Chapter 26: Killing You
"Paper?"
A sudden realization struck Yumesaki as he instantly grasped exactly what the entity was referring to. The pages torn from the Death Note—the supernatural paper capable of taking a human life simply by having a name inscribed upon it.
He narrowed his eyes, studying Jogo and Mahito intently. "If I remember correctly, that item should belong to the Star Religious Group. How do the two of you know about it? Don't tell me you've gone and joined their little cult?"
From what he recalled of the original timeline, these two curses shouldn't have had any direct affiliation with the Star Religious Group whatsoever. Instead, their ties were deeply intertwined with Kenjaku, the entity currently piloting the corpse of Suguru Geto.
"That is none of your business," Jogo snapped, his gaze incredibly hostile. The condescending look Yumesaki had given him moments ago had severely grated on his nerves. He wanted nothing more than to instantly rip Yumesaki into a thousand bloody pieces, but because the pages had yet to be secured, he was forced to violently suppress the urge building inside his chest.
Yumesaki nodded along, a look of profound agreement washing over his face. "You know, despite your face being exceptionally hideous, your words actually carry a fair bit of sense. It really is none of my business."
Jogo's eye widened in sheer irritation. "You damn piece of—"
Even though the human before him had just called him ugly, he had also praised his logic in the exact same breath. For a split second, the volcanic curse found himself genuinely stumped on whether he should be furiously angry or utterly confused.
Mahito, standing off to the side, couldn't help but let out a amused chuckle. "My, my... it really looks like he's just running circles around you."
Yumesaki turned his attention to Mahito, frowning slightly as he glared at him. "What do you mean 'looks like'? Try having a bit more confidence in yourself, drop the 'looks like'. Honestly, Cursed Spirits nowadays seem to suffer from a severe lack of self-assuredness."
With that final jab, Jogo completely snapped. The miniature volcano on his head erupted in full force, spewing intense waves of heat.
"I am going to kill you! I will absolutely tear you apart!"
"Kill me? Are you entirely certain about that?" Yumesaki asked, his gaze coolly locking onto the raging curse.
Jogo stared back, his single eye bloodshot as he unleashed a massive torrent of roaring flames. "Kill you! Kill you!" At this exact moment, his raw hatred for Yumesaki had successfully eclipsed everything else.
Yumesaki nodded with an air of complete satisfaction. "Very well then. Go right ahead and kill."
The instant those words left Yumesaki's mouth, Jogo launched himself forward. Yet, without a single shred of hesitation, he forcefully lunged sideways, grabbing hold of Mahito who was standing right next to him, and unleashed a blazing stream of scorching fire directly into the patchwork curse's face.
"Wait—what the... what are you doing?!"
Mahito had absolutely never anticipated that his own ally would suddenly turn on him. Caught completely off guard and unable to properly brace himself, his entire body was instantly engulfed by the roaring inferno Jogo unleashed. An agonizing sensation of intense heat immediately rippled through his physical form.
"Stop this! What in the world do you think you are doing?! Aaaaagh!"
"Kill you! Kill you! I'll burn you to absolute ash!" Jogo shrieked.
Deaf to Mahito's agonizing screams, Jogo paid his companion's plight no mind whatsoever. He channeled every ounce of his burning rage into the flames, desperately seeking to incinerate the entity before him until nothing but cinder remained.
"Get the hell off me!"
In a desperate bid for survival, Mahito let out a deafening screech. An immense surge of Cursed Energy erupted violently from his body, creating a powerful shockwave that forcefully blasted Jogo away. Jogo flew backward through the air before colliding heavily into a black sedan parked along the curb.
With a sharp, deafening crunch of metal, the sedan's frame caved inward, its alarm immediately blaring to life with a piercing, rhythmic shriek.
The sudden, violent display instantly sent the surrounding crowds into a state of sheer panic. Because ordinary humans lacked the ability to see Jogo and Mahito, they were completely blind to the entities causing the commotion. To their eyes, a perfectly fine sedan had suddenly been violently crushed by an invisible force, as if struck by a speeding, unseen truck. The terrifying weight of the unknown caused the entire street to rapidly dissolve into absolute chaos.
Yumesaki turned his head slightly, addressing Medea. "Transport them away from here. Move them to a completely deserted location."
Medea nodded understandingly. With a sharp snap of her fingers, a brilliant, intricate magic circle rapidly expanded beneath the feet of both Jogo and Mahito. In the blink of an eye, the two Special Grade Cursed Spirits vanished from the street, instantly displaced to a remote, uninhabited island far out at sea.
This ensured their conflict would not bring harm to any innocent bystanders.
Yumesaki effortlessly locked onto the coordinates of the two curses using his Clairvoyance. Even after being dropped onto the deserted shores of the island, Jogo showed absolutely no intention of letting Mahito go. It was as if he suddenly viewed the patchwork curse as an absolute mortal enemy with whom he could never coexist under the same sky. He was driven by a single, burning desire to slaughter him down to the last molecule.
