A closer look to the hills to the west revealed the shape of a troop deploying anew.
The flag that the gang was hoisting was that of a star—the symbol of the Pleiades—fluttering fiercely against the smoke-choked sky of the Vollachian Empire.
"Seems we got here a little bit later than I was hoping for..."
Subaru murmured the words under his breath, his voice hoarse from the dust of the road.
He strode at the exact front of the battalion. Behind him, hundreds of liberated gladiators and thousands of non-combatants who had joined them during the journey to Lupagana from Ginuhive, who wished to fight for the revolt, all marched in silent, grim determination.
They had survived the hell of the Gladiator Island, and now they were staring at the golden-tipped walls of the capital.
The air was already quivering with the distant, deafening sounds of combat.
Columns of ice and silverish mana surged from the southeast bastion, while the earth itself seemed to groan from the south.
"Wow, boss!"
The unmistakable, high-pitched tone of Cecilus stepped up alongside him.
The blue-haired boy was virtually buzzing with excitement, placing a palm over his eyes as he looked at the enormous, chaotic battlefield set out before them.
"Where should I head off to first? Should I maybe help take care of some of the fodder for now or get straight to you-know-what? The opening act is already underway, and a star of my caliber really shouldn't be kept waiting in the wings!"
Looking toward Cecilus for a short moment, Subaru hummed in thought.
"Well... if you can figure out where Gojo-sensei is at, then go for it!" Subaru gave the heads-up without a single shred of hesitation. "He's the wildcard here. If he goes completely wild, this whole war is over before we can even do a thing!"
"Understood! Understood!" Cecilus beamed, his starry eyes sparkling. "The main event! A clash of the strongest! Oh, the audience is going to absolutely enjoy this changeover! I'll make sure to keep him totally entertained until you arrive for your big cue, Boss!"
"Uaa.."
A small, blonde girl on Subaru's left swiftly waved an arm, her tiny fingers gripping closely to the sleeve of his dark cloak.
Subaru halted, glancing down at Louis. "What? What is it, Louis?"
She cried gently, her huge, round eyes filled with a mixture of dread and obstinate attachment.
She didn't want him to walk into the smoke. She didn't want him to leave her side.
Subaru let out a soft, heavy sigh, tenderly ruffling her golden hair.
He wasn't really sure what he should do with Louis. He didn't want a non-combatant—especially a child who couldn't even speak—to be in what was basically a warzone. The capitol was currently a meat grinder of magic, steel, and blood.
But it wasn't as if he had much of a choice in the matter.
There was nowhere else for Louis to go.
The only safe spot for her was directly by him, covered by the wall of blades that was the Pleiades Battalion.
"Just stay close to me, okay?" Subaru said, his voice softening as he looked into her eyes. "I promised I'd keep you safe. I'm not going to break that promise now."
"Uau..." Louis hummed, her grip on his sleeve tightening as she nodded her head.
"Hey, Natsuki!" Weitz's gravelly voice called out from just behind them. "Our arrival's already been noticed; this'll be one tough nut to crack."
"We'll crack it," Subaru said, his eyes turning back to the capital. "Weitz, Hiain, Idra, and everybody else, are we ready!?"
"Right behind ya, Boss!" Hiain spoke, though his scales were tight with adrenaline.
The cheers of the gladiators all followed a moment later.
"Well then!" Cecilus hummed, taking a single, light step backward on the dirt road. "I shall take my exit! Don't keep us waiting too long, Boss! A good climax needs the lead actor to arrive right on beat!"
Before Subaru could even blink, Cecilus was gone.
There was no sound of a departure. Just a quick, powerful vacuum of wind that kicked up a small cloud of dust where the boy had been standing a moment previously. A faint, blue stream of light painted the hills, traveling directly toward the high walls of the capital at a speed that defied the physical laws of the earth.
Subaru watched the blue streak recede into the distance.
He took a deep, steadying breath, his hand clutching his dark blade.
The weight of the battalion and the damaged mind of his teacher——it was all waiting for him inside those golden walls.
"Alright... let's go."
Subaru whispered, his eyes locking onto the battlefield before him.
——————————————————————
The farmlands, grasslands, and expanse of green surrounding the Imperial Capital of Lupugana were coated with flakes of white snow, a sight that would not have been imaginable in an Empire famed for its warm temperature.
The people who had fought, the Weaponkin, fell to the ground, screaming out in confusion before the snow they beheld for the first time.
Born with sections of their bodies formed of metal, they repurposed the parts into weapons for the conflict.
They rose up against the Imperial Capital, and they were slaughtered by a great enemy.
Slowly the white landscape came into view as they gathered together and prepared to take on the enemy once more with those who could still fight.
The air on the Second Bastion city wall didn't just turn chilly; it froze up immediately and solidified into jagged floating needles of ice that lazily drifted through the heavy gray smoke.
"So it's you again, that friggin' annoyin' silver-haired girl."
Madelyn Eschart scowled as she looked down toward Emilia. Quickly, she raised her winged-blade up over her shoulder.
"You couldn't defeat this friggin' dragon before, so what makes you think you can now?!" Madelyn roared, stamping her foot.
Emilia stood at the foot of the city wall, her silver hair flying in the updraft.
And that much was true; she didn't have Priscilla's blazing sunfire to protect her this time after all.
She was completely on her own.
But there was not a sign of dread in her purple eyes.
"I reaaally don't want to fight you, Madelyn-san," Emilia said, her voice carrying a soft yet unyielding clarity over the roars of the dragons. "But my friends are trying to save this country, and Subaru is marching as we speak... so you give me no choice."
"Shut up! Shut up! Die!"
Madelyn jumped up. She didn't have a weapon; the weapon was her body.
She plummeted from the air like a falling meteor, clawed hands out to rip Emilia's throat.
Of course Emilia didn't flinch. Instead, she took one step back, elegantly, in a sweeping circle of an arc, her hands moving through the air.
Ice Brand Arts.
A huge wall of solid multi-layered ice sprung up from the stone floor.
