A quote propped up from somewhere in my head, the speaker was a blur, but the words themselves were unforgettable. Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same.
In this moment, it spoke to the inevitability that was Sukuna. I'd been moving since I took over Mahoraga's body, and still he had tracked me, crossing the entire city, like a bloodhound on the loose.
This was a fight I wanted to avoid. Megumi was no longer half dead, but fighting Sukuna as I was right now risked him obliterating me with Fuga, which would lead to a scenario I had little chance of affecting. The best option was to run, to flee like a coward, yet I knew that if I somehow managed to outrun him, Megumi and the rest wouldn't survive it. Megumi might, but the same could not be said for the rest.
However, I remained for one other reason, a reason vastly superior to the others I made up in my head, a reason so powerful that any other was relegated and turned into a simple lie. I was in the presence of the strongest sorcerer in history and the sight of him lit a fire at the core of my being and without even thinking, my knees flexed into a crouch, my feet dug deep into the concrete like it was mud, my stance lowered but my back hunched like a feral beast and my lips tore open to reveal jagged teeth.
My body, instinctively, optimized itself for speed.
I was not a coward, and I wasn't one to run from a fight, but this intense desire to face Jujutsu Satan was something more. It was not a part of me, not the me from before with the vague memories of a life lived. It was an intricate part of my new form, a mechanism that pushed my body to fight, conquer, and adapt. It was Mahoraga.
I let out a single steaming breath.
Sukuna's eyes widened at my reaction, that dark and vicious smile playing out on his own face.
"Oh, you're not one for a conversation, are you?" He questioned rhetorically as he stretched his hands above his head, loosening the limbs. "Jogo was an appetizer, but something tells me that you're going to be the main dish."
I ignored his words and instead did something the original Mahoraga had not done much of. I began to think. Sukuna knew nothing about me. Unlike the Zenin or the Fushiguros, the incarnated king of curses had never encountered Mahoraga before, which in hindsight made sense.
Mahoraga was not originally from Japan. He was a curse spirit regarded as a deity from foreign lands, one that had somehow found its way into the Ten Shadows technique through means I didn't fully understand yet. Regardless, it meant that Sukuna was aware of me, but had no details of my capabilities.
Unlike Sukuna, I did not suffer such ignorance. I knew him. His abilities, his skills, his techniques, but more importantly, I understood his character, his archetype, his needs, his desires. His wishes, dreams, and goals. Fundamentally, Sukuna was a very simple creature. He reminded me of another quote.
If I want it, the heavens had better have it. If I don't want it, the heavens better not have it.
That was who Sukuna was. Everything he did was for his pleasure, and with that understanding, I further comprehended his existence and began to calculate how to actually fight him.
From my vague memories, Sukuna was fast. Even with only fifteen fingers, he was faster than any other person here, bar me. I knew how fast he was, but he didn't know how fast I was, so I was only going to get a single chance at this.
The wing appendages that acted as my eyes folded in on themselves like a bird about to dive for prey. My body tensed even further, like a spring forced into itself; muscles upon muscles were forced to compress to the limit, compress enough that my whole body was filled with pain.
Sukuna's head tilted to the side, like he was amused, like he could read my movement, yet did not think much of it. His attention drifted for a single moment, four crimson eyes rolled in their sockets and moved to Fushiguro, then Yaga, Ileri, and the others behind me.
"The rest of you are not permitted to witness this," he started, his hand slowly coming up, readying for a swing. "Dissa—"
The ground beneath me exploded from the force of my motion.
Sukuna reacted quickly. He shifted the angle of his hand from behind me to in front of himself, then he swung it, but I was already inside his guard, a glancing cut on my shoulder the only evidence of his counter. His eyes widened, yet half of the visual organs were covered by the great white fist that held his face in a vice-like grip.
KLNK
Momentum carried me. My leg slammed into the ground once again, and with bare effort, I hurled myself forward, carrying Sukuna as a battering ram as we flew back into the heart of the city, buildings breaking against Sukuna as we tunneled our way to a place where we could fight without risking Megumi dying to a wayward slash.