At the same time, Mahito had finally pieced together that Jogo was clearly operating under the influence of some form of mind manipulation, which explained his relentless, unprompted aggression. Yet, no matter how hard he racked his brain, he couldn't comprehend exactly how Yumesaki had managed to override Jogo's consciousness so seamlessly.
As the seconds ticked by, he found he no longer had the luxury of pondering the mystery. Jogo's onslaught was growing exponentially more vicious and destructive by the moment.
"Maximum: Meteor!"
This specific technique stood as Jogo's absolute trump card, sitting just a tier below a full Domain Expansion. By pushing the output of his innate technique to its absolute limits, the sheer volume of Cursed Energy consumed was practically equivalent to deploying a domain.
Accompanied by Jogo's primal roar, a colossal, blazing meteorite materialized in the sky and plummeted violently toward the earth, forcing Mahito to scramble away in a desperate, undignified sprint.
Due to the nature of his innate technique, Idle Transfiguration, Mahito was strictly required to make direct physical contact with his target's soul to inflict damage. While he wasn't entirely lacking in long-range offensive options, they were far too weak to clash directly with a falling meteor. Faced with Jogo's ultimate move, evasion was his only viable recourse.
A titanic explosion ripped through the island.
The massive celestial rock slammed into the earth with apocalyptic force, causing the entire unpopulated island to violently shudder under the impact. The resulting shockwave tore across the landscape, catching Mahito and violently throwing him through the air.
While hurtling through the sky, Mahito quickly brought his hands together, his voice dropping into a tense, focused whisper. "Domain Expansion: Self-Embodiment of Perfection."
An countless array of massive, pale hands erupted from the ground, rapidly intertwining to construct a massive, isolated barrier that completely sealed Jogo within its confines.
A Domain Expansion represented the absolute pinnacle of Jujutsu sorcery, an ultimate technique achievable by only a select handful of elite sorcerers and high-tier Cursed Spirits. It required a massive expenditure of Cursed Energy to manifest one's Innate Domain into the physical world. Within this enclosed space, the user received a massive boost to their overall capabilities, and more importantly, any innate technique embedded within the domain was guaranteed to land a direct hit.
With the absolute certainty of the domain's can-hit attribute, Mahito no longer needed to physically touch his opponent to trigger Idle Transfiguration. Consequently, the very moment his domain snapped shut, he had essentially secured an unassailable advantage.
The only definitive counter to a domain was to deploy a superior domain of one's own.
Unfortunately for Jogo, the moment he found himself trapped within the boundaries of Mahito's domain, the patchwork curse instantly triggered his technique. In a flash of distorted space, Jogo's physical form was instantly compressed, reshaped into a simple, featureless sphere.
With a dull thud, the sphere dropped to the earth, rolling lazily across the dirt until it came to a stop right at Mahito's feet. He had been completely stripped of any capacity to fight back.
Mahito let out a long, heavy sigh of relief. Disengaging his domain, he collapsed onto the ground, staring down at the spherical object that used to be Jogo, letting out a sharp tsk.
"What in the world just happened?"
Even now, he remained completely in the dark regarding how their target had managed to seize total control over Jogo, forcing him to perceive his own ally as a sworn enemy. The sheer mystery of the method was deeply unsettling; it was a threat he would have to remain incredibly wary of moving forward.
But looking around, where exactly were they? Mahito turned his head, casting his gaze over the unfamiliar coastline of the deserted island.
A slow, rhythmic sound of clapping echoed from the side.
Mahito instantly scrambled to his feet, his gaze snapping sharply toward the source of the noise. Yumesaki, Medea, and Nero materialized out of thin air, standing a short distance away.
"A truly marvelous performance," Yumesaki remarked, his tone filled with genuine praise as he looked at Mahito. Jogo was, by all accounts, a formidable Special Grade Cursed Spirit, yet Mahito had managed to completely neutralize him with relative ease. It was clear evidence that the patchwork curse's combat prowess was nothing to scoff at.
Mahito took a cautious step backward, his posture incredibly guarded. The primary reason for his trepidation was simply that Yumesaki's abilities were far too unpredictable. If someone as powerful as Jogo couldn't offer a shred of resistance, Mahito had no guarantee he would fare any better. To make matters worse, the human was flanked by two companions who clearly radiated immense power.
Facing a three-on-one disadvantage, victory was completely out of the question.
"Perhaps we could negotiate a truce?" Mahito suggested, showing a sudden, uncanny ability to adapt to his circumstances. He knew exactly when to bow his head and when to stand tall, proving himself to be an entity who understood how to read the room.
"A truce?" Yumesaki murmured, raising a hand to lightly scratch his chin. "I suppose it isn't entirely impossible. Answer a few of my questions honestly, and we can call it a day."
