To remove the unnecessary soul.
Having lost two eyes, with half his face scorched black and rotting from violent lightning burns—
Even in such a grievously wounded state,
Sukuna held half of his own severed head aloft and laughed madly beneath the holy light!
At last, only Sukuna's individual consciousness remained within this body!
"Pshhk!"
Sukuna impaled the half-head in his hand with Hiten, then hurled it into the distance with all his strength!
In the midst of battle, he had no time to deal with the damaged soul.
Leaving it nearby would only make it a target for the many sorcerers present.
Among the hundreds of jujutsu sorcerers there were techniques similar to Nobara's Straw Doll Technique,
as well as onmyōji curse arts from the Abe clan capable of using body remnants for remote attacks.
The severe damage to his soul caused Sukuna to retreat for the first time.
Fighting as he withdrew, he left the coalition forces of the four great powers suffering catastrophic casualties.
The battle lasted for three full days before Sukuna finally escaped.
When Sukuna eventually returned to where he had thrown the severed head,
only the cursed tool remained.
The Fallen One's remnant soul was gone.
Sukuna did not rush to search for it.
Instead, he ordered Uraume to prepare the Bath ritual.
While healing his injuries, he also intended to completely stabilize his soul within the body.
After repeated rituals, black cursed markings now covered Sukuna's entire body.
Although Reverse Cursed Technique restored the missing half of his face, the loss of part of his soul left him with a grotesque overlapping appearance.
The bloody mouth faintly splitting open across his abdomen made Sukuna's body resemble something even closer to a demon.
Because cursed techniques are engraved upon the flesh itself,
Sukuna alone now possessed two innate techniques.
One was the Fallen One's "Analysis."
The other was Sukuna's "Slashing."
That was also why Sukuna, even without Mahoraga,
had been able to observe the distortions within Mirai's Kamui space and unleash the slash capable of cutting the world itself.
After recovering, Sukuna followed the lingering traces of the remnant soul all the way to the Esoteric Buddhist Sect.
With the sheer diversity of techniques in existence, enemies could potentially use that half-soul to launch some form of resonance-based remote attack.
That damaged soul had effectively become Sukuna's only weakness.
There, Sukuna unexpectedly encountered the girl from before once again, along with the monk who had rescued her.
Originally intending to slaughter everyone present,
Sukuna was blocked by the barrier technique unleashed by Genshin after removing his restrictions.
After repeated failed attempts,
Sukuna even disguised himself as the Fallen One and conversed with the girl, Tengen, from outside the barrier.
But it was unsuccessful.
Combining this with memories he had previously seen,
Mirai realized the Fallen One's remnant soul was now in Kenjaku's possession.
Mirai still remembered that in order to stop Sukuna, the monk Genshin had formed a binding vow never to leave the temple again,
and had even placed Kenjaku under confinement.
As battle after battle continued,
the name Ryomen Sukuna became increasingly renowned.
The entire jujutsu world came to fear and dread him.
Eventually, he was crowned with the title:
"The King of Curses."
Sensing that the cursed womb outside was nearing maturity, Mirai skipped over the memories of countless battles.
He directly searched for the memories of Sukuna, Uraume, and Kenjaku first meeting one another.
Their first encounter had not gone well.
Before Kenjaku could even approach,
he was sliced into hundreds of pieces by countless slashes.
The scene shifted ahead by half a month.
Staring at the sorcerer with stitched markings across his forehead, Sukuna recognized the exact same cursed energy signature as the person he had killed before.
"A technique that splits the soul?"
Sukuna looked at the newcomer with interest.
Kenjaku openly admitted it and revealed his technique to Sukuna.
It was not merely brain-hopping.
It could also divide the soul itself.
The body Sukuna had killed earlier had merely been an ordinary human infused with part of Kenjaku's soul.
The inspiration for this method had come from watching Genshin stop Sukuna by imposing a binding vow upon himself, maximizing the power of his technique.
By abandoning a normal human body and surviving through parasitism instead,
Kenjaku had pushed the potential of his cursed technique to its absolute limit.
