Chapter 77: Chimera Shadow Garden, the Incomplete Throne
"Domain Expansion…"
Megumi's voice came out low and ragged, dragged up from somewhere deeper than fear.
Then the world inside the barrier sank.
No.
It drowned.
A tide of black surged out from beneath his feet and spilled across the cavern floor in an instant, swallowing rock, slime, and broken stone whole. It looked like liquid at first glance, but it was not water.
It was shadow.
Pure shadow.
A bottomless abyss born from Megumi Fushiguro himself.
"[Chimera Shadow Garden]."
The moment the words fell, the barrier's interior changed completely.
Rumble.
The finger bearer jerked in alarm.
The solid ground beneath it vanished without warning, replaced by a vast expanse of black mire. Its misshapen legs plunged into the shadow up to the knee, then deeper, as if the entire world had suddenly decided to drag it down.
It thrashed.
Roared.
Struggled with all its monstrous strength.
It made no difference.
The more violently it fought, the more the shadows swallowed.
Around them, enormous black pillars rose from the flooded darkness, jagged and skeletal, like giant spines thrusting up from the belly of some buried beast. They did not form a complete shell. The domain's boundaries were still vague, unstable, unfinished.
There was no perfected barrier.
No absolute sure hit effect.
It was incomplete.
Crude.
Dangerously unstable.
And yet, at this moment, it was still Megumi's domain.
His territory.
His garden.
Megumi stood at the center of it, chest heaving, blood on his face, shadow spreading out from beneath him like a living kingdom.
For the first time, he could feel it clearly.
Control.
Not the desperate resistance of someone barely hanging on.
Not the forced exchanges of a sorcerer backed into a corner.
This was different.
This was dominance.
Inside this darkness, if he wanted something to exist, it would exist.
If he wanted something to emerge, it would emerge.
If he wanted something dragged under, then under it would go.
He raised his hands slowly, eyes wild and bright.
"In this garden…"
The shadows rippled.
Nue split from the dark above him.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
One became three.
Three became a flock.
Winged shikigami circled overhead, shrieking as lightning crackled between their bodies and illuminated the black sea below in jagged flashes of blue white.
"I'm the one who decides what lives."
The finger bearer let out a roar and lashed its tentacles upward, trying to smash the descending Nue from the air.
That was when the shadows at its feet burst open.
A giant serpent lunged out from the mire and sank its jaws into one of the curse's legs. At the same time, toads surfaced from different angles, their tongues shooting forward like chains to bind its arms and shoulders.
The Special Grade had been fighting Megumi.
Now it was fighting the domain itself.
Every direction was hostile.
Every inch of shadow obeyed only one will.
Megumi's voice echoed from all around it.
"What happened?"
The finger bearer jerked its head from side to side.
Megumi was everywhere.
One stood atop a shadow pillar, hands forming a seal.
Another watched from behind the curse with cold, empty eyes.
Another emerged half out of the mire, blood on his face and a grin he never wore in ordinary life.
Shadow clones.
Not illusions.
Not simple afterimages.
In this domain, where shadow covered everything, Megumi could move through darkness itself. Appear from anywhere. Multiply pressure from every angle. Turn one body into a battlefield full of himself.
The curse lashed out in panic, crushing one clone with a tentacle.
It burst apart into black liquid.
Another stepped from the darkness before the splash had even settled.
Then another.
And another.
Its grotesque face twisted.
For the first time, the monster felt the pressure of being hunted.
"Damn you…!"
Its voice came out warped and broken, barely resembling human speech.
The Sukuna finger embedded in its chest pulsed violently.
Then cursed energy detonated outward.
Boom!
A wave of dark purple force burst through the domain, flattening shadows, destroying clones, obliterating several shikigami in an instant. The shock tore through the cavern and shook the black pillars hard enough to make cracks spread across them.
For a split second, the finger bearer looked like it had forced breathing room.
Then the shadows moved again.
They rose from the ground in fresh waves and rebuilt everything that had been lost.
The broken clones returned.
New ones surfaced.
The mire deepened.
Megumi's voice came from somewhere unseen.
"Pointless."
The curse froze.
"In here…"
Another Megumi appeared to its left.
Then one behind it.
Then one directly above it, standing upside down along a pillar of shadow.
"…I don't run out before you do."
The real Megumi emerged soundlessly from behind the curse.
He was close enough now to smell the rancid stench of it.
Close enough to see the finger set in its chest, throbbing with that familiar, hateful power.
His hand thrust forward.
A blade formed from compressed shadow pierced straight through the curse's back.
Squelch.
The black edge drove deep, angled directly toward the finger.
The Special Grade shrieked.
Its whole body convulsed as it twisted around in a frenzy, trying to crush him with brute force.
Megumi did not pull the blade out.
He let go.
Then he dropped back into the shadows.
The next instant, something far more terrifying emerged from the wound.
A giant black wolf crawled out of the darkness like a beast born from the grave.
