Jogo found himself teleported somewhere else entirely; gone was the dark night sky of Shinjuku, the streets, neon lights, and civilisation altogether. Everything was gone.
Jogo stood upon soft sand. The sun's golden rays fell onto him, softly, gracefully, perhaps a bit harshly as the tropical heat washed over him, but for a curse spirit created out of humankind's fear of earth and volcanoes, he didn't even feel the slight difference.
For a moment, he did not move.
The battlefield—ruin, water, destruction—was gone. Replaced by something he knew. Something carved deep into his memory.
A tropical island he remembered from before, when all of his companions were together.
The air was calm. The sky stretched endlessly above, bright and clear. Palm trees swayed gently, and the distant horizon shimmered—
Except…
His eye shifted.
The ocean was gone.
Where there should have been endless water, there was only emptiness. A hollow stretch of space, as if the world itself had forgotten to finish forming.
Everything else was perfect.
Every detail intact.
But the absence was wrong.
Jogo's gaze narrowed.
He knew this place.
"...Dagon."
The name came out low. It was his domain.
Jogo, for what it was worth, couldn't figure out what was happening; wasn't he supposed to be inside that human's domain? Why was he here? Could it be that the human didn't even copy Dagon's technique but also his domain?
NO! Not possible.
Domains are personalised to a person. The sure-hit effect could change, but not the theme, not the domain itself.
So! Where was he?
He asked himself, confused and a bit hopeful. His one big eye roamed around, taking the familiar place in until he finally found something which forced his eye to widen.
Where the ocean should have been, something was floating there, the figure was so familiar that Jogo didn't even need confirmation of who he was.
"Dagon."
Hovering in empty space, exactly as he had been—form, presence, cursed energy—all identical. Not weakened, not distorted, and very much alive.
Jogo for a few seconds just stood there, trying to convince himself that this was a dream, an illusion, but it couldn't be, the cursed energy was exactly like Dagon's.
Unfortunately, the domain didn't wait for his decision. Without warning, the sure-hit effect activated.
Aquatic shikigami erupted into existence, surging forward in an overwhelming tide. Creatures of teeth and fins and monstrous forms, all converging on a single point.
Jogo couldn't even react before the sure-hit effect of the domain had him completely covered with all sorts of aquatic shikigami.
Claws tore into him. Jaws clamped down. Bodies collided with crushing force. The sheer volume of attacks drowned out everything else.
His body was ripped apart piece by piece. Chunks torn away. Flesh shredded. Limbs forced back under the relentless assault.
It was the damage which finally jolted him out of his reverie.
His mind snapped back into place, cursed energy surged around him immediately, coating him in a thick form of coating.
It was Domain Amplification.
The next wave of shikigami struck—but couldn't get their teeth to sink into him before being repelled by Jogo's Domain Amplification. The very technique which earlier saved him from Satoru Gojo was now saving him from Dagon's domain.
The sure-hit effect broke against the amplification, its guaranteed nature stripped away. The creatures still attacked, but no longer with inevitability.
He tore through them, burning through their forms with raw physical force, crushing and ripping them apart as they came.
Without the sure-hit effect, those creatures were nothing for him. However, there was still Dagon.
Still floating, watching him from further away.
"Dagon."
"…Dagon."
No response. Nothing at all, which made him finally believe that something was indeed wrong.
Before he figured out what to do about the situation, without hesitation, Dagon's figure launched itself forward.
Next second, Dagon was right on top of him, his fist connected to Jogo's hand which he raised just in time to block.
The impact sent a shock through his body. The power was real, this couldn't possibly be an illusion.
"Oi," Jogo growled.
"This isn't funny."
Dagon completely ignored that, he continued to attack. Jogo countered, deflecting the blow and stepping back.
He clashed again, trading blows with the figure. Every movement was familiar—every angle, every surge of cursed energy. To the minute detail, everything was like Dagon.
However, Jogo's gut feeling told him that this wasn't Dagon. He can't be.
It was identical. Yes...
But not Dagon.
"…I see."
"Is this that human's sure-hit effect? Is that how he killed Dagon? He forced Dagon to fight one of us."
Jogo's expression darkened.
"…What insolence." Jogo's temperature rose, the volcano on top of his head boiled, leaking gases. And his one big eye narrowed into a dangerous half-moon shape.
Dagon pressed forward without pause, each strike carrying the same weight as before, the same destructive force.
