The interior of the magnificent, opulent halls of the Chaosflame Castle was completely abandoned.
Even the bottom floor was a jumble of shattered glass, cracked walls, and fallen paintings.
However, as the trio began their ascent up one of the spiraling central staircases, the true scope of the devastation became frighteningly clear.
"Yeesh, watch where you're walking, guys."
Al kicked a piece of debris that had fallen from the steps and gave Abel and Medium a straightforward warning.
"Will do!" Medium spoke quickly.
While he was certain that this warning should only be applied to Abel at the time, and honestly, to himself as well, Medium did not appear to be offended in any way.
"The whole damn castle is in ruins. One wrong sneeze and this place will fall on our heads.
"The structural integrity of the lower levels is intact and easily navigable——the castle's foundation is not the primary problem. The dangers are above; Yorna Mishigure appeared to have detonated the castle's highest floor in an attempt to defeat whoever she was fighting against."
Abel watched his surroundings and spoke in the same calm tone that he usually uses.
"That was undoubtedly a 'failed attempt,' in my opinion, then…"
Al muttered with a shake of his head as the entire castle trembled from another powerful strike before finally ceasing.
Abel's eyes twitched in recognition, narrowing at the absence of muffled fighting.
"We must move faster."
As they climbed past the third floor, the castle's opulence and maneuverability quickly deteriorated into a literal war zone.
The luxurious vermillion carpets were burned to ashes. Tapestries smoldered on the walls, and the air became oppressive, suffocatingly hot.
The stairs themselves had become treacherous. Entire sections of the stone steps vanished, blown away by the shockwaves of the battle on the rooftop.
"Dead end!"
At the edge of a huge, gaping chasm where the fourth-floor landing once stood, Medium called out. The staircase had collapsed completely, creating a twenty-foot vertical drop into the burning rubble below.
"Great. Just perfect!"
Al sighed, resting his single hand on his hip and peering over the edge.
"Unless either of you suddenly grew wings, I believe this is the end of the tour. The boss over here isn't exactly dressed for parkour, and I can't scale that with just one arm."
Medium just hummed, following the uneven remnants of the walls with her eyes. The sensation of energy coursing through her veins persisted even after the fighting stopped.
"Don't worry, I'll just throw you both up!"
Medium chirped cheerfully as she sheathed her twin blades and approached the helmeted man.
Al took a deliberate step backward.
"Whoa, wait a second, crazy lady——"
Medium grabbed Al by the back of his collar, lifted him like a rag doll, and literally threw him over the twenty-foot distance before he could object any more.
"Gwaaaah!"
Al shrieked, his metal helmet clattering violently as he collided with the upper landing and skidded across the ash-covered floor.
Medium dusted her hands and turned to Abel with a hopeful smile.
"It's your turn, Abel!"
Abel stared at her through his mask. For a long, silent moment, the former Emperor of Vollachia stood motionless.
He glanced at the sheer drop, then at the bubbly, impossibly strong merchant.
"I will climb——" Abel said flatly.
"Haha! Don't be stubborn now, as you said earlier, we're in a hurry!"
Without waiting for his permission, Medium scooped up the exiled emperor under his armpits. Abel's eyes widened behind his mask, and a rare sound of genuine indignation escaped his throat as Medium launched him through the air as if he were a feather.
Al moaned next to him as he landed with a heavy thud on the upper floor, his clothes blowing out in a mess of ash.
A second later, Medium leaped the chasm with ease and landed lightly on her feet.
"See? Easy!"
"I could have you put to death for that."
Abel muttered as he violently dusted the ash from his robes and slowly stood up.
Al's muffled laughter was entirely ignored by him.
"Maybe save the death threats for later, boss."
Al sat up and pointed his cutlass forward as he spoke quickly.
"——Look."
They had arrived at the highest accessible floor——or at least what remained of it.
There was no longer a ceiling. Bloodflame Castle's top had been sheared off entirely. The sky above them was filled with falling golden embers and dense smoke.
The walls of the corridor had melted outward, the stone turned to glowing, viscous slag from the sheer heat of Yorna's desperate attack.
Chunks of architecture floated in the air, defying gravity thanks to the Mother of Chaosflame's residual, chaotic technique.
If they got too close to the flames and molten material, the air would blister their skin.
