Robbing the cradle?

Suguru Geto turned to look at Shoko beside him. Although his perception of time as a soul had been somewhat muddled, he remembered not having been dead all that long.

Besides, Shoko looked no different from how he remembered her before his death.

"A little over ten months, probably. Why?"

Shoko was a little puzzled. Why was he asking about that now?

Strangely enough, the two old friends showed little reaction to their reunion after so long apart. They simply chatted idly, as they had in the past.

Yuki Tsukumo, on the other hand, could hardly stop talking.

Seeing the dead brought back to life right before her eyes was truly shocking.

Especially when the person brought back was someone she knew.

She was immensely interested in what Suguru Geto had experienced after his death, as well as his current state.

Unfortunately, Suguru Geto could not be bothered with her at all.

"Only a little over ten months, huh."

He raised his eyebrows and looked at Yue Liusi again.

"Then where did someone this terrifying come from?"

Logically, if Jujutsu Society had a Jujutsu Sorcerer this absurdly powerful, he should have heard something about him.

"He just burst onto the scene. Is that so hard to imagine?"

Shoko folded her arms and smiled as she spoke softly.

Strictly speaking, she was the one who had found him.

Seeing Shoko react this way, Suguru Geto could not help raising his eyebrows.

Why did she look as though she shared in his glory?

As her close friend, Suguru Geto considered himself to know Shoko very well.

"What's your relationship with him?"

He did not bother fishing for information and simply asked outright.

"Friends."

Hearing Shoko's succinct reply, Suguru Geto looked utterly unconvinced.

A junior or a colleague would make sense, but where did "friend" fit in?

He did not believe anyone could become a new friend of Shoko's, aside from the peers she had already known back then.

Especially a guy.

That was a considerably difficult feat.

Of course, he did not entirely rule out the possibility.

But Shoko's reaction just now had hardly seemed like that of a friend.

Shoko clearly would not feel proud just because Satoru Gojo was the strongest.

After thinking it over, he asked somewhat tentatively,

"Robbing the cradle, are you?"

The next second, a gaze brimming with icy killing intent swept toward him.

Thud!

After taking a solid kick, Suguru Geto climbed off the ground, clutching his stomach and feeling truly innocent.

"Shoko, when did you get so violent...?"

"You deserved it."

Watching Suguru Geto's plight from the side, Yuki Tsukumo nodded at Shoko in wholehearted approval.

Clearly, she was very unhappy with Suguru Geto's dismissive attitude toward her.

Shoko gave a light snort and said coldly,

"What, you started taking after Satoru after dying once?"

Still, before that incident back then, Suguru Geto had always been a guy who only pretended to be serious.

At that, Suguru Geto merely smiled sheepishly and shifted to the side. Wisely dropping the previous subject, he only replied,

"Dying once naturally gave me a clearer perspective."

Suguru Geto looked completely at ease. He did not regard his existence as a return to life, merely as a dead man summoned to do some work.

What had happened in life belonged to his life.

Now, he was already dead.

Elsewhere, the battle between Jogo and Yue Liusi had yet to end.

"Use your strongest move."

Yue Liusi raised his eyes to Jogo and spoke softly.

"It won't hit."

Jogo shook his head, having completely lost the will to fight.

Even his domain had been torn apart by hand. What was there left to fight with?

That so-called Maximum Technique of his could be escaped even by grade-one sorcerers, let alone opponents on Sukuna's level.

Its hit rate was downright pitiful.

Yue Liusi did not reply.

Noticing his attitude, Jogo suddenly understood something.

"I see... So that's how it is."

"In that case, let's do this!"

Fighting spirit returned to Jogo's face. This time, he did not seek to defeat Yue Liusi, only to wound him!

Even burning off a single hair would do!

He rapidly ascended into the sky. Flames that blotted out the sun swept up the surrounding buildings, swirling and gathering above his head!

"Maximum Technique: Meteor!"

The flames filling the sky converged into a gigantic fireball, casting the entire sky in a crimson glow. Jogo looked down at Yue Liusi without the slightest hesitation.

"Come on, let me see how you take this attack head-on!"

This was nature's wrath!

Yuki Tsukumo had already taken the others away, watching from afar as the terrifying meteor fell.

But the anticipated explosion never came.

Chakra so dense that it visibly manifested erupted in an instant, surging straight up from the ground and forming an enormous golden fox's head, with black markings trailing back from its eyes.

The enormous fox's head opened its mouth and swallowed the terrifying ball of lava whole!

The energies collided within it, but the Nine Tails was clearly far stronger. In mere moments, it wore away the entire ball of lava.

Everything returned to stillness without a sound.

Only the ruined buildings all around bore witness to the terrifying assault that had just been unleashed here.

Jogo's body re-formed under the effects of Impure World Reincarnation.

After his attack had been ground away, he himself had been torn apart as well.

In other words, he had died once.

Withdrawing his gaze from Jogo, Yue Liusi glanced at the unchanged second mission and understood.

The experiment had failed.

It seemed that combatants summoned through Impure World Reincarnation could not count toward the system's missions.

Still, that made sense. Exploiting a loophole like this hardly seemed reasonable, however one looked at it.

"Of all the opponents I've faced, you're the strongest."

Jogo spoke with a sigh.

Yue Liusi had made far too great an impression on him.

Meanwhile, Yue Liusi was focused on something else.

His battle with Jogo had allowed him to verify some of his conjectures.

They concerned Lava Release.

There were actually quite a few differences between Jogo's Cursed Technique and his Lava Release.

Both in form and in nature.

Perhaps he could try using the strengths of one to make up for the weaknesses of the other?

After he had acquired Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, the Lava Release Chakra Mode he had developed earlier had become almost useless.

But that did not mean Lava Release Chakra Mode was obsolete.

After all, Ninjutsu was far from inflexible.

The Nine Tails' chakra was also the energy closest to the Ten-Tails' pure chakra. In theory, it had enormous potential for development.

If I layered the two...

As his thoughts wandered, fire- and earth-nature chakra began flowing over his body, merging with one another.

A warm sensation arose.

Yue Liusi saw the change in his Nine Tails cloak.

There were wisps of brilliant, swaying flame.

Before this, the cloak of Nine-Tails Chakra Mode had merely looked like flowing golden flames. Now, it bore actual flowing flames.