"Scorching Love ♡ Kaleidoscope Fire Meteor——!!"
With a sweep of the magical girl's staff, hundreds of heart-shaped fireballs materialized in the sky out of nowhere — each the size of a basketball, trailing pink tails of flame — raining down on Satoru Gojo like a meteor shower.
The heart-shaped fireballs detonated one after another, blasting countless craters into the ground, fire blazing toward the sky.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom——
But it was useless.
Satoru Gojo remained completely uninjured.
"Blazing Heat ♡ Spiral Star Burst Ray——!!"
A spiraling crimson beam shot from the tip of the staff, spinning as it hurtled toward Satoru Gojo — the very air twisting and warping in its wake.
Zrrrrrrrrr————
Likewise, it had no effect on Satoru Gojo.
"♡Ultra♡Maximum♡Annihilation♡Barrage——!!"
Decades of high-density fireballs compressed to their absolute limit were launched in rapid-fire succession — each one triggering a secondary explosion on impact, detonating layer upon layer upon layer.
Pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew——
Still useless.
"Uwaaahhhh!!! ——"
The girl screamed, pushing herself to the absolute limit, unleashing everything she had — chasing Satoru Gojo with blast after relentless blast, attacking from every conceivable angle.
Pink special effects filled the sky in every direction.
Bizarre sound effects rang out from every side.
She attacked and attacked, and attacked — chasing him down for an untold distance.
Satoru Gojo finally came to a stop on the surface of a vast lake — standing leisurely on the water, feet barely touching its surface.
Only then did Jogo halt her assault.
The rose-red-haired girl panted heavily. That relentless barrage had burned through a tremendous amount of her stamina and Cursed Energy. The red gemstone at the tip of her staff had dimmed considerably.
She was exhausted beyond measure.
Even her arms struggled to lift.
And yet she had not managed to land a single scratch on Satoru Gojo.
Damn it. Could it really be — could it actually be — that this man's defense truly could not be overpowered through sheer numerical force?
Could it really be that love and magic — no, fire and temperature — truly had no way of breaking through him?
And what infuriated her even further: the more she attacked, the more techniques she unleashed, the more clearly she could hear Satoru Gojo failing to hold back his laughter.
Damn it. Damn it. He was mocking her!
It had to be because she was too weak! Satoru Gojo was mocking her helplessness — her weakness had become a source of amusement for him!
She raised her gaze toward the white-haired man standing on the lake.
Then her pupils contracted sharply.
"What..."
At some point without her noticing, someone else had appeared beside Satoru Gojo.
A pink-haired boy in a Jujutsu High uniform — standing next to Gojo with a thoroughly baffled expression on his face.
Yuji Itadori.
Why?
Why was Itadori here? He was supposed to be back at the school building — and the school was several kilometers away from this location —
The girl's pupils trembled violently.
Could it be — while she'd been unleashing her relentless barrage — Satoru Gojo had slipped away under cover of smoke and flame, flown several kilometers to Jujutsu High, picked up this student, and flown back?
In the gaps between her all-out attacks?
He had just casually popped several kilometers away, grabbed someone, and come back?
That's an outright insult!!
Jogo ground her teeth with an audible creak. She leveled her staff at Satoru Gojo. The rage burning in her crimson eyes blazed hotter than any attack she had ever unleashed.
Meanwhile, out on the lake, Yuji Itadori was scratching his head — staring blankly across the water at the rose-red-haired girl in her crimson short skirt, heart-shaped staff in hand.
"Um... Gojo-sensei," Yuji pointed at Jogo. "What is that? A kids' idol meet-and-greet?"
"Hmm..." Satoru Gojo — who had brought Yuji here precisely to broaden his horizons — found himself momentarily at a complete loss for how to explain it. He scratched his head. "Well... an enemy? I suppose."
"Sensei is enemies with a magical girl?!" Yuji gasped. "Which side is the good guys?! Is Sensei the bad guy?! Don't tell me you're secretly a villain?!"
Or — could it be that Sensei was also a magical girl? Was this some kind of magical girl civil war?
...Man, when does Sensei transform then? I wanna see...
"Obviously I'm the good guy." Gojo delivered a light karate chop to Yuji's head. "The one over there is... a Cursed Spirit, I'd say. Probably."
Explaining the half-Cursed-Spirit situation would be a pain, and honestly he wasn't entirely sure of the details himself — so he just made something up and moved on.
Yuji winced at the chop and clutched his head.
