Jiro Awasaka himself could never hope to stand against Gojo Satoru. His Inverse technique possessed an upper threshold; if an attack exceeded that limit, Gojo would punch right through it, even if Awasaka ran the technique at maximum output. A casual strike from Gojo imbued with the Limitless would easily shatter it.
But the flaw wasn't in the Inverse technique. The flaw was Jiro Awasaka!
Right now, the technique was being wielded by Mahito, whose physical specs and absolute mastery over Cursed Energy obliterated the boundaries of common sense. His threshold for Inverse defied all logic—a threshold that even Gojo Satoru couldn't predict!
The Supernova detonated in the sky, yet the Crimson Lotus Demon God at the epicenter emerged entirely unscathed! However, the infinite energy continued to ravage the surrounding environment indiscriminately. If one were to gaze down from orbit, they would see a jarring crimson blister blooming on the Japanese archipelago, a localized area where even the atmosphere was violently purged by sheer repulsive force.
What followed was the implosion.
Infinite torrents of wind rushed violently back into the vacuum. A celestial-scale waterspout materialized mid-air. This imploding vortex would inevitably detonate and expand again, repeating the cycle multiple times before the pressure finally equalized.
—At least, that's what physics dictated.
A streak of silver light pierced through the crimson core of the Supernova. Cleaving Line! The Crimson Lotus Demon God swung Kirigiri in a massive arc. The blade's aura eclipsed the Supernova itself. The conceptual laws of physics dictating the explosion were brutally murdered by Kirigiri's edge, and from the ashes of the crimson blast, two completely uninjured men burst forth.
Gojo Satoru, shrouded in the Limitless, and Mahito, coated in Inverse. The mid-air deathmatch raged on!
Mahito threw his head back and laughed from the sky. "You almost had me, Satoru!"
"What are you, a cat?! Mahito!" Gojo barked back with equal manic glee.
Cats have nine lives. It was a Western myth that had spread across the globe, but right now, Gojo genuinely felt like Mahito was a nine-lived feline anomaly. No matter how many times he killed him, the bastard just wouldn't stay dead. He was ridiculously durable!
A theatrical curtain rippled into existence.
—Teleportation!
Gojo's severed arm and leg were regenerating at a terrifying speed. In the entire series, he and Sukuna were the absolute only sorcerers capable of maintaining Reverse Cursed Technique while simultaneously fighting at maximum output and deploying other techniques.
Compare that to their contemporaries: The sky-manipulating sorcerer couldn't regrow her arm with RCT after Yuta Okkotsu cut it off. Yuta himself needed Rika and other techniques just to barely cling to life after being bisected. Yuki Tsukumo couldn't channel RCT while actively using her Innate Technique and Cursed Energy reinforcement; both she and Kenjaku explicitly noted that RCT was impossible to maintain during a relentless offensive.
That was the standard.
But Gojo Satoru did not operate on the standard! Kinji Hakari could flawlessly regenerate a blown-off arm without even needing to reattach the flesh, so long as his infinite Cursed Energy was rolling. Gojo's RCT sat even higher on the hierarchy. Just as Gojo claimed, for him, Reverse Cursed Technique had no ceiling!
The Crimson Lotus Demon God chained Teleportation and Boogie Woogie for seamless aerial combat. Gojo matched his tempo by compressing the space around him with Limitless. Unlike the burnout phase, Gojo no longer needed to completely evade the shockwaves of Star Rage. His Limitless easily mitigated the collateral damage, allowing him to force ultra-close quarters combat.
It was in this exact moment that Gojo finally felt the crushing disparity of fighting unarmed. In terms of pure mobility, he definitively outclassed the Demon God. Teleportation and spatial swapping were excellent for aerial dogfights, but they looked clumsy when compared to the absolute spatial dominance of the Limitless.
He should have had the absolute advantage. He should have been punting the Demon God across the endless sky like a toy.