Madelyn's claws crashed against the barrier. The ice spiderwebbed with deep cracks under the sheer, draconic power of her blow, but it withstood it.
Before Madelyn could pull back, Emilia grabbed her by the wrists. The split ice wall immediately exploded into bits, turning into thousands of razor-sharp, high-velocity spears that shot straight for the dragon-girl.
"Annoying! You're so annoying!" Madelyn shrieked, her arms and legs tucking to shield herself from the icy barrage, the shards clattering harmlessly against her hard-to-break skin.
Emilia narrowed her eyes.
She's as tough as before, of course. But I have to keep her here. I have to hold the line.
——————————————————————
While the outer bastions crumbled, the area surrounding the battlefield had already been transformed into a suffocating, white-hot inferno.
A giant crescent of pressurized water tore through the ash, converting stone to a fine, wet powder. Arakiya stood in the heart of the ruins, her solitary red eye blank, her wooden branch flashing with a volatile, multi-elemental light.
But her eyes weren't set on the rebels. It was locked onto the two women standing before her.
Priscilla Barielle looked completely comfortable, her magnificent red dress undamaged by the ash, her fan held elegantly over her face. In her right hand, she grasped the Yang Sword securely.
Beside her appeared Yorna Mishigure, the Mistress of Chaosflame. Her long kiseru pipe was held loosely in her fingers, a trail of fragrant, purple smoke floating around her shoulders.
Her amber eyes were sweet, but her presence was tremendous, the very stones of the surrounding area buzzing with her Soul Marriage technique.
"Arakiya," Priscilla said, her voice carrying a regal condescension that cut through the roar of the flames. "You have grown quite insolent. To think my own dog would dare bar my path to the throne."
Arakiya's hand trembled on her branch. Her vacant expression cracked for a fraction of a second, a deep, instinctive turmoil flickering in her red eye.
"... I'm doing this to help you reach the throne. So, if... you won't come with me... then I'll just force you to, right after I kill the Emperor myself!"
Arakiya swung her stick across, and a tremendous, swirling tornado of raw fire and wind burst from the outstretched branch.
Priscilla swiftly drew on the mana in the air, channeling it into the Yang Sword and swinging with all of her might.
The sunfire of the sword met Arakiya's elemental blast, fully negating the attack in a dazzling blaze of golden light.
"A dog who forgets her master's face deserves to be disciplined..."
Priscilla declared, her red eyes flashing with a dangerous, golden light as she stepped through the steam, the Yang Sword burning brighter than the sun.
"Come, Arakiya. Let us see if you still remember how to heel."
——————————————————————
The wind didn't touch him because he didn't allow it to.
Atop the towering stone wall of Lupagana, the gale howled with a violent, freezing intensity, whipping the dust and the scent of distant ironworks into a frenzy.
Yet, a fraction of a millimeter from Satoru Gojo's skin, the air went perfectly still.
He stood in a pocket of absolute, artificial silence.
Through the parting of his white bangs, the Six Eyes mapped the world. He could see the structural stress of the stone beneath his boots.
He could hear the frantic, uneven thumping of Garfiel's heart and the pained respiration of the insect man, Kafma.
He could even perceive the absurd, frictionless speed of the blue-haired boy who had just materialized on the edge of the crater.
Data. Endless, infinite data.
But none of it could fill the quiet, hollow space in his chest.
What did he, Satoru Gojo, truly desire?
Was it to begone from this world?
Was it to have his old memories back so he could simply comprehend what it was about Satoru Gojo that everyone cared for so much?
If he remembered, would the void finally stop aching? Or would he just find another set of chains waiting for him?
Everyone who looked at him—Berstetz with his cold calculations, Abel with his grand board, and even the black-haired boy who had wept so desperately in the dirt—looked at him and saw a role.
A savior. A weapon. A guardian. A disaster. A teacher. A friend.
They all wanted to hold the leash. They all wanted to decide what Satoru Gojo was allowed to be.
And he was so, so tired of letting them.
If he had to be a monster to rip those strings away, then he would be a monster. If he had to tear this entire Empire down to the bedrock just to prove that he was the one holding the pen, then he would do it.
Violence was loud. Violence was destructive.
But more than anything, violence was a choice. It was the only thing in this shitty, unfamiliar world that felt entirely, absolutely his own.
He didn't want their peace. He didn't want their throne.
He just wanted the right to say, "This matters, and that does not," and have the universe bend to the answer.
"Satoru Gojo, was it?"
The cheerful, flamboyant voice of Cecilus Segmunt cut through the silence, pulling Gojo's gaze back to the present.
The blue-haired boy was still bowed, his mismatched kimono fluttering like the ocean in the wind. When he straightened, his starry eyes locked onto Gojo with a terrifying, unblinking intensity. There was no fear in those eyes, nor any pity like from what he'd seen from dozens of people before.
To Cecilus, Gojo wasn't a savior, a victim of amnesia, or a tool of the state. He was just a co-star. A mountain to be climbed.
Slowly, the frantic, ugly look in Gojo's eyes settled.
"Yeah," Gojo murmured. "That's my name. Don't wear it out, will you?"
With those words subsiding, a heavy, expectant silence settled into the air.
The intense, blood-soaked glares of Garfiel and Kafma vanished into nothing but white noise in the background.
I'll get rid of this guy as quickly as possible, then I'll find Berstetz. The old snake is still within the city limits. There is no plan on earth that allows a fragile old man to simply walk out of an active warzone.
With those thoughts on his mind, Gojo silently prepared to step forward——
"Daydreaming, are we?"
The voice didn't come from the edge of the crater atop the wall. It came from directly beside his ear.
Gojo's pupils flared. The Six Eyes, as well as his lowered guard, had failed to register a single trace of movement, as if distance were nothing more than a laughable concept.
Responding as fast as his instincts and shrunken body could, Gojo pivoted on the spot.
He swung his arm wildly, utilizing a sudden pull of Lapse: Blue to drag the space around him into a crushing vacuum, intending to force Cecilus back into his peripheral vision and land a decisive strike.
———!!
Only that was not what happened at all.
