A figure slowly emerged from the edge of the shattered domain.
His white hair stirred gently in the night breeze, stained with dried blood. His white robes were likewise mottled with dark red, torn in several places to reveal the healing skin beneath.
And those eyes.
There was no mistaking them.
Kashimo turned almost instinctively, holding the Soul-Devouring Blade across his body.
For the first time, shock appeared on his face.
"The Six Eyes...?"
There was a trace of uncertainty in his voice.
"Seriously?"
That should not have been possible.
His chest had been blasted through, his head struck with a staff, his body ravaged to that extent. How could he possibly have survived?
Unless, in that instant, he had grasped Reverse Cursed Technique.
Just as Satoru Gojo had awakened Reverse Cursed Technique on the brink of death when faced with Toji's fatal strike.
The first surge of positive energy would repair a damaged body far faster than usual.
In other words-
Kashimo's gaze sharpened slightly.
Gojo Arashi had successfully awakened Reverse Cursed Technique.
Beneath the moonlight, the bloodstained figure in white came to a stop.
He raised a hand and casually brushed the white hair off his forehead, revealing his bloodstreaked face. A smile tugged at his lips. Though covered in blood, he smiled as if he had just woken up and stretched.
"Yo."
His voice was still a little hoarse when he spoke, as though he had just climbed out of a very deep well.
"Long time no see."
Gojo Arashi stood where he was, the moonlight making his bloodstained robes gleam.
Kashimo stared at the white figure and slowly uttered the words.
"Reverse Cursed Technique."
Gojo Arashi smiled. Beneath the moonlight, that smile looked a little twisted, his bloodstained face paired with those excessively bright, azure eyes.
"That's right."
His voice was hoarse, but he enunciated every word clearly.
"When you blew out my chest, I abandoned all thought and poured everything into exploring the core of cursed energy."
He paused, raised a hand, and pointed at his head.
"You lost because that blow with your staff didn't completely smash my brain."
Kashimo did not reply.
He listened, the trace of shock already gone from his face. Moonlight illuminated his slightly narrowed eyes. There was no fear in them, no panic, only the calm of someone reassessing his opponent.
It was more or less what he had guessed.
An epiphany on the brink of death, the first surge of positive energy, had saved that Six Eyes user's head at the last moment.
That was all.
Kashimo wasted no more words.
He took the Soul-Devouring Blade off his shoulder and tightened his grip again. Its pitch-black surface gleamed darkly beneath the moonlight. Cursed energy began to surge, spreading from within his body to its surface, and that vibrating membrane covered him once more.
Domain Amplification.
Activated again.
Behind him, Fenghua barely remained standing with a hand against a tree. Cursed technique burnout left her temporarily unable to do anything. Yingliang was still sprawled on the ground, her shikigami already hacked to pieces. All she could do now was watch the two men face off.
They no longer mattered.
Kashimo rested the Soul-Devouring Blade on his shoulder again.
The muscles in his legs slowly tightened, and fine cracks began to spread through the ground beneath his feet.
He raised his head, looking at the bloodstained man in white opposite him, and a smile slowly pulled at his lips.
"I lost?"
His voice was quiet, but it carried clearly through the night breeze.
"The fight's only just getting started."
The instant his words fell, the ground exploded.
Rubble scattered and dust billowed as Kashimo vanished from where he stood. The Soul-Devouring Blade traced a pitch-black arc beneath the moonlight, cleaving straight toward Gojo Arashi's head.
Clang-
The blade cut through empty space.
It had not been blocked, nor had Gojo Arashi sidestepped it. His entire body had floated backward and upward, like a feather caught on the wind, drifting lightly out of range.
His strike missing, Kashimo looked up the instant he landed.
Gojo Arashi hovered in midair, looking down at him.
Something had changed in those azure eyes. It was not the anger from before, nor the agitation of being driven into a corner, but something else, something purer.
"You know, Kashimo."
Gojo Arashi's voice descended from above, a little hoarse but steady.
"If it weren't for you..."
He paused, a smile slowly tugging at his lips.
"I probably never would've reached this point in my entire life."
Kashimo did not move. He simply tilted his head back and watched him.
Gojo Arashi's smile deepened a little. Beneath the moonlight, it looked somewhat twisted, his bloodstained face paired with those astonishingly bright eyes.
"But now-"
He raised his hand.
"I feel absolutely incredible!"
Cursed energy began surging wildly. This was not the desperate eruption of someone pushed to his limits, but a freer, clearer flow, as though he had finally found the right switch.
"Phase-"
He uttered the first word.
"Paramita-"
The second.
"Pillar of Light-"
The third.
"Cursed Technique Reversal-"
As the final words fell, that cursed energy suddenly converged, compressing into an infinitesimal point in his palm.
"Red!"
Red light erupted.
It was no ordinary shock wave. It was repulsive force powered by Reverse Cursed Technique, the opposite of Blue, the ultimate power that turned attraction into repulsion. That pillar of red light poured from Gojo Arashi's palm, blasting straight toward Kashimo on the ground.
The ground began to crumble before that power. Rubble was crushed to dust, and the air let out a piercing shriek as it was compressed to its limit.
Kashimo did not dodge.
There was no time.
He held the Soul-Devouring Blade across his body, its pitch-black surface reflecting the descending red light.
Boom-!
Red light swallowed everything.
The dust slowly cleared.
Kashimo's sword arm was still trembling slightly. The web of his hand had gone numb from the impact, and the lingering red glow on the blade was fading little by little.
But he had not retreated.
Instead, he smiled.
That smile spread from his lips to his eyes, looking a little crazed beneath the moonlight.
It was true. He admitted that his fear of those two characters from the original story ran too deep. Satoru Gojo. Sukuna. Those two names had hung over his mind for seventeen years, like two mountains he could never scale.
That was why he had always believed he could not beat the Six Eyes.
But now-
His arm was still numb, his bones still ached, and his organs were still trembling in the aftermath of that blast of Red. Yet something inside his chest was pounding fiercely.
It was not fear.
It was something honed through countless life-or-death battles over these seventeen years. An instinct left behind by this body's original owner, carved into his very bones.
A battle fanatic would never stop.
A battle fanatic would only-
Swing his blade at the strong.
Kashimo tightened his grip on the Soul-Devouring Blade, suppressing that faint tremor. He raised his head and looked at the bloodstained figure in white hovering above, at those azure eyes, at that bloodstreaked face smiling with such exhilaration.
There had never been any fundamental difference between Kashimo and Hajime Kashimo.
Both grew stronger against stronger foes.
Both kept swinging their blades even at the summit.
Both could kill a second time if they could kill once.
He drew a deep breath.
Then the relatively restrained arcs of electricity around his body suddenly erupted.
Blue-white light danced wildly over him, its crackling blasts merging into a continuous roar that scorched the surrounding air. Rubble scattered in every direction, the ground began to crack, and that violent cursed energy poured out like a tide, forming a dazzling blaze of lightning beneath the moonlight.
The Soul-Devouring Blade's pitch-black surface reflected that light, and the almost crazed smile on his face.
Prove it to him.
The ground beneath Kashimo's feet exploded, and he shot upward like a bolt of lightning.
Prove it to this era.
In midair, Gojo Arashi's eyes lit up.
Prove it to yourself.
The two figures collided with a thunderous crash beneath the moonlight.
Lightning and red light erupted, illuminating the entire night sky.
Who.
Was truly!
The strongest of this age!
Before you continue