Yuji froze for a moment, then caught Leon’s meaning, staring blankly down at the finger of Sukuna in his hand.
The whole “progress” and “strongest alive today” thing the chat group kept going on about — this was the root of it, wasn’t it?
He could picture it clearly.
Without the chat group — or rather, without Leon showing up to help — he’d have swallowed this finger to save Megumi.
A choice between dying and getting possessed — and he’d gambled right on the latter.
Getting cursed energy out of it, and stepping into the sorcerer’s world in the process.
That joke he’d made with Ritsuka earlier had turned out true — he really had ended up exorcising demons with his fists.
But now, he didn’t need to do any of that anymore, right?
Cut all ties with that bizarre world, go back to his ordinary life, ride his own physical talent to a career as an athlete and make big money.
Use that money for charity — that counted as saving people too, right?
But…
Yuji clenched the finger tight and turned to the reliable adult beside him for help:
“Leon, what would you do?”
Wait, was he tossing the question back at Leon?
Leon crossed his arms and said:
“Speaking purely out of self-interest, I’d tell you to eat it.
I got a solid payoff out of my last quest, and you’ve got that same kind of potential.
And if it were me, I’d eat it too.
Given the choice between living as a weakling or dying somewhere along the road to power, I’d rather die chasing strength.”
On this particular topic, he saw no reason to hide his own motives.
What was so wrong with chasing power, anyway?
It wasn’t like he was throwing everything else out the window just for the sake of gain.
“Wow, that’s a real self-interested thing to say…”
Yuji let out a sigh, his eyes going unfocused as he drifted into memory.
“Gramps told me I was strong, that I should go save people, and that I should die surrounded by a whole crowd of them in the end.
None of you guys’ worlds are simple.
And that kind of hesitation — where you can’t do something because you’re just not strong enough — I don’t want to go through that a second time.”
When he lifted his head again, his eyes were clear and unwavering.
“I’m going to eat it.”
“Are you sure you’re not only remembering half of it?
However you slice it, a grandfather’s gonna tack on a ‘within your ability’ somewhere in there.”
Unless your grandfather happened to be Viltrumite.
“Ha, now that you mention it, yeah, that’s true.”
Yuji cracked up.
Leon really didn’t care about the mood at all — was that just what being a strong person looked like?
He turned the finger over, examining it, sniffing it every so often, and finally shot Leon one last look.
“If anything goes wrong, I’m counting on you.”
“Relax.
If I can’t knock you back to normal, consider the order refunded.”
Leon tapped his toes lightly and drifted up into the air, watching quietly for whatever change was about to come over Yuji.
Yuji popped the finger into his mouth, chewed a few times, then stuck his tongue out and gagged:
“Tastes disgusting.”
The words had barely left his mouth when black markings bloomed across his cheeks, his whole presence instantly turning savage.
A wave of black energy spread outward from him, his presence dwarfing that Grade 2 curse by a margin impossible to measure.
“Moonlight really does feel better in person!”
The two small eyes at the corners of his own opened wide, and the awakened Sukuna let out a laugh at the moon.
“This era’s crawling with women and children, thick as maggots, everywhere you look — how wonderful!
Time for an absolute massacre!”
“How many should I kill in a day?
A thousand?”
Leon looked at Sukuna the way a Hogwarts Legacy senior might look at Voldemort.
Not that the guy stayed cheerful for long — a second later his face darkened, and he snarled at Leon like some kind of dragon:
“Hey.
You’re flying too high — you’re blocking my moon.”
For a single finger’s worth of power, Leon obviously couldn’t be bothered with him.
He called out instead:
“Kid, you in there?”
The body’s right hand reached up and pinched its own chin.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here!”
“Do you have any awareness while you’re possessed?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
Leon didn’t waste any more words on it.
“Alright, then.
Once the fight kicks off, pay close attention — how Sukuna handles his cursed energy, all that.
You get the idea.”
“If you want it to actually be useful, start absorbing it now.
Think of this round as a tutorial.”
He drifted back down onto the rooftop, hands clasped behind his back, pacing a few steps before finally facing Sukuna.
That utterly unguarded posture rubbed Sukuna the wrong way.
Cursed energy gathered in both his fists, and he sneered:
“Your cursed energy’s so faint I can barely sense it, and yet you’ve got the nerve to act this cocky.
I’ll give you that much.
Let me give you a taste of what it means to face—”
INVINCIBLE (black text on a pink background)
Talking big felt good, sure, but to Sukuna’s eyes, Leon was a downright unsettling presence.
