Why hadn’t the slashes, amplified by four hand signs, cut Sukuna to pieces?
There were three reasons.
One: distance.
Sukuna had been lurking in the outer layer of the magma sphere, relying on Jogo’s Ember Insects to hold open a safe pocket and conserve his cursed energy.
He was nearly 180 meters from the epicenter, and the slashes had to tear through the magma before they reached him.
Two: Domain Amplification.
The technique wasn’t that hard to understand, especially if you used Domain Expansion as a comparison.
A Domain Expansion has three core elements: the barrier, the Innate Domain, and the cursed technique.
The barrier is the bucket.
The Innate Domain is the clean water poured into it.
The cursed technique is the dye that colors the water.
Domain Amplification uses the Innate Domain on its own.
The clean water washes out and neutralizes the opponent’s dye, blunting the lethal effect of an enemy’s technique to a certain degree.
Three: Sukuna himself.
A sorcerer’s own cursed energy and technique do far less damage to themselves.
That had been proven during the Shinjuku Showdown—when Satoru Gojo fired an unrestricted Hollow Purple without specifying a target and caught himself in the blast.
Sukuna had confirmed it again earlier, when his own legs were cut off!!
The only real difference between him and [Sukuna] was their consciousness.
In cursed energy, cursed technique, and every other Jujutsu mechanic, they were the same person.
Thanks to those three factors, Sukuna was covered in a dense web of gruesome cuts but still in one piece.
And now—
Seizing the tiny opening right after [Sukuna]’s massive burst of output, Sukuna made his move!!
“WHOOSH!”
He had never desired a rematch with himself—Kaito was his top priority!
Fresh gashes tore open across his body as a wave of slashes appeared out of thin air.
Sukuna concentrated his cursed energy around his vital organs.
For everything else, he trusted Domain Amplification and his natural resistance to his own cursed energy to keep him from being sliced apart.
In less than a blink, the blood spraying from his wounds was baked dry by the scorching magma!
Sukuna crashed down hard into the magma below.
His body was riddled with cuts and his legs were charred black—yet the pain didn’t seem to register at all.
He raised his right hand and laughed like a madman.
“THE WINNER IS DECIDED! KAITO, I DON’T THINK I’LL FORGET YOU AS LONG AS I LIVE!”
Clutched in his palm was the tiny Suku-Blob vessel carrying the time traveler’s soul!—Sukuna literally held the future in the palm of his hand!
In other words, Sukuna was the undisputed winner!!
Given how bizarre the situation was, even Sukuna didn’t know what would happen once he ate the Suku-Blob.
Maybe he’d absorb him outright, gaining a sliver of cursed energy and a mountain of intel.
Maybe Kaito’s consciousness wouldn’t fade, and they’d be cellmates fighting forever inside his Innate Domain.
Or maybe Kaito would flip the script and overpower his consciousness entirely.
Sukuna was buzzing with anticipation.
Not even a thousand years ago had he felt a high this feverish!
“Keep struggling! Show me how far you can go!” Sukuna swallowed the Suku-Blob in one gulp and waited.
“Pfft…” A barely stifled snicker leaked out, then burst into open, mocking laughter. New chapters come out on g.com first.
“Hahahaha! You bought it! You really thought that was me?? You fell for it, Sukuna! That was my escape hatch all along!!”
“NANII??” Sukuna’s head jerked up.
Only to see his fake counterpart raising his hand again…
“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!”
With a deafening bang, the magma sphere blew open, and Sukuna was launched out like a cannonball!
A split second later, an identical figure rocketed out after him!
Mid-air, hurtling at breakneck speed, Sukuna twisted around to look up at the fake.
More precisely, at [Sukuna]’s stomach.
Where Kaito had been hanging like a tumor, there was now only smooth skin.
He’d definitely plucked him off and swallowed him.
So why hadn’t anything changed?
Why could this fake still move?
And why was Kaito’s mocking laughter coming from the fake?
[Sukuna] didn’t overthink it.
His programming was simple: destroy any threat nearby.
Slashes rained down!
“WHOOSH!”
“WHOOSH!”
Even without triple hand-sign amplification, the output from [Sukuna]’s fifteen fingers of cursed energy left a seven-finger Sukuna in the dust!
