Chapter 32: Stepping Out of Infinity's Protection
Fire.
A roaring inferno.
At this moment, Satoru Gojo, Yami, and Yuji stood in the middle of a sea of flames vast enough to make it feel as though they had been dropped into the core of a furnace.
And Jogo's assault was not weakening.
It was escalating.
The surrounding air twisted under the extreme heat. Even the light itself seemed warped and unstable. An ordinary person standing here would have collapsed instantly, their lungs scorched by the lack of oxygen and the oppressive temperature.
Yet beneath Gojo's effortless protection, this lethal firestorm felt less like a battlefield and more like an absurdly immersive panoramic film.
"How does it feel, Yami?"
Gojo asked casually, both hands tucked into his pockets.
He still was not in a hurry to deal with Jogo. Instead, he used the middle of this hellish scene to continue what sounded suspiciously like a teaching session.
Yami stood beside him, his red eyes reflecting the wildfire surrounding them.
The expression on his face was strange.
There was no fear.
No tension.
If anything, there was the faintest trace of appreciation.
"It's warm."
He slowly raised a hand, as if he wanted to touch the flames raging just beyond Infinity's invisible boundary.
"Even though it's filled with malice and destruction..."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Fire itself is warm."
Even Gojo was caught off guard for a second.
To call the flames of a Special Grade Cursed Spirit "warm" while standing in the middle of a city melting inferno was not something a normal person would say.
This kid's head is definitely wired wrong, he thought.
"However..."
Yami's tone shifted.
His fingers closed around the hilt of Shiranui.
"This fire is too chaotic."
His gaze sharpened.
"It's filthy. It isn't pure."
Then he slowly closed his eyes.
In his mind, he saw that distant figure once again. The swordsman who had folded the radiance of the sun into his blade and used it to cut through every stain in the world.
Clang.
The clear sound of steel rang out, crisp and pure amidst the roar of the flames.
Yami stepped forward.
And in that instant, he stepped out of Gojo Satoru's protection.
"Hey! Yami!"
Yuji shouted in alarm, instinctively reaching out to grab him, only for Gojo to stop him with one hand.
"Watch carefully, Yuji."
The smile on Gojo's lips widened, and his Six Eyes gleamed with anticipation.
"Let's see what kind of reaction we get when cursed fire meets the fire of the sun."
The next second, Yami moved.
Total Concentration. Sun Breathing.
The moment his breathing shifted, his body temperature soared. His heart pounded like a war drum, each beat echoing through his chest like a declaration of war.
Shiranui answered its master's will at once. The dark patterns sleeping within the blade lit up in a brilliant crimson glow.
Facing the oncoming magma and the sea of violet cursed flames, Yami did not retreat.
He gripped the sword with both hands.
His body bent like a fully drawn bow.
"First Form: Dance."
Swish!
One slash.
No flourish.
No complicated technique.
Only the cleanest, purest, most absolute arc.
But the instant that slash was released, golden fire was born.
It did not burst outward wildly like an explosion. It rose like dawn, dignified and brilliant, sacred and merciless all at once. It was not merely heat. It was authority. It was the natural radiance meant to erase every impure thing beneath heaven.
Boom!
The golden flames of the sun collided with Jogo's purple cursed fire.
No violent explosion followed.
Instead, something far more shocking occurred.
The golden flames surged forward like something alive, as if they had opened great burning jaws and begun devouring everything in front of them.
Assimilation.
Consumption.
Jogo's cursed flames, violent and destructive enough to incinerate buildings and melt roads, dissolved the instant they came into contact with the golden fire.
Like snow meeting its natural enemy.
Like poison being purified.
In the blink of an eye, the overwhelming purple sea of fire was cut open. A wide path split through it from end to end.
Golden embers continued to burn quietly along both sides of that passage, incinerating the cursed energy lingering in the air.
"How...?"
Jogo's single eye bulged with disbelief.
His proud flames, born from the wrath of the earth itself, were being swallowed by a mere human with no cursed energy.
No.
Not swallowed.
Overruled.
"Your fire..."
For the first time, his voice carried something close to fear.
"Why is it hotter than mine?"
If his flames were destructive fire, born only to burn and ruin...
Then Yami's flames were the sun.
The source of life.
The source of purification.
And, when needed, the source of absolute annihilation.
"Because your fire is filthy."
Yami slowly lowered his blade.
His red earrings swayed gently in the heat.
"And mine was born to cut filth away."
"Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!"
Humiliated so thoroughly by a human, Jogo's composure finally shattered.
This was no longer caution.
No longer calculation.
Only rage.
Only wounded pride.
"I am a new human!"
His roar shook the burning field.
"I am the embodiment of the earth!"
His entire body trembled with erupting cursed energy.
"How could I possibly lose to some knife wielding monkey?!"
Jogo threw his hands together.
A strange seal formed between his fingers.
The space around them began to vibrate violently as cursed energy far denser and heavier than before rose into the sky.
Gojo's smile faded slightly.
"Oh?"
He tilted his head.
"So you've been pushed that far."
Jogo's eye was bloodshot, fixed on Yami and Gojo with a hatred that bordered on madness.
Grinding the words out through clenched teeth, he declared:
"Domain Expansion."
"Coffin of the Iron Mountain."
Boom!
The real world vanished in an instant.
The road, the sky, the traffic, the distant city. All of it was stripped away and replaced by something far more oppressive.
A living volcano.
Boiling lava flowed beneath their feet. Jagged black rock walls surrounded them like the inside of a mountain's throat. The air was thick with sulfur and suffocating heat.
This was Jogo's ultimate technique.
A true Domain Expansion.
Inside it, his attacks would inevitably strike their targets.
"Hahahaha!"
Standing atop a roaring eruption, Jogo threw his head back and laughed.
Within his own domain, his confidence returned in full.
"Now die!"
He spread his arms wide like a god of disaster.
"In my domain, all of you will be reduced to ash! Not even bone fragments will remain!"
Faced with certain death, Gojo Satoru remained absurdly calm.
He even had the leisure to tug one side of his blindfold down and reveal those luminous blue eyes in full.
"This is Domain Expansion."
His tone was as relaxed as if he were teaching in a classroom.
"A barrier technique that manifests the user's innate domain into reality."
He glanced between the two boys, studying their reactions.
"Inside a domain, the sure hit effect is guaranteed."
Yuji was drenched in sweat, both from the heat and from the crushing pressure saturating the space. Still, he stubbornly stood behind Gojo, refusing to break.
As for Yami...
His eyes were closed.
He looked almost peaceful, as though he were listening to something no one else could hear.
"A guaranteed hit..."
he murmured.
In his perception, this domain was not absolute.
The air was indeed saturated with deadly cursed energy. The pressure was suffocating. The environment itself wanted to kill him.
And yet...
Inside that tide of power, tiny openings still existed.
Small pauses.
Subtle inconsistencies.
Gaps in the flow.
If he could seize the rhythm behind them, then even a "guaranteed hit" could be cut.
"The best way to counter a domain," Gojo said, noting Yami's unshaken expression, "is to answer with one of your own."
Then he smiled faintly.
"You really aren't afraid, are you, Yami?"
.....
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