His fist sliced through empty air. The blue-haired child had already vanished the exact millisecond Gojo looked over his shoulder, leaving behind nothing but a faint, mocking draft of wind.
"Hmm, indeed. I'd intended to cut along your face, but Boss really wasn't kidding about you being untouchable!"
Gojo froze, every muscle in his body seizing from nothing more than sheer shock.
A cold, silver glint of a steel blade was already resting against the side of his neck. It didn't touch his skin; it was stopped unceremoniously a fraction of a millimeter away by the invisible, absolute barrier of the Infinity. The spatial friction between the blade and the barrier hummed with a low, violent vibration, but the sword could go no further, no matter how much strength Cecilus put into his swing.
After a few seconds, Cecilus lowered the steel blade back down to his side.
He sighed, his shoulders slumping in disappointment.
"This isn't what I was promised. Not at all," Cecilus complained, tilting his head. "Can you not hear the audience's disappointment? The script demanded a clash of titans, but you... you aren't even trying to dodge. Such over-reliance on your techniques——do you despise the world so much that you refuse to even touch it?"
Gojo instantly pivoted ninety degrees, throwing out a swiftly formed, high-velocity roundhouse kick to the location of the voice.
He clicked his tongue in frustration as his foot sliced through nothing but the empty sky.
Cecilus landed yards away, his sword resting lazily on his shoulders.
He was pouting, his starry eyes narrowed into something far more intense, far more piercing than before.
"Dreadful. Absolutely dreadful," Cecilus sighed, shaking his head. "I wanted a duel with the strongest, but you aren't even acting, Satoru Gojo. You're just a prop standing on my stage."
Cecilus pointed the tip of his katana directly at Gojo's chest.
"What is it you are so afraid of?"
"Shut up," Gojo whispered, his hands trembling inside his pockets. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know a bad actor when I see one," Cecilus retorted, his voice carrying the absolute, terrifying freedom of a man who owned his own existence. "You keep crying about your lost past, about the roles people force you to play. 'Oh, look at me, I'm a monster, I'm a hero, I'm so tragic!' It's so... boring. You're using those excuses as a shield because you're terrified that if you take them off, there's nothing underneath."
Gojo's breath hitched.
The words didn't make him angry.
They made him cold. A deep, physical sensation of nausea twisted in his gut, worse than any blow Garfiel had landed.
Nothing underneath.
It was his deepest, darkest fear, laid bare by a boy who didn't even care enough to mock him.
If he wasn't the savior Suguru had asked him to be... if he wasn't the disaster Abel believed him to be... then what was he?
Just a hollow husk. An empty void. A god-like power with no soul to guide it.
"I am Satoru Gojo..." he breathed, his voice cracking, sounding desperately small in the vast, open sky of the capital.
"Then prove it to me!" Cecilus grinned, his starry eyes flashing with a manic, competitive heat.
He took a single, light step forward, the air around his wooden zori sandals crackling with blue lightning.
"If you're nothing without your script, then begone, like a background character! Die as a prop, or fight me as a king!"
A violent, desperate panic exploded in Gojo's chest. He didn't want to disappear. He didn't want to be nothing. He wanted to exist. He wanted to choose.
He pulled his hands out of his pockets, his teeth bared in a manic, wild grimace as the Six Eyes flared with a brilliant, terrifyingly focused blue light.
"I'll kill you," Gojo bared his fangs, the space around his palm beginning to compress and scream. "I'll kill you to prove I'm RIGHT here!"
A hero, a villain, a monster, a disaster?
What can he be, if he is not any one of these?
——————————————————————
Meanwhile, at the same time...
The imperial capital of Lupagana had transformed into a sprawling, multi-layered theater of war, its stone streets and golden spires buckling under the weight of legends.
At the Second Bastion, the sky was a disordered canvas of white and gray.
The Witch of Glaciation clashed blades against one of the only real Dragonkin left in existence.
Emilia, her purple eyes glowing with an unshakable will, stood within a fortress of her own making——a towering, crystalline forest of absolute-zero ice that grew faster than the flying dragons could melt it.
Opposite her, Madelyn Eschart shrieked, her white wings kicking up hurricanes of dust as her razor-sharp claws attacked the frozen walls with the ferocity of falling meteors.
It was a war of pure, stubborn endurance: the frigid, gorgeous absolute of the Witch vs the ferocious, ancient wrath of the Dragon.
Deep within the battleground elsewhere, the air was suffocatingly hot.
The Sun Princess and her Mother fought side-by-side against the tragedy that was the Spirit Eater.
Priscilla Barielle, her opulent red dress fluttering amidst the ashes, swung the Yang Sword with a haughty, regal grace, her golden sun-fire slashing through the chaotic, multi-elemental storms unleashed by her former dog.
Beside her, Yorna Mishigure puffed peacefully on her kiseru pipe, her Soul Marriage shaping the very cobblestones of the courtyard into a living, protecting shield.
Arakiya yelled; her vacant crimson eye scowled in hatred as she attacked the two women she loved and loathed most.
High above the clouds, the heavens themselves were lit with light.
A group of dragon-riders—the most notable aerial vanguard in Vollachia——surged forth into the airspace, clearing the skies with overwhelming efficiency. Their cooperation only came to fruition thanks to the support of the Margrave, Roswaal L. Mathers.
And, most strangely of all...
At the Fourth Bastion, a miracle of sheer, unadulterated impetus was taking place.
A large number of people—hardened gladiators of Ginunhive and rebellious civilians alike—marched beneath the defiant banner of the Pleiades star.
Led by the hand of Natsuki Subaru, they did not only siege the bastion; they dismantled it.
With a synchronized, frenzied savagery that skirted every imperial trap, they slashed, chopped, and pounded their way through the walls, completely and utterly crumbling the great stone tower within only minutes of their arrival.
The revolt was winning. The parts were falling into place.
But none of them—not the Witch, not the Dragon, not the Princess, and not the fake Prince—were prepared for the catastrophe that was shortly to blitz across the entire battlefield.
For up atop the fifth bastion's wall, the space itself had begun to scream.