But it wasn't just the heat that tightened Al's grip on his sword——it was the suffocating, sickening miasma seeping down from the roof.
It was like standing on the edge of an open grave.
"It makes the most sense to assume that a Sin Archbishop is up there as well if a group of cultists attacked this location."
Al stated this in a grave tone before shifting his gaze downward to search for a way up.
Abel stepped to the edge of the melted stone staircase that led to the ruined roof.
"——We move forward regardless of what is up there; the revolution's future is in jeopardy."
His dark eyes reflected the crimson glow of the city's raging fires.
"And the best course of action, if it is a Sin Archbishop of the Witch's Cult, is execution——with immediate effect."
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Satoru Gojo finally let out a short breath as he instantly dispatched the last cultist his senses could pick up in the surrounding area.
The only place that might still harbor any remaining cultists was the Chaosflame Castle.
He could see Yorna Mishigure fighting in the smoke and flames on the far side of the city through the haze, which was an obvious indication that she was at least still alive.
However, it appeared that she was having difficulty. Which meant that whoever she was fighting must have been fairly strong.
But that didn't matter.
He would help her.
"———"
And yet, he found himself looking up at the sky for a few long seconds.
He found what he looked at to be rather ugly.
The cloudless sky above had been covered by dense smoke, throwing a gloomy curtain over the entire city——a terrible contradiction to Chaosflame's intended purpose.
A light. A beacon of light for those who live within it as well as those who have been abandoned by the rest of society.
This wouldn't have happened if I were here.
If I had arrived sooner.
I could have run just a little faster. Saved one more life.
But I didn't.
I could've prevented——
"Tch."
Gojo simply shook his head and shifted his sight from the sky until he noticed the six eyes drawn toward movement approaching in his peripheral vision.
From the dim light of the damaged alleyways had come a small, battered group. A woman holding a crying child, an old beastman resting heavily on a splintered staff, and demi-humans with soot-stained fur were among them. They were shaking. Instead of being afraid of the gray-robed corpses that littered the street, they were filled with awe and reverence that was solely focused on him.
The old beastman fell to his knees slowly.
"Thank you..." the old man's voice cracked, thick with exhaustion and tears. "You saved us... you saved my family. We owe you our lives..."
"Hey, hey, easy there, Gramps——kneeling is bad for the joints, you know? Especially at your age." Gojo said, his voice coming out a bit more strained than he intended.
"Are you... are you a Great Spirit?" the woman asked, clutching her child closer.
Her eyes searched his, desperate for a reason to believe in the impossible.
"Sent by the Mother?"
"Me? A Spirit? Nah~ just an unfortunate tourist who got lost and decided to do some community service. Nothing so fancy."
The others did the same, as if a dam had burst. They fell to their knees, sobbing uncontrollably, and offered the white-haired anomaly, who had dismantled the Witch Cult with relative ease, broken prayers and heartfelt words of thanks.
Gojo remained motionless. His infinity was active, preventing smoke and ash from getting on his uniform, but it was unable to block out their voices.
He was fed every minute detail by the Six Eyes, including the precise chemical makeup of their tears, the frantic, relieved rhythm of their heartbeats, and the complete sincerity of their appreciation.
He felt a physical ache in his chest.
His fingernails dug painfully into the palms of his hands, which were concealed deep inside his pockets, and he clenched his jaw.
He was unable to hear it. He did not want their prayers, nor did he want their tears. Because Satoru Gojo didn't really care about them, the ugly, rotten truth was eating away at the back of his mind. He was unaware of their names. He had no interest in their lives or their hardships.
The only reason he was standing here, covered in the ash of a foreign world, was because the one person who had ever mattered cursed his soul.
Every sincere 'thank you' was like a needle piercing his chest.
"...Are you alright?" the old man whispered, looking up with shaking eyes when the white-haired savior remained silent for too long. "Lord... Savior? You look so..."
"So what? Too handsome for this lighting?" Gojo interrupted, tilting his head with a smirk.
Why did they have to look at him like that? Just why?
It was a stark reminder that he was a fraud——a god playing a part, going through the motions of a savior to atone for the most important life he couldn't save.
Just a few days prior, he recalled strolling these same streets with Tanza.
With her customary stiff, formal pride, she had shown him the charm of this chaotic place. He had played the part of the eccentric traveler, made jokes about the food, and lamented the heat. The people he had shared space with were now corpses or sobbing wrecks, and the stalls they had passed were splinters.
