Mount Kuragami. The Temple of Sealed Light. The last sanctuary untouched by curses. Until now.
Mist clings to the mountain like memory. The temple rises from the stone like a prayer—its walls etched with seals older than the clans, its halls echoing with chants meant to keep darkness at bay. Monks walk in silence, guarding not just relics, but the balance of the jujutsu world.
They say no curse has ever breached its gates.
They were wrong.
Sukuna walks through the front gate.
He doesn't sneak. He doesn't hide. He walks.
The mist parts for him. The seals flicker. The mountain itself seems to hold its breath.
Inside, the monks stir.
They rush to intercept him, their chants rising like a tide. Barriers shimmer into place. Talismans ignite. Sacred energy floods the air—golden, radiant, trembling.
Sukuna breathes it in like incense.
"You built this place to keep me out. That was your first mistake."
With a flick of his wrist, the outer barrier shatters. Seals rupture like glass. Cursed energy floods the temple grounds, warping the architecture, twisting the air into a suffocating haze. Statues weep blood. Scrolls scream as they burn.
The monks fight valiantly.
One summons a dragon of light, its scales inscribed with mantras. Another manipulates sound, fracturing Sukuna's senses with sonic blades. A third chants a forbidden seal that costs him his life.
None of it matters.
Sukuna moves like a storm given form. Four arms dance with blades and flame. Two mouths chant overlapping incantations, layering techniques in ways no sorcerer has ever imagined. He doesn't just overpower them—he dismantles their legacy.
Stone crumbles. Sacred scrolls burn. The dragon of light screams once before being devoured by a cursed maw conjured mid-air. The mountain shakes. The sky turns violet.
By nightfall, the temple is ash.
But Sukuna doesn't leave.
He walks through the ruins, collecting fragments of cursed relics, absorbing knowledge from shattered altars. He studies the remains of chants, the broken seals, the dying whispers of monks who once believed in salvation.
He is not just destroying—he is evolving.
Then he senses it.
A familiar presence.
Rinzen.
A former ally. A scholar of forbidden arts. The only sorcerer who ever stood beside Sukuna without fear. They once studied together in the ruins of the Eastern Archive, deciphering curses older than language. Rinzen believed in balance. Sukuna believed in truth.
They were not friends. They were mirrors.
Rinzen steps from the shadows, robes torn, eyes filled with regret.
"You've gone too far," he says. "This was sacred."
Sukuna tilts his head.
"Sacred is just another word for fragile."
Rinzen attacks.
Their battle is not like the others. It's personal. Brutal. Beautiful.
They clash across the ruins, cursed energy colliding in waves that reshape the mountain itself. Trees uproot. Stones levitate. Time fractures. The air becomes a battlefield of memory and rage.
Rinzen moves with precision, with sorrow, with love. He knows Sukuna's rhythms. He anticipates his rage. He counters with grace.
Sukuna fights like a god unchained. He laughs as he bleeds. He sings as he strikes. He layers techniques like verses in a poem no one else can read.
For a moment, it seems Rinzen might win.
He lands blow after blow. He binds Sukuna's limbs with cursed threads. He fractures the air around him, creating a vacuum of silence. He speaks a name Sukuna has tried to forget.
And Sukuna hesitates.
Just once.
And Rinzen strikes.
A blade of pure cursed light pierces Sukuna's chest. It doesn't kill him—but it marks him. A wound that doesn't heal. A betrayal that doesn't fade.
Sukuna retaliates with fury.
He unleashes a technique never seen before—a fusion of flame, gravity, and spatial distortion. The mountain splits. The sky screams. Rinzen dies with a whisper on his lips:
"You were meant to be more than this."
Sukuna stands alone.
The temple is gone. His ally is dead. And the wound in his chest pulses with something unfamiliar—not pain, but memory. Not weakness, but possibility.
He looks to the horizon.
"Let them come. Let them all come."