“So that’s all it takes to get under your skin?
Looks like a Special Grade curse user’s mental fortitude is just like that faded kesa robe of yours—it can’t take the slightest rough handling.” Makoto stood where he was.
His legs were trembling like a cotton-beating bow, yet his face carried an icy sneer filled with extreme contempt and even a trace of pity.
Geto Suguru said nothing.
The air around him had grown thick with sheer rage His disgust toward “monkeys,” and the fury born from seeing his great cause humiliated, finally gathered into the destructive light forming in his palm.
“Maximum—Uzumaki.” He murmured the words, his voice as cold as if it had fallen into an ice cellar.
Thousands of cursed spirits were forcibly compressed and twisted in an instant, turning into a black-purple torrent of energy powerful enough to pierce straight through the entire Jujutsu High campus.
It was the wrath of a Special Grade sorcerer, violence capable of reshaping the terrain itself.
It was coming.
Life and death would be decided in this instant.
Makoto stared at the roaring shockwave and frantically calibrated the one-percent “knockoff Limitless” inside his mind.
What rumor had Geto Suguru heard?
That he was a “low-quality Gojo Satoru imitator who could only copy the surface.” ‘If I dodge, he’ll immediately realize I’m just a flea with all my points dumped into agility, then drown me under a flood of cursed spirits.’ ‘If I block it head-on and get injured, he’ll mock me for overestimating myself.’ ‘But what if I don’t move at all and let this Special Grade sorcerer’s ultimate attack vanish into Infinity?’ ‘No…
what if I take it even further?’ “Limitless—deploy.” [First Limitless Defense: Duration, 3 seconds.] [Technique Link: Activated—Thin Ice Breaker, omni-directional reflection structure.] Boom—!!!
A deafening roar tore through Jujutsu High.
The black-purple torrent of energy slammed fiercely into the invisible barrier.
Normally, with the current strength of Makoto’s Thin Ice Breaker, that torrent would have crushed him into dust in an instant.
But in that moment, borrowing the absolute, untouchable “three-second vacuum” created by Limitless, the originally thin spatial displacement was magnified without limit.
Under Geto Suguru’s shocked gaze, the Uzumaki powerful enough to erase everything came to a bizarre halt less than five centimeters from Makoto’s nose.
And in that frozen instant, Makoto’s already-overloaded brain, which had even begun to ache faintly, issued one final command.
‘Thin Ice Breaker—omni-directional vector correction!’ ‘Time: 0.1 seconds.’ The energy torrent formed a massive, collapsing black-purple sphere less than five centimeters in front of Makoto.
‘Time: 0.2 seconds.’ The spatial displacement effect of Thin Ice Breaker was no longer simply diverting an attack.
Instead, in front of that absolute three-second defensive shield, it constructed a perfect mirror-like “reflection plane.” Time: 3.1 seconds.
Within that untouchable distance, the Uzumaki that had originally been roaring toward him struck the plane, and all of its forward momentum, all of its destructive cursed energy, was forcibly reversed by 180 degrees.
It was as if a god’s hand had grabbed it and hurled it right back along the same path.
Boom—!!!
Before Geto Suguru even had time to show the faintest mocking smile, the Uzumaki he had unleashed himself—an attack capable of piercing through all of Jujutsu High—came roaring back at him with even more terrifying speed and a far more violent momentum.
Smack.
The black-purple torrent of energy struck Geto Suguru’s stiff face with perfect accuracy and not the slightest fucking mercy.
A tremendous explosion erupted.
The training ground shook, and dust mixed with waves of cursed energy instantly swallowed the Special Grade curse user’s figure.
The three seconds ended and the dark cursed energy scattered.
Makoto stood in place without a single scratch on him.
Not even his hair had been messed up, and he even had the leisure to elegantly pat away some nonexistent dust from his clothes.
“That’s it?
That’s it?
No way, this is what counts as ‘the strongest’ and ‘Special Grade’ from the same era as Gojo-sensei?
How the hell did you two get called the ‘strongest duo’ back then?