It wasn’t so much that the man had no cursed energy at all — it was more like a lid had been clamped down over something, with a churning volcano seething just beneath it.
He’d have to play this as safe as possible, going all-out right from the start—
Sukuna burst forward, every footfall ripping up a few tiles from the ground.
The instant he closed the distance, he leaped high, a fist packed with cursed energy tearing a crack through the air.
BOOM!
The punch landed, and the shockwave kicked up a thick cloud of dust that swallowed the whole rooftop.
By the time the smoke cleared, that punch — a punch powerful enough to blow the rooftop apart, powerful enough to take a sorcerer’s head clean off — had landed on Leon’s cheek as light as a feather, turning his head only slightly.
“What!?”
Bewildered, Sukuna watched Leon’s head swing back into place, unbothered, as if the punch had never happened, and look down at him.
Those indifferent eyes reflected Sukuna’s own scrunched-up face back at him.
Ouch, that really hurt (not really).
That’s what Leon thought to himself.
And this was Sukuna running on just one finger.
If he ever got his hands on a few more of them, one punch from him might just— actually crack my guard, huh.
He felt a real spark of anticipation, fighting spirit rising, and his smart-atoms spun into gear!
The shift in color across his eyes left Sukuna distinctly wary.
He backpedaled a good few dozen meters, staring down at his own right hand, his face full of disbelief.
was it Heavenly Restriction?
Trading away cursed energy from birth in exchange for an overpowering body.
“How pathetic!
A few more fingers, and I could pull off the same thing myself…
If it weren’t for that little detail, you’d probably be a lot more entertaining!”
Sukuna’s mindset was ever the optimist — once he’d found himself an explanation, he cranked up his cursed energy output even further.
He was absolutely going to smash that arrogant face in!
But the second punch he threw ran straight into smart-atoms fully charged up on emotion.
Right at the point of impact, the skin barely began to deform before it snapped right back.
The force surged straight back up Sukuna’s own arm, cracks spreading across the surface, a few flecks of blood spraying out.
Ugh — Viltrumites.
Talk about mind over matter.
Not quite on Superman’s level, but there was a certain flavor to it all the same.
“Tch.
Is it that this brat’s body can’t handle my full power?
Or is he actually resisting me?”
Sukuna chose to pass the blame.
“You don’t even know how to work the thing.
Not much point talking specs.”
Leon shot back the mockery without much effort, and before Sukuna could put any more distance between them, grabbed his head at a speed impossible to react to.
Glancing at the arm that was already nearly healed, he said, pleased:
“Kid, you catch anything from the way he threw that punch, or that healing factor?”
Seeing a blink of acknowledgment in response, Leon’s left hand caught Sukuna’s two fingers just as he was about to cast a technique.
“Alright, that’s enough — any more and it won’t digest properly.
You gonna do it yourself, or should I?”
“Cocky bastard…
I’ll look forward to the look on your face when you see my true form.”
With that threat delivered, the body slipped into a deep sleep.
Say what you want, but a guy who understands installment plans knows how to swallow his pride.
Especially since he knew his own power was incomplete — today was just a little warm-up, and with the advantage on his side down the road, he didn’t feel the slightest bit weighed down about it.
Leon set Yuji down, dusted off his hands, and turned to look at the man who’d arrived half a minute earlier and was busy taking photos of Megumi.
Whoa.
Double the “0.2-seconds-five-billion-yen” teacher.
Catching Leon’s eye, the instantly-familiar white-haired man in the eye mask held up the bag in his hand:
“Yo, you eating?
I brought a little something — Kikufuku from Kikusuian, edamame fresh cream flavor.”
“Wouldn’t want to be rude.”
Leon didn’t stand on ceremony either, tearing open a wrapper and popping it straight into his mouth.
Only after watching him swallow it did Gojo Satoru get around to his real reason for showing up.
“So — mind if I ask just what exactly you are?”
Beneath the blindfold, his clear blue eyes narrowed.
No matter how he ran his Six Eyes, he couldn’t get so much as a read on this man.
If that body of his had been bought with Heavenly Restriction, then in another life, he might’ve been born a prodigy on Gojo’s own level.
Stronger than that man by a fair margin, too…
“It’s a whole hassle to explain properly.
Just think of me as the kid’s Mahoraga for now.
Let’s talk about what happens with him going forward.”
Leon said, tearing open another Kikufuku as he spoke.
To be continued…