The sky above Shibuya glowed red, not from the sun, but from the molten rivers spilling out of shattered buildings and streets.
The entire city block trembled as Jogo rose into the air, his body crackling with volcanic fury. His molten breath seared the night air, his voice carrying like the howl of a mountain breaking apart.
"You'll leave nothing behind, Mahito! NOTHING!"
The molten stone beneath him lifted and hardened, becoming a platform of magma that carried him upward like a tide of destruction.
Around him, half-collapsed towers sagged in his grip, drawn to him as if the whole city answered his rage. Heat distorted the skyline, steel beams melted and folded, and glass ran like water.
Jogo's arm stretched to the heavens. Magma surged upward, swallowing the chunks of debris, moulding and compressing them into something vast. A shadow blotted out what little sky was left above Shibuya. A colossal meteor, blazing with volcanic light, forming under his command.
Mahito tilted his head up, lips curling into a grin, his flesh-made wings twitching with amusement. "Ooh~ A big one. Hanami could never pull off something like that."
"Don't you dare say her name!" Jogo roared. His voice cracked with volcanic fury, the heat rolling from him melting even the asphalt far below. "This is the end, Mahito!"
"Maximum: Meteor!"
He thrust his arms downward, and the burning meteor began its descent. The air screamed as the rock and molten fire plummeted, carving through the atmosphere like a burning judgment aimed straight at Mahito's skull.
Mahito's laughter rang high and mocking as he snapped his arm outward. Flesh twisted into a gigantic grotesque whip, its bladed edge gleaming with cursed energy. "Let's see if your technique matches your ambitions~"
The whip slashed upward. Mahito's body blurred as he poured all his reinforcement into the strike.
The bladed edge carved into the meteor's surface, splitting stone and molten slag. The impact shook the air, a deafening crack echoing across Shibuya. For a heartbeat, it seemed as if Mahito might slice it in two.
Then the meteor burst.
The explosion shattered everything. Stone, magma, and fire erupted outward in a flood of annihilation.
Towers collapsed under the shockwave, the streets buckled, glass shattered for blocks in every direction. The flames consumed everything, a tidal wave of destruction that vaporized air itself.
In the center of it all, Mahito's body was obliterated.
Flesh vaporized, limbs torn away in an instant. His mocking laughter was swallowed by the roar of destruction, leaving only the sound of fire eating the city.
When the storm quieted, only ruin remained.
A crater yawned wide where Shibuya's streets had once stood. The edges glowed molten red, lava pouring into the abyss, smoke thick enough to blot out the moon.
At its center, Jogo knelt, panting, his rocky skin cracked, fissures of molten light running deep across his body. His flames sputtered, weaker now, but his rage burned ever brighter.
He lifted his head. Sukuna sat perched casually atop a ruined skyscraper, untouched by the destruction, his arms crossed and his smirk sharp. He hadn't even shifted from his seat during the devastation.
Jogo's molten eye flickered. "Did I… do it?"
The silence pressed heavy. Even with all his power, all his fury, his heart twisted with unease. His breath rattled, and for the first time in decades, doubt crept in. Could Mahito truly be gone?
A sound broke the silence. A laugh.
High, lilting, playful. Unbothered.
From the crater's molten center, a shape crawled upward, a body knitting itself together out of nothing. Not from flesh. Not from cursed energy. But from something deeper, something untouchable. The fragments of a soul reshaping into form.
Mahito's grin appeared first, then his eyes, then the body that followed, sculpted with eerie precision. His steps echoed lightly as if he had never been broken apart. "That hurt in all the right ways~"
Jogo staggered back. "Impossible…"
Mahito flexed his fingers, admiring them as if they were freshly made. His grin widened, eyes glinting with sadistic delight. "Oh Jogo… You're strong. Truly. Your cursed technique, your flames, your reserves of energy… all top-class. But you lack one thing." He tapped his chest with a clawed finger. "A soul and hunger~ Hunger for growth, for more!"
Jogo's fury faltered, his molten frame trembling. "Soul…?"
Mahito's grin sharpened. "Let me show you the shape of a developed soul~"
He clapped his hands together. Countless hands sprouting out of his back at the same time, each forming a distinct hand sign, mouths sprouting from their palms, each chanting an ominous melody.
