"BOOM!"
Dodging two bursts of high-pressure flame from Jogo, Horikita Manabu picked his way across the few exposed rocks not yet swallowed by lava.
He cast a quick glance at the alien surroundings, and his heart sank.
Originally, once the student count had been whittled down to 260, they had used the [Evil Spirit Possession] and [HardSuits (Gorilla Armor)] obtained from airdrops to mop up the Decepticons and the demons — targets that clearly weren't worth many points. That much had gone smoothly enough.
But when he had been taking stock of the surviving students and stumbled upon first-year students mixed in among them, he had already sensed something was wrong.
There had been no time to think it through. The moment he regrouped with Nagumo Miyabi to face this volcanic-headed monster that had appeared out of nowhere — he felt a brief flash of vertigo.
And then, in an instant, there were only three of them: himself, Nagumo Miyabi, and this strange new creature — together in this place.
Horikita Manabu's first instinct was that it was Jogo's ability.
But when he saw Jogo land alongside them and immediately begin raging — spinning around frantically, screaming "thief" and "give it back" — he ruled that out.
'Then... it can only be the [Spacetime Rift] the Black Sphere warned us about from the start.'
Horikita Manabu dodged another spray of lava and rapidly turned the situation over in his mind.
'We've ended up here — but where are Fujimaki and the others right now?'
Just then, he noticed that the sustained, scorching heat was visibly slowing Nagumo Miyabi down.
"Nagumo! Switch out!"
Horikita Manabu barked the order and thrust forward with his Gantz Sword, driving Jogo back mid-pursuit. The two of them swapped positions smoothly.
He couldn't afford to let his guard down for a second.
This creature's power far exceeded anything they had faced before. On top of that, whenever it activated its abilities, the ambient temperature spiked dangerously.
Even clad in the advanced armor from the Black Sphere airdrops — far superior to standard combat suits — both of them still suffered under the relentless, extreme heat.
It wasn't that the [Evil Spirit Possession] or the Gorilla Armor had inadequate defense. The problem was simpler: human bodies couldn't endure sustained extreme temperatures for long.
So they were forced to rotate — a tag-team grind. One would hold the line while the other fell back to the edges where it was marginally cooler, then they'd switch.
Of course, what they imagined was a flawless cooperation, Jogo saw as nothing but a tedious little pantomime.
As a Special Grade Cursed Spirit embodying humanity's primal terror of the earth and volcanoes, it was, by any measure, a natural disaster made manifest.
The brief surge of fury it had felt earlier — intense enough to resonate with this dormant, dead volcano — had been caused by one thing: the fingers that were supposed to be fed to Itadori Yuji to awaken Ryomen Sukuna were gone.
Those fingers were the Cursed Spirits' hope for defeating Gojo Satoru!
And then, on top of that, to be suddenly flung onto some unfamiliar island — with Jogo's temper, of course it was furious.
Still... the painful lesson of being used as Gojo Satoru's personal ball to kick around had left its mark.
Jogo understood, now, that there were always bigger fish in the sea.
Facing an unknown presence powerful enough to drag it here by force and steal nine of Sukuna's fingers right off its person, without so much as a whisper of warning...
Jogo kept its caution instinctive and constant.
So even as it traded blows with Horikita Manabu and Nagumo Miyabi, Jogo remained in defensive mode the entire time. Most of its attention was actually devoted to staying alert for that terrifying hidden presence — whoever had taken Sukuna's fingers.
Naturally, neither Nagumo nor Horikita had any way of knowing this.
"Fwooosh——!"
In the moment Jogo's attention wavered —
A gravity-wave round, fired from the cliff face above, struck the arm Jogo had just raised to begin casting!
The shooter, naturally, was Chris.
As Jogo's entire right arm was blasted apart, Horikita Manabu and Nagumo Miyabi exchanged a single glance.
With perfect, wordless coordination, they split left and right and closed in from both sides!
"Now!"
Jogo's expression darkened. It tapped a foot against the ground and retreated in a series of quick steps, slipping out of the pincer just in time.
Under normal circumstances, with its hair-trigger temper, an insult like being wounded by insects would have already sent it into a full eruption — burning them all to nothing without a second thought.
But for the sake of the Cursed Spirits' great revival...
Jogo ground its teeth, and a plume of black smoke belched from the volcanic crater atop its head. For the greater good... I'll endure it.
Thinking that, Jogo decided to simply trigger the magma beneath its feet — cause a small-scale eruption, create an opening to break free. It had already caught the scent of one of the fingers.
But would Horikita Manabu and Nagumo Miyabi give it time to cast?
The answer was no.
"Trying to run? Not a chance!"
Nagumo Miyabi, encased in his heavy Gorilla Armor, drove through the lava's resistance with a raw burst of power from the suit — and brought his blade down in a clean horizontal slash, cleaving Jogo through the midsection. A vicious roundhouse kick sent the top half spinning away.
