Domain Expansion

"Rihito, that expression of yours is just fantastic!"

Having personally destroyed what someone else cherished most, Mahito was almost delirious with joy.

Rihito answered with his fists.

Bam!

His fist slammed down, but Mahito did not budge.

Bam! Bam! Bam! One punch, then another, then another.

Yet Mahito kept smiling.

Staring at that twisted face covered in stitches, Rihito's eyes turned bloodshot. He seemed to have lost all reason, pouring his fury into every punch.

Mahito casually fended him off, his grin growing more exaggerated, as though he were watching a performance.

"Rihito dear, your Cursed Technique doesn't work on me."

Rihito did not answer. He simply kept throwing punches, the Cursed Energy around his fists flickering with every impact.

Zero Coffin's frost spread over Mahito's skin, only to be pushed away by his constantly regenerating flesh. A layer of tiny ice crystals gradually accumulated on the ground.

Suddenly, Rihito stopped attacking.

Mahito's smile froze at the same moment.

The spot on his arm that had just touched Rihito's fist began rapidly aging and decaying, as though centuries had passed over it.

What shocked him most, however, was that the corresponding portion of his soul had also begun to decay.

It felt as though someone had pulled a thread out of his very existence, loosening the entire structure.

"Rihito dear, you were right. You really are my favorite toy!"

Watching his arm gradually rot, Mahito grew even more frenzied, a crazed fervor entering his eyes.

Rihito answered with a fist wrapped in Cursed Energy.

Mahito no longer dared to be so careless. He twisted aside to dodge it.

But the instant he turned, Rihito did something utterly unexpected.

He pulled back his fist, raised his right foot, and stamped hard in front of him.

Crack!

Mahito's pupils contracted as he abruptly lost his balance.

At some point, a thin layer of frost had covered the ground beneath them. Rihito's Cursed Energy-infused stomp caved in the surface they stood on.

Shattered ice flew up from the ground, scattering faint glimmers through the dim light.

The altered terrain and frost-covered ground had successfully thrown Mahito off balance.

"Heat Blast!" Seizing that fleeting opening, Rihito raised his hand and aimed his palm at Mahito.

An enormous surge of heat erupted from his palm, igniting the air as it hurtled toward Mahito.

With nothing to brace himself against, Mahito had no time to dodge. He could only watch as the fireball engulfed him.

Boom!

The fireball struck Mahito squarely, setting him ablaze.

The wave of heat forced Rihito to narrow his eyes, but he did not retreat a single step.

Not enough. An attack like this still isn't enough!

Watching his burning enemy, Rihito did not relax in the slightest.

He knew perfectly well that, powerful as this attack was, it could not harm the soul.

As long as Mahito had Cursed Energy left, he could recover from injuries like these almost instantly.

But repairing those injuries took time. Rihito had to use Withering to destroy him completely within that window.

And he had to be fast!

The instant the fireball hit Mahito, Rihito moved.

Brilliant blue Cursed Energy enveloped his right fist as he drove it forward.

Even as the heat scorched his skin and his hair caught fire, he showed no sign of stopping.

Bam!

The plain, straightforward punch struck Mahito cleanly.

"Rihito, you really do surprise me."

The flames dispersed, revealing Mahito's somewhat bedraggled figure.

He had not fallen.

At some point, a third leg had sprouted from his waist. It had steadied him the moment he lost his balance, keeping Rihito's punch from landing head-on.

"Die!"

Though disappointed that his plan had failed, Rihito did not stop attacking.

Unwilling to trade blows, Mahito slipped sideways to dodge a punch, his smile fading.

"Now it's my turn!"

Before he finished speaking, his right arm abruptly twisted and transformed.

His muscles writhed as though kneaded by invisible hands, his bones giving muffled cracks as a six-foot blade extended from his shoulder.

A faint glow of Cursed Energy flowed over the blade, its sharp edge humming softly as it sliced through the air.

Rihito twisted aside.

The blade skimmed past the tip of his nose and cleaved into the wall behind him.

Stone fragments flew everywhere. One grazed his cheek, leaving a thin line of blood.

