If one were to rank the Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerers among themselves, Satoru Gojo is undeniably number one. But who is second? Yuta Okkotsu.
Yuki Tsukumo is the weakest of the three currently active Special Grades.
It isn't that she lacks strength; it's simply that the two above her are far too monstrous! Gojo's Six Eyes combined with the Limitless makes him invincible, and Okkotsu's ability to unconditionally copy Innate Techniques is so broken it defies description. Compared to them, Yuki Tsukumo—who theoretically possesses enough striking power to sink the entire Japanese archipelago with a single punch—somehow seems entirely ordinary.
If Mahito backed down from confronting Yuki Tsukumo now, what would he do when he inevitably faced Yuta Okkotsu? Or Satoru Gojo? Keep retreating? Where would there be left to run?
Naturally, Mahito wasn't planning to meet Yuki Tsukumo brainlessly. He only dared to do so because he possessed a certain degree of confidence in victory.
Don't forget, Mahito already possessed the biological template of a Special Grade Sorcerer: Kinji Hakari. And he had perfectly digested that template.
When he first unleashed *Maximum: Advent*, his Cursed Energy breath attack could only gouge out a crater a few dozen meters wide. But during the Zen'in clan massacre, when he assumed his draconic form, a single breath excavated an abyssal chasm two kilometers in diameter, with a destructive shockwave spanning ten kilometers.
He had genuinely grown stronger—and at an exponential rate!
If it weren't for the looming threat of Domain Expansion, Mahito was one hundred percent certain Yuki Tsukumo wouldn't even be a match for him. Even if she could sink Japan with a punch, she was still fundamentally a 'squishy'.
Yes, she was squishy. Although her Cursed Technique allowed her to throw punches with the apocalyptic mass of a falling meteorite, the technique did not actually alter her body's base density. Her physical vessel was still functionally human. If she took damage, she had to rely on Reverse Cursed Technique to regenerate, just like any other fragile human. She was the ultimate glass cannon.
It was just that this particular cannon possessed an outrageously overpowered caliber.
There was one more critical flaw: she couldn't fly!
Unable to fly, and possessing a squishy human body—Mahito had plenty of ways to dismantle her.
Unless Yuki Tsukumo lost her mind and initiated a massive self-destruct, compressing the Earth into a two-centimeter glass marble, she simply had no counter against him.
Of course, that was assuming a clash of pure Cursed Techniques. But aside from her Innate Technique, Yuki possessed the ultimate trump card: Domain Expansion. Facing her base abilities was no issue for Mahito, but facing a Yuki Tsukumo deploying a Domain Expansion...
...That was immensely stressful.
Therefore, when Ashiya Sadatsuna offered to teach him Simple Domain with his entire soul, on the sole condition of viewing the Mirokuji Kirigiri, Mahito couldn't refuse. Nor should he have. It was the pure, unadulterated adoration of a swordmaster for a peerless blade, humbly asking only to look. How could he deny that?
Mahito had previously told Ashiya that he had no interest in Simple Domain, but plans had obviously changed. Right now, he needed Simple Domain. Desperately!
As for the multi-soul fusions Kenjaku mentioned, Mahito never intended to use them against Yuki Tsukumo in the first place. He and Kenjaku were in complete agreement on this: unless he was facing Satoru Gojo, those fusions would absolutely remain hidden.
Mahito drew out the Mirokuji Kirigiri that Ashiya had been obsessing over. The ancient swordsman gently caressed the scabbard, sighing in profound awe. "What a magnificent blade."
Kenjaku shot him a flat look. "Old friend, he hasn't even drawn it from the sheath yet."
"Why would he need to draw it?" Ashiya's tone was heavy with sorrow. "I can feel the blade's emotions. She is ashamed and grieving because she can no longer keep pace with her master's footsteps. She is riddled with scars, yet her spirit refuses to yield. She yearns to stay by her master's side until the end of time."
Kinji Hakari, who had been staring at his phone trying to figure out how to reply to Yuki Tsukumo, overheard this. He stretched his neck, utterly bewildered, to squint at the still-sheathed straight sword. "Is it really that mystical? I thought you were just reciting poetry."
Mahito smiled. He held the Kirigiri horizontally and slowly, inch by inch, drew it from its scabbard. In an instant, it was as if a sliver of silver moonlight had bloomed from the sheath—cold, arrogant, and pristine. A soft, crystalline chime of metal rang out, and a flash of light pierced everyone's vision. Instinctively, they all clamped their eyes shut, feeling as though an invisible edge was hovering millimeters from their pupils, threatening to slice straight into their brains.
