It happened without warning.
No one could have predicted that the moment the clock struck midnight on the day of the final battle, Kenjaku would unleash the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. Tokyo, a city already scarred by countless tragedies, found itself once again swallowed by a tide of curses.
Fortunately, due to previous disasters, much of Tokyo was still under reconstruction and sparsely populated. The workload for the sorcerers was significantly lighter than it could have been. Even with the Zenin and Kamo clans recently decimated, the remaining sorcerers managed to scrape together a frontline.
Under the cold flicker of neon lights, the final war began.
Shinjuku
Souma Gojo walked down a deserted street. The start of Kenjaku's parade was the signal; it was time for his promised meeting with Sukuna.
To say he wasn't nervous would be a lie. Souma wiped the cold sweat from his palms, his mind drifting in a momentary daze.
How long has it been since I crossed over? Nearly thirty years?
Time had blurred. The memory of PK-ing in a livestream room felt like it happened only yesterday. Yet here he was, walking into a war zone to challenge the absolute ceiling of power in this world. It was nothing short of surreal.
Ryomen Sukuna... the ceiling, huh?
If I lose... if Sukuna kills me, Satoru and Suguru should be able to handle the rest. And then there are the contingencies I left behind...
A light, drizzling rain began to fall from the blackened sky. Souma stopped in his tracks, his hands suddenly coming up to slap his own cheeks with a sharp crack.
"What... what the hell am I thinking?"
His memory flashed back to a conversation ten minutes ago.
"Satoru," Souma had asked. "If you were the one facing Sukuna, do you think you'd win?"
"I'd win!" Satoru had answered without a flicker of hesitation, pointing at his own chest. "Because I'm the strongest! ...Uh, except for you, Brother!"
The strongest...
Souma replayed Satoru's words as he walked through the rain like a hollow shell. Suddenly, he came to a halt.
Ahead, a figure resembling a god of calamity sat perched atop a pile of rubble, looking down at Souma with haughty indifference.
Souma reached up and slowly removed his sunglasses, revealing eyes the color of a boundless, frosty sky. He suddenly burst into a boisterous laugh, clutching his stomach as his shoulders shook.
"Ah... yeah! That's right! Maybe that's really all it is!"
"Have you lost your mind?"
Sukuna watched the man he had been waiting for descend into such unsightly hysterics. He was displeased. "If you're quite finished, I'll get on with cutting you in half."
Sukuna's eyes were locked onto Souma, his mind already predicting every possible movement. Left? Right? Above? What technique will he lead with? Where is the opening?
His peerless combat instincts were already running a tactical analysis. He didn't even blink, observing Souma as if he were already on a dissecting table. He weighed his options: Kamutoke and Hiten could nullify the Limitless, but they wouldn't deliver a killing blow on their own. If he used Domain Amplification, he couldn't use his innate techniques.
The plan was clear: use the tools to strip the Infinity for a split second, then strike with Cleave and Dismantle.
However, in the next heartbeat, Souma did something Sukuna never expected. He raised both hands and voluntarily deactivated his Infinity.
Sukuna: "..."
All that mental effort, wasted on a defense that was no longer there.
"Ha! Surprised?" Souma smiled playfully. "You felt it too, didn't you? Our last fight... it was intense, sure, but it felt like it was missing something. The pure... pleasure of combat."
"I've spent some time reflecting. Why did I feel so constrained in a fight that should have been exhilarating?"
"Constrained?" Sukuna didn't follow.
But Souma understood perfectly. It was the curse of the transmigrator. He had read the manga. He had seen the ultimate clash between Satoru and Sukuna. He had watched the King of Curses bisect the strongest sorcerer of the modern era and slaughter Kashimo. Gege Akutami had built Sukuna as the unreachable peak, piling on every bit of narrative weight and plot armor imaginable.
To Souma, Jujutsu Kaisen was a game he was trying to beat. And Ryomen Sukuna was the Final Boss waiting at the end of the stage.
Because of this, Souma had never been as recklessly arrogant as Satoru. He had never told Yuta he would definitely win. Underneath it all, Sukuna's image had grown in his mind until he seemed invincible. He feared that Satoru's ending was inevitably his own.
It was a fear born of the "original story," a psychological shackle that had subtly eroded his fighting spirit. In their last encounter, he hadn't fought out of desire; he had fought out of a reluctant necessity to clear a hurdle, with a deep-seated dread lurking in his heart.
People called Satoru Gojo a clown for his arrogance, but without that "Honored One" ego, you didn't just lose your life—you lost your soul. The most unbearable part of Satoru's end wasn't the defeat; it was the self-deprecation in the afterlife.
Having realized this, Souma cast aside the safety of his Infinity. He didn't want to "clear a stage" anymore. He wanted to fight. He wanted to forget the "settings," forget the "plot," and forget everything except the man standing in front of him.
He laughed maniacally, his eyes burning with a brilliant, predatory light as he looked at Sukuna.
"Come on, Sukuna! Let's have a struggle where only one of us walks away!"
Sensing the tectonic shift in Souma's aura, Sukuna froze for a moment. Then, a slow, satisfied grin spread across his face, and he began to laugh.
He didn't know what had changed in the man, but Souma's current, unreserved posture earned his genuine respect. Before, Souma had been a mere "challenger." Now, the raw dominance, the pride that looked down upon all creation, the gaze that dismissed everything but the opponent...
Sukuna felt like he was looking into a mirror.
An opponent. Not a challenger, but... an equal.
"Interesting! Truly magnificent!"
"To think this era, a thousand years later, could produce such a man!"
The blood that had been stagnant for a millennium began to boil. Combat intent spread through Sukuna's veins like a fever.
In a flash, both figures vanished. They reappeared a microsecond later, face-to-face, wearing identical, savage grins.
BOOM!!!
A massive shockwave tore through the night. A titanic mushroom cloud of cursed energy erupted, turning the blackened sky into a blinding white noon.
The duel of destiny—the slaughter between the strongest—had finally begun.
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