BOOM——!!
The catastrophic shockwave from the localized explosion threw Kirara violently backward. The kinetic force slammed into his chest like a massive sledgehammer. He flew through the air for at least two or three meters before hitting the ground, tumbling end over end like a ragdoll before finally skidding to a halt.
His ears were ringing violently. This was the first time he had ever weaponized his technique like this. Not even he knew it would pack such a devastating yield. Merely superheating a fire technique could create such godlike destruction? Kirara could never have imagined it.
Just the shockwave alone was enough to injure him. If he hadn't been frantically reinforcing himself with cursed energy, the blast would have sent him straight to the ICU!
*—Grouping this Curse into the 'Special Grade' category is a total mistake!*
While Kirara still couldn't fathom Jogo going toe-to-toe with a true Special Grade anomaly like Kinji Hakari, an ordinary Grade 1 sorcerer would be completely butchered by this Curse.
This single entity, Jogo, had entirely skewed Kirara's perception of what a Special Grade Curse was capable of.
Kirara forcefully regulated his breathing, trying to calm his violently hammering heart. He pushed himself off the floor, his entire body screaming in agony. He didn't know if it was internal bruising or severe contusions, but he didn't have the luxury of checking. He forced himself to stand.
Eyes wide, he stared at Jogo's position. Thick black smoke obscured the blast zone. This was completely outside Kirara's realm of knowledge. He understood that massive concentrations of heat could cause explosions, but where was the black smoke coming from? Was this the Curse's physical form combusting? Or was it some bizarre chemical reaction he didn't comprehend?
Had Jogo been blown to pieces? Was he dead? Or was he still clinging to life?
"Impressive." Jogo's voice echoed from within the pitch-black smoke. "You really... almost killed me."
Kirara's heart plummeted. His strategy hadn't worked. Jogo's voice was far too calm. There was no rage in it. Based on their prior interactions, if the attack had critically wounded him, Jogo should have been screaming bloody murder. Instead, he was as tranquil as a frozen lake.
The first thing to become visible was the crater.
Kirara suddenly recalled how Jujutsu Headquarters described Special Grade Curses. In layman's terms: a cluster missile. And what lay before him was the exact aftermath of a cluster bombing. The corridor had been entirely obliterated. The area was scorched black, and the thermal wave continued to endlessly radiate outward. A backdraft tore through the massive gap, whipping up a localized gale.
No, there was no hallway left. Ceiling, floor, both side walls—everything had been erased. The edges of the blast radius were dripping with molten, golden-red concrete. Amidst the rising heat distortion, that golden-red glow looked like the manifestation of an angry god, radiating infinite majesty.
But the problem was, when Jujutsu Headquarters equated a Special Grade to a cluster missile, they meant its *overall* destructive capacity—not the output of a single attack! The mere *aftermath* of one of Jogo's techniques rivaled a cluster bomb!
Kirara's immediate reaction was overwhelming relief.
If he hadn't marked Jogo and Hanami the instant they met—if this had been a standard encounter—he would have been reduced to ash the second he got within range.
He had survived purely by luck.
Finally, Jogo stepped out from the black smoke. Kirara was stunned speechless.
Because exactly half of Jogo's body had been blown clean off! His left arm and left leg were completely gone. Yet, staring into the cross-section of his torso, there were no organs or fat—only charred, smoking flesh. The extreme heat had instantly cauterized the apocalyptic wound.
If he were human, he'd be dead ten times over. But Jogo was a Curse, so he lived. He stood tall, his expression unnervingly placid.
Kirara felt nothing but pure terror. It was the calm before the storm.
"You took that hit with zero preparation, didn't you?" Kirara asked. 'Zero preparation' meant his cursed energy reinforcement hadn't been activated in time.
Whether Curse or sorcerer, without cursed energy reinforcement, the physical body is surprisingly fragile. Curses fare slightly better since they are innately composed of cursed energy, giving them a baseline reinforcement advantage. But an unreinforced sorcerer is only marginally tougher than a normal human—nowhere near the realm of superhuman durability.
Of course, anomalies like the Sorcerer Killer and Ryomen Sukuna were exceptions to the rule.
"Indeed, I had zero preparation. But my 'luck' was quite good," Jogo's mouth curved upward. "Remember when you were explaining your technique and I pulled my clothes aside? I was far too curious about your cursed technique. I instinctively paused my temperature increase to check for the mark. It really was pure luck."