——————————————————————
The immediate, total emptiness left in the wake of Satoru Gojo and Cecilus Segmunt's departure was deafening.
One moment, the air atop the capital wall had been oppressive; the next, the two transcendent beings had simply vanished, leaving behind nothing but a pair of parallel, glassed tunnels in the stone where they had launched themselves through the air.
The distant shrieks of their encounter already rang from miles away.
On the ruined parapet, the silence returned.
Garfiel slowly let out a long, quivering breath, spitting a glob of blood onto the splintered ground. His body was screaming. Even with his Divine Protection of Earth Spirits actively dulling the pain, his shattered ribs throbbed with every heartbeat.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm bracer, his green eyes slowly sliding from the empty sky down to the figure kneeling a few feet away.
Kafma Irulux was on his knees.
The insect-general was a hideous sight, much more so than Garfield. His dark cloak was entirely gone, and his six wings were virtually nothing but burnt, burning stumps. Yet, his only surviving hand was sunk deep into the fissures of the wall, his head slumped as his chest heaved in ragged, wet gasps.
Garfiel let his arms drop down to his sides and stared at the man before him.
"Well..." Garfiel grunted, his voice raspy. "They're gone. Guess that leaves just the two of us."
Kafma didn't answer immediately until, after an excruciating few seconds, he forced his head up.
His eyes, distorted from blood loss, fixed onto Garfiel.
"You are... a rebel," Kafma rasped, his voice sounding like dry leaves scraping across stone. "And I am... a general of the Empire. The temporary truce... has expired."
"Tch. You're barely holdin' together, bug-guy," Garfiel spat and quickly crossed his arms, wincing slightly as the movement pulled on his broken ribs. "My amazing self doesn't make a habit of kickin' a guy who's already got one foot in the grave. 'The tiger doesn't hunt the fallen leaf,' as the Cap'n said before, y'know?"
"I do not require... your leniency." Kafma said.
With a terrible crunch, Kafma forced his legs to straighten.
He swayed, his balance utterly destroyed without his wings, yet he refused to fall.
"A tool of the Empire... does not cease its function because of wear," Kafma declared, his voice steadying through sheer, terrifying willpower. "Until my body is entirely crushed, I am the wall of Lupagana. I must eliminate you."
Garfiel's green eyes narrowed, a deep, frustrated scowl twisting his face. He bared his fangs in a low growl.
"You Vollachians really are completely out of yer damn minds, ain't ya?" Garfiel hissed, taking a heavy step forward. "Tool, tool, tool! You keep sayin' that word like it's somethin' to be proud of! Y'did all this, and for what? To die on a stupid wall for some old bastard who used you as bait?!"
"It is... my duty," Kafma replied flatly. "I chose this path. I became a monster so that the Empire would have a shield. If my death secures the throne, then my existence, in the end, has meaning."
"That ain't meaning! That's just suicide with extra steps!" Garfiel roared, his voice echoing off the stone. He pointed a clawed finger at Kafma's chest. "A shield is supposed to protect people, ya idiot! It's supposed to keep the ones behind you safe! But who're you protectin' right now? Berstetz? The fake Emperor? They don't care about you! They don't care about the people burnin' in those streets!"
Kafma waited while his eyes twitched, the light in them diminishing somewhat.
He stared past Garfiel into the inner areas of the capital where the smoke of Berstetz's clever strategy was still rising.
He knew the truth. He understood the Prime Minister had sacrificed the outlying garrisons solely to inflict additional emotional pain to Satoru Gojo.
But he could not allow himself to question. If he doubted, then the agony of his biological changes, the loss of his humanity, and the years of blood——it would all become meaningless.
"It does not matter," Kafma whispered, his fist tightening. "The preservation of the Empire is absolute. That is the only truth I have left."
Garfiel glanced at the broken, bleeding general, and for the first time, the rage in his chest vanished, replaced by a thick, stifling pity.
He noticed the same hollow, hopeless look in Kafma's eyes that he had just seen in Gojo's.
They were both running from the void, clutching to a part because they were too scared of what would happen if they stopped.
"My Cap'n..." Garfiel said softly, his voice dropping into a rare, quiet register. "He's a strong guy. But, he cries, he screams, 'n he gets hurt more than anyone I've ever seen. But he doesn't fight because of some stupid 'duty.' He fights because he actually, selfishly, cares about us. He wants us to live."
Garfiel took a deep breath, his golden mana blazing around his fists as he fell into a firm, defensive stance.
"I'm the strongest shield there is," Garfiel said, his eyes locking onto Kafma's with an absolute, unyielding resolve. "And my job is to keep my Cap'n 'n the Princess safe so they can see eachother again. If you're gonna stand in his way just to prove you're a good hammer... then my amazing self is gonna have to break you."
Kafma glanced at the young beastman, a faint, mournful grin caressing his bleeding lips.
"A worthy opponent..." he yelled, "Kafma Irulux, of the Insect Cage Tribe!"
With a final, frantic buzz of his broken wings, Kafma flung himself forward, his fist ripping through the air.
"The Gorgeous Tiger, Garfiel Tinsel!"
Garfiel yelled, his golden claws swinging to meet him, their clash booming across the quiet wall as the two shields of opposing worlds collided.
——————————————————————
Sprinting, sprinting, sprinting along the ground, the hazy form of Cecilus Segmunt well and truly became Blue Lightning in that very moment.
Gojo, flying overhead, reached out with his hand in anger——
"El Jiwald!"
Bursting free from each of his fingertips, the blue, flickering light of mana traveled at speeds that could only be described as absurd.
Light speed, well and truly.
Yet, not even that was enough to strike down Cecilus, who, with a sudden, physics-defying thrust of his foot, catapulted himself skyward and twisted parallel to face Gojo.
The combatants on the battlefield far beneath them stayed nearly trapped in time, suspended like painted dolls in a frozen universe, as Cecilus swung. Not once, not twice, but dozens of times in a single, minuscule fraction of time, his blades bisected each of the high-speed light bullets, reducing them to nothing more than glittering, harmless shards of dispersing mana.
