At the center of the chaos stood Mahito, cracked mask half-broken, six arms twitching as if impatient to carve the world apart.
Behind him, the golden wheel turned once more with a heavy grind, a sound that seemed to ripple through the flesh-like walls of his expansion.
Gojo and Sukuna had narrowly forced themselves just outside the writhing limits of Mahito's domain, both of them burned, cut, and battered, yet far from finished.
Gojo's sharp voice cut through the chaos. "Sukuna! His domain is not just his soul. He has an anchor inside his body, a core. Small enough to slip past your slashes earlier. We have to break it!"
Sukuna's crimson eyes burned with interest, even as blood traced his jaw. "Hoh. Took you a while to find it... What a stupid trick."
Mahito's laughter echoed from the flames. "Call it a trick if you like, but if either of you faced me alone, you'd already be dead... And even if you find it, you cannot destroy it so easily. It is part of my soul. Even your precious Six Eyes cannot erase that truth."
Gojo ignored him, speaking directly to Sukuna, his gaze locked upon the faint distortion inside Mahito's chest. "We hit that spot, and we end his domain, end him. Nothing else matters."
The King of Curses grinned, his four arms flexing as cursed energy surged around him. "Then I will carve it apart."
The battlefield quaked as both legends moved at once. Gojo extended his hand, cursed energy spiraling into crimson light. Cursed Technique Reversal: Red.
The orb launched forward, space itself repelling in a violent wave. The air ripped apart, magma fountains collapsing into nothing as the blast carved through the battlefield toward Mahito.
Simultaneously, Sukuna raised his arms high and slashed through the horizon. Dismantle.
Invisible blades screamed through the molten air, targeted directly at the point Gojo had revealed. Each cut was precise, surgical, far deadlier than the wild destruction his Shrine had unleashed.
Mahito countered with the landscape itself. The ground erupted in quakes, magma surged upward like tidal waves, and lightning speared downward in chaotic arcs. Yet none of it touched the two titans.
Gojo's Infinityflared, shimmering like glass around them. Every strike rebounded, magma streams split, and lightning bent away into the air. Even Sukuna was shielded within that untouchable barrier, his slashes passing outward, but nothing coming in.
For the first time, Mahito's grin faltered. The two strongest had fully aligned themselves against him.
"Annoying," Mahito muttered, six arms spreading. He dashed through Gojo's Red, taking the brunt of the blast, his exoskeleton cracking but holding. The golden wheel groaned again. Slashes from Sukuna bit deep, carving lines across his chest and arms, yet blood did not fall. His flesh sealed instantly, the wounds closing even as they formed.
Sukuna's eyes narrowed. His slashes were doing less.
Gojo saw it too, and his jaw tightened. "He is adapting faster."
Sukuna's thoughts sharpened. 'The longer this goes on, the less chance I have. I must destroy him in one strike.'
His four arms spread wide, cursed energy blazing. The air itself ignited as he prepared the chant. "Open…"
Divine Flame.
From his hands formed an arrow of fire, its power dwarfing Disaster Flame's greatest conflagrations. The flames churned with divine fury, a weapon of annihilation forged to incinerate a single target.
Mahito's grin returned, deranged and giddy."Cute~ Wonder if I should let you charge that up~"
At the same time, Gojo's hands drew together, cursed energy folding inward and outward at once. Blue and Red spiraled into one another, purple light beginning to glow between his fingers.
Hollow Purple.
Both were aiming to end it in a single, overwhelming strike.
The spectators back at Jujutsu High leaned forward as one. Yuta's voice was almost a whisper. "They are both going for a killing blow…"
Mei Mei's silver hair glinted in the light of the screens. "This is not cooperation. This is desperation."
But neither strike would land.
The ground beneath Sukuna split, and from the pool of shadows erupted a colossal white serpent. Its scales glistened like bone, its maw yawning wide enough to swallow a building.
Orochi.
The Great Snake Shikigami surged upward, coiling around Sukuna in an instant. Its jaws snapped shut, swallowing the King of Curses whole before dragging him into the shadows below. His Divine Flame extinguished with a roar, consumed alongside him.
Sukuna's bellow echoed from underground as he hacked his way through the serpent's flesh, slashes tearing it apart from within. But before he could break free, the serpent collapsed into a pool of shadows, slipping out of reach.
And in its place came thunder.
