack was a Domain Expansion.

Megumi's mind raced through countermeasures.

Debater brain, activate.

Toji was a zero-cursed-energy Heavenly Restriction constitution. In theory, someone with no cursed energy should be impossible to drag inside a Domain, and equally impossible to lock down with the sure-hit effect.

Under these circumstances, this Domain Expansion was nothing but a dying struggle.

We can win this.

A flash of hope lit up in Megumi's mind.

Once this forcibly expanded Domain collapsed, Jogo would inevitably suffer technique burnout. And when that happened, it would be the perfect moment to finish this entirely.

Was the natural disaster ultimately going to lose to the Sorcerer Killer?

And yet.

That hope lasted only an instant.

The very next moment, countless eerie, pure-white cracks appeared without warning across the surface of the pitch-black Domain shell that had just stabilized. They spread at a furious pace, covering the entire surface. But rather than shattering it, the cracks sent the entire Domain shuddering violently.

"This is... a Domain coordinate shift?!"

Knowledge from Megumi's debater-streamer side surged wildly through his mind. He recognized the rare phenomenon in an instant.

It wasn't maintaining the Domain. It wasn't attacking.

It was forcibly relocating the entire Domain's spatial coordinates.

Jogo's last gambit was never about fighting inside the Domain.

It was about exploiting the absolute spatial dominance that comes with a Domain Expansion to execute an ultra-long-range spatial jump,

It was trying to escape.

"Don't you dare run!"

"I held that lifting competition with Reggie Star all the way to the very end!"

"How can you just up and bolt like that?!"

"Nue!"

The shadow shikigami and Naobito erupted into motion simultaneously. Even with Toji swinging Playful Cloud alongside them, none of it was enough to stop the Domain barrier from disappearing.

Jogo's figure vanished with it, without a trace.

Escaped to where?

How to give chase?

As if to answer the shock roaring through Megumi's mind,

BOOM!

In the very last instant before the Domain coordinates completed their shift, a surge of ominous, ravenous cursed energy exploded forth.

Unmistakably the sign that all ten Sukuna fingers had been fully activated.

And the direction that surge of energy erupted toward,

Or rather, the final destination locked in by the coordinate shift,

That direction.

Was the other end of Shibuya. The exact direction Kento Nanami and Maki Zen'in had headed earlier.

Which was precisely where Yuji Itadori was.

"This is bad!"

The color drained from Megumi's face in an instant, his heart plummeting into an abyss of ice.

It intends to force-feed those ten fingers... to Yuji?!

For Jogo, for the cursed spirits, their victory meant advancing the Culling Game alongside Kenjaku.

If Sukuna with fifteen fingers successfully descended,

Then everything Megumi had risked his life to rewrite would be for nothing.

No.

Absolutely not.

This had to be stopped.

Otherwise, the entire Shibuya battlefield would spiral completely out of control.

"Kid Fushiguro!"

Beside him, Naobito made the call without hesitation.

"You're too slow — this old man will go on ahead with Projection Sorcery!"

Good thing Naobito was still in peak condition and could give chase.

"As for that undead wraith..."

"I'm leaving it to you!"

Whoosh,

Those parting words, and then Naobito vanished from Megumi's sight in an instant, leaving only an afterimage.

Silence reclaimed the space.

Only two figures remained, facing each other across the drifting smoke and ruins.

Only then did Megumi remember, at his Grade 2 sorcerer level, he might genuinely be unable to handle a bloodied Sorcerer Killer.

"Crack..."

The moment Toji stirred again, Megumi instantly deployed a time-honored move.

The summoning hand seal for Mahoraga snapped into form between his fingers, followed immediately by a shout calling upon the bonds of family:

"Dad, don't swing, it's me, Fushiguro!"

➤ Next: Megumi Is Shameless Through and Through — Insisting Toji Is His Shikigami