The thick, constricting lump in Gojo's throat was swallowed. He made his lips curl upward at the corners.
The bright, haughty, invincible smile that the world expected of Satoru Gojo was painted on the mask by him.
"Whoa, whoa, hey now! No need for all that!"
Gojo spoke up, his voice abruptly light, vivacious, and completely free of the crushing grief that was tearing him apart on the inside.
He dismissively waved a hand, but he purposefully avoided looking into their tear-filled eyes by keeping his eyes fixed just above their heads.
"Stand up, stand up! You're gonna get your knees all dirty, and I didn't just clean out the trash so you could ruin your clothes! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get bloodstains out of fabric? It's a nightmare, trust me!"
The abrupt, immature change in his manner completely confused the civilians, who blinked and shared glances.
"But... the people who attacked..." the woman started.
"Gone! Poof! Deleted!" Gojo made a playful whisking motion with his fingers. "I'm a professional, remember? You guys just worry about finding some water and staying put as a group, if there are any still hiding, I doubt they'd be able to hurt you with how you all are right now anyway."
But the overwhelming aura of safety he projected was absolute, and slowly they began to rise to their feet.
"Y-Yes... of course," a woman sobbed, wiping her face. "Thank you. Truly, from the bottom of our hearts..."
"Yeah, yeah, you're welcome!"
Gojo's smile was brittle, like glass that could break at the slightest pressure.
He suddenly turned his back on them and faced the Bloodflame Castle in the distance, where the smoke was rising and the red flashes were coming from.
"But it looks like the big boss is still making a mess up there. You all should stay together. I'll take care of the rest. Don't go wandering off, or I'll have to charge you extra for the rescue!"
He didn't wait for more praise that he didn't deserve. He couldn't handle it.
Then, in a flash of blue light, he stopped being in the street and appeared hundreds of feet in the air, standing on nothing.
I'll save them. I'll keep them all. Are you... looking?
The wind blew through his white hair, and for a second, the mask came off. His brow furrowed, and he let out a single, sharp breath. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated grief for a bunch of people he didn't care about.
"Because I'm not too sure I want you to be... watching this version of me, Suguru."
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The roof had transformed into a furnace, where the Mother of Chaosflame's blazing would defy all of the laws of physics.
Capella's shouts were harsh, contrasting with the continuous thoom-thoom-thoom of exploding bricks.
Every time a piece of the Bloodflame Castle, which contained Yorna's soul, struck the archbishop, it produced a concentrated flash of solar-hot mana.
Capella's body was charred to a charcoal husk, and the flesh peeled off in moist, boiling ribbons. The cursed regeneration forces her to return to life.
"Gah——! Hah! You... do you believe this means anything?!"
Capella's voice was a slimy gurgle; her throat repeatedly knitted shut despite the heat burning it open again.
"It's boring! It's repetitive! You're just a stagnant, boring piece of meat!"
Yorna did not respond. Instead, she summoned a dozen more jagged fragments from the castle's spire to drop down.
"If you're going to be a stubborn bitch, I'll just change the game!"
Abruptly, Capella's physique changed so drastically that hot blood spurted outward.
The young Prisca's figure, the face Yorna loved so much, vanished in an instant.
The flesh tore down the center, and a swarm of black wings sprang from the child's scorched remnants.
Hundreds of little, crow-like creatures with human eyes emerged from the explosion, fluttering frantically to evade Yorna's fire.
They reconvened fifty feet away, spinning into a horrible vortex of meat and feathers until Capella reverted to her original childish shape.
"Ugh, that skin was starting to smell really overcooked anyway. You really have no sense of 'fine dining,' do you, meat-scrap?"
Yorna pulled Meili closer to her side, her eyes never leaving the Archbishop.
"You speak of dining while you are the one being consumed. A curious delusion."
Capella hissed in displeasure; there was no doubt that Yorna's words and actions had long gone beyond merely 'annoying'.
But before a conflict between the two of them could resume, an unknown high-pitched voice broke the tension.
"——Woah, it's even hotter up here!"
That woman was Medium, and she had raised her arm to hide her eyes from the intense crimson brightness.
Al halted dead in his tracks as he followed closely behind, his one hand turning white as he grabbed the hilt of his cutlass.