A gigantic bull charged forward, its body black as midnight, its horns glowing with the build-up of immense energy.
Piercing Ox.
It had been stockpiling power in the distance, and now released it all at once. Its horns struck Sukuna the instant he emerged from the ground, the impact sending him flying, blood erupting from his chest in a spray that painted the molten air.
Even Sukuna staggered, his body nearly torn in half.
"Impossible…" Kusakabe muttered at the monitor. "It hit Sukuna that hard?"
Mei Mei's voice was colder still. "Mahito is weaponizing the Ten Shadows better than even its true owner could."
On the field, Sukuna collapsed to one knee, coughing blood. For now, he was out of the fight.
That left only Gojo, who was also interrupted by a stream of water coming out of the snout of a gigantic pink elephant sticking its head out of the molten buildings nearby.
Max Elephant
The water immediately came in between the red and the blue, pulling them apart forcefully with sheer volume, interrupting the powerful blow.
Gojo did not hesitate. He surged forward, Infinity blazing as he cut through water, his incomplete domain shimmering faintly around him, eliminating the sure-hit effect of Mahito's domain.
Normally, invoking such a defense would nullify his technique, but his Six Eyes guided him beyond limits. He kept both incomplete domain and technique active, shielding himself from magma, water, lightning, and crushing terrain.
Mahito met him head-on.
The two collided in a blur of fists and kicks.
Gojo lashed out with a roundhouse kick straight for Mahito's jaw, which was easily blocked, with Mahito sending two gigantic punches right into Gojo's head.
But neither one landed, both stopping just short of hitting him.
'Infinity... How annoying...' Mahito grunted as he immediately sidestepped an elbow from Gojo, who immediately turned it into a spinning back fist, landing right on Mahito's temple, but doing no damage at all.
He will only tilt his head due to it, and spartan kick Gojo right in the chest, only managing to slightly push him back alongside his infinity.
The sheer strength behind that spartan kick would have killed everyone, but Gojo had the strongest defence around.
Mahito's punches continued to hammer Gojo's guard, each one stronger than the last.
Gojo's kicks sent shockwaves through molten stone, his counters flowing seamlessly from defense to offense.
Yet none of Mahito's strikes landed cleanly. Infinity warped their trajectories, blows redirected, force dispersed.
Mahito adapted. His domain pulsed, and suddenly his arms shimmered with a strange glow. He formed claws and dug into Gojo's Infinity, his body coated in his own domain...
Domain Amplification.
"Impossible," Yuki whispered as she watched. "Inside a domain already…?"
The fight between the three strongest was just absurd to witness; there were just no rules that the three wouldn't or couldn't break.
Mahito's fist slammed into Gojo's gut.
Black Flash.
Reality twisted as the strike connected perfectly, cursed energy detonating with absolute precision. Gojo staggered, blood spraying from his lips as he was sent flying.
Mahito reeled back, preparing to follow up, his arm turning into a gigantic spiked whip. But he never got the chance to use it.
The ground behind him split open, shadows parting violently. From within erupted Sukuna, eyes blazing, fury incarnate. His fist crashed into Mahito's side.
Black Flash.
The impact sent Mahito skidding, his exoskeleton cracking wide. Before he could recover, Sukuna's hand gripped his torso. His voice was low, dripping with murderous intent.
"Die here. Spiderweb."
A variation of Cleave erupted from Sukuna's hand, cursed energy unraveling outward in an intricate lattice. It ignored defense, ignored adaptation, slicing through everything it touched.
Mahito's body convulsed as the cuts spread across him, lines forming across his chest, arms, and legs. His golden wheel spun wildly, shrieking as cracks spidered across its surface.
Alas, he had only adapted to Dismantles prior; he had only tasted Cleave briefly within Sukuna's domain. It was not enough.
Then, with a sound like glass breaking, something inside of him shattered.
The fleshy 'walls' of his domain collapsed inward, magma spilling back into silence, lightning sputtering into darkness. The expansion was undone.
For the first time since the battle began, Mahito's domain was gone.
The monitors at Jujutsu High fell silent. Every sorcerer watching sat frozen, unable to breathe.
Back on the battlefield, Mahito's body slumped, bringing itself back together already. But new stitches remained on his body, left by wounds within his soul that glowed faintly with cursed energy.
He grinned still, blood dripping from his jaw. But his world had been destroyed.
And yet...
"Took you both a while."
He was far from done.