Jogo blocked, countered, moved—but his options were limited. While Domain Amplification still covered him, he couldn't use his technique, as long as it was active, his own technique had to be dormant. That was the trade-off regarding this particular technique.
If he dropped it, though, then the sure-hit effect of Dagon's domain would shred him in seconds.
Jogo exhaled. There wasn't really any other option. If this was indeed that human's domain, then he had no other choice.
"…Be it then."
Jogo's eyes one last time flickered towards the still attacking form of his old friend, even after knowing that the one he remembered had already passed on and would maybe be reborn someday in the far future, that this one wasn't his friend but just an imitation, he couldn't help but feel anger towards the person who would do this.
Next second, his cursed energy surged outward.
"Domain Expansion - Coffin of the Iron Mountain."
His own domain erupted out, flames came into existence, carving into the tropical landscape, tearing through the false paradise.
Once again, a domain clash was taking place.
The sure-hit effects collided and then both sides' domain sure-hit effects got neutralised. Surprisingly enough, both domains' refinement was mostly on par with each other.
However, even without the sure-hit effect of Dagon's domain, he didn't stop. If anything, he sped up. Even as the domains clashed, it continued forward, attacking without thought.
Jogo met the imitation of his old friend head-on, blows turned explosive. Each strike carried heat, each movement trailing destruction.
That was the most dangerous part about Jogo's technique. It was inherently destructive in nature. If it hadn't been on cooldown, that fight against that human wouldn't have lasted half that long.
But the imitation did not falter, weaken, or slow down. It was going strong to the point Jogo once again was left to wonder whether the one he was fighting really was an imitation.
Out of several blows they exchanged so far, the only minor difference he could figure out between Dagon's usual behaviour and this one was water.
He wasn't using water.
In fact, the entire domain had no water whatsoever. That alone was an indication that this wasn't Dagon's domain. This wasn't Dagon.
The fight went on for a while, even after Jogo finally determined to erase this cheap imitation, it wasn't like he could with a snap of his fingers.
The power was real. Very real. He kept burning Dagon's image in front of him, while taking damage himself.
He was better, plain and simple, but that doesn't mean he was winning; at this rate the fight could go on for a long while. He can't have that, he had to go find Sukuna's vessel.
"Enough... I'll end this phase in one move," he growled.
Cursed energy gathered inside his body, and then he was airborne.
The air grew heavy. The sky darkened. Above them, something formed.
It was a massive burning ball of death. A fireball the size of a small island, which would have destroyed the entire Shibuya if Jogo were to launch something of that scale on a city. And he was pulling that inside a domain clash.
"Maximum Technique - Maximum Meteor."
The meteor fell as if heaven's wrath had been brought down on earth. It was death in all sense even for a special grade curse like Dagon.
However, facing such danger, the water disaster didn't back down, instead he rushed towards it, rushed at the massive meteor and rushed at Jogo who launched that thing.
Dagon directly faced the attack, his body burning up, yet he refused to use water, his cursed energy rose higher and higher to meet the threat until nothing of him seemed to be left.
And then came the collision. It tore through the sky, crushing the false domain beneath it. The impact was absolute—fire and force collapsing everything in its path.
The impact was so devastating in fact that the domain clash finally broke. The two pieces of space separated from reality, vanished from their place of existence alongside all the evidence of those ridiculous feats of Jujutsu pulled by Jogo.
As for the volcano head, he was left there, panting hard, wounds slowly healing as his cursed energy started fixing him. His sole eye was still on the place where the charred remains of Dagon were.
However, they were gone.
'They were an imitation after all,' he sighed.
Exhausted and once again at his technique's cooldown, Jogo sighed tiredly, ready to just get out of there. Sukuna was still in his mind.
"Not so quick."
But that was when a familiar voice once again sounded in his mind.
Jogo's head snapped back faster than Sukuna's slashes.
There he was, that human. Charred just like earlier, he looked worse now. But still living. Anger boiled inside Jogo for what he had to go through inside the domain.
Just as he was about to rush at the insolent human and finally kill him, he said something which gave Jogo chills.
"Domain Expansion..."
What?
But how.
His technique should be on cooldown.
That's impossible.
And as if the human understood his plight, he sent a cocky smirk at him before finally finishing.
"DEATH TRADE"
xXx
A/N : Ah, surprised at the twist, gotta say I had to think about it before writing. Fighting here in JJK world are not simple, a lot of nuance are envolve if you plan to make them realistic to the core JJK power system. Specailly higher level fights with domain and complicated techniques.
Would appreciate stones if you can spare any. Thank you.
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