Chapter Forty-Eight: Two Against One - Part One
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The air inside the abandoned Jujutsu High training ground hung thick with cursed energy, heavy as a wet blanket left out in the Tokyo humidity for three consecutive summers. Dust particles danced in the slivers of moonlight slicing through cracked concrete—little luminous traitors illuminated only to bear witness to the absolute insanity unfolding below.
Kenjaku tilted his head, the stitches on his forehead crinkling slightly as centuries-old muscle memory moved a face that wasn't originally his. Interesting, he thought, though the word felt inadequate. Insufficient. Like calling a supernova "a bit bright."
I spoke as if trying to understand what was happening in this moment, because my curiosity was beginning to increase—and indeed it was. The kind of curiosity that makes ancient sorcerers forget they're supposed to be playing five-dimensional chess while everyone else is still learning checkers.
Kenjaku observed the bizarre situation before him with an intensity he hadn't bothered to muster in years. Decades, even. His fingers, resting casually against his thigh, had gone completely still. Not tense—still. Like a spider who's just felt the first vibrations of something truly magnificent caught in its web.
The reverse cursed technique is a higher level than ordinary techniques. It cannot be learned through talent alone; it requires something special—a kind of emotion or enormous pressure from cursed energy.
Yes, yes, all of this he knew. Had known for a millennium, give or take a few centuries of wandering and body-hopping. But what made his ancient brain cells fire with genuine fascination was this:
Deep down, he realized that Yuta Okkotsu possessed this talent and had enough cursed energy to use the reverse cursed technique. But what about the other party?
His gaze drifted—slowly, deliberately, the way one might examine a particularly interesting insect pinned under glass—to the black-haired youth.
The one currently glowing like a cursed Christmas tree.
Sweat beaded on the boy's temple, catching light and refracting it into tiny prisms before evaporation claimed them. His breathing came in controlled rhythms, chest rising and falling with the precision of a finely-tuned engine. And those eyes—
The red eyes that were illuminating at this moment, with three points rotating in each eye at an unbelievably fast speed.
Kenjaku watched the pinwheels of crimson spin, each rotation carving deeper grooves into his understanding of what this technique actually was. The sound was imperceptible to normal human ears, but Kenjaku wasn't normal. Hadn't been for eleven centuries. He could hear it—a low, rhythmic shhhk-shhhk-shhhk like an old film projector struggling to keep pace with reality itself.
Obito Zenin. This is the young man's name, as far as Kenjaku knew, having many spies throughout the major jujutsu clans. He knew there was a young man who awakened at age 16 and awakened a strange technique called the Sharingan. This technique allows one to see things slowly and predict—but at this moment, his experience spanning over 1000 years was telling him different information.
Kenjaku's left eye twitched. Just slightly. A microscopic betrayal of composure that no one present would notice—could notice—but it happened nonetheless.
First, this eye can not only predict, analyze, and see attacks at high speed, and even grant fast reflexes, but it also grants several other things. It can definitely read cursed energy, and even interact with the energies and attacks of curses or moving objects, whether those things possess cursed energy or not. The user of this eye does not need to be bound to cursed energy; he can see only kinetic energy as well. What this also means is that this eye can interact even with people who don't possess cursed energy.
A bird flew past the broken window. Kenjaku tracked its trajectory unconsciously, then immediately understood the weight of what he'd just processed.
Kinetic energy. Not cursed energy. Just... movement. Physics. The fundamental language of everything that exists.
His exhale was measured, controlled—not from fear or excitement, he insisted to himself—but from pure, distilled curiosity. The kind that had driven him to experiment with forbidden techniques, to wear bodies like coats, to pursue the incomprehensible across centuries.
From the things he witnessed, plus the information obtained through his spies, he predicted the following points. But there were things he discovered in this moment.
The boy—Obito—shifted his weight. Kenjaku catalogued every micro-adjustment: the angle of his hips, the distribution of pressure across his soles, the particular way his fingers curled and uncurled in rhythm with his breathing. All data. All meaningful.
This eye can copy anyone's cursed energy control style.
Kenjaku's ancient heart—well, this body's heart, freshly commandeered and still adjusting to his presence—gave an extra thump. Not excitement. Research enthusiasm.
