Gojo's voice drew both pairs of eyes upward.
There, atop the whale's carcass, a tall figure stood silhouetted against the morning sun. Arms loose at his sides, a faint smile on his lips, looking down at them like they were mildly interesting insects.
"Huh?"
The white-haired young man's mouth twisted. "You talking to me?"
"Who else?" Gojo rolled his neck, loosening up as he spoke. "You two are Witch Cult, right? Honestly, you people are a nuisance. Always doing weird things, always showing up where you're not wanted, always making problems for everyone around you."
"If I'm being frank, the only difference between you and Cursed Spirits is that you can talk. Other than that? Garbage."
"Hey now, what's that supposed to mean, Big Bro? Trying to keep our pet all for yourself?" The short, filthy one grinned wide, baring those jagged teeth.
"Don't call me Big Bro. If Meili hears that from someone else, I'll never live it down." Gojo shrugged. "And I'm not one to judge by appearances, but you people are impossible to have a conversation with, so you'll forgive me if I don't warm up to you."
He stepped off the whale's back into open air.
Nothing beneath his feet. No platform, no ledge. And yet he descended as casually as someone walking down a staircase, one step at a time, until he reached the ground.
"Go ahead and tell me your names. Saves me the trouble of looking you up after I turn your corpses in for bounty money. Anyone who can talk about making a White Whale has to be a Sin Archbishop at least." He stopped a few meters from the pair, hands in his pockets. "Compared to you two, the Sloth guy was downright polite. Introduced himself and everything. Killing him was a hassle, sure, but we got it done."
"What are you babbling about."
In the span of those few sentences, the white-haired young man's expression had gone from irritated to dark. Truly, deeply dark.
"Or do you think that because you dealt with that fool Petelgeuse, you can ignore our will? Trample on our rights..."
"We are the Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult, Gluttony Representative. Lye Batenkaitos!"
The short one cut right across his companion's speech, grinning as he announced himself without a shred of hesitation.
"'We'?" Gojo cocked an eyebrow. "This pairing of yours looks like a circus act..."
"Shut up!"
The white-haired young man's voice cracked like a whip.
"You uncultured wretch who knows nothing but trampling on others' rights!"
A soft scuff. His foot kicked up a spray of sand and dirt from the ground.
It looked childish. The kind of move a street brawler might pull. But the instant that dust left the earth, it accelerated to blinding speed, fanning out to engulf Gojo entirely.
An invisible wall stopped it cold.
Every grain hung suspended in the air, frozen centimeters from his body. The particles that had passed to either side of him, however, kept their velocity and slammed into the whale's carcass behind him.
Thp-thp-thp-thp-thp.
A rapid, wet staccato. Gojo turned to look. Where the sand had struck, the whale's hide, that impossibly tough defense, was riddled with holes. Dozens of them, punched clean through.
Ordinary sand. Through the White Whale's body.
"Oh? Is that Gluttony's Authority? Interesting." His eyebrows rose. "Even grains of sand can hit that hard. Definitely a step up from those invisible hands."
"That said, could you aim more carefully? If you wreck the whale, Felt's going to make my life miserable, and I'd rather avoid the headache."
He strolled away from the carcass, unhurried, completely unconcerned about leaving his back exposed.
"You..."
The white-haired young man watched him go. His attack, the one that had never been stopped by anything, neutralized without effort. Anger warred with something closer to disbelief behind those drooping eyes.
"Easy now. Don't rush." Gojo waved over his shoulder. "I'll give you plenty of chances, Sin Archbishop of Gluttony."
"Haha! Big Bro really is fun!" Lye laughed and ran his tongue along one of his daggers. "I can tell you're going to be a high-quality meal."
The white-haired young man shot him a venomous glare but said nothing. As Sin Archbishops, their relationship wasn't friendly, but they respected each other's habits. The same way he hadn't interrupted Lye's self-introduction, Lye didn't stop him from peppering his speech with talk of rights and violations. Professional courtesy among monsters.
"Alright, this spot works." Gojo had moved to the opposite side of the whale. He turned and beckoned the two of them over like a kindergarten teacher coaxing children to the right side of the playground. "Just remember, aim this way. Not toward the whale."
"Big Bro, you already know our names. Isn't it time you introduced yourself?" Lye followed without complaint, grinning as he walked.
"Satoru Gojo."
He said it while studying the suspended cloud of sand still hovering in front of him. Even now, the grains hadn't fallen. And that was peculiar.
Under the Limitless Cursed Technique, ranged attacks, whether thrown objects or projectiles, lost momentum as they approached and eventually dropped once their kinetic energy was spent. That was the rule.
These grains defied it. Minutes had passed, and they still hung there, motionless but not inert. The force driving them hadn't decayed at all. Their kinetic energy was simply... constant.
That's more interesting than raw power. There's something else at work. Something that locks an object's state in place.