But he couldn't! Because the tip of Mirokuji Kirigiri—the blade that severs gods and buddhas—was perpetually tracking his vitals. The Demon God had absorbed the absolute essence of the New Shadow Style. Even suspended in the air, his swordsmanship was a flawless, impenetrable sphere. Even using the Six Eyes to coordinate pinpoint spatial compression, Gojo couldn't find a single microsecond window to slip past Kirigiri's guard.
No, even if he did slip in, what then? Gojo had to begrudgingly admit: even his Limitless-infused fists might not be enough to shatter an absolute defense that literally tanked a point-blank Supernova.
He needed Hollow Purple. And not just a quick-cast Purple—he needed a 150% output Hollow Purple, perfectly primed with the incantation, hand signs, absolute focus, and zero shortcuts.
But the problem was that deploying Hollow Purple created an incredibly stable structural mass, making it pathetically easy for Kirigiri to slice through. Furthermore, a fully chanted Hollow Purple had a massive wind-up. The Crimson Lotus Demon God could comfortably aim down the sights of the blast and casually cleave it in two.
If he could just use Limitless to physically snap the sword, that would work too. But the blade wasn't just a Cursed Tool—it was a Tsukumogami! Faced with an existential threat, the spirit within the blade would reflexively trigger the Cleaving Line. Gojo was absolutely certain that the moment he tried to snap it, his hand would be cleanly amputated.
The entire gap between them boiled down to that singular, wretched weapon!
For the first time in his life, Gojo recognized his own absolute arrogance. He used to look down on Cursed Tools, utterly convinced that his bare hands were enough to remain invincible. He thought weapons had no place on his stage.
Now, he finally tasted the consequences of that pride.
Normally, this would be the exact scenario to trigger a Domain Expansion and end it all. As the wielder of the ultimate Domain against intelligent life, Gojo theoretically shouldn't fear Domain clashes. Until today, the concept of losing a Domain battle was completely alien to him.
—But Mahito's countermeasures were disgustingly perfect!
Although Gojo had a rough idea of how Mahito was nullifying Infinite Void, knowing didn't help. It was just too specifically tailored to counter him. He had never considered the possibility of an intelligent entity developing a hard counter to Infinite Void.
Even a low-tier Cursed Spirit with the cognitive function of a newborn puppy would fry inside Infinite Void. But the Jogo Armor possessed absolutely zero cognitive processing power. Hitting it with Infinite Void was like trying to mind-break a brick wall. It was entirely immune.
He was hard-countered to death! What was the play here?
Without hesitation, Gojo locked onto the single, undeniable answer: Black Flash!
Only a Black Flash could shatter this deadlock. And it couldn't just be a lucky punch. Because of Kirigiri's nature, Gojo suspected that even a space-distorting Black Flash could be sliced apart by the Tsukumogami. He had to trigger a Black Flash, completely bypass the blade's defensive arc, and land it cleanly on a lethal vital point while the Demon God was actively using Teleportation and spatial swapping.
What a disgustingly strict set of conditions!
Just landing a Black Flash normally required immense luck. Even Gojo Satoru had openly admitted he couldn't pop them off on command. The difficulty didn't just lie within the user; it was heavily dependent on the environment, the opponent, and the user's volatile emotional state.
Yet Gojo didn't just need to land one; he needed to execute it flawlessly under every single one of those impossible constraints to secure his victory.
*Can I do it?* Gojo asked himself.
And then, a feral, roaring laughter echoed in his mind.
*Of course I can. I have to. It's going to be fucking easy!*
Despite neither possessing innate flight, the two warriors violently ricocheted off each other in the stratosphere. Kirigiri's blinding arcs clanged against Gojo's Limitless-reinforced fists, generating catastrophic shockwaves with every collision. The very weather had been erased by the impacts. The endless chain of sonic booms felt as if they were smothering the entire planet.
Their spatial displacement grew faster and faster! Toward the end, the entire sky seemed populated by hundreds of afterimages of the two teleporting monsters. Sometimes they circled each other like hawks, glaring with predatory intent, but mostly they violently intersected like starving beasts crossing paths in the wasteland.
