Chapter 107: Severing the Conspiracy with a Single Strike
For one breath, the world lost its sound.
Inside the Prison Realm, Satoru Gojo was swallowed by absolute darkness.
Outside it, the crimson slash that had fallen from above finally struck the ground.
Rumble!
The fifth underground platform buckled.
Concrete split apart in jagged lines. Steel beams screamed as they warped under the heat. The rails glowed red, then white, then sagged like wax beneath a flame. The entire platform was engulfed in a violent burst of crimson fire, a wave of heat rolling outward with enough force to tear through the tunnel walls.
The Cursed Spirits lurking in the chaos had no time to flee.
Those that tried to move were erased before they could form a scream.
The flames did not merely burn flesh. They incinerated cursed energy itself, leaving nothing but thin streams of black smoke curling through the ruined station.
Amid the fire, dust, and falling rubble, a figure slowly stepped forward.
Black hair.
Crimson eyes.
Hanafuda earrings swaying beside his face.
In his hand, the Special Grade cursed tool, Shiranui, burned with coiling flames that twisted around the blade like living dragons.
Yami had arrived.
But he was one step too late.
Clack.
A small black cube dropped onto the shattered ground.
It looked like a twisted Rubik's Cube, covered in closed eyes and ancient talismans. The thing had already fallen silent, yet the weight it gave off was suffocating. It sat there in the rubble like a coffin.
Satoru Gojo's presence was gone.
Not faint.
Not hidden.
Gone.
"Hahahaha…"
A laugh cut through the crackling flames.
Kenjaku staggered back, clutching the stump where his arm had been moments earlier. Half of Geto Suguru's stolen body was charred black from Yami's strike. His robe had burned away in patches, and the smell of scorched flesh filled the platform.
Yet he laughed.
Wildly.
Triumphantly.
Even with his flesh ruined and his arm severed, he laughed as though he had already won the war.
Because, in a way, he had.
Satoru Gojo had been sealed.
"It's useless," Kenjaku rasped, his smile splitting wide across Geto's face. "You came all this way, and what did you accomplish?"
Blood trickled down his chin.
"Once the Prison Realm closes, it cannot be opened from the outside. Not by strength. Not by technique. Not even by a god."
His eyes gleamed with feverish malice.
"This world will return to chaos."
Yami did not answer.
He only stared at the Prison Realm lying between them.
There was no shouting.
No rage twisted his face.
No grief escaped his lips.
That silence was worse.
It was the stillness of a blade drawn in the dark.
The calm before a storm so violent that even the air seemed afraid to move.
"Is that so?"
Yami slowly raised his head.
His crimson eyes settled on Kenjaku.
"You look happy."
Kenjaku's laughter stopped.
The smile remained on his face for a fraction of a second longer, then stiffened.
A chill crawled up his spine.
Not from cursed energy.
Not from killing intent in the ordinary sense.
It was the instinctive terror of prey realizing that the thing in front of it was not angry enough to be reckless.
It was calm enough to kill perfectly.
"Sun Breathing."
Yami's voice was quiet.
To Kenjaku, it sounded like a death sentence.
"Seventh Form."
The flames along Shiranui narrowed, concentrating into a thin crimson line at the blade's tip.
"Sun Halo Thrust."
There was no grand movement.
No roar.
No flourish.
Yami simply thrust forward.
The world bent.
For a moment, Kenjaku felt as though time had been pierced.
His mind registered the motion only after the attack had already arrived. Crimson light filled his vision, too thin to be a slash, too fast to be called a thrust. It was a line drawn through space itself, carrying the heat of the sun compressed to a single point.
"Cursed Spirit Manipulation!"
Kenjaku reacted on instinct.
A hulking Cursed Spirit burst out before him, its body unfolding from a mass of shadow and teeth to serve as a shield. At the same time, he reinforced his body with cursed energy, layering defense upon defense in less than a heartbeat.
It meant nothing.
The Cursed Spirit had only managed to bare its fangs when the crimson line passed through it.
Its body melted before it could scream.
The defensive cursed energy around Kenjaku burned away like paper tossed into a furnace.
Puchi.
A soft sound followed.
Kenjaku lowered his eyes.
There was a hole through his chest.
The edges were blackened, perfectly cauterized. No blood spilled from the wound. The heat had evaporated it all.
Behind him, Yami stood with Shiranui extended, the blade unstained.
"How…"
Kenjaku's lips trembled.
"How is this possible?"
He had prepared for Satoru Gojo.
He had prepared for the Six Eyes.
He had prepared for Limitless, Unlimited Void, Reverse Cursed Technique, and every known monster in the modern Jujutsu World.
But this boy had no cursed energy.
By every rule Kenjaku knew, he should not have been capable of this.
And yet, his defenses had been treated as if they did not exist.
"You said the Prison Realm can't be opened."
Yami turned around.
The flames on Shiranui surged again, brighter than before.
"Then I'll cut through you and your plan first."
His figure vanished.
