The stone floor exploded first.
It looked as if Gojo Satoru had kicked off the ground afterward, but in reality, it was the opposite.
He hadn't hesitated from the start. From the moment he launched, he draped the thinnest layer of the Limitless over himself, pushed the calculations of the Six Eyes to their absolute limit, and dived in a straight line.
What was needed now wasn't scouting. It wasn't measuring. The moment his next move was read, it would be over.
From the beginning, going all out was the only priority.
Good.
That was what Yuji thought. Gojo's movements were fast.
It wasn't just physical speed; it was a velocity achieved through already finished calculations on how to be his fastest at this very moment. Where to place his feet, how thick to maintain the Limitless, when to trigger Blue, where his opponent would be looking.
All those judgments moved as a single, cohesive unit.
But—even so, he still couldn't reach.
The moment Gojo's fingertips reached for Yuji's chin, Yuji's body shifted by a hair's breadth. It wasn't a large movement. He turned his head half an inch, lowered his shoulder by half a beat, and slightly adjusted his center of gravity.
Wind whipped through the space where the fist had grazed past.
Gojo read it immediately.
He didn't dodge.
It wasn't a reaction after seeing the punch; he had already vacated the space before the attack arrived.
Gojo twisted his body mid-motion and raised his left hand.
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue."
Blue Cursed Energy compressed into a single point, causing the air to cave in.
Even before the visible sphere formed, the sensation of the surrounding space being sucked in spread throughout the barrier. Dust from the stone floor, cut blades of grass, and shattered gravel were all pulled in at once.
A direct hit wasn't the goal.
He was pulling.
Strip the opponent's movement, force them into range, and then strike.
Yuji didn't retreat a single step.
Instead, he raised his left hand. His fingertips twitched. In that instant, a single drop of blood manifested in mid-air.
He hadn't been wounded previously, so Gojo couldn't intuitively understand where it had come from.
It was strange.
Truly, it had appeared so naturally. As if it had been meant to be there from the beginning.
In the next moment—the blood droplet thinned into a thread and slashed through the air.
Blood Manipulation.
Yet the precision was on an entirely different level from the lineages Gojo knew of.
The crimson thread didn't target Gojo directly. Instead, it diagonally crossed the center of the gravitational flow created by Blue. With that single, brief intervention, the suction of the air was slightly distorted. The center point remained, but the angle of the flow changed.
A microscopic margin of error appeared in the attraction Gojo had created.
That single error was fatal.
Yuji's body slipped away, gliding along that twisted flow.
Gojo's eyes narrowed.
'He didn't break the technique; he diverted the flow?'
That wasn't suppression through brute force.
It was understanding, seeing, and applying the bare minimum touch to veer it off course. The fact that his technique was being read so clearly sent a chill down his neck even before Blue could finish its work.
"What a monster," Gojo muttered.
Then, this time, he killed the distance entirely.
Before Blue had even fully dissipated, he was already right in front of Yuji's face. Moving along a path calculated by the Six Eyes, draped in the thinnest possible layer of the Limitless, he moved to dismantle his opponent with Taijutsu.
The right hook was a feint. The real strike was the knee.
In the split second the opponent focused on the upper body, he would shatter their ribs, lift their chin with an elbow, and then bind their limbs with Blue again. It was a clean combo.
But Yuji moved first.
Before the fist came, before the knee was raised—far ahead of all that.
Yuji's right hand dropped down loosely.
"Cleave."
It was a single word, sounding more like a confirmation than an incantation.
Gojo felt it clearly.
The atmosphere changed.
It wasn't a sensation of his body being cut, but rather the connections between the movements he was about to execute being severed.
The timing for his knee strike died by half a beat. In that instant, Yuji's palm came to rest right in front of Gojo's solar plexus.
It didn't touch him directly.
And yet, despite not being touched, Gojo felt an instinctual shiver run down his spine.
'If this hits, it's dangerous.'
It wasn't a rational explanation; it was pure intuition.
A threat his body recognized first.
It was the kind of intuition that offered no comfort even with the Limitless active. Gojo reflexively twisted his body and tore away to gain distance. His feet scraped the floor, sending stone fragments flying.
In the space he had barely vacated, Yuji's palm lightly pushed through the air.
It looked as if nothing had happened.
But a beat later, the ground behind where Gojo had been standing split apart.
A single line.
An incredibly thin, absurdly clean cut.
Gojo swallowed a sharp breath as he landed.
'Just now, that was...'
Dismantle?
Was it Dismantle?
Or was it something even thinner?
Either way, one thing was certain.
Had he been a fraction slower, that strike would have carved through his body, whether he was inside the Limitless or out. Watching from the sidelines, Riko unconsciously grabbed Kuroi's sleeve.
It was so fast her eyes couldn't keep up.
