"About as durable as the White Whale, give or take."
The smoke cleared. Petelgeuse looked considerably worse than before.
His left arm was gone. The shoulder too, sheared clean away. Blood pumped freely from the ragged stump, and the rest of him was a mess of torn robes and ruined flesh.
None of it registered. Not the wound, not the pain. He kept laughing, that same unhinged cackle, and hurled another wave of Unseen Hands at Gojo without missing a beat.
Inside the cave, the rank-and-file cultists had finally caught on. Their Sin Archbishop was losing. Hooded figures poured from the entrance, weapons drawn, charging toward Gojo in a disorganized mob.
"Didn't realize I'd be on cleanup duty too."
A blue sphere materialized in his palm. For these people, one shot of Blue was more than enough.
Brilliant azure light scorched through the air like an electric arc, searing itself into the retinas of everyone watching. In its path, the cultists crumpled like paper. Weapons, bones, bodies. The gravitational force folded them into shapes no human form was meant to take. Spines twisted. Limbs snapped inward. The lucky ones died before they hit the ground.
Gojo hadn't even aimed at any of them specifically. The residual force alone was enough to erase them.
From the moment they charged to the moment the last scream cut short, only a handful of breaths had passed. A few had tried to fight back. Some had flung spells at him. All of it bounced off the Limitless without so much as drawing his attention.
What remained was a carpet of twisted corpses.
"There. Just you left."
Gojo walked toward Petelgeuse.
"I made a promise to my friend that he'd be the one to finish you. So do me a favor and don't put up too much of a fight."
He strolled straight into the thicket of Unseen Hands, weaving between them with the same ease as a man crossing his own living room. Not a trace of urgency. Not a hint of concern.
Petelgeuse didn't listen. Didn't even seem to hear. He was still lost in his private world of devotion and delusion, babbling about love, right up until Gojo stopped in front of him.
"You look about as human as a Cursed Spirit at this point."
He reached out and placed his hand on top of Petelgeuse's head.
Crack.
The muttering stopped. Petelgeuse's neck twisted with an audible pop, and those bulging eyes swiveled toward Gojo.
"You can... touch me?"
"Sure I can. It's always been a matter of whether I feel like it."
His other hand rose.
"Like right now."
A thick, muffled tearing sound filled the air, like leather being ripped apart. One hand pinned Petelgeuse's skull in place. The other wrenched his remaining arm clean off.
"Ahh, I feel it! I feel your revelation, your favor..."
Even that didn't draw a scream. Instead, his eyes blazed with fervor and his voice rose in ecstatic praise. In the same breath, Unseen Hands surged toward Gojo again.
The logic was simple. Before, nothing could touch the white-haired man. But now he'd made physical contact. If the barrier was down, then maybe, just maybe, there was an opening to kill him.
Petelgeuse was deranged, but his combat instincts were razor-sharp. Even in this state, he'd seized on the opportunity the instant it appeared.
"Sorry."
"The opening you think you found? I let you see it."
Gojo grinned. Cursed Energy surged through his body as the Unseen Hands closed in.
"Your big weapon doesn't seem all that impressive, does it?"
He tilted his head at the same grotesque angle Petelgeuse favored, mimicking the Archbishop's signature pose, and glanced at his own forearm where an Unseen Hand had struck. Blocked cold.
Flesh and blood. That's all it was. It should have been crushed without effort. Yet his arm hadn't budged, hard as iron under the impact.
There was a reason for that. In any battle against Cursed Spirits, a Jujutsu Sorcerer's hand-to-hand resilience mattered as much as their techniques. Anyone who could only throw abilities from a safe distance would never earn the rank of Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer.
"I don't fully understand how your Authority works yet, but taking away your ability to move seems like a solid first step."
More Unseen Hands came racing in. Gojo was faster.
Before Petelgeuse could react, a blur of motion and two sharp cracks rang out in quick succession.
He hit the ground. Both legs bent at angles nature never intended, kicked clean through at the joints.
By the time the Unseen Hands reached Gojo again, the invisible barrier had snapped back into place.
"That should about do it. As for the rest..."
He looked down at the immobilized Archbishop, rubbed his chin for a moment, then crouched beside him and drove a knife-hand into the back of his neck.
The ceaseless muttering stopped. Silence, real silence, settled over the clearing.
"Finally. Some peace and quiet."
Gojo dusted off his palms with the relieved expression of a man who'd just muted an alarm clock.
"Hey, Subaru. He's all yours."
Subaru hadn't taken his eyes off the fight. Not for a second. Every muscle had been coiled tight, every impulse held in check, waiting for this moment. The instant he heard Gojo's words, he snatched a fallen cultist's blade from the ground and sprinted toward Petelgeuse, hatred burning in his eyes.
"He's unconscious. Shouldn't be any trouble now. Do whatever you need to do." Gojo clapped him on the shoulder. "And even if he wakes up, I'm right here. He won't touch you."
"Thanks, Gojo."
Subaru's gaze never left the broken figure on the ground.
"We're friends. Skip the thanks and get to it."
He didn't need to be told twice. The hatred had been clawing at his chest since long before tonight.