Of course, he didn't know what conditions needed to be met, but certainly this eye can grant the user the ability to use cursed energy control methods and use techniques or combat skills, not the innate technique of the jujutsu user.
His mind raced through implications like a child through puddles. Splash. Splash. Each step revealing new depths.
This was dangerous, he told himself, rethinking this technique several times, because initially the technique wasn't particularly special—but after being able to see the cursed energy of cursed objects in addition to people who don't possess cursed energy, the power level of this technique had risen several times in his brain. But the thing that interested him more was the ability to copy cursed energy control methods.
Dust motes swirled in the space between Kenjaku and the battlefield. He watched them drift, thinking about how these tiny particles were also moving with kinetic energy that Obito's eyes could probably track, catalogue, understand.
His curiosity manifested more clearly when he witnessed Obito Zenin's ability to use reverse cursed technique at this moment. This was evidence that he had reached a higher level of cursed energy control—but that was wrong. He could easily feel the reverse cursed energy that Obito possessed.
Kenjaku's lips parted slightly. Not quite a gasp. Not quite a smile. Something in between.
This wasn't his own cursed energy style. It wasn't his own cursed energy. Rather, it belonged to Yuta's cursed energy. He was using that energy and imitating it to obtain the effect of reverse cursed technique. This means he hasn't mastered reverse cursed technique himself—he imitated someone who mastered this technique.
The realization hit Kenjaku like a physical force. His shoulders drew back. His spine straightened. For the first time in perhaps four hundred years, he felt genuinely impressed.
He was astonished himself by this fact. The ability to imitate techniques at this speed is sometimes better than the ability to copy innate techniques. There's a difference between copying, but it's clear that the ability to develop yourself faster is the ability to copy methods unrelated to innate technique.
Kenjaku's index finger tapped against his thigh. Once. Twice. A rhythm only he could hear.
Well, I should return to thinking about the meaning of this technique. This technique can precisely copy style, copy the method of cursed energy control and the control style itself, at record speed, allowing it to imitate usage methods of techniques that aren't innate techniques—like Gojo Satoru's Infinity, or Geto Suguru's Cursed Spirit Manipulation. It allows the use of basic techniques that usually require effort in training and are acquired, not hereditary or obtained at birth. Rather, it's the ability to learn methods that people normally need to exert effort and time to master, at a faster pace. This comes from this eye.
A crack echoed through the chamber. Kenjaku had, without realizing it, applied too much pressure to the concrete ledge beneath his fingers. A web of fractures spread from his touch, delicate and precise as a spider's architecture.
My experience, speaking at this moment, spanning a long period during which I've seen many techniques—the level of this technique is very high and highly capable of development. Its owner will certainly become first-grade.
The admission tasted strange on Kenjaku's tongue. Praise wasn't something he distributed freely. It cost him something to acknowledge genuine excellence—not coins, not energy, but a piece of his carefully maintained superiority.
At the end of his observation, Kenjaku couldn't help but offer a strange appreciation for the power of this technique.
His head tilted. The motion was fluid, almost graceful. A predator reconsidering the hunting hierarchy.
But in the next second, he looked at its owner coldly and said it would have been better if its user had been in a hurry to die this way.
The words hung in the air, unspoken aloud but screaming through Kenjaku's consciousness. His expression remained placid, but something flickered behind his eyes—not quite regret, not quite disappointment. Perhaps the particular weariness of watching something beautiful inevitably become something dangerous.
It wasn't clear why he said this, but at this moment, he was watching what was happening now before Geto.
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Across the battlefield, the atmosphere shifted like tectonic plates grinding toward inevitable collision.
Geto watched Rika's arrival beside Yuta Okkotsu and Obito Zenin with an expression that suggested he'd just bitten into a particularly bitter lemon. His jaw tightened. His fingers, buried in the sleeves of his robes, curled into fists.
Obito had recovered his health with impossible speed. Kenjaku wasn't the only one who noticed—Geto saw it too. The way torn muscle fibers knitted themselves back together. The way fractured bone mended with audible crack-crack-cracking that echoed off the walls like nature's cruelest percussion. The way Obito rose from what should have been a fatal wound with murder written in every line of his posture.
