Deep beneath Shibuya.
The abandoned railway tracks twisted like the innards of a giant beast, with damp, moldy patches spreading across concrete pillars. The air was heavy, thick with the stench of rust, dust, and a faint trace of blood.
Plop.
A viscous droplet seeped from a cracked pipe, hitting the ground with a hollow echo in the dead silence.
"Well, well, well…" A light, almost bored voice shattered the stillness.
Mahito sat cross-legged on the edge of the cold, filthy tracks, one hand propping up his cheek, the other idly toying with a warped chunk of concrete.
His face, crisscrossed with stitches, showed less sorrow and more the expression of someone tallying up a pile of unwanted toys.
"Dogen's gone, Hanami's gone, Jogo too…" He tilted his head, the stitches pulling into a smirk that wasn't quite a smile. "Oh, wait, Jogo's still kicking? Barely. Probably nabbed by those sorcerers, though."
He pursed his lips, the concrete fragment crumbling into finer dust between his fingers. "Bet he won't last much longer either."
Suddenly, he froze, turning his head. His heterochromatic eyes locked onto a figure standing silently in the shadows.
"By the way, who was that white-haired guy, Kenjaku?"
In the shadows, Kenjaku, dressed in tattered monk robes with a half-draped kesa, slowly opened his eyes.
The usual knowing smile on his face was gone, replaced by a deep, heavy solemnity, like ink that refused to dissolve.
His narrow eyes narrowed further, his gaze piercing the darkness as if trying to see something—or someone—not present.
"Nero…" Kenjaku's voice was low, laced with unprecedented doubt and confusion. "Neon's hottest celebrity these past couple of years…"
He slowly raised a hand, his fingers unconsciously fidgeting with the hem of his robe—a subtle sign of his inner turmoil.
"A complete 'ordinary' human. No record, in any intelligence, connects him to curse energy or techniques." His voice paused, a cold absurdity seeping into his words. "He's just… a singer. A celebrity."
Mahito's eyes widened dramatically, the stitches on his face stretching as if they might tear. "Huh?! An ordinary human?!" He burst into laughter, his body trembling as he tried to stifle it, like he'd just heard the world's funniest joke. "Ordinary enough to slice through Sukuna's 'Malevolent Shrine' with one swing? Ordinary enough to force the King of Curses back into that Itadori kid's body?"
He leaned closer to Kenjaku, his mismatched eyes glinting with eerie light in the dimness. "Come on, Kenjaku, that's not even a funny joke! We're talking about Sukuna with fifteen fingers! His domain was unleashed! And some 'ordinary human'… shattered it with brute force?! *What?!*"
Mahito threw his hands up, leaning back with a tone dripping with absurd mockery.
Kenjaku remained unmoved by the theatrics.
He stayed silent, a swirling fog of uncertainty clouding his eyes.
A millennium of experience and carefully laid plans seemed to teeter on the edge of collapse before this sudden variable.
Nero… that face, perfect as if crafted by a god, that radiant figure on stage, and the blue blade of light that tore through everything in Shibuya's sky—those images clashed and reassembled wildly in his mind.
"His power…" Kenjaku's voice was slow, deliberate, as if chewing on an incomprehensible concept, "is not curse energy, nor reverse cursed technique. It's something… purer, more absolute. A will that transcends space itself."
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze seeming to pierce through layers of concrete to the flattened, mirror-smooth plain above ground—a terrifying testament to that power.
"Sukuna's domain was negated by him. All its rules, all its slashes, were obliterated before that blade's light. That plain…" Kenjaku's tone carried a rare, almost imperceptible trace of wariness and… confusion. "It's undeniable proof of his power and a humiliating mark of Sukuna's domain being utterly nullified."
"Negating Sukuna's domain…" Mahito's mocking grin faded, replaced by a twisted expression of shock and morbid excitement. He licked his lips, as if savoring the taste of extreme danger. "That's… incredible! So twisted! So fun!!"
