The chamber still smelled of charred stone, but Jogo barely noticed. His body simmered with heat, not from effort but from anger.
Rage flowed through him like molten rock, searing, unyielding, impossible to contain.
Mahito.
The name itself made fire coil within his chest.
He thought back to the Kyoto Raid, to the day they started making their first steps toward their vision. Hanami had walked into that battle with faith. Faith in their unity as curses, in their cause, in the dream they had shared. Or that they thought they all shared.
A dream of a world no longer choked by humans but flourishing under curses, the New Humanity, born from the filth of human negativity but no longer bound by their weakness.
Hanami had been the gentlest among them, if such a word could even be applied to a curse. But in that gentleness had been conviction.
And Mahito had killed her.
Jogo did not know how it happened. He only knew what he had felt in that moment. Hanami's presence vanishing, smothered by another. By Mahito.
The details never came; he had only felt their domains clashing, an overwhelming force. But Jogo knew. Mahito had turned his back on his own kind.
The betrayal was not just of Hanami. It was a betrayal of what they were. Of who they were meant to be.
'We are the next step,'Jogo thought bitterly. 'The New Humanity, born of their despair but greater than them in every way. And yet you side with the worms who spawned us. You, who pranced among us acting childishly innocent. You stand with them, when you should have burned them down to ash.'
The flames inside his skull surged higher. The anger was not just grief. It was betrayal compounded by insult. Mahito was the worst kind of traitor, the kind who sided with a lower race, who killed his own.
And now Sukuna himself had given him the chance. The chance to burn Mahito to cinders and prove that the New Humanity would not tolerate betrayal.
Jogo's body glowed, molten cracks splitting across his rocky skin. His cursed energy surged outward, heat distorting the air until the very space between them trembled.
Mahito only tilted his head with that insufferable smile, his eyes gleaming with childlike curiosity. "My, my~ All that fire in your heart, Jogo. If only Hanami could see you now~"
The words sliced deep. Jogo roared, flames bursting from the volcanic vent in his head. "Do not speak her name!"
He thrust out a palm. Heat condensed in an instant, forming a concentrated beam of volcanic fire. It tore across the chamber like a lance, melting stone and blasting the air into waves.
Mahito's body blurred. He darted aside, unnervingly fluid, limbs bending in unnatural ways. The beam struck the far wall and erupted, carving molten gouges into the ground.
Mahito laughed as he moved, not out of fear but delight. "That temper of yours~ Always so dramatic. You'll burn this whole place down before you ever touch me."
Jogo did not answer. His other arm snapped forward, summoning a cluster of Ember Insects from the volcanic crater in his head. The creatures buzzed, their stingers glowing bright red, before hurtling toward Mahito in a swarm.
Mahito danced between them, his body twisting like water through cracks. Each insect exploded when it struck the ground or walls, showering the area with violent bursts of flame. The entire subway shook, ash and smoke filling the air until sight was nearly impossible.
Through it all, Mahito's voice carried. Teasing, playful, infuriating. "Hanami was just like you, you know? Nothing more than a gutless puppet dancing to the whims of others."
Jogo's chest tightened. His molten rage surged hotter, thick fire spilling from his head as his entire body blazed brighter. He stomped once, and volcanic fissures spread through the floor, erupting with jets of molten rock that turned the smoke into a curtain of fire.
"Enough!" Jogo roared. He launched himself forward, his body moving faster than Hanami ever could, a comet of flame barreling straight for Mahito.
Mahito crossed his arms and smiled as Jogo's fist, wrapped in volcanic flame, slammed into him. The sound cracked like thunder. Flesh seared, the stench of burning hair and skin filled the air, and Mahito was sent hurtling backward through the haze.
For a heartbeat, Jogo felt satisfaction. His flames had scorched that smug smile away.
But then Mahito's body twisted in midair, reshaping itself unnaturally. His burned flesh peeled away like shedding skin, reshaping into smooth new tissue before he even hit the ground. He landed lightly, as if the blow had meant nothing at all.