"Thwack!"
Horikita Manabu followed up seamlessly, his Gantz Sword extending in an instant to pin the severed upper half against a massive boulder.
Nagumo Miyabi hit the ground and immediately raised his enhanced palm cannon. Up on the cliff above, Chris and Horikita Suzune leveled their enhanced rifles. All four had Jogo surrounded and in their sights.
In that moment — the last thread of rational restraint inside Jogo finally snapped.
I am JOGO!!
Fine, Gojo Satoru gets to push me around — but you monkeys, with not a drop of Cursed Energy between you?!
"You INSOLENT FOOLS!!"
"You really think I won't burn every last one of you to ash?!"
The three vents atop Jogo's head erupted, belching torrents of flame.
Ignoring the long blade still driven clean through its chest, it raised its remaining left hand and formed a seal.
"Domain Expansion——"
A death-alarm screamed to life in Horikita Manabu's gut — a premonition, cold and absolute.
"Nagumo! FALL BACK!!"
In almost the same instant, Horikita Manabu made the most decisive choice of his life.
He abandoned the Gantz Sword without hesitation. In the same motion, he grabbed the silver spear attached to the [Evil Spirit Possession] and drove it into the ground as a pivot point.
Using the recoil, he spun into a full roundhouse kick — and drove it straight into Nagumo Miyabi's chest armor just as he was about to fire.
"THUD!"
Caught completely off guard, Nagumo Miyabi was sent flying backwards.
And Horikita Manabu himself...
"——Coffin of the Iron Mountain!!"
Jogo's roar tore through the air.
Black rock erupted from the ground, and scorching lava poured down from the void above like a waterfall.
"BOOM!"
Nagumo Miyabi scrambled across the few remaining rocks at the lava pool's edge and barely managed to catch himself, staggering upright.
He snapped his head up toward where Horikita Manabu had been standing.
In his place stood only a massive spherical void.
Empty. Nothing left.
Something slammed into Nagumo Miyabi's chest like a wrecking ball.
"Horikita! Horikita?!"
He bellowed, his voice ricocheting off the crater walls — but no answer came.
Up on the cliff above, Horikita Suzune had witnessed everything through her scope. The color drained from her face. Her enhanced rifle slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground.
"Brother... that thing that just got swallowed — that was my brother?!"
At that moment, perhaps because Jogo's Domain had resonated with the volcano below — the magma in the crater began to boil and churn, thick acrid smoke billowing up as though the mountain might erupt at any second.
Chris, transformed as a Leo Rider, crossed the distance to Horikita Suzune in a few swift leaps.
He grabbed the girl's ice-cold wrist, and at the same time turned his head down toward Nagumo Miyabi, who was still standing there in a daze, and called out:
"Vice President Nagumo, I strongly suggest we evacuate this position immediately."
Nagumo Miyabi bit down hard, clicking his tongue with a sharp, irritated "tch."
But he was rational enough, and pragmatic enough, not to dig in stubbornly. He knew when to advance and when to retreat.
Besides — he had enough points. He could bring Horikita Manabu back without any trouble.
Staying to fight in a lava eruption, even with armor worth a hundred points that could handle the heat, would still halve his combat effectiveness. Pure suicide.
With a few quick bounds, Nagumo Miyabi crossed the distance to Chris and Horikita Suzune.
He glanced up at the black sphere floating in the air above, his tone clipped and hard:
"If you don't want to die — get out of here now. This isn't a monster you can handle with that cheap gear you're wearing."
But Horikita Suzune wrenched herself free from Chris's grip.
"Why is my brother even here?! What exactly happened to you all?!"
Nagumo Miyabi looked at Horikita Suzune — clearly on the verge of completely falling apart — and was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was, unusually, a fraction softer:
"No idea... We were in the middle of our own upper-year exam, already geared up to hunt down this final hidden monster. Then the moment we got close — us and this thing all ended up here together. All the preparation we'd done was wasted, and we still don't know what happened to Fujimaki and the others."
Hearing that, Horikita Suzune's eyes went wide, as though something had clicked.
"Could it be the 'Spacetime Rift' the Black Sphere warned about from the start? It dragged you here..."
"But — my brother was the winner of the last preliminary test. He should have had a class exemption from something like this! So why was he caught in it too?!"
Nagumo Miyabi raised an eyebrow and let out a short, cold laugh.
"Who told you winning the preliminary test definitely comes with something like that?"
Chris added, right on cue:
"...Fair point."
After all, what rewards were handed out was entirely up to him — decided in whatever moment the God of this world felt like it.
And having already written Horikita Manabu's ending in advance, why would he ever hand out exemptions to the upper-year students?
Horikita Suzune had no answer for that.
