"Collapse."
The nail clipper severed Sukuna's head, separated his arms, split open his chest, and tore the heart clean out.
But Sukuna still would not die. Like an immortal demon-god, he flicked his wrist—and slash marks erupted across the mountainside, hovering in the air all around Kira, then snapping shut.
There was no way to block. Kira threw himself into a sideways roll, channeling cursed energy over his body, taking the brunt of the damage across his back.
Slash after slash rained down like an avalanche, shattering his cursed energy barrier and biting deep into his back, piercing through muscle, sinking to bone.
"You filth."
Flesh squirmed on Sukuna's neck. A new head was regenerating rapidly—but in the next instant, Killer Queen was already on top of him. Its skull-faced fist filled Sukuna's still-forming eyes, growing larger and larger—
Boom.
His head exploded again.
"Mongrel!"
Sukuna roared in fury. He had lost his head and could no longer physically speak, yet deep in the soul one could still hear his voice—frigid, cutting, a curse that sank into the marrow:
"Mongrel."
It had been ages since he'd been this humiliated. Or rather, Sukuna had never in his existence suffered such indignity. His right hand slammed down onto Killer Queen's body. At the same moment, Killer Queen's right hand found Sukuna's chest.
Perhaps Sukuna was a fraction faster. Slash marks tore open across Killer Queen first, gash after gash cutting to the bone.
That damage fed back into Kira's body. He collapsed to his knees, pupils shaking violently.
Sukuna knew he needed to put distance between himself and Kira's shikigami—use ranged slashes to win from afar. He drove a savage kick straight into Killer Queen's midsection. Its abdomen caved in sharply.
A split-second pause, and then it became a blur of motion, rocketing backward, crashing toward the main hall.
It smashed through staircase after staircase, wall after wall. Killer Queen and Kira's body slammed down onto the floor in a spray of blood.
This was the reception hall of the Zenin Estate. Where it all began.
Now it was nothing but rubble. The monster's corpse Kira had brought lay splayed near the entrance, stiff and reeking, drawing clouds of flies.
"Domain Expansion."
Sukuna's severed arms burst from their cocoons of flesh. His shattered heart knit itself whole. That headless body pressed its palms together and formed a mudra:
"Malevolent Shrine."
The sky deepened to blood once more. The spectral lake materialized from nothing. The eerie, majestic temple rose again behind Sukuna.
He dragged both himself and Nanami Kira back into his Domain.
But unlike the first time, he hadn't pulled only Kira in. Every living thing within the Domain's reach—insects, squirrels, sparrows—
All of them, dragged inside.
"Well now. Pushing me this far."
Sukuna strode across the water's surface, each step sending ripples through the crystalline lake. He walked steadily forward, and as he did, the head on his neck began to regenerate:
"You're the first. Go ahead—be proud of that."
He stopped in front of Nanami Kira. His right hand rose high, several slash marks already shimmering at his fingertips. Quietly:
"Die content."
"But I'm destined for a happy life."
"Because I, Nanami Kira, possess great luck. No matter what hardship I face, I will always come through. I believe that truth with every fiber of my being."
Kira's head hung low. His voice was muffled, heavy.
"Oh?"
Sukuna tilted his head.
"You made an error. Just now, instead of killing me outright with your Cursed Technique, you chose to stroll over at your leisure. Was it arrogance?"
"And I finally made it here. I am favored by fate."
"You used Reverse Cursed Technique to heal just now, didn't you? The thing is—"
He raised his head and met Sukuna's eyes dead-on:
"So can I."
Two months ago, when he first encountered Stray Cat and was blasted by its air bullets, he had used Reverse Cursed Technique to heal. No one knew that secret.
Black cursed energy flowed across his body. Compared to a Cursed Spirit's, a human body was far harder to restore—but it was enough to stop the bleeding. The worst wounds were slowly beginning to close. Vitality and strength surged back into him.
"I took damage on purpose, just to reach this spot."
Kira exploded into motion. His one remaining hand flared with cursed energy and plunged into the skull of the monster's corpse beside him, churning through its brain matter, and pulled out a dark-gold
Arrow.
He had hidden the Arrow inside the corpse's skull to avoid the Zenin clan's inspection.
The rain hammered down harder. Lightning cracked across the sky. The flash illuminated Kira's composed face, making it all the more bone-chilling.
Sukuna didn't know what Kira intended, but that didn't stop him from trying to prevent it.
Kill Nanami Kira. The slashes at his fingertips were already primed. Once Kira was dead, whatever scheme he'd concocted would dissolve into nothing, whatever he had—
"Did you forget that Killer Queen hasn't detonated a single bomb since you released your Domain?"
"It can only produce one bomb at a time. The previous one hasn't exploded, so it can't make a new one. Care to guess where that bomb is hidden?"
Click.
A cloud of blood mist erupted from Sukuna's chest. His gathered cursed energy sputtered for an instant. The slashes hung frozen in the air.
From the inside. From within Sukuna's own chest.
When Kira had first used Black Flash to open Sukuna's chest and rip out his heart, he'd left his nail clipper inside the cavity. Then, when Killer Queen touched Sukuna's exposed chest a second time, it turned that nail clipper into a bomb.
After they were blasted apart and Sukuna's chest healed over, that tiny nail clipper was sealed permanently inside his body.
Killer Queen had been hit by the slashes first—not because it was too slow, but because it had turned the nail clipper into a bomb and held back the detonation.
Kira knew Sukuna's nature. Whether his head was severed or his heart torn out, none of it mattered. He needed a strike at a higher level.
Kira gripped the Arrow tight. Every drop of cursed energy in his body converged to a single point.
Fate told him: only in a moment of absolute despair would the Arrow grant its power.
But even now—even at death's door—Nanami Kira did not feel despair.
As though nothing could shake him. As though nothing could bar his path.
He was unstoppable.
Then there was only one way to break through. The one and only way.
Nanami Kira clenched the Arrow, and drove it—