Everything was a blur in Toge's vision. The world dimmed as he stared at a single figure. A single figure that shone brighter than even the sun overhead, a figure whose light could not be dulled by the curtain raised above them.
Toge stared at Panda.
"Impossible. I killed him. I destroyed his last core. How is he here?!" Usami stuttered in shock from his position as he dragged himself to his feet with the aid of his shikigami, but Toge couldn't be bothered to give him the time of day.
Instead, his focus remained on Panda, yet the more he looked, the more he felt his gut churn and twist. There was something different here.
"P-pa-an-" He reached out with an arm, voice stuttering as he spat up blood in an attempt to call out to his friend, but other than looming above him protectively, the cursed corpse did not say anything further. He did not even glance back at Toge, and all Toge could see was his back.
A heavily muscled and furred back that had protected him for as long as he could remember. A back that had done nothing but bring him comfort for a long time.
A heavy and calloused arm clamped down on Toge's shoulder, shocking him back to reality. Toge turned to the side woodenly, his motions jerky and rough as he struggled to process the return of his friend.
He raised his head up to Principal Yaga, only to realize the older man was just as blurry as the rest of the world. Principal Yaga reached out with his second hand and wiped his eyes, clearing his vision, and for the first time, Toge realized he had been crying. Crying so furiously that he had been blinded by his tears, yet he had been quiet. It was the curse of the Inumaki to never be able to vocalize their pain.
Principal Yaga stared down at him and gave him a soft smile, a soft smile that clashed heavily with his rough features and dark eyes hidden behind his darker pair of shades. Toge's hands snapped out a second later, his fingers moving in the air as he signed, "How!"
He was not the only one curious, as before Principal Yaga could understand his message, someone else vocalized his words.
"How! What did you do Yaga!!!" Usami screamed, and this time, there was anger and fear in his voice.
This time, when Toge turned to him, he realized that Usami was standing better under his own power, and half of the injuries he had were gone; still, some remained. Which meant that his ability to pass about injuries and wounds had reduced, either from one or two of his shikigami weakening, which, if he was to guess, had something to do with how badly he had hurt Gozu, who appeared to be the one with some ability for RCT, or it was an overall weakening of his cursed energy output.
"How did you bring him back? How are you here, speak to me now, you bastard." Toge stared back in surprise at the rapid breakdown. Usami had been controlled, right from the moment he appeared and down to even their final clash, so what suddenly changed?
"It has been a long time, hasn't it, Usami-san. A long time since our paths diverged, since you became the lapdog of the higher ups, out of envy for my curse technique. Even your shikigami, bequeathed to you by them, are similar to curse corpses. Does your envy know no bound or end?" Principal Yaga replied, in his signature gruff tone, but the way he said the words. It spoke of history.
"Was that not why you were so happy to kill Panda for them. Not because you cared for them, or the rules and regulations, but simply to spite me. You killed my child to spite me, Usami!" The principal continued, his tone low and gravelly, like a volcano about to erupt.
"Ha, hahaha hahahaha." Usami let out a mad laughter in response, as if everything was finally coming together. "I should've known! It was so obvious in hindsight, but I- no, we did not even consider it. Neither I nor the council. That stern Masamichi, submissive Yaga, obedient Masamichi. Nobody would've even considered it. The assassin who kept striking at the elders always had information too accurate to be anything but an inside job, but the elders had many suspects; they restricted information further, even from the Gojos, yet they could not even conceive of this treachery. Of your treachery, Yaga!"
Usami howled out in mad laughter, his joy and madness clear as day. "You are a hypocrite, Yaga. You look down on people, you hold rules, regulations, and order to such a high standard, yet here you are, collaborating with the same assassin who had been hunting the elders for months! Oh, the hypocrisy!!"
If Principal Yaga was moved by Usami's words, he didn't show it. Instead he took a step forward, pushing Toge back. "You're right. I'm all of that and more, for it shows in the end. I'm only human. Do you realize your mistake yet?" the principal asked as he stood side by side with his cursed corpse, both of them ahead of Toge, shielding him and reinforcing him with the sheer weight of their presence and protection.
