The twilight sky over Orario was tinged with the last hues of red when Toji finally returned to the surface. His clothes were still damp with blood, though none of it his.
The inverted spear of heaven hung loosely at his side, and the faint scent of burnt incense still clung to him.
He didn't head for a tavern or inn.
He walked straight to the dark, unassuming corner of the city where shadows gathered like old friends, and where his so-called goddess waited.
The crooked tower that served as Hecate's home stood quiet, warded from mortal eyes.
As he stepped through the threshold, the faint hum of magic tickled his skin, but he ignored it. Like always.
She was already waiting.
Seated cross-legged on a floating stone platform, Hecate, goddess of magic and ghosts, stirred a cup of dark tea with a fingertip glowing faintly violet.
Her golden eyes tracked him with the same mild curiosity one might offer a wild animal.
"Quite the mess you made, darling."
Toji didn't answer. He walked past her, dropped into a chair, leaned back, and exhaled.
Hecate lifted the cup to her lips. "No hello? No apology for dragging my name into another divine headache?"
He scratched his temple. "Didn't know you cared."
"I don't," she said, smiling.
Silence hung for a moment.
Then:
"You killed her. Completely." No amusement now. "Not just banished. Not sent home in a beam of divine light. Ishtar is dead. Body and soul."
Toji stared at the ceiling. "She was doing something disgusting. Enslaving girls. Ritual magic using their lives. That fox girl had a collar around her neck. I snapped it. Then I snapped everything else."
Hecate sipped. "You realize what that means?"
"To me? It means I can go back to my usual routine and train the brat again in peace."
Her brow arched. "The brat?"
"Lefiya."
"Ahh," Hecate grinned. "The little elf with too much pride and too little bite. I like her. She brings out something weird in you."
He didn't answer.
After a pause, she floated down, her bare feet touching the floor as she stepped closer to him. Not threatening. Curious. Almost... indulgent.
"You remind me of something old," she said softly. "Older than this world. Something the other gods have forgotten. Mortality without fear. Will without restraint. Power without pretense."
"Sounds poetic. You high on your own incense again?"
She smirked. "The others are terrified, you know. They're calling emergency meetings. Whispering about what to do with you. What you are."
Toji stood, stretching. "Let them. I'm not part of their game."
"No," she agreed. "You're a mistake they can't erase."
He looked at her for a long moment. "Why'd you even bring me back?"
That caught her off guard. Her fingers paused mid-gesture.
"I didn't bring you back, Toji."
He narrowed his eyes.
"I just... found you. In a space between worlds. And gave you a door. You walked through it on your own."
He didn't like that answer. But he couldn't call it a lie.
Hecate stepped closer, now only a few feet from him. "But I'll say this, if the gods ever move against you, I'll stay out of it."
He raised an eyebrow.
"You're not mine," she said simply. "You're you. I just enjoy watching."
Toji stared at her a moment longer. Then, without a word, he turned and walked toward the door.
Before he left, Hecate called out, "Be careful, Toji. This city's not ready for someone like you."
"Wasn't planning to introduce myself at parties."
The door closed behind him.
And Hecate, alone again, sat back on her floating stone with a sigh.
"A god-killer with no god to kill. How quaint."
...
The Dungeon was quiet in the deeper floors, the kind of silence that throbbed rather than soothed. It was the stillness of old bones buried beneath stone and magic.
Here, the air was heavier, as if the Dungeon itself were holding its breath.
Somewhere amid the ruins of a shattered corridor, walls gouged open from a fight that had ended moments ago, Toji Fushiguro sat alone, elbows resting on his knees, soaked in sweat, dust, and monster blood.
The silence suited him. It let him think.
Shadows twitched behind him, his own.
They did not behave like natural silhouettes.
They rippled.
Shifted.
Moved on their own.
A pair of glowing eyes blinked within them before vanishing, and from that darkness, a shape began to rise, a half-formed Nue, flickering and unstable.
It dissolved again before it finished forming, its electricity crackling out with a hiss.
Toji stared, eyes narrowed.