It was luck. If Jogo had kept raising the temperature at that exact moment, the resulting explosion would have absolutely vaporized him. But that slight reduction in output... a hair's breadth makes all the difference!
Suddenly, massive quantities of cursed energy erupted from Jogo's severed half. Kirara watched in horror as the missing flesh violently knitted itself back together in a high-speed regeneration! This was the ultimate advantage of Cursed Spirits—as beings of cursed energy, as long as they had reserves, they could infinitely regenerate! Even if they ran out of energy and were reduced to a severed head, they could eventually regrow their bodies over a few months.
Having half his body blown off wasn't even a critical injury to Jogo!
*Smack.* Jogo's newly regenerated foot planted firmly onto the ground.
"I'll admit it, old human... no, Kirara Hoshi," Jogo said calmly. "You are a tremendously capable opponent. I cannot afford to show you an ounce of arrogance."
"Just realizing that now?" Kirara mocked loudly, bracing himself for the assault.
"It took one-tenth of my total cursed energy... you over-performed," Jogo sighed.
Kirara frowned, a horrific premonition gripping his chest.
"Therefore—"
Jogo clasped his hands into a sign, speaking slowly: "I will use everything I have to kill you."
Absolute terror exploded in Kirara's mind! The oceanic volume of cursed energy surging from Jogo didn't manifest as fire; it expanded in all directions like a shockwave, forcefully attempting to paint over reality itself.
Kirara recognized exactly what this sensation was. That was why he was so terrified. This was—
"Domain Expansion," Jogo intoned quietly. "Coffin of the—"
A deafening crash violently interrupted the Domain's activation. Something plummeted from the ceiling above with meteoric force. Jogo's domain shattered before it could fully form as an overwhelming, sinister cursed energy aggressively hijacked the space, spreading outward like a tidal wave and whipping up a storm of concrete dust.
Kirara and Jogo saw it at the exact same time.
Mahito, locked in a picture-perfect dropkick, planted both feet squarely into Kinji Hakari's abdomen. Hakari looked like a broken ragdoll, utterly defenseless as Mahito drove him downward. That initial crash was Mahito slamming Hakari through the floor into the level below. And then the next level. And the next. Floor after floor after floor.
They plummeted all the way from the roof straight into the subterranean depths!
In the blink of an eye, Mahito and Hakari vanished from sight.
Jogo was ecstatic. "Mahito is going to win!"
Kirara couldn't process it. "Impossible... Kin is... losing?"
A secondary, earth-shaking boom echoed from the absolute bottom of the complex as Mahito and Hakari hit the foundation. The entire parking structure trembled like a tuning fork. Kirara immediately lunged toward the massive crater to jump after them, but Jogo merely took a single step forward, and Kirara froze, locked in place as if jogging on a treadmill.
Jogo cracked a massive grin and laughed wildly. "Hahahaha! It looks like you're trapped in your own spatial control! The tables have turned! Now I'm the one stalling you, keeping you from interfering in Mahito's fight!"
Jogo was right. As long as Love Rendezvous was active, everyone—including the user—was bound by its spatial rules! Kirara's cursed energy marker and Jogo's marker were not adjacent, meaning they physically could not close the distance to each other!
There was only one way left to jump down that crater.
Jogo locked his single eye onto Kirara. "So? Are you going to release your spatial control?"
*Should I release it?* Kirara thought frantically.
If he dropped the technique, Jogo would instantly unleash his devastating fire techniques and incinerate him! Jogo had repeatedly declared his intent to kill; he was absolutely waiting for Love Rendezvous to drop.
*I can't release it!* Kirara reasoned. *Even if I get down to Kin, my technique is built for support, not a frontal brawl of this magnitude. I wouldn't be able to fight at my full potential anyway.*
*But if I drop it right now, I'm dead.*
*If I don't drop it, I can bet on Kin rallying and turning the tables on the King of Curses. If I drop it, I get roasted alive in a fraction of a second. The power gap between Jogo and me is just too massive to dodge.*
*Conversely, as long as I don't drop it, Jogo won't waste his cursed energy on a Domain Expansion since the King of Curses currently has the upper hand. He still wants to save his strength to help Mahito later.*
*Therefore...* Kirara concluded, *the absolute best move right now is to wait. Under no circumstances can I release the technique.*
That was what he thought.
