"Master, such a precious thing, and you're using it to seal a clone?"
The cowering Mahito hunched over and cautiously asked Demon Head Kijuro like a servant. Demon Head Kijuro, who was in a good mood, rarely answered his question:
"I don't care about the one who can be sealed, nor about the one who can't be sealed. So using it to seal Kagetatsu's clone to buy time is the right move."
After that, Demon Head Kijuro used telekinesis to pull the unconscious Itadori out of the bus, took ten of Sukuna's fingers from his pocket, and fed them to him one by one.
In the next second, the cursed mark of Ryomen Sukuna appeared on Yuji Itadori's face. Ryomen Sukuna turned and looked at Demon Head Kijuro but did not take a single step.
"You, guy, look very strong."
"Sukuna, I didn't expect that after losing your physical body as a cursed object, you would still have so much sense. I have a proposal. Do you want to hear it?"
"So it seems we knew each other before, didn't we?"
"It seems you're much smarter than I thought."
"Don't waste time. Just say what you want to say. You went to the trouble of finding me with so many fingers. Tell me, why should I help you?"
"Just because of this. I can help you defeat Nishida Kagetatsu and avenge your humiliation."
Hearing the four words "Nishida Kagetatsu," Ryomen Sukuna instantly showed an extremely terrifying smile and asked:
"You'd better not lie to me, or I won't make your death easy."
Demon Head Kijuro didn't say a word. He pulled out a physical body from the eye in his hand. Sukuna recognized at a glance that it was his own body, sealed a thousand years ago.
Indeed, there was a large hole in its chest, and the heart was missing.
"Your human body hasn't rotted for a thousand years. Those foolish commoners regard you as an immortal Buddha. But unfortunately, they don't know that your cursed object body has real value."
"Cursed object body? Are you talking about that giant body? Wasn't that a dream?"
"Of course not. We were simply deceived. So... do you want to cooperate with me to find everything that truly belongs to us?"
Faced with Demon Head Kijuro's question, after a brief moment of thought, Sukuna resolutely agreed. Demon Head Kijuro used some kind of technique to rejuvenate Sukuna's body, then broke off the little finger of Yuji Itadori's left hand and fed it to his own body.
Sukuna, having regained his original body, looked at his four hands, now with only twelve fingers remaining. He glanced at Itadori and left with Demon Head Kijuro without looking back.
Before Demon Head Kijuro left, he left the Prison Realm with Mahito and ordered:
"Clean up. Do whatever you want. Consider it a reward for today's performance. And return it to me on time."
"Yes! Master!"
Mahito, who had fallen to the ground, didn't dare to stand up until the other party had completely left. He then looked at Yuji Itadori with ill intent, revealing a cruel and playful smile.
"Hehe! Hehehe! Hehehehehe!"
At the same time, inside Yuji Itadori's inner world, he opened his eyes and found himself on a train that was constantly moving but was flooded with seawater and full of marine life.
"You're awake."
An old, hoarse voice came from ahead. When Itadori looked up, he was so shocked that he jumped to his feet.
"Don't be so nervous. Sit down."
Yuji Itadori, who had come from sixty-eight years in the future, looked at his younger self. The resentment from before was gone, leaving only pain and relief.
"You..."
"Don't guess. I am you, sixty-eight years later. I'm here to tell you a story."
After that, without waiting for his younger "self" to react, Yuji Itadori began to tell the story on his own:
"Many years ago, a man appeared in this world. He possessed the favor of the gods and a cursed future. Both fortune and misfortune befell him at the same time, so he was destined to have the power to obtain everything and a life with nothing."
"And this favor of the gods became his nightmare. To live forever, for the sake of his mission, he had to be reincarnated countless times, becoming a tool to solve disasters and the savior in people's hearts, taking on different forms."
"Until one day, he reincarnated as a wanderer in the Heian period, born in an era full of demons, monsters, and sorcerers. He realized his mission very early on, began to kill demons and evil spirits, and walked the right path."
"He was very strong, unbelievably powerful, not at all like a human, but like a god walking the earth. And he was also very weak, so weak that he couldn't protect the ones he loved, because that white fox was a cursed spirit—the very thing he was destined to destroy."
Hearing this, Itadori's mouth fell open, unsure of what to say. But the other party didn't explain at all and continued:
"After leaving his beloved, he continued to travel the world, striving to defeat the strongest sorcerer of the nation and the demon leader Kijuro, who was sowing chaos in the world. In the end, he easily accomplished this goal."
"However, the story did not end there. After defeating Demon Head Kijuro, the named demons in the world were actually cut off and sealed by him. So the wanderer lived in seclusion for more than ten years and recorded his history in a biography called the 'Chronicles of the Pacified Demon Realm.' Among them was a sorcerer born in those final years."
"The King of Curses, incarnated as an evil spirit within a human body—Ryomen Sukuna."
Hearing this, Yuji Itadori realized that the other party was actually telling the story of Brother Locke's past life, Kagetatsu Nishida?
But he didn't understand what this story had to do with the current situation or what it had to do with him sixty-eight years later.
The elderly Yuji Itadori seemed to notice his confusion and replied:
"I think you don't understand why I'm telling this. Because decades later, at the end of the wanderer's life, he encountered the most powerful enemy of his existence."
"The Black Dragon King from an alien planet. The end of artificial intelligence. The supreme judge. The destroyer of all organic life—Gilbaris."
"?!"
When Itadori heard this name, which clearly only existed in games and anime, the entire tone suddenly shifted from a Warring States knight legend to a space epic.
"You wouldn't think that in the vast universe, humans are the only intelligent life form, would you? In the nearly infinite universe, one vehicle is infinite, and still infinite. Gilbaris is an enemy of civilization, created by a race in infinity."
"He is the ultimate weapon created for peace. But eternal peace, for him, means destroying all intelligent beings. So he destroyed most of the civilizations in the universe that never encountered an enemy."
Hearing the description from his future "self," Yuji Itadori felt an extremely desperate world—an invincible enemy, a world doomed to destruction, a Sword of Damocles hanging over all civilizations.
As a member of a young civilization that had just emerged on its own planet, Yuji Itadori felt genuine despair for that future.
But suddenly, the elderly Yuji Itadori's tone became extremely fanatical. With guilt and dilated pupils, he shouted to his younger self:
"Faced with this enemy of civilization, Kagetatsu, who had reached the end of his life, stood up. With his mortal body, comparable to that of a god, he finally burned everything and accomplished the impossible!"
"He —————— defeated Gilbaris!"
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