"Yo! Name's Gojo Satoru-"
Ichigo swung.
He put his full weight into it, both arms driving the blade through the space where the white-haired stranger stood, intent sharp and absolute.
Nothing happened.
The man did not move.
Hands still in his pockets. Posture relaxed. That same irritatingly carefree smile fixed in place, as if Ichigo's attack were something passing weather rather than a killing stroke.
Ichigo felt it then.
Resistance.
Not impact. Not deflection.
His blade was slowing.
Not abruptly, not enough to be obvious at first, but unmistakably so. The closer the edge came to the man's body, the heavier it felt, as though it were cutting through something thick and invisible. The velocity bled away exponentially, each fraction of distance costing more effort than the last.
Ichigo's eyes narrowed.
He didn't force it.
He vanished.
The space where he stood collapsed inward as he storm stepped away, reappearing several meters back in a blur of displaced air and pressure. The movement was sharp, decisive, practiced.
The white-haired man whistled.
Gojo Satoru tilted his head slightly, still smiling. "You're fast, alright."
His hands were still in his pockets.
Ichigo scowled.
Biggest weirdo I've ever seen, he thought.
And that's saying something.
Kenpachi still held the crown, but this guy was making a serious attempt at the throne.
Ichigo's mind raced.
This wasn't new territory for him. He'd spent a year of his life doing nothing but fighting blind. Training in the Dangai had forced him to think beyond instincts, beyond brute force. He'd learned how to read pressure, intent, absence. How to feel for rules instead of reacting to attacks.
And this guy was all rules.
A barrier, Ichigo realized. Not a wall. Something that interferes with motion itself.
Gojo blurred.
One moment he was standing there, smiling at Ichigo, the next he was directly in front of Sukuna.
"Sorry," Gojo said cheerfully. "I'd love to play with you too."
His hand came up casually.
"But this one's way more interesting right now."
A single, precise strike landed.
Sukuna's body went slack instantly, the manic grin finally disappearing as he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. He hit the rooftop hard and didn't move.
Gojo glanced down at him and waved. "Don't worry. I've got a feeling we'll fight on more equal terms later, King of Curses."
He turned back toward Ichigo.
Ichigo exhaled slowly.
He looked down at the shorter, pale blade in his hand.
It felt… different.
Not weaker, exactly, but more refined. The way it sat in his grip told him everything he needed to know. Knowledge surfaced unbidden, engraved directly into his awareness.
This one doesn't cut like my other one
It cuts control.
Cursed energy itself felt malleable around the blade, responsive in a way the heavier sword wasn't. Manipulation. Interference. Adjustment.
Gojo yawned. "You gonna keep staring, carrot top?"
Ichigo smirked. "Don't get so cocky, gramps."
Gojo opened his mouth—
Ichigo vanished again.
Storm Step snapped reality shut behind him, and he reappeared inside the invisible field. This time, his great sword dissolved out of existence mid-motion, dispersing into drifting motes of energy.
Ichigo didn't question it.
He knew.
If he kept the heavy blade, he'd never use the smaller one properly. It was almost like a promise he made to himself, it felt natural to make such an exchange.
He swung the short sword.
It slowed again.
The resistance pushed back, dense and absolute, threatening to halt the blade entirely. Ichigo grit his teeth and focused, pouring cursed energy into the weapon not as force, but as instruction.
"Umordnung," he muttered.
Ichigo felt it in his teeth first. That metallic tingle you get when lightning's too close. Then in his temples, a sudden tightness, like the air had been cinched into a knot.
Gojo's smile twitched.
"Oh," Gojo said, half amused, half genuinely curious.
Ichigo didn't give him a second "oh."
He moved.
Storm Step wasn't clean. It wasn't elegant. It felt like dragging his own body through syrup while trying to convince the world it was water. The cursed energy inside him lagged, resisted, then jumped forward all at once, and the whiplash made his eyes water.
One moment he was there.
The next, he was right in Gojo's face, close enough to see the texture of Gojo's grin, close enough to smell the faint minty nothing of his breath, close enough to hate him properly. Hate him because he stands in his way.
Ichigo thrust the short blade forward.
The invisible wall that had been eating his momentum for breakfast all day finally behaved like a wall that could be hit. The air in front of Gojo rippled, thickened, and then cracked in a way Ichigo felt more than heard. The sparks he'd thrown out earlier latched onto that distortion like hooks, tugging, snagging, pulling something out of alignment.
Gojo's head tilted a fraction, as if his instincts tried to step in.
Too late. Too off guard.
Ichigo's blade punched into his throat, just beneath the jawline.
Gojo's body jolted.
His grin shattered into a startled, ugly shape, and a wet sound came out of him, not quite a gasp, not quite a choke. His eyes went wide behind the blindfold, and for the first time, the man looked human in the most undignified way possible.
Ichigo drove the blade deeper with his shoulder and hips, leaning into it like he was trying to nail Gojo to the air.
Gojo staggered, hands coming up instinctively, one of them grabbing at Ichigo's wrist, the other flaring out as if he could push the world away on reflex alone.
Ichigo felt the barrier try to reassert itself.
That familiar drag started to creep back in, the way his blade had slowed earlier like it was being forced through invisible molasses.
Ichigo snarled under his breath and pushed more cursed energy through the short sword.
"Umordnung," he thought again, not as a word now, but as an intention.
Reorder. Rewire. Break the rule.
