Kenjaku’s burnt-out cursed technique returned.
Daisuke was rendered completely immobile by the suddenly increased gravity.
"If I have my technique back, someone like you is nothing."
"Ghk."
Splash
Daisuke’s body vanished into the shadows as though sinking into water.
Shortly afterward, his figure emerged beneath the shadow of a tree some distance away.
"You escaped using shadows. Very clever. At the very least, you’re certainly more skilled at using shadow techniques than that Zenin clan head from four hundred years ago."
"Four hundred years ago? Are you talking about that imperial match?"
"To think you know that. You’ve been studying history properly too. How admirable."
There was not much Zenin Daisuke could do now that Kenjaku’s technique had returned.
Kenjaku himself seemed well aware of that fact, as he had already regained his usual composure.
"I’ll admit it has been quite an entertaining fight for the first time in a while. But I have many things I need to do as well."
Kenjaku activated his [Cursed Spirit Manipulation].
What he summoned was one of the few special-grade cursed spirits still in his possession—the cursed spirit with the technique most certain to finish off a sorcerer.
"Special-grade cursed spirit, Mahito."
"……………."
Daisuke braced himself.
If [Idle Transfiguration] touched him while he had no means of protecting his soul, it was over.
Meanwhile, seeing him like that, Kenjaku spoke mockingly.
"Judging by how you aren’t transforming into a shikigami, it seems you’ve exhausted yourself considerably too, haven’t you?"
"Couldn’t the same be said of you?"
The Ten Shadows Technique fundamentally operated through Reverse Cursed Technique, at twice the output of an ordinary cursed technique.
Accordingly, it consumed twice as much cursed energy as the usual Ten Shadows Technique.
But as Daisuke said, Kenjaku’s condition was far from normal as well.
The strain from the domain he had forced into existence through a binding vow, the feedback from the deaths of the special-grade cursed spirits he had unleashed all at once to draw Gojo Satoru’s attention, and the aftereffects of the beating Zenin Daisuke had given him.
Even so, there was a gap in ability between the two that could not be bridged through a straightforward fight.
"Mahito, kill him."
"Eeeeeeek───!!!"
Mahito moved.
However, his movements were noticeably more sluggish than they had been before he was absorbed through Cursed Spirit Manipulation.
It was not an aftereffect of Cursed Spirit Manipulation.
It was a trait inherent to Mahito himself.
That cursed spirit was a hedonistic monster who pursued his own curiosity and amusement, drawing inspiration from them to grow.
But when he was absorbed through Cursed Spirit Manipulation, Mahito’s soul had effectively died.
He was now in a joyless state of being forcibly obedient to a cursed technique.
He would follow orders, but he was fighting with the mindset of a salary thief who found not even the slightest bit of fun in it.
Thanks to that, Daisuke barely managed to evade Mahito’s half-hearted movements.
I absolutely cannot let him touch me. Absolutely not.
Judging by his movements, he’s wary of Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration. He also seems to know that he can’t deal any meaningful damage to Mahito. Rather than attack and expose an opening, he’s focused entirely on evasion.
As Daisuke retreated while dodging Mahito’s attacks, the distance between him and Kenjaku steadily widened.
That was when it happened.
"You’ve come."
"So you weren’t running away. You sure got awfully relaxed in that short time."
Gojo Satoru, whose cursed technique had likewise returned, appeared.
Zenin Daisuke had deliberately fought with enough fanfare to reveal this place’s location, so it was only natural that Gojo, once his technique had recovered, would arrive immediately.
"Relaxed? Yes. I have plenty of room to spare. You cannot cross over here, after all."
"………!"
A curtain had been erected between Gojo Satoru and Kenjaku before they knew it.
A curtain was a kind of application that drew backup from Tengen’s barrier techniques spread across all of Japan.
Once erected, those who did not meet the barrier’s conditions could not even set foot inside it, and unless the barrier’s core was removed, it could not be destroyed either.
"Mahito, return."
Mahito, who had been threatening Daisuke, let his form collapse and returned to Geto.
"So you’ve become a Pokémon Master now."
"Mock me all you like. The moment you failed to capture me, you lost."
Gojo strained to locate a flaw in the curtain or discover its core with the Six Eyes, but it appeared to have been placed somewhere he could not find from here.
Just as he wondered whether he had no choice but to give up, Gojo’s gaze shifted away from the curtain and toward somewhere else.
Gojo wore an expression as though he had been had. Yet there was also something oddly refreshing and pleasant in that feeling of deflation.
"You. I don’t know your name, but you’d better prepare yourself. I will definitely kill you."
"My name, you say? I’ve been called countless names over the past thousand years, but yes. If you must call me something, call me Kenjaku. Well then, until we meet again, Gojo Sato───"
Thrust
"Ru……. Gahk───!"
Kenjaku looked down at his chest.
A pitch-black blade that had pierced his heart and broken through his rib cage was protruding from it.
"Checkmate, you bastard."