This technique, this Ten Shadows Technique, wasn't his by birthright.
It was never supposed to belong to him.
And yet, here it was. Familiar. Resisting him and obeying in equal measure. Like a wolf that hadn't decided whether to bite or heel.
He could feel it drawing on something deeper than mere cursed energy, his body, his instincts, something almost ancestral.
And with that power... came knowledge.
Not thoughts, exactly.
More like echoes.
Instinctual warnings.
Fragments of battle passed down.
Memories that didn't belong to him, but clawed up through the cursed technique like weeds through cracks.
He saw glimpses.
A hulking silhouette under a moonlit shrine.
A wheel turning, always turning, behind its head.
A cursed shikigami that dwarfed all the others.
The tenth.
Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General
Mahoraga.
The name wasn't spoken. It was simply known. Etched into the technique itself. The final guardian. The ultimate beast.
And the price to summon it?
Sacrifice.
Even the user.
A last resort, not a weapon. Something closer to a living calamity bound only by ancient rule and sheer will.
No wonder his son never dared call it out before his final moments.
Even Megumi... even with all his potential, hesitated before unlocking it.
Toji leaned back against the cool stone, letting his head thud against the wall. He exhaled slowly. No rush. Not yet.
But he would kill it.
Eventually.
He needed to.
He didn't know why.
Pride?
Curiosity?
Or maybe just because the idea of something so completely untamed and defiant gnawed at him.
A beast meant to be controlled by none, born to adapt and survive endlessly.
If left unchecked, it would become a threat to everything, and everyone.
Not that he cared about everyone. Not really.
But maybe... just maybe, this power brought with it responsibilities, too.
No.
That thought was too sentimental. He shook it off.
He'd have to kill Mahoraga on his own terms.
Not in a fight. Not in desperation.
A hunt.
And that meant planning.
First, he'd need to understand how much of the Ten Shadows he could actually control.
Nue was becoming more consistent, and the Divine Dogs had already accepted his cursed energy, bristling, loyal, vicious.
The Escape Rabbits were like pests, breeding at will, but good for scouting.
The Max Elephant had come once, then refused to be summoned again. He was still figuring that out.
But Mahoraga?
That thing was different.
He'd felt its presence.
Not behind the shadows, but beneath them. Like something sleeping under the surface of a frozen lake.
His cursed energy responded violently when he tried to probe deeper.
The technique didn't want him to reach it. Not yet.
Toji smirked.
"Scared I'll actually use you?" he muttered, wiping blood off his cursed blade.
He looked at the inverted spear of heaven, lying beside him.
It had no gleam, no dramatic aura.
Just a perfectly simple, flawless weapon.
It drank in the light, nullified existence itself.
It was his ace.
His endgame.
But he knew better than to rely on it too early.
If he struck Mahoraga once and it didn't die, it would adapt.
That could not be allowed.
So he'd save it.
Not for damage.
Not for combat.
For the killing blow.
But how to bring Mahoraga to that moment?
His mind turned over ideas like knives through flesh.
He needed a domain, but he couldn't cast a full one.
Simple Domain worked.
It could trap. It could hold.
But Mahoraga's will might override even that.
A binding vow, maybe.
Something brutal and limiting.
Maybe a one-on-one pact. "If I lose, I die."
That kind of binding vow would power the domain with enough force to possibly restrain Mahoraga for a few seconds. It would probably need more turn than 1 to adapt.
All he would need, is a few second.
A bet, a risky bet that he can only do once.
But... isn't that just exciting?
He would need to open with a full barrage from the Ten Shadows, wear it down.
Use Nue to electrify its movement.
Divine Dogs to hound it constantly.
The Max Elephant, if it cooperated, to crush it under sheer weight.
The snakes, if he ever got those working, could bind it.
Every moment, a test.
Let it adapt.
Let it waste time.
And then, when its pattern is locked into surviving those threats...
He would go in, spear in hand.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
Just deletion.
He looked back at the swirling shadows at his feet.
They quivered slightly, restless.
He could feel Mahoraga down there.