Not just him, Geto noted. Both of them. Treated. Healed. Back to peak combat condition.
Yuta's breathing had stabilized. His cursed energy, that bottomless ocean of power, no longer churned with desperate survival instinct. Now it flowed with deliberate purpose, channeled through Rika's massive form like water through a dam.
No fear of exhaustion anymore, Geto acknowledged. Annoying.
But his voice, when it emerged, carried none of this internal calculation. Instead, it dripped with the particular condescension of a man who's decided reality is simply inconvenient and should adjust itself accordingly.
"This changes nothing," Geto said, and the words scraped against the silence like gravel underfoot. "I'll still eliminate you both."
His tone suggested he was discussing the weather, or perhaps what to have for dinner. Casual. Dismissive. The verbal equivalent of a shrug.
Obito's response was not words.
It was breath.
A long, slow inhale that expanded his chest, lifted his shoulders, pulled oxygen deep into lungs that had, moments ago, been punctured. The sound was soft—barely a whisper—but it carried weight. Promise.
Then he moved.
His foot pushed off debris-strewn concrete with a sharp scrrrrape that sent tiny stones skittering across the floor. His body launched forward, a missile painted in human flesh and bottomless spite. The air around him rippled with cursed energy, visible now as heat distortion visible to naked eye.
He wants to be first, Yuta observed, watching his senpai rocket toward Geto with suicidal enthusiasm. After being thrown away like garbage. After almost dying because of this bastard. His desire to kill is very high right now.
Obito's teeth were gritted. His Sharingan spun faster, those three tomoe becoming crimson blurs that captured every micro-expression flickering across Geto's face. The slight twitch of his left eyebrow. The minuscule adjustment of his weight to his back foot. The fractional parting of his lips to form whatever dismissive comment was already brewing.
"Senpai," Yuta called out, and his voice cut through Obito's murder-fugue like cold water. "We have to fight together. You remember, don't you?"
Obito's advance didn't stop, but something shifted in his posture. The murderous momentum remained, but now it was channeled. Directed. His shoulders, hunched for a solo assault, relaxed by millimeters.
He's right, Obito thought, and the acknowledgment tasted like ash. Fighting alone is useless. I was rushing.
He slowed. Turned. Met Yuta's gaze with eyes that still burned red but no longer promised immediate, solitary annihilation.
"You're right, Yuuta." Obito's voice emerged quieter than before. Rougher, like gravel wrapped in silk. "I feel... very angry. But you're right. We need to fight him together for a chance to win."
Something passed between them—not words, not even cursed energy, but understanding. The particular communion of soldiers who've both nearly died and aren't keen to repeat the experience.
One glance, Yuta noted. One glance and we decided strategy.
Obito stepped forward. His movement was no longer reckless charge but deliberate advance, each foot placement calculated, economical. Behind him, Yuta matched pace. Their cursed energies didn't synchronize—they were too different, too individually massive—but they flowed in parallel, two rivers joining toward common ocean.
Rika materialized fully. Her form solidified from ethereal nightmare to physical horror, massive hands reaching toward the battlefield with fingers that could crush reinforced concrete like stale bread. Her bond with Yuta pulsed visibly, threads of cursed energy connecting girl to curse to sorcerer in endless loop of devotion and destruction.
Geto's expression shifted.
For a moment—just a moment—his practiced condescension cracked. His eyes widened. His lips, still curved in that maddening half-smile, parted slightly.
Then he laughed.
The sound started low, a rumble in his chest that grew and swelled and finally erupted into full-throated amusement. It bounced off the walls, multiplied, became the laughter of a dozen men all wearing the same face. His shoulders shook. His head tilted back. For nearly a full minute, Jujutsu Kaisen's most dangerous cult leader stood in the middle of a battlefield and laughed like he'd just heard the funniest joke in existence.
"That's amazing," Geto finally managed, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "I didn't expect you to learn that technique. Even I, at this moment, don't know how to use it."
His gaze swept across both opponents before settling on Obito with particular intensity.
"You truly exceed what I can imagine. Especially you."
Especially you. The words hung in the air, heavy with reluctant acknowledgment.