And then, he took a step forward—Love Rendezvous, Release.
"Like hell I'm gambling with Kin's life!" he roared, flaring his cursed energy reinforcement to its absolute maximum as he threw himself down the crater!
The logic was brutally simple: If he couldn't dodge, he wouldn't dodge. He'd tank it with raw cursed energy! As long as he didn't die, as long as he didn't black out, as long as he could still use his technique—even if he lost limbs, even if third-degree burns crippled his body—he would help Kin!
This was true resolve.
"You—!" Caught entirely off guard, Jogo haphazardly hurled a wave of fire, but Kirara had already vanished into the pit.
Jogo was furious. If he had been fully prepped, he never would have given Kirara the opening. He never expected Kirara to be so decisive, so suicidal!
In his eyes, the 'old humans' were painted in the colors of lies and deceit. When faced with death, they would always succumb to fear and betray their ideals without exception! But today, Kirara Hoshi had taught him a lesson: Even an old human born of lies could act with the same righteous conviction as a Cursed Spirit.
"Hanami! Follow me! We cannot let Mahito's battle be interrupted! Even if it costs our lives, we will pave the road to Mahito's victory!" Jogo bellowed, hurling himself into the massive crater.
With a thunderous crash, the dropkick that had pierced straight from the roof to the underground fight club finally came to a halt. Mahito stood atop Hakari's chest. A massive shockwave blasted outward from their epicenter, shaking the subterranean arena like a localized earthquake. Dust and debris violently kicked up, blinding the entire cavern.
Hakari let out a frenzied roar, thrusting a hand up to grab Mahito's leg, but Mahito had already kicked off his chest. Retreating rapidly, Mahito transfigured his arms into massive wings, violently flapping them to disperse the choking dust cloud.
They had fallen through an untold number of concrete floors, smashing through every level, yet the catastrophic impact hadn't critically wounded Hakari. He pushed himself up from the rubble, his cursed energy boiling off him like steam. His immense cursed energy reinforcement had mitigated the overwhelming majority of the damage, though his body still throbbed with pain. The repeated impacts and the final cratering blow had likely shifted his internal organs.
But that wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem was—
"So you've even got a technique to blind people," Hakari gritted out.
In their brief exchange, Hakari had suddenly lost his vision. If he hadn't possessed such absurdly thick skin, that sudden blindness would have cost him his life. Mahito hadn't held back in the slightest. Mahito knew perfectly well that a Special Grade combatant like Hakari couldn't be underestimated. From the very beginning, he had gone completely all-out, mercilessly beating a man while he was down.
"I thought we had already settled this," Mahito exhaled slowly, waving away the last of the dust. His tone was dead calm. "How much time do you have left before you can expand your Domain again?"
Whenever a Jujutsu Sorcerer deploys a Domain Expansion, there is a subsequent period where they cannot use their Innate Technique. This phenomenon is known as Cursed Technique Burnout. It is an absolute rule of reality, one that not even Satoru Gojo or Ryomen Sukuna can bypass. But Kinji Hakari was the sole exception in the world. While it still took a short amount of time, he could chain Domain Expansions continuously, even if he didn't hit a Jackpot.
"30 seconds," Hakari answered.
Mahito blinked. He had expected Hakari to stall or lie, but Hakari had delivered the raw truth with total sincerity.
"I'm guessing the technique you used to block my Jackpot isn't free. You must have to prep it in advance, otherwise you would've used it during my first Domain Expansion instead of waiting for the second round. Which means, if I just survive these 30 seconds, I can turn this whole thing around."
Hakari's lips curled into a manic grin. "But I'm not gonna do that."
"You aren't?"
"Because, man, wouldn't that just be way too boring!" Hakari suddenly roared, his voice booming like thunder. Amidst the boiling aura of his cursed energy, he threw his head back and laughed. "My fever is running hot! You've used every ounce of your brute strength and exhausted your intellect. Since you're that desperate to beat me, the only way I can answer is with the exact same level of passion!"
*Thud.*
Hakari planted his feet firmly into the earth. He dropped into a horse stance, chambering one fist at his waist and aiming the other straight at Mahito. A traditional martial arts posture. He had finally discarded all his preconceived notions. He was treating Mahito as a true, worthy rival.
