The world snapped back with a breath.
Toji's eyes opened, not in some dramatic gasp, not with screaming or panic. Just a breath. Calm, steady, controlled.
He lay beneath the hollow boughs of a twisted tree, in a secluded part of Orario's undergrowth just outside the city walls, where the Dungeon's hum was distant but ever-present.
His vision sharpened slowly, the bright sky overhead an almost cruel contrast to where he'd just been.
Shibuya.
That suffocating, cursed city still clung to his bones like fog.
The smell of seawater and death.
The way Dagon split in half.
The weight of his blade against Megumi's neck.
His son's eyes, not afraid, not trembling, just waiting. Accepting.
"...Tch. I knew that hag would do that eventually..."
Toji sat up.
The aches weren't real, but they lingered.
Phantom pain from a phantom life.
His body was Orario's again, leaner, forged anew under Falna's quiet influence and his goddess's meddling.
But his soul? His soul felt like it had been scraped raw by jagged memories.
He rubbed his jaw absently.
Megumi had grown strong. Smarter than him. A tactician. A better jujutsu sorcerer than Toji ever was.
And yet, in that moment, he still couldn't stop him.
Still couldn't stop the blade.
He'd meant to test the boy. But the rage, the instinct, it almost took over. If not for that faint pulse of emotion, what was it? Recognition? Guilt? Pride? Maybe the hag's technique?
He didn't know.
But what he did know now, beyond all shadow of doubt, was this:
Mahoraga.
He remembered the name. He remembered the technique.
Ten Shadows.
One final shikigami.
The wheel.
Megumi hadn't summoned it in their fight, but Toji felt it. Like a shadow behind a curtain, waiting.
And it terrified him. Not because he feared dying to it.
But because it was a challenge.
And he needed to be ready.
That same afternoon, Toji stood alone atop a broken section of the Dungeon's 13th floor. The sky cracked faintly above him through a natural fissure, letting light trickle in like divine judgment.
He let his cursed energy expand, feeling its dull roar in his veins. He reached into the shadows behind him, and with a flex of instinct and will—
The Ten Shadows stirred.
He had no tamed them all yet, but they had grown restless.
The divine dogs sat at attention beside him, larger than horses now, their fur bristling with ancient energy.
Nue, circling above, left trails of lightning in the air like claw marks across the sky.
The rabbits, the Escape Rabbits, skittered around his feet, dozens of them, no longer playful but unnervingly quiet, trained to move in tandem with him.
They were stronger than Megumi's. His cursed energy was denser, heavier, less refined, more primal.
But that wheel... that damned wheel...
He clenched his fists. The air around him warped as a simple domain flickered to life. A field just large enough to sharpen his instincts and kill whatever stepped inside.
"I can't use the Spear too early," he muttered, more to himself than anything. "It neutralizes all techniques... even mine. If I waste it before the right moment, it'll adapt."
Mahoraga adapts.
That's what he remembered.
Every attack, every technique, it evolves, survives, counters.
There would be no second chance.
So he needed layers. Steps. Traps.
Toji drew the Soul-Splitting Katana from his back and let its cursed hum vibrate in his palm. "This'll be the opener. Enough cursed energy, I can cut its soul apart, even if just a piece."
Then Nue. Lightning, thunder, blind it. The Divine Dogs? Distract, bait, stall. The rabbits? Flood the space, scatter, confuse.
A dance of death.
And when the opening came, when that wheel clicked in a rhythm he could read, then...
Only then would he draw the Inverted Spear of Heaven.
The nullifier. The killer.
The one weapon he had that couldn't be adapted to. At least not that fast.
That spear, humming cold in its sheath, felt heavier than it had any right to be.
He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly.
"Right. You bastard son-of-a-curse," he muttered, almost fondly, "Let's see who kills who first."
By nightfall, he'd left the Dungeon behind and returned to Orario, cloaked in silence.
No one noticed the shift in his aura. No one could read the grim purpose behind his expression.
Even Lefiya, who greeted him with an awkward wave and babbled on about her spell refinement, didn't see it.
