It was a day shortly after the Star Plasma Vessel incident, right in the sweltering heart of summer.
Perhaps Masamichi Yaga was worried about the heavy workload, or maybe he feared the team's morale had tanked after the failure of the merger. Whatever the reason, he'd uncharacteristically decided to give everyone a day off.
"Hey, Satoru," Hasegumo said, pushing through a set of weighted push-ups while Yu Haibara did the same beside him. He was just shooting the breeze with the group. "What's it actually feel like to be 'The Strongest'?"
"The strongest?" Hearing the question, Satoru Gojo actually turned serious for a moment. He rested his chin on his palm, deep in thought. "Actually, I don't feel much of anything. From the moment I mastered Reverse Cursed Technique, all those worldly concerns just... drifted out of my head like clouds."
As he spoke, he circled his index finger around his temple twice. "You get it, right? It's like reaching enlightenment—like a high-ranking monk."
"I really don't. 'Ascending to Buddhahood' sounds a bit much, don't you think?" Hasegumo exhaled slowly, continuing his one-armed push-ups.
Shoko Ieiri, who was currently sitting on Hasegumo's back as his added weight, offered her own take: "Hasn't he always been the strongest, though?"
"Definitely not," Suguru Geto chimed in from his corner, his "Straight Man" persona's passive ability triggering automatically. "Otherwise, he wouldn't have been stuck at Grade 1 back then."
"So, how do you even measure it?" Shoko hopped down and stood steady. As someone with zero combat power, she couldn't really tell who was the "alpha" among them.
"The outcome of a real battle depends on a lot of factors—elemental counters between techniques, tactical thinking, or sheer willpower. The fun of a fight is in the uncertainty."
Free of his "human weight," Hasegumo stood up and gave a concise answer: "But if you're just evaluating a sorcerer's raw stats on paper... you only need to look at four things: Output, Defense, Mana, and HP."
"Huh?" Shoko tilted her head. "You make it sound like you're talking about video game characters."
Haibara, still mid-push-up, pricked up his ears. Another chance to eavesdrop on some high-level secrets!
"Output is the total amount of cursed energy you can dump into a single attack," Satoru Gojo explained, his fellow otaku brain immediately grasping the metaphor. "Take Hollow Purple, for example. I can concentrate all my energy into a single point and fire it. So, my total cursed energy pool is my maximum output."
Hasegumo snapped his fingers. "Correct. Defense is the ability to withstand an attack. Whether through raw energy or a technique, Satoru's Limitless is undoubtedly the ultimate defense."
"I see. And using Reverse Cursed Technique to heal yourself is like having a massive HP pool," Shoko added, following the logic. "So the 'Mana' bar is just your total cursed energy reserves?"
"Exactly. And all four of these share a common denominator." Satoru looked at Shoko. "Do you know what it is?"
Shoko decided this was a question better suited for a combatant. She turned to Yu Haibara. "Haibara, you take this one."
"Well..." Haibara didn't disappoint. "They all require Cursed Energy consumption, right?"
"Spot on," Hasegumo said. "Total reserves represent a sorcerer's floor. This guy having twice my reserves was already ridiculous, but now..."
He glanced at Satoru, trying to gauge him. Sorcerers usually suppress their presence, but Satoru obliged by flaring his energy for a split second. "...It's maybe ten times mine?"
"Not that much. Probably around five times. The sheer volume is just giving you a bit of a perspective error." Satoru stretched, lounging back in his chair. "The reason everyone values talent so much is because a sorcerer's growth isn't linear. A talented sorcerer will hit a specific trigger and then experience an exponential leap in power."
"A trigger? Like what?" Shoko asked. Her question was mostly on behalf of the only "newbie" there, Haibara, but in truth, Suguru Geto hadn't experienced such a thing yet either. He had only grown through steady study and exorcising curses.
"Usually, it's an epiphany found between life and death," Hasegumo said. "Satoru only got this strong because he was nearly killed."
If you knew you were going to die in the next second, what would be going through your head?
Maybe you'd regret not living life to the fullest. Maybe your brain would go completely blank from terror.
But there is a saying: To face the storm is to find the path to life.
Faced with the threat of death, a true powerhouse only breaks through their limits, using the crisis as fuel for their evolution until they either greet death... or find a new way to live.
It isn't that only the strong can surpass their limits; it is that those who surpass their limits are the ones called "The Strongest."
"Life and death..." Faced with the nuke-like threat descending from above, Suguru Geto felt surprisingly calm. He felt his total cursed energy reserves swell and surge. He casually shoved Playful Cloud back into Chobo's mouth.
