The streets of Sendai felt especially oppressive beneath the Barrier.
The cold wind of late autumn swept through the streets, rustling the fallen leaves along the roadside.
Gen stood there lazily, both hands spread open.
He sized up Ryu Ishigori in front of him.
That signature pompadour really was far more striking in person than it had looked in the comics.
“Hey, can we keep this peaceful?
At least for now.”
Gen’s eyes stayed fixed on Ryu Ishigori’s movements, though a casual smile had appeared on his face.
“I may have just crawled out from underground myself, but I haven’t had enough of this modern air yet.
Rather than start a fight, I’d rather use something from this shop to give my tongue a proper treat.”
Ryu Ishigori gave no answer.
Instead, he pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and held it between his teeth.
Click.
“Hah…”
The tip of the cigarette caught fire.
As Ryu Ishigori took a deep drag and slowly exhaled, a ring of smoke drifted into the air.
“I never experienced anything like this in my previous life.”
“Mm…
We’re all ancient Jujutsu Sorcerers here.
Even if we gained memories through reincarnation, why not take some time to try out things you can only understand by experiencing them yourself?”
Gen studied Ryu Ishigori.
His control over Cursed Energy was pretty good.
But that total amount…
He should probably hold back a little.
Ryu Ishigori, meanwhile, closed his eyes slightly, as if savoring this gift from the modern world.
“Hah…
Your wariness, and that overflowing amount of Cursed Energy of yours, are both telling me the same thing.”
Ryu Ishigori’s gaze gradually sharpened.
He stubbed out the cigarette in his hand.
Bang!
A burst of power.
A charge.
A hook.
It all happened in roughly half a second.
His fist, wrapped in Cursed Energy, struck out with a sonic boom.
“I already said…
can’t we keep this a little more peaceful?”
Gen caught Ryu Ishigori’s fist with ease, his expression turning cold.
In the next instant, fine lines of blood appeared across the fist trapped in his grip.
Ryu Ishigori reacted immediately, tilting his head back and unleashing a violent blast of Cursed Energy.
Gen gathered Cursed Energy at the point of impact, but the sheer brutality of the output still burned a large hole through his clothes.
Ryu Ishigori looked at the wound on the back of his hand, which had nearly cut down into the bone, then clenched his teeth and raised his eyes toward Gen.
“Condensing Cursed Energy and then firing it out is something any ordinary Jujutsu Sorcerer can do.”
“My Cursed Technique goes farther than ordinary Cursed Energy Discharge, and it comes more naturally to me.
It’s like switching from fixed spells in an ARPG to custom-built spells in a sandbox game.”
The fine lines of blood on Ryu Ishigori’s palm had already been stitched back together by that body’s astonishing regenerative ability.
Part of that was because Gen had not fully unleashed his Cursed Technique.
Only now did Ryu Ishigori truly feel the gap between himself and the man before him.
“Pompadour, you know something?”
Gen tore away the shirt that had been burned open, exposing a lean, muscular body underneath.
“After the fight started, I learned your Cursed Technique before I learned your name.
That’s terribly rude.
And by that, I mean you’re the rude one!”
“Ryu Ishigori.”
Ryu Ishigori stood in place, his entire body on guard against the man before him.
People reborn through reincarnation usually reshaped their bodies into either their “pre-death” state or their “strongest” state.
Take the old man named “Dhruv” he had seen earlier, for example.
His strength had nothing to do with his physical condition, so after reincarnation, he had become the withered old man form Ryu Ishigori was more familiar with.
And yet the man before him, who looked barely twenty, possessed a terrifyingly vast amount of Cursed Energy.
Whether this was his “pre-death” form or his “strongest” form, Ryu Ishigori felt an unmistakable pressure from him.
Ryu Ishigori was a genius sorcerer, and it was not as if he had never seen one before.
He also had not been the strongest of his own era.
His “strongest” had only been in part.
The strongest output.
