The night air warped as Geto raised his hand. His remaining curses shrieked and poured forward—a swarm of snapping jaws, shadow limbs, and stitched maws. They rained down on Kishibe like a storm of nightmares.
Kishibe ducked low, knives flashing, carving through tendrils of fear made flesh. But each kill multiplied into three more—fanged centipedes, eyeless birds, hounds with too many mouths. His body screamed in protest. His ribs were cracked, his blood soaked the pavement, but his eyes never dulled.
"Goddamn cockroaches…" he snarled, twisting between claws.
Geto, meanwhile, raised his other hand—and something slithered forward from his robes. A grotesque, slug-like curse with a zipper-like seam running across its body.
Toji's worm curse.
The creature split open, and weapons spilled out like offerings: blades, chains, spears, tools stolen from sorcerers and curses alike. Geto's calm hand selected a three-pronged staff wreathed in cursed energy.
"Playful Cloud," he murmured, spinning it with practiced ease.
Kishibe's eyes narrowed. "So the priest packs toys, too…"
Geto surged forward. No longer only commanding from afar, he became a storm of steel and cursed energy. The staff moved like lightning, each strike a killing blow—parrying Kishibe's knives, shattering pavement with its weight, cracking air with every arc.
Kishibe barely kept up, his arms shaking from the impacts. He slipped in close, aiming for Geto's throat, but the swarm of curses boxed him in, snapping and tearing at his flanks. Every second dragged him closer to exhaustion.
"Do you see now?" Geto pressed, his strikes fluid, merciless. "This is kingship. An army at my back. Tools of every fallen warrior at my hand. Monkeys like you—who fight alone, who crawl for scraps—you cannot endure."
Kishibe spat blood, lips curling into a grin. "Endure's all I ever done."
He hurled his last knife—not at Geto, but at the worm curse. The blade sank into its seam, and the creature shrieked, convulsing as weapons rattled free in a clatter. Cursed steel spilled across the ground like coins from a broken chest.
Geto's eyes widened for the first time. Kishibe lunged, grabbing a jagged blade from the wreckage mid-dive. His swing met Playful Cloud with a shower of sparks, and the two locked in brutal close-quarters combat once more.
---
Elsewhere…
While their duel raged in the ruins, the empire of curses spread.
In the slums of Shinjuku, devil-worshippers who once cut themselves for blood contracts now bowed to a new master. Gangs abandoned their icons, taking up Geto's spiral sigil. Fear moved faster than rumor: a Black Priest who consumed devils, who turned monsters into weapons, who demanded loyalty in exchange for survival.
Small cults were devoured by larger ones, stitched together into a growing order. Their creed was simple:
Fear is truth.
Devils are chains.
Only the Priest breaks them.
Already, whispers said he commanded not just devils, but the dead spirits of this world's nightmares. Already, whispers said his shadow was longer than the Gun Devil's.
And in that shadow, Geto's smile grew. Even as he fought Kishibe, even as blood ran down his shoulder and his weapons clashed against knives, he felt it: his empire was rising.
"Soon," he thought, parrying another desperate slash, "there will be no free devils, no free humans. Only me."