Mahito raised an eyebrow in surprise. He hadn't actually expected the human to entertain the idea of a peaceful resolution. Was this a genuine offer, or was he simply being toyed with? He found it entirely impossible to read the man's intentions. Still, given the alternative, he was more than willing to take the gamble. If he won, he walked away alive.
"Go ahead and ask," he replied, giving a firm nod.
Yumesaki posed his first query. "First off, clarify something for me. How exactly did your group manage to confirm that the pages were in my possession?"
Mahito answered without hesitation. "A specific technique was embedded into every single sheet of that paper. We are capable of tracing the exact location of the pages through that residual signature at any given time."
Yumesaki let out an enlightened hum, a look of understanding washing over his features. So that was how they did it. "And what exactly is your group's connection to the Star Religious Group? Why are you so intent on recovering these specific pages?"
"Our group maintains a rather close working relationship with the representative of the Star Religious Group, Suguru Geto," Mahito explained. "He was the one who personally requested our assistance to help retrieve those pages on his behalf."
"Suguru Geto, you say?" Yumesaki muttered.
He found himself deeply intrigued by this piece of information. Was this individual the actual, resurrected Suguru Geto, or was it simply Kenjaku inhabiting his corpse? He cast a searching glance toward Mahito, noticing that the curse was simultaneously trying to steal a cautious glance at him.
Activate Technique: Mental Manipulation.
In the fraction of a second that followed, Mahito's consciousness was completely overridden, his mind falling entirely under Yumesaki's absolute control.
Yumesaki walked over to the frozen curse, seamlessly switching his active ability to the powers of the Memory-Memory Fruit. He reached out, physically pulling the film of Mahito's memories directly out of his skull. "Let's take a look inside and see whether this fellow was speaking the absolute truth or spinning a web of lies."
Mahito stood completely rigid, locked in place like a statue, offering absolutely no resistance as Yumesaki meticulously sifted through the chronological archives of his mind.
Once Yumesaki finished reviewing the extracted memories, he confirmed that Mahito hadn't fabricated the core of his story. However, the curse had deliberately altered a few critical, highly specific details.
The two Special Grades didn't share a mutual, egalitarian partnership with Suguru Geto; rather, they were effectively operating as his direct subordinates. Furthermore, the Suguru Geto depicted within Mahito's memories was not the body-hopping sorcerer Kenjaku. It was the genuine, original Suguru Geto himself, as his forehead was completely devoid of the signature horizontal stitching lines that marked Kenjaku's host bodies.
In the established history of this world, Suguru Geto had experienced a massive psychological breakdown during his time as a seventeen-year-old student. The accumulation of trauma eventually drove him to massacre one hundred and twelve ordinary villagers in a single night, defecting from Jujutsu High to become an independent Curse User.
Following his defection, Geto forcefully seized control of the Star Religious Group, quickly earning himself the title of the most heinous Curse User in modern history. His ultimate objective was nothing less than the total eradication of all non-sorcerers, aiming to forge a brand-new world populated exclusively by Jujutsu sorcerers.
Later down the line, this individual would unleash thousands of Cursed Spirits across Tokyo's Shinjuku district and the city of Kyoto, issuing a blanket command to slaughter every human in sight. This unprecedented act of supernatural terrorism would come to be known as the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.
And Geto's ultimate motive behind orchestrating this massive catastrophe was to forcefully wrest control of a specific entity away from a young man who would later be known as the Pure Love Warrior.
He sought the Special Grade Over-Curse Vengeful Spirit, Rika Orimoto.
Rika Orimoto was the deceased childhood friend of Yuta Okkotsu, the two having promised to marry one another when they were still young children. Tragically, Rika lost her life in a horrific traffic accident at the tender age of eleven. Due to an involuntary, massive eruption of Cursed Energy from Yuta at the exact moment of her passing, her soul was forcefully bound to the mortal plane, transforming her into a catastrophic Special Grade Over-Curse Vengeful Spirit that haunted Yuta ever since.
She was an entirely unique, unprecedented specimen. Suguru Geto believed that if he could successfully assimilate Rika Orimoto into his arsenal, his personal strength would skyrocket to unimaginable heights.
Regrettably, he severely underestimated the absolute, unyielding bond shared between the Pure Love Warrior and his childhood companion. In this day and age, one could provoke almost anyone else, but crossing a Pure Love Warrior was an absolute death sentence. A person driven by that level of absolute devotion was fully prepared to discard their own life just to drag their enemy into the grave.
And in that fateful clash, Yuta did precisely that. By entering into a binding vow that offered his own life, his power, and his entire future as a complete sacrifice to Rika Orimoto, he completely shattered the natural limitations governing his Cursed Energy output, achieving an unprecedented level of destructive power.
To put it in the simplest terms possible—the man had completely broken his limits.
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It looks like I'll need to increase the number of Power Stones required for the Bonus Chapter from 50 to 100.
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