The sparks exploded outward, angry and bright, snapping around Gojo's neck and shoulder like a halo made of shorting cables.
Gojo's grip on Ichigo's wrist spasmed.
He made a sound through clenched teeth that might have been a laugh if it wasn't strangled by the blade lodged in him.
Ichigo yanked the sword out hard and sideways, not letting Gojo have the mercy of a clean withdrawal.
Gojo stumbled back two steps, hand clapped to his throat on instinct, blood running between his fingers. He tried to inhale and the motion came out wrong, broken by pain, the sound scraping through him in a way that made even Megumi, half-sick and barely conscious, flinch.
Ichigo didn't let him breathe.
He closed the gap again, feet gliding forward as his cursed energy surged down into his legs, and he stabbed Gojo straight through the torso.
This one was fast. Surgical. Cruel.
A thrust to the center mass that didn't care about pride or theatrics, only outcomes. Ichigo's arm locked out at full extension, and the impact made Gojo's body jerk as if he'd been punched from the inside.
Gojo's hands flew open for a moment, fingers splayed, shock turning his whole posture loose and unguarded.
Ichigo ripped the blade back out and drove it in again.
And again.
Not into the exact same spot either. He shifted a few inches each time, carving a pattern of violence across Gojo's front like he was trying to teach the barrier a lesson through repetition.
One. Two. Three.
Each strike made Gojo's body react differently. At first it was just recoil, disbelief, the reflexive refusal of his nervous system to accept that he'd been touched at all. Then it became pain, the kind that forces sound out of you whether you want it or not.
Gojo coughed.
It wasn't a neat cough. It was wet and involuntary, spraying red across his lips and chin, spattering the front of his shirt. His laugh tried to come back and got caught in his throat, turning into something ugly and ragged.
Ichigo's face didn't change.
His eyes were flat, intent fixed, and there was a terrifying calm in the way he moved now, like he'd finally found a gear he'd forgotten existed.
The cursed energy around him kept rolling outward, thick enough to make the air feel like it had weight. The rooftop lights were dead, and the only illumination now came from distant city glow and the faint, violent crackle around Ichigo's blade.
Gojo backpedaled, not because he was afraid, but because his body was being forced to respect physics for once.
Ichigo pressed forward.
He stabbed again, the short sword slipping through Gojo's defenses like a needle finding the gap in fabric. Gojo's shoulders twisted. His spine arched slightly. His hand lashed out and grabbed Ichigo's collar, pulling him in close as if proximity could reestablish control.
Their faces were inches apart.
Gojo's grin returned, thin and feral, even as blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
"That's… new," Gojo rasped, voice ruined but delighted, like he'd just tasted something spicy.
Ichigo answered by twisting the blade inside him.
Gojo's body seized. His eyes widened again, the blindfold shifting slightly as his head jerked.
Ichigo ripped the sword free and immediately went for the neck again, a clean line aimed to finish the conversation permanently.
Gojo reacted at the last instant.
Not with the barrier, not with calm, but with a raw physical move, ducking and twisting his shoulders so the blade grazed rather than buried. It still tore him open, still left red streaking down his throat and collarbone, but it didn't stop him.
Gojo kicked.
The kick hit Ichigo in the ribs with a sharp, brutal force that sent him skidding backward across the rooftop, shoes scraping against concrete, his heels catching on a crack. Pain blossomed across his side, old injuries complaining, but his cursed energy surged and kept him upright.
Gojo stood there swaying slightly, one hand still at his throat, the other dropping back into his pocket as if he couldn't bear to look uncool for more than three seconds.
Then he laughed.
It came out wrong.
Blood bubbled with it, the sound wet and ruined, but the laugh itself was unmistakably his. Bright. Unhinged. Thrilled.
He reached up with his free hand and hooked two fingers under his blindfold.
Ichigo's eyes narrowed. He had seen arrogance before. He'd lived alongside it. Kenpachi's grin, Byakuya's cold certainty, Aizen's serene superiority.
But Gojo's arrogance was different. It wasn't icy. It was casual. Like the world had never once made him pay for it.
Gojo slid the blindfold up.
His eyes were revealed.
Those eyes didn't look human. Not because they were monstrous, but because they were too awake. Too bright. Too aware. Like the concept of distance and direction and possibility all lived inside them.
Veins stood out on Gojo's forehead, pulsing. The skin around his eyes tightened. His smile remained, but it didn't hide the anger underneath anymore. It sat on top of it like a mask that had been cracked.
His wounds were already closing.
Ichigo watched it happen in real time. Flesh knitting. The bleeding slowing, then stopping, as if the body itself had decided it was embarrassed to stay injured. Even the ragged tear at his throat began to tighten shut, leaving angry red lines instead of open damage.
Ichigo's grip on his short sword tightened.
He didn't like that.
Gojo wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, glanced at it like it was mildly inconvenient, then looked up at Ichigo with unmistakable delight.
"Wow," Gojo said, voice still rough, still scraping around the damage that was almost gone. "No one's managed to do that to me in a while."
He took a slow step forward, smile widening again, but now it had teeth in it.
"You know, I'm gonna kill you now, right?" Gojo let out a sigh
"This is so annoying! Why did you have to do that huh!? You could've been my cute student." Gojo muttered a "whatever" at the end of his charade.
His outburst only solidified what a weirdo he was in ichigo's mind.
"Alright, bye bye carrot top," Gojo crossed his index and middle finger together.
"Domain Expansion: Infinite void."