The guardian barrier in Shizuoka pulsed steadily, its surface reflecting the afternoon sun like a placid lake. Inside, the world was peaceful. Outside, Okkotsu Yuta had just finished clearing the last wave of Cursed Spirits with a single, effortless strike.
He sheathed his spirit-slaying sword and turned to find Rika Orimoto spreading a large picnic blanket on the grass, her movements quick and efficient.
"Yuta! Come eat!" She waved, her smile bright enough to rival the sun.
By the time he reached her, the blanket was covered with carefully arranged bento boxes—each one clearly made with love, each dish placed just so.
"Should we invite Teacher Kamo?" Yuta asked, glancing at the clone sitting atop the barrier.
"I asked. He said clones don't need to eat." Rika handed him a box, her fingers brushing his. "So it's just us."
"As expected of Teacher Kamo. Even a single clone can maintain such a powerful barrier." Yuta accepted the box, his tone filled with genuine admiration.
Rika leaned closer, her voice warm. "Yuta is excellent too. One day, you'll be able to do things like this. I'm sure of it."
Yuta's cheeks colored slightly. "Really? I'll work hard, then!"
Kamo Itsuki's clone watched from his perch, expression unchanging, but internally—well, internally he was having thoughts.
'You called me over to eat, but what exactly am I supposed to consume? The public display of affection?'
He observed as the two young sorcerers opened their bento boxes, only to immediately begin feeding each other. Yuta took a bite from Rika's box. Rika sampled something from Yuta's. They smiled. They laughed. They exchanged food with the enthusiasm of people discovering a revolutionary concept.
'They each have their own food. Why do they keep eating from each other's boxes? Is it not tasty enough? Then why do they say it's delicious after trying the other's?'
The clone's mental calculations spun into an endless, confused loop.
'Is it politeness? Are they just being polite to each other? But they're the only ones here. Who are they performing for?'
He gave up. Some mysteries of human behavior were beyond even Kamo Itsuki's genius.
The idyllic moment shattered without warning.
A streak of lightning—violent, hungry, alive—tore across the sky. The source was a man with hair arranged in impossible peaks, a club-like Cursed Tool spinning end over end toward the guardian barrier.
Kashimo Hajime. Ancient Sorcerer. Four hundred years of restless existence compressed into a single purpose: to fight the strongest. His obsession had always been Sukuna, but anyone strong would do. Anyone who could make him feel alive.
The club struck the barrier with the force of a thunderbolt.
Blue light exploded outward, engulfing the dome in crackling electricity. The ground shook. Windows shattered in distant buildings. The air itself seemed to scream.
Inside the barrier, Yuta and Rika froze, food still in their mouths, bodies still mid-bite.
The club spun against the barrier's surface, lightning arcing and seeking, trying to find a weakness, a crack, a way through.
The barrier flickered.
Then it stabilized. The lightning, finding no purchase, was channeled downward, absorbed into the earth, dispersed. The club clattered to the ground, its power spent.
Yuta swallowed his food in one desperate gulp. He was on his feet before the last echoes of thunder faded, his tachi—the spirit-slaying sword—already in hand.
Behind him, Rika's voice was steady despite her pale face. "Yuta. Be careful."
He turned, offering her the warmest smile he could muster. "Don't worry. I just ate your love-filled bento. I'm in top form."
She smiled back, and some of the fear in her eyes eased.
Then Yuta walked toward the man who had tried to shatter their peace.
"You bastard." Yuta's voice was low, controlled, but the anger beneath it was real. "That barrier is protecting thousands of people. They didn't ask to be caught in any of this."
Kashimo Hajime retrieved his club, twirling it once before resting it on his shoulder. He looked bored. Disappointed, even.
"I don't care about them. I just needed the barrier gone so I could move freely. So I could find Sukuna."
He examined Yuta with the casual disinterest of a man who had seen too many opponents come and go.
"You know where he is?"
Yuta's grip tightened on his sword. "Gojo-sensei is handling him. It's not your concern."
"Gojo." Kashimo's eyes flickered with something—interest, perhaps. "I've heard that name. They say he's the strongest alive."
"Sukuna is his opponent. You won't get either of them." Yuta's stance shifted, ready. "If you want a fight, I'm right here."
Kashimo laughed—a short, sharp sound. "You? The boy who was eating lunch when I arrived? You think you can fight me?"
He raised his club, lightning already crackling along its length.
