Domain Expansion.
In this world called Jujutsu Kaisen, it is the pinnacle of technique that Jujutsu Sorcerers can reach.
Rooted in one’s innate Cursed Technique, it projects an inner mental landscape onto reality itself.
At its core, it is an extraordinarily advanced barrier technique.
The prerequisite: a sorcerer must have thoroughly explored their own Cursed Technique , their own soul.
Because a sorcerer’s abilities are fixed from the moment of birth, those capable of unlocking Domain Expansion are exceedingly rare.
But Cursed Spirits are different.
Cursed Spirits are themselves aggregates of Cursed Energy.
Just as humans create tools to survive, Cursed Spirits spontaneously master Jujutsu.
A Grade 1 Cursed Spirit already wields a Cursed Technique.
Special Grade Cursed Spirits generally possess Cursed Energy output and reserves that surpass ordinary sorcerers , and some among them go even further.
Some master their own Domain.
And its effect is only known once you’ve been hit.
……
….
[CLANG.] The moment Himmel registered what had happened, he was already sealed inside a cramped space.
Airtight.
Narrow.
“This is troublesome.” He understood the situation immediately.
Over the past month, through Geto Suguru’s patient explanations, Himmel had fully absorbed the fundamentals of the Jujutsu world.
He knew the opponent’s Domain had activated in an instant, and that he was now caught inside its Cursed Technique.
There were some puzzling details , but he could work those out later.
(Domains generally carry a guaranteed-hit effect…
injury is unavoidable.) (And I can’t reach Geto…
I hope he doesn’t worry too much.) The biggest problem was this: because infiltrating the hospital required discretion, Himmel hadn’t brought his true Holy Sword.
The blade he’d used earlier was something he’d hastily transformed from a disposable chopstick out of a patient’s room.
Right now, he had no proper weapon on hand.
He’d planned to pick up a branch from the forest , but in this situation…
THUMP.
THUMP.
His knuckles tapped the wall beside him.
A coffin.
So the next step of the Cursed Technique is.
!!
BOOM——!!.
A massive impact hammered down from above.
Himmel had no way to resist it.
He felt his altitude drop.
Then a far more terrifying pressure began coiling around his entire body.
[Three] [Two] [One].
This is…
BOOM!
From the outside, it looked like this: The moment Hōsōshin activated its Domain, a coffin materialized out of thin air and swallowed Himmel whole.
Then a massive tombstone rose from the earth and buried it.
An instant later, the ground heaved, a thunderous crack, and the coffin and tombstone exploded outward together.
Himmel stepped out of the wreckage.
He looked perfectly relaxed.
His orderly’s uniform was a light blue short-sleeved shirt, neatly fitted, round collar , which felt bizarrely out of place against the violent tension of the battle.
In the fraction of a second before the Cursed Technique’s effect could trigger, he had destroyed the tombstone and the coffin from inside.
Then he landed back on the ground, hands sliding into his pockets.
.!
He vanished.
At A+ rank Agility pushed to full burst, Himmel moved faster than sound.
Hōsōshin couldn’t even track his silhouette.
By the time the Cursed Spirit reacted, Himmel had already slipped behind a tree.
The Cursed Technique targeted a single entity.
Naturally, it needed to lock onto a target , that part was easy to deduce.
The question was: what were the conditions for that lock-on?
Himmel waited.
No coffin materialized.
Hōsōshin remained in place, expressionless as always, but visibly on edge , turning, searching, unable to locate him.
Got it.
With a lifetime of combat experience and instincts honed sharper than most blades, one trial was enough.
Himmel had the ability mapped out.
1.
Generate a coffin.
Forcibly trap the target inside.
2.
Generate a tombstone.
Forcibly strike the target.
3.
Three-second countdown.
No escape , forced death.
The three seconds was an instinctual guess on his part.
In reality, the damage had already taken effect the moment the countdown began.
Himmel turned his hand over and looked at the back of it.
A black-purple patch had spread across the skin.
The same wound as the patients afflicted by the ‘Special Plague’.
Right.
Even Himmel had been injured.
This was Domain Expansion.
Power gap irrelevant.
Guaranteed hit.
In a straight fight, given the chance, a few fully-charged punches from Himmel would reduce this Special Grade Cursed Spirit to pulp.
But because of the guaranteed-hit effect, he was standing here injured.
If he kept dodging indefinitely, the cycle would repeat , guaranteed-hit tombstone, instant poisoning, over and over.
Himmel estimated that somewhere around a thousand more cycles, he’d be looking at serious injury.
So.
What to do?
The Special Grade Cursed Spirit had already started tearing up the surrounding terrain, hunting for him.
Himmel thought fast.
There were a few ways to counter Domain Expansion.
Option 1: Pure overwhelming force.
Counter with raw Cursed Energy.
A Domain is ultimately built around a sorcerer’s innate technique , their principles of attack.
If the attack principle is simple enough, like extreme heat or blunt mass impact, then flooding it with superior Cursed Energy could bulldoze straight through.
Option 2: Escape the Domain.
Basically impossible.
A Domain is completely sealed , speed doesn’t matter when there’s nowhere to run.
And because it’s high-level barrier technique, even overwhelming physical superiority doesn’t easily translate to breaking the boundary from inside.
Of course.
It’s just very hard.
