Narrowing my eyes, I said, "Well, if that's how you want to play, then don't complain to me if I dent your pretty face. Cursed Technique: Cursed Spirit Manipulation—Death March!"
Uncountable numbers of curses, ranging between Grade Four and Grade Two, suddenly emerged all together and rammed toward the pretty boy like a battering train, intending to crush him into pulp.
First was a Grade Four fly that slammed into him and... stopped.
"What the f—?" Following their predecessor, all the other curses did the same and came to a halt. I didn't understand. Was it a barrier or something else?
For the first time since coming here, he met my eyes, I was shocked, awed, or whatever. His eyes—they were mesmerizing. A shade of shining blue I couldn't even name, they almost glowed.
"Merely raising the number of weaklings won't change anything, weakling," he said, swiping his hand.
The swarm of Grade Four flies in front of his hand was swiped toward the left, taking the curses behind them along and slamming them into the Tokyo High School barrier, which effectively incinerated them.
Ugh, that was so fucking cool. So he has a stupidly strong blue Rasengan-like thing that pulls apart everything it touches, effectively destroying it, and now an immovable, wall-like barrier. Plus those eyes—I'm sure there must be some sort of power in them, too. I can feel them analyzing everything they glare upon.
However, I was still confused about that defensive technique. I could sense that my curses were still moving forward, but they were just too slow to reach him. It was as if they had a millennium's worth of distance to cover, but how could that be? He was standing right here.
Hmm, must be some sort of space-fuckery technique. So that blue mass is probably space-related too... pulling things in by attracting them, something like that. Now, how to counter this cheat code?
"It seems like you don't know anything about my technique, huh? What an uninformed weakling you are," he said with a cocky attitude, launching toward me with full momentum.
I felt it—the same feeling of distance between him and me that I felt through my curses—but this time, it was repelling me. I raised my hand, and instantly, a wall of curses came to protect me like a barrier of my own, but I was still launched by that crushing force, just like how my curses had been slammed into the Jujutsu High barrier before.
I was calm—utterly calm—because I had a plan.
A Grade Two spirit, a fatty curse, rose from the ground to catch me and cushion my fall. But damn, Gojo was in front of me again, and behind me was a stupid wall. So, he was planning, too. Just as I thought, he was trying to crush me, and he even had a crazy smile on his face.
"Let's see how much you can bear," he smiled crazily through his teeth.
"I am definitely knocking those teeth out, you fucking muscle-head." I raised my hand and performed the same gesture I had done a thousand times. "Cursed Technique: Maximum Release!"
I released all the cursed spirits I had subjugated since awakening my technique, except for one, and commanded it: "Come from the ground and bite him hard!"
Yaga, the homeroom teacher at Tokyo Jujutsu High, reached the pavilion where the fight was happening, but he wasn't the fastest; others were already present. He ignored them in an attempt to stop the idiots who were dragging his name through the mud.
"Stop, Gojo—!" He tried, but the old Principal stopped him.
"Stop, Yaga. No need to interfere." The old man who was the principal stopped him from interrupting the ongoing fight between Gojo and Geto.
"Cursed Spirit Manipulation is a truly marvelous technique—controlling so many cursed spirits without any limit. Actually, how many has he released by now?" The Principal was mesmerized by the sheer number of curses controlled by Suguru Geto.
"More than 300. Is there no limit to the number of curses he can control?" asked a second professor wearing weird glasses, a bow tie, and a suit.
"Even better, it seems he can control strong Grade One curses, too!" The Principal looked toward two guards.
The two guards stood at full attention. "Yes, Old Principal. The first cursed spirit was definitely on par with a Grade One curse—a monkey cursed spirit. We couldn't hope to stop it with our meager strength. Thankfully, Gojo-san stepped forward and exorcised it with his 'Blue'."
"Ah, Gojo defeated a Grade One with one move, and he only joined a month ago. Truly marvelous," replied the old Principal.
