Chapter 90 — The Exorcism of the Hotpot Head
Jogo stood motionless, expression empty.
Even after receiving acknowledgment from both Zen'in Shinsuke and Sukuna, there was no joy on his face.
Instead, a faint, hollow thought crossed his mind—
Have I… been walking the wrong path all along?
---
"Hey, hotpot head, what's with that gloomy face?"
Shinsuke tilted his head, the faintest grin tugging at his mouth.
"Don't tell me you suddenly remembered something sad. Come on, cheer us up—share it with the class."
Jogo said nothing. He just stood there in silence, surrounded by the quiet hum of burning ruins—utterly out of place, like a misplaced soul in a collapsing world.
Finally, he spoke, voice low and uncertain.
"What do you two think… of humans and curses?"
For once, he wanted to understand.
These two beings—both overwhelmingly strong, both monsters in human form—what did they see when they looked at the world?
How did they view the eternal divide between man and curse?
Surely, they must have perspectives beyond his understanding.
---
"So that's what this is about?"
Sukuna sighed, losing interest immediately.
"You wanted my help because of that?"
He chuckled. "You want to become human, don't you? You think curses deserve the same place in the world as them?"
Tilting his head back, Sukuna gazed at the ash-choked sky.
He genuinely couldn't comprehend it.
"To have the status of humans… and then what?" he mused.
"Would that make you stronger? Wiser? Less pathetic?"
He sneered. "Even now, among humans, only the sorcerers have any power. The rest—ordinary men and women—are still powerless before the likes of you."
Sukuna's eyes flicked back to Jogo, sharp and merciless.
"Wanting curses to become the next humanity—it's idiotic. You were born to burn, to destroy, to devour everything until you're stronger."
He grinned. "You should've kept walking that path… until you reached Gojo Satoru's level."
---
"Now, now," Shinsuke said, raising the Heavenly Inverted Spear with an almost lazy motion. "Don't listen to him. Everyone's got a right to chase their ideals—humans, curses, whatever you are."
His tone softened just slightly.
"Your dream's not wrong. You just don't have the strength to reach it. You showed up too early, that's all."
To him, the politics between humans and curses didn't matter.
But looking at Jogo's stubborn resolve, he couldn't help recalling another powerful curse he'd once exorcised—one who, like Jogo, had also sought meaning beyond raw strength.
If Jogo had devoted the centuries purely to evolving, instead of chasing a dream of coexistence, maybe—just maybe—he could've changed the balance of the cursed world after the age of Gojo ended.
But now, it was too late.
---
"Well," Shinsuke said, lowering the halberd slightly, "you got your answer. Now it's time for you to move on. Your friends are waiting for you down below."
His voice was calm—but there was finality in it.
Jogo's gaze trembled.
"…I see."
Then, suddenly, his eyes snapped wide open, burning once again.
"You think I'll just die quietly?!"
His hands clapped together—fingers weaving in furious, desperate motion.
"Domain Expansion — Coffin of the Iron Mountain!"
A torrent of cursed energy erupted from his body, the world twisting in response.
The sky split.
The earth melted.
All around, everything transformed into a boiling sea of magma.
A blazing, enclosed world—his final domain.
Inside, the temperature spiked instantly to unbearable levels.
Any sorcerer trapped within would be reduced to ash in seconds.
Jogo knew he couldn't run.
So he chose to burn everything with him.
He widened the domain's radius, encompassing both Shinsuke and—deliberately—Sukuna as well.
If he was going to die, he'd take gods with him.
---
"Domain Expansion, huh?"
Sukuna looked around at the molten sky and smiled.
"You've got guts—dragging me into it too."
He seemed… almost pleased.
After losing to Gojo's Infinite Void, Sukuna had assumed Jogo would never dare open another domain again.
But now, seeing him stand defiant against the impossible, Sukuna found himself faintly impressed.
"At least you've grown," he said, smirking.
"Looks like you finally got over that little trauma."
The molten air shimmered between them.
The mountain of flame roared.
And Jogo—his eyes wild—let out a final battle cry that shook the molten heavens.