Not absolutely impossible.
Which means this option also circles back to brute force.
Option 3: The optimal solution.
Expand your own Domain.
When two Domains clash, both sides’ guaranteed-hit effects cancel out.
It becomes a straightforward clash of strength, which is Himmel’s absolute advantage.
But Himmel couldn’t do that.
As a warrior, he was exceptional.
As a Jujutsu Sorcerer , he was garbage.
His practical use of Cursed Energy was decent; he was good at reinforcing his body and enchanting his weapons.
But his actual reserves were thin, and his output was mediocre.
He lacked the fundamental talent for Jujutsu.
He didn’t even seem to have an innate Cursed Technique , only his Noble Phantasm served as a substitute.
No innate Cursed Technique meant no Domain.
Full stop.
There was a lower-tier substitute, of course: Simple Domain.
A survival tool rather than a weapon.
By generating a barrier around oneself using barrier technique, it cancelled the guaranteed-hit effect.
The catch: you had to endure the opponent’s full Domain advantage , innate technique amplification and all , while fighting through it to defeat them.
Himmel had heard of this.
The problem was that the clan heads who mastered Simple Domain in the Jujutsu world had monopolized the technique and locked it behind a Binding Vow.
Outsiders couldn’t be taught.
Even Gojo Satoru, who knew it, was generally not permitted to pass it on to Himmel or the others.
That said , if Himmel and the others happened to watch from the sidelines and figured it out themselves, that technically wouldn’t violate the Binding Vow.
But with Himmel’s current level of talent, that simply wasn’t happening.
To summarize: A normal sorcerer cannot counter Domain Expansion.
About ninety-nine percent of them, faced with a Domain, had exactly one realistic option , roll over and die.
I really am unlucky, Himmel thought.
………..
….
Unlucky unlucky unlucky unlucky unlucky!!!!
And at that exact moment, that exact thought was being had by Geto Suguru.
He’d been waiting in the forest to back Himmel up.
He’d watched Himmel boot the Special Grade Cursed Spirit clean out of the hospital with one kick and immediately let out a low whistle.
That kick.
Genuinely stylish.
So this is what it felt like on my end back then.
Looking at it that way , I only got some scrapes.
That’s actually impressive on my part.
Geto Suguru felt a flicker of smug satisfaction.
It lasted about three seconds.
Then he saw the Cursed Spirit’s body darken, a ring of black spreading outward at alarming speed, swallowing the battlefield whole , and taking Himmel with it.
Geto stared.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
A Domain?!
Two and a half years as a Jujutsu Sorcerer.
The number of sorcerers he’d faced who had a proper Domain: one.
Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer Yuki Tsukumo, and that was a single passing encounter.
The number of Cursed Spirits he’d faced with a Domain: fewer than the fingers on one hand.
And most of those Domains weren’t even the guaranteed-hit-kill variety , they were specific restrictive types.
Conditional.
Limited.
Even Geto himself would break into a cold sweat squaring off against a Cursed Spirit with a Domain.
And Himmel was a physical fighter with almost no ranged options to speak of.
After a month together, Geto had long since forgotten the awkwardness of their first meeting , that initial brawl born from misunderstanding.
Himmel had buried it somewhere, too.
He’d come to understand that Himmel and Gojo Satoru were similar in some ways but fundamentally different.
Himmel was more mature.
He liked to mess around, sure, but underneath that, he was watching over them , all of them, the students , with the steady patience of an elder.
That was sometimes irritating, honestly.
But it was hard to deny that his presence carried a kind of weight.
A reassurance.
So much so…
That even watching Himmel get swallowed by a Domain, Geto wasn’t really panicking.
A month of observation had taught him one thing clearly: Himmel was far stronger than he’d initially believed.
Even a Domain.
He’d win.
That said , believing it was one thing.
A Domain’s raw intimidation was another.
He had to move.
Geto activated a Cursed Spirit known for its speed, letting it carry him as he accelerated toward the battlefield.
Then his skin prickled.
Every hair on his body stood up at once.
“,—!” His right arm snapped sideways.
His left arm flew up as a guard.
BOOM!—, !.
Something slammed into his side with the force of a physical mass , a storm with weight behind it.
Geto’s straight trajectory shattered into a broken angle as he was hurled off course.
Pain blazed up his left arm , CRACK, CRACK, CRACK , and detonated through his entire body.
His vision whited out, then filled with a storm of shredded leaves and snapped branches.
…Hss.
Geto half-collapsed against the base of a tree that had been knocked half-sideways in the impact.
The Cursed Spirit bound to his abdomen had taken the brunt of whatever had just hit him.
It was pulp now, sizzling, a wet scorched sound rising from the mess of it.
“…I feel like I’ve been getting launched a lot lately.” He looked up.
In the sky above, a black insect beat its wings, filling the air with a flat, grating buzz.
Its body was slick and pitch-dark, shaped roughly like a shuttlecock.
But at the top of that bulbous form were the facial features of something from the order Blattodea , a cockroach’s face, twitching in the air above him.
“Looks like…” Geto said slowly, “…we’re being targeted.” Another one.
[Special Grade Cursed Spirit] [Manifestation] ➤ Next: The Name “Black Mushi” Really Makes One Think of “Kokushibo” (No, Really)
The story is already written.