Jujutsu Kaisen: Megumi — Chapter 39 - Click Click
Four-Armed Divine Demon.
Within the boiling blood mist, he reclaimed dominion over the contest, the absolute new apex of the duel!
One had to admit: this peak-form body belonging to the eternal King of Curses was practically the ultimate weapon tailor-made for weightlifting.
Like two brand-new arms reaching up from hell itself, they perfectly distributed the terrifying load that had nearly snapped his spine in two.
Ryomen Sukuna raised all four arms flat, like the legendary figure holding up the heavens.
Inch by inch, he forcibly straightened the knees that had been bent under the strain.
Once again, in a posture of absolute sovereignty, he stubbornly bore up the weight pressing down upon him.
"Come on then — let's see who holds out to the very end, Megumi Fushiguro!"
From that moment, neither side held anything back.
Both their eyes reflected each other's absolute resolve.
Every technique, every trump card, every scheme and calculation: in this moment, all of it had lost its meaning.
Everything was poured completely into this most primal, most savage contest of strength.
Weightlifting has never been a matter settled in an instant.
It is the torment of flesh and will being ground down, bit by bit.
Megumi Fushiguro, through the 120% amplification of his Domain Expansion, frantically squeezed out the last of the cursed energy remaining within him, pouring it ceaselessly into the shadow formation suppressing Ryomen Sukuna.
And Ryomen Sukuna, relying on the perfect incarnate body granted by True Form Activation, forcibly held aloft the weight capable of crushing the earth's crust.
Through their mutual amplifications and state renewals, both were frantically burning through their lives, holding that weight capable of destroying all of Shinjuku aloft until the very last second,
BOOM!
The critical point maintaining that terrifying equilibrium was completely blown apart.
The shockwave of shattering dust and shadow tide erupted across Shinjuku like a nuclear detonation.
Everyone in front of the livestream watched without blinking.
Every soul was praying frantically. Anticipating.
Anticipating that silhouette, dimly visible amid the white smoke and swirling dust, that the figure standing proudly at the end, the one who had remained, would be that black-haired youth who had created countless miracles.
And yet...
When that catastrophic dust cloud was torn apart bit by bit by the mournful night wind, agonizingly slowly,
Hajime Kashimo, who stood closest to the television, had been biting down so hard on his lower lip that in his extreme trembling, he bit clean through it.
Crimson blood mixed with desperate foam trickled down along his chin.
Because what was reflected in his eyes was the figure that had remained standing to the end.
The cursed body that still brazenly bore four arms.
......
......
Megumi Fushiguro lay collapsed on the ground. Blood-red spread across his face, long since rendered unrecognizable, staining the scorched earth beneath him.
His vision had already begun to scatter.
Once again, phantom images resembling a dying man's last flashes appeared before him.
He used the very last trace of strength from the depths of his soul to turn his head with extreme difficulty. That scattered gaze, filled with deep resentment and bitter unwillingness, turned toward the King of Curses, who looked down at him like a god gazing upon an ant.
"Why."
A hoarse murmur scraped from Megumi Fushiguro's throat. Each word came accompanied by fragments of shattered organs.
"I couldn't out-lift you..."
He had clearly calculated every possible accumulation of mass to its limit. Ryomen Sukuna relying on his body alone simply could not have produced, at the critical moment, a reverse thrust sufficient to overturn everything.
Hearing that dying question soaked in unwillingness, Ryomen Sukuna broke into outright laughter:
"Did you forget..."
"There's still another person in my shadow?"
Ryomen Sukuna smiled, full of wickedness and malice, and gestured toward it.
Megumi Fushiguro strained to follow Ryomen Sukuna's fingertip, fixing his gaze on the dark shadow tide slowly contracting beside his feet.
It brought him back to the casual conversation held before the battle, when he had been planning strategy with the Anti-Sukuna Squad.
......
"Sukuna can't actually out-lift you, can he?"
Before the battle, upon learning that Megumi Fushiguro intended to settle things through weightlifting, Hajime Kashimo had asked him this with complete seriousness.
"What if, I mean, what if Sukuna's talent for weightlifting is actually greater than yours?"
