Nanami adjusted his grip on Naobito, his posture rigid despite his own severe injuries. The shattered lenses of his goggles caught the dim, flickering glow of a nearby streetlight.
"It was impossible to miss," Nanami replied, his tone grim and clinical. "It felt like absolute death."
"It's Sukuna," Megumi stated flatly. The name left a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth. "I've been near it before. Nothing else in the world feels like that."
Megumi forced himself to stand up straight, wiping a mixture of sweat and concrete dust from his forehead. He looked back at the smoking subway entrance for a fraction of a second before turning his gaze toward the deeper districts of Shibuya.
"If Sukuna is awake, the entire operation is compromised," Megumi said, his jaw setting with grim determination. "The other squads have no idea what they're walking into. They're going to march right to their deaths."
Nanami frowned, reading the teenager's expression instantly. "Fushiguro, in your current state—"
"I know," Megumi interrupted, his voice rough but completely unwavering. "We're already half-dead. But if we just turn a blind eye and run, this doesn't end with us limping away. It ends with every single sorcerer in Shibuya getting butchered. Ignoring this only guarantees things get infinitely worse."
He cast a brief glance back at the smoldering subway stairs. The muffled, rhythmic shockwaves of concrete shattering echoed from the depths of the station, a violent testament to the monsters clashing underground.
"Ren and Zen'in-senpai are down there holding the line against a ghost," Megumi said, turning his dark eyes back to the older sorcerer. "They didn't hesitate to step up. I can't just walk away while they buy us time."
He rolled his bruised shoulders, forcing past the burning exhaustion radiating through his limbs.
"I've survived being around Sukuna before," Megumi stated, a grim, stubborn fire lighting up his battered face. "I don't plan on dying that easily tonight, Nanami. Get the old man somewhere safe. I'll warn the others."
Without waiting for the Grade 1 sorcerer to argue, Megumi turned his back on the ruined station and sprinted into the shadows, his silhouette quickly swallowed by the dark, empty streets of Shibuya.
...
The air inside the station compressed, then violently shattered.
The red iron of Playful Cloud shrieked, blurring into a solid crimson halo around Maki's wrists. Toji threw a devastating right hook, aiming a fist that had just been shattering concrete straight at her temple. Maki didn't dart away. She pivoted her front boot, slipping a fraction of an inch inside his reach.
CRACK.
The heavy staff collided with Toji's forearm. The resulting shockwave blew the settling dust cloud completely out of the corridor. For the first time since the fight started, Toji's boots slid back an inch.
Ren tightened his grip on Nightfall, darting into the assassin's blind spot to exploit the opening.
His boots ground to a sudden halt. He didn't swing.
There was no gap. Maki wasn't leaving one.
When Toji swept a low kick meant to snap her shins, she didn't just block. She vaulted off the cracked concrete, twisting her hips in mid-air to drive her heavy boot squarely into his jaw. The sheer kinetic impact spider-webbed the thick structural pillar right behind his head.
Toji actually stumbled.
Maki landed in a low crouch. The jagged burn scars on her cheek pulled taut as a feral, bloodthirsty grin stretched across her face.
Ren stared at her, his chest tight. The wind pressure from her kick had literally pushed the breath out of his lungs. He was running on the absolute maximum output of his System-granted Heavenly Restriction, his muscles coiled to their absolute limits, and yet, watching her move made his pulse skip.
Holy shit, Ren thought, swallowing a dry lump in his throat. Is she actually hitting harder than me?
Toji's spine snapped back into alignment with unnatural speed. His dead, pitch-black eyes locked onto Maki, his calloused hand rising to catch her next swing.
Ren didn't let him.
He exploded off his back foot, the tiles pulverizing to powder under his soles. Nightfall sheared through the air in a blinding horizontal arc aimed directly at Toji's neck. Forced to abandon his grab on Maki's weapon, the assassin threw his weight backward. The abyssal blade kissed the fabric of his shirt, leaving a clean slice across his collarbone instead of severing his spine.
That single evasion was all they needed. Toji was fighting bare-handed. Without a cursed tool to sacrifice against a Special Grade blade or a heavy iron staff, flesh and bone had a hard limit. He had to give up ground.
Ren stepped straight into the space Toji had just vacated. He unleashed a flurry of thrusts, the black blade blurring as it hunted for the assassin's vitals.
Maki fell right into the rhythm. Where Ren's blade swept low to take the knees, Maki's iron staff crashed high to cave in the skull.
SWISH. CRACK.
Ren faked a thrust and spun, slashing at Toji's ribs. Toji twisted his torso away, but Maki's chain was already whipping outward. The heavy iron kissed Toji's shoulder, throwing his balance off by a fraction of a degree.
Step by step, strike by strike, they drove him back. Ren's blade flashed, forcing Toji to dodge left; Maki's staff slammed down, sealing the exit. In less than ten seconds, their crossfire bullied the Zen'in ghost across the ruined platform, completely boxing his back into the twisted steel corner of the turnstiles.
Toji's back hit the steel turnstiles. The metal buckled and screamed.
Ren lunged, driving Nightfall toward his chest.
He didn't dodge. Leaned in. His hand snapped around Ren's wrist like a trap, and in one clean brutal motion wrenched the katana free and flipped it in his palm.
Ren let him.
Fingers just opened.
The blade didn't want him.
Nightfall knew a stranger's grip. The Soul Bond fired — a metallic shriek tore through the air, a shockwave punching outward from the steel itself. It ripped the hand off the hilt, snapped the wrist back with a wet crack, and sent the katana spinning into the dark above them.
Wide open. For the first time since crawling back from death, completely wide open.
Maki was already moving.
She planted, twisted from the hips, and swung Playful Cloud with everything she had. Heavy iron met exposed ribs. The sound was wrong — too loud, too solid — and he slammed back into the ruined turnstiles and stayed.
Ren stepped onto his thigh and pushed off.
Time stretched at the top of the jump. Hand found the spinning hilt. Grip reversed.
Blade down.
He drove it through the crown of Toji's skull.
Steel parted bone. The blade buried itself through the turnstile and into the concrete below.
CRUNCH.
Dust rolled outward across the broken tiles.
The body went rigid. That darkness behind the eyes flickered — killing intent cutting out like a severed wire. Then the edges started going first, the scarred flesh crumbling, flaking into ash, curling away piece by piece until there was nothing left worth burying.
Ren stood over it. Breathing hard. One hand still on the hilt.
[ MYTHIC ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Eclipse of the Apex ]
Condition Met: Eradicate a fully realized Heavenly Restriction without utilizing Cursed Energy.