The blonde woman standing amidst the hellfire was visible through the slit in his helmet.
"Goddamn it. What're the odds of running into her of all people again?"
Abel moved forward, his oni mask reflecting the inferno. He didn't express fear or irritation like Al, but his stance was tight. He glanced at the weary Yorna, the terrified Meili, and the regenerating monstrosity standing before them.
He noticed the change in the air. Yorna put all into this moment, and while she won the exchange, she is losing the war of attrition.
"So——"
Abel's voice cut through the sound of roaring flames, calm and dangerously sharp.
"The 'Mother' of this city has been reduced to playing nursemaid while a Sin Archbishop deconstructs her home. A pathetic display for a Divine General."
Capella turned her head, her eyes lighting up with fresh, sadistic interest as she spotted the newcomers.
"Ooooh? More meat to be ground? And look at that! A man in a mask, a girl with too much muscle, and... oh! Is that a one-armed little insect I recognize from the water city? Gyahahah! This just became a party!"
Yorna looked back, her gaze catching Abel's. Despite her tiredness, her stare was powerful.
Capella stood amidst the swirling embers, her newly formed blonde hair blowing in the wind. She did not resemble a woman who had just been exploded a dozen times. She seemed bored.
"My, my, the audience is reaaaally growing right now~" Capella hummed, "More meat to clutter up my view? Honestly, you meat-scraps have no sense of timing. This was a private moment between a mother and her failed experiments."
Yorna kept one hand firmly on Meili's shoulder, her fingers still trembling from the soul-drain of the city.
"Stranger in the mask... If you have come for an audience, you have chosen a day where the Mother of Chaosflame has little hospitality to offer. This creature... it does not die. Fire, steel, the crushing weight of this fortress——it simply discards its flesh and begins anew."
Abel stood a few yards behind her, arms crossed over his chest. His oni mask was dark, but his eyes were cool and precise, assessing the battlefield like a general.
"The 'Mother' is losing her grip. The Soul Marriage is a magnificent technique, but you are feeding an entire city with your own vitality while trying to incinerate a monster."
"I am aware of my limits, traveler. But if I falter, the thousands of souls bound to me will flicker out like sparks in the rain. I will not allow it."
Yorna's voice grew increasingly serious. She could not falter as she had previously during the fight. Not a second time. Not ever again.
Al shifted his weight, sweating beneath his helmet——and it wasn't just from the heat.
"Boss, she's not exaggerating. I saw this freak in Priestella. You can't just kill her. I tried plenty of stuff before, but nothing worked. If her blood touches you, you're done. You'll turn into a fly or a puddle of sludge before you can scream."
"A puddle of sludge? That sounds awful!" Medium exclaimed, though she didn't step back. "But everything has a weak point, right? We just have to hit her harder than she can fix herself!"
"Gyahahaha! 'Hit me harder'?" Capella shrieked with laughter, peering at Medium. "I love the optimism of fresh meat! It makes the eventual rotting smell so much sweeter!"
Abel disregarded the back-and-forth. His mind was a whirlwind of equations.
He gazed at Capella. He observed as her wounds closed before the blood even reached the floor. The conventional strategy was failing here. To destroy an entity who rejected the concept of a 'fixed form,' one needed a power that resided beyond the physical realm. A power capable of destroying the fundamental essence of existence.
His hand twitched towards his side.
Deep within his spirit, the dormant heat hummed with intensity——a silent, insolent demand to be released. It was the ultimate authority. With a single use of that, he could reduce this entire rooftop—and the Archbishop on it—to ashes. It was a solution. Perhaps, the only solution.
And yet, his fingers didn't move.
Is this all I can amount to?
The thought came fast, and was incredibly bitter on his tongue.
The moment a variable exceeds my strategy, I reach for the merit of my bloodline? Am I merely a vessel for 'that power', or am I the Emperor who commands the Empire through his own will?
The hesitation was a fraction of a second, but in the eyes of a Sin Archbishop, especially one as sharp as Capella, it was an eternity.
"What's the matter, masked man?"
Capella taunted, her eyes narrowing with an amused glint.
"You've got that look that no strong person has, you're not like the other meat-scraps here. Why don't you show me what you're hiding under that pretty little cape? Or are you just another coward waiting for a woman to die for him?"
"Al," Abel said, his voice dropping into a tone of absolute command, ignoring the Archbishop entirely. "The merchant. Can she maintain a perimeter?"