And yet, she knew. That wasn't a joke just now. This wasn't a playful spar, nor was it a light test of strength to see who was superior.
In truth, if one mistake was made, they would die.
Riko bit her lip. Geto stood with his arms crossed, watching the inside of the barrier.
His expression was stoic, but his eyes were narrowed ever so slightly.
'Satoru is fast. But that...'
It was strangely difficult to explain Itadori Yuji's movements. He was fast, but it wasn't a simple matter of reflexes. His power was immense, but he wasn't the type to push through with power alone.
As if he already knew the next move his opponent would make, he dismantled the entirety of those motions with ease.
And in the midst of that, Geto's gaze wavered briefly.
'The Kamo Clan's inherited technique... Blood Manipulation.'
Once again, red blood floated too lightly in the air.
He knew that technique. The inherited technique of the Kamo Clan. A technique that manipulates blood.
How could he use that technique, and why could he utilize it so freely?
Was Itadori Yuji a member of the Kamo Clan?
He couldn't understand it at all.
Just like everything else that defied logic about this boy.
The volume, speed, precision, and application were all far beyond the scope of his knowledge.
Inside the barrier, the third clash was already beginning.
Gojo shifted his stance. This time, he reduced his moves. He didn't weave together large techniques and Taijutsu.
If he was being read, then he would be shorter, more direct—using his specialty of calculation speed and the judgment of the Six Eyes to stand a beat ahead of his opponent.
He refined the layers of the Limitless to be even thinner.
It wasn't absolute defense anymore, but a spacing control that inserted the technique only where necessary. If Yuji could read the texture of the Limitless, then Gojo had to use it not as a wall, but as a sharp blade.
It was a good judgment.
Gojo dropped his center.
Left foot. Right shoulder. Fingertips. Gaze.
Every feint overlapped as one, rattling Yuji's centerline.
Usually, anyone would be fooled once at this point.
Or at the very least, even if they weren't fooled, their reaction would be delayed.
Yuji wasn't fooled.
Instead, he stood still and looked at Gojo. That gaze felt strangely unsettling.
It wasn't the look of someone watching, but the look of someone who already knew everything.
Gojo grit his teeth.
And at the final moment, he chose the shortest straight line to dive in. Keeping the Limitless as close to his skin as possible, using pure Taijutsu.
In that instant—Yuji's right hand rose. It wasn't a fist or a palm strike.
Just one index finger.
The moment he lightly raised that finger, Gojo knew instinctively.
Danger.
"Dismantle."
It was so short it sounded almost like a breath. Gojo immediately twisted his body. He thought he had dodged.
But in the next moment, a lock of hair by his ear fluttered slowly through the air.
Gojo's eyes widened.
'I was late.'
To be more precise, he had reacted, but he was cut even after reacting. It wasn't that the trajectory of the slash was invisible.
Rather, it was that he was cut in the moment he judged he had already evaded.
This wasn't a matter of speed, but a different level of perception. Gojo tore away a great distance the moment he landed.
This time, his expression was clearly flustered. There was no smile, no leisure. His blue eyes looked directly at Yuji as he recalculated.
Yuji didn't move.
He just stood there as if he had been waiting for Gojo to stop.
And then he spoke calmly.
"Good."
Gojo furrowed his brow.
"What is?"
"Because it looks like you'll truly be coming with everything you've got from now on."
Those words were enough to grate on Gojo's nerves.
Gojo laughed.
This time, it was a low, somewhat rough laugh.
"You really keep pissing me off."
"I have to."
A short answer.
It was more annoying because he was right. Gojo took a long breath.
The hot summer air filled his lungs. His pulse quickened, and his vision grew even clearer.
The Six Eyes were already reading everything in this moment—the flow of Yuji's cursed energy, the direction of his toes, even the changes in air density.
And yet, he felt uneasy.
Even with the Limitless, even with Blue, even while squeezing out the best movements he was capable of—strangely, he didn't feel safe.
He liked that sensation for the first time. Truly, for the very first time.
'Good.'
Gojo muttered to himself.
'It needs to be at least this much.'
He slowly lowered both hands. The density of his cursed energy shifted once more.
He ramped up the compression of Blue more roughly and heavily than before. Instead of delicate refinement, he widened the range of the attack itself. The Limitless became thin to the extreme. If he made a mistake, he would be the first to die.
But he didn't stop.
Watching from outside, Geto felt the change and narrowed his eyes.
"Satoru..."
Riko gasped just hearing his voice. The air inside the barrier had completely transformed.
Gojo wasn't smiling. Neither was Yuji.
This was no longer a stage of testing each other.
From now on, it was truly becoming a battle to see who would glimpse the threshold of death first.
Gojo took a step forward. The stone floor beneath his feet creaked.
Yuji let out a very small exhale.
And in the next moment—a blue pressure pulled the entire center of the barrier into its void.