"So what does it actually mean?" Satoru Gojo didn't get it.
"It's normal that you can't tell," Mahiru said.
Because this was a characteristic of Kenjaku's Domain.
Satoru Gojo had never fought Kenjaku, so naturally he couldn't recognize it. After drawing close to the center of the Black Hole, Mahiru could feel that the shifts in the Black Hole's gravity were expressing a certain "characteristic," and
this characteristic was extremely similar to the characteristic of Kenjaku's Domain.
Just like the visual features such as the "shrine" and the "ghost-faced great tree," this kind of Domain characteristic was easy to commit to memory, so long as you had once fought inside Kenjaku's Domain.
"Isn't it a characteristic of Cursed Energy?" Satoru Gojo was slightly puzzled.
His Six Eyes could observe any subtle change in Cursed Energy, yet he hadn't sensed any Cursed Energy within the Black Hole. How had Mahiru perceived it?
"It's the change in gravity," Mahiru said. "We already know from intel that Yuki Tsukumo's Technique manipulates imaginary mass. A change in gravity is a change in mass, and a change in mass is a change in Cursed Energy.
However the gravity operates, that's how the Cursed Energy operates.
And the gravity expresses the characteristic of Kenjaku's Domain.
That shows the Black Hole's creation is closely tied to Kenjaku's Domain—and the reason the Black Hole can maintain stability is that its operating mode also mimics the 'mode' of Kenjaku's open-type Domain."
"I see," said Satoru Gojo, halting his advance deeper into the Black Hole at the same time. "We can't go any farther."
They had already reached the deepest point of the Black Hole they could possibly reach.
"We can't go any farther?"
"Right." Satoru Gojo's gaze was serious. "Any deeper, and things get bad."
The Limitless Technique could grant immunity to the gravity at the very deepest part of the Black Hole. But when the Black Hole's gravity reached its limit, what it produced was no longer merely gravity.
—There was also something more terrifying, more chaotic.
For instance, a chaotic flow of time.
"Heh." Satoru Gojo saw something and couldn't help letting out a laugh.
"Hm??" Mahiru saw it too.
It was the Hollow Purple that Satoru Gojo had fired off earlier, now flying sluggishly along as though congealed in glue. So it wasn't that the Hollow Purple had failed to strike the center of the Black Hole—it was that the Hollow Purple was still in flight at all.
It seemed that the closer to the center of the Black Hole, the slower the flow of time became.
This phenomenon arose naturally from the crushing pressure of the Black Hole, and at the same time, if one went deeper and got swept into the turbulence, something even worse might happen.
This was likely a scenario that even the Limitless Technique was powerless against.
"I have an idea," Mahiru spoke up.
"What is it?" Satoru Gojo glanced sideways.
"How large can you open your Domain at most?" Mahiru asked.
Facing this Black Hole, the first method that came to Mahiru's mind was Mahoraga.
Mahoraga's ability was [Adaptation].
No matter how strong the Black Hole, no matter how bizarre the flow of time, so long as Mahoraga kept adapting to the Black Hole's gravity and existence from afar to near, it could ultimately achieve complete immunity to the Black Hole, and could even dismantle the Black Hole with ease.
But this idea was quickly vetoed, because at present no one could tame Mahoraga—not even Mahiru herself.
Although Mahiru's body was structured as half Cursed Spirit and half human, in essence she was still a Cursed Spirit wrapped in a fleshly body; touched by the positive energy of an exorcism sword, Mahiru would be either killed or crippled.
Not to mention that by the time she had finished learning Mahoraga's complex Technique, the Black Hole would long since have rolled over Tokyo.
Having Megumi Fushiguro come and self-destruct against the Black Hole wouldn't work either.
The Black Hole wasn't a person, and couldn't be incorporated into the "taming ritual."
So next, Mahiru thought of Kenjaku's Anti-Gravity Technique.
If only she could obtain the Anti-Gravity Technique as well—perhaps she could use it to dismantle the Black Hole. But the Anti-Gravity Technique belonged to Yuji Itadori's mother, and for now she couldn't get hold of it either.
Fortunately, she had just figured out the cause of the Black Hole's formation and the laws of its operation, and so she came up with a third idea.
"The principle of the Black Hole's formation has two parts in all. One part is the [Core] formed by Yuki Tsukumo's self-detonation, and the other is the [Shell] surrounding the Core."
The Core was the source of the Technique, used to supply the concept of "imaginary mass"; it could be understood as the Black Hole's [Soul] or [Technique].
The Shell, meanwhile, was composed of the "mass" produced by the Core—it was the Black Hole's [Body]. This body was created by the Black Hole's [Technique], and its structure was extremely similar to Kenjaku's [Domain].
"This is a bit complicated," said Gojo.
"You don't understand?"
"No, of course I understand."