Toji nodded through her chatter, dropped a lazy hand on her head, and messed up her hair just a little, his version of a gentle greeting.
But inside, he was already running simulations. Already preparing the bait. The field. The fight.
The final test.
Because if he couldn't kill Mahoraga...
Then he was no better than a ghost clinging to borrowed life, borrowed power.
And he hate borrowing, he used to kill sorcerer to prove his strength, now, he kill the most unkillable shikigami in the jujutsu history, to prove his worth again.
...
3 weeks later...
The stars above Orario were obscured by heavy clouds, the moon a pale smudge through the mist.
Beyond the city, where the dead plains stretched out into forgotten wilderness, Toji Fushiguro stood alone.
A half-collapsed ruin of an ancient temple surrounded him, pillars broken and strewn like the bones of a long-dead beast.
No Familia banners flew here, no patrols bothered to come.
It was a wasteland only fit for monsters, and tonight, that was exactly what he needed.
The air smelled of old blood, ash, and earth.
It fit his mood perfectly.
Toji tightened the wrappings around his hands, flexing his fingers slowly.
His body was quiet, the way a loaded crossbow was quiet, the way a cliff was quiet before an avalanche.
He had prepared for this moment with more care than anything else since he'd arrived in this damned world.
Weeks of training, gathering weapons, planning binding vows, refining the Simple Domain until it fit him like second skin, even learning to control the wild instincts of the Ten Shadows Technique.
It wouldn't matter if he didn't move perfectly tonight.
He would die.
Without fanfare, he knelt down and pressed his palm into the cold dirt. A low rumble stirred beneath him.
The cursed energy coiled through his body, pulling shadows from every crack and stone around him, warping the edges of the ruined courtyard into a black, shifting canvas.
The Ten Shadows unfurled.
The Divine Dogs stirred at his sides, their massive forms half-flesh, half-curse. Nue screamed high overhead, a storm crackling in its wings.
The Escape Rabbits flickered around his feet, endless and countless, their bodies leaking steam as they burrowed through the cursed soil.
And still it wasn't enough.
Not for what he was about to call.
Toji drew a long breath through his nose, tasting iron and ozone.
He slammed more cursed energy into the earth, forcing the summoning circle wider, deeper, older than anything he'd dared before.
The shadows roiled. The very ground shook. Stones cracked open like eggshells.
Something heavy stirred in the pit of the world.
He forced the next words out through gritted teeth, binding his soul tighter to the technique, shaping it with intent sharper than any blade.
The wheel turned once, slow and massive, somewhere beneath the surface of the world.
The sky grew darker, as if recoiling from what was about to happen.
A shape tore itself out of the earth.
"With this treasure, I summon... Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga"
Mahoraga rose like a nightmare made flesh.
It dwarfed the ruined temple, its hulking body rippling with raw cursed muscle, its twisted mask gleaming under the faint, sour light.
Above its head, the eight-handled wheel spun in a lazy circle, each click a death knell.
It regarded Toji with no expression, no mind.
Only instinct. Only adaptation.
Toji stared up at it, unmoving, heart pounding a slow, heavy rhythm.
He could feel the shape of his own death just standing there.
Good. He preferred it honest.
Mahoraga took a step forward.
The earth shattered underfoot.
Toji didn't wait.
He launched forward, the world narrowing into a single point, every muscle, every fiber of his body screaming into motion.
The Soul-Splitting Katana came first, its blade whistling through the air like a banshee.
He swung low, carving across Mahoraga's exposed flank.
The blade bit deep, a spray of cursed blood hissing into the dirt.
Mahoraga didn't flinch.
Instead, it moved with a speed unnatural for something so massive, one arm snapping down to crush him like an insect.
Toji dropped his body flat against the ground, the wind of the strike howling overhead, and rolled sideways. He came up low, driving the katana straight for Mahoraga's knee.
The impact jolted up his arms.
Mahoraga's leg buckled, just for a heartbeat, just long enough for Toji to leap backward and reassess.
The wheel turned.