"A Cursed Spirit?!" Yuji was even more astonished. "But aren't Cursed Spirits supposed to be born from human negative emotions?! Then what was that one born from? Humanity's fear of magical girls?!"
Well...
Gojo rubbed his nose. How was he supposed to know? He'd been a jujutsu sorcerer for half his life and had genuinely never encountered anything of the sparkle-sparkle variety before. No matter how hard he wracked his brain, he couldn't figure out where this one had come from.
Hmm...
...This was the first time in his entire teaching career that Satoru Gojo had felt defeated by being unable to answer a student's question.
"You'll understand when you're older," Gojo cleared his throat. "You just don't get it yet."
"So when you reach Sensei's age, you start being afraid of magical girls?!" Yuji hollered. "That proves it — jujutsu sorcerers ARE the bad guys!!"
Then Yuji tilted his head with a puzzled look: "But if she's the enemy, why did you bring me here? Couldn't Sensei just handle this on your own?"
"Well, I figured since there was an enemy anyway, I'd use it as a teaching moment." Gojo smiled, then raised his head — looking across the lake toward Jogo — and raised his voice.
"Hey — little miss!"
Jogo's temple was throbbing.
"With that kind of power, you definitely know how to use Domain Expansion, right?" Gojo's tone was as breezy as if he were asking someone to shoot hoops. "You can, right? You can? If you've got a Domain Expansion — why not give my student something to look at?"
If it's Domain Expansion, that should at least be more... normal... right?
...Probably?
Anyway — Gojo's whole reason for bringing Yuji along was to let the boy see what a "Domain Expansion" actually looked like, and incidentally, to let him get a feel for just how terrifying a high-level battlefield could be.
Though this particular battlefield probably wasn't going to terrify anyone.
But that was fine. As long as the first objective could be met.
And while Gojo was running those calculations in the back of his mind, on the other side of the lake, Jogo found herself laughing despite her fury.
Give his student a show?
Was he kidding?
This man was using her as a teaching prop.
From the very beginning, he had never once considered her a real opponent.
Fine.
"Fine."
FINE!
She had been planning to hold Domain Expansion back for a later stage of the fight — but if it had come to this, if he insisted on provoking her, then he'd better brace himself for the consequences!
The white-to-rose-red-haired girl gripped her staff tight. Her Cursed Energy surged once more — more violently than when she had transformed, more overwhelming, more immense. The water on the lake's surface began to boil. Steam rose in white clouds. The layers of cloud above were pushed back by the heat wave, baring the pitch-black night sky behind them.
"Hmm?" The villagers who had come out of a settlement at the mountain's foot to investigate the commotion widened their eyes. "What is that... does this area... have a volcano?"
"Wha..." Ijichi, parked several kilometers away, glanced at his rearview mirror, then twisted around to stare. "Gojo-san..."
Fire like the sun.
Fire becoming the sun.
"Domain Expansion——"
Since you think so little of me.
Since you desire so badly to witness my Domain.
Then don't blame me for what comes next.
The staff was hurled high into the air.
Long hair billowed against a blazing solar backdrop.
Cursed Energy erupted skyward — the ultimate secret art of the sorcerer's path.
The crimson heart-shaped gemstone blazed with a radiance it had never shown before.
The magical girl brought both hands to her chest — and formed a heart shape with her fingers.
The gesture of love and justice that defined every magical girl.
And at the same time — the hand seal required of Jogo, as a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, to initiate Domain Expansion.
The Domain opened.
Sparkle~~~
Both hands in a heart shape — like an idol posing for a fan event — the girl, whose expression had been fierce and vicious just moments before, broke into a bright, adorable smile. She tilted her head. She beamed with sweetness.
She winked.
——"Scorching Coffin ♡ Love Garden!!"
---
Time always proves me right.
Like proving I am, in fact, a complete idiot.
Okay, everyone — please believe me. That Suguru Geto thing in the last chapter? I checked the chapter three times. On the very last check, my brain blanked out and I thought, "adding a name here makes this joke funnier and reads more naturally," so I just tossed it in.
I was probably laughing too hard at my own writing during those checks, which is why my brain went completely offline.
Maybe I truly am an idiot.
Thank you all for pointing it out — it's already been fixed.
Hey hey, thank you all for being so gracious. I'll pay everyone back with a mass release later (crying)
And if anyone has monthly votes or recommendation tickets lying around, please throw them my way — thank you so much (deeply moved)
____
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