Its fur was darker than the domain itself.
Its body was dense with power.
Its eyes burned with savage intelligence.
[Divine Dog: Totality].
The strongest form inherited from the death of the white dog.
It lunged without hesitation and clamped its jaws around the curse's throat.
Crunch.
Fangs tore through flesh.
Black blood sprayed across the shadows in long arcs.
The finger bearer thrashed wildly, slamming tentacles into pillars, into the ground, into the domain itself, but the wolf only bit deeper. Nue descended from above in a shrieking storm, lightning exploding across its body. Serpents constricted. Toad tongues tightened.
Megumi stepped out of the shadows again, directly in front of the curse.
He was swaying slightly now.
Blood had begun to seep from his nose.
His domain was eating through his reserves at an insane rate, and his body was very close to its limit.
But his eyes had never been brighter.
He looked at the finger.
At the center of the whole nightmare.
And he spoke through blood flecked breath.
"Give it back."
The curse howled.
Megumi's fingers tightened.
"Now."
With one final savage wrench, Divine Dog crushed down harder.
The sound that followed was wet, heavy, final.
The finger bearer's massive body shuddered once.
Then it collapsed.
The weight of it crashed into the shadow mire, sending black waves rolling outward. Its flesh began to break apart almost immediately, dissolving into drifting ash and clots of cursed residue that scattered across the domain.
Only the finger remained.
It dropped from the collapsing corpse and landed in the darkness with a dull, ugly sound.
Then the domain started to fail.
The black pillars cracked and crumbled.
The flooded shadows withdrew in great rippling currents.
Nue vanished.
The serpent dissolved.
Divine Dog stood for one last second, turned its head toward Megumi, then disappeared into darkness as well.
The cavern returned.
Or tried to.
Megumi's knees gave out before the shadows had fully receded. He dropped hard onto the slime covered stone, one hand braced against the ground as he fought to keep himself upright.
He had won.
Not by dragging himself and the enemy into the grave together.
Not by forcing out Mahoraga and surrendering everything.
He had won alone.
Fairly.
Violently.
Completely.
His chest rose and fell in harsh, uneven bursts as he stared at the finger lying a short distance away.
A smile tugged faintly at the corner of his mouth.
It was not pretty.
There was too much blood on his face for that.
But it was real.
"Gojo sensei…"
He swallowed.
"Yami…"
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"I did it."
Then something cracked overhead.
Crack.
The sound was clean and sharp enough to slice through the fading haze in his head.
Megumi looked up.
The barrier above him, which even the finger bearer had relied on as an absolute shield, now had a line running through it.
Perfectly straight.
Perfectly smooth.
A cut.
Not smashed open.
Not shattered by force.
Cut.
The black membrane split from top to bottom like butter parted by a hot blade. Moonlight spilled through the opening in a single pale column, painting silver across the wreckage.
A figure stepped through that light.
Yami.
He was holding the scabbard in one hand.
The lacquered surface was still faintly smoking.
He had not even drawn the blade.
That realization hit Megumi with a strange mix of disbelief and exhaustion.
Yami walked over the broken remains of the barrier without hurry, each step steady, silent, inevitable.
He came to a stop in front of Megumi.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Moonlight reflected in Yami's red eyes, and in that reflection Megumi saw exactly what he must look like now.
Bloodied.
Covered in filth.
Shaking from overexertion.
But standing. Still standing.
The corner of Yami's mouth lifted.
Only slightly.
Still, it was enough.
"Well done."
Just two words.
Simple.
Unadorned.
They landed heavier than anything else could have.
Megumi stared at him for a second.
Then, through the blood and the exhaustion and the lingering madness of the domain, he laughed softly.
A small sound.
But a real one.
"Yeah…"
His breathing hitched.
"I got a little greedy."
That was the last thing he managed to say.
The tension holding him together snapped all at once. The finger slipped from his hand and dropped to the ground. His vision dimmed, his body tilted backward, and he started to fall.
Yami moved.
A blur.
He was behind him before gravity finished its work, one arm catching Megumi cleanly across the shoulders.
With his free hand, he stooped and picked up the finger from the ground, sealing it away in a single practiced motion.
Then he eased Megumi down against a broken pillar of stone.
Megumi's breathing was shallow but stable now.
Out cold.
Yami stood and turned toward the tunnel leading into the forest.
That was where Yuji and Nobara had gone.
That was where the Death Paintings had fled.
The killing intent in his eyes was quiet now.
Which made it worse.
He rested a hand against Shiranui's hilt and spoke in a voice so low that only the unconscious Megumi could have heard it.
"Get some rest, Megumi."
His gaze remained fixed on the darkness ahead.
"Now it's Yuji's turn."
He took a step forward.
The shadows of the cavern stretched behind him like torn cloth.
"I hope the two of them…"
The faintest trace of a smile touched his face.
"…have something worth showing me."
.....
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