The island's center. The crater of a dead volcano.
The terrain bore a faint resemblance to the meteor crater in Your Name — the one where Taki and Mitsuha met at twilight.
Only, the figures now standing at its rim were not long-separated lovers reunited at last. They were survivors, only just gathered together.
After having the Parasytes set the students down safely, Ayanokoji released his Titan form and reverted to his normal size.
He walked straight through the crowd toward Chabashira Sae, who was surrounded by students on all sides.
Ayanokoji got straight to the point.
"Chabashira-sensei. Sell me training time in the [Hyperbolic Time Chamber]."
"While it's still early and the sun hasn't gone down yet — I want to train in Ripple Breathing."
Chabashira Sae didn't waste any words. She pulled up the Mysterious Merchant's shop panel with practiced ease.
"How much time do you want to buy?"
Ayanokoji glanced down at the remaining S-Points displayed on his wristwatch.
"I've got 46 points right now. At the exchange rate of 1 point per 500 Item Points... give me 20 minutes."
Chabashira Sae nodded, tapped through a few operations on the panel, and completed the transaction.
Then she turned her head and looked out at the students around her — hope renewed on their faces — and called out in a clear voice:
"Anyone else looking to buy training time?"
Silence fell across the crowd.
The ordinary students with empty pockets could only bow their heads in resignation. After all, people like Amase Kazuna and Koenji Rokusuke — those with both the ability to earn points and the drive to grow stronger — had already bought their time from Chabashira on the way to the volcano crater.
Of those still lingering, aside from people like Ichinose who were watching and waiting for other reasons, all that remained were students who had the will but not the means.
Seeing no one respond, Chabashira Sae took it in stride.
She turned and held out a softly glowing card to Ayanokoji.
She watched as Ayanokoji crushed the card between his fingers and vanished in a flash of white light.
Only then did Chabashira shift her gaze toward Chris, who was standing not far away.
"You're not thinking of buying some time to try it out yourself?"
"With the points you have, you could easily afford a much longer training session."
Before Chris could even open his eyes to reply, Sakayanagi Arisu spoke up for him.
The girl gave a light, airy laugh.
"Chabashira-sensei, please don't bother with the sales pitch. Ripple Breathing — given its training conditions and the price tag — was never going to be a power system that decides the outcome of a battle."
"The only reason it's relevant right now is because the demons we're up against happen to fear sunlight. Otherwise... I really don't think someone like Ayanokoji or Amase would be willing to spend precious S-Points on it."
Chris nodded.
True enough — the moment the Stand battle started, Araki had completely phased out the Ripple.
He reached up, unclipped the controller from his wrist, and held it out toward Sakayanagi Arisu.
"Looking at the gear you've all got... I'd just be getting in the way when you go to take down that Upper Moon demon."
"This time around, I'm basically just the guy who handles the map and leads the way. No point tagging along to be a liability."
Sakayanagi Arisu took the controller with a look of clear surprise, eyeing him with suspicion written all over her face.
"You're really not coming?"
Chris stretched his arms lazily above his head.
He tilted his chin toward Horikita Suzune, who was hovering indecisively nearby, clearly debating whether or not to go ask Tachibana-senpai for news about Horikita Manabu.
"Look at Horikita over there. Even someone as proud as her knows how to read the situation and go with the flow."
"You really think I'm the kind of idiot who throws himself headfirst into a fight he can't win just to look tough?"
Chris waved a hand with full confidence.
"I'll stay here and keep Horikita company — hold down the fort. This operation is all yours. Can't be helped... I was one step behind from the start, and now I'm playing catch-up everywhere."
Sakayanagi Arisu regarded him with an expression that was half-smile, half-smirk, and slipped the controller onto her own wrist.
"Whether you genuinely don't want to go, or you're scheming something else entirely — I'll happily accept this generous gift."
The girl gave a soft, haughty hum.
"You handed it to me instead of Ichinose, though... I'll admit, that shows decent taste on your part!"
Of course, the teasing aside, Sakayanagi Arisu still felt the need to offer a word of warning.