Kenjaku's eyes widened.
Too fast.
He could not even command the body to move in time.
A crimson arc flashed through the smoke, angled low and vicious, tearing through the space between them.
Kenjaku's remaining hand had been reaching toward the Prison Realm.
The slash took that arm at the shoulder.
The severed limb spun into the air.
Again, there was no blood, only charred flesh and the bitter smell of burned cursed energy.
"Aaaaaah!"
Kenjaku hit the ground hard, rolling across broken concrete like a mutilated animal. The ancient mastermind, who had manipulated centuries of history from behind the curtain, now looked like a dog beaten half to death and left in the mud.
Yami stepped past him.
He bent down and picked up the Prison Realm.
The cube was small, but the moment it settled into his palm, its weight became almost absurd.
It was not physical weight.
It was the weight of a world that had lost its strongest pillar.
Yami closed his fingers around it.
Inside, Gojo's life signs were stable.
Faint, sealed, unreachable.
But alive.
"Gojo-sensei."
Yami brushed his thumb over the cold surface of the cube.
"Sleep for a while."
His voice remained calm.
"When you wake up…"
His eyes lifted toward the ruined platform, toward the city above, toward the filth crawling behind the Jujutsu World's curtains.
"This world will be much cleaner."
He tucked the Prison Realm into his uniform and turned back to Kenjaku.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Each footfall was light.
Yet to Kenjaku, every step sounded like a countdown.
"Now," Yami said, "return that body."
His eyes sharpened.
"Or die."
Fear finally swallowed Kenjaku's composure.
This boy was not Satoru Gojo.
That was the worst part.
Gojo was arrogant, overwhelming, absurdly powerful, but he still existed inside the framework of jujutsu. He was the peak of a known system. A monster, yes, but a monster whose shape Kenjaku understood.
Yami was different.
He did not break the rules.
He ignored them.
He cut through cursed techniques with a blade. Burned curses without cursed energy. Pierced defenses by finding the invisible weak point in all things.
He was not the strongest in the Jujutsu World.
He was something the Jujutsu World had no category for.
"Move…"
Kenjaku tried to force cursed energy through Geto's ruined body.
"Move, damn you!"
He had to escape.
He still had contingencies. He still had pieces on the board. Jogo was alive. Mahito was alive. There were vows, backups, curses, layers of preparation buried throughout Shibuya.
As long as he escaped, this was not over.
But then the body stiffened.
Kenjaku's expression changed.
The will that Gojo had awakened earlier stirred again.
This time, it did not merely resist.
It rebelled.
The body, mangled as it was, twisted against Kenjaku's command. With its remaining strength, Geto Suguru's stolen hand reached for a jagged piece of rebar jutting from the broken platform.
The fingers closed around it.
Then drove it through the fabric of the robe and into the ground, pinning the body in place.
Kenjaku's eyes bulged.
"What?"
His voice cracked with fury.
"You again?"
The body trembled violently.
"Suguru Geto!"
Kenjaku's thoughts roared through the skull.
"You're dead! You're already dead! Why are you still interfering with me?"
He poured cursed energy downward, trying to drown that remnant will in force.
But the resistance remained.
It was not a living consciousness.
It was not even a complete soul.
It was an obsession.
A final refusal carved so deeply into flesh that death had failed to erase it.
And, faintly, from somewhere inside the stolen body, Kenjaku heard a voice.
I won't allow it.
For the first time that night, Kenjaku truly panicked.
That hesitation was brief.
But against Yami, brief was fatal.
"It seems even that body rejects you."
Yami's voice reached him from above.
Kenjaku looked up.
Through the smoke and fire, those crimson eyes seemed to see past skin, bone, cursed energy, and stolen identity, straight to the parasite hiding underneath.
"Don't come any closer!"
Kenjaku's composure shattered.
"You can't kill me!"
Yami kept walking.
"If you kill me, Suguru Geto's body dies too!"
The words burst out like a hostage threat.
For any student of Gojo Satoru, perhaps they should have worked.
For Yami, they did not slow his steps by even half a pace.
"Destroyed?"
Yami's expression did not change.
"That would still be better than letting a disgusting thing like you wear it."
Zing.
Shiranui rose.
The crimson blade light reflected across Kenjaku's face, painting his terror in fire.
In that instant, the Prison Realm inside Yami's uniform gave off a faint pulse.
It was weak.
Almost impossible to notice.
Yet Yami felt it.
Even sealed inside absolute confinement, even cut off from the outside world, Satoru Gojo's presence stirred for a fleeting moment.
It was not a plea for rescue.
It was trust.
Absolute, reckless, infuriating trust.
The kind only Gojo Satoru would give while trapped in a box.
Yami's killing intent became pure.
"He knew I would come."
The blade descended slightly.
"And he believed I could finish this."
Kenjaku's pupils shrank.
"So…"
Yami's voice turned colder than the flames around him.
"Die."
The blade fell.
Then, from behind him, a chill struck.
.....
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