Yuta saw it in her eyes before she moved.
The tilt of her head.
The smirk that twitched up one corner of her mouth.
That gleam, not the glint of malice, but thrill.
A hunter's joy.
The need to test herself against something dangerous, not for victory, but for the rush.
"Don't," Yuta said quietly. "I'm not your enemy."
"That's never stopped me," Lappland said, and vanished.
He dodged on instinct, shifting his stance as her blade sang past his ribs, slicing through coat and air.
Sparks burst from the cursed energy flaring around his body as her machete, coated in some kind of Originium-infused suppression agent, shaved the edge of his reinforced aura.
Another strike, faster this time.
Yuta raised his katana just in time to meet it. Steel clashed with a dry, sharp clang. Her strength was feral, unpredictable. Not as refined as a traditional swordsman's, but every blow had intent, rhythm, madness.
Her footwork was chaotic but efficient, a rapid advance with no guard, her second blade already arcing toward his throat.
Shhk!
Yuta blocked low with his sheath, shifting the angle and twisting her wrist away. A flicker of cursed energy danced around his shoulder, then died.
His eyes narrowed.
Something was off.
His cursed technique had blinked. Not suppressed by him, not shut down by choice, but interfered with.
He felt the lattice of control fray. It was like standing inside a Domain for a heartbeat, someone else's rule forced over his own energy.
Lappland grinned wider. "Neat, huh? Got a trick from Closure. Dampens structured energy flow. Not permanent. Just enough to make things fun."
Yuta stepped back.
So she could disrupt techniques, not raw cursed energy, but any refined expression.
He couldn't use Copy reliably. Cursed Speech might backfire in this unstable space. Domain was obviously off the table.
Then fine.
He dropped into a low stance, left hand tightening around the hilt of his katana.
"I warned you" he said.
If he can't use it, he'll trade it.
A binding vow, sealed in an instant: Lock all cursed techniques. Reinforcement boost.
His cursed energy spiked, not with shape, but pressure.
Like black flame coiling through his muscles. Raw, unfiltered output. Every nerve screamed awake.
He moved.
This time, she was the one on defense.
Yuta shot forward, sword crashing toward her midsection with precise, brutal efficiency. His footwork was textbook, but more than that, it was lethal.
No wasted movement. No extra flair. Each slash carved clean arcs through the air, blade vibrating with cursed energy that now had no higher function, just raw momentum behind steel.
She blocked, barely, and grinned even harder.
"That's it! That's what I wanted!"
Lappland pushed off with both blades, flipping backwards to create space, then lunged again, her machetes a blur.
She ducked low, slashed high, turned a fake feint into a shoulder bash.
Yuta absorbed the hit, twisted his torso, slammed the back of his elbow into her side with reinforcement-laced weight. She coughed, then laughed.
They clashed again.
Steel scraped steel. Sparks burst from contact points. Every motion was inches from a kill, but never wild.
Lappland's style was a blur of close-range pressure, feints, and opportunistic angles, more a predator's reflex than a soldier's drill.
Yuta answered it with form.
His stance, old and sharp. His cuts weren't flashy, but each one came with purpose. A diagonal slash to force her sideways.
A backhand sweep to draw her parry high. A step-through thrust, aborted mid-strike, transformed into a wide slash that split a tree clean in half as she dodged under it.
Still, she kept laughing.
Blood trickled from her temple. She didn't stop.
"You're holding back," she growled, voice wild, close to manic joy. "Even now."
"I'm fighting not to kill you," Yuta answered. His voice was level, but his chest heaved. His body was burning hot from the inside. Cursed energy surged in his arms like molten lead.
Rika watched from the edge of the trees. Still silent. Still calm.
Yuta took one step forward. The earth beneath his foot cracked.
"Don't push me."
Lappland spun both blades into reverse grip. "Push you? I'm dragging you."
And they collided one last time.
She went low, he went lower.
She kicked off a broken root and tried to come down with an overhead slam, he slipped under and used the scabbard to trip her landing foot mid-air.
She twisted in freefall, blades scraping his arm, and landed on one knee with a snarl.
Yuta didn't pause.
He stepped in and struck, clean through her defense. A diagonal cut from shoulder to hip, not deep, but hard enough to send her skidding back.
She slammed into a tree, boots dragging grooves in the snow.
And finally, she stopped.
Blood stained her coat. Her breathing was ragged. But her grin hadn't faded.
"Well..." she panted. "You're not what I expected."
Yuta didn't lower his blade. "Are you done?"
A pause.
Then, slowly, she sheathed both blades.
"For now."
They stood in the silence of falling snow. The trees creaked. The air smelled of metal and tension and frost.
From deeper in the forest, Rhodes Island scouts watched, and did nothing.
They had seen enough.
...
The wind had picked up. Cold again. No longer sharp with the howling pressure of two clashing blades, but quiet, spent, like a lung exhaling after holding too much in for too long.