"I have a feeling this uninhabited island exam isn't as simple as it looks."
"The Black Sphere told us to 'eliminate the anomalies.' But everything we've encountered so far has just been Evil Spirits, Parasytes, Pure Titans... Even Douma is just an Upper Moon demon."
"That's nowhere near the scale of threat the Black Sphere's initial hints were describing."
"At the very least — the Decepticons, and whatever hidden monsters are lurking in this exam... we haven't caught so much as a glimpse of them yet."
Chris just smiled.
Well, obviously.
I'm just saying that. It's not like I'm actually planning to leave you all with zero survival chances.
That said — the Decepticons, the demons, the Abyss Walkers — Chris had indeed deployed them into this exam.
They just weren't in the first-years' zone.
They were in the upper-years' examination grounds, currently making life very difficult for his brother-in-law and Nagumo Miyabi.
Sakayanagi Arisu fixed him with a serious look.
"So keep your eyes open. If something feels wrong — just run."
"With this many people to use as a buffer, protecting yourself first is always the right call."
Chris nodded. "I know. Stop raising death flags for me."
As he said it, Chris suddenly noticed something.
Ichinose had been standing in front of Chabashira Sae for a while.
Now Ichinose was walking briskly toward him, a henshin belt in hand.
"Senpai."
Ichinose Honami spoke with quiet sincerity.
"I think... it would be better if you didn't come with us this time."
"We were able to use the Field Guide to identify that [MC Milk] can be used to detoxify everyone. But supplies like that are scarce on the island."
"And..."
Ichinose bit her lower lip, her voice tinged with worry.
"If you leave too, and the students staying behind at the crater come under attack — there's no way to guarantee everyone's safety."
As she spoke, Ichinose held out the item she had just purchased — extending it toward Chris.
"This is the henshin belt for the [Zi-O Rider]."
"Senpai, please take it for self-defense... Next time an airdrop comes, I'll do my best to get you proper equipment."
Chris blinked.
He took the henshin device, then turned to glance at Sakayanagi Arisu, eyebrow raised.
The implication was obvious: Look at her. Now look at you.
Sakayanagi Arisu, who read his expression perfectly, gave a disdainful curl of her lip.
She gave a careless wave of the hand now wearing Chris's controller, and shot back with a withering edge in her tone:
"Small favors."
"I wouldn't stoop to such a juvenile trick just to earn points with you. If I'm going to play — I play for real!"
Ichinose Honami blinked in total confusion. "...Huh?"
Her gaze drifted back and forth between Chris and Sakayanagi, utterly lost.
Right at that moment.
Several flashes of white light erupted in sequence.
Amase Kazuna, Ryuuen Kakeru, and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka emerged one after another, their training in the [Hyperbolic Time Chamber] complete.
Ryuuen Kakeru rolled his shoulders, feeling the Ripple energy surging through his body.
He hadn't fully mastered it yet — but it would do.
"Since everyone's ready — let's move."
"While the sun hasn't fully set yet, let's burn that pompous demon to ashes!"
Ichinose Honami nodded.
The white wings at her back spread open in response.
But before taking flight, she looked over at Chris one more time.
"Senpai — I'm leaving this place in your hands."
Chris waved her off.
"Then I wish you all a triumphant return."
"Mm! Leave it to us!"
Ichinose flashed a smile — bright and full-bloomed, like the first flowers of spring.
Watching Ichinose's retreating figure, Amase Kazuna — who had just finished her own training — sidled up beside Chris.
The red-haired girl tilted her head, feigning innocent curiosity.
"Senpai... you're really not planning to go with them?"
Chris gave his now-empty left hand a little shake.
"The controller works whoever holds it."
"I've already lent it to Sakayanagi. No point following along just to drag everyone down."
Amase Kazuna gave him a sideways look of mild surprise.
Deep down, though, she was completely unconvinced by that excuse.
She'd sooner believe that Chris had clocked this location — with all its people — as the most likely target for the Black Sphere's next airdrop, and was deliberately making excuses to stay and wait for it.