"I——what? Medium?" Al blinked. "I mean, she's strong, but against this thing?"
"Answer me," Abel snapped. "If the General and I provide the opening, can she keep the interference at bay? I have no intention of letting the revolution end on a scorched roof because of a lack of coordination."
Yorna glanced back then, her brow furrowing.
"You speak as if you have a plan, traveler. But I warn you——this creature's malice seems to have no limit."
Abel stepped forward, his boots crunching on the charred tiles, stopping just beside Yorna. He didn't look at her, but the air around him seemed to grow cold, clashing with the inferno.
"Malice is a variable," Abel stated. "And every variable can be accounted for. General, keep the girl safe. I will find the crack in this monster's armor. Whether it likes it or not."
"Haaaah~ you really know how to get on a lady's nerves, don't you?" Capella scoffed.
The pride of the Wolf, the pride of the Emperor, demanded that he remove this creature only by the merit of his leadership before succumbing to the ultimate authority of his bloodline.
"Al, Medium. Now."
"You heard the man, Medium! We're the distraction! Try not to get turned into a toad!"
"A toad? Gross! But distractions? I'm great at those!"
Medium chirped, but her knuckles were white as she clenched her twin blades and surged forward. She slammed into Capella's personal space, her blades humming as they carved a whirlwind of steel towards the Archbishop.
"Looking at you now, meat-scrap, you seem more like the oblivious type——the type with no brain to work with, just a seductive body to charm men with!"
Capella cackled, her arms liquefying into a dozen black, whip-like tentacles to parry Medium's strikes.
"What, 'seductive'?! Who do you think I am!" Medium yelled, her face flushing red as she swung harder.
Medium gritted her teeth as she parried a tentacle's stroke. The force was heavy, causing her to stagger backward.
Another tentacle swung out, wrapping around her forearm and pulling her forward. She yelled out and slashed it with her free blade just before it could draw her into Capella's grasp.
"Al! Support her!" Abel commanded.
Aldebaran didn't need to be reminded twice. He dashed into the action, his broad cutlass slicing a wide arc to sever many tentacles closing in on Medium. The opening allowed the blonde-haired woman to close the gap and thrust one of her blades directly into Capella's gut.
"Why you——" Capella snarled, her wound already bubbling with blood.
"General," Abel said, his voice cutting through the roar of the fire as he stood beside Yorna. "Your Soul Marriage. You can manipulate the very stones of this castle, can you not?"
Yorna glanced at the masked man, her breath coming in ragged hitches.
"Every tile. Every grain of mortar. They are extensions of my own soul."
"Then stop trying to incinerate her. We need to stabilize her. Pin her down as you can."
Yorna glanced at Abel for a time, her amber eyes narrowing as if she were trying to figure out where she had met the man. Then she nodded. She stood up, pressed the kiseru to her lips, and inhaled deeply.
The red-tiled floor did not explode this time. It liquefied.
The stone transformed into a thick, swirling vortex of molten rock that surged upward, wrapping around Capella's legs like unbreakable chains.
At the same instant, the floating debris in the air descended, propelled by Yorna's will.
"What? You think some heavy rocks are going to——?!"
Capella did not complete.
A three-ton block of enchanted masonry smashed into her shoulders, then another, and another. Medium and Al darted out of the path just before the Archbishop was buried beneath a veritable mountain of the castle's own past.
The gravity within the pile increased until the sound of Capella's bones shattering could be heard over the wind and fire.
"She is pinned——!"
Yorna panted, her hand clutching her chest as the strain on her Od reached a critical limit.
"But it will not hold. She is already breaking the stone from the inside out."
The variable was controlled. All that was left was the execution.
Abel's palm was opened, mere moments away from conjuring the power that would be capable of ending this.
But for once, the former Emperor was hesitant. Was this really the only way? To rely on that tool for victory?
Must I? Is my own mind insufficient?
"...Lasted just long enough, thank god."
Al murmured under his breath as he switched his gaze to the sky.
As if what he'd been waiting for had finally arrived.
High above the smoke and the fire, the clouds parted. Not from the wind, but from an overwhelming, crushing pressure that caused the environment to yield.
A figure descended. There was no grand arrival, no humorous banter heard from the heavens. A silent, scary descent that felt more like a natural calamity than a person arriving.