The ground split, cursed energy surging outward in a wave that rattled the molten crater. Darkness bloomed, washing over the shattered streets, swallowing the fires and ruins in its suffocating embrace. The air thickened, pressure crushing down, space bending into a new shape.
"Domain Expansion~" It was as if a hundred voices spoke all at once, the air itself trembled at and gleamed. A barrier rose. Thin, weak, but present. Inside, the world warped.
Mahito stood at the center, his body glowing with pale light, his grin wider than ever. Around him, the warped forms of countless souls flickered, stretching, twisting, reshaping endlessly, as if the entire space was an artist's canvas of flesh and spirit.
"Cursed Genesis!"
The words echoed, unnatural, like a hymn of damnation.
Jogo staggered. He felt it at once. His soul, tugged by an unseen force, dragged toward the center where Mahito stood.
He dug his molten claws into the ground, resisting, but the pull was absolute. The more he struggled, the closer he felt his essence fraying.
"No…" Jogo's voice cracked. "No, not here! I cannot… I will not—!"
He tried to flare his cursed energy, tried to gather it for his own domain. The Coffin of the Iron Mountain his last refuge, his greatest weapon.
'No! My best option is to escape! I can't win in a domain clash against this!'
He immediately tried to turn tail, and using his greatest force, he blasted himself forwards.
To his shock however, the barrier only got further and further away from him, and before he even realized it. Mahito was standing right behind him.
'T-the domain moves... With him?' Jogo's eye was widened, gripped by fear as he made that harrowing realisation.
Mahito's domain had already evolved well beyond a regular one. A few well-calculated binding vows were all it took.
Sukuna's eyebrow also raised in surprise in the distance. He couldn't help the chuckle that escaped from his lips. "To think I'd see this from you, brat. Impressive. A domain this refined… But against this trash of all people? What a waste of energy~"
Jogo's eye burned with desperation. He reached for his flames, his molten core, anything to burn his way free. "DAMN YOU, MAHITO!"
Mahito stepped closer, unhurried, every inch a predator savouring its prey. His hand reached out, not to strike, but to touch. His palm pressed against Jogo's chest, directly where his soul quivered under the crushing weight of the domain.
"Shh~ Stop struggling. Let me take a look at you."
Jogo screamed as his body convulsed. Flames burst from his skin, his molten heart flared, but it was meaningless. Mahito's fingers slipped past flesh and energy, curling around something deeper. Something untouchable by heat or stone.
His soul.
"Ahhh…" Mahito sighed in bliss, eyes rolling with ecstasy. "There it is. So fragile. So unshaped. And yet so delicious~"
Jogo's scream tore across the domain. His body melted, not from his own flames, but from Mahito's grasp unraveling him from the inside out.
Without any warning, Mahito's mouth seemed to expand to great lengths, and with a ravenous hunger, his newly-grown jagged teeth bit right into Jogo.
The vulcanic curse's energy buckled, his body shattered, his technique unravelled.
Mahito closed his hand. Jogo's soul was absorbed. The once-proud volcano spirit, the one who dreamed of a world of curses, was gone in an instant.
Mahito lifted his hand, turned his body back to normal and wiped his mouth with a satisfied smirk.
He was watching the fragments of Jogo's essence swirl and sink into his 'palm'. His grin split wide, and laughter burst from him, high and manic, echoing against the twisted walls of Cursed Genesis.
"Ahahahahaha~! Yes! This is it! Finally, a taste worth savouring!"
The laughter carried far, rolling even outside the domain. Sukuna leaned back, his surprise turned to genuine acknowledgement, as excitement glinted in his many eyes. "Interesting. Very interesting."
Mahito stood tall in the centre of his domain, his body trembling with exhilaration, his grin a mask of twisted joy. His voice cut through the echoes of his laughter, dark and triumphant.
"Jogo's soul... I will make good use of it, better than he ever could~!"
Then the domain fell, Mahito letting it collapse gracefully... And Sukuna stepped right in.
"You~ certainly don't disappoint!" His deranged grin was something that Mahito took in kindly.
"Don't misunderstand... I was not doing this for your entertainment." Mahito smiled, his body fully healed, his strength recovered, his soul had already taken in Jogo technique, one of the side objectives he had set for himself.
It was not like he would randomly stumble upon them after all.
"Good, good! It's my turn now!" Sukuna finally stepped into the fray, his deranged smile and malice directed squarely at Mahito.