Chapter 68: Hollow Technique: Purple
"Boom!!!"
A beam of violet tore across the battlefield and seemed ready to split the world in half.
This was absolute destruction.
This was Hollow Technique: Purple.
Gojo Satoru descended from the sky, one hand extended as though he had merely flicked away a speck of dust. Yet from those casual fingertips came a force so overwhelming that even a Special Grade Cursed Spirit could only feel despair.
The compressed wave of energy twisted the air itself, carving warped trails of vacuum in its wake. It moved too fast for sound to catch up.
Hanami did not even have time to form a proper reaction.
The mass of violet light was already right in front of its face.
Half its body was still charred black from Yami's earlier assault. Hekishin and Sun Breathing had torn through it together, leaving behind wounds so severe that even its monstrous vitality could no longer keep up. The flesh around the damage writhed, trying to regenerate, only to fail again and again.
For the first time since the battle began, Hanami felt something cold crawl over its soul.
Death.
So this was the end.
Everything in its vision slowed.
The battlefield. The air. The trembling earth.
And in the center of it all, that white haired man stood like some merciless god passing judgment.
Then, just as annihilation was about to swallow everything,
"ROAR!!!"
A furious roar exploded across the forest.
It burned.
Not with ordinary heat, but with the savage fury of magma erupting from the depths of the earth. A crimson figure crashed down like a meteor, wrapped in violent cursed energy and blazing flames.
But it was not heading for Gojo.
It charged straight at Purple.
"Don't die here… Hanami!!!"
The voice was ragged, furious, desperate.
Jogo.
The same Special Grade Cursed Spirit who was usually all arrogance, rage, and wounded pride now threw himself forward without even a moment of hesitation. With his remaining arm, he grabbed Hanami and hurled it away with all the strength he had left.
Then he turned and faced the incoming Purple himself.
He used his own body to block the technique that erased everything in its path.
The next instant, the world detonated.
"RUMBLE!!!"
Violet and crimson collided in a catastrophic burst.
The entire forest vanished into a storm of destruction. Cursed energy screamed against cursed energy. Purple devoured everything in its path, while Jogo's flames erupted in one final act of defiance, as if even now he refused to kneel before a human sorcerer.
Trees were uprooted.
The ground split open.
The shockwave tore through the battlefield and reduced everything nearby to ruin.
It was a clash of power, yes.
But it was also something else.
A repayment.
Once, Hanami had risked its life to save Jogo.
Now Jogo returned that debt in the same way.
Did cursed spirits understand bonds?
Maybe they did.
Or maybe that question no longer mattered.
Because in this moment, the thing between them was real enough.
When the dust and smoke finally spread through the broken forest, what remained was a chasm so vast it looked as though the land itself had been gouged open by the hand of a giant.
And at the edge of that chasm, two mangled figures staggered into the distance.
Jogo looked horrific.
Half his body was gone.
One side of his head had been carved open, exposing the still throbbing core within. He looked even worse than when Gojo had torn his head off before. But even in that state, he still dragged Hanami along, shielding its damaged core with what remained of his body.
Hanami's voice came out weak and broken.
"You idiot… leave me…"
"Shut up!"
Jogo snarled through clenched teeth, forcing one step after another.
"We are the hope of the new humans…"
"How can we die here?"
They did not dare look back.
They did not need to.
They already knew that the two monsters behind them, the strongest sorcerer alive and the boy with the blade, were still standing there.
If they slowed for even a second, this would truly be the end.
Gojo landed lightly on the ruined ground.
He watched the two fleeing cursed spirits for a moment, but made no move to chase them. One eyebrow lifted beneath the blindfold, his expression carrying a trace of genuine surprise.
"They actually blocked it?"
His tone was almost amused.
It had not been a full powered attack. More like a casual swat in his eyes.
But it was still Hollow Technique: Purple.
For something to take that head on and survive long enough to carry a companion away…
Well.
Special Grades were Special Grades for a reason.
Or maybe, Gojo thought with a faint grin, maybe this really was what people called a bond.
"Whatever."
He rolled one shoulder and let it go.
Those two were finished anyway. Compared to hunting down a pair of half dead fugitives, the thing in front of him was much more interesting.
Gojo turned and walked toward Yami.
His footsteps were light.
Almost lazy.
But each one pressed down on Yami's nerves like the fall of a mountain.
This was pressure beyond killing intent.
It was not something as simple as hostility or malice. It was the suffocating presence of someone who stood at the very peak of the world, someone so absurdly powerful that just being near him made the air feel heavier.
So this is the strongest of the modern era…
Yami let out a slow breath and slid his blade back into its scabbard.