"Fine. I'll break you, then the barrier, then whoever's inside. And then I'll find Sukuna—or this Gojo—and see which of them deserves the title of strongest."
Yuta settled into his stance, sword before him, eyes fixed on his opponent.
"Then come."
The lightning in Kashimo's hand surged brighter.
Kamo Itsuki's clone watched from the barrier, ready to intervene if necessary, but for now—this was Yuta's fight.
The battle erupted with the force of a thunderclap.
Kashimo Hajime's body hummed, every muscle vibrating in resonance with the lightning that crackled across his skin. He became a storm given form—electricity arcing between his fingers, his hair standing on end, his eyes blazing with the light of a thousand volts.
He moved.
One moment he was standing. The next, he was there, his fist already descending toward Okkotsu Yuta's chest with the weight of a thunderbolt.
Yuta's tachi was already moving.
He twisted aside, using the sword as a pivot, his body flowing around the punch like water around a stone. The blade carved a silver arc through the air, counterattacking before Kashimo's fist had fully extended.
Kashimo bent backward—an impossible angle, his spine folding like a reed in the wind—and the sword passed inches above his chest.
Then he was moving again. Faster.
The attacks came like a storm surge, each blow faster than the last. Punches. Kicks. Knees. Elbows. Every strike carried lightning, every impact sent sparks flying. The air filled with the crack of thunder and the hiss of electricity.
Yuta's sword became a blur.
He blocked, parried, deflected—each movement precise, each decision instant. The lightning that jumped from Kashimo's blows followed his blade into his hands, into his arms, into his chest. Electricity danced across his skin, seeking his heart, his lungs, his nerves.
Yuta did not slow.
Behind his calm exterior, a quiet transaction was taking place. The lightning—that violent, hungry energy—entered his body and found no purchase. A Cursed Technique he had claimed long ago, from a spirit born of exploding power banks, converted electricity into cursed energy. What should have paralyzed, fueled.
But conversion took time. While it happened, while the current still lingered in his flesh, Yuta's Reverse Cursed Technique worked in tandem, healing the damage as fast as it occurred.
A constant, hidden battle within the visible one. Gojo Satoru had taught him this—the art of healing while fighting, of maintaining perfect function while the body screamed for rest. Yuta did not have the Six Eyes. He could not automate the process.
But he had learned. And what he lacked in innate advantage, he made up for in sheer, stubborn will.
Kashimo's eyes narrowed. The boy should be twitching. Should be slowing. Should be falling.
Instead, his sword was a river, flowing around every attack, finding angles that shouldn't exist, pressing forward when he should be retreating.
Interesting.
"My name is Kashimo Hajime." Lightning arced between his fingers, brighter now, hungry. "What's yours?"
"Okkotsu Yuta." The answer came steady, unbroken, even as electricity danced across his knuckles.
Kashimo smiled. A real smile, the first one in four hundred years.
Then he attacked again.
The exchange that followed was faster, fiercer, more desperate. Kashimo's lightning grew more concentrated, his strikes more precise. Yuta's sword became a blur, his defense a wall of steel and cursed energy that somehow, impossibly, held.
They broke apart.
Kashimo landed ten meters back, breathing hard, his smile still in place. Yuta stood his ground, sword raised, blood trickling from a cut above his eye that was already closing.
"A good fight," Kashimo said. "But you're slowing. I can see it."
Yuta said nothing. He could feel it too—the Reverse Cursed Technique straining to keep up, the conversion lagging, the accumulated damage beginning to outpace the healing.
He needed to end this.
Kashimo's hand rose. Lightning gathered in his palm, brighter than before, denser, angrier.
"Let's see how much you can take."
He threw.
The bolt of lightning crossed the distance between them faster than thought. There was no dodging. There was no blocking. There was only—
A flash of blue. A thunderclap that shattered windows for blocks. And then...
Okkotsu Yuta stood in the center of a smoking crater, his sword raised, his body still whole.
The lightning had struck—and he had caught it.
His arm trembled. Electricity coursed across his skin, down his blade, into the earth. His teeth were gritted. His eyes were fixed.
But he was still standing.
Kashimo stared. Then he laughed—a full, genuine laugh that echoed across the ruined street.
"Okkotsu Yuta." He said the name like a blessing. "You're worth it."
Lightning gathered again. Yuta's sword rose.
The next exchange would decide everything.