"You will not deny me my joy of combat against such an opponent, Kenjaku," Sukuna grunted out, eyes narrowing.
"Unfortunately, I shall." Kenjaku replied with a thin smile. "When you return to full power, I'm certain to pay for this defiance and transgression, but till then, Toji Fushiguro is too dangerous to let you face him alone. It's not a risk I'm ready to take." He finished with an innocent shrug.
Sukuna looked at Kenjaku, judgment heavy in his eyes. "You'll pay for this." Then, dismissing the past few seconds, he changed his focus.
"Toji Fushiguro..." Sukuna started, savouring the name. "He survived a point blank Cleave, while also moving fast enough that my hand also slid off his body." Sukuna mused to himself, all four eyes on his open palm.
Kenjaku walked up behind him and replied. "I'm sure it has something to do with his lack of cursed energy. This must be a first for you as well, fighting an enemy with absolutely zero cursed energy. Toji Fushiguro is a monster in that regard with his Heavenly Restriction."
"Absolutely zero cursed energy for a body more superhuman than any sorcerer could achieve. That would explain things a bit. Cleave works by adjusting itself majorly to my opponent's cursed energy and the toughness their bodies gain from it." Sukuna replied in understanding.
"Which means that without any cursed energy, your cursed technique can't accurately judge and adjust itself, which in essence makes it basically a Dismantle, doesn't it." Kenjaku realized with a chuckle.
Sukuna simply grinned in response, not the slightest bit bothered by the fact that one of the strongest tools in his arsenal was basically useless to the monster he was fighting.
Toji reached into the inventory curse's maw, ignoring the light-hearted banter between the two sorcerers. Instead, he withdrew Playful Cloud, the black and red demonic-looking three-section staff gleaming dully in the dim light of the destroyed forest. The moment his fingers wrapped around the weapon, the dynamic shifted. All three sorcerers tensed. They could sense the cursed tool now, its presence like a beacon in the void where Toji's cursed energy should have been.
The cursed tool was a treasure he had stolen from the Zenin clan when he left. A special grade cursed tool that didn't have an imbued technique, instead it had the ability to tremendously reflect its user's physical strength. In the hands of a physical monster like Toji Fushiguro, it spelled death. A tool that seemed to have been made just for him.
"There it is," Kenjaku murmured, almost appreciatively. "The special grade cursed tool, Playful Cloud. I doubt Ukyo Susumu knew his greatest creation would fall into the hands of the likes of you."
Uro floated higher, her naked form suspended in twisted space, eyes narrowed with predatory focus. "So the well-built monkey finally shows his fangs. Still, that won't save you."
Sukuna's grin widened to inhuman proportions, all four eyes gleaming with anticipation, yet hidden beneath those eyes was a genius intellect that connected the dots. "A curse that stores weapons wrapped around you, and a special grade cursed tool... I see why you didn't use it earlier. You're no longer invincible."
Toji said nothing. A three-on-one fight meant he could not waste even a single breath. His eyes narrowed, his heartbeat slowed, his limbs loosened, then a split second later, he moved.
Playful Cloud whistled through the air as he swung it in a wide arc, the three-section staff extending to its full length. The weapon's reach caught Uro off guard, as the chain lengthened and turned the weapon into a whip-like extension of Toji's killing intent. She twisted in mid-air, space warping around her, but the weighted end of Playful Cloud clipped her shoulder with bone-crushing force.
She spun through the air with a shout of surprise, blood trailing from the impact, but managed to right herself before crashing. Unfortunately for her, Toji had followed right after her, his feet eating up the pace as he tore across the ground, till he got to where she was about to land. He lunged forward, locking the three-section staff like a spear.
"Sky Manipulation!" Uro screamed and a split second later, space folded around her like origami, creating barriers and redirecting vectors in impossible ways, sending Toji's attack twisting to the side. Unfortunately, that attack had cost him. The moment he'd drawn his inventory curse and then the weapon, his invisibility was shattered. Sukuna was already in motion, closing the distance with inhuman speed, his two arms spread wide before swinging down viciously.
"Dismantle!"
The slash came from Toji's blind spot, but his instincts screamed the warning. He spun, bringing Playful Cloud around to— He wasn't fast enough. The invisible technique slipped past the staff, carving a shallow line across his chest. Unlike in their previous fight, Toji had his attention and awareness more spread out; he had his focus on too many others and their possible movements. Those new variables slowed him down, slowed him enough that it cost him.
