The moment Toji vanished again, the air in the corridor tore a beat late.
He was faster this time.
No, it wasn't just a matter of speed.
A man who has survived death once begins to read his own path to survival more accurately. Fushiguro Toji had already reached a conclusion during their first clash. Itadori Yuji could kill him. Yet, he didn't.
From the moment he realized that fact, Toji's movements became even more vicious.
If a person believes in a line that won't be crossed—that they won't be killed—they become careless.
But the brat across from him didn't show any such openings.
Therefore, the reverse was true: Toji could exploit that non-lethal mercy for everything it was worth.
Gojo was the first to react.
"Above!"
Before the words even left his mouth, a sonic boom erupted as the ceiling shattered. Or rather, it appeared to shatter.
Toji had already looped around, kicking off the structures above the ceiling. No normal human could twist their body at such an angle. His spine, pelvis, knees, and ankles all contorted in different directions simultaneously.
Yet, Toji's body didn't break. A physique forged by Heavenly Restriction operated on a different standard of what was physically possible.
The Chain of a Thousand Miles fell first.
The metallic screech rained down from above, bisecting the center of the corridor.
Gojo immediately reinforced his Limitless, catching the end of the chain. As long as the Inverted Spear of Heaven wasn't attached, simple metal couldn't touch him.
Toji knew this and did it anyway.
The chain wasn't an attack; it was a blade meant to tear through their line of sight.
The moment the chain snagged against the Limitless, Toji's body had already slipped out of Gojo's vision. Pillars, walls, the ceiling, the floor. The narrow box of the corridor was a battlefield that merely provided him with more footholds.
Then, the Soul Splitter Katana lunged forward.
Not at Gojo, but at Yuji.
Yuji shifted his right foot half an inch, letting the trajectory of the Soul Splitter Katana slide past him.
The tip of the blade grazed past his ear, shearing off a few strands of hair. It was too close.
There was a massive difference between a wound that could be healed with Reverse Cursed Technique and a fatal blow that left no time to even consider healing. The Soul Splitter Katana was a blade that bypassed such distinctions in an instant.
Toji smirked.
"You keep dodging."
"There's no reason to let myself get hit," Yuji replied.
The moment Yuji spoke, blood sprayed from his fingertips.
It was a flash.
A single line of blood extended into the void, and in the next instant, it had already branched into dozens of paths.
Cursed Technique: Blood Manipulation — Piercing Blood.
It wasn't an ordinary Piercing Blood.
From the moment it was fired, the trajectories of Yuji's blood remained alive. The piercing power of a single shot far exceeded that of the original users, and the precision with which he controlled it was even more terrifying.
The streaks of blood didn't aim for Toji's body in straight lines. They targeted his knees, wrists, the arches of his feet, his flanks, and the stone floor where he was set to land. They claimed the points necessary for his next movement first.
Toji bit his lip and twisted his body.
He dodged the first, and swatted the second away with the back of his blade.
However, the moment the third Piercing Blood struck the floor, red lines spread across the entire corridor deck.
Toji's eyes narrowed for a split second.
"That again?"
It looked similar to what had happened before, but it was different.
Yuji hadn't just splattered blood; he had deployed it.
Each drop of blood wasn't just a bullet; it was a coordinate. And those coordinates became the gates that summoned the next technique.
"Supernova."
At Yuji's low command, the droplets of blood scattered on the floor exploded simultaneously.
It wasn't just a simple bang.
The compressed blood detonated from within, splitting the stone floor, while shrapnel and shockwaves sprayed sharply across the entire hallway.
Toji immediately lowered his center of gravity. Rather than avoiding the explosion, he chose to read the shadows of the debris created by the blast and slip through the gaps.
It was a good choice.
He was never a man who simply blocked strong attacks.
He was someone who knew all too well that the stronger an attack was, the more openings existed immediately before and after it.
Through the afterglow of the Supernova and the rising dust, Toji burrowed directly in front of Yuji's face.
The trajectory of the Soul Splitter Katana was short.
Short and precise.
It was an angle that feigned a strike to the heart only to slice between the lungs and the diaphragm. A method that cut deeper if the victim instinctively arched their upper body back.
Only someone who had stabbed hundreds, thousands of people could forge such a blade path.
Yuji did not retreat.
Instead, he tucked his left arm inward and raised his right arm in a short, vertical guard.
Cleave.
This time, there was no incantation.
The moment Yuji's palm grazed the side of the Soul Splitter Katana, the air between the blade and his hand imploded.
He didn't cut the man directly. He severed the blade's line. The flow of power Toji had poured in while twisting his torso, the rotation of the wrist, the angle of the elbow, the link of the shoulder—Yuji precisely cut the thinnest connection among them.
The edge of the Soul Splitter Katana only shallowly sliced Yuji's clothing.
Toji immediately drove his knee upward.
Shatter the jaw, break the posture, finish it with the next blade. The calculation was brief and perfect.
But Yuji was faster.