Yuta stood still, katana lowered, shoulders rising and falling with shallow breaths.
Steam drifted from his body, not from exhaustion, but from the burn of cursed energy retreating back under his skin.
Lappland lay sprawled across a nearby rock, laughing faintly through bloodied teeth, one hand over a cracked rib and the other still gripping her blade like she wasn't ready to let go just yet.
"You're good," she said, voice rough. "Faster than you look. Cold too. Like something that forgot how to bleed."
He didn't answer. The cut over his brow stung, but he let it drip. He hadn't been fighting to kill, he never had.
Not really. But even now, when he should've been focused on recovering or retreating, his thoughts were adrift.
Because of what she said before the last exchange.
"You're not the only freak here, y'know. Curses pop up now. Sorcerers too. All of us changed after you dropped into this world."
Yuta turned to Kal'tsit, who had been watching from the ridge the entire time, silent as the snowfall.
Her expression was unreadable, as always. But she hadn't stopped observing. Not for a moment.
He spoke quietly. "Is it true?"
She didn't pretend to misunderstand.
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Three years. From the moment you arrived."
Yuta's hand curled slowly into a fist. Not from anger. Not even frustration. Just that familiar, choking weight in his chest that hadn't gone away since Shinjuku. Since her voice faded from the other side. Since he woke up in this strange, cold land.
"And I... caused it?"
"You didn't choose it," Kal'tsit replied. "But cursed energy bleeds into the land like poison. And you bled more than anyone. What should have been inert theory became reality. Emotions, fear, hatred, regret, things we kept bottled up in our Arts? They twisted. Became something else. People changed. Places changed. Some adapted. Others... didn't survive."
Yuta looked down at his hands. They were clean. No blood. But he could feel it. Underneath his skin, something rotted and endless.
"They use cursed techniques now? Sorcerers?"
"They do," Kal'tsit said. "Not all. But enough. Most don't even hunt curses. They work for factions. For money. For ideals. Some just do it for the thrill. A few, very few, try to help. But it's chaos."
His eyes lifted to hers.
"I spent years trying to stop curses from being born. But now they are. Here. Because of me."
Kal'tsit didn't comfort. She didn't condemn. Only waited.
"I didn't mean to bring this here," Yuta whispered. "I just wanted to live. To find a way back. But if they're suffering because of me..."
He trailed off. The thought formed fully for the first time. The burden solidified.
"Then I'll help," he said. "I'll take responsibility."
Kal'tsit tilted her head. "How?"
"I've fought curses my whole life. If this place is becoming like where I came from, then I know what to do. I can fight the ones who lose themselves. Contain the spread. Learn the new laws of this world and undo what I've caused, piece by piece."
She studied him in silence. Wind tugged at her coat. In the distance, Lappland coughed and laughed again, muttering something about "joining Rhodes Island for the drama alone."
Eventually, Kal'tsit nodded.
"Good," she said. "Because leaving someone like you alone out in the wild is too dangerous. Whether you're monster or messiah depends on your own discipline."
Yuta lowered his gaze. He didn't feel like either.
Then Kal'tsit added, quieter, "But I believe you."
The snow began falling again. Slower this time. As if the world had paused to consider what came next.
...
The forest burned like a funeral pyre.
Charred trees collapsed in on themselves with hissing groans, and rivers of molten rock carved trenches through the snow-covered soil, evaporating the cold into steam in seconds. Heat warped the air—dense and oily, suffocating even before the flame touched skin.
"Fall back! We're not equipped to deal with this thing!" Meteorite shouted, her voice hoarse over the comms. She skidded behind a scorched log, the metal tip of her crossbow glowing red from overuse.
Ashes snowed from the sky in thick gray flakes, blinding and clinging to everything like soot-stained feathers.
Behind her, Blaze kicked through the underbrush, sword dragging a molten wake through the dirt. "Retreat where, smartass?! Everything's on fire!" She grabbed Steward by the collar as a gout of flame erupted from a cracked fissure behind them, nearly singeing his robes.
"Split north!" Meteorite called out. "Through the ridge—less fuel there, he won't get as much spread!"
Steward muttered a spell under his breath, summoning a temporary shield to block a scatterburst of embers. "We're being herded. This heat—it's intentional. He's thinking."
The ground trembled.
And then came the insects.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of them.
They weren't fast, but they swarmed. Bulbous creatures with obsidian carapaces and long, jagged stingers mounted to the front of their heads. Ember Insects. Native to volcanic zones, but not like this—not red hot and glowing, not leaving trails of smoke and shrill chittering behind them.
And not exploding on impact.
"Don't let them sting you!" Meteorite screamed as the first one launched from a lava-formed perch. It dove toward Beehunter, who pivoted with a grunt and swatted it midair, sending it into a tree.
It exploded with a metallic shriek, then a violent boom, tearing the trunk apart and knocking Beehunter off her feet.