Ashiya Sadatsuna roared in praise: "Excellent! Exquisite! Peerless! Truly a blade unmatched under the heavens!"
"I see the fractures along the steel, yet there is not a single ounce of cowardice! She is like a mortally wounded samurai, scanning the myriad things of creation with the eyes of a falcon! This is no illusion. This sword absolutely possesses the power to cleave through the ages. She can pierce the mortal realm, sever the three thousand crows of dawn, and dictate life and death! She is truly a blade that slaughters gods and buddhas alike!"
Hakari leaned toward Kenjaku. "This old man has completely lost his mind."
Kenjaku nodded in deep agreement. "He endured in silence for a thousand years, and now he has finally snapped."
Indeed. Although the Mirokuji Kirigiri was a Cursed Tool base provided by Kenjaku, which Mahito had nurtured into a *tsukumogami*, Kenjaku genuinely didn't think it was that big of a deal. His perspective aligned with Hakari's: the Kirigiri was an excellent weapon, but it was just a weapon—a transitional tool meant to be discarded when something better came along.
If that weren't the case, Kenjaku wouldn't have casually told Mahito to "just switch to a new sword" when the Kirigiri was heavily damaged without batting an eye.
Ashiya glared at Hakari and Kenjaku from the corner of his eye, not bothering to argue with them. "Mahito, I understand your intention now. You wish to perfectly integrate swordsmanship into your combat system?"
Mahito slowly sheathed the Kirigiri, plunging the moonlight-like blade back into darkness. Ashiya looked visibly heartbroken but understood this was the optimal way to preserve a heavily damaged weapon. Until a blacksmith capable of repairing the Kirigiri could be found, it was best to keep the blade sheathed and mounted.
"Exactly. You are the strongest swordsman-sorcerer in the world. I am certain you can provide the answers I seek," Mahito said.
Ashiya's chest puffed with pride. "You certainly asked the right man!"
He placed his hands behind his back, looking up at the ceiling with a profound, lonely melancholy. He sighed.
"Mahito, your comprehension eclipses mine. You understood the principle of 'observing the blade to understand the man, and observing the man to understand the blade' far earlier than I did. You are unlike these other sorcerers. Just as Kenjaku said, if they weren't desperate and out of options, who among them would willingly step through my doors? But they are all fools. The New Shadow Style is an ocean that accepts all rivers. No matter what Innate Technique one possesses, it can be seamlessly integrated into the New Shadow Style without the slightest friction."
Kenjaku chuckled. "I'm still standing right here, old friend."
"I'd say the exact same thing even if Tengen were standing here," Ashiya declared arrogantly.
"And what about Ryomen Sukuna?" Kenjaku asked, genuinely curious.
"Ryomen Sukuna..." Ashiya's tone grew extraordinarily complicated. "Even though Sukuna destroyed my entire life, trampled my pride into the dirt, ground it to dust, and completely humiliated me without ever sparing me a second glance... I have no choice but to admit that it is solely because of his existence that I am absolutely convinced swordsmanship can reign supreme over the Jujutsu world. He is my ultimate guiding star."
Hakari sighed, turning to Mahito. "Can you just tell me how to reply to Yuki Tsukumo? I don't want to babysit this lunatic anymore."
"Mahito, listen closely. What I am about to tell you is a truth I have never revealed to another living soul. From this story, you will learn the absolute core of our school: the Simple Domain." Ashiya spoke slowly, treating Kenjaku and Hakari like empty air. "Today, most Sorcerers only hunt for traces of Ryomen Sukuna through myth and legend, grasping only a fraction of his true capabilities. What they don't know is that Ryomen Sukuna was actually a peerless Grandmaster of the blade."
"His swordsmanship wasn't performed by holding a physical katana; it was his Innate Technique. His slashing technique comes in two forms. One is the standard slashing attack, 'Dismantle'. But very few know of his second slash: 'Cleave'."
Ashiya turned back to Mahito, his expression grim.
"Ryomen Sukuna's 'Cleave' inflicts a direct slash upon the target, actively ignoring all of their properties to deliver a guaranteed one-hit kill! This is a technique that violently defies the fundamental logic of Jujutsu, because all Cursed Techniques have limits and thresholds based on Cursed Energy output. Yet Sukuna's 'Cleave' outright ignores those variables for lethal execution."
"It is a terrifying slash. And what's even more terrifying is that no one could figure out *how* it worked. I pondered it for centuries and couldn't grasp it. It wasn't until I managed to manifest my 'Simple Domain' during a life-or-death battle that I finally understood."