She bit down on her lower lip until it went pale, eyes swimming with tears she refused to let fall — the picture of someone who couldn't accept what was right in front of her.
And then —
"Click——!"
The Domain dissolved.
Jogo reappeared in the spot it had originally occupied.
With one casual, dismissive flick, it tossed the Gantz Sword — now half-melted — into the lava like throwing out trash.
And where Horikita Manabu had been...
Not even ashes remained.
"Bastard..."
Murder flickered in Nagumo Miyabi's eyes as his palm cannon began to charge again.
He turned his head toward Chris:
"Take her and get the hell out of here. I'll buy you time."
Seeing that, Chris didn't spare another second worrying about Horikita Suzune's emotional state.
He hoisted the girl over his shoulder and turned to withdraw down the mountain.
But before he had taken two steps —
A familiar figure emerged from the billowing smoke ahead.
Chris stopped dead.
Striding toward them, Gantz Sword — still wreathed in the [Evil Spirit Possession] — firmly in hand, was Horikita Manabu.
"President, you're not dead?" Chris said, clearly surprised.
Hearing those words, Horikita Suzune — still slung over his shoulder — whipped her head around.
The moment she recognized Horikita Manabu, she couldn't hold it back anymore. She struggled free, dropping off Chris's shoulder:
"Brother... you're okay?!"
Horikita Manabu let out a quiet sigh.
"Died once. But at least I managed to buy that death for some useful intel."
"He has a technique that creates something like a pocket dimension — drags people inside. In there, everything is fire, and every attack seems to carry a concept-level guaranteed-hit property. There's no dodging it... All that fighting he did with us before — he was toying with us the entire time."
Horikita Suzune clutched her brother's arm, her voice barely above a plea:
"If it's that dangerous — are you still going back down? Do you have to? Do you really have to?!"
Horikita Manabu looked at his sister's tear-streaked face — and gave a single, solemn nod.
"There is no one who can take my place — just as I can't take anyone else's."
His gaze moved past Horikita Suzune to Chris, standing just behind her.
"Chris — I'm leaving my sister in your hands."
With that, Horikita Manabu raised the spear without a moment's hesitation.
"Evil Spirit Possession!"
With a low shout, he launched himself into the air.
But Horikita Suzune stepped back — away from the hand Chris had reached out to pull her along.
Behind his visor, Chris's voice dropped low. "Don't be stubborn. Don't go throw your life away."
Horikita Suzune shook her head frantically. The firelight made the tears in her eyes glow red — but her voice was absolutely steady.
"I'm going to help my brother!"
The girl met Chris's gaze directly.
"Just like I was willing to spend a life for you earlier... I'd give my life for my brother too."
"If I choose to hide now — then I'm not Horikita Suzune anymore!"
Chris looked at the girl's stubborn, unyielding expression.
He scratched the back of his head, helpless.
"I really can't deal with that stubborn streak of yours..."
He picked up the enhanced rifle from the ground and stepped to her side.
"Fine. Crazy company for a crazy cause — I'll run one more wild errand with you."
Horikita Suzune hastily wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and a smile broke through.
"Thank you..."
Chris didn't reply. He just raised his rifle and walked first to the edge of the cliff.
Behind them —
The fire-brigade reinforcements were still on their way: Ayanokoji, now in his armored Titan form, Ryuuen Kakeru with half his body cybernetically augmented, and Sakayanagi Arisu and Ichinose Honami wielding their Imperial Arms.
And down below, at the edge of the lava pool —
Jogo stared at Horikita Manabu — who it had confirmed burned to nothing — now standing before it, completely unharmed.
Jogo, which had been about to casually send Nagumo Miyabi to join him, stood frozen.
"...You came back to life? How."
Horikita Manabu leveled his spear, his voice cool and unimpressed.
"That's right. I crawled back from hell."
Not far away, Nagumo Miyabi burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! Figured as much — I knew a bastard like you wouldn't go down that easy!"
Jogo frowned slightly, falling into thought.
It couldn't comprehend how these humans — not a trace of Cursed Energy among them — had managed to come back from the dead. But the fact was sitting right in front of it, undeniable.
I'm a Special Grade Cursed Spirit — and these people are just using me as a training dummy?!
The thought sent a wave of scalding humiliation crashing through Jogo.
The fury it had fought so hard to suppress — it surged back, doubled, tripled, then exploded.
"Don't underestimate me..."
Jogo threw its head back and roared at the sky:
"You'll pay for this!!"
Nagumo Miyabi spread his palm cannon and watched Jogo's powerless tantrum with a cold smirk.
"Look at it throwing a fit like that... Weirdly, it almost looks kind of innocent."
Horikita Manabu didn't seize the opening to attack.
Perhaps he was buying time for Chris and Horikita Suzune to fall back.