"A normal person would probably be pissing their pants right now." He flicked his right hand, energy coalescing within. "Cursed Spirit Manipulation!"
With the activation of his technique, the hundreds of curses Suguru had gathered since the beginning of his career lined up behind him in a single row—minus Mr. Novski, who was still busy building a house.
In the past, he had never summoned all of them at once. Beyond the sheer chaos it would cause, the process of summoning and fueling their techniques would drain his own energy dry. Normally, it was a foolish move.
But now, without needing to think, he followed his instincts into a seemingly "stupid" maneuver.
"Come to think of it, I've never actually studied the core principles of Cursed Spirit Manipulation." Suguru raised his hands above his head. "Is it because they taste so awful that I've been instinctively avoiding the truth of the technique?"
While Suguru was busy murmuring to himself, Tamamo-no-Mae had finished charging her attack. We'll call it a "Tailed Beast Bomb"—mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with a cooler name for it.
With a flick of her nine tails, the sphere shot forward. Its speed was blistering, yet the visual effect made it look strangely slow, like a water balloon drifting diagonally toward the ground. However, the distorted light around the sphere and the deafening boom of broken air proved that this strike carried apocalyptic power.
"So this is the 'trigger' they talked about?" The "Tailed Beast Bomb" was less than ten meters from Suguru. The energy in his hands was spinning violently.
Behind him, several of his curses raised their hands just as he did. Other "special" ones raised their feet, or simply tilted their heads up if they lacked limbs.
Cursed energy poured out from the spirits, converging into his palms. A black vortex formed instantly.
As a Special Grade sorcerer, Suguru's talent for jujutsu was top-tier. Once he'd resolved the conflict in his heart, mastering the Maximum Technique of his domain was as easy as breathing.
"Maximum Technique: Uzumaki!"
The ultra-condensed black energy erupted upward, moving even faster than the incoming projectile. It collided with the Tailed Beast Bomb, creating a moment of absolute deadlock.
The spiraling energy of Uzumaki layered and overlapped, looking like dozens of hands reaching out from the beam. If you needed another metaphor, think of it like a black "Special Beam Cannon."
The deadlock lasted only a heartbeat—or perhaps it only existed in Tamamo-no-Mae's imagination.
Even a Special Grade Curse that had existed for a millennium stood no chance against a concentrated output of this magnitude. In the next instant, the Tailed Beast Bomb was shoved right back into Tamamo-no-Mae's face. The kinetic force of the two colliding energies tore into the curse's body, shredding it to pieces.
Like Kurama in Baryon Mode, Tamamo-no-Mae dissolved into dust, scattered to the wind. Her Tailed Beast Bomb vanished along with her.
But the user of Uzumaki was still there. The pillar of energy pierced through the earth, erupting out of the mound and shooting high into the stratosphere. It didn't just shatter the Curtain surrounding the Peach Blossom Spring; it literally split the clouds in the sky in two.
Though he had prepared for death, Ichiro Hirata—being a sensible man—hadn't done anything stupid like running back into the crossfire after Suguru sent the villagers away. He simply hid in a safe place, waiting and hoping for Suguru's victory.
"You have to win, Suguru."
Suddenly, a beam of black cursed energy shot into the heavens. The crowd stared at the mound in silence, their palms slick with sweat.
"Is it him?"
"Or is it it?"
Along with the fading energy came Suguru Geto's echoed victory speech: "Is that all you've got?"
"It's him!"
It was as if they were finally breathing the air of freedom. These people, who had been stoic and calm moments ago, were now cheering and sobbing in each other's arms. Even an ant wants to live; regardless of what the future held, the thousand-year shackle placed upon their bloodline had finally been broken.
Drip... drip... The sound of water hitting the ground was lost in the cheers.
With tears on his face but a smile on his lips—a smile of pure liberation—Ichiro Hirata hugged his son tightly.
"Suguru... you really are a man of your word. It looks like I'll get to see you grow up after all."
Suguru Geto, having just obliterated the Special Grade Tamamo-no-Mae, was currently tasting the fruits of his victory.
After this bizarre adventure, he seemed to find a new flavor in the cursed spirit orbs. "If I had to describe it... it's actually not bad? Kind of like a durian, I guess."
He licked his lips, savoring the sensation. Once he'd finished digesting the orb, he activated his technique again, summoning the spirit he'd just consumed.
Looking at the masked, horrific form of Tamamo-no-Mae before him, he felt a pang of regret. "Why isn't she in her original form?"
"And she only has one tail left? I'll have to find a way to fix that later." He wiped the dust from his face and flicked his bangs to the side.
"Anyway... Tamamo-no-Mae, I choose you!"
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