"Of course. Limitless and the Six Eyes together are unmatched, but for Geto to match him like this... clearly, Cursed Spirit Manipulation has a lot of potential," Yaga said proudly.
In the Gojo-Geto fight, Geto's release of all his curses momentarily confused Gojo due to the information overload from the spirits. Then, a curse dug out from the ground beneath Gojo's feet.
"Hmph, a fool. Does he think Infinity has such a stupid weakness, or does he think Gojo is incompetent enough to leave the ground uncovered?" said NPC B, who happened to teach fighting strategies.
The others were quiet but silently agreed with him. It looked like the new student had underestimated Gojo. What a disappointment.
The air near Gojo's feet shimmered, as expected the curse's desperate lunges snapping against the invisible wall of Infinity like glass against stone. Satoru looked down, his expression shifting from boredom to a smirk.
"Hmph. So that was your plan? Ridicu—"
The word died in his throat.
A tickle, violent and primordial, surged from his sinuses to the base of his skull. It wasn't just an itch;
it was a technique of Grade Two Sneeze Cursed Spirit—a joke of a curse with a singular, hyper-specific technique: The Harmless Sneeze.
Effect: Ineviatable Sneeze
To maintain Infinity, Gojo's brain must execute a continuous, high-speed calculation that filters reality itself. However, the Sneeze Curse forces a violent surge through the Vagus Nerve, causing the heart to stall for a single, rhythmic beat. In that instant, blood flow to the brain falters, creating a microscopic "blackout" in his synaptic processing. For any other sorcerer, it's a mere twitch; but for the Honored One, whose technique demands absolute cerebral continuity, it is a fatal system crash. The infinite calculation hits a divide-by-zero error, and for one-millionth of a second, the god is touched.
Satoru's entire frame buckled. His brain rattled within his skull as the most violent sneeze of his life forced his eyes shut and, for one catastrophic microsecond, caused his concentration to lapse. The Infinity—the absolute barrier between Satoru and the world—flickered out.
" ACHOOO...."
Suguru Geto didn't need a second. He only needed that millionth of a heartbeat. Gojo dropped his Infinity for a second. Against any normal sorcerer, it wouldn't have mattered; they wouldn't have been able to exploit that opening. But Geto was different. He had been waiting for this exact moment with extreme concentration against the crushing pressure of Infinity.
He had concentrated the maximum amount of cursed energy he could into his fist, to the point it was flowing like water. While Satoru had seen the cursed energy pooling in Geto's fist from the start, he had dismissed it as a futile gesture against his defense, but he could have never imagined he would be forced to drop Infinity in such a ridiculous way.
Then it happened, the cursed energy around Geto's knuckles didn't just flow; it turned viscous, like liquid shadow. Space itself groaned and distorted. Just as his fist made contact with Gojo's jaw, the universe seemed to stutter.
"BLACK FLASH!"
Sparks of obsidian lightning tore through the air, the sound of the impact resembling a sonic boom.
"Damn! Was that a Black Flash to the face of that bastard?!" Utahime's voice cracked as she skidded into the pavilion, having followed the trail of heavy cursed energy.
Satoru's body skipped across the pavement like a flat stone on a pond, picking up speed until he slammed into a reinforced concrete wall. The masonry shattered, swallowing him in a cloud of grey dust and jagged rebar.
"Did he kill him?" Old Principal voice was uncharacteristically shrill. He gripped his cane, his face pale. This wasn't the script he'd written in his head. He had expected Satoru to dance through the skirmish with his usual irritating grace, allowing the old man to play the role of the stern but impressed mentor.
"No, no, no... how could this go so wrong?" NPC B stammered, backing away from the crater in the wall.
Only Masamichi Yaga moved. He didn't waste time on shock. He sprinted toward the wreckage, his eyes tracking a single crow perched on a nearby withered branch. He ran toward Gojo and called out to a crow hanging in a tree, "Bring Shoko here right now!"
The crow, as if it understood, flew toward the girls' dormitory.
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