The smoke of Shibuya churned like a living thing, rising in black coils above the ruin.
Fire and frost clashed across broken streets, the heat of magma battling against the creeping sheets of ice.
Yuki Tsukumo stood firm amidst it, golden hair dusted with ash. The air quivered around her, cursed energy condensed sharp enough to cut the atmosphere itself. One hand stretched slightly behind her, her shikigami forming a barrier that shielded the unconscious Megumi.
Her eyes, however, were fixed on the man across the battlefield.
Her lips parted. A small intake of breath. "Suguru… Geto?"
The features were unmistakable. That calm face, that measured presence, she had spoken to him once, years ago.
Even then, he had radiated conviction, a man carrying a burden he wished not speak about. She had disagreed with him, and when she next heard his name, it was tied to betrayal, to slaughter, to his declaration that non-sorcerers should perish.
Now he stood alive in front of her. Or so it seemed.
But as the figure turned, as the battlelight glimmered across his eyes, something cracked in her recognition. The faint curl of a smile was wrong. The aura was twisted, alien.
Then came the voice.
"Ah… Yuki Tsukumo. Of all the times you could appear, you choose now."
The cadence was not Geto's. Too deliberate, too old, threaded with mocking familiarity. It felt like she was talking to one of the elders instead. Her stomach tightened instantly.
"That isn't him," she muttered under her breath, the certainty cutting clean.
Kenjaku's grin widened, deranged and gleeful. "Sharp as expected. I had hoped to enjoy the masquerade longer, but it seems even the faintest memory of Suguru is enough for you to spot the seams. Still, do not mistake, this body is mine now."
The words slashed across the battlefield. Mahito tilted his head toward Yuki, his grin never faltering. "Guess this party had more guests than you thought~."
Yuki's jaw set. She wasn't sentimental over Geto. They had met once. But seeing his body turned into a puppet by some ancient parasite twisted her gut with disgust. "Whoever you are… you're not him. And the fact you're wearing his skin makes you even more of a coward than I thought possible."
Kenjaku only chuckled. "Coward? Or clever? After all, this vessel once commanded legions of curses with a powerful technique rivalling even the strongest. I simply refined it. But it is funny, isn't it? To see how easily even the sharpest eyes falter when faced with a familiar corpse."
His grin widened, manic. "Your appearance excites me. You're another variable, one I did not account for. How wonderful."
The battlefield's tension spiked. The army of curses surged and roared around them, Fly Soldiers ripping into winged monsters overhead, Soulsborne grappling with clawed fiends, while rivers of magma cut swaths through the chaos.
Yuki spared no words. She simply shifted her stance, the air around her vibrating.
Kenjaku's gaze sharpened. "Perhaps you should witness what the pinnacle of this vessel's ability looks like."
He raised one hand.
The tide of curses that poured from him convulsed, hundreds collapsing inward as though dragged by a singular gravity. Their bodies bent, broke, shrieked, and were consumed, compressed into a vortex that swirled behind him.
The energy that gathered was suffocating, the air itself shaking with its weight. The vortex of spirits spun faster, forming a seething spiral of black and violet light.
"Cursed Spirit Manipulation - Maximum Technique: Uzumaki."
The swirl solidified into a sphere, a writhing mass of curses compressed so violently the ground splintered beneath its pressure. Then, with a hiss like tearing fabric, it shot forward.
The earth screamed.
From the sphere erupted not mere destruction but the stolen technique of a special grade. The energy of an earthquake-born curse detonated outward, a cataclysmic surge that split Shibuya's district in two.
The ground fractured, opening in gaping fissures. Towers crumbled as their foundations snapped, asphalt peeled like paper, and shockwaves buckled the air. Buildings collapsed into yawning chasms as the entire battlefield broke apart.
Yuki's shikigami flared, its form wrapping Megumi in a shell of hardened cursed energy. She braced herself, boots digging into shuddering ground, her own cursed energy reinforcing her stance as the quake roared through her body. Dust and fire blotted the sky, deafening booms rolling outward like thunder from the world's end.
Mahito laughed even as the ground tore apart beneath his feet. He let the quake ripple through him, body warping with every shock, as though the destruction were just another playground to twist himself around. "Ohhh, now that's a good trick~! You really do know how to put on a show, gramps!"
Uraume, pale and steady amidst the chaos, darted close to Kenjaku, her frost wrapping the air to steady his path. Together, the two figures launched into the opening carved by the destruction, slipping through the shattered blockade before Mahito or Yuki could close the distance.
Yuki cursed under her breath, fury cutting through her calm. She stepped forward, ready to chase, but the shifting wreckage of the city blocked her path. "Damn it! He got away."
Her shikigami's form flexed beside her, shielding Megumi from falling debris until the aftershocks slowed. She clenched her fists, the weight of the escape stinging like acid. Whoever that was, they now had Geto's body and a technique that could level districts.
Mahito, however, stood relaxed amid the ruin, magma still bubbling lazily in pits around him. He didn't even glance toward the path of Kenjaku's escape.
"Not going after him?" Yuki snapped, more accusation than question.
Mahito tilted his head, grin easy. "Why bother? If he's running, then he's already admitted I'm the stronger one~. And he'll only come crawling back when he thinks I'm at my weakest, or that he has me figured out properly. That's the kind of parasite he is. Unfortunately for him this is the weakest I'll ever be~."
Yuki's brows furrowed, frustration burning hotter. His casual dismissal gnawed at her. She wanted to shout at him for letting someone like that slip away… but she couldn't ignore the truth either. Kenjaku hadn't left triumphant. He had fled, and only after burning through nearly every curse he had stockpiled.
Mahito stretched his arms overhead, yawning as though the battlefield weren't still strewn with ash and ruin. "Besides… I'm having too much fun here to chase old men. The spotlight's already mine~."
She glared at him. "You're insufferable."
He leaned closer, grinning. "And yet you're still here. Still fighting by my side. Still watching me. Are you sure you don't like me, Yuki~?"
Heat flared in her chest, unwelcome and sharp. She hated how easily he could toy with her, how one careless line could drag her back to that night, to the memory of warmth which he has taken away so easily. She clenched her jaw. "Don't flatter yourself. I came because the city would have burned without me. That's all."
Mahito chuckled, mock-pouting. "Cold, cold, cold. Guess I'll just have to thaw you out again someday~."
She turned from him, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. But inside, the words cut. She had sworn she was past it. That whatever feelings had sprouted then had died when he brushed her off without a thought. And yet, here she was again. Fighting beside him. Shielding the boy he pretended to protect. Listening to his laughter echo through the ruin as if the world already belonged to him.
'Damn it,' she thought, biting the inside of her cheek. 'Do I try and stop him before he truly becomes unstoppable… or do I follow him, just to see how far he'll go?'
Mahito's gaze flicked toward her, playful yet unreadable. He didn't voice the plans swirling in his mind, didn't need to. It was enough that she stood beside him.
He looked up at the broken sky, smoke drifting like curtains of a finished play, and stretched his hand toward the city's shattered skyline.
'Kenjaku, or any scheme he may pull… none of it matters anymore. I'm already standing at the level of the strongest. I'll rely on his machinations to bring back Sukuna~'
His grin widened, voice lilting with boundless confidence. "I'll enjoy my time being the strongest around~. By the time the honored one crawls free of his seal, I'll have an army worthy of the title. Until then… this world belongs to me."
Yuki watched him, her pulse uneven. The firelight caught his smile, that terrible joy in his eyes. For the first time, she wasn't sure if she was looking at an enemy… or someone she could no longer turn away from.
The smoke of Shibuya rose higher, the night ended in silence and ruin.