Gojo felt his condition peaking. His Limitless and Cursed Energy reinforcement were spinning at an unprecedented, frictionless velocity. He didn't even need the Six Eyes to consciously manage the flow anymore; his body was instinctively optimizing Cursed Energy to match his soaring adrenaline.
He felt the overwhelming, electric premonition. It was coming. Black Flash!
But before he could strike, his soaring momentum hitched. Stunned, he reflexively jerked his body backward. His raw speed far surpassed the Demon God's, allowing him to disengage at will.
This speed gap was exactly why the Demon God hadn't attempted a second Domain Expansion after the opening sneak attack. As long as Gojo willed it, his Limitless guaranteed he could easily outpace the expansion radius and escape.
The Demon God simply lacked the opportunity to trap him in a Domain again!
Suddenly, the Jogo Armor encasing Mahito began to melt off like hot wax. He was voluntarily shedding the armor, canceling the Fusion Soul Knight state.
Why? By dropping the fusion, wasn't Mahito terrified that Gojo would instantly trap him in Infinite Void? Or did he have another trump card hidden to ignore the Domain?
Actually, the reasoning wasn't complex at all. It was brutally simple: Jogo was holding him back!
The execution of a Black Flash requires the absolute synchronization of physical force and Cursed Energy. But that's just the surface level. If it were truly that mechanical, someone with Gojo's microscopic precision could spam it infinitely. But Black Flash requires the user to 'brew' the right mental state, riding an absolute high against a worthy opponent.
It was never purely a technical issue. It required a philosophical convergence of Cursed Energy: the instantaneous resolve where fear, hesitation, grief, or rage are sublimated directly into raw power. It required the *soul* to align.
The entire reason Mahito managed to pull off the unprecedented Fusion Black Flash against Yuki Tsukumo was because his soul and Kirigiri's soul were perfectly synchronized and fused. When two souls resonated as one, the Fusion Black Flash triggered naturally.
But Jogo's current state was a completely lobotomized meat shield designed specifically to face-tank Infinite Void!
An organism utterly devoid of thought, no matter how physically imposing, is just a rock. The Earth's atmosphere circulates infinitely more Cursed Energy than any sorcerer, yet the planet doesn't shoot Black Flashes. Why? Because it's an unconscious cycle. It's a giant, unthinking rock.
And a giant rock, no matter how much Cursed Energy it holds, cannot execute a Black Flash. Jogo was that rock!
When Mahito was ruthlessly dominating Gojo earlier, he felt the suffocating instinct that a Black Flash was imminent. But he always fell just one breath short.
Now, locked in a hyper-lethal deathmatch, logic dictated he should have hit a Black Flash before Gojo. But he couldn't. Why?
Because a crucial segment of his fused soul was a braindead suit of armor! His soul had a fatal impurity!
Therefore, Mahito had to strip off the Jogo Armor. He had to terminate the Fusion Soul Knight.
As for the threat of a Domain battle?
*I'm about to drop a fucking Black Flash! Who gives a shit about your Infinite Void?! So what if it's a Domain clash? Without the Fusion Soul Knight, I'll take you head-on in a Domain battle!*
The crimson demonic armor sloughed off Mahito's body, revealing his traditional haori robes underneath. The molten runoff pooled mid-air, reforming into the figure of Jogo.
Right now, Jogo was utterly devoid of consciousness. The single massive eye taking up the top half of his face was wide open, but completely vacant, staring into a lightless void.
This was the true aftermath of being struck by Infinite Void. Not even Mahito realized that the Domain's information overload continued frying Jogo's brain long after the soul fusion was severed. Mahito suspected Jogo was already completely brain-dead. The only silver lining was that brain-death didn't matter—he could just resurrect Jogo after the fight.
Mahito shot a brief glance at Jogo's plummeting body, then immediately snapped 100% of his focus back to Gojo Satoru. He sought tranquility within the madness, lowering Kirigiri to his waist, hovering in the sky, fully prepared to be dragged into Gojo's Domain.
