"It might be a bit like bullying,"
"but as a teacher, showing you the insurmountable wall is part of the job, wouldn't you say?"
Satoru Gojo stood in the center of the training ground, one hand tucked into his pocket while the other beckoned Yoru to come forward.
That handsome face, now missing its blindfold, wore his signature irreverent smirk.
Around him, the air itself seemed to have frozen solid.
Even without any fluctuations in cursed energy, that sense of absolute, untouchable distance felt more despairing than any physical defense.
This was Limitless.
It brought the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise into reality, using cursed energy to construct a space of infinite convergence around himself.
The closer one got to him, the slower they became, forever unable to touch his physical form.
"An insurmountable wall, huh..."
Yoru repeated in a low voice.
Shiranui dipped slightly in his hand, the tip of the blade touching the ground.
Unlike the explosive killing intent he'd unleashed against Sukuna, he was as calm as a still pond right now.
After the steady growth of the previous two chapters, what he had honed in that dead silence wasn't just his state of mind, but his absolute control over his breathing.
"Phew..."
White mist escaped Yoru's mouth and nose, instantly turning into frost in the low temperature of the basement.
He didn't use the extreme speed of Thunder Breathing.
He simply raised his blade slowly, adopting a stance that looked unrefined yet lacked any openings.
Sun Breathing, First Form: Dance.
"Oh? A textbook starting stance."
Satoru Gojo remained still, not even bothering to take a defensive posture.
"Come on then. Let's see what you've got."
A second later, Yoru moved.
There was no world-shaking momentum, nor any blinding flashes of lightning.
This strike was simply fast.
So fast that before an afterimage could even form, the blade was already in front of Satoru Gojo.
*Clang!*
It wasn't the sound of a blade hitting flesh, but a duller echo, as if striking against thick glass.
The edge of the blade stopped a few centimeters away from Satoru Gojo's nose.
It was an invisible wall.
No matter how much force Yoru applied, the blade could not advance a single millimeter further.
"This is infinity,"
Satoru Gojo said with a grin, even leaning his face in closer.
"How does it feel? Pretty hopeless, right?"
Yoru said nothing.
He held his position, but his eyes weren't focused on Satoru Gojo's face.
His pupils dilated slightly, and deep within his dark eyes, a faint crimson light seemed to flicker.
That was... the 'intent' he had captured during his earlier meditation.
In that world of only black and white, the flow of all things became clear to him.
In Yoru's eyes, the infinity before him was no longer an impregnable iron wall.
It was a precise technique composed of countless complex flows of cursed energy.
Since it was a technique, it had a flow, and where there was flow, there were fluctuations—and openings.
"Sun Breathing..."
The Shiranui in Yoru's hands suddenly began to vibrate.
Flames instantly erupted along the pitch-black blade.
But these flames didn't flare outward wildly as they had before; instead, they were highly condensed along the very edge of the blade.
The air began to warp.
That distortion actually created a strange resonance with the Limitless barrier in front of Satoru Gojo.
"Hm?"
Satoru Gojo's smile pulled back just a fraction.
He could feel that the cursed energy required to maintain Limitless had actually increased by a tiny amount in that instant.
It was minuscule, but this was Limitless!
The strongest defense that could be maintained passively with near-zero consumption!
'Is he trying to use that heat to interfere with the flow of cursed energy?'
Satoru Gojo's mind flashed with a hint of surprise.
Before he could think further, Yoru's second strike arrived.
Sun Breathing: Clear Blue Sky.
The blade carved a perfect circle through the air, looking as if a blazing sun had risen out of nowhere.
This strike was still blocked by Limitless.
But the moment the blade touched the barrier, Yoru's wrist flickered with an incredibly subtle tremor.
It was a high-frequency vibration occurring thousands of times per second.
Combined with the intense heat of Sun Breathing, this vibration followed the direction of the cursed energy flow and instantly conducted into the interior of Limitless.
*Sizzle!*
The space that should have been absolutely static suddenly let out a piercing sound like an electrical discharge.
Satoru Gojo's pupils constricted sharply.
He saw it.
In front of Yoru's blade, a ripple had appeared in the space that was supposed to be absolutely inviolable.
"I've got you."
Yoru's voice suddenly rang out in Satoru Gojo's ear.
Despite them standing face-to-face, the voice seemed to pierce directly through space and explode inside his mind.
