It happened without warning.
No one expected that the moment the clock struck midnight on the day of the final battle, Kenjaku would release the Hyakki Yagyō.
Tokyo, still scarred by disaster, was once again swallowed by a flood of Cursed Spirits.
Fortunately, the city was still in the middle of reconstruction after the previous catastrophes. Most residents had not returned yet, which greatly reduced the burden. Even though the Zenin Family and the Kamo Family had already been wiped out and the number of Jujutsu Sorcerers had dropped drastically, the remaining forces were still barely enough to hold the lines.
Under the neon lights and the pitch-black sky, the final battle began.
Shinjuku.
Shion walked alone through the deserted streets.
The moment Kenjaku launched the Hyakki Yagyō marked the beginning of everything. Just as agreed, Shion headed to Shinjuku for his duel with Sukuna.
At this moment, it would be a lie to say he was not nervous.
His palms were damp, and his thoughts drifted for a moment.
It had already been nearly thirty years since he arrived in this world.
Time really did move fast.
The memory of arguing with people in livestream chat rooms felt like it happened only yesterday. Yet now he was walking toward the battlefield to challenge the strongest existence in a manga.
It felt unreal.
Ryomen Sukuna, the ceiling of power.
If he lost here and died, Satoru and Suguru should still be able to handle the aftermath. And the preparations he had left behind were not useless either.
A light drizzle suddenly began to fall.
Shion stopped walking and slapped his cheeks a few times with both hands.
Why was he thinking like this?
His thoughts went back to ten minutes earlier.
"Satoru, if you fought Sukuna, do you think you would win?"
"I would win."
Satoru answered instantly without hesitation, pointing at himself.
"Because I am the strongest. Well, except for you, Bro."
The strongest.
Shion remembered those words as he continued walking through the rain, his body moving almost mechanically.
Then he suddenly stopped.
Ahead of him, a figure sat on top of the ruins like a demon-god, looking down at him with complete arrogance.
Shion removed his sunglasses and revealed his clear blue eyes.
Then he suddenly burst into laughter.
He bent slightly, holding his stomach, his shoulders shaking.
"So that is it. Maybe that really is the answer."
"What are you laughing about?"
Sukuna frowned slightly. After waiting so long for this opponent, seeing him act like this was honestly irritating.
"If you want to die so badly, I can just cut you in half now."
Sukuna stared at him without blinking.
Left, right, above.
What kind of Cursed Technique would Shion use first? What were the flaws? Where was the opening?
His instincts automatically began calculating everything.
At the same time, he was already thinking about how to deal with Shion's troublesome technique.
Futsunushi and Hiten could force the shutdown of Infinity, but those two cursed tools alone were not enough to deal real damage. If he used Simple Domain, he would not be able to use his own Innate Technique either. The only choice was to wait for the moment Infinity disappeared and strike instantly with Dismantle and Cleave.
But in the next second, Sukuna froze.
Shion raised both hands calmly and deactivated Infinity on his own.
Sukuna stared at him silently.
All that calculation was useless.
"What, surprised?"
Shion smiled slightly, his tone relaxed and playful.
"You noticed it too, right? Our last fight was intense, but it always felt like something was missing. It did not feel like a real battle."
"Missing something?"
Sukuna did not understand what he meant.
But Shion understood perfectly.
He had read the original story. He had seen the fight between Satoru Gojo and Sukuna. He had seen Sukuna cut down the strongest sorcerer and crush Kashimo without hesitation.
Sukuna had been built as the ultimate boss of the entire story.
Knowing that had changed something inside him without him noticing.
During their last battle, he was not fighting freely. Deep down, he was only trying to survive. He was treating Sukuna like an unbeatable final boss instead of an opponent.
That fear had slowly eaten away at his confidence.
Everyone said Satoru was arrogant, but that arrogance was also the reason he stood at the top. Without absolute confidence, a sorcerer would lose long before the battle even started.
What was lost would not only be life, but also pride.
After understanding this, Shion chose to drop Infinity on his own.
He no longer wanted a cautious fight. He wanted a real battle.
He looked up at Sukuna, his eyes shining brightly.
"Come on, Sukuna. Let's fight properly. Life or death."
For a moment, Sukuna was stunned.
Then a slow smile spread across his face.
He did not know what had changed inside Shion, but the aura in front of him was completely different now. The calm arrogance, the confidence that ignored everything, the overwhelming pride.
It felt like looking into a mirror.
Not a challenger.
An opponent.
"Interesting. Very interesting."
"In an era a thousand years after mine, someone like you actually appeared."
The blood that had been quiet for a thousand years began to boil again. His killing intent exploded instantly.
In the next moment, both of them disappeared.
They appeared in front of each other at the same time, both smiling with eyes filled with killing intent.
Boom.
A deafening explosion tore through the night, and a massive mushroom cloud lit up the entire sky like daylight.
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