Mahito raised an eyebrow. "I thought the prototype for Simple Domain was the Hollow Wicker Basket."
"Monkeys are the ancestors of humans, but go out on the street and ask a random person—who among them would admit they're a monkey?" The old man let out a smug laugh. "Hollow Wicker Basket can indeed be considered the primitive blueprint of Simple Domain, but it isn't the whole picture. The true potential of my Simple Domain is utterly unfathomable, even to those who have already learned it."
A light flickered in Mahito's eyes. "...An extension of willpower?"
Ashiya sighed in admiration. "I see you are already beginning to understand."
Ashiya sighed again. "I spent centuries failing to comprehend it, but the very moment my Simple Domain flared to life in battle, I instantly realized exactly why Ryomen Sukuna could use 'Cleave'. Willpower! I used to feverishly study Sukuna because I possessed the sheer will to kill him. But the more I understood him, the more I was forced to admire the terrifying will housed within his flesh. The more I admired it, the more I feared it, and the more I realized the insurmountable chasm between us."
The old man turned to Mahito, his gaze sharp as a drawn blade, his voice dropping to a freezing temperature.
"Ryomen Sukuna views everything under the heavens as his personal dining hall. All living beings are his ingredients. His slashing techniques are literally the knife skills of a master chef!"
"When I first saw him consume human flesh, I thought it was merely an expression of cruelty. But later, I realized humanity was literally just an item on his menu. He dissects human bodies with the exact same mindset a chef uses to butcher livestock."
"He doesn't eat humans for shock value. He isn't trying to be cruel. He *genuinely* loves the taste! He authentically considers human beings his staple food!"
"Ryomen Sukuna possesses the only open-barrier Domain Expansion in existence. Before witnessing it, I could not have fathomed anyone manifesting a Domain without enclosing it. But after glimpsing the core philosophy driving his soul, I instantly understood *why* his Domain was open."
"Barrier Techniques are an extension of imagination. The Domain Expansion, which uses a barrier as its foundation, is exactly the same. It is incredibly difficult for the human mind to conceptualize a barrier without walls. Expanding one's internal domain into the physical world without an outer shell is theoretically impossible, because doing so requires an ego so grotesquely twisted, so astronomically arrogant, that the user genuinely views the *entire world* as their personal property."
"Do you understand now?"
"Ryomen Sukuna's willpower violently subjugates the entire world! If he possessed enough Cursed Energy, I have absolutely zero doubt his Domain Expansion could cover the entire Earth—a planet with a diameter of 12,742 kilometers!"
Hakari was completely engrossed. He muttered to himself, "I finally understand why all you ancient relics care so deeply about Ryomen Sukuna, going so far as to make him the ultimate contingency plan against Gojo-sensei. Humans truly can't comprehend existence beyond their own imagination. Before this, I always wondered how Sukuna dared to punch above his weight class by challenging Gojo-sensei. Now, I get it."
"Sukuna's true terror goes far beyond the fraction I just described," the old man sighed, then continued. "Back to the main topic. As I said, my Simple Domain is heavily influenced by Sukuna's open-barrier Domain. It taps into the absolute deepest core of a person's willpower, fusing that will with their Cursed Energy, and projecting it outward."
"When a swordsman deploys a Simple Domain, they inevitably assume the Iaijutsu stance. Their entire consciousness is utterly immersed within the maximum lethal range of their Iai draw. Within that specific radius, the swordsman is as peerless as Ryomen Sukuna himself!"
Mahito thought of Kasumi Miwa using Simple Domain. She would close her eyes, drop into her Iai stance, and a circular aura of Cursed Energy would manifest beneath her feet, expanding to a precise radius of 2.25 meters. Within that distance, she could supposedly intercept even a shift in the air current—this was the most traditional application of Simple Domain.
During her internal monologue when casting it, Miwa explicitly stated that within that range, she could cut down anything! Of course, reality proved she absolutely couldn't. Yuji Itadori casually bypassed her, and Maki Zen'in shattered her stance by throwing a weapon from outside the range—a textbook case of getting violently humbled.
But that very failure illuminated the core mechanism of Simple Domain: absolute self-confidence, verging on pure arrogance. That was the 'extension of willpower'!
Kenjaku nodded. "Old friend, you've just given away your ultimate, most closely guarded secret. By telling this story, any competent Sorcerer could manifest a Simple Domain based purely on your concepts. Because 'extending willpower' was never the exclusive monopoly of swordsmen; Jujutsu Sorcerers can do it too."