If it were pure force, enough strength could keep a thrown stone airborne for a long time. But force was reciprocal. The harder you pushed an object, the more stress it endured. Fragile grains of sand should have disintegrated under the kind of sustained energy needed to keep them moving this long.
The only explanation was the Authority itself.
"I am the Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult, Greed Representative. Regulus Corneas."
The white-haired young man's cold voice cut through Gojo's analysis, sharp and clipped. He'd clearly had enough of being called the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, and seized the opening to set the record straight.
Two Sin Archbishops. Greed and Gluttony.
Gojo hadn't expected one dead whale to draw out a pair like this. But watching the naked irritation on Regulus's face, a particular breed of smirk crept onto his own.
"Got it, Sin Archbishop of Gluttony."
"What?!"
A muscle twitched beneath Regulus's eye. He'd crossed from irritation into something volcanic.
"Can you not understand basic speech?"
No dramatic wind-up. A flick of his hand, nothing more. The air shrieked. Gojo sensed something invisible hurtling toward him at terrifying speed, shaped and solid despite being nothing but compressed atmosphere.
It stopped dead against the Limitless, same as everything else.
"This is exactly why I don't like you people. Either raving lunatics who can't understand a word you say, or short-fused idiots who throw tantrums. Beyond bounty money, you have zero reason to exist."
Gojo shook his head, wearing the weary expression of a man surrounded by disappointing children.
"So that's how Big Bro sees me? And here I thought you'd make such a delicious meal." Lye licked his lips, eyes fixed on Gojo with naked hunger.
"Sorry to disappoint."
A fingertip rose. Blue light began to coalesce around it.
"Since we're done with the pleasantries, let's say our goodbyes. Consider this a parting gift."
The sphere of blue light detonated toward both of them.
BOOM.
The blast swallowed their silhouettes in a wall of dust and debris.
Gojo narrowed his eyes, peering into the cloud. Red light already flickered at his fingertip. He didn't think the Sin Archbishops were particularly strong, but those bizarre Authorities of theirs made it unlikely they'd go down that easily.
Right on cue, a dark blur exploded from the smoke and closed on him.
"What a generous parting gift, Big Bro."
Lye's jagged grin filled his vision, both daggers swinging.
From behind the dust, Regulus strode out untouched. Every strand of white hair in place. Not a mote of dirt on his coat. His mocking expression hadn't shifted a millimeter.
"Pathetic. You thought that would hurt me?"
"I knew it. You people have no talent for anything except being a pain in the ass."
Red was already charged and waiting. Gojo unleashed it at Regulus.
Lye, now within arm's reach, he ignored entirely.
Searing crimson erupted outward, so intense it dyed the blue sky red for a shuddering instant. The ground between Gojo and Regulus tore open, a deep furrow carved by the blast's wake.
And yet.
Regulus didn't flinch. Didn't dodge. Didn't so much as blink. He thrust out his chest and took the hit head-on, that same contemptuous smile never wavering, as though daring Gojo to try harder.
Red broke against him like water against stone. All that force, all that devastation, and the man hadn't moved a centimeter. Even his clothes were untouched, as if wrapped in their own private reality where damage wasn't permitted to exist.
"Time for a taste!"
While Gojo watched Red fail, Lye closed the distance, both daggers flashing in vicious arcs aimed straight at him.
Anticipation lit the shorter man's face. So close now. Close enough to taste that long-desired meal.
The blades met empty air. An invisible barrier caught them and held.
"Huh?"
Lye stared at his frozen daggers, baffled.
"Pathetic. You thought that would hurt me?"
Gojo tugged his sunglasses down and winked at Lye, parroting the exact words back with a grin.
Lye didn't react much, but beside him, Regulus's face twisted.
"You insufferable, rights-violating pest. You are genuinely, sincerely detestable."
He snatched a rock off the ground, voice flat with cold fury, and hurled it at Gojo with everything he had.
"Are you a child? Throwing rocks?" Gojo yawned. "Or is this seriously the best you've got?"
The rock screamed through the air fast enough to crack the sound barrier. Against the Limitless, it didn't matter. Gojo caught it with one hand, casual as plucking a ball from the air.
"Show me everything your Authorities can do. If you bore me, I'll kill you."
He released the rock. Without the Limitless holding it back, it rocketed off into the distance, still carrying every ounce of its original momentum.
Then, to the visible disbelief of both Sin Archbishops, Gojo sat down right where he stood. Cross-legged on the ground, chin propped on one hand, smirking up at them.
Regulus's expression curdled into something ugly. Never, in all his years, had anyone treated him like this. His attacks useless. His Authority meaningless. And this infuriating man sitting there, looking at him like he was entertainment.
"Come on, then." Gojo beckoned with two fingers. "What are you waiting for? Or would you rather I get up and finish this myself?"
...
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