__
Megumi
They all stared in silence. The past second had happened so quickly, Megumi was still slowly coming to the realization that they were gone. Mahoraga and Sukuna both. The vibration that heralded Mahoraga's taking off was still felt, as the ground tremored from where he launched himself.
"D-Did it just save us?" Ileri's voice was shaky, her hands still gripping the door of the hospital she had taken cover behind.
Megumi didn't answer. He couldn't. His mind was still trying to process what he'd just witnessed. Mahoraga had moved with purpose. With the intent to protect them from the king of curses. It had positioned itself between them and Sukuna, and then it had attacked with a strategy that spoke of intelligence far beyond what any shikigami should possess.
Megumi's eyes trailed above them, to where the invisible slash had done damage, after tearing into Mahoraga's shoulder. He imagined what would've happened if the Shikigami had been absent, and the thought brought a shudder to his body.
"Should we evacuate now?" Someone questioned from behind. But Megumi was not listening; unconsciously, his feet started taking him forward. He had been the only one to notice it, but the wheel above Mahoraga's head had turned.
The dull gold of the wheel above the shikigami's head had spun once during the brief exchange with a heavy KLNK. Just once. But Megumi had felt it, the way the cursed energy in the air had shifted, the way the Shikigami had changed in response. Somehow, he was still connected to it, even if he had zero control over it.
"Fushiguro-kun," Yaga's voice cut through his thoughts, halting his next step. The principal was already moving, his cursed corpses forming a protective perimeter around the injured sorcerers. "We need to evacuate. Now. Whatever happens between those two, we don't want to be anywhere near it."
"But—"
"No buts," Yaga said firmly. "That thing might have saved us, but it's still fighting Sukuna. You saw the aftermath of Sukuna's clash with the special grade disaster curse. I fear that when these two clash for real, everything in a kilometer radius is going to be dust."
Megumi clenched his fists. Yaga was right. He knew Yaga was right. But leaving Mahoraga alone with Sukuna, with Itadori, felt wrong on a level he couldn't articulate.
"And there are others as well. Nanami, for example, who we've still not heard from, and Satoru, who remains sealed. Your Shikigami is playing the most important part, dealing with Sukuna. Let us do what we can as well." Yaga finished with a hand on his shoulder.
The sound of distant explosions filled Megumi's thoughts as somewhere in the city, the real battle was beginning.
__
Big Raga The Opp Stoppa
A flick of my right wrist sent the sword of extermination flying from the wraps that held it hidden, then my right arm shot forward like a cannon, burying the tip of the blade into Sukuna's stomach, but that was as far as it went. His tattooed hand had caught the outside of my wrist almost immediately, and he strained as he fought to keep my hand back.
Boom.
We tore through another building, using Sukuna as a battering ram, but if tearing through the concrete structure affected him, he didn't show it, instead he twisted to look at me, baring his teeth, just like I did. I tried to put in more force into the stab, but my strength failed me. It took me a second to realize why.
The dismantle Sukuna shot in the beginning. It had ripped into my right shoulder, and shikigami or not, Mahoraga still obeyed the laws of physics and biology when he felt like it. The cut had carved deep, severing multiple muscles, thereby weakening my right limb. An annoyance, I let out a grunt, but an annoyance that would not last for long. The cut was already healing faster than it should have.
"Fast." Sukuna commented with a laugh, then he twisted in my grip, a movement more proportional to a snake than any man.
A kick to the inside of my forearm broke the limb mid-flight, and I stared into Sukuna's face as he flipped us midair. With the loss of traction, there was no leverage to apply my overwhelming strength, and I knew it even before he did, so I simply watched as he spun and flung me away, but not before I retaliated with a sideways kick into his ribs that threw him in the opposite direction instead of allowing him an upper hand.
My body flipped in the air, momentum and technique rendering skill useless as I blasted through a skyscraper filled with desks, tables, chairs, and other assorted nonsense, before finally coming to a rest halfway into another, my body held in place by the metal rebar that supported the structure.
For all of a second, there was silence. Our exchange had been brief, but enough for me to pick up a few details. I was physically faster, but Sukuna's reflexes were sharper. His combat experience was vast, measured in centuries, and it showed in how easily he'd countered my initial assault despite being caught off guard. Mahoraga's combat instincts were not any poorer; combat instincts accumulated over multiple centuries as well, even if he didn't keep whatever adaptations he gained.