"W-what?"
"Your fear." Principal Yaga started as he rolled up his sleeves. "You and the elders were so scared of moving against me due to the presence of the Gojo Satoru and Jiki, you were forced to use a half measure by going after Panda at the first chance you got." He cracked his neck to the side and took off his glasses, before shifting into a boxing stance, a boxing stance that Panda mimicked.
Toge tried to reach out for his friend and teacher again, but he had grown weaker. Tired.
"Your biggest mistake, Usami, was not having the guts to come for my life, regardless of the result."
Usami's eyes widened, his formerly thin eyes, spread into a wide ball of madness. "Arghhhhhhhhh!" He let out a yell in response, and Mezu shot forward at once. Panda immediately moved to block his charge, and the moment the two figures met, they collided like an unstoppable force against an immovable object.
A mutated cursed corpse against a special-grade shikigami.
They slammed into each other, hard enough that the force of their collision nearly flung Toge off the roof, but even weakened and tired as he was, he stayed low and rode the wave, while Principal Yaga stood strong and upright. Toge's eyes widened as he realized that the feeling of change he felt about Panda was not just a feeling. Panda had changed physically as well, from his already towering height, now he looked even larger, able to match the shikigami in height.
Toge tugged on the principal's jacket and quickly tried to sign. To inform him of all he knew, but Principal Yaga stopped him before he could go far.
"Save your strength, Toge. I know all about how his shikigami's work. I understand the mechanics of how he passes on injuries from Mezu, to himself and to Gozu, whose ability to use the reverse curse technique on himself means that he can negate any injury. You've done enough, my student. Now stand back, and let us take care of the rest."
Yaga turned to Usami the next second and shot forward like a bullet, his explosive movement leaving cracks in the ground where his feet had been. Usami barely had time to raise his arms in defense before Yaga's fist crashed into his guard with the force of a sledgehammer.
The impact sent Usami skidding backward, his feet carving trenches in the concrete ground. But Yaga didn't give him a moment to recover. He was already there, closing the distance with the practiced efficiency of a man who had spent decades perfecting his craft.
It was all too easy to forget that Principal Yaga had been a first-grade sorcerer for years. A man whose experience was unmatched but by a few, a man who had been almost promoted to special grade, based on the ability of his curse technique. A special grade designation he had avoided, by swearing not to ever create another mutated curse corpse like Panda again, be it by chance or by luck. Years of being a principal had not dulled him in the slightest, because at the end of the day, one of the most forgotten things was his ability in close quarters combat.
He had been the first person to break the mold and stereotype of shikigami or cursed puppet users being weaker in close combat, and that was something he ingrained into his student, Geto. Turning the shikigami user into a match for any close combat specialist. He was the one who trained Gojo Satoru, Suguru Geto, and, most recently, Panda. Before his retirement from active duty, Masamichi Yaga had been a fearsome combatant, and he showed just how much he had refined and polished his edge due to Panda's original loss.
A left jab snapped Usami's head to the side. A right hook followed, slamming into his ribs with a sickening crunch. Usami tried to create space, to summon more of his cursed energy, but Yaga was relentless. A kick to the inside of his knee destabilized him, and Yaga barreled into him, using his lack of balance to send him to the ground. Before Usami could blink, he mounted the other man and began to pound his fists into his face. Usami raised his guard, but Yaga was relentless. Each strike slipping past his forearms and slamming into him.
"You always relied too much on your shikigami," Yaga grunted, jerking back out of range of a desperate retaliatory swing that Usami unleashed from his place. "Never bothered to train your own body."
He drove his fist into the side of Usami's face to punish his overenthusiasm. "I told you that weakness would catch up to you one day, didn't I?" Usami's free hand stretched to the side, and Toge saw what he was reaching for. His knife, the same knife he had used to cut up the other man.
Toge tried to scream out a warning, but he could barely do more than a groan.
Usami's fingers closed around the hilt, and with a single furious movement, he buried the full length of the blade into Yaga's side. The principal froze for a second in shock, as the pain overwhelmed him. Usami used the opportunity to buckle his hips, pushing the other man to the side.