After all, given the moves he'd pulled in every exam before this one —
There was absolutely no way he was the type to back down from a challenge.
Still, Amase Kazuna had no intention of calling him out.
Instead, she looked down at her own palm, where golden Ripple energy crackled and danced in a continuous flow, and murmured with genuine wonder:
"The Ripple... really is a remarkable power, isn't it."
"And it only costs 3,000 Item Points. The value for money is honestly absurd."
Chris said nothing, offering no comment either way.
Once the strike team had completely vanished from sight.
Chris turned and walked over to Horikita Suzune, who was still visibly wrestling with some inner debate.
"Still worried about your brother?"
Chris followed her line of sight.
"That senpai with the bun hairstyle talking to Kiryuuin — that's your brother's secretary, right? Why not just go ask her?"
Horikita Suzune shook her head, expression cool.
"It wouldn't help."
"By the timing, Tachibana-senpai and the others were probably transported to our side right when the exam started."
"There's absolutely no way they'd know what's happening in the upper-years' exam right now."
Chris understood her concern.
"In that case, there's no point burning yourself out over something you can't act on."
"The moment you rack up 100 points, it's basically a get-out-of-jail-free card — the ability to revive him at any time. Isn't that a far better use of your energy than standing here worrying?"
At those words, Horikita Suzune glanced down at the score displayed on her wristwatch.
"I only have 38 points right now..."
"100 is still so far away..."
Just as Horikita Suzune quietly clenched her fist, steeling herself to pick a direction and start grinding points —
Amikura Mako and Shiina Hiyori suddenly came sprinting toward Chris, panic written all over their faces.
"This is bad! Chris-kun..."
Shiina Hiyori was so winded she could barely string words together.
"Mo-Morishita-san's theory... someone actually went and tested it! And then... and then..."
Seeing Shiina's face had gone completely red, Chris reached over and patted her on the back to help her catch her breath.
"Take it slow. Don't rush."
"The monsters in this area have mostly been cleared out by Ryuuen's group. Nothing's about to fall apart."
Amikura Mako, seeing this, jumped in to fill in the blanks on Shiina's behalf.
"Someone heard about the bug Morishita Ai proposed earlier — hiding on the cruise ship to avoid the exam. And they actually went and tested it! And then... those people still haven't been transported back. Not even now!"
"Now a ton of people back at the camp heard that it was possible to ditch the exam, and they've completely lost their minds trying to follow suit."
Amikura Mako continued in a rush:
"But most of them don't have S-Points to buy meal tickets. So they've started forming their own squads on their own initiative, heading out to hunt monsters and scrape together enough points!"
At that, Chris's brow furrowed.
"Are these people out of their minds?"
"They finally found a safe zone — and now they think they're hot stuff? Or do they reckon they're just like the Class D kids, immune to the spacetime rift?"
Hearing Chris grumble, Karuizawa Kei — who had just returned from perimeter patrol and was about to report in — edged a little closer.
She carefully tugged at Chris's sleeve and lowered her voice.
"Um... Chris-kun."
"Actually... the ones leading the charge to go out and hunt — Class D makes up most of them."
Chris went quiet for a moment.
He turned his head and kept his voice equally low.
"Why didn't you try to stop them?"
Karuizawa Kei explained with a pitiful look on her face.
"I did try!"
"But only the girls would listen to me."
"Yamauchi, Ikebe — those guys completely ignored everything I said!"
"And a few of the troublemakers from Class C started egging them on too. I couldn't keep a lid on it..."
Chris swept his gaze around the area.
Even Katsuragi Kohei and Koenji Rokusuke were nowhere to be seen among the crowd.
They'd probably taken advantage of the cleanup Ryuuen and Ayanokoji's group had done to go scoop up some easy points of their own.
Chris let out a long sigh.
"Go round up Kushida, Matsushita, and the others."
"Let's get a headcount of who's actually still here first."
Honestly. I finally got an audience together and they can't even sit still to watch our Jujutsu Kaisen special grade make his grand entrance.