Toji grimaced as blood seeped through his shirt, but he used the momentum of the attack that Uro had diverted to complete the spin, letting the three-section staff loose once more and into its original shape. He swung it and the weighted end of the staff whistled toward Sukuna's skull. The King of Curses caught it in one of his hands, his inhuman strength stopping the devastating blow cold.
Till the force of the blow multiplied and his palm exploded into gore with a sickening boom. Chunks of flesh were sent flying, shards of bone destroyed as the recoil traveled through Sukuna's body, forcing him back, but the incarnated King of Curses didn't even flinch at the loss of his hand. Instead, his second hand snapped forward and caught the now still special grade tool.
"My turn," Sukuna grinned, and Toji realized the true plan. To halt his movement long enough. Then Sukuna swung the arm that had lost a hand, ignoring the pain and sending forth spurts of blood alongside his cursed technique. "Dismantle!"
Multiple invisible slashes carved through the air. Inches away from him. So Toji released Playful Cloud's handle, letting the weapon's three sections flow like water as he moved. Using his senses, he twisted between the attacks, but unlike the previous ones Sukuna had sent forth, this wasn't a single slash but a dozen weaker ones. One slash grazed his thigh, another opened a line across his shoulder, but he managed to avoid the killing strikes.
As the techniques passed, Toji had crossed the distance once more, and he grabbed the middle section of his staff and swung the free end like a flail around his form. The weighted end caught Sukuna in the ribs with a satisfying crack, sending the King of Curses skidding backward. But before Toji could press his advantage, Kenjaku's blood manipulation struck like a crimson stream fired at high pressure.
Blood Manipulation: Slicing Exorcism.
Toji leaped backward, Playful Cloud spinning in a defensive pattern as he deflected the worst of the blood streams. But droplets hardened mid-flight, becoming razor-sharp projectiles that peppered his arms and chest. The sum total of the attack barely penetrated skin, each of them burned in a way that spoke of poison, but the total damage was less than even a single barely aimed slash from Sukuna.
Toji turned to Kenjaku and moved, transforming himself into a blur of motion.
Kenjaku's eyes widened and he called out. "Blood Manipulation: Crimson Binding!!" Kenjaku's voice rang out as the scattered blood droplets suddenly reversed course, flying back toward Toji from all directions like thick crimson ropes ready to tie him up. "I've learned my lesson from Gojo Jiki. I'm not letting you come within two feet of me!"
There was nowhere to dodge so instead of blindly pushing forward, Toji planted his feet and spun Playful Cloud in a perfect sphere around his body, the three-section staff moving so fast it became a blur. The crimson ropes struck the spinning weapon and the force of the movement obliterated them. The heat generated from the speed at which he twirled the three-sectioned staff burned the blood till all that surrounded Toji was steam, then he stopped.
One man in the sea of steaming blood. Kenjaku stared at him with wide surprised eyes, and he grinned in response even as his muscles screamed in protest.
Uro chose that moment to strike, space twisting around her fist as she dove from above, then she slammed it not into him but into the space above him. "Sky Manipulation: Thin Ice Breaker!"
Toji felt the shockwave with the change in atmospheric pressure as reality itself bent to accommodate her technique. So instead of dodging he immediately locked the three-sectioned staff, interposing them upon each other till it was a single bar of cursed metal. Then he held it wide in front of him as the blow slammed into him, so hard his feet formed a divot in the ground as he tore through the forest, the momentum of the impact pushing him away till he left the forest and slammed his back into a mountain.
For the first time in what seemed like hours, Toji had won himself breathing space, enough breathing space that allowed him to think instead of just react. The past few seconds had been him testing the waters. Kenjaku was not a threat. At least not from what he had seen. His long-range attacks were not powerful enough to do more than annoy him, and he was too cowardly to come into close combat with him.
Sukuna was more of a threat, but in their previous fight Toji had a leg up on him. Somehow, he was certain that the incarnated King of Curses was not going all out yet. However, Toji was not worried about that in the slightest. He was not certain of how many fingers Kenjaku would've fed him; still, what he was certain of was that it was not enough.
The greatest threat to him right now was actually Uro. Her ability to bend the space around her meant that she was slippery in a fight and hard to hit. Other than his first attack, which caught her unawares, she seemed to have smartened up and was focusing her ability on twisting the space around her to ensure he couldn't land another attack. Coupled with the attack she just hit him with, he tried not to think about what would happen if it caught him while he was distracted.