He used his elbow to press Toji's knee downward. It was a contact too light to even be called a press.
And yet, the direction of the force passing through Toji's kneecap and joint was derailed. Because of that single moment of error, Toji was forced to choose his next move all over again.
'This again?'
Toji's expression twisted ever so slightly.
This wasn't brute strength, nor was it simple martial arts.
He was being read like an anatomical chart. Yuji knew exactly where to touch to make a posture collapse and exactly when the momentum was at its weakest.
That was why, even in a position where he could kill, Yuji intentionally didn't. Instead, he could pick and choose the "most effective points for suppression."
It felt disgusting.
Gojo didn't miss that opening and dove back in.
"Don't forget about me."
He spoke with a grin, but his eyes were entirely in combat mode.
Limitless pushed aside the air within the corridor, and Gojo's body closed in on Toji's path of retreat. Without the Inverted Spear of Heaven, it was a pressure that could never be pierced.
Toji immediately flicked his left hand.
A short dagger tore through the air. It was the Inverted Spear of Heaven.
Gojo knew in his bones the meaning behind that short Cursed Tool.
The moment one felt safe because of Limitless, that blade would find their throat.
The moment Gojo tilted his head to dodge the spear, Toji retracted the chain while running up the wall.
The end of the Chain of a Thousand Miles extended as if growing in length the moment it left his sight, returning the Inverted Spear of Heaven to his hand.
The movement was perfect. In that short interval, he had swapped three weapons and continuously disrupted the focus of two opponents.
Yuji clicked his tongue internally.
He was truly skilled.
Even setting aside the emotion of him being Fushiguro Megumi's father, this man was undeniably a powerhouse. It wasn't the same concept of strength as Sukuna or Gojo.
Instead, it was far more human, which made it more unpleasant. He was the epitome of how far one could go by honing only the senses necessary for killing humans.
Toji closed in once more.
This time, he gripped the Inverted Spear of Heaven and the Soul Splitter Katana simultaneously.
Usually, this was a foolish choice. Reach would be tangled, and balance would crumble.
But Toji was a man who tore such common sense apart with his bare flesh.
The Inverted Spear in the right hand aimed for Gojo. The Soul Splitter in the left aimed for Yuji. He bound them both at once. If one retreated, the other would be finished.
Moreover, the narrow corridor offered little room for evasion.
Gojo bared his teeth in a smile.
"Now I'm actually getting annoyed."
Simultaneously, Yuji raised his hand.
"Dismantle."
This slash was even smaller. So small it was almost thin.
A single line, so slender it was difficult to track with the eyes, swept through the air.
Strangely, Toji knew exactly where that line had passed. His body screamed it first.
The left hand.
A sense of dissonance grazed below the wrist holding the Soul Splitter Katana.
He twisted his body reflexively. It was a line that would have taken his wrist with it had he been a beat later. However, he couldn't dodge it completely. The end of the Soul Splitter Katana's hilt was sliced in two and fell to the floor.
Thud.
It was a short sound.
Toji looked down at his weapon as he landed.
And in that moment, he was certain.
Itadori Yuji was still refusing to kill him.
The previous slash was too blatant. He didn't cut the wrist; he only cut the sword.
Remove the soul-slaying weapon first, but keep the human alive. If someone with that level of precision hadn't inflicted a single fatal wound yet, there was only one reason.
He was holding back.
Toji let out a short, hollow laugh.
"You really have no intention of killing me."
Gojo heard this and looked at Yuji as well.
It could no longer be hidden.
Instead of answering, Yuji looked Toji straight in the eye.
"I told you, it's because of Megumi."
"That name... stop letting it cross your lips."
This time, for the first time, emotion bled into Toji's voice. It wasn't quite anger; it was more like the irritation of someone having an old, buried wound mindlessly prodded.
Yuji didn't back down.
"It's the truth, whether you want to hear it or not."
Toji's gaze darkened. Now, he would truly try to kill. Strangely, that was exactly what Yuji had wanted.
The stronger the opponent, the more deviously they exploit a half-hearted mercy. Only when their killing intent truly rises can their rhythm be properly read.
Toji murmured lowly.
"Fine."
In the next instant—the man vanished again.
This time, there wasn't even the sound of a footfall.
He had shifted his senses entirely toward the act of killing. Without a single moment of testing, he began to choose only the shortest, most certain lethal moves.
Gojo let out a laugh that sounded almost like a curse.
"Wow, for real?"
Yuji's pupils narrowed. From here on, it was no longer a fight where he could afford to be soft.
To end this without killing, he would have to suppress Toji with even greater force.
And that was much harder than simply killing him.
Lines of Piercing Blood flashed once more across the center of the corridor.
Gojo's Limitless distorted the space, Toji's Inverted Spear stabbed into the cracks of that space, and Yuji's Dismantle and Cleave quietly draped over it all.
The movements of the three men overlapped for an instant.
And the very air of the Tombs of the Star Corridor distorted as if screaming.