The moment Locke finished slaughtering the cursed spirits, Yuji Itadori, whose physical form far surpassed that of a heavenly tyrant, sensed the sharpness a step ahead and stepped through.
"Someone! Someone went in!"
Among the crowd watching outside the barrier, a high school student saw Itadori step into the barrier and immediately shouted. The panicked cry instantly exploded the emotions of the onlookers, and frightened people rushed toward him and surrounded him.
"Are you Nishida Kagetatsu?! Are you Kagetatsu?!"
"Save us! We can't get out at all!"
"Hey! How did you get in? Tell us!"
Faced with the restless and nearly collapsed crowd, Itadori was silent for a moment, then raised his voice to stabilize the situation:
"I am the sorcerer Yuji Itadori. I work for the official department, specializing in incidents like this. Please be quiet and listen to me."
"Next, everyone immediately withdraw from the central area of Shibuya, find shelter around the barrier, and wait for the barrier to be lifted and rescue to arrive."
"Kagetatsu is already on his way. I know everyone is extremely frightened, but please maintain the most basic calm and trust us."
Itadori's words faded, and the calm aura of a strong man quietly spread, which was strangely reassuring.
He was clearly just a boy, but everyone looked at him with undisguised exhaustion. Yet no one caused a disturbance, and everyone silently followed his orders.
After everyone left, Itadori took a solitary step, exhaled his own cursed breath, and rushed toward the center of Shibuya.
"Huh? The brat's scent. How is that possible."
Enjoying a barbecue at a restaurant in Shibuya, Sukuna bit into the meat of a hind leg in his hand and turned his head to look behind.
Yuji Itadori's scent unceremoniously broke into his perception, and the enormous, abnormal cursed energy quickly covered half of Shibuya, causing Kenjaku, who was preparing, to notice as well.
"That's... Yuji?"
Faced with the most unbelievable reality, Kenjaku and Ryomen Sukuna made the same choice simultaneously—to find out.
Stepping onto these familiar streets and alleys, the ruins of the past constantly overlapped with the intact scenery before him.
He who had constantly exorcised cursed spirits here had carved this land into his bones, but now Shibuya, so intact and peaceful, had become his strangest form.
Unfortunately, before Itadori could take the initiative to move, his old enemy couldn't wait to stop before him.
Ryomen Sukuna, holding a leg bone to gnaw on, slowly appeared in his original four-eyed, four-armed form, condescendingly looking down at Itadori.
Looking at Yuji Itadori, whose demeanor was completely different, Sukuna frowned slightly and asked:
"Hey, kid, you look wrong."
At that moment, he caught a glimpse of the splash of a human leg in Sukuna's hand. The blue veins at the corners of his eyes suddenly bulged. His hands clenched tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.
"...In your hand... what happened?"
"Ha, this?" Sukuna casually shook the stump, a cruel mockery playing on his face.
"It's a woman who likes to scream. Surprisingly pure. Compared to most modern dirty goods, she can be considered a rare clean ingredient. Moreover, her cries before death were very pleasant."
With that, Sukuna laughed loudly, looked at Yuji Itadori, who could no longer contain his monstrous rage, and mockingly roared:
"What's the matter, brat! Do you want to tear me apart?! Do you want me to pay for my evil deeds? It's a pity you can't do anything!"
"Why trample on life?"
The moment this familiar question struck his eardrums, the wild laughter on Sukuna's face instantly froze. At that moment, a terrifying memory, penetrating deep into his soul, surfaced.
He stared at the young man before him, and two completely different figures overlapped in his eyes.
"People cannot come back to life after death, and lost lives will never return. Why trample on life? Why take away someone else's life!"
"What's so funny? Where's the fun?"
"What... what do you think of life?!"
In the next second, Ryomen Sukuna trembled violently, seized by absolute fear. Only at this moment did he realize that he had never stepped out of Nishida Kagetatsu's shadow.
The truly weak one was him.
He almost instinctively assumed a fighting stance and unhesitatingly unleashed [Cleave].
But he never expected that Yuji Itadori would sharply withstand this blow, his speed not slowing in the slightest. In an instant, he struck Sukuna in the face with an iron fist wrapped in cursed energy.
[Black Flash]
Yuji Itadori, who had come from the future, unleashed a Black Flash honed over sixty-eight years, directly sending Ryomen Sukuna flying. He was like a rubber ball, shattered by brute force, bouncing four or five times on the street and ground before crashing heavily to the earth.
Covered in blood, Ryomen Sukuna looked at Yuji Itadori before him with shock and anger. Compared to the physical pain, the blow to his soul surprised Sukuna even more.
Long time no see. Why has this kid suddenly become so strong???
And just now, it was almost exactly like that cursed guy, Kagetatsu. What happened?
After releasing his anger along with the punch, Itadori felt that his head didn't hurt as much as before. The improvement from Black Flash began to take effect, allowing him to warm up.
Turning to Sukuna, who was full of disbelief, he was silent for a moment, then spoke:
"Sukuna, I hate you."
"Really, kid? Is that how you treat me? It seems I've been too talkative usually."
"No, Sukuna. I've tried to understand you, to empathize with your choices. But I realize I can't. I can't understand you. I can't accept you. I've always been confused about what kind of relationship we have, and to this day, there's still no answer."
As words he hadn't planned left his mouth, Itadori was already a bit used to it. Because he now knew that this feeling would probably disappear soon. If he wanted to say something, now was the only chance.
"What nonsense are you talking about, brat?"
"In your eyes, we've been together for only a month. But I've been thinking about it for sixty-eight years. Over those sixty-eight years, I've tried my best to understand you, but in the end, all that remains are regrets."
"I regret that I could only choose to kill you, rather than take you to see everything I wanted you to see."
"So—"
Yuji Itadori raised his eyes, his gaze firmer than ever before. His right hand slowly clenched into a fist, and he said to Sukuna in a deep voice:
"This time, I will never show mercy again, Sukuna."
"I order you to return to my body. If you refuse, I will fight until you give in."
Listening to this almost arrogant declaration, the defiant face of the King of Curses instantly twisted into something ugly and terrifying.
"Kid, you've... lost your mind!!"
In the next moment, a dense [Cleave] rushed toward Itadori like a downpour.
But facing this familiar attack, long etched into his bone marrow, Itadori simply raised his hand and waved it at will, counterattacking with the exact same [Cleave]—a technique as sharp as the one Kagetatsu had used back then, not only cutting off all the cursed energy Sukuna had unleashed but also slicing his body into pieces.
"I said—"
Before Ryomen Sukuna could recover from the intense pain and astonishment, Yuji Itadori had already flashed before his eyes. He leaped high, his clenched fists wrapped in a thousand pounds of force, and smashed Sukuna's face.
"I said... this is an order!!"
[Black Flash *2]
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