Blood slicked the pavement, a mingling of sorcerer and hunter. The ruins groaned under the weight of their clash, curses circling the battlefield like wolves unwilling to pounce without their master's word.
Kishibe's lungs burned. His vision blurred. But his knives were steady. The years of devil hunting had tempered him into something more than human—something raw, scarred, and impossibly stubborn.
"Still standing," he rasped, dragging a blade across his forearm to sharpen focus with pain. "That Uzumaki should've sent me to hell. Guess I'm too mean to die."
Geto, one hand pressed to the wound in his shoulder, studied him with quiet intrigue. He had seen sorcerers, assassins, curse users—but Kishibe was different. No cursed energy. No contracts he could sense. Just a man, a beast of survival, carving his way forward with nothing but instinct and steel.
"You are strong," Geto admitted, voice calm as incense smoke. "But strength without vision is waste. Sorcerers ascend by shedding burdens—morality, identity, doubt. We become kings by choosing purpose above all else. That is why monkeys like you will always crawl, while I stand above."
Kishibe laughed, blood dribbling from his lips. "King, huh? Seen enough of those. They all end up the same—rotting in the dirt. You think too much. Me? I don't need a crown. I just need my knives, my guts, and something to kill."
Their words hung heavy, two philosophies colliding.
Geto stepped forward. His stance sharpened, refined. No wasted motion. Each strike now carried the weight of his conviction—the same clarity Gojo found when he unlocked the core of cursed energy, the same merciless detachment Sukuna wielded, the same unflinching simplicity Daido embodied.
This was the mindset of the strongest.
Kishibe recognized it, even if he couldn't name it. The same aura he'd seen in Makima, in Quanxi, in devils who carried themselves like natural disasters. The priest wasn't just fighting—he was existing in that state.
"Guess that makes you one of those untouchables," Kishibe muttered, tightening his grip. "But I've killed plenty of 'untouchables' before."
The clash reignited.
Geto's palm strikes cracked ribs. His kicks folded steel. His martial skill, once underestimated, now shone like a blade honed over decades. He was faster, cleaner, every movement a lecture in violence.
But Kishibe refused to yield. He bit into Geto's wrist mid-grapple, spat blood and flesh, then drove a broken knife into Geto's thigh. His survival wasn't about perfection—it was about refusal. The refusal to die. The refusal to kneel.
"You think strength is some holy path," Kishibe growled, headbutting Geto hard enough to split both their brows. "But strength's just keepin' your teeth in the devil's throat longer than it keeps its fangs in yours. That's all."
Geto staggered back a step, blood matting his hair, but his eyes gleamed with something dangerous. Respect. Curiosity. Rage.
"You are wrong," Geto said softly. "Strength is self-affirmation. To deny weakness, to build a world where only the chosen may exist. That is why I will erase your kind. Your survival is meaningless without vision."
He raised his hand, cursed energy spiraling, the remnants of his army shrieking in resonance. Kishibe, panting and half-broken, twirled his last intact knife between his fingers.
Two men. Two paths. One seeking kingship through conquest, the other clinging to survival through defiance.
The street shook as they charged once more.