He'd never killed anyone. Not in this world, not in the one before. Back in Japan, he hadn't even killed a fish. But the memories of the last loop, the agony Petelgeuse had inflicted, left room for only one thought.
Every ounce of that pain, returned in full.
This man would pay with his life.
"Petelgeuse!"
"Die!"
The blade rose high and plunged down.
Squelch.
Steel sank into flesh. Blood followed the blade out, gushing as he pulled it free.
Warm and wet, it spattered across his face.
The sensation in his hands, the copper stench flooding his nostrils, both crashed against the walls of his composure like battering rams.
His nerves screamed. Every fiber of his being recoiled.
"Urgh."
First kill.
Hatred had given him the strength to raise the blade. It couldn't stop the nausea.
Tears streamed down his face. Snot ran freely. He retched between strokes, but the knife kept rising and falling, again and again, each plunge a release valve for the fury and grief boiling inside him.
Wet, heavy impacts. One after another. Petelgeuse's body twitched a few times, then went still.
Subaru didn't stop. He kept going, mechanical, relentless, driving the blade down like a piston.
Until a hand caught his wrist.
"That's enough. Much more and you'll be making hamburger meat."
Gojo pulled him back gently.
The dam broke.
The knife clattered to the dirt. The iron taste in the air flooded his sinuses, and the sight of what lay in front of him, pulped and unrecognizable, hit all at once. Everything he'd eaten that evening came back up.
He dropped to his hands and knees and heaved, over and over. Nothing left of the cold avenger from moments ago. A stranger walking by would have pegged him as the victim, not the killer.
Felt and the others watched from a distance. They didn't know the full story, didn't know what Petelgeuse had done to Subaru in another life. But they could guess. Nobody did something like that without a wound carved so deep it reached the bone.
Killing wasn't simple. Not everyone could stomach it.
Subaru spent a long time on his knees before he wiped his mouth and swayed to his feet. The color had drained from his face, and he looked like he'd aged a year in the last five minutes.
"Killing someone really isn't easy, huh."
He turned to Gojo, forcing a thin smile.
"You'll get used to it. Think of it like... a hero grinding low-level mobs for experience points..."
The reassurance was still leaving his lips when a familiar sound drifted out of the cave. Teeth grinding against bone. Fingers being gnawed.
"So this is the friend you spoke of."
Every head turned toward the cave mouth. A cultist stepped out of the shadows, hood thrown back, chewing on his own fingers with a face split by that unmistakable grin.
"Though I don't believe we've met."
This one was young. A teenager, maybe. Orange hair cropped short, a scatter of freckles across his nose. Build, voice, appearance, nothing matched the Petelgeuse that Subaru had just carved apart.
But the cadence of his speech. The wild, fractured look in his eyes.
Anyone who'd spent five seconds with Petelgeuse would have recognized him instantly.
"Huh. Didn't quite die all the way, did you." Gojo stepped forward, putting himself between the boy and Subaru. "So this is another trick up the Authority's sleeve. No wonder you seemed so weak before."
"Well then. We'll kill you again."
He glanced back. "Subaru, I'm guessing you don't mind a round two. I know it's rough, but you'll get the hang of it eventually."
Subaru stared at the orange-haired boy. Slowly, he bent down and picked up the blood-caked blade.
"You're right. I'll get used to it."
It didn't matter whether this was resurrection or whether the first body had been a puppet all along. The answer was the same.
Kill him again.
"Big Bro! Witch Cult members are escaping through the cave with magic!"
Meili's voice shattered the tension.
"Running, are they?"
"Sorry, but nobody's leaving. A certain money-obsessed girl will have my head if I let anyone slip away."
Gojo had been taking his time, but the moment those words left his mouth he vanished from Subaru's side. When he reappeared, he was directly in front of the orange-haired boy.
"MY BRAIN TREMBLES!"
The teenager shrieked, and Unseen Hands erupted outward. But this time, having learned from the last encounter, Petelgeuse didn't waste a single one on Gojo. Every hand rocketed toward Subaru, toward Felt, toward anyone who wasn't the white-haired monster standing in front of him.
"Hey, hey, hey. That's incredibly rude. Is this what the Witch of Envy teaches her followers? You can't just ignore your opponent."
Gojo's voice came from behind the boy.
Before a single Unseen Hand could reach the others, he seized the teenager's skull and drove it into the earth.
Thud.
One spasm. Then nothing.
"Subaru. All yours."
A kick sent the limp body skidding across the dirt to land at Subaru's feet.
He drew a long breath, raised the blade, and buried it in the boy's chest.
Squelch.
Blood sprayed.
The same manic expression still twisted the boy's features. His lips moved, trying to form words, but Subaru gave him nothing. He ripped the blade free without hesitation.
In a fountain of red, the boy collapsed. The light left his eyes.
Subaru clenched his teeth and repeated the motion. Pull out. Drive in. Again. And again. Making certain there would be no third act.
He'd barely stopped when a thunderous crash split the air beside him.
He flinched, head snapping up on instinct.
The cave entrance was collapsing. Tons of rock buckled inward, sealing the opening in a cascade of dust and rubble. Gojo stood at the mouth of it, fingers lowering from a casual gesture.
He'd been busy too, apparently.
"Big Bro! Over here! Cultists made it out!"
...
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