And Mahiru's purpose in asking about the range of Satoru Gojo's Domain was to ask whether he could envelop the Black Hole with his Domain.
The Black Hole looked huge, but that was because the range over which light was captured was huge; the actual matter portion was probably only about the size of a single house.
Satoru Gojo's Technique was also related to [imaginary mass], so by rights it ought to be able to affect the Black Hole too.
If Mahiru could explain clearly how the Black Hole's imaginary mass operated, then perhaps Satoru Gojo could manage to dismantle the Black Hole.
"Can you do it?"
"Hmm…" Satoru Gojo mused.
Mahiru's gaze flickered. "Is this asking too much of you?"
Her idea seemed to have been too presumptuous after all.
It was easy to say, but in practice it was absurdly difficult—basically impossible.
"No—as long as you can explain the rules clearly, then taking this Black Hole apart…" Satoru Gojo shook his head and broke into a confident smile. "At my fastest I'd only need ten minutes."
It really was a fascinating idea.
Satoru Gojo felt excited because of it.
To use a Domain, leveraging the Domain's guaranteed-hit effect to dismantle the Black Hole before him… the difficulty was no less than dismantling a precision instrument with a single finger.
It was as hard as climbing to heaven.
But as it happened, Satoru Gojo was at the same time absurdly strong.
"All right then—when you open your Domain, stay a little farther from the center," Mahiru said. "Even if you fail and your Technique burns out, I can still pull you out."
As long as the distance was great, Mahiru's Cursed Energy output could let Satoru Gojo reach escape velocity, so he wouldn't be sucked in.
Very risky, very bold.
But… it really wasn't impossible.
Besides, from a rather crude perspective, the Black Hole was the joint product of Kenjaku and Yuki Tsukumo, and even the two of them combined couldn't beat a Satoru Gojo who gave them a one-hand handicap.
Even without Mahiru, Satoru Gojo could probably resolve the Black Hole given ten or twenty days.
Indeed, perhaps, since he too could create imaginary mass, after seeing Yuki's imaginary Black Hole, one day he might even be able to whip up a Black Hole of his own.
And the same went for Mahiru.
The girl was not yet as strong as a standard special grade, but her growth was breakneck fast. Once she had discerned the Black Hole's characteristics, given the chance to go find a few key things, she could dismantle the Black Hole on her own as well.
The problem wasn't that the imaginary Black Hole was something completely unsolvable.
The problem was that the imaginary Black Hole was about to roll over the skies of Tokyo at any moment.
Satoru Gojo was good at doing anything—except, uniquely, for saving large numbers of people.
And Mahiru was good at solving all sorts of problems, but she needed time.
This was a race, a contest of speed.
A race where being a single step too slow meant countless people would die… the cruelest speed contest of all.
"It's fine," Mahiru said. "I still have a final, fourth plan."
"A fourth one?"
"Mm."
If everything else proved too late, the fourth plan was Mahiru's fallback.
Only, this fourth plan wasn't a particularly likeable one.
So for now she didn't mention it.
"By the way, while no one can monitor us right now, let me tell you something. Afterward you can just pretend you don't know about it."
"What?"
"Time's short and the task is heavy, so in short: someone has taken Suguru Geto's corpse, waiting for some day to suddenly jump out and give you a fright, and then, while you're startled, to seal you away."
Satoru Gojo's eyes went wide.
His expression shifted wildly; after about ten or twenty seconds, his face returned to normal.
He understood what Mahiru meant, and also grasped why Mahiru had said she wanted him to pretend not to know.
"It seems your fourth method… must be a desperate one," Satoru Gojo said with a light chuckle.
By rights, this matter could just as well have been left for later, but since the girl was saying it now, it was surely because…
If things developed to the worst-case scenario and the girl was forced to use the fourth method, she figured she would very likely die.
So, to guard against the possibility of her own death, she had spoken the words ahead of time.
"Don't worry—no matter who else dies, I won't let my students die," Satoru Gojo said mildly. "I am the strongest, after all."
[Time log: Twenty-three minutes have passed since the Black Hole moved past the Zenin estate.]
The Black Hole had already passed the first village town, and now it was approaching the second.
"Mom! Mom!—"
The earthquakes spanning the whole of the Neon archipelago were caused by the Black Hole's destruction of the crustal structure, and so in many places, the intensity of the quakes was unlike anything before.
And so this town was no different: houses had collapsed in swaths, bridges and road surfaces had all crumbled, and the earth looked as though it had been churned by an enormous mixer.
Should they dig people out of the rubble first, or should they hurry to flee for their lives?
"Mom—boo-hoo-hoo…"
People sat dazed and bewildered atop the ruins.
A girl who had discovered her mother buried beneath the rubble lay sprawled over it, weeping.
Pat.
