"Have I seen you somewhere before?"
Leo Vance, playing the teenage Gojo Satoru, looked over his shoulder at the man standing behind him. Despite his casual tone, the camera zoomed in to show beads of cold sweat seeping from his forehead. It was the first time the audience had seen the "Invincible" boy show a trace of genuine nerves.
Andrew Stone, as Toji Fushiguro, gripped the hilt of the Inverted Spear of Heaven and offered a grim, shark-like smile. "Don't worry about it. I'm not particularly good at remembering men's names either."
As the tension peaked, the scene dissolved into the sepia tones of Toji's memory.
"I once went to see that Six Eyes brat born into the Gojo family," Toji's gravelly voice narrated. "Just for the spectacle of it. A kid whose birth shifted the balance of the entire world."
On a narrow path covered in shimmering ice and snow, a young Gojo Satoru walked beside a woman, both holding traditional umbrellas. The child actor playing young Gojo was Lester Banks. With his short silver hair and those vast, azure eyes, he looked like a porcelain doll made of starlight.
His temperament was aloof, cold, and utterly detached, completely different from the flamboyant, mischievous Leo Vance version. But the beauty of the child was undeniable.
In the Hollywood cinema, a wave of "Auntie Smiles" broke out among the female viewers.
[Oh my god, he's so cute I want to raise a hundred of him!]
[I want to poke his little cheeks! Look at that cold little face! I'm melting!]
[Leo Vance really hit the jackpot with this casting. This kid is a top-tier heartthrob in the making!]
The memory continued. As the young Gojo walked past a hidden Toji, the child suddenly stopped. He turned his head, his azure eyes locking onto the exact spot where Toji was standing.
"Never before, and never again…" Toji's monologue continued. "Only that one time has anyone ever been able to sense me standing behind them. And it was a six-year-old child. So, I knew I couldn't fight you head-on. I had to weaken your mental strength for three days until your senses became sluggish. I had to make you believe you were safe."
Back to Reality.
The flashback snapped shut as Robert Sterling's Suguru Geto roared, waving his hand to summon a giant-mouthed Cursed Spirit that lunged at Toji.
"Gojo!" Geto rushed toward the injured, half-kneeling Leo, his face pale with concern.
"I'm fine!" Gojo panted, standing up with a strained smile. "Although I didn't have time to fully activate my technique, the blade missed the vital organs. I reinforced my torso with cursed energy at the last second. It's like a safety pin passing through a sweater, it looks bad, but the fabric is mostly intact."
Gojo stretched his body, the blood soaking his white school shirt, but his eyes were regaining their sharp clarity. "Suguru, you and the girls go to Master Tengen's chamber first. Priority is the Star Plasma Body. I'll handle the deadbeat dad."
Geto looked at the bleeding Gojo, then at Ava's Riko and the guard, Kuroi. He hesitated for a heartbeat before nodding firmly. "Don't be careless, Satoru. We're counting on you. Let's go, Riko!"
As they sprinted away, Toji Fushiguro casually sliced the giant-mouthed Curse in half. Purple blood sprayed into the sky like a rainstorm, coating Toji's muscular arms. He rested his jagged blade on his shoulder, the "Storage" Curse clinging to him like a grotesque backpack.
The audience felt a chill. Toji looked less like a man and more like a butcher in a high-end gym.
"I originally planned to finish you with that first strike," Toji said, sounding genuinely disappointed in himself. "Tsk. Has my skill deteriorated that much?"
Gojo looked at him, his gaze icy. "The bounty on Riko has been withdrawn, you idiot. You're fighting for a paycheck that doesn't exist."
"I'm the one who withdrew it, brat," Toji countered. "To deal with someone like you, someone with no openings, one must focus on the pacing. I set up several false 'end points' to make you drop your guard. If the bounty had no time limit, you wouldn't have released your 'Infinity' until the full moon, would you?"
VIP Row, AMC Theater.
"This Toji guy is a psychopath!" Garrett whispered, his eyes wide as he stared at the screen. "He's not just a muscle-head; he's a tactical genius. Can Leo actually beat someone who thinks this far ahead?"
"I... I think so," Lydia Chase replied, though her voice lacked its usual confidence. "After all, Gojo is in Season 1, so he has to survive. But Andrew Stone's aura is terrifying. The rumors were true, he looks like he could actually punch the protagonist to death!"
On Screen: The Battle Resumes.
Without the slightest hesitation, Gojo chose to strike first. He clenched his hand in the air, manifesting a distorted shockwave of gravity that crushed the stone beneath Toji's feet.
Toji leaped, his movements a blur of superhuman speed.
"So fast!" Gojo thought, his eyes tracking the blur. "And something is fundamentally wrong. I can't sense his energy... because he has none. He's a total zero. He has a Heavenly Restriction gifting him physical prowess!"
The next second, Toji was a streak of lightning moving through the forest. He dodged behind a tree and charged straight at Gojo's face, the Soul Splitter Katana whistling through the air.
Gojo raised a hand, pointing a finger with a cold precision. A massive repelling force blasted forward, sending shattered stones and dust flying like shrapnel.
Toji was caught in the wake and sent flying hundreds of meters, crashing through the walls of an ancient, dilapidated temple.
"Someone who understands my technique wouldn't attack so recklessly," Gojo muttered, walking toward the wreckage with his hands in his pockets. He was analyzing every variable. "Is that sword your trump card? Too bad. You won't get another step closer to me."
But the next second, the "Six Eyes" widened. In the settling dust of the temple, Toji Fushiguro had already vanished.
Gojo looked around, his heart rate spiking. "He has no cursed energy. I can't lock on. I have to trace the presence of the worm spirit on his shoulder. Even so he's too damn fast."
Gojo rotated his hands in a complex Tai Chi-like stance, azure energy ribbons drifting out from his palms, converging into a sphere the size of a basketball.
"CURSED TECHNIQUE AMPLIFICATION,"
"MAXIMUM OUTPUT!"
Gojo's voice dropped into a resonant, god-like tone. The azure sphere began to spin wildly, creating a localized gravitational vacuum that sucked in every stone, tree, and blade of grass in the clearing.
"BLUE!"
As he spoke, the sphere became a miniature black hole. With Gojo at the epicenter, everything within a hundred-meter radius was devoured and pulverized into dust.
The $3 million special effects were directly maxed out. The audience watched with surging hearts, the sheer scale of the power was enough to ease their suspense. Even a monster like Toji couldn't hide from a black hole, right?
"Without cover, he can't launch a surprise attack," Gojo observed, looking at the now-barren wasteland he had created. "Did he retreat into the deeper forest?"
Suddenly, from the edge of the cleared zone, a swarm of thousands of tiny Cursed Spirits "Fly Heads" flew out. They were densely packed, filling the air like a cloud of giant, buzzing mosquitoes.
The scene was visceral and nauseating.
"Fly Heads?!" Gojo froze as he was instantly surrounded by the swarming curses. "He raised them inside that storage spirit? He's using them as a smoke screen to mask his own lack of presence!"
"And now... I have blind spots."
Gojo stood in the center of the buzzing cloud, his expression turning grave. He realized he had been baited once again. "Tch. I guess I'll have to use 'Blue' one more time to clear the air!"
But in the shadows of the Fly Heads, the cold steel of the Inverted Spear of Heaven was already closing in.
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