He let out a chuckle as he heard movements heading toward him. He had his target, so he turned off the part of his brain that focused on thought. Instead he shifted into pure instinct as he lowered his stance in anticipation of the attack. It didn't waste time coming.
Uro with her ability to fly was the fastest and first to reach him. The moment she burst out of the forest, he whipped the staff toward her head, but she bent space around herself, making the attack curve away harmlessly. The weighted end struck the ground behind her with enough force to send up a geyser of dirt and stone.
But the miss was intentional. Toji yanked on the chain connecting the sections, and the weighted end ricocheted off the ground, striking Uro in the back of the skull. She stumbled forward, blood streaming from the back of her injury.
Kenjaku was farther, but his ability to manipulate blood meant he could fight at any range. Blood spears thrust up from the ground where Toji stood, but he was already moving, using Playful Cloud to vault over the crimson forest of death. He landed in a roll, came up running, and immediately had to dodge as Sukuna appeared in his path.
"DISMANTLE!"
The rapid-fire techniques turned the air into a maze of invisible death. Yet Toji had become an old hand at dodging them; he weaved between slashes with inhuman grace, but there was a reason Sukuna still used it despite his counter, and each dodge was getting harder, each movement more costly.
He was slowing. Blood loss and exhaustion were taking their toll.
A Dismantle caught his left shoulder, opening it to the bone. Another one grazed his ribs, parting flesh like paper. But still he pressed forward, aiming to kill the disoriented Uro. Then, Sukuna appeared in front of him in a burst of motion, hand cocked back to punch him in the face.
Unfortunately for Sukuna, Toji had already instinctively spun Playful Cloud in a deadly arc around his body. It was that rare feeling of pseudo-procognition that forced his body to move before he made it. The weapon caught Sukuna across the chest, and the impact sent him flying. But as the King of Curses sailed through the air, he managed to fire off one more technique despite his surprise at the rapid counter.
"Dismantle!" Sukuna roared, his output soaring.
This one found its mark, carving a diagonal line from Toji's hip to his shoulder. Blood erupted in a crimson fountain, painting the ruined ground red. Toji staggered but didn't fall, his grip on Playful Cloud never wavering.
"Getting tired, monkey?" Uro had recovered, and she taunted, floating just out of reach.
Toji's response was to reach back into the inventory curse with his free hand and withdraw a second weapon, the Inverted Spear of Heaven. The moment it materialized in his left hand, all three sorcerers felt their techniques waver.
"Two cursed tools," Kenjaku observed, haven caught up. Their voice carried a note of genuine concern. "This complicates things considera—" His eyes widened. "Is that?"
Faster than anyone could blink, Toji hurled the two-pronged blade with such force, a sonic boom tore its way across the air. Uro gave a smile as she twisted her hands, activating her curse technique to turn space and reality around her into her toy. Her smile lasted for all of a split second as the blade continued its flight uncaring of her abilities till it lodged into her stomach. The force of the blow and the spear's ability to forcefully cancel any cursed technique meant that Uro's spatial manipulation flickered and destabilized, her flight becoming unsteady as she was flung back by the momentum of the blow. She crashed to the ground with a bone-jarring impact, her technique no longer able to support her weight against gravity as she dug a divot into the ground.
"What—" Kenjaku began, but Toji had already moved. Sukuna had been thrown back, Kenjaku would keep his distance, which meant now was the perfect chance. He left the other two behind to focus solely on Uro. By the time he got to her, she had managed to dig herself out of the trench that she had created in her fall. Her full breasts and nakedness were on display without her cursed technique to hide them, so was her hair which hung heavy along her back. The incarnated sorcerer stared at him in pained confusion and surprise.
She made a desperate gesture, a twist of her hands.
Domain Expansion?
Yet the presence of the Inverted Spear in her gut destabilized and nullified the technique before it could form. Her hand moved with a pained grunt to remove the knife when Toji finally got close, Playful Cloud already swinging toward her head in a vicious horizontal strike. She threw up her arms to block, but the weapon's weight and her compromised technique made the defense useless. The staff slammed into her forearms with a sickening crunch of broken and obliterated bones, as well as a destroyed forearm. With her guard caved, the blow continued forward, weaker but still striking her temple with a wet crack.
She went down hard, blood pouring from her skull, but managed to roll away before Toji could follow up.
"Sky Manipulation: Cursed Technique Reversal!" she screamed desperately, but the technique sputtered and failed once more.