"Is this all you have to show for me? Your head is not even truly in this battle, is it?!"
The remarks resonated in Gojo's ears, sharp and sarcastic, but they didn't stir fury. They sparked a chilly, paralyzing surge of self-doubt.
My head... isn't in it?
The Six Eyes processed the atomic structure of the air, the trajectory of Cecilus's blades, the thermal output of the burned battlefield——everything.
He possessed the ultimate cheat code. He possessed perfect, absolute perception.
Yet, the data felt like white noise.
It was a deluge of knowledge drowning a man who didn't even know the names of the individuals following him.
——"When you're fighting, don't let your emotions take the wheel."
A person whom he had instructed and advised exactly not to do it, one whom Gojo cannot remember.
But looking at Satoru Gojo now, even with his enormous talent and full control, he was absolutely reeling beneath a stifling tidal wave of fury, envy, dread, and despair.
Am I a hero?
He had tried to be. He had clung to Suguru's ghost, to the tenuous promise of protecting the weak, since it was the only anchor he had in this empty, hollow world. But the weak had burnt nevertheless, and he didn't even feel pity for their lives but for the fact that his own emotions had been toyed with so thoroughly.
Am I a monster, then?
If he couldn't be the hero, then he would be the calamity. He would kill Berstetz, kill Abel, and kill everyone who sought to put a leash on him.
But the instant he tried to wear that mask, a dreadful, bone-deep nausea had twisted his gut.
He didn't want to be a monster. He didn't want that black-haired person—Subaru—to look at him with those horrified, sobbing eyes any more.
Hero. Monster. Savior. Disaster.
They were all just titles. Woven from other people's expectations, other people's memories, other people's scripts.
——"You're using those excuses as a shield because you're terrified that if you take them off, there's nothing underneath."
Cecilus's words pierced deeper than any sword.
That was the actual, scary root of his panic.
He wasn't terrified of death. He was frightened of being nothing.
Because, if he peeled away the strongest hero persona and if he abandoned the unfeeling monster act... what was left of Satoru Gojo?
Just a hollow, silent void. A blank page with no author.
He held god-like power while trapped in a child's body, feverishly performing for an audience of ghosts because he was too scared to look into the mirror and see the empty space where his soul was meant to be.
Cecilus swiftly landed atop a stone pillar and dipped low, rocketing off the surface at speeds that generated tremendous, shattering shocks through the entire surrounding area.
The crackling of electricity that enveloped his form flared into a roaring, blue inferno.
The steel of his katana arced straight toward Gojo, who remained hung hundreds of feet in the air, petrified by his own existential dread.
"It is nothing more than an illusion created by yourself!"
Cecilus yelled, his starry eyes flashing with a blinding, total conviction as he twirled in mid-air, his blade carving a beautiful, murderous arc toward Gojo's throat.
"There is no script for you to follow, Satoru Gojo! There is only the stage and the actor who dares to stand on it!"
The words struck Gojo's mind not as a magnificent insight but as a forceful, shattering blow.
After all, no script?
Then what had he been doing all this time?
What was the point of the terrible, suffocating static in his head?
He had been drowning in his own amnesia, feverishly trying to interpret the faded, unreadable handwriting of a ghost.
He had been clawing at the memory of Suguru's dying request, at Subaru's sad, frantic expression, attempting to uncover a set of instructions.
A guide on how to be Satoru Gojo.
Because he was afraid.
He was worried that if he didn't have those directions, if he didn't have a hero to copy or a monster to play... there would be nothing left of him.
Just an empty, hollow hole. An entity with god-like power and no soul to lead it.
——"You're a slave."
The phantom in his head had whispered. And the phantom was right.
He had turned his own power into a cage, wrapped himself in other people's expectations, only to feel like he existed.
But Cecilus didn't care about his chains, and a person like that was telling him to just throw them away.
If I toss them away... what am I?
"I don't... care!" Gojo yelled, the sheer, undiluted panic in his chest finally bubbling over into pure desperation.
Gojo twisted his body mid-air. The trajectory of Cecilus's blade toward his neck abruptly slowed, grinding to a halt against the absolute, endless split of space.
He balled his hand into a fist, not something that was a premeditated strike; rather, it was a fist empowered completely by raw, wild emotion——a desperate, screaming urge to prove he was here, that he was real.
He drove his fist straight through Cecilus's guard.
The blue-haired boy's eyes expanded in delight.
With an uncanny, flowing grace, Cecilus craned his spine backward in mid-air, his body bending like a branch. He didn't try to block; instead, he let the magnetic, crushing vacuum of Gojo's Lapse: Blue grab his momentum, using the pulling power to propel himself backward through the wide sky away from the active battlefield below.
Cecilus soared and soared and soared through the heavens, his kimono fluttering against the clouds.
Gojo watched him depart, his Six Eyes tracking the boy's direction.
And in that moment, through the atomic data returning to his brain, Gojo saw Cecilus's face.
The eyes of the Blue Lightning—the eyes of the person most free in this entire, terrible world—held no hate. No calculation nor pity.
There was just one singular thought in Cecilus's head as he hurtled into the sky and looked down upon it all.
Beautiful.
The planet, this crumbling city, the shrieking wind, the clash of their absolute powers——to Cecilus, it was all so breathtakingly, spectacularly beautiful.
He was living totally in the now, unburdened by past regrets or future anxieties.
He was the star of his own performance, and he was inviting Gojo to share the stage.
As Cecilus dropped and twisted, his wooden zori skidded over the vertical face of a stone spire. He didn't lose his equilibrium for a single millisecond; instead, he swiftly spun, raising his blade toward the spot where Gojo was already teleporting.
So close, nothing more than an arms reach before enlightenment, Cecilus could feel it in the person before him.
"That is for you and you alone to decide!" Cecilus's voice roared above the howling wind, bearing a scary, perfect conviction. "That is what strength is! That is the strength that the stars themselves bestowed upon you! These titles you find yourself being chased by? They are nothing more than empty words made by background fools to categorize something beyond their comprehension!"
For me... and me alone... to decide.
