The streets of Shibuya had long since been reduced to a scorched wasteland.
Towering flames illuminated the late autumn night as brightly as day.
Streams of molten lava flowed freely across the asphalt roads, melting every car and billboard in their path into pools of scrap metal that released thick, pungent black smoke.
Jogo panted heavily.
The volcanic vent atop his head continuously spewed white steam.
His bloodshot eye remained fixed on the pink-haired youth standing unharmed atop a utility pole in the distance.
"What's wrong?"
"Is this all you've got?"
Sukuna stood with his arms crossed, looking down at Jogo from above.
His school uniform had been shredded during their earlier chase, revealing a lean, muscular torso covered in black markings.
The two pairs of eyes belonging to the King of Curses were filled with unconcealed mockery and boredom.
"I gave you a chance, Volcano Head."
"If you could land even a single hit, I'd work for your side."
"But after all this time, you haven't even touched the corner of my clothes."
Sukuna yawned and casually tapped the utility pole beneath him with his foot.
Crack.
The reinforced concrete pole snapped cleanly in half.
His figure blurred into a black streak and instantly appeared before Jogo.
Then came a casual roundhouse kick.
Bang!
Jogo was launched like a cannonball.
He smashed through the load-bearing walls of three consecutive buildings before finally embedding himself deep within a pile of rubble.
"Cough!"
A mouthful of purple blood sprayed from his lips.
The difference in strength was simply too great.
Even with only fifteen fingers restored, Sukuna's overwhelming superiority in speed, power, and cursed energy control left Jogo drowning in despair.
"Since ordinary attacks can't touch you..."
Jogo gritted his teeth and forced himself out of the ruins.
He slammed his hands together.
The cursed energy within him erupted outward without restraint.
The temperature of the surrounding area skyrocketed.
Even the air itself became visibly distorted by the extreme heat.
"Then I'll use an attack that covers the entire street!"
"Maximum Technique: Meteor!"
At Jogo's roar, the clouds overhead were violently torn apart.
A colossal meteor more than a hundred metres in diameter descended from the heavens.
Forged from molten rock and compressed cursed energy, it carried enough destructive force to annihilate everything in its path.
Before it had even landed, the immense pressure generated by its descent had already torn the roofs from nearby buildings.
Sukuna remained where he stood.
He looked up at the blazing celestial mass that filled his entire field of vision.
Not only did he make no attempt to dodge, but the arrogance on his face only deepened.
"Now that's more like it."
"Finally, something worth stretching my muscles for."
He slipped his hands into his pockets, preparing to unleash a slash and split the meteor apart.
Then—woosh!
A strange ripple spread visibly through the air.
An unsettling silence descended.
It wasn't that sound had vanished.
Rather, every sound wave, every current of air, and even the scorching heat radiating from the falling meteor had been forcibly isolated.
As though a higher and more absolute power had suddenly imposed its will upon the battlefield.
Sukuna's movements froze.
All four of his eyes narrowed sharply as he stared ahead.
Clang—!!
A clear sword chime rang out across the night sky of Shibuya without warning.
A streak of deep-purple lightning sword energy rose from the far end of the street.
It was as thin as a thread, yet as brilliant as the sun itself, carrying a sharpness that seemed capable of severing all physical laws.
The blade of light swept upward.
Effortlessly.
It passed straight through the hundred-metre-wide meteor.
Time seemed to freeze.
Then.. Rip!
The blazing meteor, powerful enough to level half of Shibuya, split cleanly down the middle.
Purple-black arcs of lightning crackled wildly across the molten cross-section.
The meteor's terrifying momentum was instantly erased by the Lightning Release chakra.
The two halves lost all forward force and crashed into the ruins on either side of the street, kicking up massive clouds of dust.
"Who was that?!"
Jogo's eye widened in horror as he stared toward the source of the sword strike.
His Maximum Technique.
His strongest attack, condensed from all of his cursed energy.
Someone had split it apart with a single sword slash?
The dust gradually settled.
Unhurried footsteps echoed across the shattered asphalt.
Holding the Kusanagi Sword in one hand, Rin stepped between the two colossal meteor fragments and walked calmly onto the devastated battlefield.
The Six-Tomoe Rinnegan in his left eye and the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan in his right emitted a ghostly glow in the darkness.
He didn't even spare Jogo, trembling amid the rubble, a glance.
Instead, his gaze locked directly onto Sukuna.
"Throwing rocks around in the middle of the street at night."
"Did the dogs over those thousand years eat whatever manners you had left?"
Rin's voice wasn't loud.
Yet it drowned out every sound of the raging fires around them.
The moment Sukuna saw that familiar yet infuriating face, memories buried for months resurfaced instantly.
The rooftop of Sugisawa Third High School.
The man who had stepped on his head and ground him into the dirt through sheer overwhelming force.
"It's you!"
The smile vanished from Sukuna's face.
In its place came a twisted and violent killing intent.
"I was wondering where I'd have to dig you up after I regained my full power."
"And yet you've delivered yourself right to me."
Sukuna spread his arms.
The immense cursed energy granted by fifteen fingers filled him with absolute confidence.
"Back then, I only had the power of a single finger. That's the only reason you got the better of me."
"Today, I'll pull out every bone in your body one by one and turn them into ornaments decorating the streets of Shibuya."
"Only one finger, so that's why you lost?"
Rin let the Kusanagi Sword hang casually at his side.
A mocking smile curved across his lips.
"The weak always love making excuses for their own incompetence."
"So what if you have fifteen fingers?"
"No matter how much rubbish you pile together, it's still rubbish."
"You talk too much for a dead man!"
Humiliated again and again, the King of Curses finally exploded with rage.
___
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