Sukuna plummeted at terminal velocity and smashed straight through a ruined building!
At the bottom of the crater beneath the old structure, Sukuna quietly used Reverse Cursed Technique to heal his shattered hands.
The fake Sukuna touched down lightly nearby.
“Stand proud. You are strong.” Kaito’s supremely punchable voice came from [Sukuna] again.
“Never thought the King of Curses would swallow his pride and team up with a cursed spirit. And you two had decent synergy, too. You almost had me.”
A single fleshy tentacle wriggled out of [Sukuna]’s eye socket.
Crammed onto it were one eye and one mouth.
This was the tentacle Kaito had left inside [Sukuna] to anchor himself and keep forcing [Fraud Itadori] to hand over control of the body!
Kaito felt a rush of adrenaline and glee.
Drawing on the Suku-Blob vessel’s inherited experience of moving one’s cursed energy and soul into a severed body part, he had transferred his entire being into this tiny tentacle!
What Sukuna had swallowed was a discarded chunk of rotting meat!
The Suku-Blob had become the Suku-Tentacle!
Kaito activated Reverse Cursed Technique, and the Suku-Tentacle regrew its mass, morphing back into the Suku-Blob!
He clung to [Sukuna]’s forehead, flattening himself out like a Hidden Leaf headband.
“You were magnificent, Sukuna. I won’t forget you… for at least a week.”
“Now go back into Itadori’s body, and I’ll spare your life!”
Kaito was firing off meme quotes back to back.
Unfortunately, the 15-finger [Sukuna] didn’t care about the bit.
They brawled from the ruined building all the way out to the scorched wasteland.
The magma had already scoured this area clean.
The rustic old houses and stone paths had been swept away, leaving nothing but a messy black crater.
Sukuna skidded backward, his feet carving two deep trenches in the scorched earth.
He wiped a hand across his neck, sealing a deep gash.
“Heh… You bastard piece of meat. You’ll spare my life?” Sukuna pressed his palms together in the Enmaten sign.
“The real fight’s just getting started.”
Kaito spread two tentacles wide, as if embracing the whole world with wild arrogance.
“Is that right? I guess so. I GUESS IT IS!!!”
Six tentacles wove together into a triple Enmaten sign!
The 15-finger [Sukuna] raised his hands to form the sign as well!
Three voices rang out in perfect sync!
Sukuna: “Domain Expansion…”
Kaito: “Domain Expansion…”
[Sukuna]: “Domain Expansion…”
“[Malevolent Shrine!!!]” x3!!
Two towering shrines built from thousands of grisly bones rose up behind Sukuna and [Sukuna]!
And one miniature shrine, scaled down hundreds of times in perfect proportion, landed right on Kaito’s head.
Kaito didn’t deploy his embarrassingly tiny 50-centimeter Domain on its own.
Using his link with [Sukuna], he amplified his own Domain and merged it straight into [Sukuna]’s Domain Expansion!
The combined Domain of a 15-finger [Sukuna] and the Suku-Blob should have crushed a Sukuna running on seven fingers of cursed energy…
…Should have, anyway.
Kaito’s single eye bulged.
“You opened a closed-barrier Domain??”
Sukuna didn’t answer.
‘About… thirty seconds,’ he calculated.
While holding his Domain Expansion, he wrapped himself in Domain Amplification at the same time and charged straight at [Sukuna] and Kaito!
By giving up the huge range of an open-barrier Domain, he had massively boosted his Domain’s clash resistance, making sure their combined Domain wouldn’t crush him on contact!
As for how an open-barrier Domain could hammer away at the fragile shell of a closed-barrier Domain from outside… Sukuna knew that better than anyone.
So he inverted the internal and external resistance of his barrier shell, making it tough against attacks from outside!
And finally…
Sukuna shrank the shell itself.
In the original story, Satoru Gojo could shrink his Domain to the size of a basketball because he’d been sealed inside the Prison Realm.
And hadn’t Sukuna also spent time sealed away…
Outside the Domain, the scorched earth was being ground to dust by an endless storm of slashes.
Yet at the very center, one thing held firm: a pitch-black barrier sphere no bigger than a finger.
~ Don’t forget your stones 🙂
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Hunter x Hunter: Starting as the Number One Player