But nothing happened. Gojo Satoru did not use Domain Expansion.
Of course he wouldn't! Every single time Mahito had done something seemingly illogical in this fight, it was a trap. Unlike Mahito, Gojo's entire arsenal was public knowledge. This completely open hand meant that from the moment they engaged, Mahito had been leading him by the nose.
First, Mahito preemptively triggered his own Domain and the Fusion Soul Knight, aggressively baiting Gojo into a Domain clash—only for Infinite Void to be completely negated, leaving Gojo miserable and constrained.
Then, to break out of the Coffin of the Iron Mountain, Gojo naturally opted for Hollow Purple to nuke the barrier. Seeing Mahito take an Iaijutsu stance, Gojo assumed it would be a standard beam-struggle. He never expected Mahito's Iai slash to be so disgustingly fast that it literally bisected him.
If Gojo hadn't proactively rigged his RCT to auto-fire, he would have died right then and there!
After finally escaping the Domain handicap, Gojo thought he was getting a clean, Cursed-Technique-free martial arts brawl. Instead, the bastard completely ignored the rules of burnout and started clubbing a defenseless Gojo with the mass of a literal star.
If he hadn't spontaneously invented the mid-air double jump and slapped together a Binding Vow to cling to life, he never would have stalled long enough for RCT to heal his burnt-out technique. He would have been butchered.
In the span of thirty minutes, Gojo had practically stepped into his own grave twice, surviving entirely on razor-thin margins.
And now, Mahito was doing something completely unexpected *again*.
Why the hell would Gojo blindly charge into another obvious trap?!
This wasn't like his Domain clashes with Ryomen Sukuna in the manga. While that battle was undeniably lethal, Gojo's sheer intellect and Cursed Energy manipulation meant there were multiple tactical outs. Sukuna was bound by the same laws of technique burnout, a fact rooted in Gojo's fundamental understanding of reality, allowing him to fight without fear.
But Mahito was a completely different breed of bastard. He was explicitly engineering absolute hard-counters just to maliciously troll Gojo Satoru.
Did Mahito really think Gojo Satoru was physically incapable of fighting without his Domain Expansion? Was he addicted to getting slapped around?
*Are you fucking kidding me? Don't look down on me!*
*So what if my Domain is sealed? I'll crush you with the Limitless and my bare fucking hands!—*
In the blink of an eye, Gojo violently compressed space, instantly appearing point-blank in front of the unarmored Mahito. The Six Eyes raged like twin infernos, and his Cursed Energy surged like a tidal wave crashing against the coast. He pulled his right hand back to his waist, settling into a hyper-condensed charging stance. As he hovered face-to-face with Mahito, his fist violently piston-snapped forward.
A charged straight punch, and—
—BLACK! FLASH!
At this exact millisecond, Gojo Satoru's emotional state achieved absolute critical mass. His glacial, calculating intellect perfectly merged with a roaring, volcanic euphoria. It was a terrifyingly beautiful harmony of ice and fire. He no longer needed the Six Eyes to consciously direct his flow; his physical vessel instinctively synchronized with his soaring soul, channeling maximum output Limitless and raw physical reinforcement into a strike dripping with absolute bloodlust.
*I'll shatter this deadlock and take the crown with this single strike!*
*I win, Mahito. You were one step too slow!* Gojo roared in his soul.
But in the next microsecond, his Six Eyes registered the tip of Kirigiri erupting in black flames. The dark sparks instantly synchronized with Mahito's grip on the hilt. In a fraction of a heartbeat, the black fire consumed the entire length of the blade, staining the silver crescent of Kirigiri into an abyssal, light-swallowing black.
This was the absolute pinnacle. A Double Fusion Black Flash—
—Shinmyoken: Muku-Kushiki.
*How could I ever let you leave unsatisfied? Satoru!* Mahito chuckled in his mind.
The fist of Black Flash and the blade of the Divine Sword violently collided!