Boom!
A crimson flash of light flared.
At this distance, Sukuna didn't even have time to finish chanting his Cursed Speech before Red struck him squarely in the face at point-blank range.
The amusement on the King of Curses' face disappeared. With a deafening roar, his body broke free from between Satoru's legs and was sent flying backward, crashing into his own Malevolent Shrine.
The violent impact shook the entire domain as if it might tear the whole thing apart.
"This guy..." Sukuna placed one hand against the side of the shrine to steady himself instead of falling to the ground. Even so, he ended up sitting there in a slumped position.
When he raised his head again, his Reverse Cursed Technique was already working to heal him, but most of his face was still a bloody mess from the attack.
He bared his teeth. The calm and carefree attitude from before was gone. Instead, he looked like a beast that had been completely enraged. The killing intent pouring from him was so intense that it seemed capable of passing through the eyes of the crows and reaching everyone in the viewing room.
Satoru, meanwhile, had already taken advantage of the brief opening to teleport out of the range of Malevolent Shrine.
He reached up and rubbed the back of his head. His white hair danced wildly in the wind while white smoke continuously drifted from his body as the Reverse Cursed Technique repaired his injuries.
One was standing while the other was sitting. The difference in their positions gave the former a slight advantage in height, making it seem as though he was looking down at Sukuna.
Satoru's tone was still full of mockery. "How should I put it... Ah~ how boring~"
* * *
"That's Gojo-sensei for you! His technique recovered way too quickly. This really is the strongest sorcerer of the modern era!"
Yuji's worries finally disappeared. He couldn't help raising his arm and almost wanted to hug the screen and cheer.
"It's not that it recovered quickly. It's that it was repaired quickly."
Without any intention to dampen their mood, Shoko lit a cigarette at some point.
A thin stream of smoke escaped through her red lips as her perpetually dark-circled eyes remained fixed on the screen while she explained it to the students.
"Huh? What does repaired mean?"
The students at Jujutsu High all looked confused.
"I see. Then Satoru Gojo really did something extremely dangerous." Angel suddenly spoke from the side of Hana's face.
In reality, cursed technique burnout was much like a machine overheating after operating at an extremely high level. It needed time to cool down because continuing to run it could potentially cause the machine to blow its engine.
Essentially, this was a kind of protective mechanism built into the cursed technique itself, and no one had ever questioned it.
Yet Satoru was the first person to break that rule.
The use of a cursed technique was closely connected to a certain part of the brain. That part was essentially the machine itself. When the technique burned out, that was the part that needed time to cool down.
What Satoru had done was to forcefully use Reverse Cursed Technique to repair the burned-out cursed technique.
"Use Reverse Cursed Technique to... repair a burned-out technique?! Wait, wait, wait! Is that even something a human can do?!"
Kusakabe's entire worldview was overturned once again.
He did not have a technique. Because of that, however, as the oldest teacher at Kyoto Jujutsu High besides the principal, he understood this better than most.
It was like a machine that had merely overheated without actually being damaged. Even if you sent it to be repaired, nothing would change because the only thing it ultimately needed was time to cool down.
"My guess is that he first destroys the part of his brain responsible for using the technique, then immediately repairs it while it's being destroyed?"
In the viewing room, Higuruma, dressed in his suit, pressed two fingers beneath his lips as he offered his opinion.
If the machine could not undergo the process of "repair" because it was not actually damaged, then the solution was simple. Just damage it first.
However, that was only an ideal solution in theory.
The machine had to be used immediately, and if you operated it this way, the parts needed to repair the machine were already inside the machine itself. In other words, there was a very high chance that the machine could be completely ruined.
"So that means... Gojo-sensei is destroying his own brain and then using Reverse Cursed Technique at the same time to heal it..."
Everyone at Jujutsu High fell silent.
The importance of the brain went without saying. Although there had always been a theory that cursed techniques were engraved within it, no one had ever dared to try something like this.
Because making the slightest mistake could mean death.
"But you don't have to worry. Gojo has been using Reverse Cursed Technique to heal his brain and maintain Limitless since he was a student at Jujutsu High, so it shouldn't be a big problem," Shoko tried to reassure them.
Still, she herself felt uneasy inside.
Limitless operated around the clock, while the Six Eyes placed a huge burden on the brain and caused Satoru's brain to suffer damage over time. But could that level of damage really be compared to what he was doing now, deliberately destroying his own brain?
The teachers remained silent while the students stared intently at the screen.
* * *
By now, Sukuna had already stood up. The half of his face that had been blown apart by Red had also been restored by Reverse Cursed Technique.
"How about it~? Can you still expand the range of your domain?" Satoru spoke as he pointed toward the ground beneath his feet.
Less than half a meter ahead of him was the boundary of Sukuna's domain, Malevolent Shrine.
The drawback of an open domain was completely exposed at this moment.
* * *
"Right! Sukuna's domain doesn't have a closed barrier, so there's no way it can trap Gojo-sensei!"
Yuji's thoughts in the viewing room were much simpler. "As long as Sensei doesn't go inside, Sukuna has no way to hit him. He'll just keep wasting his cursed energy."
It was a very idealistic way of looking at things, and the others neither agreed nor disagreed.
After all, logically speaking, it was indeed true.
They did not know what had happened inside Unlimited Void just now, but judging from the result, Satoru had temporarily fallen behind during the domain clash. Therefore, avoiding another domain clash was indeed a very sound strategy.
Moreover, Satoru could attack from outside Sukuna's domain with Blue or Red. Even if Sukuna could expand his domain further, there was no way he could expand it faster than Satoru could move.
Maintaining a Domain Expansion also consumed an enormous amount of cursed energy. Even with Yuta's body, Sukuna absolutely could not keep doing this forever.
And if he chose to leave the domain, he would inevitably enter his technique burnout period.
Thinking about it this way, they had actually gained the advantage.
Satoru could win!
This thought began to appear in the minds of most people.
* * *
"Want to give it a try?"
On the battlefield, Sukuna responded to Satoru's curiosity with a bold smile as he formed a hand sign.
"Of course!"
The action of the latter, however, was beyond the expectations of almost everyone in the viewing room.
He could clearly avoid Sukuna's attack and wait for an opening, yet at the very moment Sukuna formed his hand sign, Satoru once again raised his hands and formed the hand sign for Taishakuten.
A long-awaited powerful opponent. And as an enemy, someone capable of allowing Satoru to display the greatest extent of everything he had.
There were only three people in the entire jujutsu world who could stand at the very top. No matter how familiar or close the others were to them, how could they possibly understand the loneliness of those who walked the path of the strongest?
A smile still lingered at the corners of Satoru's mouth.
"Domain Expansion."
The clash between the strongest began once again.
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