He immediately turned, crawling on the ground as he tried to put distance, but Principal Yaga had already recovered, and without bothering to pull out the knife, he lunged, dragged Usami by his leg, then pulled the man up, before burying a fist with a shout into Usami's stomach, folding the man in half. As Usami gasped for air, Yaga grabbed him by the collar with both hands and headbutted him square in the face. Blood exploded from Usami's nose, painting the white part of his robes crimson.
Usami stumbled back, his hands coming up to his broken nose. He managed to land another wild strike, a retaliatory blow, a backhanded slap infused with cursed energy that caught Yaga across the cheek.
But Yaga barely flinched.
The older man's durability was legendary. Years of creating and maintaining cursed corpses had required him to pour cursed energy into his own body as reinforcement. Usami's strikes, weakened by his injuries and panic, were like raindrops against stone.
"Is that all?" Yaga asked, his voice cold. "Is that all you have after killing my son?"
He caught Usami's next punch mid-swing, twisted the arm, and drove his elbow into Usami's elbow joint. Something popped, and Usami screamed.
Twenty feet away, the battle between Panda and Mezu was a different kind of violence.
Where Yaga fought against Usami with skill and experience, Panda and Mezu clashed with pure, unbridled force. Each blow they exchanged between themselves shook the ground and sent shockwaves rippling through the air. Mezu's massive fists swung like wrecking balls, each one capable of pulverizing stone. But Panda met them head-on, his own strikes, while not as heavy, were followed by an explosion of curse energy.
"Unblockable Drumming Beat".
Massive fists slammed into open palms, and the special grade shikigami was forced to stagger back after every clash. Mezu was durable, but the Unblockable Drumming Beat bypassed defense and durability and slammed into the core of the person. The final clash led to Mezu staggering back a dozen steps before it dug its feet into the ground, hard enough to stop.
The shikigami's horn-crowned head lowered an instant later, whatever thought he previously had of going blow to blow with Panda changed as he charged, building momentum. The shikigami was designed for this, raw power, unstoppable force, the ability to transfer damage through Usami's technique. He expected Panda to dodge, to weave, to the side.
Instead, Panda planted his feet, widened his stance, and caught the charge. The force of the charge threw both of them off the roof of the building till they crashed into another, and finally, the charge halted as an impact created a crater beneath them, but Panda held firm. His muscles bulged, his frame straining, but he didn't give an inch. The shikigami's eyes widened in shock behind his bovine features, as did Toge, watching from where he was.
It should've been impossible. Panda was strong, and while in Gorilla mode, which Toge had assumed Panda was using, He should not have been enough to halt such a charge completely. The only way he could halt that charge was if...
Panda slowly raised his head, and his eyes locked with Mezu's.
Something shifted in the air. Toge felt a charge as curse energy exploded from Panda. He had only seen it once, before, when they were younger and Panda had wanted to brag about his big sister. Panda's third core.
"I'll show you true strength," Panda spoke for the first time, and his voice was unrecognizable. The cursed corpse surged forward, not with speed alone, but with an inexorable momentum that built with each step. Once he locked eyes with an opponent and started moving, nothing could stop him. Not physics, not resistance, nothing.
It was the ultimate expression of unstoppable force.
The special grade shikigami tried to brace himself like Panda had done previously. It tried to redirect the charge when that failed, and it was pushed back a step, then two and three. It tried everything it could. None of it mattered. Panda crashed into him like a meteor, and this time, there was no stopping it. He flung them off that building and onto the road below. The shikigami flew backward, tumbling end over end before slamming into the base of the building hard enough to crack the foundation.
Panda was on it before it could rise, raining down blows that combined all three aspects of his being. Power. Speed. Unstoppable momentum. Panda's first core was balance, his second focused on strength, and now this was the power of his unheard of third core.
Unstoppable momentum and power against a single person, as long as the person looked into his eyes, it was like a binding vow. Each strike landed like an inevitability, and hammered Mezu deeper into the rubble, each impact sent tremors through the ground as the building Toge, Usami and Principal Yaga shook.
