Three minutes earlier.
On the rooftop, the hilt of Ryūjin Jakka vibrated, the red veins pulsed like burning embers, and the heat it released kept Kenjaku's body pinned to the ground, smothering every attempt at rebellion.
Damian looked at him for only an instant more, then turned on his heels and walked to the edge of the rooftop.
As soon as he took a step forward, his silhouette blurred little by little until it vanished like smoke carried by the wind.
…
The next second, absolute silence surrounded him.
The temperature dropped, not from cold air, but from the absence of everything. Beneath his feet stretched a vast blue planet, spinning very slowly, fragile compared to the dark immensity that enveloped it.
"..."
And there, suspended in nothingness, floated Damian.
From this height, Japan unfolded clearly before his eyes. The outlines of the islands were perfectly visible, the illuminated cities shone like tiny jewels embedded on the surface.
It was not the first time he had been here.
Since his body had transformed, he knew that outer space no longer posed a threat. He could move freely in the void, withstand incredible temperatures and the absence of oxygen as if they were mere inconveniences.
He had even noticed details: the geography of Japan was different, broader than in his memories, as if the planet itself had expanded over time… or mutated imperceptibly compared to the memories he carried from his previous life.
But at that moment none of that mattered.
In his eyes only one thing existed: ten gigantic black domes rising over the archipelago.
Kenjaku's supposed masterpiece, the safety net he had woven over a thousand years of planning.
The objective was simple.
Destroy them.
Damian's body descended a few meters in the void, lowering his center of gravity as if he were standing on an invisible floor.
His right hand slowly descended until it rested on the hilt of Yamato at his waist.
He narrowed his eyes and a spectral blue flame flickered briefly deep within his irises.
In that instant, his hand moved.
!
The iaijutsu was so fast that in the void nothing remained but a trail of bluish streaks distorting space like mirages.
The movement of his arm and the blade surpassed every perceptible limit, erasing itself from sight as if it had leapt outside of time itself.
The slash did not physically cross the distance. The intention of the sword leapt directly through space, projecting itself to the ten central nodes that sustained the vast network of barriers.
Each one was struck without fail.
Damian did not even need to look at the result. Yamato returned to its sheath with the same fluidity with which it had been drawn.
Click
At the very instant he sheathed the katana, ten exact points on the surface of the archipelago erupted into bluish flares that rose like miniature suns.
From nothing, thousands of slashes emerged all at once. They multiplied in the air, crossing and overlapping, forming an infinite web of cuts that no one on earth could follow with their eyes.
The gigantic wall of the barrier, along with its intricate internal nodes, shattered.
The entire sky first fractured into luminous cracks and then collapsed inward, disintegrating into fragments that vanished like dust.
The roar that swept through the world was not a physical sound, but a resonance that reached into the depths of one's being, the echo of the very laws of the world being cut in that instant.
The entire archipelago, along with the waters surrounding it, trembled.
"..."
Damian watched in silence from above.
Mission complete.
He cast one last glance at the Japanese archipelago and, without another word, his silhouette dissolved quietly, merging with the infinite darkness of the cosmos around him.
…
On the rooftop, Kenjaku looked like a corpse refusing to fall.
His eyes were so wide open that the sockets seemed ready to burst, fine cracks traced the edges, and from them blood seeped in spasmodic streams, as if he were crying red tears.
"N-No… it can't be… it can't be…" he murmured again and again, like an echo.
Swish
That was when another presence appeared.
A flash of electricity preceded the arrival of Kashimo, who materialized a few steps from Kenjaku.
At first, he did not dare get too close: the sword embedded in Kenjaku's chest and the flames surrounding it provoked an instinctive fear even in him.
But… who was he?
He was Kashimo Hajime.
His return to the world of the living was for a single purpose: to find the King of Curses, Sukuna, and face him in a decisive battle of life or death.
And now, before his eyes, appeared someone capable of leaving the enigmatic Kenjaku reduced to such a miserable state.
That discovery did not fill him with fear, but with a burning excitement that coursed through every fiber of his being. That was why he had stepped onto the rooftop.
"Kenjaku… seeing you in such a pathetic state is ridiculous." Seeing Kenjaku in that condition, he could not help but mock mercilessly.
But his words struck empty space. Kenjaku's mind had already been completely broken; his eyes wandered without focus, unable to process anything else.
"Tch"
Kashimo clicked his tongue, irritated by the lack of response, and then his attention shifted to the katana, still embedded in Kenjaku's body.
"Such an ugly sword… can it really be this terrifying?" he muttered, cautiously extending his hand toward the blade.
But just before he could touch the metal, the crimson veins on the sword flared to life all at once.
A fierce flash lit up the rooftop and, immediately, a scorching wave of fire exploded from the sword in all directions.
"Tch."
Kashimo reacted instantly, with lightning bursting around his body, forming an electric armor that enveloped him completely.
The electric shield blocked the blaze, and the clash between fire and lightning made the entire rooftop tremble and begin to crack.
The spark of danger mixed with an emotion he could not contain.
"Interesting…" Kashimo murmured, and his cursed energy surged abruptly, the shield of lightning surrounding him shone with renewed ferocity, pushing back the wave of fire that tried to devour him.
But the katana responded as if it had understood the provocation and began to vibrate violently, emitting a deep hum that echoed across the rooftop, while the flames around it rose in a suffocating heat, scorching even the air.
"COME ON!" Kashimo roared.
His feet struck with such force that the rooftop rumbled, and his body shot forward like lightning straight toward the sword.
His right arm, wrapped in a blinding glow, condensed the lightning into a gigantic luminous blade. His fist came down with violence, seeking to split the katana in two.