The words resonated in the empty abyss of Gojo's chest, triggering a quick, searing heat.
He didn't need to be the savior. He didn't need to be the disaster. He didn't need to be what Suguru wanted, or what Berstetz demanded, or what Subaru sobbed for.
He just had to be.
Accelerate... Accelerate... Accelerate...!
Gojo's thoughts screamed, the Six Eyes flashing with a furious, incandescent blue glow.
Even if it wrecks this damn pint-sized body! Move faster past the physical boundaries of what I can handle, and then some more!
Stepping forward against the earth, Gojo allowed mana to surge, much akin to how he would when utilizing Jiwald.
Only, this time, he didn't form it into a projectile meant to be launched at Cecilus.
Destroy yourself! Destroy it all!
He let the raw, volatile heat of the yang element—the very essence of Jiwald—flood his own nervous system.
He wrapped the mana straight around his own physical mass, using the Limitless to eliminate his own weight, his own friction, and his own resistance.
It was an absurd, suicidal calculation. A child's body was not meant to channel the speed of light, after all.
His veins blazed like liquid fire, and his bones groaned under the sudden, crushing G-force of his own acceleration.
But he didn't care.
The agony was white-hot, terrible, and utterly real.
It was the first thing in weeks that made him feel like he wasn't a ghost.
Overcome dominion! Force the world itself to get out of the way!
"BE SELFISH!"
Both his own desperate thoughts corresponded perfectly with Cecilus's remarks, which were blasted loudly across the vacant, cloud-swept battlefield.
"NOW THAT, IS WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE STRENGTH!"
Biting down on his teeth until they shattered, Gojo felt every bone in his body violently creak and pop as he took the next step.
ACCELERATE, SATORU GOJO!!
The word was a wordless scream in his head.
And suddenly, the world shattered.
His entire body... no, the entire surrounding area, the sky, the clouds, the very concept of distance——all of it stretched and warped into a blinding, kaleidoscopic dream.
The colors blurred together into a single, white-hot smear of light as physical laws of the world ruptured, unable to keep up with a speed that matched the speed of light.
There was nothing in this world that could keep up with this speed.
There was nothing that could keep up with a god who had decided to throw aside his chains and run.
There was none.
None at all... other than Cecilus Segmunt, who met him halfway with a manic, starry-eyed grin.
The blue-haired youth had kicked off his wooden zori from beneath his feet at the last possible moment, his bare soles exploding into the air as he swung his blade with all of his power.
How can a single individual, despite possessing so much power, be so free?
He, as the strongest sorcerer of the modern age, had been surrounded with expectation.
People felt that he, and he alone, should bear the sky. They looked at his shoulders and saw a pillar. They glanced at his face and saw a savior.
Even the ghost of Suguru, even the tearful eyes of Subaru——they all wanted him to hold up the heavens so they may sleep safely in the dirt.
But bearing the sky was overwhelming. It was exhausting.
If I want to be the strongest again... why should I be the one in chains?!
Gojo looked at Cecilus's descending blade.
He glanced at the utter, unburdened joy on the boy's face.
Cecilus didn't care about the sky. He didn't care about the earth.
He only cared about the swing of his blade.
And in that short second of understanding, Gojo made his choice.
He didn't want to be a hero out of obligation, and he didn't want to be a monster out of spite, either.
He didn't need a past, a memory, or Suguru's wish to tell him what he was allowed to do.
If he were nothing but an empty void... then he would be one that consumed everything.
He would be pure, unbridled force made manifest.
He would write his own script. And he would start by truly grasping this world.
The invisible, absolute separation of space—the Infinity that had kept him completely secure, perfectly clean, and perfectly insulated from the universe—was deactivated.
Cecilus's hyper-attuned instincts noticed the rapid, utter collapse of the spatial barrier, and with it, his eyes expanded with what can only be characterized as genuine surprise.
"Such over-reliance on your techniques——do you despise the world so much that you refuse to even touch it?"
Gojo's head rang with the parallel of those statements.
No, I don't despise it. I'm going to break it.
Gojo thought, his fangs bared in a wild, manic grin.
Without the Infinity to filter the force, Cecilus's steel sword slashed right into Gojo's shoulder.
Hot, scarlet blood erupted into the air, coloring Gojo's white hair and splashing onto Cecilus's face.
The physical anguish was a white-hot, searing shockwave that ran straight down his spine.
It was brutal, the most painful thing he'd ever felt, truly. It was terrifying.
But at the same time, it was the most incredible thing he had ever felt.
"Hahaha!" Gojo laughed.
He didn't pull back to retreat, not at all; instead, he stepped into the blade, utilizing the momentum of his light-speed acceleration to swing his own fist straight toward Cecilus's jaw.
But it would not be that easy; even forcing his body to move beyond the natural limits of what should be possible, Cecilus could keep pace and even move beyond that, quickly aligning the steel length of his katana into place where his fist was approaching to parry it vertically and counter with a slash.
But things did not go as Cecilus had imagined, even with his monstrous thought acceleration.
However, there was nobody that could be faulted for making such a mistake; after all, the phenomena, the trigger, and the reason for the error were not something Cecilus would understand.
Rather, it was something nobody from this world would be able to.
The sparks of crimson and black erupted once again and chose wisely: the Honored One born anew.
"——BLACK FLASH!"
Thus, what should've been an infinitesimal moment lasted several moments, for even the sparks of black and red traveled slower through the warped time.
Cecilus was sent hurtling backward, the length of his katana fragmenting beneath the nuclear power as his bare feet tore into the rubble, coughing out a thick spray of blood.
But Gojo was breaking, too.
The sheer, suicidal velocity of the Acceleration was tearing his shrunken, childish body apart from the inside.
His muscles were ripping and his blood vessels were bursting under the immense G-force, staining his pale skin with dark, purple bruises while his bones groaned and cracked with every single step he took.
Worse, his brain was burning. The Six Eyes were processing the light-speed data at a rate his physical nervous system couldn't handle. It felt as though a hot iron was being driven directly through his temples.
I'm going to die... If I take one more step at this speed, my own power will tear me to pieces.