Satoru Gojo landed atop the castle's highest remaining pillar.
Although he was still in his childish form, as the six eyes glanced around at the chaos at a much closer range, the look on his face, as well as his aura, was anything but childish.
"So," Gojo said, his voice flat, devoid of any inflection. "This is the trash causing problems."
He raised one hand and pointed two fingers at the mound of stones.
Al's entire body suddenly seized up, his breath hitching as he grabbed Medium's collar and yanked her backward. Yorna dragged Meili behind a destroyed wall. Even Abel took a step back from the overwhelming force of the unknown power surging in the heavens above.
"——Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue."
Satoru Gojo didn't hold back in the slightest.
The space around the rubble did not simply pull; rather, it collapsed inward with the force of a dying star. The three-ton stone blocks were immediately crushed into dust. A horrible, gurgling cry rang out from within the singularity, as Capella Emerada Lugunica felt her own biology be squished into a place the size of a marble.
"———"
The sound of the implosion was not a loud explosion, but rather the sickening, muffled crunch of a vacuum aggressively snapping shut.
Then, Gojo lowered his hand.
The gravitational anomaly vanished as quickly as it had appeared. A perfectly spherical, smooth crater had been carved into the ruined rooftop. At the center of the crater, a hyper-dense, pitch-black orb of compressed stone and blood dropped to the floor with a heavy.
For a single, breathless second, there was absolute silence on the roof of Bloodflame Castle.
Al didn't lower his guard, keeping Medium firmly behind him. Abel stared at the crater, his mind racing to process the sheer impossibility of what he had just witnessed. There had been no warning, only that strange incantation spoken before the very fabric of space had obeyed the white-haired child's command.
Until, the dense orb in the crater twitched.
Like a blister bursting open, the marble violently exploded outward.
A geyser of purple blood, shattered bone, and black feathers erupted into the air.
The flesh aggressively multiplied, bubbling and boiling as the Archbishop forcibly dragged her biology back into existence.
Capella reconstituted herself, dropping to her hands and knees. She wasn't laughing anymore. Her blonde hair was matted with her own gore, and her chest heaved as she violently coughed up a lung that had just finished reforming.
"What..."
Capella wheezed, her ruby eyes wide, completely dilated with a foreign, terrifying emotion: genuine shock and confusion.
"What the HELL was that?! There was no mana! You didn't use any mana! You——what are you?!"
Gojo didn't answer her immediately. He simply floated down from the pillar, his feet touching the crimson tiles without making a sound.
"No, wait wait wait, I've seen it before, it's a similar feeling to what that black-haired meat-scrap from Priestella could do——"
"You sure are loud."
As Gojo spoke, his eyes glared straight through Capella, flaring at their full might as they dicected the Archbishop from the inside out.
What he saw wasn't a living being. It was an ugly, endless cycle of life and rot. It reminded him of the most vile, twisted curses he used to exorcise back in the alleyways of Tokyo.
More than that, it reminded him of the endless, thankless cycle of violence that had claimed the life of Suguru. A relentless machine of suffering that just kept replacing its broken parts.
It reminded him of the endless, thankless cycle of violence that had claimed the life of Suguru.
"Pulling the entire space you occupied into the size of an actual marble wasn't enough to kill you. Jeez, that's seriously broken, you know? It's like stepping on a roach only for the stain to grow a new head."
"What the hell...?" Capella blinked, her momentary shock boiling over into absolute, humiliated rage. "You're a freak! Just shut the hell up!"
Her arms warped into massive, serrated blades of bone, and she launched herself forward with blinding speed, aiming to cleave the white-haired boy entirely in two.
Capella's blades struck Gojo's neck.
Or rather, they stopped exactly a millimeter away from his skin.
The Archbishop froze in mid-air, suspended entirely by her own momentum against the absolute barrier of the Limitless. No matter how hard she pushed, no matter how much her muscles tore, popped, and bulged from the strain, the distance between her blades and Gojo's throat remained an uncrossable infinity.
"Wha——"
"Jiwald."
A small beam of light interrupted her words, suddenly turning her brain into a boiling liquid and sending her reeling backward as her skull quickly started to heal.
Crushing her and destroying her brain were both ineffective. What a hassle.
"She's unkillable Gojo-san! Unkillable!"