Mezu's chest caved. "This is for making Toge cry," Panda said, his second ever sentence, still in that strange, unfamiliar voice. Then his fist lashed out in a final punch that went straight through Mezu as Panda slammed a curse energy infused blow into his chest, into the focal point that anchored the shikigami's existence. The special grade shikigami froze for only a second before it exploded, fragments of cursed energy dissipating into the air following its death as a cracked figurine dropped to the ground.
Toge turned just in time to see that Principal Yaga had Usami on his knees. One hand gripping the man's hair while the other delivered methodical strikes to his face. He was breathing heavily, and Usami's face was an unrecognizable mess from where it had been pummeled. Yaga had even refrained from using curse energy to ensure he didn't kill the man. No, death would be too good for him. He pulled his hand back for another blow when they felt the roof beneath their feet shake.
Toge only had a split second before he realized what was happening, a split second was not enough to do more than turn to where Principal Yaga stood as the ground erupted beneath his feet and, like a nightmare given form, Gozu reached out, his massive hands reaching for Yaga's legs. Iron fingers clamped around Yaga's right ankle with crushing force before the principal could blink.
"G-got you!" Usami gasped through his broken and swollen face, a manic grin spreading across his features, and his single bloodshot and swollen eye stared at the principal with hatred. The ever schemer, yet the other man had forgotten something. No, he had not forgotten him, he had simply discarded Toge as a threat. His mistake.
"TWIST!"
The word rang through the air like a bell that had been struck, and carried on a voice that was breaking, shattering, dying even as it spoke. Toge stood, as the two men turned to him in surprise, and he smiled at them, blood pouring from his mouth in a torrent, his throat shriveled and mangled with the catastrophic damage of overuse. But his eyes were clear.
The cursed speech took hold.
Gozu's hands, locked around Yaga's ankle, contorted immediately as bones ground against each other, with tendons snapping like overstressed cables. The shikigami screamed, a sound of pure agony, as his arm was ruthlessly mangled.
Its fingers spasmed, opening reflexively to escape the pain, and Yaga tore his leg free as the Shikigami lost it's grip and plunged back into the hole it had dug it's way out of.
"No!" Usami shrieked, scrambling backward. "NO! Gozu, heal yourself! Use your technique, come back!"
But the damage was too severe, the shikigami was lost and Usami was out of time.
Yaga stood to his full height and took a step forward despite his injured ankle. Curse energy exploded from him like a wave. His eyes found Usami, and in them burned something terrible. His rage and hatred had been spent already pummeling the other man, now all that was left was judgment.
"Toge," he said quietly, not taking his eyes off Usami. "Well done. Now rest."
Behind him, Toge collapsed, his body finally giving out. But Panda was there, catching his friend gently, cradling him with a care that belied his massive frame.
Yaga walked toward Usami, each step deliberate. Usami tried to run, tried to crawl away, but his body was broken, his shikigami defeated and crippled. There was nowhere left to go.
"Please," Usami whimpered. "Please, I was just following orders. The elders, they commanded me. I had no choice!"
"You always had a choice," Yaga said. He drew back his fist, and cursed energy began to concentrate around it. Not the normal flow of power, but something different. Something that sparked and crackled, reality itself seemed to distort around his knuckles.
Usami's eyes widened in recognition, and when Yaga's fist slammed into Usami, it was trailing sparks of black.
His cursed energy multiplied by itself, achieving that perfect timing, that impossible synchronization between physical impact and curse energy. The blow landed square in the center of Usami's chest, and for a moment, everything went white.
The shockwave cleared the roof and sent dust and debris flying.
When the dust faded, Usami was still, eyes wide and blood foaming at his mouth. His body was limp in a crater, and held up and saved from getting lost in the lower floors by the twisted and dented rebar that cradled him like a cage.
Yaga stood over the unconscious man, his fist still raised, and for a long moment, he didn't move. Then, slowly, he lowered his arm and turned away.
"It's done," he said quietly. Then he turned to Toge and gave a tired smile. "I suppose explanations are in order. Sit Inumaki-kun, and let us finally speak of everything that has happened."