"Dammit! They explode now?! Since when?!" Blaze yelled, catching Beehunter before she hit the ground.
"He's mutating them," Steward growled. "Just like curses shape their environment, he's shaping these... things."
Another blast. Then another. The forest was now a field of sound—every detonation followed by ringing, and each shrill stinger-song signaling more death.
High above, on a crag of blackened stone, Jogo stood.
Still as a monument, wreathed in spirals of fire that danced like tattered banners in a storm. His mouth curved upward in something that might've been amusement—or disdain.
"Run," he said. Not in a roar. Not in a command. Just a quiet suggestion.
The flames obeyed.
The forest burned behind them. Choking smoke mixed with the cries of fleeing operators, the soil splitting beneath molten pressure. Jogo stalked forward through the blaze like a god descending through his own divine punishment.
Every step he took scorched the ground, the embers under his feet forming glowing kanji that faded with heat and ash. The Ember Insects flanked him, skittering ahead to drive the prey where he wanted them. Their screams—both human and not—were nothing more than a dull hum to him now.
He would end this soon.
And then—
"Yuta Okkotsu."
The name slipped through the smoke.
It came from the girl—Meteorite—shouting coordinates into her comms. Probably reporting back. Probably trying to stall him.
But it worked.
Jogo stopped walking.
For a moment, there was only fire and wind and the distant collapse of timber. His molten brow twitched, and his single eye narrowed like the pupil of a lizard staring down a predator it could not fully understand.
The name echoed again in his mind, not with the voice of the girl, but of him.
Kenjaku.
.
.
.
.
"You're underestimating him," Kenjaku had said, languidly pouring tea as if discussing the weather.
Jogo's laugh had been dismissive then. "You said the same thing about Satoru Gojo."
Kenjaku stirred the cup. "And I was right. But Yuta Okkotsu... is different. He's the edge of a blade that doesn't even know which way it's facing. A child, still. But his technique? His cursed energy output? When he does know..."
Jogo snorted fire. "I've burned forests down the size of cities. You think some boy with a katana—"
"I think" Kenjaku interrupted, eyes briefly aglow with something ancient, "that if Rika Orimoto hadn't died, he would have surpassed Satoru Gojo long time ago"
There was silence. Then a slow chuckle from Jogo. Kenjaku continue.
"You don't seem to understand, what Yuta's having right now is not even one fifth of Rika's power, it's a cheap copy, let him replicate other's technique in only 5 minutes and even limited his cursed energy. Tell me, what will you do when a special grade hunt you down using 15 cursed techniques at the same time? And he can use them 24/7?"
"....And yet you let him live."
"Because power like that... matures. And when it does, it either belongs to us" Kenjaku had said, rising to his feet, "or it turns the world upside down."
.
.
.
.
Jogo clenched his fists. Lava trickled from between his fingers and hit the stone with a sizzling hiss.
Sukuna had killed him. Burned him into nothing with a casual cruelty that still smoldered in the hollow parts of his soul.
He remembered every second of that death. And now he remembered something worse:
That if someone like Yuta came now, unpredictable, untethered, he couldn't afford another misstep.
He turned from the fire.
The Ember Insects faltered at first, confused by his motion. But a sharp snap of his fingers sent a pulse through them.
They detonated in place, bursting into brief columns of fire that scorched the nearby trees but spared the fleeing Rhodes Island team.
He let them go.
From the cliffside, he watched the operators vanish into the smoke, battered, injured, but alive. They were no longer the prey. Just witnesses. Messengers.
Let them carry the tale.
Jogo looked east, toward the mountains where the cursed energy twisted the air like broken glass. Toward him.
"So the boy survived" Jogo murmured, voice rumbling like magma beneath a volcano's skin.
Flames rippled around his form, then collapsed into him like water drawn back into the ocean.
"I'll wait, then. Right now is not enough..."
He vanished, leaving only ash and silence behind.
...
Meanwhile...
It started with the sound of his own heartbeat.
Then breath.
Then a giggle.
Mahito opened his eyes to a ceiling of rock and ash.
He lay sprawled across broken stone and dirt, body formed into his favorite form, humming with cursed energy. He blinked. Smiled.
"Oh? I'm alive?"
He sat up, brushing debris from his chest, watching his arm stretch and twist before snapping back into shape.
"I remember! Oh my! That's amazing!"
The words came with a light chuckle, like a kid getting away with something he shouldn't.
"Kenjaku... you bastard. You used me." He looked off into the shadows, not angry, just amused. "And I fell for it. Just like the humans I toyed with."
His grin grew wider, manic.
"But here I am. Again."
Mahito stood, bare feet sinking into the soft, unfamiliar soil. The air tasted different. The negative emotions were off, heavier, denser, almost mechanical, but it didn't matter.
He cracked his neck, stretched his arms, and laughed.
"I get another chance to play~, Hope Jogo and everyone is here~"