"The King of Curses' talent for weightlifting?"
Megumi Fushiguro raised an eyebrow.
"He's nothing but an ordinary man who wasn't born in my era!"
If one said that Sukuna and Emperor Hu were genuinely remarkable when it came to cursed energy control (their bodies approaching the level of those who wield cursed energy with the Six Eyes), then yes, their talent was beyond what an ordinary person could match.
"But what are we competing in this time?"
"Weightlifting!"
"In this regard, I won't lose to anyone!"
Megumi Fushiguro had made a promise to Hajime Kashimo. He would definitely win.
......
The memory dissolved from his mind like a blade drawn across it.
And now.
Lying in a pool of blood, on the verge of death, Megumi Fushiguro finally understood, completely and utterly, where the single piece of information he had failed to account for in the entire game lay.
"Ha... Haha..."
The corners of his mouth pulled into a bleak, bitter smile.
"Who would have thought... my intuition... has always been this accurate."
"They say yandere... the entire world is full of yanderes."
Every word he forced from his throat sent countless crushed organ fragments flowing out in blood-red streams.
But that extreme rage, like the fury of one who had been betrayed, blazed like a final rally before death and forced Megumi Fushiguro to hold on through this very last moment.
He glared fiercely at the shadow beneath Ryomen Sukuna's feet and roared out the last trace of spirit and bitter venom from the depths of his soul:
"They called him War Criminal... who would have thought you could go this far—"
"War Criminal Megumi!"
Megumi Fushiguro bit down hard on his already shattered tooth roots and forced out the cruel truth word by word, the truth that would not let him die in peace:
"You actually... used your weightlifting talent that rivals mine..."
"To help Ryomen Sukuna lift!"
Throughout the entire duel, the Ten Shadows Technique belonging to Ryomen Sukuna had never stopped. Because War Criminal Megumi had been continuously providing assistance to Ryomen Sukuna from within the shadows, forcibly yanking back the victory that had been tilting toward Megumi Fushiguro.
"You're not allowed to win!"
"You despicable creature!"
"All along, Emperor Hui has been competing in weightlifting with his own strength..."
Looking at this scene, Hajime Kashimo completely broke down.
"Emperor Hui held out until the very end..."
"And yet the two of you ganged up on him, two against one!"
"People like you..."
"Emperor Hui is far more remarkable than you!"
"Far better than you..."
"Emperor Hui did not lose."
"You couldn't even lift Piercing Elephant on your own!"
"He held out until the end and honored the duel."
"The one who lost is you!"
"It is Emperor Hui who won this match!"
Hajime Kashimo had roared himself hoarse. His voice was entirely spent.
And on the battlefield, seeing that the back of Megumi Fushiguro's head no longer bore that infuriating halo of light, the King of Curses raised a slashing strike, intending to completely end his life.
"Cough..."
Megumi Fushiguro struggled to prop up his shattered chest, trying to seize even one more thread of oxygen. To steal one more second for himself.
"Seems like it doesn't get much worse than this, does it?"
His gaze had long since gone completely dead.
"How delightful. I'll probably forget you quite soon, Megumi Fushiguro."
The King of Curses, standing to the end, aimed his cursed-energy-charged knuckles at Megumi Fushiguro.
"Farewell—"
The air split gently apart.
Ryomen Sukuna watched the slashing strike leave his hand, anticipating that detested face being completely severed from the neck.
But in the next moment.
The shadow behind Megumi Fushiguro froze.
In the instant before decapitation, the sight Ryomen Sukuna least wanted to see emerged.
That gleam of light. That silhouette.
"Mahoraga's wheel?!"
"Why hasn't your Mahoraga been dismissed yet?!"
The slashing strike sank into Megumi Fushiguro's body yet could no longer stir even the slightest ripple.
Ryomen Sukuna reacted instantly, using his palm as a blade and intending to pierce straight through Megumi Fushiguro's body with his bare hand.
But in the instant his hand came down.
That wheel, radiating a ghastly pale light, emerged once again from the shadow tide.
As if out of control.
Click,
Click,
Click,
Click,
Click,
Click,
Click,
It began to turn.
➤ Next: Megumi Fakes His Death