BOOM
A storm of fire and lightning exploded, engulfing the rooftop in a hurricane of energy that shook the entire building.
A second later, Kashimo was thrown back by the force of the collision. His body scraped across the rooftop surface, leaving a blackened groove in his wake before stopping with a harsh impact.
Ryūjin Jakka, however, remained embedded in Kenjaku's body, unmoving like a mountain. The crimson veins on its blade pulsed stronger and stronger, and the flames rose with such violence it seemed like a warning: no one could profane it.
Kashimo spat blood as he got back up, staggering, and instead of frustration, a spark of madness shone in his eyes.
"Never before had a weapon made me feel this… Today, I'll take it, no matter what it costs!"
His fingers intertwined into seals, and the electricity around his body unleashed into a wild current.
The lightning began to flow toward a single point, slowly condensing into a gigantic crackling orb.
Inside it, countless serpents of light slithered and clashed, buzzing with a power that seemed capable of erasing the entire city.
He was about to launch it when—
"What are you doing?"
A cold voice whispered right behind his ear.
!
Kashimo's pupils contracted instantly, and he felt his heart shrink under an invisible pressure.
Instinct took control before his mind could process anything.
He interrupted the orb without hesitation, forcing his cursed energy to retreat against its channels. The pain made him let out a strangled groan as his body twisted violently to one side.
"CRACKLE!"
His figure turned into a zigzagging bolt of lightning that shot through the air, vanishing from the imminent explosion.
He only managed to stabilize himself two hundred meters away, on the edge of another rooftop.
His chest pounded like a drum, and a fresh thread of blood slipped from his lips. The price of having cut off the flow of his technique so abruptly was consuming him from the inside.
He lifted his gaze suddenly, desperately searching for the place where the voice had sounded just a moment before.
But nothing… Empty!
Impossible… That voice had sounded right next to him.
"Too much spectacle… what were you just doing?"
The same cold tone was heard again, this time without a doubt behind his back.
A chill ran through him from head to toe, raising his skin, and he turned sharply.
Damian was there.
Still, as if he had never left, as if he had always been present and Kashimo had simply never perceived him.
The distance was so short that he could still feel the cold of the void clinging to his body.
Black clothes, white hair, and his amber eyes looked at him without a trace of emotion.
"..."
Kashimo froze.
"When…?"
When had he returned? How had he gotten behind him without him noticing?
His heart pounded furiously, and the combat euphoria that had consumed him seconds earlier dissolved under a frozen mantle of fear.
His pride in his speed and perception suddenly became a cruel mockery before that man.
He fixed his gaze on Damian, gritting his teeth with an audible grind. Cursed energy boiled in his veins like a cornered beast, wanting to roar, but unable to.
Fear tangled into every fiber of his being, holding him tight.
"..."
Damian's eyes scanned the smoke cloud still rising from the nearby explosion, and then settled on Kashimo. In them there was no anger or interest, only annoyance.
"Too much noise," he murmured. "You bother me."
A second later, his silhouette wavered, as if the air itself had blurred him.
!
Kashimo reacted immediately: his muscles tensed to the maximum, and a burst of lightning erupted from his body like a distinctive shield.
But it was too slow.
Suddenly, Kashimo felt something vanish from his body.
An unnatural lightness overtook him, as if a point of support had been ripped away.
Horror forced him to lower his gaze.
A gush of blood gushed violently from his right shoulder. His entire arm had disappeared, cleanly cut from the root.
He only managed to see it, already severed, drawing a cruel arc in the air before crashing against the ground.
The pain hit him a moment later.
"AAARGHHH—!" Kashimo roared, sweat drenching his body in seconds as every nerve burned like fire.
"I told you, you're too noisy." Damian's indifferent voice sounded again.
And before those words could dissipate into the air—
Slash Slash Slash
Three flashes crossed the air.
So fast they surpassed any reflex, even his.
An arm.
A leg.
The other leg.
All were torn away in the same instant.
Kashimo's throat tried to scream, but the howl was cut short, strangled by absolute pain.
His pupils shrank to a point, unable to process what he was seeing: his own body torn apart.
The left arm and both legs detached as if they were pieces of a doll, crashing heavily onto the rooftop while blood painted the ground red.
His mutilated torso collapsed next to Kenjaku's, another human trunk nailed to the floor.
Even so, Kashimo did not give up. From his ruined throat a savage roar escaped:
"DAMN IT!!!"
On that edge between life and death, calculation vanished.
He unleashed then what little he had left, his final card. The technique he had saved to face Sukuna, even if it cost him life and soul.
"Opening of cursed technique: Mythical Beast Amber!"
Bzzzt
Blue electric arcs, violent like liquid flames, wrapped what was left of his body. Cursed energy condensed, reconstructing flesh and bone in bursts of pure electricity.
The core of his being pulsed with rage, determined to force a transformation beyond the limits, even if only for an instant. He wanted to rip away even a fragment of this damned one!
However…
His vision blurred.
And suddenly, the world seemed to advance in a rapid blink… and then froze.
His furious will, his burning energy, his inner screams… all of it was suspended, halted like a fixed frame.
With his eyes wide open, he managed to see it.
A headless body, still reconstructing in blue sparks, lay on the ground. The severed neck spat out lightning, trying to complete a transformation that would never be realized.
Was that… his body?
The question didn't even have time to fully form in his mind.
The world spun, and he felt himself falling. The cracked ground drew closer and closer.
Thud
The impact marked his end.
The last image his eyes captured was his own decapitated body and, before him, motionless, that black figure watching him, unchanging.
After that, only darkness came.
________
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