The old man sneered at Kenjaku. "Spoken like a man who truly understands nothing. Your ignorance makes me laugh."
Kenjaku chuckled and turned to Mahito. "Mahito, this old friend of mine is useless now. I've already conceptualized a version of Simple Domain far better suited for you. I guarantee you won't need to learn a single drop of swordsmanship to use it."
"You son of a b—!" Ashiya exploded.
"No, Kenjaku, you're the one missing the point. I understand exactly what Instructor Ashiya means," Mahito said thoughtfully.
Kenjaku raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
Ashiya looked at Mahito with intense expectation.
Mahito gently ran his fingers along the Kirigiri's hilt. "While we are discussing 'Simple Domain', the actual focal point is one's own willpower. It is a mechanism to codify and project the ego. The Iaijutsu stance isn't strictly mandatory, but by physically assuming the posture of an absolute, lethal draw, a swordsman can perfectly focus their mental imagery to deploy the Domain. For a normal person, grasping that is enough. That is exactly why Instructor Kenjaku claims swordsmanship isn't the focal point."
"But the exact opposite is true. Swordsmanship *is* the focal point. Because the ultimate blueprint that Simple Domain is trying to mimic is Ryomen Sukuna's slashing technique! The conceptual link between slashing techniques and physical swordsmanship is incredibly strong. In other words, physical swordsmanship genuinely has the potential to replicate the effects of an Innate Cursed Technique."
"Once you understand that, you realize what the ultimate, perfect manifestation of Simple Domain actually is..."
"...Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine!"
Everyone in the room let out a collective gasp of shock. Malevolent Shrine was the legendary open-barrier Domain Expansion of Ryomen Sukuna, unleashing a relentless, omnidirectional barrage of slashes within a 200-meter radius!
Initially, Mahito hadn't fully grasped the old man's meaning either. But the moment his fingers brushed the Kirigiri, he immediately decoded Ashiya's profound ambition. After all, wasn't the 'Cleaving Line' generated by the Kirigiri just a lesser imitation? Mahito had specifically designed that attribute for the Kirigiri precisely because, in the original manga, a slashing technique successfully bypassed the Limitless.
But while Mahito was satisfied with just a 'Line', Ashiya Sadatsuna's ambition was terrifyingly grand. He actually wanted to use a Simple Domain, forged entirely from pure swordsmanship, to artificially manifest a second Malevolent Shrine!
Calling that 'limitless potential' was an understatement. That was Ryomen Sukuna's Domain Expansion—the absolute pinnacle ceiling of the entire Jujutsu Kaisen power system.
Ashiya Sadatsuna applauded vigorously. "Brilliant, Mahito! You have completely and flawlessly penetrated the absolute truth of the Simple Domain! I hide many things from my disciples, but there is one thing I have never hidden: my constant preaching about the 'Domain of the Weak'."
"Only by deeply suffering the agonizing helplessness of the weak can one furiously claw their way to the top. Only then can one truly embody the mantra: 'When there is no other choice, forge ahead!' My Simple Domain is nothing but a pathetic, inferior imitation of Malevolent Shrine. But precisely *because* it is a blank slate imitation, its potential is infinite! Who said you only have to fill it with swordsmanship? You can imprint *any* Cursed Technique onto it. Any of them!"
This time, even Kenjaku was visibly shaken. He unconsciously muttered, "Old friend... I never imagined you..."
Ashiya spoke with absolute arrogance. "Kenjaku, you've called me 'old friend' for centuries, but this is the first time you've actually meant it."
Kenjaku quickly recovered, chuckling as usual. "Alright, old friend, I concede. I admit I looked down on you before. You know how we traditional Sorcerers view swordsmanship. You can't blame me. But hearing the true potential of Simple Domain for the first time... I have to admit, I'm genuinely shocked. I suppose every immortal fossil who manages to survive this long has a terrifying trick up their sleeve."
Who were the immortal fossils currently alive?
Kenjaku himself, Master Tengen, and Ashiya Sadatsuna.
Kenjaku's compliment was utterly sincere, even if it was phrased offensively. Ashiya glared at him, preparing to hurl a string of curses.
Suddenly, a phone rang, drawing everyone's attention to Kinji Hakari.
Hakari held up the screen. "Yuki Tsukumo is getting impatient. I didn't reach out, so she's calling me again."
He looked at Mahito. "What's the play, Mahito?"
"Isn't she looking for me?" Mahito held out his hand for the phone. "I'll speak to her myself."