Before he could regain his footing, Mahito's left arm transformed as well.

This time, it became an iron hammer, its basin-sized head whistling through the air as it came crashing down.

"Damn it!"

Rihito gritted his teeth and sprang backward.

The iron hammer struck where he had just been standing, blasting a crater into the ground. Broken ice and chunks of concrete shot in every direction.

One fragment struck his right shoulder, spraying blood.

His face was pale now. Heat Absorption and Heat Blast had consumed a substantial amount of Cursed Energy, and the repeated dodging was leaving him struggling to keep up.

"Come on, Rihito! Kill me!" Mahito cackled strangely, transforming his right arm into a long whip.

Whoosh!

This time, Rihito failed to dodge. The whip struck his back, tearing his flesh open.

Blood ran down his arm and dripped onto the frost below, quickly freezing into dark red beads of ice.

Seizing an opening, Rihito sprang backward, putting several yards between them.

His chest heaved, and every breath tasted of rust.

His expression darkened as he analyzed the situation before him, only to reach a conclusion that bordered on despair:

Less than thirty percent of my Cursed Energy remains. My chances of winning... are almost zero.

Ahead of him, Mahito also slowed down.

He no longer rushed to pursue Rihito. Instead, he tilted his head and watched him, that twisted smile returning to his face.

"Rihito, thank you for making me so happy. I think I'm starting to hate the idea of killing you. What should I do?"

Looking troubled, he glanced at his arm.

The arm Withering had eaten away at was crumbling into grayish-white flakes.

With a crack, he seized it without hesitation and tore it off, along with the spreading decay.

Then his flesh squirmed and grew, producing a brand-new arm.

"But unfortunately, you have to die."

Mahito spoke in a light,

casual tone as he uttered those cruel words, staring at Rihito and slowly approaching, step by step.

His footsteps were soft, but to Rihito, each one seemed to land on his heart.

Watching Mahito return to normal in the blink of an eye, Rihito did not retreat.

But he had no choice but to face this despairing reality.

His meticulous calculations and relentless attacks had failed to leave so much as a scratch.

So this was a Special Grade Cursed Spirit? Was this the unfathomable gulf between him and Mahito?

Was this really all he could do?

Rihito clenched his fists.

No. No way!

At the very least, he had to make Mahito remember this day forever. He had to show him that a "toy" could bite.

"Rihito, can I be your friend?"

In his daze, Rihito heard Junpei's voice.

He glanced back. Junpei's cold body lay motionless on the ground.

Was he hearing things?

But... Junpei, you're already the best friend I have!

After that thought, Rihito's mind suddenly fell quiet for a moment.

Then he saw Junpei.

He saw the tears spilling from Junpei's eyes just before his death.

Those two trails of tears had not yet cooled as they ran down his swollen cheeks.

If only time had stopped there. If that moment had remained frozen forever, Junpei would never have become a Transfigured Human, and he would never have had to kill his only friend with his own hands.

If time could stand still...

In that instant, his fury over Junpei's death and his cold, gambler's calculations reached a strange equilibrium in Rihito's mind.

Miraculously, even Mahito's laughter was shut out.

"This is..." Something stirred in Rihito's heart.

In an instant, all kinds of physics knowledge from his previous life slowly surfaced in his mind.

The second law of thermodynamics.

The second law of thermodynamics.

The equations he had read in textbooks in his previous life were no longer mere symbols. Now, they became an image.

A universe gradually cooling, every star extinguished, all matter ceasing to move, time itself frozen into a block of transparent ice.

That was the end.

That was stillness.

"A mental landscape, the inner self made manifest... So this is what a domain is." Rihito's eyes suddenly shone.

Under Mahito's puzzled gaze, he slowly raised his arms and crossed them before his chest.

There was nothing deliberate about it. It was more as though something etched into his instincts were making the decision for him.

His thumbs hooked around his index fingers, his little and ring fingers curled inward, and his hands crossed before his chest.

Rihito did not understand this gesture, but his body remembered it.

Like a motion learned in the womb, like someone at the far end of another universe had once used this gesture to rekindle an extinguished star.

"Domain Expansion-Static Universe!"