He shot to his feet, his eyes blazing with pure, reckless madness. "A soul like that! An existence like that! If I could touch his soul… twist it, reshape it…"
"Mahito." Kenjaku's icy voice cut through his feverish ravings like a poisoned icicle, piercing Mahito's heated delusions.
Mahito froze mid-motion.
"Don't be foolish." Kenjaku slowly turned his head, his narrowed eyes radiating an unmasked, chilling warning, like stagnant water rising from a thousand-year-old abyss. "He is the greatest 'variable' outside our plans. An existence capable of absolute conceptual annihilation."
Kenjaku's gaze locked onto Mahito, each word heavy as a mountain. "Before your 'Idle Transfiguration' can touch him, your soul—along with the very space you occupy—will be utterly 'severed.' There's no adapting to that."
"…" Mahito's excitement froze solid.
Staring into Kenjaku's unprecedented gravity and warning, he felt, for the first time, a chilling dread from the depths of his soul.
That white-haired man… a true monster, even Kenjaku found troublesome?
"So… what do we do now?" Mahito asked instinctively, his voice carrying a tremor he didn't even notice.
Kenjaku was silent for a few seconds, his gaze drifting into the impenetrable darkness of the tunnel, as if searching for a new path.
"The variable has emerged, and the situation is in chaos." His voice regained a cold calm, yet carried an undeniable edge. "The plan needs adjustment. We need to…"
His words were cut off.
Buzz—
A faint ripple, like a dragonfly skimming water, spread silently at the entrance to the underground space.
Fast!
Faster than perception could grasp!
Mahito's mismatched pupils shrank to pinpoints!
A primal, soul-deep chill—like a prey animal locked in the sights of an apex predator—engulfed him instantly!
He didn't even have time to think!
His body reacted on pure instinct!
Crack! Rip!
The sounds of twisting bones and tearing flesh erupted!
Mahito's entire body contorted like clay crushed by an invisible hand, his upper half bending backward at an angle defying human anatomy!
At the same time, his legs ballooned and morphed into massive, translucent, twisted wings!
In that same split second—
Slash!
A faint, razor-thin blue mark, like the silent smile of death, appeared exactly where Mahito's head had been a moment ago!
The blade mark hung in the air, slicing the dim light cleanly in two!
Its edges were smooth as a mirror, radiating a soul-freezing intent of severance!
The mark vanished as quickly as it appeared, as if it had never been.
"Hah… hah…" Mahito's warped, insect-like body trembled violently, cold sweat and involuntary tears streaming down his stitched face.
That brush with death left half his human-like face twitching with uncontrollable fear.
Just a fraction of a second…
Just a hair's breadth!
His head, along with the core of his soul, would've been sliced to pieces like that trash Choso!
He stiffly turned his one functioning eye to where Kenjaku had stood.
Empty.
Only a faint, nearly invisible ripple of distorted space remained, like the final wave on a calming pond.
Kenjaku… fled?
The moment that monster appeared, he abandoned Mahito without hesitation and escaped alone?!
A surge of absurd humiliation and betrayal flooded Mahito's mind, overwhelming his fear!
"Kenjaku—!!!" Mahito roared with all his strength, his distorted throat squeezing out a furious, warped scream filled with venom and disbelief. He'd been used as bait?!
"I found you, Mahito."
A flat, emotionless voice, like an icy hammer of judgment, shattered the dark silence and rang Mahito's death knell.
Mahito's massive, insect-like body froze, as if petrified.
He turned his head, stiffly, inch by inch.
At the tunnel's entrance, faintly outlined by the dim red glow of emergency lights, stood a figure.
Snow-white hair glimmered faintly in the absolute darkness, radiating a cold halo.
Gaio stood there quietly, his right hand resting casually on the hilt of an ancient-looking long sword at his waist.
His deep, ocean-like eyes were calm, gazing at Mahito like he was looking at… substandard trash in a lab, awaiting disposal.