"That hurt~" Mahito said cheerfully, flexing his fingers, the burns already gone. "But not in the way you wanted, Jogo."
Jogo's eye narrowed. His instincts screamed at him that something was wrong. But he had no choice but to press forward.
With a wave of his hand, volcanoes sprouted out of the walls around Mahito, who just stepped right through the gouts of flame they spouted.
Jogo's eye widened even more at the sight; he barely had the time to react before Mahito's hand clasped firmly around his face.
'W-what?!'
His confusion rose as he saw Mahito's rapidly healing body, flakes of burnt flesh falling off and being replaced instantly.
He could see it now... Mahito was not using cursed energy to heal himself.
'Why can't I damage him?!'
But before he could explore that train of thought, Mahito threw him upwards, sending him pummeling through the ceiling and further beyond.
"It seems you're continuing to grow even further... The way you compress your muscles and reinforce your body has improved too." Sukuna stood with his arms crossed, a smug smile plastered on his face.
Mahito clapped his hands, blowing away the ash and dust from around them with a smile.
"Of course, I've had plenty of subjects to study lately. It's been quite a lucky streak, in fact~" Mahito grinned at the King of Curses just as a pillar of lava flooded the room from above; Jogo had his way of announcing that he was still there.
Unfortunately for him, he failed to react in time when Mahito tore through the magma with a powerful snap of his bladed whip.
He could barely react as he was cut in two right down the middle.
But as a cursed spirit, he was durable enough to stitch himself back together quickly. Still, not quickly enough to react to Mahito jumping toward him and kicking him away, sending him crashing into an apartment block.
"What a feisty one he is~" Sukuna walked out of the underground and muttered in amusement as he watched the entire building melting like a candlestick and cracking.
The temperature in that entire part of Shibuya rose exponentially; fumes within the sewers burst open as magma started flowing through the streets.
Glass melted, stone turned to magma, and asphalt turned to sticky mush.
"THERE WON'T EVEN BE ASHES LEFT OF YOU, MAHITO!"
Jogo's voice boomed like a volcano, his tone shifting as he manipulated the magma around to grab at Mahito.
Mahito immediately grew wings, soaring into the skies with amusement as he looked down on Jogo, both physically and metaphorically.
They were wings made of pure leathery flesh, not feathered ones that could turn to ash against the heat rising in the air.
The gigantic hands of magma seemed to give up on reaching him, instead grabbing onto a few buildings and attempting to chuck them over at Mahito.
But thier speed was rather disappointing, the buildings were thrown off in the distance, hitting other parts of the city and spreading destruction and smoke even further.
"All this heat is bad for my skin." Mahito sighed before shaking his head. Any possible casualties were not his concern; things were already chaotic enough, and Jogo's actions had nothing to do with him.
All of the Fly Soldiers he had carried with him, few in number as they were, were already dead.
Thankfully, the majority of his army was still by the clone's side.
He had absorbed their strength into his own, and he still had a few minutes to enjoy the enhancement.
With that in mind, his wings grew larger, taking on the shape of those of a fly.
Jogo's eye widened once more. He only blinked once, and the supposedly infantile curse was already in front of him, hand extended backwards like a whip.
He had the time to shift his position only slightly, hoping to avoid being severed. But to his shock, the whip transformed, holding a gigantic morning star at the end.
And all it took was a single twirl, followed by a booming snap, all of that momentum Mahito had built up crushed Jogo's body into the melted streets.
The shockwave alone blew away the magma and melted buildings from around the two of them.
Mahito smiled, taking a few steps back before jumping up onto one of the nearby buildings. He looked down at Jogo's injured and trembling form.
It took but a second for his form to catch fire again, immediately propelling himself toward the betrayer like a bullet.
"MAHITO-!"
In an instant, Mahito's upper body grew exponentially, ballooning with muscle, before he turned and clotheslined Jogo into the ground once more.
His body was filled with burns with every clash, but they healed just as quickly.
"Well... This was another fun distraction." Mahito's body returned to normal in size and proportions. He smiled and rolled his shoulder. "I wonder if your soul will taste spicy~"