Don’t tell me you were responsible for making honk-honk noises from the sidelines while Gojo-sensei went in and slaughtered everyone, and together you formed the legendary ‘Honk-Honk Massacre’ combo?” He tilted his head and looked at the cloud of dust and smoke slowly dispersing, his tone so mocking it reached the limit of human decency.
“Geto-san, your Maximum Technique seems even softer and weaker than Gojo-sensei’s imaginary breast.
To think a ‘knockoff’ like me could casually bounce it right back into that perfect face of yours.” The smoke and dust slowly cleared.
Makoto stood unharmed in the same spot, even calmly pushing up his ‘monocle’.
Across from him, half the sleeve of Geto Suguru’s solemn gojō-kesa had been blown apart, and the carefully arranged strand of hair over his forehead had become slightly disheveled.
For the first time, a crack called “wavering” appeared in those narrow eyes of his.
“No way….
ain’t no way.” Makoto looked at him and deliberately covered his mouth, letting out an exaggerated gasp so annoying it practically begged to be punched.
“Geto-san, weren’t you part of the ‘strongest’ duo with sensei for several years?
Why do you look like you’ve never seen this move before?” He tilted his head, his eyes full of helpless pity, as if Geto were truly beyond saving, while his tone turned unbearably flippant.
“Ah, sorry, sorry.
I forgot.
This move is called Cursed Technique Reversal: Mirror, a new derivative of Limitless that sensei developed recently.
After all, he’s always improving.
But an ‘old man’ like you, still living ten years in the past, can’t even understand basic math or biology, so of course you wouldn’t understand high-dimensional spatial operations like this.” This was a lie.
But in Geto Suguru’s eyes at that moment, it was absolute truth.
And that sentence hit even harder than reflecting Uzumaki.
Makoto could clearly see Geto Suguru’s fingers, hanging by his side, tremble violently.
“Satoru…
developed a new technique?” Geto murmured softly, his voice hoarse as if he had swallowed sand mixed with blood.
For a madman obsessed with the past, obsessed with that era when the two of them had been “the strongest,” the most painful thing was not defeat.
It was realizing that the back he had spent ten years chasing had, somewhere he could no longer see, quietly taken another huge step forward—while he, facing nothing more than a “knockoff,” could do nothing.
[Current time: 01:15.
Target: hold for another 18 minutes and 45 seconds.] “Are you angry, cult leader?” Makoto took another step forward, a faint red empty-shell special effect flickering around his fingertips.
“I understand, honestly.
After all, an ‘ape abandoned by the times’ doesn’t really have much left to do except howl among the wreckage of the old era.
Should I draw this part a little cooler later in the manga?
How about the title ‘The New Era Has No Ship for Me’?” “Shut up.” ‘Good, good.
This guy finally started using his brain.’ Watching Geto Suguru’s expression turn unreadable, his eyes deep enough to make it look like he wanted to dismantle Makoto into Gundam parts, the dark little villain inside Makoto’s heart had already started doing a wild dance on a wheelchair!
‘What am I most afraid of?
I’m afraid you’ll completely ignore sportsmanship, grab that ridiculously heavy three-section staff, rush in, swing six times in one second, and use your monstrous body and cursed energy to bully me with pure strength while playing Tokyo Running Man!
Once my three seconds of Limitless are gone, I’ll have to leave my final words through an automatic reply.’ But now, Geto Suguru had stopped.
The murderous intent in his eyes had been replaced by something deeper—wariness.
‘He’s analyzing his enemy’s consumption.
He’s deducing the blind spots of my technique.
He’s trying to find even the tiniest flaw in that grand spectacle of “reflecting Uzumaki” just now.’ ‘Yes.
That’s it.
Suguru, think.
Keep thinking.’ ‘Because the moment you start thinking, I start laughing.’ In this fraud game where life itself was the wager, once someone began analyzing a swindler while working from false basic information, they had already lost so badly they didn’t even have their underwear left.
‘Please, by all means, continue thinking, ‘Reverend’ Cult Leader.’