He simply offered a calm, quiet assessment:
"...Kind of pitiful, actually."
"Maybe because in its own world, it spent too long getting stomped into the dirt by people stronger than it."
"Pitiful?!"
The word grated on something raw. Jogo's mind flashed with memories it would rather have buried.
"SHUT UP!!!"
The lava around Jogo's body began to boil violently. "Say one more word and I won't leave so much as ash behind!"
Done holding back, it moved to unleash the most devastating technique in its arsenal — second only to the Domain itself.
"Climax Series: METEOR!!"
Cursed Energy surged, and a colossal meteor — blazing with roaring fire — began to rapidly take shape overhead.
Having already experienced Jogo's Domain firsthand, neither Nagumo Miyabi nor Horikita Manabu had any intention of letting it finish casting.
Moving as one — one in front, one behind — they sprinted across the surface of the churning lava as though using it as solid ground, blurring into twin streaks that closed in on Jogo from both flanks.
Jogo, though it privately acknowledged these two humans, bolstered by their bizarre armor, had genuinely developed enough ability to go toe-to-toe with it, was still forced to break off the cast.
It weaved and dodged — and simultaneously, from the volcanic vent atop its head, began spewing great quantities of purple fire-debris beetles, aiming to force a retreat with a suicidal swarm attack and buy itself time to finish the technique.
But Chris and Horikita Suzune on the cliff above weren't decoration.
Horikita Suzune's gravity-wave round missed — Jogo sidestepped it — but Chris had already predicted the path of Jogo's dodge.
"BANG!"
The arm that had only just finished regenerating was blasted apart a second time.
Jogo drew a slow breath.
"If [you] want me to let these humans use me as a practice target... then fine. Let me see whether they actually have what it takes."
With that, it stopped retreating entirely.
It even let Horikita Manabu's spear launch it into the air, allowing another arm to be severed without so much as flinching.
But even as that arm began regenerating, it was already commanding the lava below — raising it as a wall of fire to intercept the barrage from Nagumo Miyabi's palm cannon.
"Watch out!" Horikita Manabu bellowed.
But too late.
Jogo instant-transmitted directly to the top of the cliff, materializing right in front of Chris.
"First..."
Its enormous hand reached out, descending toward Chris's head.
And in that razor-thin instant —
The arm was blasted apart for a third time.
Jogo flashed to the side, barely avoiding the sword strike Chris immediately followed up with.
It dropped back to the edge of the lava pool, eyes sweeping across the cliff above — taking in Horikita Manabu, and the freshly arrived Ayanokoji, Ryuuen Kakeru, and the others.
"You carry... Sukuna's Cursed Energy."
Jogo narrowed its eyes, studying Ryuuen Kakeru with clear puzzlement. "Did you hide his fingers somewhere?"
"Doesn't matter..."
Jogo's hands began forming seals again. "You can't die anyway. So first — let me give you all a proper taste of suffering."
With those words, the dormant dead volcano beneath its feet finally answered its call.
"RRRUMBLE——!!"
A column of lava tore the night sky open. Countless blazing meteorites streaked down through the black smoke, raining toward the group from above.
There was no time for greetings. As the largest combat asset currently on the field, the armored Ayanokoji Titan moved without hesitation — swinging his massive Parasyte in great arcs, trying to knock every incoming meteorite away from the crowd one by one.
And Jogo — in the gap while everyone was stretched to their limits —
Stood at the center of the lava.
"Domain Expansion——!"
"GET CLEAR!!"
Horikita Manabu and Nagumo Miyabi — who had already endured the Domain once and knew full well how terrifying it was — immediately broke off and flung themselves backward.
But Horikita Suzune — perhaps too desperately eager to help — had pushed herself too far forward.
The Domain was about to consume her. Chris lunged, reaching out to pull her back.
But from Horikita Manabu's vantage below, that looked like two people diving into death together.
Horikita Manabu didn't know Horikita Suzune had a second life remaining.
The moment he confirmed Jogo had locked onto him — and calculated there was almost no chance of dodging the Domain — instinct overrode survival instinct.
In the same motion as canceling his [Evil Spirit Possession] transformation, he channeled every last drop of strength his combat suit could put out under the surge of emotion.
And he hurled the [Evil Spirit Possession] — like a javelin — straight at Chris.
"THUD!"
The massive force struck Chris's armor, and the impact sent him — and Horikita Suzune with him — tumbling clear of the Domain by the thinnest of margins.
And Horikita Manabu, in the final second before the Domain swallowed him completely —
"Chris... Suzune is in your hands now..."
"BROTHER——!!"
Horikita Suzune's eyes went wide.
But what she didn't notice — just as the Domain was about to reach Horikita Manabu —
A faint ripple appeared.
Something that hadn't seemed to be there when Jogo first activated the Domain at the start...
——End of Chapter——
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