'I'm going to get hurt.'
This absurd thought flashed through the strongest sorcerer's mind.
Almost instinctively, Satoru Gojo tilted his head back.
*Slash!*
A tiny line of blood sprayed from the tips of his hair.
A few silver-white strands of hair drifted slowly toward the ground.
The entire training ground fell into a deathly silence.
Yuji Itadori's mouth hung open, and he didn't even notice the popcorn falling from his hand onto the floor.
What had he just seen?
The supposedly invincible Gojo-sensei actually had his hair cut?
"..."
Satoru Gojo touched his forehead; there was no blood on his fingertips.
Although that strike had broken through the outermost layer of Limitless, it had ultimately been blocked by a deeper layer of cursed energy right before it touched his skin.
But the hair was indeed cut.
This meant that for a fleeting moment, Yoru's blade had truly severed infinity.
"That really gave me a start."
Satoru Gojo lowered his hand, his expression shifting from surprise to pure ecstasy.
It was the excitement of finding a worthy opponent, the thrill of witnessing a new possibility.
"That last strike—how did you do it?"
He leaned in close to Yoru, acting like a curious child.
"You have no cursed energy, yet you were able to interfere with my technique. Was that purely through swordsmanship and physical prowess?"
Yoru sheathed his sword.
With a crisp click, the dark red glow in his eyes faded.
A deep sense of exhaustion washed over him.
That single strike had nearly drained all of his mental and physical energy; it was the price of forcing himself into the prototype of the Transparent World.
"It wasn't interference," Yoru said, taking a deep breath to steady his surging blood. "It was adaptation."
"Adaptation?"
"Every technique has a trajectory as long as it's flowing."
Yoru pointed to his own eyes.
"While I still can't see it clearly, in that moment, I felt the 'breathing' of your cursed energy."
"As long as I strike along the rhythm of that breath, even infinity will have gaps."
Hearing this, Satoru Gojo froze for a moment.
Then, he burst into a fit of laughter.
"Hahaha! The breathing of cursed energy? What a fascinating way to put it!"
He laughed so hard he nearly teared up.
"If those rotten oranges who are still obsessed with bashing cursed energy against each other heard that, they'd probably have a brain hemorrhage from rage!"
Once he finished laughing, Satoru Gojo's expression turned serious.
He looked at Yoru, his azure Six Eyes seemingly trying to peer into the boy's very soul.
"Yoru, do you realize what this means?"
"It means that if you keep honing this technique... one day, you truly will be able to sever anything in this world."
"Including concepts, including space..."
"...and even fate itself."
There was a hint of anticipation in Satoru Gojo's voice.
In this jujutsu world filled with decay and despair, he desperately needed a variable like this.
A variable that didn't belong to any faction, wasn't bound by any rules, yet possessed the potential to shatter everything.
"Severing fate, is it..."
Yoru tightened his grip on his hilt.
He thought of the tragic life of Yoriichi Tsugikuni, and the world plagued by demons.
In this world, he wouldn't let tragedy repeat itself.
Whether it was Yuji's execution, the tragedy of Shibuya, or the so-called Culling Game.
Since I'm here, I'll use this blade to slice through all that bullshit fate!
"Sensei,"
Yoru looked up, his gaze firm once more.
"That kind of stuff is too far off."
"Right now, I just want to know..."
"Can we stop Yuji's training for a bit? He looks like he's about to be beaten to death by that cursed corpse."
Satoru Gojo glanced over.
In the corner, Yuji was currently being ground into the floor by the teddy bear cursed corpse, letting out screams like a stuck pig.
"Ah... that."
Satoru Gojo waved a hand dismissively.
"It's fine, it's fine! That's all part of the training! It's to help him learn how to manage his emotions for cursed energy output!"
"Help me! Gojo-sensei! Yoru! This thing is actually going to kill me!"
Yuji's wails echoed through the basement.
Yoru sighed.
He looked at Satoru Gojo and suddenly asked:
"By the way, sensei. Since my training has shown results, isn't it time for the next stage?"
"The next stage?"
Satoru Gojo arched an eyebrow.
"Actual combat."
Yoru's fingers lightly traced the hilt of his sword.
"Cutting just air and hair is too boring. Do you have anything... sturdier to cut?"
The grin on Satoru Gojo's face widened.
"Something sturdier, huh? Perfect timing."
""