"Using reverse cursed technique—that's something absolutely impossible to achieve without extraordinary talent and enormous cursed energy reserves."
His hand moved, a lazy gesture toward Yuta that said you I understand.
"You were capable of it because of your massive reserves, plus the trauma that awakened your cursed energy." Then his attention returned to Obito, and his eyes narrowed. "But he wouldn't succeed that way. I'm sure there's some secret. But it doesn't matter."
Geto's robes billowed as cursed energy erupted from his body in visible waves. The air pressure dropped. Dust particles that had been dancing lazily now fled in panicked currents. Even the moonlight seemed to dim, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of power pouring from the man who had once been Gojo Satoru's best friend.
"I'll end this farce," Geto announced, and his voice carried harmonics now, layered with the countless curses he commanded, "and kill you both at once. Since you've managed to irritate me to the utmost limit."
He vanished.
Not moved. Not dashed. Vanished. One moment he occupied a specific coordinate in space; the next, that coordinate held nothing but dissipating cursed energy and the faint scent of ozone.
Yuta didn't see him reappear. He felt him—the compression of air beside his left temple, the violent displacement of particles that had been peacefully existing until Geto Suguru decided they should make way.
His katana moved on instinct.
The CLANG of metal meeting flesh echoed through the training ground, a bell-tone of desperate defense. Yuta's blade caught Geto's fist at an angle that sent vibrations screaming up his arm and rattled his teeth in their sockets. Not just a punch—the impact released a concentrated sphere of cursed energy no larger than a tennis ball, hovering directly before Yuta's face with malevolent patience.
Analyze, Obito's Sharingan screamed. Analyze now or die.
Three tomoe per eye achieved escape velocity. The world slowed to syrup. Obito tracked the cursed energy sphere's composition, density, compression ratio, and projected detonation yield in the space between heartbeats. His muscles received instructions before his conscious mind finished processing the threat.
He vanished.
Cursed energy acceleration ripped through his legs, tendons screaming protest at the abuse. The sound of his departure was less movement and more crack—a miniature sonic boom that left a vacuum in his wake.
His blade swung.
The edge connected with the cursed sphere at exactly 0.03 seconds before detonation. Obito's Sharingan, still spinning at impossible speed, recorded every micro-fracture spreading across the sphere's surface. Every escaping wisp of compressed energy. The precise geometry of its destruction.
Then it exploded anyway.
BOOM.
The shockwave rippled outward in perfect circle, annihilating dust, debris, and any illusion of controlled combat. Three bodies flew in three directions, trajectories determined by physics and poor life choices. Obito twisted mid-air, converted momentum into controlled tumble, and landed in a crouch with his katana angled defensively. Yuta, shielded at the last moment by Rika's massive form, emerged from the blast with singed eyebrows and profound annoyance.
"The hell was that?" Yuta coughed, waving away smoke with his free hand.
"That," Obito said, and his voice carried the particular exhaustion of someone who's just explained something obvious, "was a compressed cursed energy sphere. The cursed energy quantity can cause a lethal explosion at close range. You need to be careful. Its detonation speed is fast."
He exhaled. Rolled his shoulders. Felt the phantom ache of muscles that had, seconds ago, been shredded.
Lucky, he admitted silently. If my reaction had been slower by even a fraction...
But his Sharingan hadn't been slower. His Sharingan was never slower. The tomoe spun, catalogued, predicted. Obito channeled cursed energy to his temples—a trick he'd discovered through trial and catastrophic error—and felt his perception accelerate further. The world became amber. Syrup. Each passing second stretched into elastic eternity.
Fast enough, he decided. Now I just need to be faster than him.
Geto's assault resumed.
Three collisions occurred in the space of a held breath. Metal screamed against cursed flesh. Shockwaves cratered the floor. Obito's Sharingan tracked every feint, every shift of weight, every minuscule adjustment of Geto's fingers before they formed another compressed sphere. His body responded with mechanical precision—block, dodge, counter—but mechanical precision wasn't enough.
Geto's experience spanned decades. His muscle memory encoded ten thousand battles. Even with Sharingan-enhanced prediction, even with cursed energy acceleration, Obito couldn't close the speed gap.
Too fast, he acknowledged. Even with reverse cursed technique, even with Yuta's support—his physical speed is still superior.
But speed wasn't everything.
Killing him, Obito thought, and the certainty crystallized in his chest like frost, is the most important thing in this battle. As long as that happens, the fighting on other fronts will stop.
His cursed energy output spiked.
No conservation. No strategy beyond annihilation. Obito pushed cursed energy through his circuits at maximum capacity, felt the strain tear microscopic tears in his spiritual conduits, and didn't care.
"You think you can kill me with such low cursed energy output?" Geto's voice carried genuine amusement. "I think you need much more time."
Obito didn't answer with words.
He threw his katana.
The blade—Kuryouki, named and cherished—spun through the air in perfect arc. Not at Geto. At Yuta, who caught it with reflexes honed by constant near-death experiences and expressed his confusion through raised eyebrows.
Then Obito was gone.
His vanishing wasn't acceleration—it was displacement. One instant occupying space, the next not. No intermediate frames. No travel time. Just absence, then presence, then his fist aimed at Geto's sternum with homicidal intent.
Geto's hand moved.
Centuries of combat instinct, compressed into reactive muscle memory, brought his palm up to intercept Obito's strike. His fingers curled around Obito's fist. His lips curved into that maddening half-smile.
Got you.
Except Obito was already gone again.
What?
Geto's eyes widened. His hand, still raised in blocking position, clutched nothing but dissipating afterimage. Obito's form had shimmered—become translucent, then transparent, then absent entirely.
Behind.
The realization struck Geto simultaneously with Obito's fist.
Cursed energy concentrated to absolute limit. Sharingan tomoe spinning so fast they appeared as solid crimson rings. Obito's consciousness tunneled to single point of focus—his knuckles, Geto's spine, the exact coordinate where violence would meet vertebrae.
Maximum Sharingan output—
Instant Copy Technique—
Black Flash—
Time didn't slow. It stopped.
Then it resumed with catastrophic violence.
BOOM.
The sound wasn't explosion. It was impact—physical law expressing profound disagreement with Obito's decision to violate it. Black lightning erupted from the collision point, not metaphorical but actual, visible electricity crackling in fractal patterns across Geto's robes.
His eyes went wide.
His mouth opened, perhaps to speak, perhaps to scream, perhaps to ask the universe what fresh absurdity had just occurred. No sound emerged. Air had abandoned his lungs, forced out by kinetic energy sufficient to crater reinforced concrete.
Geto's body folded around Obito's fist like origami subjected to unexpected cruelty.
Then he flew.
The trajectory was beautiful in its violence. Geto Suguru, who had terrorized jujutsu society for years, who commanded thousands of curses, who had been Gojo Satoru's equal—he became projectile. His back struck the Academy wall with sound like CRACK—not the wall breaking, but his spine compressing against surface never designed to receive such abrupt introduction.
He kept going.
Through the wall. CRASH. Through the next wall. SMASH. Through the third wall. BOOM-CRACK-SHATTER.
Dust plumed. Concrete fragments rained. Somewhere in the debris cloud, Geto Suguru stopped moving and tried to remember how lungs functioned.
Obito stood at the epicenter, fist still extended, breathing steady. His Sharingan tracked Geto's trajectory, impact points, final position. His expression held no satisfaction. No triumph. Only the particular emptiness of a job partially completed.
Still alive, he noted. Annoying.
Blood dripped from Geto's lips. One drop, then another, then a steady stream that painted his chin crimson and splattered against broken concrete. His chest heaved. His fingers, splayed against the crater his body had excavated, twitched with residual shock.
That was...
Yuta's mouth hung open. His grip on Kuryouki had gone slack, the katana's tip drooping toward floor as his brain attempted to process sensory input his expectations had not prepared him for.
That was Black Flash. The technique Master Gojo talked about. Did Obito-senpai manage to perform it with such precision?
He'd seen the spatial distortion. Brief—less than a heartbeat—but unmistakable. Reality had wrinkled around Obito's fist, folded like fabric subjected to excessive heat, then snapped back with violence that multiplied cursed energy by factor of 2.5.
2.5 times, Yuta calculated. In less than a second. Enough to visibly warp space.
His estimation of Obito Zenin underwent rapid, involuntary recalibration.