"No, no! You can't kill me!!"
Mahito's warped, insect-like body spasmed wildly, the stitched half of his human face contorting with abject terror!
He'd never felt such cold, pure malice—not the shadowy malice of curses, but something higher, a negation from the very level of existence!
His soul's core, that chaotic mass born from humanity's purest malice, trembled and shrank, like a flame cast into absolute zero!
"A curse that twists souls…" Gaio looked at him, his eyes unwavering. "…is the most unrecyclable garbage."
The moment his words fell—
Buzz!
His hand, resting on the hilt of the Enma Blade, moved!
No earth-shaking sword draw, no surging curse energy, not even a single extraneous motion!
Just a casual flick of his wrist!
Clang!
The Enma Blade was unsheathed!
In the faint light of the tunnel's emergency lamps, the blade traced a cold, barely perceptible blue arc! As it sliced through the air, it left behind ripples of collapsing space!
Slash! Slash! Slash!
Gaio's wrist moved so fast it was a blur! He swung the Enma Blade through the air before him, as casually as brushing off dust!
No trajectory! No warning!
Mahito's frenzied writhing, his attempt to reshape his body with "Idle Transfiguration," froze in place!
His massive, grotesque insect body, along with the seething core of malice in his soul, was instantly captured by an invisible, absolute will of severance!
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop—!!!
A maddening barrage of slicing sounds erupted from every inch of his body, every corner of his soul!
This wasn't a physical cut!
It was space itself rejecting his existence!
The very foundation of his being was coldly, precisely, like pruning dead branches—severed and stripped away!
Mahito's consciousness plunged into absolute nothingness. He felt no "pain"—that was for the living.
What he felt was his "existence" being erased, piece by piece, thread by thread.
His mismatched eyes, nearly bursting with terror, lost all focus, leaving only blank despair.
The stitches on his face lost all tension, sagging like a discarded, broken ragdoll.
Gaio didn't spare him a final glance.
Rip!
The Enma Blade sliced downward through the air at his side, then flicked upward! A blue, cross-shaped spatial rift opened instantly, its edges shimmering with star-like specks, leading to the cold night sky outside.
Gaio stepped toward the portal.
Just as half his body was about to disappear into the cross of light, he paused.
He didn't turn back.
He only tilted his face slightly.
His icy gaze seemed to pierce through the thick concrete, through countless ruins and underground structures, pinning an insidious presence lurking in the depths like a parasite.
"Kenjaku."
Gaio's voice echoed clearly in the tunnel, not loud, but carrying a chill that froze the very space, each word striking like an icicle into the soul.
"Don't bother me."
The portal's glow illuminated half his perfect profile, his words dripping with utter indifference.
"I'm not interested in your little games."
"Including that… Deadman's Game of yours."
Gaio's tone was flat.
"I won't stop Sukuna from regaining his full power."
The corner of his mouth twitched upward ever so slightly—not a smile, but a deeper, mocking disdain, as if looking down on struggling ants.
"But—"
His tone shifted sharply!
A formless, star-shattering will descended! The air in the underground space froze instantly! Even the dripping water from distant pipes hung suspended in midair!
"If you bother me…"
"Or anyone close to me…"
Gaio's figure fully merged into the blue cross of light, his final, bone-chilling words crashing into Kenjaku's consciousness like an invisible Sword of Damocles!
"I'll cut you down."
The cross-shaped rift collapsed instantly, vanishing along with the white-haired figure, as if he'd never been there.
All that remained in the tunnel's depths was Mahito's massive, motionless insect body.
Crack… crack crack…
Countless faint, blue cracks, like crazed ice patterns on porcelain, spread across every inch of his form!
The next second—
Crash—!!!
Like a sandcastle toppled over.
Mahito's special-grade cursed body, forged from humanity's malice, along with his twisted soul core, silently crumbled into billions of faintly glowing blue specks, vanishing without a trace in the dead silence of the underground tunnel.