He roared into the cavern, "Bring it on! Let me see the real King of Curses!"
*Didn't I literally just beat the crap out of you?* Mahito wanted to quip, but he held his tongue.
He took a slow, deep breath and formed a hand sign. Idle Transfiguration activated soundlessly. His body began to swell, morphing and expanding. A massive shadow began to cast itself over Hakari. Although Hakari was blind, his cursed energy perception was hyper-tuned. He slowly tilted his head upward. A gargantuan entity was taking up the entirety of the underground arena; just to "see" the top of it, he had to crane his neck to the ceiling.
Suddenly, two brilliant lanterns ignited in the dust cloud. In Hakari's cursed energy vision, these two lanterns looked like swirling vortexes of cursed energy, inhaling vast amounts of power before exhaling it back out, pulsing rhythmically.
"Hey, hey. I know you can turn into all sorts of wild beasts, but you can turn into *this* too?" Hakari's face registered genuine shock, like he was looking at a fairy tale.
Those weren't lanterns. They were a pair of heterochromatic eyes—massive, glowing, heterochromatic reptilian eyes.
A single gold and a single blue eye cut through the fog. In Hakari's perception, oceanic ripples of cursed energy were radiating outward from the creature. The colossal beast floated within this sea of cursed energy, carrying the overwhelming mass of a ten-thousand-ton dreadnought.
The serpentine leviathan violently shook its body, blasting the dust away. Its serpentine form was armored with overlapping fish scales. As it moved, the scales produced a low, thrumming hum, slicing the air and wrapping the beast in tendrils of shattered currents that looked like celestial clouds. Five-clawed eagle talons, attached to tiger-like palms, reached out from the mist. Antlers branching like ancient trees crowned its majestic head, while a lion's mane cascaded down its neck. A pair of long, ethereal barbels floated on the wind.
[Horns like a deer, head like a camel, eyes like a demon, neck like a snake, belly like a clam, scales like a fish, claws like an eagle, paws like a tiger, ears like an ox. The secular depiction of a Dragon: the head of a horse and the body of a snake.]
A Dragon.
A mythical beast straight out of legend.
Throughout the history of Jujutsu, there have been various Imaginary Vengeful Cursed Spirits. Among them were dragons. The deceased Special Grade Curse User, Suguru Geto, had possessed a dragon-type curse known as the Rainbow Dragon. That Imaginary Vengeful Spirit boasted the highest defensive durability of all of Geto's spirits, surpassing even true Special Grades in raw armor.
In this country, the Dragon motif definitively stood at the absolute pinnacle of power.
And the Rainbow Dragon had merely been a Grade 1 Imaginary Spirit.
But what Hakari was looking at now was the ultimate manifestation of the Dragon, recreated by Mahito.
The absolute pinnacle of power and the ultimate mythological form. This was—
—A Special Grade Mythological Imaginary Cursed Spirit: Dragon.
Hakari could barely believe what his cursed energy perception was feeding him. It was as if a myth was playing out right in front of him. Blinded, he couldn't see the creature's true physical majesty, but his perception traced every overwhelming detail. Hakari heard the grinding of scales shifting. In a fraction of a second, an astronomical surge of cursed energy blasted outward. The entire underground arena violently quaked, as if the very world was shivering in terror.
"My cursed technique is called Idle Transfiguration," the Dragon suddenly spoke.
Its voice was impossibly deep, ancient, and resonant, like the song of a distant leviathan.
Technique Disclosure!
"Through mere physical contact, I can alter the shape of a soul, thereby manipulating the physical body. It's the same principle behind my transformations into beasts. By altering the shape of my own soul into that of a beast, my physical flesh is dragged along to match it. And when I transform, all my physiological traits—my instincts, my movements—match the beast exactly."
Even without Mahito explicitly stating it, Hakari understood the terrifying secret of "Soul Evolution."
"Of course. You can also alter human souls, pushing them closer to a higher plane of existence, forcing their physical bodies to evolve along with it. That's how you turn normal people into sorcerers, and how you push existing sorcerers past their limits, right?"
"Correct," the Dragon rumbled smoothly. "And, as you can see, if I further transmute my own soul, pushing it as close as possible to the beasts of mythology... this is the result."