Dragging Sukuna into his domain should have been Jogo's ultimate trump card—his final gamble.
But that also meant Sukuna was now inside the attack radius.
If the King of Curses wanted to survive, he'd have to erect his own domain to counter the guaranteed-hit effect.
Sukuna clasped his hands together, a twisted smile curving across his face.
"Well then," he murmured, "let me show you how a real domain looks—"
CRACK.
A sharp, crystalline sound split the air.
The molten mountains around them fractured like glass, red cracks racing through the lava sky.
And then—
BOOM!
Jogo's entire domain exploded outward in a violent burst of energy.
When the heat haze cleared, Zen'in Shinsuke stood calmly outside the shattered inferno, the Heavenly Inverted Spear gleaming in his hand.
"Hotpot head," he said, smiling faintly, "next time you open a domain, make sure you can actually trap your opponent inside it first."
---
Jogo froze—then his eyes widened in realization.
Of course.
He'd been so focused on the fact that this man had no cursed energy, he'd forgotten the most crucial detail—
without cursed energy, Shinsuke wasn't bound by the laws of a domain at all.
A barrier couldn't restrain someone who didn't play by the system's rules.
The domain's interior was a sealed, stable space—nearly impossible to break from the inside.
But from the outside? It was fragile as glass.
And Shinsuke, armed with the Heavenly Inverted Spear, had simply sliced through the shell like paper.
---
"…You win," Jogo admitted softly.
His tone wasn't bitter—just tired.
He'd thrown everything he had, every ounce of strength, and still couldn't touch this man.
"This time, we failed," he said quietly, flames dimming around him.
"But a century from now, we'll return. And when we do, I hope this world no longer has monsters like you in it."
Shinsuke stepped forward, his expression unreadable.
"Centuries, huh?" he murmured. "But will you still be you then?"
The spear flashed once.
SHING!
And Jogo's body disintegrated into ash.
---
His vision spun, fading into white.
When he opened his eyes again, he stood in a vast, luminous field—endless and still.
There, waiting for him, were two familiar silhouettes.
"Jogo," Hanami greeted him softly, tone serene as ever. "You came."
Jogo nodded, the fire in his body flickering faintly.
"Yeah. I failed. We lost."
Hanami smiled gently. "It's alright. We still have Mahito. You named him our leader for a reason, didn't you? You saw his potential. He'll carry our will forward."
Jogo gave a faint laugh. "Let's hope so."
He didn't really believe Mahito would ever reach the strength of those monsters outside—but growing into a different kind of monster? That, he could imagine.
Side by side, the three special-grade curses—Hanami, Dagon, and Jogo—walked slowly toward the blinding light.
And as they faded, so too did the last traces of their cursed energy.
---
When the final wisp of black smoke vanished into the wind, Shinsuke and Sukuna turned to face each other again.
"It's over for him," Shinsuke said lightly, resting the spear on his shoulder. "Now, about our fight…"
Sukuna's lips curved into a grin.
"This age… it's not so dull after all. To have you and Gojo Satoru both walking the earth—it's almost entertaining."
His aura swelled, molten red and black, as he rose into the air.
"Ready yourself," he said coldly. "I'm done playing around."
Sukuna clasped his hands before his chest, eyes narrowing in predatory focus.
His domain didn't require a barrier—no walls, no limits—nothing for Shinsuke to slice apart.
Watching him hover above the ruins, Shinsuke tilted his head slightly, as if thinking something over.
"What's wrong?" Sukuna called down, voice edged with mockery. "Don't tell me you're thinking of running."
He smirked. "With your speed, sure, you could dodge my domain entirely—but if you're too afraid to step in… maybe you're not worth my time after all."
It was rare for Sukuna—the King of Curses—to resort to such a cheap taunt.
But deep down, he was worried.
He feared that Shinsuke might simply vanish from range, leaving him to waste his domain on empty air.
Shinsuke stared up at him silently.
"…Really?" he muttered at last, exasperation flickering across his face.
"Even the King of Curses resorts to playground tactics now?"
And with that, he raised the spear—ready to remind Sukuna that words meant nothing in front of raw, unstoppable strength.