Not a shred of respect.
That's a Special Grade Curse, for crying out loud.
As the sky began to bleed red toward dusk.
Ryuuen Kakeru and the others finally followed the guidance on the controller and arrived at the edge of the deep valley where Douma had taken refuge.
Standing at the cliff's edge, Ryuuen Kakeru peered down.
"It's down there."
"I can hear its voice."
Sakayanagi Arisu leaned on her Romantic Cannon.
"Then Ichinose and I will stay up here."
"I'll provide long-range suppression; Ichinose will cover from the air."
"You two handle the main assault."
Ryuuen Kakeru had no objection.
"Fine!"
There was a clang of metal hitting stone.
Without even waiting for Ayanokoji to follow, Ryuuen Kakeru simply hurled himself off the cliff.
Watching Ryuuen's absolutely reckless move.
Because he knew Ryuuen had an extremely high probability of being influenced by the cyber-psychosis listed in the Field Guide —
Ayanokoji decided not to poke that particular bear.
He simply leapt off the cliff after him, calm and unhurried.
In the howling wind of freefall, he bit into his own palm without hesitation.
"Zzzt..."
Golden Ripple lightning coiled and sparked around the wound.
In an instant, Ayanokoji's entire body was encased in rapidly hardening muscles and bone-armor.
"BOOM!"
Two massive beasts landed in succession, shaking the entire valley to its foundations.
Deep in the shadowed cave.
Douma had been passing the time in idle boredom, fiddling with Sukuna's finger, silently counting down to nightfall.
The moment it caught those familiar scents it had memorized that morning —
It couldn't help but feel a flash of irritation.
"Oh my, oh my..."
"These arrogant little mice are really brimming with overconfidence, aren't they."
Douma tightened its grip on Sukuna's finger. Murderous intent boiled in its kaleidoscope eyes.
"You dare challenge my authority while the sun hasn't even fully set yet?"
"Truly... I have been utterly and completely underestimated."
As Upper Moon Two — the pinnacle of demonkind —
Even before Muzan-sama, it had never suffered such indignity.
Forced to hide in this cave like a mangy stray, and now they'd come to mock it right at its own front door.
This was something Douma absolutely could not tolerate.
"Blood Demon Art..."
It swung its iron fans, moving to conjure a vast army of ice doll clones to bury those humans utterly in ice and snow.
Of course, it had no intention of killing them all in the first exchange. After all — why had it suddenly appeared in this unfamiliar world?
What was this strange finger it held, something that filled it with instinctive dread yet radiated a fatally tempting pull?
Those questions burned with curiosity.
"Mm... I'll keep the two girls alive..."
"Once I've had my answers, they'll make a fine main course for tonight."
Douma's fantasy had barely taken shape.
"CRACK!"
It suddenly felt the several ice doll clones it had just summoned shatter to pieces in an instant.
And then —
"CRASH — !!!"
Cascades of dust and broken rock came raining down.
Through the cave's groaning echo, Ryuuen Kakeru's savage laughter rang out:
"Ha ha ha — !"
"How's it feel now, you pathetic little freak?! The tables have turned!"
"Keep hiding! Go ahead and keep cowering in there like a turtle in its shell!"
Ryuuen Kakeru unleashed a relentless barrage straight at the cave mouth.
"If you don't come out, I'll flatten this entire mountain and bury you alive inside!"
"Then you can just sit there in the rubble and wait for the spacetime rift to grind you into pulp!"
Hearing that brazen provocation.
Douma's brow creased slightly.
It wasn't angered by Ryuuen's insults.
What truly caught its attention was something in the second half of what Ryuuen had said.
Spacetime rift? What in the world is that?
Before it could follow that thread of thought any further —
"Whoosh — !"
Douma's instincts registered a sudden chill at its ear, and reflexively it moved to summon an ice lotus to deflect whatever was coming.
But this time —
Accelerated by [Sianweistan], Ryuuen Kakeru moved with a speed that left afterimages trailing behind him.