Not yet summoned.
But watching him.
As if it, too, knew what was coming.
Toji grinned.
"Don't worry," he muttered. "I'll come for you eventually."
And when I do, he thought, rising to his feet and sheathing his blade, I won't miss.
He turned, shadows trailing behind him like broken wings, and disappeared into the deeper dark.
But this time... something odd happened.
He can feel it, a string, connected to him.
As sudden as the feeling, he got pulled away.
Not away from this city.
From this world.
...
.
.
.
The woman's fingers trembled over the edge of the talisman, her lips muttering curses older than the city beneath her feet.
The Underground Seance Ritual had not been used in centuries, not since the last era when the dead were considered more reliable than the living.
But now, in the chaos of the Shibuya Incident, it was her only hope.
Ogami's eyes rolled back, the ritual reaching its climax. Before her knelt the vessel: a perfectly mundane man, blank-eyed, his soul displaced, an empty husk.
"Bring him back" she croaked, voice like grinding bones. "Zen'in Toji."
And something answered.
The talismans ignited. The body convulsed violently. The air grew heavy.
And then.
Snap.
A feral glint flooded the man's dull eyes. His muscles bulged unnaturally. Breathing deep, fast, animalistic. Not just instinct. Instinct sharpened by years of killing.
The man stood.
Ogami blinked.
And in the next second, her chest exploded.
A clean hole, carved by bare fingers.
She didn't even have time to scream.
The summoning had worked.
Too well. The ritual intended only to emulate Toji's memories, his technique, and his fighting instincts, not his soul.
But Toji Fushiguro's will had overridden the spell, ripped control from the sorcerer, and fully possessed the body.
He was back. Not just in body.
In soul.
"...Tch." Toji looked down at his new hands. Flexed them. "Of course that old hag gonna use her technique..."
And then came the scent.
Cursed spirits.
Blood.
Something primal in him stirred. The beast that never stopped hunting.
He turned, blurred forward, and was gone.
He let it go free.
The cursed technique's side effect.
Hunting down every strong opponent in this place until his new body broke.
.
.
.
.
.
Dagon chanted as his Domain expanded, summoning monstrous shikigami sea creatures to surround the group trapped within: Nanami, Maki, and Naobito.
The situation was dire. The ocean pressure closed in. They were drowning on dry land.
Until the Domain cracked.
And then, split open like glass.
Toji dropped in like a missile.
He landed with a grunt, barefoot, shirtless, wielding only a cursed blade stolen mid-air. He didn't ask questions. Didn't shout a challenge. He just moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
He tore through the fish-shikigami, dismembering them in half a breath, before launching himself at Dagon.
Dagon, a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, tried to react, conjuring a tidal wave and biting jowls of some monstrous sea beast.
Toji slammed through it, dragging the blade like an anchor.
He pierced Dagon's chest, then ripped upwards, bisecting the spirit in a single slash, and finished the job with a second strike that separated head from spine.
Silence.
The domain faded.
Toji stood alone.
Nanami, Maki, and Naobito stared, terrified, not at Dagon, but at him.
There was no humanity in his eyes. Only the memory of blood.
Aimed for the next one instantly.
Megumi.
.
.
.
.
He found the boy battered, mid-battle. Watching from a distance, Toji tilted his head.
"...You my kid?"
Megumi raised his blade. "Who—"
But Toji didn't wait. He dashed forward, fist already cocked, launching a brutal strike that sent Megumi flying.
He followed up with a flurry of precision blows, each one testing the boy's reflexes, strength, resolve.
Megumi summoned Max Elephant, cast shadows to buy time.
Toji broke through them all.
"You're sloppy."
Another strike.
"Too soft."
He pinned Megumi down, blade at his throat.
Megumi glared, bloodied, but didn't break. "If you're gonna kill me, get it over with."
Toji paused.
His expression twitched, something almost like recognition in his feral eyes.
"...At least that brat kept his word."
He stood up.
And then, without warning, stabbed himself through the head.
The body twitched.
Collapsed.
Gone.