Suddenly, the ancient dragon let out a long sigh. Hakari instinctively threw his arms up to guard, but the sigh wasn't aimed directly at him. It grazed past his side—a torrential stream of hyper-concentrated power, like an unstoppable cursed energy cannon! With a catastrophic boom, the arena wall behind him, along with the entire exterior retaining wall of the parking structure, evaporated. Shrapnel and dust instantly swallowed Hakari from behind.
It was Dragon's Breath.
"Maximum: Advent," the Dragon intoned, its voice echoing like a tolling bell.
Maximum. Excluding Domain Expansion, this was the absolute pinnacle of a cursed technique. If Domain Expansion was a realm exclusive to geniuses, then a Maximum technique was the ultimate reward for agonizing, meticulous mastery of one's innate technique. Unlike a Domain, a Maximum didn't carry guaranteed-hit properties; it simply pushed the raw effects of the cursed technique to its absolute, theoretical ceiling. Kenjaku had referred to them as the supreme art of jujutsu.
Idle Transfiguration was the ability to freely reshape the soul to drag the body along with it. Its Maximum output was the literal recreation of mythological entities.
Quite literally, the Advent of a Myth!
Hakari had never expected to witness a Maximum technique from a Curse. The sheer shock of it surpassed even the destruction of his own Domain. Having his Domain countered was one thing—he could chalk that up to a bad matchup. But achieving a Maximum technique required an undeniable level of obsessive dedication and study. It proved that the intellect of the Curse before him far exceeded his wildest estimations.
The Dragon lowered its majestic head. Its shifting, heterochromatic eyes pinned Hakari in place. The voice echoed like distant Buddhist chanting. "Kinji Hakari. I will offer you one final chance. Submit to me."
Suddenly, a shadow crashed into the dirt. "Kin! I'm here to help!" someone screamed.
Kirara Hoshi! He had plummeted straight down from the crater.
Hakari turned his head. His eyes were useless, but his cursed energy perception vividly painted the horrific injuries covering Kirara's body. Half of Kirara's form was coated in cursed energy that flickered like dying embers—a sign of catastrophic burns. He was practically incapable of moving, yet he had still dragged himself down here to share Hakari's burden.
Hakari smiled from the bottom of his heart.
"Don't think you can escape that easily!" Jogo roared from the sky above.
Jogo and Hanami slammed into the ground right next to the Dragon, kicking up a massive cloud of dust. Jogo looked up at the colossal beast and ground his teeth. "Apologies, Mahito. I failed to hold the human back."
"No, it's fine," the Dragon said softly. "Because Hakari won't let him interfere anyway."
"Kin!" Kirara frantically tried to speak.
But Hakari barked, "That's enough!"
Kirara froze.
"This is our fight. Right, King of Curses?" Hakari asked.
"Indeed. It has been our fight from the very beginning," the Dragon replied.
Now it was Jogo's turn to panic. "Mahito, I—!"
"Jogo." The Dragon's voice tolled, shaking the earth to its core. "This battle is between him and me."
Jogo froze.
Hanami stepped forward and gently pulled Jogo back.
Hakari exhaled slowly. "Take a breather, Kirara. This won't take long."
"Kin—!"
"Do I really have to spell it out for you, Kirara?" Hakari suddenly roared. "Look at yourself! Do you honestly think you have the right to step into a fight between me and the King of Curses?!"
Kirara stared, stunned. He looked up at Mahito's draconic form, then back to Hakari. Feeling the agonizing pain wracking his entire body, he finally collapsed against the dirt in defeat.
"Yeah... I get it."
"Good." Hakari exhaled slowly.
He dropped back into his stance, flaring his cursed energy perception to its absolute limit, steeling himself for the end.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, King of Curses.
"Tochigi Prefecture. Boss of the former underground fight club at the multi-story parking garage. Kinji Hakari.
"Let's do this!"
The Dragon let out a booming laugh. The sound cascaded outward like a hurricane, echoing endlessly through the subterranean cavern. This formal introduction made it feel like an ancient samurai duel, drawing a genuine laugh from the depths of Mahito's soul.
"The manifestation of humanity's curse upon humanity. Mahito.
"Let's do this!"
Hakari and Mahito both mentally clicked their stopwatches. 17 seconds of the 30-second burnout had passed. Only 13 seconds remained.
The countdown begins!