"Zenin Daisuke? How………?"
Seeing Zenin Daisuke, who had been hiding in his shadow, Kenjaku stared beyond the curtain in disbelief.
Zenin Daisuke was there too.
No, that figure was wavering.
Ever since he had entered a shadow to escape the gravity technique, Zenin Daisuke had been holding his breath inside Kenjaku’s shadow.
The one evading Mahito’s attacks had been a mirage created by Kitano Minami’s technique, Projection.
But Kenjaku had not been aware of the existence of a sorcerer named Kitano Minami.
"So Jujutsu High had an illusionist who wasn’t in my information……?"
"You don’t need to know the details. Just die. Please die already."
"Aaaaaargh─!!!"
He twisted the sword embedded in Kenjaku’s heart—the special-grade cursed tool, Star Mutation Particle.
Kenjaku screamed as endless pain washed over him.
"Get away, damn you──!!!"
Even through the pain, Kenjaku managed to focus long enough to summon a cursed spirit and successfully shake Daisuke off.
But what came after was the problem.
Why? Reverse Cursed Technique isn’t working. No, before that, has my synchronization rate with this body itself fallen……?
Then Kenjaku saw the constellation engraved on Star Mutation Particle’s blade.
Only then did Kenjaku realize the cursed tool’s true nature.
Constellations were originally born when stars billions of light-years apart happened to look beautifully gathered together from Earth, and were assigned shapes and meanings.
Astrology was a form of sorcery that developed from attempts to go beyond simply assigning meaning to those stars, recording changes in their positions and brightness to divine fate through them.
But it was impossible to explain fate by connecting two entirely unrelated causes: destiny and stars.
Thus, astrology naturally became not a sorcery for divining fate, but one that cursed targets according to the movement of the stars and forcibly made them follow the fate the stars decreed.
The Star Mutation Particle wielded by Zenin Daisuke was a divine treasure born from the culmination of that astrology.
A demonic sword that severs the fate its victim originally possessed and overlays it with a new fate.
Those insane bastards at Jujutsu High gave something like that to a brat like him……!
And now, Star Mutation Particle had imposed a fate.
Not upon Kenjaku, but upon his body. Upon Suguru’s fate.
That body had originally been fated to remain in Kenjaku’s grasp until the moment it disappeared, never finding peace in the end. But as a new fate was overlaid upon it, the connection between Kenjaku and Suguru’s body began to destabilize.
However, Kenjaku alone was aware of all these facts.
Not even Zenin Daisuke, Star Mutation Particle’s owner, knew any of this.
I have to run. In this situation, that Zenin brat with the sword is more troublesome to me than even Gojo Satoru.
"Maximum: [Uzumaki]."
The greatest Uzumaki he could draw forth with his unstable body.
A Maximum technique packed with cursed spirits nearly up to the limit he could control in his present condition floated above Kenjaku’s hand.
Zenin Daisuke raised his sword.
He believed it would come flying at him and prepared to strike it down.
──[New Shadow Style], [Simple Domain].
"Ha ha, what a shame."
But Kenjaku threw Uzumaki at his own feet and detonated it.
The Uzumaki explosion split open the ground, scattering stone fragments and dust.
Daisuke realized Kenjaku had escaped once again and moved to pursue him, but—
Thud
Zenin Daisuke’s body had already reached its limit.
-
"Ghk, gurgle, hrrk, hack………!!"
A phlegmy rattle came from Kenjaku’s mouth as blood poured from every opening in his body.
It was the backlash from forcibly drawing out his cursed technique with a body whose synchronization rate had fallen.
"Tch, you’re nothing but a corpse, and yet you dare rebel against me……!"
Suguru’s body was rejecting Kenjaku.
It was clearly dangerous to remain in this body.
That single thought drove Kenjaku onward.
"Heh heh heh, Geto. It seems you got beaten quite spectacularly────."
He arrived at the location of the curse user who had supported Geto and Mahito’s battle from behind with a commissioned barrier.
Without hesitation, Kenjaku dealt with the curse user, emptied out his brain, and transferred himself into the body.
"Much better. ……The technique engraved into this body is garbage. There’s no need to keep it in stock."
Muttering that, Kenjaku disappeared.
-
After three days of searching, Suguru’s remains, which Kenjaku had abandoned, were found.
After Ieiri Shoko prepared Suguru’s remains for burial, they were cremated.
The remaining ashes were ground into powder and sealed away in Jujutsu High’s archives.
Kenjaku defeated and absorbed through Cursed Spirit Manipulation all the special-grade cursed spirits that had been enraged by his consuming Mahito.
Though he had transferred bodies, he still appeared to be maintaining Cursed Spirit Manipulation by some means.
Mahito’s technique, far less developed than his original target had intended.
Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer of the modern age, still far too healthy and alive.
And Ryomen Sukuna, who for some reason continued to remain silent.
In the worst possible situation, where not a single thing had gone as intended, Kenjaku moved in search of a clever move that could break through this impasse.
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