As Yuji and Todo stood alone ready to exit the barrier and regroup with everyone else, Yuji was hit with a sudden wave of nausea.
Koof! Koof!
Yuji fell to his knees in a violent coughing fit. He felt like something was clawing its way out of him—it felt vile, suffocating, and cold.
"Brother, you doing okay?" Todo asked. He didn't remember seeing Yuji get injured at any point in that fight, so what was happening now?
"I'm not sure what's going on..." Yuji replied weakly before, suddenly, he vomited.
As he threw up the first time, he saw something that filled him with immediate dread. In the middle of the bile lay one of Sukuna's fingers. Before he had time to even question it, he threw up again, as Todo patted his back with deep worry.
"Brother...?"
Soon enough, every single finger Yuji had ever eaten was resting in the bile before him. As Yuji began recovering, wiping his mouth, the fingers started to pulse with a malevolent, blinding light.
"W-We gotta get outta here..." Yuji groaned, standing up and backing away from the severed limbs.
He still felt his cursed energy, and he could tell Sukuna's technique was still accessible to him, but his basic instincts screamed that he did not want to be here for whatever was about to happen next.
Todo, taking his brother's word for it, grabbed Yuji and ran off to exit the barrier. Behind them, the black cursed energy coating the fingers grew stronger by the second.
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Deep within the depths of Master Tengen's vault, Kenjaku and Mahito had just finished locating and gathering the six Sukuna fingers sealed there, as well as grabbing Cursed Wombs: Death Paintings one through three, which Kenjaku planned to use for later.
However, just as they were about to make their escape, the six Sukuna fingers began to violently tremble before shooting off into the distance like meteors. The sight deeply intrigued Kenjaku, while Mahito raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
"You have any idea what's going on?" Mahito asked, looking in the direction the fingers flew.
"I have an idea, but I don't know anything for certain," Kenjaku said calmly, before continuing his escape with the Death Painting wombs.
"Maybe we should go check it out?" Mahito suggested, genuinely interested in what could be happening with Sukuna's power.
"No. Satoru Gojo should be about to break into the barrier by now. Going back in would be entirely suicidal at this point," Kenjaku said firmly, as he and Mahito left the grounds of Jujutsu High.
———————————————————
All of Sukuna's fingers across Japan, no matter where they were hidden or sealed, traveled rapidly toward the exact same location: Jujutsu High.
As they reached their destination, they all merged into the pulsing mass of black cursed energy. Every arriving finger multiplied the suffocating power radiating off the mass until the twentieth and final finger arrived, slamming into the center and triggering a cataclysmic reaction.
Vuuurrrnnnn!!
The black cursed energy erupted into a massive pillar of power that expanded from the center, rising hundreds of meters into the sky just as Gojo successfully destroyed the curtain barrier.
Immediately, everyone on the battlefield felt it—a cursed energy so entirely evil, heavy, and dense that it made them physically sick just to feel it from so far away.
The sheer pressure forced them all to see vivid flashes of their own deaths in sudden, violent ways, leaving them completely speechless. This was far beyond anything any of them had ever felt in their lives, though for a select few, the horrific signature felt terrifyingly familiar.
'That's Sukuna's presence!' Megumi thought in horror, just as Todo and Yuji arrived to regroup with the rest of the students, confusing him even further.
"What happened?" Megumi demanded, as Yuji, who had mostly recovered by now, answered.
"Sukuna must have done something. One second I was totally fine, and the next I was throwing up all of his fingers. Now... whatever that is is happening," Yuji said, looking up at the sky at the pillar of black and crimson cursed energy that now coated the entire horizon.
"Does that mean the King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna, is fully free?" Noritoshi Kamo asked, sweating buckets at the raw power he could feel even from this distance.
———————————————————
"This is really bad news..." Gojo said to himself, hovering in the air high above Jujutsu High.
With his Six Eyes, he could see the flow of energy perfectly, and his worst fear had just come true. It seemed Sukuna had held a trick like this up his sleeve the entire time. He had completely revived. Since Gojo could no longer sense any of the scattered fingers, and had felt multiple signatures resembling Sukuna converging into one point, it was easy to assume the fragments had unified.
"Well, there's no time like the present. Let's go say hi."
Gojo vanished in a flash of light just as the pillar of cursed energy finally cleared, leaving Ryomen Sukuna standing tall in his true, original form. The King of Curses stretched his massive frame, scratching the back of his head. Two of his arms rested casually on his hips, one rested on his chin, and the fourth scratched his head.
As Gojo materialized a short distance away, Sukuna looked over his massive shoulder, two of his eyes locking onto Gojo while the other two scanned the surrounding landscape.
"Ah. You came to see me so soon, did you?" Sukuna chuckled, turning his full body to look directly at Gojo.
"You made quite the ruckus. It'd be rude not to show up, right?" Gojo smiled, though he had to admit, his blood was pumping with excitement.
"Are you sure you're ready to fight me one last time? I have to warn you, I won't spare your life this time around. So if you have any last requests, you'd best make them now. I can wait," Sukuna said, both of his mouths grinning wickedly.
"I couldn't fight you here even if I wanted to. My students are way too close and they might end up dead before they even realized we started," Gojo said, glancing over his shoulder toward the kids. Even though they were far away, his enhanced vision could see them perfectly. "But I'll be sure to fight you for real next time, when we're in a much more suitable location."
"Alright. I won't do anything cheap like killing them here. I'll make sure to start with you, so I can see their despairing faces afterward. I'll even let your corpse tag along to watch. How does that sound?"
"Hehe. Pretty arrogant, not that I blame you. After all..."
Gojo and Sukuna looked at each other, a heavy air of mutual respect settling between the two pinnacles of strength.
""We're the strongest!""
After their brief conversation, Sukuna turned away. With an explosive burst of pure physical strength, he vanished into the horizon with insane speed, the playful smile instantly leaving Gojo's face the moment the Cursed King left.
As much as Gojo's ego wanted to clash right then and there, Sukuna's fighting style was simply far too destructive. Gojo wasn't going to let his own desires get the students he nurtured for the sake of the future killed when there was no harm in waiting.
Vanishing once more, Gojo went down to spread the grim news to his students. They had an immense amount of grueling training ahead of them, he would personally make sure of that. Because for the first time in his life, Satoru Gojo wasn't completely confident that he would win.