Gojo realized, his vision blurring into a kaleidoscope mess of red and blue.
But he didn't stop.
The horror of becoming nothing was gone, replaced by a frenzied, urgent drive to survive——to exist as Satoru Gojo.
To keep up with him for even just a few more seconds... to keep my brain and body from breaking... I have to fix it.
In the absolute, razor-sharp precipice of his own destruction, the gears in Gojo's brain finally clicked into place.
The frantic, blazing static in his consciousness suddenly became dead silent, replaced by a brilliant, golden rush of positive energy.
Reverse Cursed Technique.
Normally, there would've been no way for him to fathom the phenomenon that was the Reverse Curse Technique in such circumstances.
But while bathing deep in those black and red sparks and with such overwhelming desperation to prove himself.
The Honored One had little trouble in achieving it this time around——
The damaged muscles in his legs rapidly knitted back together. The broken blood vessels in his brain repaired in a fraction of a second, the painful heat in his temples draining away in a cool, refreshing wave of pure, positive energy. The deep wound on his shoulder hissed with steam, the flesh sealing shut to leave nothing but smooth, flawless skin.
He had done it. He had restored himself from the edge of death!
"Spectacular! Truly, breathtakingly beautiful!" Cecilus yelled, his voice filled with a wild, euphoric worship as he dragged himself back to his feet.
He wiped the blood from his chin, his starry eyes larger than they had ever been.
"Cecilus Segmunt, the Blue Lightning of Vollachia——!"
Gojo stood in the center of ruin, his breathing calm and even.
The hero mask was completely gone.
The monster mask has been discarded.
He didn't feel the need to protect the weak, and he didn't feel the need to kill the strong.
He felt... nothing. A huge, calm, and terrifyingly dense emptiness.
"Satoru Gojo, I belong to no one but myself——"
But it was his emptiness.
He lifted his right hand, his index finger pointing directly at Cecilus.
The environment surrounding his fingers didn't merely warp——it turned a brilliant, scorching crimson.
"Cursed Technique Reversal..."
Gojo murmured, a faint, chilly, and thoroughly arrogant sneer coming across his face.
"...Red."
The repelling force instantaneously detonated.
A massive, roaring beam of crimson light erupted from Gojo's finger, obliterating the entire section of the ashen battlefield in a single, catastrophic blast of pure, unbridled power.
The sheer, concussive pressure of Reversal: Red didn't just shatter the stone; it vaporized the air itself, creating a vacuum that dragged the surrounding smoke and debris into a swirling, red-hot vortex.
But the one to surge through the devastation was, of course, Cecilus Segmunt.
The blue-haired silhouette was a streak of pure, defiant light. He didn't run from the blast; rather, he rode the very edge of the shockwave, his bare feet leaping and bounding from countless pieces of flying rubble as if they were stepping stones in a quiet pond.
His first katana had shattered under the sheer, crushing weight of Gojo's earlier strike.
Without a single pause in his rhythm, Cecilus's hand drifted to his waist, replacing the ruined hilt for the only other sword remaining at his side.
The steel flashed as Cecilus instantly slid alongside Gojo, his body low, and swung his sword vertically with a speed that bypassed what should be plausible.
Gojo, having deactivated his Infinity on purpose, was fully exposed.
He had narrowly caught up to Cecilus's movements from the minimal charge time the boy required to unleash such a devastating slash, his Six Eyes screaming warnings directly into his burning brain.
With a desperate, instinctual twist of his spine, Gojo twisted his body.
The vertical slash missed his neck by a fraction of a millimeter, instead bisecting the air and the area behind him in a clean, straight line.
Stepping twice to regain his footing, Gojo felt the deep, bleeding gash formed along his side begin to flow with cursed energy. The Reverse Cursed Technique was working overtime, the positive energy multiplying and knitting his torn flesh back together even as he moved.
I am alive... I can feel the wind. I can feel the blade. I am actually here!
Gojo's mind screamed, a wild, manic euphoria rising through the pain.
He didn't want to be a savior. He didn't want to be a monster. He just wanted to write his own script, and currently, the script demanded absolute, unbridled violence.
Utilizing Acceleration, Gojo channeled the mana through his opposing arm and suddenly swiped horizontally, his hand cutting through the air with such immense velocity that it practically deleted the entire physical space where Cecilus was.
But the Blue Lightning was already moving.
Cecilus dropped, his body performing a flawless, gravity-defying split to narrowly duck beneath the spatial devastation.
Before the vacuum could even close, Cecilus rotated his weight on his palms, his legs sweeping upward as he launched himself into a vertical spin, slashing his sword directly across Gojo's torso.
Gojo gritted his teeth, a sharp, guttural gasp escaping his throat as the blade carved a deep, crimson line across his chest.
The force of the slash nearly threw him off his feet, but he refused to yield.
Instead, Gojo instantly swiped that same mangled arm back across once again.
Of course, not enough time had passed for the Reverse Cursed Technique to fully heal his limb. The friction and G-force of using Acceleration, even for such a short moment, had already shredded the muscles in his forearm, leaving the skin charred and bleeding.
But he had no choice but to bite through the agonizing pain and sacrifice the limb even further.
More! Break it! Break everything!
Mid-swing, Cecilus's body suddenly flickered.
The blue-haired boy vanished, his absolute speed multiplying his silhouette into a dozen afterimages at once.
They circled Gojo from every angle, their swords raised in a synchronized, lethal dance.
"———"
But the Six Eyes could not be tricked so easily.
Gojo didn't look at the afterimages but at the flow of mana, the wild displacement of air, and the single, authentic heartbeat in the center of the storm.
Thrusting his palm downward, Gojo enhanced his strike with Acceleration, slamming his hand directly into the ground beneath them.
The impact was cataclysmic. The sheer, concentrated kinetic force cratered the ground with such explosive power that all of the dirt, stone, and reinforced masonry for hundreds of meters below was instantaneously liquefied.
A geyser of scorching, bright orange magma erupted into the sky, raining down around them in a beautiful, terrifying curtain of molten rock.
