Chapter 158: I Can Do Nothing
The smug, self-satisfied laughter of Kenjaku;
Hanami's fury over Jogo's death, and her resolve to make any sacrifice so that Cursed Spirits could truly overthrow humanity;
Gojo Satoru's regret upon realizing he had fallen into a trap;
All these emotions swirled as Emiya Shirou activated the Magic Circuits within his body through Ripple breathing. His Projection Magecraft bridged the gap between his Reality Marble and the physical world, projecting an object born of fantasy into reality.
As that golden, muscular silhouette—which shouldn't have existed here—began to erode the world's laws following Shirou's command...
Time, by necessity, came to a halt under Emiya Shirou's order.
"I see. No wonder Gojo was helpless against this thing, both in my past-life memories and now.
If I hadn't studied the knowledge of Jujutsu Sorcerers and discovered that the Cursed Energy they use isn't that different from the Mana used by Magi—and that the Ripple generated by breathing is actually more effective against Cursed Spirits—and if I had chosen to learn to use Cursed Energy instead, I might have had my Cursed Energy sealed by the [Prison Realm] too."
'One second has passed.'
Within this one second, time was stopped just before the [Prison Realm] could snap shut.
Emiya Shirou, who had moved to Gojo Satoru's side after completing these actions, reached out to touch the strange, fleshy objects protruding from the [Prison Realm] that were wrapping around Gojo in layers.
He noted that the moment he made contact with the [Prison Realm], Cursed Energy became unusable. Even Mana became slightly difficult to circulate. Combined with the fact that the more powerful a Cursed Tool is, the sturdier it becomes, Shirou abandoned the option of physical destruction after testing it with a few "Muda Muda" punches from [Pseudo-The World] and finding it highly resistant.
"Only one second left... this might not be enough time."
Emiya Shirou gauged the distance between himself and Kenjaku. Although Kenjaku was unaware that time had stopped due to his total lack of preparation, Shirou's [Pseudo-The World] time-stop ability was currently only developed to a duration of two seconds.
Having spent the first second investigating the nature of the [Prison Realm], Shirou had to choose in this final second: should he take down Kenjaku right now, or prevent Gojo Satoru from being sealed?
Of course, this decision was complicated by the uncertainty of whether Kenjaku's death as the holder of the [Prison Realm] would actually abort the sealing process. If he struck Kenjaku down in this frozen world but the seal didn't release... who knew if Kenjaku had set up some emergency teleportation technique that would trigger the moment Gojo was successfully sealed, tossing the [Prison Realm] into some unreachable corner of the world?
It wasn't an impossible scenario. After all, [Cursed Spirit Manipulation] allowed Kenjaku to possess a wide variety of spirits and use their bizarre techniques. Even without that, Kenjaku—who had constantly hopped between bodies and stolen the techniques of his hosts—had a staggering repertoire of abilities.
Even time-stop itself wasn't invincible.
If Kenjaku could perceive that time had been stopped, he could potentially interfere with it before the next one occurred. One of the bodies Kenjaku had occupied in the past—the mother of Itadori Yuji—had the [Anti-Gravity System] engraved in it. One of the few things [Pseudo-The World] cannot stop is things related to the four fundamental forces.
By using the Reverse Cursed Technique to power that [Anti-Gravity], Kenjaku might be able to move through gravity to shrug off the effects of a time-stop, much like [Tusk ACT4] in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 7.
Shirou didn't dare gamble on whether Kenjaku had left a "back door" for the [Prison Realm] in a timeline that differed from the original story.
Thinking of this, Emiya Shirou made a swift decision.
"—Trace on!!"
He stopped trying to achieve everything at once. Instead, by weighing which outcome would be worse, he chose to eliminate the most disastrous option first.
Through Projection Magecraft, he manifested [Rule Breaker], using it to sever all the connections of the [Prison Realm] binding Gojo Satoru!
"A seal? Isn't that a coincidence? My Noble Phantasm is specifically designed to target seals and all phenomena related to Mana... or in the terms of this world, Cursed Energy."
Crack—!
The sound of something shattering echoed within the frozen world.
—Two seconds have passed.
Time resumed its flow at that final moment.
At the instant time restarted, before Kenjaku could even process where the Emiya Shirou who had been standing there had gone, Shirou had already switched [Pseudo-The World] to [Pseudo-Whitesnake]. A pale, purple-white figure, looking like a wax statue, had already pressed its palm against Hanami's face.
"Have you finally caught on?" Shirou said.
In Shirou's perception, cockroaches—countless cockroaches—began to gush out from every corner. Like a tsunami, they surged toward their position.
This was Kenjaku's immediate reaction upon realizing Shirou had vanished. He didn't waste time looking for him; instead, he used a massive swarm of cockroaches—a Cursed Spirit born from humanity's fear of them—to launch a "human" (cockroach?) wave attack using its reproductive technique!
[Pseudo-Magician's Red], maintaining its projection alongside [Pseudo-Whitesnake], draped its life-detecting flames over Shirou, which were now screaming in alarm.
Yet Shirou remained undeterred, showing no sign of abandoning Hanami. As the DISCs containing Hanami's Technique and Spirit began to slide out of her body under the power of [Pseudo-Whitesnake], he moved forward instead of retreating, snatching the two DISCs on the spot.
"But you're still a step too late, Kenjaku.
Whether it's the time it took you to think or the time it took to react—you can do nothing."
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