As if teleporting, he appeared directly in front of Douma in an instant.
"EAT THIS!!!"
The ice lotus that had barely begun to form — along with everything else —
Douma's skull exploded like a watermelon hurled against concrete, sending shards of ice and stone spraying in every direction.
"Tch. Is that all you've got? I thought you'd be tougher to crack."
Ryuuen Kakeru looked down at the headless corpse on the ground with faint disappointment.
Then, like picking up a dead chicken by the legs, he moved to drag the remains out of the cave entrance — to let the last rays of sunset reduce them to nothing.
However.
In the moment Ryuuen Kakeru turned around —
Douma's regenerative ability kicked in once more.
After a brief reconstruction of flesh and blood, Douma opened its eyes.
It gazed at the man before it — clad in a Combat Suit, but with strange mechanical protrusions jutting from his frame — and a flicker of bewilderment crossed its face.
"How curious..."
"Your scent has changed compared to this morning. Not only have you lost most of your human smell, but this power..."
Though dangling in midair, Douma's smile only grew more radiant.
"If you'd had this kind of strength this morning, combined with the sunlight — you would have killed me long ago."
Ryuuen Kakeru sneered.
"Killing you now works just fine."
"Oh, I'm afraid that won't do..."
"Blood Demon Art — Frozen Cloud!"
Zero wind-up.
At point-blank range, Douma exhaled a massive plume of deadly white mist packed with countless microscopic ice crystals — directly into Ryuuen's face.
At such close distance, the cloud completely enveloped Ryuuen Kakeru.
But the anticipated scene never came.
Ryuuen Kakeru stood right where he was, face utterly unchanged, without even blinking.
"That's it?"
Ryuuen's voice dripped with contempt.
"Your so-called deadly poison, to someone like me who's had his entire respiratory system replaced with an internal life-support circulation system..."
"Doesn't even count as a fart."
The poison was ineffective?
Seeing this, Douma finally began to panic.
Especially when its peripheral vision caught sight of something —
Not far away, beyond the cave mouth, the dying light of dusk was mercilessly spilling across the ground, only a few steps away from where they stood.
Douma finally stopped holding back.
"Blood Demon Art — Wisteria Lotus!"
"Blood Demon Art — Crystal Shrine Maiden!"
It went full power.
Conjuring an endless storm of razor-sharp ice blades that rained down upon Ryuuen Kakeru like a hurricane.
Simultaneously, it summoned several ice maiden dolls that breathed freezing air from their flanks, providing overlapping suppressive fire from every angle — trying to force Ryuuen to release his grip.
"Clang clang clang — !"
Ryuuen Kakeru weathered the deluge of attacks.
Grinning savagely, he threw his full strength into one arm — and flung Douma straight toward the golden sunlight outside the cave.
"Go to hell — !!!"
In midair, the lethal sunlight rushing toward it —
In the instant before contact, Douma wrenched its body aside with desperate force.
"Blood Demon Art — Freezing White Princess!"
Two enormous ice lotuses in the shape of maidens materialized on either side of it, just before the sunlight could reach its body.
They poured everything they had into spewing ice mist, desperately trying to forge a shadow — just enough of one to keep it alive a moment longer.
"Tsssss — !!"
Though a sliver of sunlight inevitably grazed parts of Douma's body —
It still managed, using that brief cover, to roll into the shadow of a large boulder and cling to its life.
It had just drawn a ragged breath —
When Ayanokoji's right hand — transformed by the Parasyte into an enormous blade — came swinging down at Douma's head, wreathed in crackling Ripple energy.
"AAAAAHHHH — !!!"
More than half of Douma's body was cleaved clean through.
What made it truly despair —
Was that the golden Ripple energy lingering at the severed edges clung to the wound like a curse, actively impeding its cellular regeneration.
"This is... a power that counters us just like the sun?!"
Douma was in despair.
But in this desperate, near-death extremity —
It suddenly remembered the strange finger it had been clutching tightly in its hand all along.
Ryuuen Kakeru had already activated the thrusters on his armor and was moving in to deliver the killing blow.