Toji stalked toward her, Playful Cloud in his right hand. Blood streamed from his numerous wounds, and his left arm hung slightly limp from the shoulder injury, but his black eyes burned with predatory focus, and a mad grin could be seen on his face as he stood above her.
Uro scrambled backward, trying to create distance, but without her spatial manipulation, she was just another sorcerer. Fast, strong, but ultimately human. And humans, sorcerers or regular ones, broke under Toji Fushiguro's hands just as easily.
Sukuna caught up to them, his form a blur as he tried to intervene, firing a Dismantle at Toji's back, but the Sorcerer Killer had been waiting for it. He ripped the Inverted Spear out of Uro's stomach in one vicious movement and spun, inverted blade first. The invincible blade clashed against the two-pronged technique and it immediately disappeared.
Sukuna's four eyes widened in surprise, unable to process what just happened. He had anticipated Toji dodging and had been ready to follow up. Instead, he was the one open, and Toji continued his spin, using it to build momentum for Playful Cloud. The three-section staff lashed out like a whip, catching Sukuna cleanly across the face. The force of the blow caved in his jaw, and sent him flying back like a projectile. Toji continued the spin, ending in a three-sixty as he smoothly buried the Inverted Spear of Heaven into Uro's neck before she could do more than blink at the pain of him ripping out the blade.
It had happened in a split second.
Uro once again tried to crawl away on hands and knees. Her head wound was severe, blood poured down her face, her hand had reflexively clamped tightly around her neck where he had buried the blade and her movements were uncoordinated.
"Please," she gasped, blood escaping her lips as she looked up at him with genuine fear for the first time. "I yield. I'll leave. I won't—"
"You were the one who broke my cover, which turned this mission into an annoyance." He shut her up immediately. "The least you can do is pay for it with your life."
Playful Cloud's weighted end caved in her ribs with a sound like breaking kindling. She screamed, the sound a gurgling thing, and curled around the injury, but Toji showed no mercy. The staff came down again, and again, each strike methodical and brutal.
Kenjaku tried to save their ally, even from as far off as he was, using all the blood that Uro had spilled, he manipulated it to create a cage of blood, before hardening it. A variation of the binding technique he had used against Toji, but this time used to protect. Toji obliterated it with a single swing of Playful Cloud. The cursed tool ensured the cage of hardened blood was destroyed with barely any effort.
Toji slammed his feet down on Uro's midsection, halting her new attempt to crawl away. She tried to say something, but words couldn't leave her lips. Her breathing was labored, and blood frothed at her lips from internal injuries. He raised Playful Cloud for the killing blow.
"Dismantle!"
Sukuna shouted in the distance, his ridiculous manipulation of cursed energy meant that he had healed once more, enough to fire off a devastating slash, pumping as much cursed energy into the technique as he could.
Toji held his ground, ignoring the way the cursed technique dug into his back, so much that he was certain it kissed his spine as it tore past his superhuman toughness and hardened skin and muscle. The invisible slash opened another gash along his back instead of splitting him in two.
The force of the attack put him off-balance. Uro, with her last reserves of strength, managed to grab his ankle. Her spatial manipulation was still compromised, but she still made an attempt. Toji looked down to see that she had managed to remove the spear from her neck.
"Thin... Ice..." she wheezed.
Space twisted around her grip, trying to trip up Toji. But her technique sputtered and failed as her output faltered under the numerous injuries she had received.
Toji looked down at her with something that might have been respect. She was trying to kill him even with her dying breath. He could appreciate that level of commitment.
"Good try," he said, and locked the three sections together, then brought Playful Cloud down on her head.
The weighted end struck with the force of a sledgehammer. Skull cracked. Brain matter splattered. Uro's grip on his ankle went limp as her head caved inward like a broken melon.
She twitched once, twice, then went still.
"One down."
Toji picked up the Inverted Spear of Heaven, then he straightened slowly, both weapons dripping with blood. His breathing was labored, and he swayed slightly on his feet. The gouges in his thighs made his stance uneven, and blood loss was beginning to affect his vision. Dark spots danced at the edges of his sight.
But when he turned his head to face Sukuna and Kenjaku, his grin was sharper than ever. It was a mad thing now, all teeth and barely contained violence. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes held the fevered gleam of a cornered animal that was prepared to die and planned to take as many enemies with it as possible.
"Two left," he finished. And even bleeding out, even stumbling on his own legs, Toji still looked like the most dangerous thing in the clearing.