The strongest physique?
Either way…
“I am Gen, the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer of the Muromachi era.”
Damn it.
He was someone from the history books.
Shit.
Ryu Ishigori had sensed something was wrong from the start.
The man before him had seemed inexplicably familiar, perhaps from a book, perhaps from a play.
But when he actually heard that name, Ryu Ishigori still broke out in a cold sweat.
“What’s with that look?
You know me?”
“…I once saw you in a book.”
“What did it say?”
“A Jujutsu Sorcerer with multiple Cursed Techniques.
The strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer with no enemies.
The first beneath Sukuna.”
“Oh?
Sounds like the record was pretty subjective.”
Seeing Ryu Ishigori’s expression turn serious, Gen waved a hand as if it did not matter at all.
“Whether I have enemies…
whether I’m truly the first beneath Sukuna.
I came here precisely to prove those things.”
“…Are you dissatisfied with your life too?”
During this brief pause in the fight, Ryu Ishigori stood still and watched the man before him.
“How should I put it…
My life was a total failure.
No opponents.
No decent achievements.
Even if I defeated every Jujutsu Sorcerer in the Muromachi era, so what?
No matter what, I could never have fought Sukuna.”
Ryu Ishigori took out a comb and pushed his raised pompadour back a few more times, fixing its shape.
“So that’s why you agreed to Kenjaku’s deal.”
Gen did not answer.
He only nodded.
“Hah…
Looks like we’re the same kind of person.
Your dissatisfaction is stronger than mine, and there’s more of it.”
“My first life was about eighty percent satisfying.
I had decent opponents and some good women.”
Ryu Ishigori pulled out another cigarette.
Click.
“From the day I was born to the day I died, I never once experienced what it felt like to be truly overwhelmed by someone.
It wasn’t until this morning, when I put a ‘cigarette’ in my mouth for the first time, when I finished smoking one for the first time and tasted that lingering sweetness on my tongue, that I finally understood…”
Hah…
Ryu Ishigori let out a long breath.
“My life never had any dessert.”
“No…
It’s not the same.”
Gen waved his hand, then clenched his fist.
“I still haven’t…”
Gen, who had been far away only a moment ago, appeared right in front of him in the blink of an eye.
“Had my main course yet!”
“He’s fast?!”
Boom!
Gen appeared in front of Ryu Ishigori in an instant, and the hook he swung sent Ryu Ishigori flying.
Before Ryu Ishigori could hit the ground, Gen had already appeared beside him.
“Dog·Cleave.”
Before Ryu Ishigori could counterattack, Gen’s palm slammed hard into his chest.
Fine slashes burst across Ryu Ishigori’s chest in a spray of blood.
Ryu Ishigori grimaced in pain and immediately fired a Cursed Energy cannon.
Gen dodged to the side, while Ryu Ishigori seized the chance to kick him.
Using the force to slide along the ground and escape close range, he raised a finger and aimed it at Gen’s body.
“Granité Blast.”
“Dog·Dismantle.”
As energy fired from Ryu Ishigori’s finger, Gen had already raised his palm.
A pitch-black object flashed past, and a slash cut toward Ryu Ishigori’s second Cursed Energy cannon.
The slash formed from condensed Cursed Energy split the icy sand shockwave in midair.
Then, weakened by the clash, it was dodged by Ryu Ishigori with a quick sidestep.
“It was weakened…
I held back, but the speed couldn’t keep up.”
Gen turned in midair and landed.
He had been holding back and had no intention of killing Ryu Ishigori, but no matter how he looked at it, the “slash” unleashed by the Divine Dogs Kuro and Shiro was still too slow.
After all, the boost from Kuro and Shiro transforming into Totality was not as simple as one plus one equals two.
Mm…
He would probably need to multiply the Cursed Energy used for Kuro & Shiro by five to release a slash on par with Totality.
After a brief moment of thought, Gen raised his hand again.
“Dog·Dismantle.”