Snap
I looked to the side, and at the limb imprinted into the building. The broken arm was already healing, bones snapping back into place with wet cracks that echoed through the empty floor.
Dismantle.
I ripped myself free from the rebar before the first part of the word completed, and dropped to the ground, concrete cracking under my weight. The invisible slash came from my left, cutting through three support pillars and the wall beyond, and sent the building tilting my way, but I was already moving to the side.
A split second later, I realized I'd been herded.
Dismantle.
I saw it. The wing-like appendages on my head tracked the cursed energy fluctuation a split second after the technique activated, rendering a visual image of the invisible blade in my eyes. It would have been easy to dodge, to expose my ability to see it, to reveal Mahoraga's first adaptation to dismantle. That is what the original Mahoraga would have done, uncaring of tactics.
Instead my left hand snapped out to the side, grabbing a car by its bonnet, and with a twist of my hips, I flung it ahead of me, a split second later the car was split in two, but I could clearly see that some strength, minuscule as it was, had been ripped out of the curse technique, and with that realization, the bare beginnings of a plan began to come to mind.
I intercepted the sword of extermination in the path of the slash, in a seeming random movement, that was calculated to protect my head, as Sukuna's dismantle carved a hot line of pain in my chest that dug deep enough to kiss spine. I let out a grunt of pain, but my feet dug into the ground, anchoring me in place.
The pain was sharp, but brief. Supporting another theory, whatever Mahoraga was, he wasn't a creature meant to suffer pain. It was a theory I'd tested when I allowed the transfigured humans to hurt me with cuts to hasten my adaptation for the inevitable clash with Sukuna. Mahoraga didn't feel pain like people did.
Footsteps rang out as Sukuna walked through the alleyway he'd shot his dismantle from, brushing dust off his shoulders with an amused expression, then he lifted the side of his shirt and glanced at the stab I'd given him. It was already beginning to heal, his reverse curse technique going to work. "Fast, vicious, and strangely perceptive unless that block now was as lucky as it looked. You know, I'm starting to understand why that Fushiguro brat thought of you as a last option," He started but made a tut sound of dissatisfaction. "Yet this is not enough."
I didn't respond. Couldn't, really, given I lacked the vocal cords for human speech. Instead, I took a step forward, shifted my stance, then put my weight on my back foot. My shoulder had healed, returning strength to my arm, and so I brought up the limbs in a boxer's stance, waiting for my chest to heal fully.
"The strong, silent type then?" Sukuna's grin widened. "That's fine. Your body will tell me everything I need to know once I'm done with you."
He swung his hand in a lazy but well paragraphed slash.
Dismantle.
A barrage of slashing attacks filled the air between us, four invisible blades as opposed to the single one I was expecting. If I had eyes, they would have bulged in surprise, instead my body moved to dodge, yet I was the one to direct it. The ground beneath me cracked as I moved, pivoting on the spot and diving into the closest shop beside me.
I circled around Sukuna using the shop for protection. I glimpsed him, still standing in place as he swung once again in my direction, yet four slashes manifested as they obliterated the front of the store, tore through furniture, appliances, rebar and stone, before the weakened slash got to me, as the weakened dismantle carved fresh new lines into my pale flesh, suddenly I was hit with a sense of understanding. The wheel above my head began to turn.
KLNK
Understanding fed to me from my second adaptation. Sukuna used curse energy manipulation on a scale that allowed him to direct his dismantle with his fingers. The position of his fingers was the position the multiple dismantle flew in. A finger for each dismantle. If he made a single right-hand slash, it was a single overpowered dismantle. If he splayed his fingers, it allowed him five dismantles that cut from multiple angles as opposed to a single one.
Yet there had to be something more to it. I'd seen him pull off hundreds of dismantle with ease. I needed to understand it further, I needed to adapt further and to do that, i needed to be hit.