Then someone gave the girl's shoulder a light pat.
Tears all over her face, the girl turned her head.
She saw a blue-haired girl, as beautiful as an angel, standing beside her.
"Don't be afraid."
"…?"
The crying girl was stunned.
But in the next instant she saw several winged rabbits suddenly appear at her side and haul her up.
Mahiru deftly observed the soul energy lingering within the house below, locked onto the victim's position, and directly summoned countless rabbits to heave the rubble aside, pulling out the woman within—bloodied and mangled, yet still clinging to life because she had been found in time. She healed her with a casual wave.
"Mom!" The girl was shocked, then wept for joy.
She didn't understand what these magic-like sights before her were all about, but she and her family knew they had been saved.
She looked in Mahiru's direction wanting to give thanks, but the blue-haired angel had already vanished.
What she saw instead was countless rabbits surging out from the rubble, and the people the rabbits had rescued.
Mahiru and the others were saving people.
While saving people she was also carrying out preliminary preparations and experiments. At the same time, she was seizing every spare moment to study the Techniques of the Spirit-Calling Granny and Urogi Kyoko—it was just that time really was too tight, so she might have to switch her approach and adopt a more utilitarian way of learning.
Saving people was hard.
A single town had at least several thousand people, and those buried under buildings were even more troublesome.
Scooping every last one of them out within seven or eight minutes sounded downright impossible.
So every one of them was racing against time.
Fortunately, all of them—except Nobara Kugisaki—had the ability to tear down buildings, and Mahiru's enormous Cursed Energy area of effect was truly broken.
But… they were still cutting it extremely close on time.
"Mahiru! Twenty seconds left!"
Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing was hard to say, but after Nobara Kugisaki, Yuji Itadori, and the rest realized that the blue-haired girl from before was Mahiru, they still seemed to regard Mahiru through the same lens they had used for that blue-haired girl.
Right now, for instance, Nobara Kugisaki was shouting through the clone communication, nervously reminding Mahiru.
"Got it." Once Mahiru had done one final check to confirm no living person had been left behind, she began preparing her own final arrangements.
She was responsible for ensuring that Satoru Gojo, with his Technique burned out, could escape from the Black Hole. On one hand, she and Zen'in Mai together had built him a "Bunny Rocket Backpack"; on the other, she also had to fit Satoru Gojo with a safety rope.
"All set." Mahiru patted Satoru Gojo's shoulder.
Who would have thought that "Gojo, your Technique is too much of a hindrance" would, this time, be said first by her—truly something to marvel at.
"I'm going."
Satoru Gojo ascended skyward, advancing to meet the Black Hole, and entered its edge.
"Domain Expansion—Unlimited Void."
The barrier expanded in an instant, wrapping outward toward the Black Hole.
Having deliberately enlarged the scale of the barrier, Satoru Gojo then stripped away nearly every function of the Domain unrelated to dismantling the Black Hole—such as the function of flooding the mind with information—after which the radius of his Domain reached several hundred meters.
Then he manipulated the shell of his own Domain, reshaping it from a sphere into a slender, elongated ellipse, once again increasing the distance.
This time, the other end of the Domain enveloped the center of the Black Hole.
And the length of the ellipse's major axis was exactly the escape distance of the rocket backpack Mahiru had designed for Satoru Gojo.
"Come on… Teacher…" Yuji Itadori watched in Satoru Gojo's direction from afar, clenching his fists.
He didn't know what plan Mahiru and Satoru Gojo had discussed.
But if neither Satoru Gojo nor Mahiru could solve this problem, then the youth couldn't think of anyone else who could.
Satoru Gojo's Domain closed.
In an instant, the vast dark Domain in the sky abruptly vanished; everything returned to blue sky, with only the lingering gales and debris swirling about, and in the sky there remained only a single black, elliptical barrier.
Ten seconds, twenty seconds…
Whether the plan succeeded would be decided right now.
If it succeeded, then even if Satoru Gojo only made a tentative, surface-level attempt, his "Unlimited Void" could inflict a conspicuous weakening on the Black Hole.
That would mean they could resolve it before the Black Hole reached Tokyo, or weaken its threat to an acceptable degree.
As long as their strategy could take effect—that would be the best news of all.
One minute, two minutes…
Time was still passing, and the calm of the sky still continued.
Then, a crisp shattering sound rang out.
Crack—
Mahiru's pupils contracted.
She saw that Satoru Gojo's barrier had shattered, and the dark Domain spilled out once more.
Mahiru gritted her teeth and yanked hard on the safety rope, activating the safety measures on Satoru Gojo's body.
"How could…" Nobara Kugisaki was dumbstruck.
The girl's heart sank to the very bottom, because she saw that the Black Hole's might had not weakened in the slightest.
Satoru Gojo's Domain… had failed to take effect.
____
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