Medium yelled out in a friendly manner, waving her arm around.
"... The heck is up with her? ——Whatever, I already gathered that."
Gojo simply sighed, briefly taken aback by Medium's amiable demeanor before returning his focus to Capella, who was now running.
Her arms had transformed into wings, propelling her off the earth at supersonic speeds away from the city.
At the sight of the retreat, he simply sighed.
Capella wasn't very tough—in fact, she wasn't tough at all. Her weak body could have been destroyed by any one of his blows, but she just regenerated too quickly.
I don't have a way to kill her. And based on how long Yorna down there was fighting her for, it probably doesn't have limits either.
Gojo's eyes narrowed dramatically as he followed the quickly diminishing dot in the distance.
"... In that case."
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The wind howled loudly and violently in Capella's ears, matching the whole pandemonium ripping through her head.
Her large, leathery wings beat furiously against the thick, smoke-choked air, propelling her away from Bloodflame Castle at a rate that tore the skin from her own body. She didn't care. She simply pushed herself faster and faster, allowing the ripped flesh to quickly shed and regrow.
What the hell was that?! What the hell IS he?!
A boiling anguish pulsed through Capella's newly reconstructed brain. Even though she was already miles away, her ruby eyes darted madly, examining the destroyed cityscape behind.
That boy. That freak with the white hair and blue eyes.
There was no draw of mana from the atmosphere. There was no manipulation of the Od.
The instant he pointed his fingers, it seemed as though the world itself simply bowed to his command. Her serrated bone blades, which were supposed to cut through steel like butter, had just stopped. It wasn't a defense. Between her and his flesh, there was an unending, oppressive emptiness.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it all!"
Capella let out a huge, jumbled scream into the wind.
She was an Archbishop of Sin! She was the ultimate being, the embodiment of biological perfection, capable of shaping this pitiful world's meat in any way she pleased! Despite this, she had been dismissed like a troublesome insect.
Her blood was boiling over more than just the white-haired boy's stark, humiliating horror.
——Meili.
Capella's teeth ground together so forcefully that they broke in her gums. They quickly grew back, only to be ground down once more.
That tiny, pitiful, quivering rat. Her 'daughter'. The broken tiny meat scrap she had conditioned in the dark, the toy she had utterly broken at her command.
Meili had brandished a weapon at her. Meili had protected that cheap, phony mother from her.
"I'll butcher her! I'll peel her skin off while she watches. I'll turn her into a blind, deaf worm and make her eat dirt for the rest of her miserable, rotting life! I'll——!"
"You talk to yourself a lot, huh? Me too."
In a sense, Capella's heart stopped.
Abruptly, the howling wind stopped, and there was an unsettling, total calm.
Capella raised her head abruptly. She was traveling at supersonic speeds, thousands of feet above the ground. Out here, she was alone with the clouds.
However, the white-haired boy was drifting carelessly in her flight path, upside down, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. The gale-force gusts hammering at her body had no effect on him; he was precisely matching her speed.
"H-How?!"
Capella gasped, instinctively raising her winged arms to guard herself.
"You——!"
"If I can't kill you..."
Gojo interrupted, his voice completely devoid of the playful energy he had shown the civilians.
"...I'll just put you somewhere you can't be annoying."
Gojo moved before Capella could even try to change her course or change her limbs to launch an assault. It was the total absence of distance, not speed.
Gojo straightened up and took Capella by the face in a split second. His tiny fingers pushed into her golden hair and clasped around her eyes like a vice.
"Get off——!!"
Capella shrieked, her body instantly bubbling as she attempted to expel corrosive acid from her pores in order to melt his palm.
But the acid never reached him. It pooled uselessly against the limitless.
A dense, terrifying sphere of azure light erupted directly behind Capella's back. But Gojo didn't let the singularity flatten her this time. Instead, he harnessed Blue's magnetic, spatial-rending pull to augment his own physical movements.
Gojo twisted his waist, his grasp on her face firm, and roughly threw her.
The transfer of kinetic energy was disastrous. The sonic boom that accompanied the throw destroyed the remaining cloud cover across miles. Capella did not simply fly; she was launched like a meteor from a railgun.
Her cry was cut short when the enormous G-force of the throw ripped her wings completely off her back. She was a whirl of black and purple, skipping furiously across the sky, unable to regenerate quickly enough to counteract the friction of the air, which was burning her alive.