"Even if I die — I'm taking you all with me!"
Madness flared in Douma's eyes.
It shoved Sukuna's finger into its own mouth and swallowed it down with the blood.
"Gulp."
The finger went down.
The next second.
"BOOM — !!!"
A tremendous surge of dark, icy cursed energy detonated from Douma's shattered body.
Black cursed energy laced with extreme cold blasted outward, threatening to flash-freeze everything in its radius.
Ryuuen Kakeru, seeing this, didn't hesitate for even a heartbeat — he activated [Sianweistan] once more.
In the bullet-time where the world slowed to a crawl —
He forced his way through the frozen defense perimeter.
Seized Douma by the throat, and dragged it out toward the sunlit clearing.
Cornered and doomed — yet Douma's face showed none of the terror Ryuuen had expected.
On the contrary — it closed its eyes, and a look of pure, almost ecstatic bliss spread across its features.
"Ah..."
"So this is what it feels like... to embrace the sun directly..."
"It hurts! It really, truly hurts!"
It suddenly snapped its eyes open and grinned at Ryuuen.
"Just kidding~"
Ryuuen's pupils shrank.
He realized — what he was holding was nothing but an ice sculpture, perfectly refracting the surrounding light and shadow.
Douma had cleverly used the ice crystals — now charged with enormous cursed energy — to manipulate light refraction and create a flawless visual illusion.
Its true body was hidden in the shadow directly behind the ice sculpture.
"You treacherous piece of trash..."
Ryuuen looked at Douma — its flesh beginning to rot and slough away across a massive area, the price of having caught a few stray rays of sunlight from the forced technique.
Then he looked behind it, where the Armored Titan manifested by Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was already swinging its Parasyte giant blade — crackling with Ripple — once more.
Ryuuen Kakeru's cold smile returned.
"Since you like playing hide-and-seek so much..."
"Then I'll just smash every last piece of your ice until there's nowhere left to hide!"
Douma bared its teeth in a wide grin.
Ignoring the searing agony tearing through its body, it slammed both hands against the ground with all its might.
"Then come and try!"
"Blood Demon Art — Glacial Mist · Sleeping Lotus Bodhisattva!!!"
Freezing air flooded the valley. A colossal ice bodhisattva — rivaling the Armored Titan in sheer scale — began to take shape at Douma's back.
But.
Sakayanagi Arisu and Ichinose Honami had been waiting in silence — and this was the exact moment they had been waiting for: when Douma could not spare any focus to defend.
"Now!"
From the air above —
Ichinose Honami fired her fully charged enhanced rifle.
"BANG — !!!"
A gravity-wave blast detonated. Douma's arm was obliterated into a mist of blood.
The casting motion severed, Sakayanagi Arisu simultaneously pulled the trigger on her Romantic Cannon.
A high-pressure shockwave crossed over a kilometer of distance in an instant and punched straight through Douma's chest.
"It's over."
In the final second that Douma was forced to break off its technique under the critical damage —
Ryuuen Kakeru and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka struck from the left and right simultaneously.
Even now, bolstered by Sukuna's finger, it could unleash techniques that would normally require extensive preparation on the spot.
But surrounded, outnumbered, overwhelmed —
There was never any doubt about the outcome.
Ryuuen wrenched Sukuna's finger out of its stomach by force.
And simultaneously, the Parasyte controlled by Ayanokoji Kiyotaka swept across Douma's neck.
"SPLAT — !!!"
Before the sun had fully set —
Upper Moon Two was finally, completely beheaded under the combined assault of them all.
Its ruined body, purified by the Ripple, dissolved into a cascade of ash that scattered on the valley's evening wind.
But what none of them knew —
Was that the very moment Ryuuen Kakeru's hand had touched Sukuna's finger —
Far away, at the island's center — the dead volcano crater —
Something had suddenly gone terribly wrong.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan in "P" for more!🔥👻
🔥 New history: Samsara Game: Starting in The Long Dark with My Waifus
Help us unlock these community rewards:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone