The red-black sky hung heavily overhead. Toyokawa Sakiko stood amid the remains of collapsed buildings, with broken walls and rubble scattered beneath her feet.
A sound tore through the air.
A massive shadow instantly covered her from above. Mahoraga's enormous body descended from the sky like a meteorite.
The Sword of Extermination on its right arm ripped through the air, bringing with it a piercing whistle as it chopped down toward Sakiko's head.
Sakiko did not look up. Within the vision of the Six Eyes, she had already detected the attack.
She exerted force through her ankles, tightened her waist, and drove her entire body into a perfectly angled lean to the left.
Boom!
The blade brushed past her shoulder and crashed down. The Sword of Extermination buried itself deep into the wreckage below, and spiderweb-like cracks spread madly outward from the blade's point of impact. Large chunks of stone became bullets under the terrifying kinetic force and shot outward.
Several stones flew toward Sakiko, only to be blocked by Limitless and stop in midair.
After adapting several times, Mahoraga could already ignore the infinite space created by Limitless and directly touch her real body to inflict substantial damage.
Sakiko's expression remained unchanged. She lightly stepped half a pace backward, raised her right arm, and brought her index and middle fingers together.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."
In the space before her fingertips, cursed energy rapidly collapsed at a speed visible to the naked eye. A blinding scarlet light abruptly appeared at her fingertips.
As long as she caught that instant of opening and poured this strike directly into Mahoraga's torso, Sakiko was absolutely confident she could erase Mahoraga completely from this world, leaving not even a single cell behind and fully cutting off any chance for it to recover or continue adapting.
Mahoraga was pulling out its sword. In Sakiko's eyes, its movements were full of openings.
But just as the light was about to burst forth—
Whoosh!
The sound of tearing air came from diagonally behind her.
Mori Minami's Shadow, wearing Nagasaki Soyo's face, crashed without hesitation toward Sakiko's charging right arm. She was clearly planning to use her own body to take the damage in Mahoraga's place.
"Tch."
Sakiko clicked her tongue in displeasure, her brows furrowing slightly.
Her joined fingers suddenly lifted upward, and the red light gathered at her fingertips instantly dispersed into nothing.
This was not the first time.
In this prolonged battle, whenever Sakiko's attack reached the threshold of being able to completely annihilate Mahoraga, Mori Minami's Shadow would charge like a mad dog directly into the attack's path, using her own body to block part of its power.
Even if she suffered heavy injuries herself, she would make sure Mahoraga could adapt to the residual force.
The battle was in a deadlock, but for Toyokawa Sakiko, it had not yet reached the worst possible situation.
Mahoraga had indeed adapted to Limitless, but its fatal weakness was speed.
Under the Six Eyes' tracking, Mahoraga's rhythm simply could not keep up with Sakiko's steps. Even if its attacks could break through her defense, it was useless if they could not hit.
On the other side, Mori Minami's Shadow was the exact opposite.
She was extremely fast, able to cling tightly to Sakiko's every movement like a trace carved into bone, interfering with her in an incredibly disgusting way.
But she had not mastered a method to break through Limitless.
One could break her defense but could not hit her. The other could hit her but could not break her defense.
As long as Sakiko maintained this delicate balance and slowly searched for an opportunity to kill both of them in one strike, she still had a chance to win.
Then, an abrupt change occurred.
Mori Minami's Shadow, who had so far only used instant attacks with no wind-up to interfere with her, suddenly stopped.
She stood in place, pointed her right hand toward Toyokawa Sakiko, and at the same time rapidly moved her lips, chanting cursed words at high speed.
A complete incantation, together with standard hand-sign guidance.
She was casting a slashing technique.
What surprised Sakiko even more was that the technique's locked-on direction was extremely clear.
Her abdomen.
For any jujutsu sorcerer, the abdomen was the core where cursed energy was refined.
Once the abdomen was directly hit, the circulation of cursed energy would instantly stagnate.
Without cursed energy support, not only would cursed techniques become impossible to maintain, even Reverse Cursed Technique used to repair the body could not be activated.
If the abdomen were destroyed in a battle of this level, the result would be death without question.
At the same instant, Mahoraga suddenly closed the distance and sealed off her escape route from the side.
In that flash of lightning, Sakiko gave up perfect evasion, forcibly twisted her retreating center of gravity, and barely avoided having her abdomen struck.
The slash arrived.
Limitless was instantly pierced by this strike.
Slash!
The sound of a blade entering flesh rang out, accompanied by spraying blood.
The slash brushed above Toyokawa Sakiko's abdomen and sank unobstructed into her chest.
A huge wound deep enough to expose bone stretched diagonally from her left shoulder all the way down to the ribs on her right side. Flesh curled outward, and the severed ribs and internal organs were clearly visible.
Toyokawa Sakiko had been completely cut into two sections.
The next instant, Reverse Cursed Technique activated.
The gushing blood suddenly froze, then stopped instantly.
A large amount of white steam rose from the massive wound across her chest, making hissing sounds.
The severed muscle fibers seemed to gain lives of their own, writhing madly in the steam and reconnecting. Damaged blood vessels rapidly closed and reformed.
The broken white bones made scalp-numbing cracking sounds as they rejoined perfectly.
The exposed flesh grew, intertwined, and fused at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In less than a second, that fatal wound, enough to kill an ordinary person ten times over, had healed completely.
Not even a scar remained. The newly grown skin was fair and smooth.
If not for the diagonal cut in her clothing still flapping in the wind, and if not for the shocking bloodstains left on the surrounding ground, the scene from a moment ago would almost have seemed like an illusion.
Sakiko steadied herself, her chest rising and falling slightly.
She lowered her head, glanced at the hole torn through the clothes over her chest, then raised her hand and lightly wiped the blood splashed on her cheek with her thumb.
This was the second time she had been injured in this battle.
The first time, she had deliberately extended her right arm to take a sword strike in order to test whether Mahoraga had completed its adaptation to Limitless.
This time, she had been forced to take damage.
Sakiko's gaze crossed Mahoraga and locked firmly onto Mori Minami's Shadow.
The situation had changed.
It seemed that during the process of repeatedly blocking attacks for Mahoraga, Mori Minami's Shadow had not taken those hits for nothing.
Through some method, she had analyzed the principle by which Mahoraga broke through Limitless, then attached that property of ignoring infinity to her own slash.
In other words, from this moment on, the other party was no longer just an annoying interference tool relying on speed.
She had become a threat capable of ignoring Limitless' absolute defense, just like Mahoraga.
And she was faster than Mahoraga, fast enough to keep up with Sakiko completely.
Looking at the wound on Toyokawa Sakiko's chest that had healed instantly, the Shadow disguised as Nagasaki Soyo gave an indifferent smile.
Then her figure flashed, turning into a black streak. Together with Mahoraga, one on the left and one on the right, she launched another continuous assault on Sakiko.
The sounds of the Sword of Extermination and invisible slashes tearing through the air intertwined.
Sakiko's pressure instantly doubled.
That slash which had broken through Limitless just now had indeed been extremely dangerous.
But for that strike, the other party had used a complete incantation together with hand-sign guidance.
With such an obvious wind-up, it was impossible to hide under the Six Eyes' tracking. Sakiko had enough reaction time to avoid having a vital point struck.
But Sakiko knew very well that this absolutely did not mean the other party would be so honest next time. It might even be a trap.
The other party could completely use a Binding Vow, sacrificing part of the slash's power or limiting the number of times the move could be used, to forcibly remove the wind-up motion and disguise this lethal slash capable of piercing Limitless as an ordinary instant attack, no different from a casual swing of the hand.
If Sakiko treated only the clearly telegraphed slash as a threat and became careless toward those seemingly casual normal attacks…
One misjudgment—treating it as ordinary interference just once—would be enough to end everything.
From this moment on, she could no longer rely on Limitless to thoughtlessly tank any of the Shadow's attacks.
Every attack aimed at her abdomen had to be dodged.
The rhythm of the battle had been forcibly changed, and Sakiko's movements began to become constrained.
In order to dodge a slash Mori Minami's Shadow casually swung toward her abdomen, Sakiko had no choice but to forcibly twist her waist. This directly caused her to miss an excellent position from which she could have killed Mahoraga with Red.
The scales of victory were irreversibly tilting toward Mori Minami's Shadow.
But within this desperate situation where she was being pressed step by step, Toyokawa Sakiko's eyes remained as bright as stars. There was no panic on her face, nor any fear or despair toward death.
Only absolute calm.
The possibility avatar Gojo Sachi was indeed powerful, but that was not the strongest trump card in her hand.
Her true strongest form was the first possibility avatar she had ever summoned—
Hybrid Sakiko.
If she could activate fourth-degree Bloodburst, passively receive the blessing of the authority of wind, and add the Word Spirit: Royal Fire…
Toyokawa Sakiko was absolutely confident that she could instantly kill Mahoraga together with Mori Minami's Shadow.
But to accomplish that, there was one prerequisite she currently could not avoid.
The space she was now in was Mori Minami's palace. She could not use powers solidified within the collective unconscious here.
She had to directly connect Mori Minami's palace to Mementos and break through this barrier.
Although she already had an idea for breaking the barrier, she still needed some time, as well as a certain price.
But at that moment, Mori Minami's Shadow, who was moving at high speed and preparing to launch the next pincer attack, abruptly froze.
The smile on her face stiffened instantly, and a trace of astonishment flashed through her eyes.
Toyokawa Sakiko's heart also skipped a beat.
At the same time, the chat group's emergency warning pop-up filled her entire field of vision.
Warning: Group member Blueberry-Filled Pudding has entered a near-death danger state!
Blueberry-Filled Pudding was Shinobu Kocho's group ID.
Near death?!
Sakiko's pupils instantly contracted.
On this battlefield where life and death clashed, she forcibly split off part of her attention and opened the main group panel, her gaze sweeping rapidly across it.
She saw that the status indicator beside Shinobu Kocho's avatar had already turned a glaring red.
But before Sakiko's mind could make its next response—
The red light disappeared instantly.
In its place was the green that represented safety.
Sakiko froze for a moment, casually dodging one of Mahoraga's heavy punches by bodily instinct alone.
The chat area in the group had already exploded, with everyone frantically spamming question marks and exclamation marks.
Toyokawa Sakiko abruptly relaxed, and an uncontrollable surge of wild joy welled up from the bottom of her heart.
Shinobu had broken free!
Not only was she no longer in danger, she had completely escaped Mori Minami's Shadow's control!
The next instant, as if confirming Sakiko's guess—
Crack.
A clear sound, like glass breaking, abruptly rang out inside Mori Minami's palace.
Immediately after—
Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack!
The sound of shattering spread madly through the air.
While dodging Mahoraga's continuous attacks, Sakiko seized the chance to observe her surroundings.
Within Mori Minami's palace, whether it was the red-black sky overhead, the broken ground beneath her feet, or even the air around her, countless cracks suddenly spread everywhere like a shattered mirror.
Along with the breaking of space, the sure-hit psychic impacts that had been everywhere ever since she entered the palace vanished without a trace in that instant.
The halo of notes provided by Icarus, which had been floating around Sakiko the entire time, had grown dim and unstable under the pressure of the psychic impact.
Now, the instant the pressure vanished, the notes regained their brightness, and the halo quickly stabilized.
On the countless fragments formed by the cracks, miniature moving images were displayed.
Sakiko's Six Eyes operated at full power. Her immense information-processing ability swept across thousands upon thousands of fragments in an instant, reading every image. The vast stream of information forcibly poured into her consciousness.
The first to surge in were memory fragments belonging to Shinobu Kocho.
Sakiko saw those tragic experiences Shinobu had once described aloud.
Then the images shifted, finally freezing on the instant Shinobu expanded her domain.
After confirming that Shinobu was truly all right, Sakiko let out a breath of relief in her heart.
Her clenched fist slowly relaxed. Only then did she notice that her palm was already covered in cold sweat.
Immediately after came memory fragments belonging to Mori Minami.
Countless thoughts of controlling others and treating people as tools flashed through Sakiko's mind.
This made the anger in Sakiko's heart burn even more violently, fiercer than at any previous moment.
The stream of information did not stop.
Next were Nagasaki Soyo's memories.
They were the untouchable past of a girl who had always shown everyone a gentle, considerate, mature older-sister side.
When Nagasaki Soyo was still very young, her parents divorced.
Although Soyo's mother had never deprived her daughter materially and could indeed be said to love Soyo, she had fallen into insane overtime work and endless social obligations in order to prove that her divorce had been the right choice and maintain a respectable life.
She filled Soyo's closet with expensive toys and brand-name clothes, yet completely neglected Soyo's emotional needs.
The spacious apartment was always cold and quiet.
The young Soyo was always sitting alone on the living room sofa, a sofa far too large for her.
She hugged her knees with both arms, curling herself into a tiny ball, her chin resting on her knees as she stared blankly out the window and watched the sky darken little by little.
From the afterglow of sunset, to the streetlights coming on, to the pitch-black depth of night.
In the silent room, there was only the ticking of the clock.
That long-term loneliness and lack of emotional interaction caused Soyo as a child to suffer from an extreme lack of security.
The little Soyo in the images always carried fear in her heart.
She was afraid at every moment.
Afraid that, just as her father had abandoned her, her mother would abandon her again.
Afraid that she would become useless, unwanted baggage.
In order to prove her own value and avoid being abandoned, young Soyo began learning to do housework and read people's expressions.
The memory jumped.
The door lock turned.
Her exhausted mother returned home.
She kicked off her high heels, but she did not, like a normal mother, go hug the child who had waited for her all night, nor did she ask how her child's day had been.
Instead, the adult woman collapsed straight onto the young Soyo like a pile of mud.
Her mother lay on Soyo's lap, acting spoiled like a wronged little girl, endlessly complaining about frustrations at work, difficult clients, and the hardships of life.
And Soyo, a child who should have been spoiled in her mother's arms and seeking comfort, did not push her away.
She stretched out those tender little hands and gently stroked her mother's messy hair.
Imitating the adults she had seen on television, she used a childish voice that tried hard to remain steady and softly comforted her.
"It's okay. Mom has already worked really hard. Soyo is here."
She still had to go heat up the food she had prepared in advance, silently tidy the room her mother had messed up, and pick up the clothes scattered all over the floor.
Their roles were completely reversed.
The mother did not provide motherly love to the child. Instead, she greedily extracted emotional value from a child.
Nagasaki Soyo was forced to become her own mother's "mother."
And Soyo actually enjoyed that abnormal relationship.
The Soyo in the memory would wear a faint, satisfied smile while tidying the room.
Because only at those moments could she truly feel that she was needed.
At the same time, however, this reversed and inverted relationship also placed enormous psychological pressure on Nagasaki Soyo.
She had no choice but to force herself to grow up quickly and learn to hide every true need she had as a child.
She could not cry.
She could not be willful.
She could not ask for anything.
She exchanged meticulous care and a mature disguise for her qualification to remain un-abandoned in that home.
The memory fragments continued flowing like a flood.
Time moved to the CRYCHIC period.
The scene became the practice room Sakiko knew so well.
Within the memory fragments, Sakiko saw herself at that time.
Bright, confident, full of drive, as if her entire being radiated light.
She had a clear goal, an extremely strong sense of responsibility, and the ability to take charge.
She would take on every difficult problem the band faced, and she always had the ability to solve all of them.
Tirelessly, she pulled everyone forward at a sprint.
And from that memory's perspective, the way Nagasaki Soyo looked at Toyokawa Sakiko was filled with dependence and longing.
That was not the gaze one gave a friend.
It was the gaze of someone who had found a place to belong.
Seeing this, Sakiko suddenly understood.
For Nagasaki Soyo, who had longed since childhood for a complete and normal family, the Toyokawa Sakiko of that time perfectly matched the fantasy of an ideal husband deep in Soyo's heart.
A powerful, confident figure who could shelter her from wind and rain and hold up the sky.
During that brief and beautiful period, Nagasaki Soyo finally found the first stable anchor in her life.
Thus, she continued the mother role shaped by her childhood environment and carefully managed CRYCHIC, the home that belonged to her.
In this fictional home, Toyokawa Sakiko was the husband, while Wakaba Mutsumi, Shiina Taki, and Takamatsu Tomori were the children who needed her care.
In this home, she mediated conflicts and provided meticulous concern.
She finally no longer needed to constantly fear being abandoned.
As long as CRYCHIC remained, as long as this home remained, she was safe.
But suffering descended upon her once again.
On that day, Toyokawa Sakiko announced that she was leaving CRYCHIC.
To Soyo, this was not simply the breakup of a band.
In Soyo's memory, in that moment, it was as though she had returned to the past, to the afternoon when her parents divorced.
Her "father" had abandoned her again.
Abandoned this home.
She did everything she could to soften the conflict that erupted among everyone, trying to save it all.
But immediately afterward, Wakaba Mutsumi said expressionlessly:
"I never thought being in the band was fun."
In Soyo's memory, that sentence was magnified countless times, deafening.
It completely shattered the fantasy Soyo had used to move herself, tearing apart every beautiful expectation she had projected onto this family.
So all of it had only been her own wishful thinking.
Following Toyokawa Sakiko's withdrawal from the band, every teammate gradually left that practice room for their own reasons.
At the end of the memory, only Nagasaki Soyo was left standing there alone in the empty practice room.
Just like after her parents divorced, when her mother kept working outside and left her, a little girl, alone inside the vast, lifeless mansion.
The fear of being abandoned and the despair of not being needed completely drowned her.
Thus, she began trying every possible method to gather everyone back together.
She wanted to stitch that shattered home back together. Even if she had to replace it with something else, as long as CRYCHIC still existed, that was enough.
Nagasaki Soyo abandoned all dignity. She knelt on the ground, clinging tightly to the hem of Toyokawa Sakiko's clothes and begging desperately.
"Please… I'll do anything…"
As long as you don't leave.
As long as you don't abandon me.
But Toyokawa Sakiko at the time, under the real pressure of her family's sudden collapse, as well as her own pride and pain, completely severed Soyo's final hope.
Watching these scenes flash before her eyes, the real Toyokawa Sakiko felt as though her heart had been seized by an invisible hand and squeezed viciously.
She had not known at all.
To Nagasaki Soyo, CRYCHIC had never been just a band.
It was the shelter Soyo used to fight against her childhood trauma and fear of abandonment.
If Sakiko had known these things back then…
If she had known that Soyo carried such a suffocating past…
If she had known what leaving the band meant to Soyo…
Sakiko bit her lower lip.
No matter what, she would never have treated her that way.
At the very least…
At the very least, she could have explained things to Soyo properly.
Guilt gnawed at her heart like a venomous snake.
But the memories were still flowing. They did not stop in the abyss of despair.
A pink-haired girl appeared in the images.
Chihaya Anon.
Through her forceful intervention, Nagasaki Soyo was finally pulled out of the quagmire called the past.
Chihaya Anon saw through the perfect motherly disguise Nagasaki Soyo wore.
She did not seek emotional value from Soyo like others did, nor did she treat Soyo as a dependable person who did not need to be worried about, as Sakiko once had.
Anon directly exposed Soyo's lies and mercilessly forced her to express her truest inner thoughts.
In the face of Chihaya Anon's forceful directness, the string that had been taut in Nagasaki Soyo's heart for more than ten years snapped.
But it was not collapse.
It was the release of something suppressed for far too long.
Before Chihaya Anon, Nagasaki Soyo finally cast off every burden.
She no longer needed to pretend to be that mature, considerate, meticulous mother.
At last, she could act like a true child—lose her temper, be willful, cry, and even be unreasonable.
Together with Toyokawa Sakiko's recent apology to Nagasaki Soyo, the current Nagasaki Soyo had already completely emerged from her fear of abandonment.
She had redefined herself and no longer needed to depend on an illusory home to define her own existence.
She had completed her own growth.
After witnessing all this, the real Toyokawa Sakiko's gaze refocused.
The ruins, Mahoraga, and Mori Minami's Shadow once again entered her vision after the momentary daze caused by reading the memories.
A trace of guilt toward Nagasaki Soyo flashed through her eyes.
But immediately afterward, that guilt was forcibly pressed down into the deepest part of her heart.
What had happened had already happened. The harm caused in the past could not be changed.
There was no meaning in drowning in self-blame now.
What she could do now was compensate Soyo after this battle ended.
But in her mind, the image of that pink-haired girl lingered.
Chihaya Anon.
Sakiko had interacted with this person in reality before.
At the time, her impression of Anon had been limited to that of an ordinary girl who was somewhat vain and liked standing out.
But now, it seemed this girl's methods were astonishingly sophisticated.
She had been able to accurately see through Soyo's disguise, a disguise maintained for more than ten years and strong enough to deceive even Soyo herself.
Then, using a method that was extremely crude yet extremely effective, she had forcibly stripped away Soyo's shell, compelled Soyo to face herself, and ultimately severed Soyo's emotional knot completely.
That terrifying sharpness in seeing through people's hearts, that ability to move with ease through extreme emotional tug-of-war and control the rhythm, that skill in handling complex and twisted emotional relationships…
This person called Chihaya Anon was not to be underestimated.
Join here to read ahead.
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 180)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl 285
"Is this chat group even serious?" 150
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (This matter is completely finished.)
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 255
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 210
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/20
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 305
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer (This matter is completely finished.)
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/40
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 130
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 155
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 120
I Can Copy Unique Skills 120
Summoning an Evil God, but the 75
Supernatural Multiverse 155
My Harem Is Indescribable 105
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 110
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 110
Still playing traditional Honk 96
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 95
What Should I Do After Switchi 51
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 80
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 105
Checking In in Demon Slayer 95
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 105
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 95
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 80
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel (This matter is completely finished.)
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 95
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 90
Why did they assign me to Uma 80
MYGO Beauties 75
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 80
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 100
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 120
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 65
The Uma Musume Who Became 70
I'm Definitely Not the King of 105
After Maxing Out Every Class 110
Honkai: World Modulation Mode 95
I, the Elden Sword Saint 60
Dio Brando Is Challenging FGO 60
No One Knows Pokémon Better 60
I, Sakazuki, Won't Go Down Tha 69
From Trilobites to Titans 57
Chainsaw Man: Contracted with 75
DanMachi: My Party Members Are 86
An Anime Heroine Darkened 60
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Links 70
Honkai: The Fire Devil 70
Honkai Transformation Cards Volume2/30
Age of Heroes, I'm Just a Back 60
Uma Musume Has No Weird Fan Le 36
My patreon : patreon.com/queen_sin
My patreon : patreon.com/queen_sin