The soil at the bottom of the crater was mixed with the pungent scent of plant sap.
Hanami's massive body was deeply embedded in the rubble, and for the first time, an emotion known as fear appeared on its tree-root-covered face.
As a Special Grade Cursed Spirit born from the forest's hatred toward humanity, it believed it had long since abandoned any fear of death.
Yet in front of the man stepping on its head, the natural power it was so proud of seemed utterly fragile.
"Stitches...? What stitches...?"
Broken words squeezed out from Hanami's throat, its voice fragmented and weak.
"I don't know what you're talking about. The one cooperating with us... is Geto Suguru... the monk wearing robes..."
Rin's dark eyes narrowed slightly.
Geto Suguru.
As expected, that old fox Kenjaku had indeed stolen Geto's body twelve years ago and taken it for himself like a cuckoo seizing another bird's nest.
And these so-called "calamity" Special Grade Cursed Spirits had clearly been kept completely in the dark, utterly unaware that the "Geto Suguru" they regarded as an ally was actually a grotesque ivory-white brain that had survived for over a thousand years.
Just a group of disposable pawns being manipulated as tools.
Rin lightly rubbed the hilt of the Kusanagi Sword with his fingers. Purple-black arcs of lightning crackled across the blade, ready to pierce through Hanami's core at any moment.
With his current strength, killing Hanami would be as effortless as turning over his hand.
But another thought crossed his mind.
"System, if I kill this Special Grade Cursed Spirit right now, how many Dimension Points will I get?" Rin asked silently in his mind.
[Ding! Estimated reward for killing the Special Grade Cursed Spirit Hanami: 15,000 Dimension Points.]
"Fifteen thousand?"
A mocking smile curved at the corner of Rin's mouth.
Too little.
To upgrade his template to the Six Paths stage and exchange for Asura's Chakra, he had spent a full three hundred thousand points in one go.
Killing Hanami now wouldn't even be enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.
Kenjaku was an extremely cautious schemer.
If he killed Hanami here today and also eliminated Mahito, who had infiltrated Jujutsu High to steal Sukuna's fingers, Kenjaku would inevitably notice the sudden imbalance in strength.
And with that man's thousand-year habit of hiding in the shadows, he would immediately abandon both the Shibuya Incident and the Culling Game before disappearing once again.
"Since you want to carry out a scheme that engulfs all of Japan, then I'll give you enough time to finish setting the stage."
An extremely arrogant plan gradually formed in Rin's mind.
He would let Kenjaku collect Sukuna's fingers.
Let him gather every Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
He would even allow him to obtain the special grade cursed object, the Prison Realm, said to be capable of sealing anything.
Then, when all the villains believed victory was already in their grasp and had climbed to the very peak..
He would descend upon the stage with overwhelming force and crush the entire carefully constructed chessboard, along with every player on it.
Only by completely destroying the greatest crisis of the original storyline could he maximize his Dimension Point gains.
Crack—!
Just as Rin was calculating everything, a sharp sound like shattering glass suddenly echoed from the black Curtain covering the entire Jujutsu High forest.
Immediately afterward, violent spatial power tore open a massive gap in the barrier that specifically "rejected Gojo Satoru."
Sunlight poured down through the opening, instantly dispersing the oppressive darkness within the forest.
"Yo! Looks like I missed quite the exciting opening act."
A carefree and flamboyant voice descended from above.
Gojo Satoru stood with his hands in his pockets, casually stepping through the air as he slowly descended like a god.
He wasn't even wearing his blindfold.
Under the sunlight, his azure Six Eyes radiated a breathtaking brilliance as his gaze locked directly onto Rin and Hanami at the bottom of the crater.
"Gojo-sensei!"
Megumi and Noritoshi Kamo, collapsed in the distance, finally relaxed completely upon seeing him arrive.
As long as this man appeared, no crisis remained unsolvable.
The instant Gojo showed up, Hanami's survival instincts exploded to their limit.
It noticed that the pressure from Rin's foot had loosened ever so slightly.
"Now!"
Hanami suddenly opened its mouth and spat out a massive wave of dazzling hallucinogenic flowers.
The flowers possessed no direct killing power, but they could instantly strip away a person's fighting spirit and obscure their vision.
Using the brief 0.1-second opening created by the spreading sea of flowers, Hanami's massive body dissolved into countless dried vines and frantically burrowed deep underground, fleeing beyond the barrier at the cost of burning away its own life force.
"Trying to run?"
Gojo raised an eyebrow and lifted his right hand. A dazzling purple-red sphere of energy condensed at his fingertip.
"Hollow Technique: Purple."
Boom!
The violent beam of energy instantly erased the entire forest in the direction Hanami had fled.
The earth was carved open into a bottomless trench.
But Gojo lowered his hand and clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"Tch. That thing burrowed pretty deep. It still managed to escape with half its body intact."
He casually descended into the crater and walked over to Rin.
"Old man, this doesn't seem like your style."
Gojo stared directly at him.
The feedback from the Six Eyes made it obvious to him that Rin had intentionally let Hanami escape.
Otherwise, with the terrifying power Rin possessed, the one capable of crushing space itself, that wooden Cursed Spirit would never even have had the chance to dive underground.
"Killing a disposable errand boy isn't worth anything except dirtying my hands."
Rin sheathed the Kusanagi Sword and calmly met Gojo's questioning gaze.
"Since that stitched-faced Curse User dares to scheme right under your nose, it means he has a trump card specifically prepared to deal with you."
"If I wipe out all his pawns now, why would he ever reveal it?"
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