Click.
The clear sound echoed softly.
The edge that had split apart everything in its path vanished with it, and the killing aura wrapped around his body receded like a tide pulling back into darkness.
Then his body swayed.
His legs almost gave out beneath him.
Unlike the temporary elevation sorcerers experienced after landing a Black Flash, Hekishin came at a direct cost. It was not enlightenment. It was overdraft. A violent, uncompromising extraction of strength from the body itself.
Now that the battle was over, the recoil arrived all at once.
His muscles ached.
His breathing grew rough.
A wave of exhaustion nearly dropped him to one knee.
"Whoa there."
A hand caught his shoulder before he could fall.
"Sensei."
Yami looked up, a tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"I'm a little worn out."
Gone was the figure who had carved through a Special Grade with a Nichirin Blade in hand like an executioner stepping out of myth.
Right now, he just looked like a drained teenager forcing himself to stay upright.
"Yo."
Gojo stopped in front of him.
Though the blindfold still covered his eyes, Yami could feel the scrutiny behind it. It was not simple curiosity. It was focus sharpened to a frightening degree.
Then Gojo reached up and pulled the blindfold off.
For one heartbeat, the world seemed to lose all color.
Only those eyes remained.
They were impossibly beautiful and deeply unsettling, vast and luminous like the open sky itself, yet cold enough to make anyone feel transparent beneath their gaze.
The Six Eyes.
The divine eyes that could perceive cursed energy at a level beyond ordinary comprehension, analyze techniques, and see through the very structure of power itself.
Now they were fixed directly on Yami.
On his body.
On his face.
On his eyes.
"Your eyes…"
Gojo's voice changed slightly. It was still casual, but there was something more buried beneath it now.
"What exactly changed just now?"
Yami had already returned to normal. At least on the surface.
But in that critical instant during the fight, Gojo had caught something.
A fluctuation.
Something that was not cursed energy, yet felt so pure and distinct that it had pierced straight through his senses. It was different from the Six Eyes, completely different, yet for a fleeting moment it had given him a strangely similar impression.
The Six Eyes saw cursed energy.
But what he had glimpsed in Yami felt like something else entirely.
As if those eyes had looked through life itself.
Yami met his gaze without flinching.
There was no panic in him, no attempt to hide behind a lie born of fear. His pupils were calm and clear, like still water untouched by wind.
"It's nothing," he said.
Then, after a brief pause, he added quietly,
"I just saw things more clearly."
Transparent World.
That was the realm he had touched at the edge of life and death.
Muscle fibers. Blood flow. The shifting path of force through flesh and bone. The movement of cursed energy. The subtle signs that revealed an attack before it was fully born.
Even intent itself became visible.
There was no easy way to explain it, and no reason to.
To Yami, that state had not felt mystical.
It had felt natural.
As natural as taking a breath after nearly drowning.
"I saw things more clearly, huh?"
Gojo stared at him for a second.
Then he broke into a grin.
A real grin.
Not the lazy one he wore to tease people. Not the smug one he used when everything went exactly how he expected. This one was sharp, bright, and openly delighted, like he had suddenly stumbled onto the first genuinely entertaining thing he had seen in ages.
"Ha!"
He pulled the blindfold back on, then reached out and vigorously rubbed Yami's hair until the neat black strands turned into a complete mess.
"This is getting more and more interesting…"
His voice carried something rare.
Excitement.
No, more than that.
Anticipation.
In a world that had long since become too predictable for him, something new had finally appeared.
Something that could surprise him.
"My student," Gojo said, still grinning.
"It looks like things won't be boring from here on out."
Yami lifted a hand and flattened his now ruined hair with a helpless sigh.
But he followed anyway.
Ahead of them, the battlefield still smoked.
Beyond that, the other students were waiting, along with whatever chaos the rest of the Exchange Event had become.
"Come on," Gojo said, turning toward the distance. "We still have to check on the others."
The sun had already begun to sink.
Under the red gold light of dusk, the two of them walked side by side across the shattered earth, one tall and one young, their shadows stretching long behind them.
One was the strongest of the present.
The other…
Perhaps the strongest of the future.
It looked, for all the world, like the opening scene of a new era.
Yami did not notice what stirred in the darkness trailing behind him.
Something silent.
Something strange.
A faint resonance had begun to form between the power inherited from Tsugikuni Yoriichi and the laws of this world itself.
Subtle.
Unseen.
But undeniably real.
And this was only the beginning.
Gojo glanced at the ruined battlefield once more, the smile still lingering at his lips.
"Ha," he murmured. "Now this is getting interesting."
.....
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