Maximum Technique, Hidden Art

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Humans gave birth to curses.

Curses slaughtered humans.

Humans raised animals, ate them, and survived. At the root of it, that was instinct.

For cursed spirits, killing humans was the same.

Was this truly a divide between good and evil?

Or was it only a difference in where each side stood?

If curses represented evil, and Jujutsu High represented justice, then Itsuki Zenin was something else entirely.

He was an independent third faction, with himself as the absolute center.

For the sake of his goal, he would pay any price.

The instant Mahito completed his evolution, Itsuki acted without waiting another second.

And before Kenjaku could fully digest Mahito's technique, Itsuki returned to the role of spectator.

He floated high above the battlefield and calmly watched the performance below.

...

"Give Gojo-sensei back!"

The sorcerer in monk robes, with stitches carved across his forehead, matched Mechamaru's description.

He also matched the intelligence Mei Mei had sent back earlier.

The cursed object that had sealed Satoru Gojo was in that man's hands.

Yuji roared and charged at Kenjaku.

Kenjaku's expression remained calm. He gave a slight wave of his wide sleeve.

A shadow tore open a crack and shot beneath Yuji's feet.

An endless abyss without color appeared below him, so deep its bottom could not be seen.

Yuji twisted violently, then fell flat as if he had stepped into open air.

In Yuji's eyes, he was falling into a bottomless pit.

But the feedback from his body told him he had only hit the ground.

And from the perspective of Itsuki and Kenjaku, there was no abyss at all.

Yuji had simply tripped on level ground.

"Anyone outside the technique's range cannot see the infinite darkness underfoot."

"But the person caught inside it cannot shake the sensation of losing gravity."

Kenjaku walked toward Yuji step by step, a gentle smile on his face.

"The strongest part of Cursed Spirit Manipulation is not the sorcerer himself. It is the cursed spirits, whose number has no theoretical limit."

"Each cursed spirit can produce a different technique effect."

"You are no longer limited to a single innate technique, or a single domain."

Kenjaku stopped in front of Yuji and slowly raised his hand.

"With that many attack patterns, your opponent can never be certain what you are hiding."

It sounded like an explanation of his technique.

It also sounded like a pointed reminder to someone floating overhead.

Perhaps Kenjaku truly did possess one or two cursed spirits with strange techniques that could let him escape danger at any moment.

Just as Kenjaku had said, Yuji was only lying on the ground.

Yet with his sense of gravity completely stripped away, he felt as if he were still falling through empty space. He could not rise.

Against a special-grade cursed spirit like Mahito, Yuji could still fight back with Black Flash.

Against Kenjaku, he had no opening to counterattack at all.

Yuji barely managed to lift his arms in front of his head, desperately resisting the wave of cursed spirits pouring from Kenjaku's sleeve.

Boom!

Blood spilled from Yuji's mouth as a casual strike sent him flying more than ten meters.

He staggered back to his feet.

The impact had left him badly injured, but it had also knocked him out of the technique's immobilizing range.

Every inch of his tense body screamed.

His flesh, bones, and organs all cried out inside him, but Yuji ignored the pain.

He had failed to kill Mahito with his own hands.

He could not forget the slaughter Sukuna had caused with his body.

Taking Gojo-sensei back was the only belief left in his mind.

"Give! Him! Back!"

His bloodied roar tore through the street.

Yuji bent low and charged, face twisted with fury.

He circled around the strange technique spread across the ground and attacked Kenjaku from the side.

"How foolish."

Kenjaku shook his head coldly without even looking at Yuji.

Ten meters.

Seven.

Five.

Boom!

A wave of cursed spirits fell from the sky and smashed down.

Thousands upon thousands of centipede-like curses, each as thick as a python, coiled tightly around Yuji's body.

Strangled by the sensation of snakes constricting him, Yuji forced one savage step forward, only to collapse uselessly to the ground again.

It was the same bizarre technique as before.

A bottomless abyss only he could see.

With gravity stolen from him, Yuji could only lie there, staring up with fury at the figure approaching him.

"Letting anger devour your reason, knowing only how to charge forward..."

Kenjaku walked back to Yuji with effortless calm.

"Have you grown at all over the years?"

He had countless chances to kill Yuji, yet Kenjaku only nagged at him like an impatient mother.

His strikes looked ruthless, but none of them damaged Yuji's vitals.

Was that because of Sukuna inside him?

Or was there another reason?

High above them, Itsuki watched in silence.

Only a few minutes remained until Kenjaku finished digesting Mahito's soul and activated the upgraded Idle Transfiguration.

That was the information the Rinnegan gave Itsuki.

...

A Maximum Technique was the strongest attack a cursed technique could produce beneath the level of Domain Expansion.

Jogo's Maximum: Meteor had been one example.

Because Jogo had no confidence in clashing domains with Itsuki, he had used Maximum: Meteor as the final work of his life.

Maximum: Uzumaki, used by Suguru Geto in life, was the same.

It was Cursed Spirit Manipulation pushed to its limit.

But Suguru Geto had never realized the truth while he was alive.

His Maximum Technique was not only a compressed attack formed by condensing all his cursed spirits into dense cursed energy.

The most crucial ability was technique extraction.

That hidden function was the real core of Maximum: Uzumaki.

It was the secret art even Geto had never understood.

When used on a cursed spirit of semi-Grade 1 or above, technique extraction allowed the user to activate that cursed spirit's technique once.

Not permanently.

Only once.

Kenjaku had discovered that divine function after possessing Geto's body for a little over a month.

Yuji's face was covered in blood, with wounds from his fight against Mahito still carved across his skin.

Through the thick drops running down from his forehead, he noticed the long vertical spatial crack behind Kenjaku.

Inside the black abyss, a huge blood-red rose glowed faintly.

Itsuki was not the only one waiting.

Kenjaku was waiting for Idle Transfiguration to activate as well.

"Sukuna, are you watching?"

Kenjaku spread both hands and smiled toward the King of Curses inside Yuji.

"The golden age of jujutsu is about to descend."

"Soon, you will meet your old friends from a thousand years ago."

The reminder carried a hidden implication.

As Kenjaku spoke, his gaze flicked upward.

"Convergence: Piercing Blood!"

"Guren!"

"Tool Manipulation: Scythe Severance!"

A blood arrow and a bullet attacked from both sides, while a blade of cursed wind fell from above.

Facing a three-pronged assault powerful enough to kill a Grade 1 cursed spirit, Kenjaku merely waved his sleeve.

All three attacks veered strangely off course and slammed into the distance.

Rubble burst across the ground.

Behind Kenjaku, a sword rang out.

"New Shadow Style: Batto Sword Drawing!"

Kasumi Miwa was only a Grade 3 sorcerer, and she had no innate technique of her own.

To avoid dying on missions, she trained her swordsmanship and the New Shadow Style's Simple Domain every day.

Facing a special-grade opponent far beyond her, with only close-range attacks available to her, she chose to stake her life.

Crack.

Miwa froze where she stood as Kenjaku casually crushed her katana between two fingers.

The blood-red flower behind him revealed its full shape inside the crack, spinning as it flashed.

Mahito's Idle Transfiguration had been successfully extracted.

Kenjaku looked down coldly at the long-haired girl before him.

He did not have the same patience for Miwa that he had shown Yuji.

Cursed energy dense enough to pierce a special-grade body gathered and shot straight toward Miwa's heart.

Clap!

A crisp clap rang out at the critical moment.

Only a huge crater remained beneath Kenjaku's attack, while Miwa appeared behind the others.

Boogie Woogie.

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