It could now affect not only bodies—
but souls as well.
"Ah."
The Sukuna beside Mirai suddenly spoke.
"So it seems you had your eyes on Kenjaku from the very beginning."
Mirai nodded.
"He's the key to the entire plan. That old fox created something pretty interesting."
After reviewing the final piece of information,
Mirai turned and walked away.
"Farewell, King of Curses."
Sukuna did not respond.
He merely lowered his gaze toward his tightly clenched fist.
"Heh… hehehe…"
After a low chuckle, Sukuna voiced the same sentiment he had during his final battle against Zenin Mirai.
"That fight… was satisfying."
Outside the Domain—
Sukuna's body now resembled shattered glass on the verge of collapsing, covered head to toe in crisscrossing crimson cracks.
While Mirai's attention remained focused upon Sukuna's body,
the Jujutsu High side refused to sit still and wait for death.
Yuta and Higuruma—the two prodigies—
took turns using Domain Amplification as they charged forward with Angel, who had only just arrived at the battlefield, breaking into Zenin Mirai's open-barrier Domain at high speed.
They could not determine whether Zenin Mirai, like Kenjaku and Sukuna, was also some ancient monster from a distant era.
Judging by his conversations with Kenjaku and the others, the possibility could not be ruled out.
Most importantly,
Jujutsu High no longer possessed any means capable of threatening Future.
Only Angel's unique technique might still produce some effect.
"Right now… all we can do is gamble!"
Yuta and Higuruma accelerated forward with difficulty, bringing Angel to the outer limit of her technique's range.
Hana Kurusu stared at the collapsed Sukuna, her thoughts in turmoil.
That body…
was also where Megumi's soul still remained.
A moment later,
determination flashed across Hana's eyes as Angel began chanting.
"O light, light that purifies all things!"
"Erase sin, error, and sorrow—guide that person!"
"Jacob's Ladder!!!"
The darkened sky instantly blazed as bright as day!
A colossal pillar of purifying light descended from the heavens upon the earth!
"Not happening!!!"
Uro arrived at the central battlefield at that exact moment!
Landing directly in front of Mirai, Uro remained completely unaffected by the Domain!
The instant the purification pillar descended,
Uro violently grabbed the very space before her with both hands!
Spinning three times in place, she unleashed violent winds across the battlefield!
Then—
she forcibly redirected the descending pillar of light and reflected it back toward Angel and the others!
"Hana, dodge!"
Angel shouted in warning.
She and Hana existed symbiotically, two souls sharing one body.
The purification light affected them as well.
Hana barely managed to evade it in time, while Yuta and Higuruma grimly withdrew with Angel back to safety.
Their final plan…
had failed.
"AAAHHH!!!"
An unexpected scream suddenly rang out beyond Mirai's Domain!
"Itadori!!!"
Choso, the closest one nearby, rushed forward in alarm!
The reflected technique from Angel had happened to pass directly through Yuji's location.
"It's probably the influence of the six remaining souls from the Death Painting Wombs. There's no need to worry too much."
Yuta, Higuruma, and the others who arrived moments later explained.
Crack. Crack.
At that exact moment, the crimson moon hanging in the sky shattered apart.
Returning to his senses, Mirai completely ignored the Jujutsu High sorcerers outside the Domain, as though they were insignificant insects unworthy of notice.
BOOOOM!!!
The barrier violently trembled, and the heavens dimmed.
At that moment, the entirety of Japan vanished from the map of the world.
It had been completely dragged into the Kamui dimension.
Within the darkened sky,
only the gigantic cursed womb overhead continued to glow with blood-red radiance.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP!!!
The swelling and contracting cursed womb echoed like the heartbeat of a giant across heaven and earth!
One side of the enormous blood-colored egg revealed an utterly grotesque face—
as though formed from countless human faces forcibly kneaded together.
And the terrifying aura rising from it caused even Uro beside Future, along with Angel in the distance, to cry out in horror.
"Kenjaku?!!"
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