---
Kenjaku's fingers had stopped their rhythmic tapping.
His entire body had gone still—not the stillness of calm observation, but the paralysis of a man watching impossibility become fact. His ancient mind, repository of eleven centuries of jujutsu knowledge, had encountered a variable its algorithms could not process.
Black Flash.
Deliberate Black Flash.
Not accident. Not coincidence. Intentional, controlled, precision Black Flash.
Kenjaku's eye twitched again. More noticeably this time.
This wretch used Black Flash on his own initiative, not by chance. Has he mastered how to use this technique directly? Or is there something wrong? I can't believe it—
But believing it was unnecessary. The evidence occupied physical space directly before him. A crater. A bleeding Geto. A young man with crimson eyes and fist still crackling with residual black lightning.
No, Kenjaku corrected himself. There must be a way to understand this. Through sensing cursed energy. Through experience.
His consciousness retreated from shock into analysis. The transition was seamless—a mind that had spent centuries dissecting the incomprehensible didn't linger on disbelief when puzzle pieces awaited arrangement.
The Sharingan technique allows imitation of cursed energy movement. Is it possible he imitated the style by which Black Flash is produced, to use this technique at will?
The conclusion was logical. Elegant. Terrifying.
But that's impossible. Using this technique requires specific conditions. There must be a certain requirement. But what is—
His thoughts spiraled, seeking purchase on a problem that refused conventional solution. Seconds passed. Kenjaku's processors overheated on the question of how and found no satisfying answer.
I need to think again, he admitted. From the beginning.
---
Obito's chest expanded with slow, deliberate breath.
His cursed energy reserves had plummeted—he could feel the emptiness where fullness had resided moments ago, spiritual reservoirs drained to dangerous minimum. But something else had risen to fill the void. Not cursed energy. Not physical strength. Something sharper. More focused.
Black Flash, he acknowledged. Four months of training. Four months of failure. Four months of connecting fist to target at exactly the right millisecond.
His fist lowered. His fingers, still tingling with residual power, uncurled slowly.
The technique that no one can use at will except Itadori Yuji, who possessed physical characteristics and cursed energy allowing him to achieve this technique through his innate technique related to souls.
Obito didn't have soul-related techniques. He didn't have Itadori's freakish physical gifts. What he had was the Sharingan, and the Sharingan didn't accept "impossible" as valid input.
First: need to use Sharingan in imitation mode.
Check. His tomoe had spun at maximum velocity, capturing every nuance of cursed energy flow required for Black Flash generation.
Second: need to be in excellent physical condition.
Check. Reverse cursed technique, borrowed from Yuta's energy signature, had repaired his overworked muscles to pristine function.
Third: cannot use imitation technique for five full minutes after Black Flash execution.
Check, Obito thought, and felt one tomoe in each eye flicker. Dim. Fade.
Gone.
The sensation was strange—like losing peripheral vision he hadn't known existed. His Sharingan remained active, still capable of prediction and analysis, but the copy function had entered mandatory cooldown. Five minutes of vulnerability. Five minutes without his most powerful tool.
But the trade was worth it.
Cursed energy flowed through his body with unprecedented efficiency. His reserves remained depleted, but the quality of his energy had transformed—refined by Black Flash's catalytic effect, compressed into higher concentration. Each unit of cursed energy now accomplished what two units had before.
This is Black Flash's benefit, Obito understood. Progressive cursed energy improvement during execution.
Small comfort. Significant nonetheless.
---
Across the debris field, Geto was vomiting blood.
The sound was wet. Unpleasant. His body, which had weathered countless battles and emerged without significant damage, had finally encountered trauma its regeneration couldn't instantly negate. He coughed. Spat. Coughed again.
Pain, Geto acknowledged, and the sensation was almost novel. Actual pain. Not inconvenience. Not annoyance. Genuine, physical, bone-deep pain.
His fingers found the crater wall. Pushed. His spine protested—vertebrae that had been momentarily displaced slowly grinding back into proper alignment. The sound was audible. Crick-crack-crick. Geto's expression didn't change, but his jaw tightened fractionally.
He stood.