The wound sealed almost immediately, the cursed flesh knitting back together with a wet squelch.
He expected as much.
Toji clicked his tongue and loosed the Divine Dogs.
"Divine Dog : Totality"
They sprang forward with savage snarls, jaws flashing, claws digging deep.
One latched onto Mahoraga's arm, the other tore into its calf.
Mahoraga shifted, almost casual, grabbing the first dog by the throat and crushing it in one brutal squeeze. The second dog tried to retreat, too late.
A sweep of Mahoraga's tail smashed it into a bloody mist.
The wheel turned again, faster.
Toji didn't flinch.
He sent the Escape Rabbits next, an overwhelming flood of illusions and bodies, swarming Mahoraga's sight, tripping its footing, buying precious seconds.
He darted through the chaos, angling for the blind spot he had mapped in his mind, just behind the shoulder, where the cursed muscle thinned.
His cursed dagger was in his hand before he even realized it.
Poisoned edge flashing, he drove it into Mahoraga's back with all the strength he had.
The beast roared.
It wasn't pain. It was awareness.
Adaptation.
Mahoraga whirled with a backhand that clipped Toji's ribs.
Pain exploded through his side, ribs fracturing instantly.
He spat blood and flew backwards, smashing through a low stone wall.
Still moving. Always moving.
He forced himself upright, ignoring the agony in his chest.
Mahoraga was already turning, already evolving.
The poison wouldn't work twice.
The wheel spun. A deep, grinding growl filled the air.
Toji grinned through bloody teeth.
Fine. He wasn't counting on poison anyway.
He surged forward again, reinforcing his body to the limit, cursed energy roaring down his limbs, Simple Domain snapping into place so thin, so tight it barely existed at all.
Mahoraga swung its arm in a brutal arc.
Toji slid under it, the ground tearing up under the force of the blow, and jammed the Soul-Splitting Katana deep into Mahoraga's side again.
He didn't even bother hoping it would stick.
Instead, he used the leverage to launch himself upward, flipping onto Mahoraga's back, scrambling toward the mask.
Mahoraga bucked and twisted, but Toji clung to the shifting cursed flesh like a parasite, moving hand over hand.
The Inverted Spear of Heaven glinted at his waist.
He could feel it thrumming, hungry.
Not yet.
He needed to be sure.
Mahoraga slammed backward into the ground, trying to crush him. Toji leapt free at the last second, landing hard and rolling through the dirt.
His lungs burned. His vision blurred.
Mahoraga rose again, whole, uninjured, adapting faster and faster.
He was running out of time.
He whistled sharply again.
High above, Nue shrieked and dove.
Lightning tore through the sky in jagged spears, hammering into Mahoraga's body. It staggered, its movements sluggish for a moment under the assault.
Toji moved.
He didn't bother with anything fancy.
He sprinted flat-out, Inverted Spear of Heaven drawn, cursed energy condensed into a single razor's edge around the tip.
Mahoraga turned.
Their eyes met.
Toji smiled.
And he drove the Inverted Spear of Heaven into Mahoraga's heart.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the world split open.
Mahoraga's body ruptured from the inside, cursed energy unraveling violently.
The wheel above its head spun madly, desperately, then cracked, splintered, and shattered with a sound like the world ending.
Mahoraga let out a sound that might have been a scream, might have been nothing more than wind through a broken house.
Its body crumbled into black dust, dissolving into the cursed ground.
Toji stood in the ruin, the Inverted Spear still in his hand, his shoulders heaving, blood dripping freely from dozens of cuts.
He stayed there for a long time, watching the dust blow away into the night.
He didn't smile.
He didn't move.
He just stood, breathing, bleeding, the weight of survival pressing into his bones.
When he finally turned to leave, he did so without a word.
The battlefield was empty.
Mahoraga was dead.
But Toji Fushiguro remained.
And somewhere deep inside, a darker part of him stirred awake, whispering that it would never be enough, not until everything was silent, and dead, and still.
Tamed, the first Ten Shadow user to tame the general.
Is the one who was deemed a failure, was the one who have no cursed energy.
Pride.