But there was technically still ground.
Cecilus didn't retreat from the heat. With a wide, manic grin that mirrored Gojo's own madness, the blue-haired boy placed his bare feet directly against the rising, liquid magma.
The flesh of his soles hissed and burned, but Cecilus didn't even flinch despite the pain.
Using the molten stone as a springboard, he threw his entire weight directly into Gojo's guard.
Gojo was completely unprepared for such absolute, suicidal recklessness.
The shock could not fully be contained, and the brilliant blue pupils of his Six Eyes shrunk rapidly as Cecilus's face materialized inches from his own, the cold steel of the katana drawing closer to his body.
In that split second of absolute, suffocating mortality, the static in Gojo's mind went entirely dead.
He looked at the rising geyser of magma. He looked at the cold, conceptual edge of the blade. He looked at the space bending and screaming around them.
And suddenly, a new, wild calculation sparked in his brain.
What if I use it like this?
Could he even do it? Was that even a real question?
After all, he had seen it once before... a glimpse back at that waterlogged city, the concept of the absolute ceiling of his power. A technique that didn't just manipulate space but enclosed it. A sacred rite that painted one's own inner world, the very realm of dreams and imagination, directly onto the canvas of reality.
With the Limitless holding him aloft above the cratered, melting ground, Cecilus's sword plunged deep through his side and out his back in a brutal, hot spray of blood.
Yet, the one who sensed danger in that exact moment—a primal, bone-deep terror unlike anything he had ever felt in his entire life—was Cecilus Segmunt.
The catalyst was right there before him.
Gojo's right hand rose, his index and middle fingers slowly wrapping around one another in a precise, deliberate cross.
The air around them didn't just turn cold; it froze, the very concept of time and space beginning to buckle under the weight of an approaching, infinite void.
"———!"
Cecilus prepared to listen to his screaming instincts, his muscles tensing to leap backward and escape the unfolding nightmare.
But then, the danger noticeably vanished.
The terrifying, world-ending pressure dissipated in a fraction of a millisecond.
Gojo didn't paint his inner world and hide behind a formula. He didn't want a script, and he didn't want a pre-written technique.
He wanted to touch the world. He wanted to feel the impact.
The overlapping fingers uncoiled, instantly outstretching to grasp Cecilus tightly by the scruff of his collar.
"HRAAAAAGH!"
Gojo pulled Cecilus in and slammed his forehead straight into the Blue Lightning's.
The raw, unrefined impact shattered the silence. A thick spray of crimson oozed from both of their noses. Cecilus leant backward, his starry eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated thrill as his equilibrium was violently shattered by the brute-force daze of the headbutt.
But Cecilus was the fastest sword for a reason.
Even with his head spinning, his body reacted on pure, instinctual muscle memory.
He arced his blade across toward Gojo's exposed torso, but Gojo met the strike head-on, his hand reinforced with a dense flow of cursed energy to parry the blade sideways.
The steel cut along the center of Gojo's palm, but it didn't sever the hand.
The friction of the metal against his reinforced skin threw off a shower of sparks, spraying fresh blood into the air around them.
Because of the sheer velocity of their movements and the constant, erratic warping of the Limitless, the blood didn't fall.
The crimson droplets hung suspended in the air, trapped in paused time like a gallery of floating red pearls.
Gojo swung, swung, and swung once more. His fists were a blur of blue light, but the damage from Cecilus's relentless slashes was only growing more noticeable, outpacing the healing rate of his Reverse Cursed Technique. His clothes were shredded, his skin a map of deep, bleeding gashes.
But Gojo didn't care. The focal point of reality was only here, right now, in this beautiful, agonizing pain. He would not allow himself to fall.
With a sharp, desperate swipe of his arm, Gojo parried another strike.
The katana, now soaked in Gojo's own blood, bit along his forearm, its entire length riddling with deep, structural cracks from where it met Gojo's reinforced blocks.
Bending sharply against the crumbling stone, Gojo swung his bloodied arm vertically, catching Cecilus by the chest and dragging him directly into the air.
Cecilus didn't surrender to panic; instead, high above the magma-covered crater, he grasped the hilt of his cracked katana with both hands and raised it high overhead.
The deluge of mana that formed in the blade was immense——more overwhelming, more absolute than anything the Blue Lightning had shown prior.
The silver light of his sword-intent was so pure that it caused the entire surrounding sky to shine with an intense, blinding silver hue.
Watching Cecilus fall toward him like a descending star, Gojo slid his straightened leg backward and bent the other, anchoring himself to the earth.
His ruined, bleeding arm tensed with a sudden, terrifying concentration of blue and crimson.
Then, he looked up.
That look in the starry eyes of the Blue Lightning said infinitely more than any words could.
——Do you understand now?
A genuine, arrogant, and completely free smile touched Gojo's bloody lips.
"Yeah."
He would accelerate once more. One last time.
Maximum Output...!!
He, and he alone, would be the author of his own life.
He didn't need a past, nor did he need a savior.
——Because he was Satoru Gojo.
"HAAAAAA!!"
RED!!
The crimson repelling force and the silver sword intent collided in a blinding, apocalyptic flash of light.
The impact was so immense that Gojo's entire right arm was shattered from the combined, suicidal force of his own maximum-output cursed technique and the light-speed acceleration. The flesh and bone couldn't hold the pressure; with a wet, violent tear, his arm flew uncontrollably through the air, severed cleanly from the armpit.
Cecilus landed behind him, his bare feet skidding along the smoking, molten stone.
He slowly turned to face Gojo, his chest heaving, his face covered in soot and blood.
For held in Cecilus's hand was nothing more than a melted, useless hilt.
The blade itself had been turned to literal ash, completely vaporized by the sheer, unbridled power of their combined final attack.
Gojo stood in the center of the ruined, smoking crater, his left hand clutching the bleeding stump of his right shoulder.
He was panting, his white hair stained with crimson, his body broken and battered to the absolute limit.
But as he looked over his shoulder at Cecilus, his single remaining hand slowly wiped the blood from his chin.
At last... the boy in the ruin was only himself.