My back slammed into a wall from the force of the weakened cuts. Despite the damage Sukuna was doing to my body. I somehow knew I was resilient enough to tank more dangerous things, which was surprising, and that wide smile that had formed on my face in the beginning had not dropped in the slightest; it widened as the multiple cuts began to heal again, faster than the first groove that had nearly kissed my spine. I was adapting.
"If you don't come to me, I'll come to you." A yell rang out from outside.
My left fist shot out in a haymaker right at the point Sukuna appeared inside the building, but he raised his guard, blocked the blow, then lashed out with a kick at my injuries. I pivoted, twisting my body to the complaint of my still healing torso. The pain was sharp and immediate, but I pushed through the temporary agony and swung my right arm, sword of execution first, in a wide arc aimed at Sukuna's head. He ducked under it with insulting ease, but I'd been anticipating that because my left fist caught him in the stomach, the force of the blow lifting him up and right into the path of the sword of execution, the bladed edge dug into his side, and Sukuna let out an annoyed grunt.
Then he swung his left free hand, and this close, there was no way to dodge, even if I caught sight of the invisible slash as it manifested. His fingers stopped in front of my face. He grinned.
Dismantle.
My vision went white as I felt crisscrosses across my face. I'd ducked my head back and down in the last second, but some of the slashes had caught my winged appendages that served as my eyes, then something struck me like a cannon, flinging me away, as I was forced to explode my way through another building, then a house, and a shop before my wings healed, bringing back sight.
I spun in midair, before landing upright, with my feet digging into the ground as the force of Sukuna's blow was bled out into the groove my feet created.
"Vicious and cunning. You're no simple Shikigami, are you, Mahoraga?" Sukuna's voice rang out from the flickering streetlight he perched on a few meters to my left, and his face rested in an arm as he observed me like a particularly interesting insect.
The wheel above my head began to turn.
"What is behind those white wings of yours?" he questioned. "I know you understand me, you're following my words, I can see it. You act more like a special grade curse than a simple Shikigami." Sukuna's head tilted to the side. "Is the Fushiguro brat even aware of just what you are?"
I ignored his question, instead my attention moved to his injury, where I'd dug in the Sword of Extermination, right in the same place I'd barely managed a stab earlier.
Sukuna didn't bother to lift his shirt again; the hole the blow ripped into the cloth was wide enough to reveal the already healed gash.
"That was a better hit." The king of curses admitted with a grin, "If I were a cursed spirit, it might have even killed me, but while the blade itself is dangerous owing to its length and sharpness, the positive energy that coats it simply reduces its lethality."
KLNK
The wheel completed its turn, as if it could hear Sukuna's words and had finally adapted to respond. I showed teeth as I felt my curse energy react, the blade strapped to my wrist let out a soft hum, and Sukuna's brows furrowed, before he could realize the sudden change, I blurred forward in an explosion of movement, cutting the lamp with a single slash, but Sukuna had flipped away and shot another dismantle while upside down, confident in my inability to dodge, right until I did.
The dismantles came as four invisible blades, scattered in a messy pattern that would have carved deep lines into my chest, but I ducked the first, spun around the second, jumped over the third, and slinked beneath the fourth.
Sukuna's eyes widened in surprise, but I was already half of the way to him, and he was still upside down and midair, yet despite the clear surprise at my ability to see and dodge his curse technique, the king of curses let out a chuckle before he swung his second hand in what should have been a devastating slash.
"Too slow," I mouthed the words, and Sukuna's eyes widened in response.
A single step took me into range, and I swung down viciously with the sword of extermination, and for the first time since we clashed, it was not a chuckle or a laugh that left Ryomen Sukuna's lips. It was a scream of surprise, as the Sword of Extermination, imbued with negative curse energy, tore its way through his chest. The force of the blow enough to send him flying back.
I stopped in place, my winged appendages tracking Sukuna as he broke into a building before coming to a stop. I could feel him, see him look at me with confused eyes from where he had been thrown, so I did another thing Mahoraga never had.
I taunted him.
I brought the blade to my lips and licked it clean of the blood that had stained it. Ryomen Sukuna's blood. Then I turned back to him and grinned at him, with teeth stained by his own blood, and gestured with my left hand in the universal gesture. I beckoned him forward and mouthed the words. "Come."
And Sukuna laughed.