Within a second, she vanished over the horizon, forcibly evicted from Chaosflame's airspace.
Satoru Gojo stood alone in the skies, the shockwave faded away, and silence returned. He calmly dusted his hands and let out a short breath.
"——Home run, huh."
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Satoru Gojo resurfaced on the burnt rooftop in a flare of blue light, as the spatial distortion closed shut. He landed with a soft tap of his boots, his hands already sliding back into his pockets, as if he hadn't just launched a Sin Archbishop into orbit.
The atmosphere on the rooftop changed instantaneously. The heat from Yorna's fire remained, but it was overshadowed by the dense pressure flowing from the white-haired youth.
Gojo did not look at Yorna. His sight, enhanced by the Six Eyes, fixed on the group standing in the ruins.
Abel returned the gaze with an equally frigid expression, but the twitch of his hand, as if he were about to fight, was not overlooked.
Does he really have something that could do anything against me? Probably not but....
He shook his head.
No, don't get arrogant——the last time you did, you got a punch to the face for it, stay focused Satoru.
Gojo turned his glance away from Abel and focused on Al, the six eyes narrowing at the sight of the helmeted knight.
He had no idea how the man's skill worked, except that it was probably as horrifying as the Limitless technique, some form of foresight, possibly seeing a future timeline, and.....
Gojo briefly examined Aldebaran's cutlass.
It activates by dying.
Of course, getting around such an ability would normally be fairly simple—all he had to do was avoid hurting Al in any way.
However, when he is so prepared to simply commit suicide, it becomes absolutely meaningless.
Just what sort of madman can kill themself without hesitation? Even if I knew I would return afterwards, I'm not sure if I would be able to.
"How's your face, Al? Has it been rearranged from tasting concrete?" Gojo spoke with a small twist of his head.
Aldebaran didn't move to answer, except for the intensity with which he grasped his cutlass.
"Nah——thankfully, you seemed to restrain yourself enough....."
Gojo's lips twitched into a faint smile.
Aldebaran seemed to have worked out that Gojo was aware of his ludicrous future sight skill.
"Alright then..."
A little, blue spark began to form at his fingertip, quickly consolidating and surging, drawing in the very atmosphere as the compressing force strengthened.
"Tell me this, what happens the moment I unleash this blast. ——Do I kill you all? Do you kill yourself after I take those two out?"
Abel's brow furrowed in wonder and confusion as he averted his glance directly from Satoru Gojo to Al by his side.
"We'll have to wait and see."
Was Al's sole response.
With those words, the cerulean orb on his fingertip appeared properly, condensing into an orb of reality smashing power. One that could easily wipe out the trio before it.
However——
"That is quite enough, Satoru-san."
A faint, but remarkably controlled voice spoke up from the side.
Yorna Mishigure moved forward, her motions smooth despite her obvious tiredness. She positioned herself immediately between Gojo and the revolutionary trio, her ragged kimono flapping in the breeze. She did not raise her kiseru as a threat, instead looking at Gojo with a weary, knowing stare.
"They are guests in my home."
Yorna stated, causing Abel's brows to raise and her blue eyes to meet his.
"Regardless of the political winds that blow from the capital, Chaosflame is still under my jurisdiction. I will not have blood spilled on my roof while the city below weeps."
Gojo paused, the blue light on his fingertip flickering out. He tilted his head, looking at the woman who had saved him just days before.
"Yorna-saaaaan...."
Gojo exhaled, his shoulders easing just slightly.
"You're always so formal. You know these guys are trying to flip the script on the whole country, right? The Emperor and that sleezy old bastard aren't exactly going to give me a gold star for letting them walk away."
"The 'Empire' and 'Chisha' are notions that exist outside these walls; behind these walls, all that matters is the protection of my people. You helped save them today, Satoru-san. Do not stain your act of generosity by becoming the monster you just evicted."
Gojo took a long look at her before returning his attention to Abel, Al, and Medium.
"Tch." With a click of his tongue, he shifted his gaze toward the sky. "You're lucky she likes you all. Truly. If it were up to me, I would have ended this and gone to a dessert shop five minutes ago."
He turned his back on them, a display of ultimate arrogance that only someone in his position could afford.
Though, despite the arrogance that such a motion would normally contain, he only felt pity.
Seriously——can't I do anything right?