Yasohachi Bridge

"Cough... cough cough!"

Shiyue Shuo, who should have fallen, bizarrely twisted back in midair and landed heavily on the ground.

He gasped for breath, clutching his forehead as dark golden streams of light flickered wildly around the bloody hole. The fatal wound had not healed, but an invisible force forcibly stitched together his nerves and brain, dragging him back from the brink of death.

He was not dead. His Dog Talisman had nailed him firmly inside this shattered body.

"I... I'm not dead." Shiyue Shuo raised his head. Half his face was stained red with blood, and with his dark golden pupils flashing madly, he looked more like a monster than the Special Grade cursed spirit across from him.

For the first time, horror appeared on Eso's elegant face. He was certain that attack had thoroughly mangled the other's brain.

He felt strangely wonderful now. The agonizing pain in his brain had been forcibly blocked by the Dog Talisman, replaced by an extreme calm.

"Spread out!"

Eso let out a shrill screech, and the Special Grade cursed spirits immediately understood. The surrounding shadows surged like boiling ink, forcibly tearing apart the tightly packed defensive formation on the Tokyo school's side.

"Where do you think you're going?!" Yuji Itadori roared, smashing Divergent Fist into Kechizu's face and blasting him toward the distant woods. Nobara Kugisaki followed close behind, the long nails in her hand gleaming coldly. "That backless outfit is mine, Yuji. Work with me!"

The two charged out one after the other, following the retreating Death Paintings brothers.

On the other side, the battlefield instantly spiraled out of control. Three cursed spirits of different forms spread out in a triangular formation, their terrifying cursed energy pressure bearing down on Kyoto School.

"Damn it, they're looking down on us." The blood arrows between Noritoshi Kamo's fingers nearly became afterimages.

"Shiyue, move!"

Kokichi Muta roared as the puppet mech's thrusters frantically spewed flames, trying to rush toward Shiyue Shuo, only to be violently rammed away midair by a cursed spirit covered in bone spikes.

"Don't worry about me yet. I can handle it."

Shiyue Shuo's voice was hoarse. Though he could not feel pain, his body was no longer obeying him, perhaps because his head had been pierced through.

"So the Dog Talisman just means I can't die? Then what happens when its time runs out?"

As he thought, he turned his gaze toward the battlefield. It had already become a field of ruins. Kamo, Mai, Miwa, and Kokichi Muta were being held back by the three cursed spirits in the distance.

At the center of the battlefield, only the severely injured and immobile Shiyue Shuo remained, along with Megumi Fushiguro standing before him and facing the cursed spirit that radiated the aura of Sukuna's Finger.

"Hey... Fushiguro." Shiyue Shuo leaned against a broken stone pillar, his voice weak. The blood covering half his face had begun to dry.

Megumi Fushiguro did not look back. He was covered in blood, and the fingertips of his hand seal trembled slightly. The cursed spirit before him was too strong, something beyond an ordinary Special Grade.

"Shut up. Don't talk. I'll take you back." Megumi Fushiguro's voice shook.

Shiyue Shuo's perspective was uniquely strange. Because of the damage to his brain, his vision had become blurry, yet he could clearly "see" the scene. Or rather, it was more like a sensation. From his perspective, the figures before him were two silhouettes formed from clumps of cursed energy.

Just as the cursed spirit's claws were about to pierce Megumi Fushiguro, an utterly oppressive burst of cursed energy erupted.

"Domain Expansion—"

"Chimera Shadow Garden!"

Ink-like shadows instantly spread across dozens of meters of ground, and countless shikigami roared within them.

Sitting at the edge of the shadows, Shiyue Shuo witnessed everything through his strange perspective. He saw the eruption of cursed energy and clearly understood how the domain was constructed.

"So this is Domain Expansion."

At that moment, Shiyue Shuo frantically simulated the formation of a domain within his mindscape, and the wheel engraved with the Twelve Talismans began spinning wildly as well.

Just as cursed energy rapidly gathered toward his brain, everything came to an abrupt halt. The cursed energy ran rampant through his brain before leaking out through the wound.

"Is it because my head has a hole in it? The brain really is an extremely important organ in jujutsu."

After that failure, Shiyue Shuo made no further attempts. Instead, he focused intently on observing the battle before him.

With Megumi Fushiguro's domain unleashed, the deadlocked battle was instantly turned around. Though it was only an incomplete domain, it was enough to fight the Finger Bearer.

At the same time, it seemed Satoru Gojo had dealt with the obstacle meant to lure him away. A terrifying presence was rapidly approaching from afar.

Sensing the threat of death and realizing the opportunity had passed, the cursed spirits all entered the shadows under Eso's command and vanished into the night with remarkable coordination.

"Did... we win?" Kasumi Miwa staggered over.

Everyone regrouped. Yuji Itadori and Nobara Kugisaki came running back, covered in wounds, while Megumi Fushiguro collapsed to the ground from exhaustion.

When everyone's eyes fell upon Shiyue Shuo beside the stone pillar, the joy of victory instantly froze.

Shiyue Shuo leaned against a massive rock. No more blood flowed from the hole in his forehead, but his eyes had gone unfocused, and there was not the slightest trace of color in his face.

Everything about him told them one thing: he had reached his limit.

"Gojo-sensei..." Shiyue Shuo saw the white-haired figure drifting down from the sky and pulled his lips into a smile uglier than crying. "I think I can still be saved."

Before his words had fully faded, a click sounded, and the Dog Talisman glowing dark gold within his mindscape slowly dimmed.

Tokyo Jujutsu High Medical Department.

Shiyue Shuo's head was wrapped in bandages. Shoko Ieiri's Reverse Cursed Technique had saved his life.

"Awake? Your life is really tough."

Satoru Gojo sat in a swivel chair nearby, tossing a red apple in his hand. His gaze beneath the blindfold was profound.

Shiyue Shuo said nothing. He merely stared blankly at the ceiling.

"That immortality ability, those flames you can fire without cursed energy, your body, even that anonymous intelligence." Satoru Gojo stopped moving, his tone turning serious. "Shiyue, who exactly are you?"

Shiyue Shuo remained silent for a long while. He knew some things could not be hidden from the pinnacle of Jujutsu Society, but he had not expected Gojo to know every single one. He had originally planned to keep concealing his strength, but now that he had been exposed and the cursed spirits had escalated their moves again and again, he no longer had the luxury of hiding.

He set aside his little schemes and slowly spoke in a hoarse voice. "Gojo-sensei, if I said... I can see the future, would you believe me?"

Satoru Gojo did not answer, but he removed his blindfold and openly scrutinized the person before him.

It was also Shiyue Shuo's first time seeing the legendary Six Eyes in reality. Those azure eyes were like gemstones, as though endless radiance flowed within them.

"October 31st. Shibuya." Shiyue Shuo raised his head and met Satoru Gojo's gaze. "That is a trap prepared specifically for you. It is also the dead end Kenjaku set up to seal you."

The hospital room fell into deathly silence.

Satoru Gojo stared at him for a long time, then suddenly laughed.

"If anyone else said that, I'd think they were insane. But since you can survive even after having your brain mangled..." Satoru Gojo stood and put his blindfold back on. "I'll take this challenge."

"I'm the strongest."

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