Shinjuku had never been so silent.
Not a single light flickered in the towers. Not a car, not a pedestrian, not even a stray animal disturbed the wide boulevards.
The district was a ghost town, evacuated weeks in advance by the sorcerers who still had the will to plan. Doors had been sealed, trains rerouted, streets cordoned off.
What could not be moved had been abandoned.
It had taken a monumental effort.
Because everyone knew that neither Mahito nor Sukuna would ever have cared enough to evacuate anyone themselves.
This battlefield was chosen because it could be destroyed without consequence.
The first to arrive was Mahito.
Not one Mahito, but twenty. They appeared all at once, striding from different corners of the empty city, and converging upon the same boulevard.
Each looked identical to the version that had once sat on the golden throne in Shibuya. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Stitched pale skin stretched over burly muscle.
A black and gold yukata draped casually from his shoulders, the chest open to flaunt his ribcage sewn into grotesque patterns. His hair was golden now, combed back to gleam in the sunlight. His eyes, a deep purple, sparkled with mischief.
Twenty pairs of them.
The air thrummed with cursed energy. Each clone was a self-contained natural disaster, and together they bled into the atmosphere until the very streets shivered.
Mahito smiled with every mouth at once.
He had spent weeks perfecting this. At first, devouring other techniques had threatened his identity, threatening to dilute his sense of self with foreign wills.
The risk had been real: powerful souls could leave behind lingering emotions and intent which could slowly overwrite his. But Mahito had explored the mechanics of emotion and desire, cutting them out as one might remove nerves from a body.
Now when he consumed, he consumed empty husks. Nothing left to overwrite him. Only tools. Only fuel.
And the proof of it was before him: twenty versions of himself, each armed with different techniques assimilated fully into his cursed body. Each was a predator in its own right.
The second arrival announced himself without words.
Sukuna walked down the boulevard, robes flowing lightly with each step. His attire was similar to the one he had worn when he occupied Yuji's body, black and white in stark contrast, regal yet unyielding.
His gaze was crimson, his expression set in calm irritation. The air warped faintly around him, a pressure so sharp it pressed into the lungs.
He stopped in view of Mahito's clones. His lips curled slightly.
"Twenty?" Sukuna's voice was rough silk. "That is quite the choice. Wanna give me some credit for the inspiration?"
Mahito laughed. And when twenty throats laughed together, it was like glass shattering. "If only you knew how lucky you are. There are too few curses left to devour. If I had more fuel, you'd be facing a hundred of me."
Sukuna barked a laugh of his own, low and sharp. "Or maybe you were too stupid to realize that turning them into soldiers wasn't such a good idea after all. All those souls you burned into puppets instead of feeding them to yourself."
Mahito tilted his head, twenty times over. "A loner like you would never understand the convenience of a personal army. I built soldiers who live to obey. Why settle for less?"
Sukuna sneered. "Obedience? That's what you call strength? You surround yourself with tools. Nothing else. If you're a king, then you are the loneliest one alive."
Mahito grinned. "I don't need friends. I don't need equals. Subjects are enough. Even you, Sukuna. Tell me, your little subordinate… Uraume, was it? How different is she from my drones? Devoted. Mindless. Puppets on a string."
Something in Sukuna's expression twitched. His crimson eyes sharpened. For the first time, the mockery drew blood.
He raised his hand, cursed energy crackling, and pointed at one of the Mahitos. His voice was calm, but venom laced every syllable.
"Dismantle."
The slash ripped the clone apart in an instant, scattering flesh across the pavement.
But before the remains could even hit the ground, the twenty figures blurred. Their forms shimmered, twisting together, and merged.
What stood before Sukuna now was no longer remotely human.
A towering humanoid shape of raw muscle, exposed and pulsing a deep purplish hue. Jagged plates of gray exoskeleton spread across its body like armor. Its back sprouted two additional sets of arms, long and twitching with inhuman dexterity.
The head was mostly covered by the exoskeleton, which formed into a mask-like structure, sealing the mouth, leaving only the eyes uncovered.
Those eyes glowed a pure, unbroken purple.
Sukuna actually stepped back, just once. Not because of the grotesque form, but because of the weight pressing against him.
The cursed energy was staggering. It pressed against the world itself, heavy enough to distort air and fracture concrete. Sukuna had reserves that bordered on infinite, and yet this thing radiated more.
It was not just Mahito. It was Mahito perfected.
Sukuna exhaled once, slowly. Then his body shifted, his skin darkening, tattoos crawling across his arms and torso. A second pair of arms erupted from his sides. His full Heian-era form manifested, the true King of Curses revealed in his entirety.
The ground shook as the two titans faced one another.
And then a faint third voice cut across the silence.
"Guess I showed up just in time."
A wave of cursed energy exploded across the boulevard, tearing through abandoned skyscrapers like paper.
Hollow Purple.
Not the usual rushed job, but a full incantation unleashed from Beijing a veil, boosted through Utahime and Gakuganji's technique.
It drew 200% of it's potential out.
Gojo Satoru had launched it from across the district, and it was already devouring space as it surged toward them.
Sukuna smiled, baring sharp teeth, and raised all four arms in unison, his energy condensing to brace the impact.
Mahito simply raised one clawed, exoskeleton-covered hand and clenched his fist.
The very ground rippled, folding upward like liquid. The pavement itself buckled and surged, pushing Sukuna forward into the oncoming blast.
Mahito leapt lightly above it, insect-like wings of burning cursed energy unfurling from his back.
The Hollow Purple crashed into the city. The explosion swallowed blocks of Shinjuku, pulverizing buildings, tearing through towers, leaving a scar across the district.
When the smoke cleared, Sukuna stepped from the rubble, his robes torn and smoldering but his body intact, healed already by reverse cursed energy. His grin had not faded.
Above, Mahito was intercepted mid-air.
Gojo teleported into his path, his foot snapping upward to smash into Mahito's head. The impact cracked the air itself, sending the curse plummeting into the ground at speeds that broke sound.
The streets shattered as he landed.
Gojo descended smoothly afterward, his body outlined by the lingering light of Hollow Purple. He wore a black compression shirt that clung to his frame, the fabric stretched over a body honed to lethal perfection. Loose black pants and shoes grounded his stride.
He landed opposite Mahito.
Mahito rose slowly from the crater, brushing dust from his shoulder as if he had only tripped. The wings folded back into arms. His purple eyes locked onto Gojo with something like amusement.
Gojo's own expression shifted faintly.
'He looked straight at me whole I kicked him... He could have blocked it easily.'
His foot still tingled. That kick had felt like striking iron, not flesh. The body might have looked humanoid, but Mahito was not bound by human biology any longer.
Sukuna stepped closer from the rubble, his aura flaring with anticipation.
The three of them faced one another now, silent for the span of a heartbeat.
The strongest of curses. The strongest of sorcerers. And the strongest of an era past.
The first clash had begun.