His robes hung in tatters, Black Flash's energy having shredded fabric and scorched flesh beneath. His chest rose and fell with deliberate control. His eyes, when they found Obito, carried something they hadn't contained before.
Respect? No. Geto didn't respect opponents. He categorized them.
Obito's category had just been upgraded from "annoyance" to "legitimate threat."
"You're very funny, boy," Geto said, and his voice emerged rougher than intended, scraped raw by internal bleeding. "Reverse cursed technique. Then Black Flash. Is there another technique you can make hit me?"
His lips curved. Not the dismissive half-smile of before, but something tighter. Sharper.
Time to stop playing, Geto decided.
He raised his hand. Cursed energy pulsed—not attack, but summons. The air beside him rippled, split, disgorged nightmare after nightmare after nightmare. Curses of every grade materialized in defensive formation, their forms ranging from nearly human to incomprehensible geometry.
"You'll pay for that hit, boy," Geto said, and his voice carried harmonics now, layered with the collective consciousness of his thousand servants. "I'll make certain of it."
---
Amazing, Yuta thought, and the word felt inadequate. Senpai did something incredible with that punch. He's become stronger after using it.
He remembered Gojo's explanation of Black Flash. The theory. The impossibility of deliberate execution. The way even experienced sorcerers considered themselves fortunate to achieve it once in their careers.
Obito-senpai just did it on purpose.
Against Geto Suguru.
While already exhausted from using reverse cursed technique.
What the hell.
But admiration couldn't obscure reality. Geto was standing. Geto was summoning reinforcements. Geto was bleeding, yes, but bleeding men with thousand-cursed armies remained extremely dangerous.
Not enough, Yuta acknowledged. That punch wasn't enough. He hasn't fallen. Hasn't lost consciousness. The battle continues.
His own cursed energy reserves had plummeted. Maintaining enhanced physical parameters while simultaneously channeling power to Rika created drain that even his bottomless reserves struggled to offset. He could feel the emptiness spreading, spiritual tanks approaching E.
But I can't stop. Not now. Not ever.
Rika roared.
The sound wasn't vocal—curses of her magnitude didn't require physical vocalization. It was presence, sudden and absolute, the declaration of apex predator entering feeding territory. Her form expanded. Her hands, already massive, grew larger still.
Yuta met Geto's gaze through the wall of assembled curses.
"It doesn't matter," he said, and his voice carried certainty that surprised even him. "We're the ones who will win. Not you, you bastard."
Why? The question surfaced unbidden. Why am I so certain?
He didn't have an answer. Only conviction. The shape of it filled his chest, solid and warm, crowding out fear and exhaustion and doubt.
Doesn't matter why. Doesn't matter what reason he has for wanting to eliminate humanity. He'll be stopped. I'll protect my friends. Protect humans. Even if it costs my life.
His grip on Kuryouki tightened.
His cursed energy, depleted but not defeated, pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Rika's fingers curled toward combat-ready claws.
And across the debris field, Geto Suguru looked at two young men who should have been dead twice over and acknowledged, privately and without verbal expression, that this had become considerably more difficult than anticipated.
---
Kenjaku watched.
His analytical engines, briefly derailed by Black Flash impossibility, had resumed operation at full capacity. His expression remained placid. His posture remained relaxed. Only the faint tension in his jaw betrayed internal processing load.
Two against one, he mused. The boy with bottomless energy and the boy with eyes that steal techniques.
Geto Suguru, who has never faced genuine peer opposition since Gojo Satoru.
This will be educational.
Dust continued its lazy drift through moonbeams. The sounds of combat—impact, explosion, the particular shriek of curses meeting their end—echoed through broken walls. Blood pooled on concrete. Cursed energy crackled through atmosphere already saturated with violent intent.
And somewhere, in the space between what Kenjaku expected and what Obito Zenin continued to demonstrate, the ancient sorcerer revised his assessment of this battle's potential outcomes.
Perhaps, he admitted, I should have eliminated that boy earlier.
Ah, well.
Regret is for people who can't adapt.
His fingers resumed their rhythmic tapping against his thigh. Tap-tap-tap. A metronome counting seconds toward this conflict's conclusion, whatever form that conclusion ultimately took.
The battle continued.
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End of Chapter.
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