The AA-Class dual katana wielder, Todo, versus the S-Class Seven-Star Adventurer, Itadori—bare-handed. It was an absolutely disrespectful act, a dismissal so complete it hung in the arena air like a silent insult.
Itadori stood casually, face-to-face with the taller, armored Todo. Despite the height difference, it was Itadori who seemed to loom, his relaxed posture somehow more imposing than any battle stance.
Itadori: Not going to make the first move?
The words were light, almost bored. As he spoke, he took three languid steps backward, the soles of his boots whispering against the sandy arena floor. Then he stopped, spread his arms wide in an open, taunting gesture, palms facing the sky.
Itadori: Come on, then.
In the balcony above, Shiro, Akari, and the Guild Master watched intently.
Akari: That's a whole new level of disrespect. Going bare-handed against a dual wielder.
Shiro leaned forward, his elbows on the railing, eyes narrowed in focus.
Shiro: How is he going to fight bare-handed?
Akari didn't look away from the arena, a confident smirk on her lips.
Akari: Ask that after the fight's over. Just watch.
She said it as if this were a standard S-Class lesson. Then she glanced at Shiro, her expression shifting to a playful, childish grin.
Akari: Well, you're a genius, right? You'll probably figure it out halfway through anyway.
Shiro: Hmm. Okay then.
The Guild Master stroked his beard, his face a mask of resigned acceptance. A life is always at risk in these examinations, he thought. Death is something we cannot prevent, only manage. But a flicker of anxiety crossed his features. ...But surely he won't kill him? This is still a mock battle. A death here would be a political nightmare.
Back in the arena, Todo's knuckles were white on his hilts. With a sharp, metallic hiss, he drew the katana from his left scabbard with his right hand, leaving its twin hanging at his hip. He took a deep, stabilizing breath, his armored chest plate rising and falling.
He exploded forward, a repeat of his initial charge—a burst of speed that blurred his form, closing the distance in a heartbeat before unleashing a brutal, overhead downward slash aimed to cleave Itadori from shoulder to hip. The blade shrieked through the air, striking the ground with a thunderous CRACK that split the earth in a jagged line. But the impact felt wrong. Todo's arms jarred painfully as his blade met only dirt. An invisible, concussive force slammed into his chest plate, not cutting, but pushing, throwing him back several feet to skid across the ground.
As the dust settled, Itadori hadn't moved from his spot. He was stretching his right arm across his chest, rolling his shoulder. He finished with a wide, unforced yawn.
Todo pushed himself up, fury burning through the humiliation.
Todo: I came here to measure my talent against an S-Class... but I've changed my mind. This is just an insult.
Itadori said nothing. His silence was a heavier weapon than any taunt—a pure, unspoken declaration of his superiority.
Todo: I'm not leaving this arena until I see your blood!
Spittle flew from his mouth as he roared. He grabbed his second katana, the twin blades gleaming. He crossed them before his chest in an X-formation, the metal singing as it touched.
Todo: Gravity.
He spoke the word like a command, the rest of the incantation a rapid, guttural mutter. The air around Itadori warped. Four invisible, concentric rings of crushing force erupted from the ground beneath his feet, not attacking from the sides, but launching him straight up as if the earth itself had rejected him. Itadori didn't resist, didn't brace—he just rode the force upward, a passive passenger. As he reached the apex and began to fall, Todo stomped his foot. The cracked arena floor erupted, not with spikes, but with a forest of jagged, spear-like stone pillars, their points aiming skyward to impale the falling man.
Spectator 1: He's falling right into them!
Spectator 2: He's dead!
As he plummeted, Itadori's head turned. His eyes found Shiro's in the balcony. He gave a deliberate, sideways smile and a slight, almost imperceptible nod. Watch this.
Akari didn't blink. The Guild Master held his breath.
A meter from being skewered, Itadori simply snapped his fingers.
SNAP.
The sound was crisp, final. Not a flash of light, but a billowing cloud of grey dust that bloomed from his position, engulfing the stone forest. When it dissipated a second later, the stone spears were gone, pulverized into harmless sand. Itadori stood calmly in the center of a smooth, shallow crater, brushing a speck of dust from his sleeve.
Enraged, Todo became a whirlwind. He lunged, slashed, hacked—a flurry of silver arcs aimed at necks, limbs, torso. Itadori didn't block. He simply… wasn't there. He leaned back, letting a horizontal cut pass millimeters from his throat. He sidestepped a lunge, the blade missing his side by a hair's breadth. He swayed, twisted, and bent around every attack with impossible, effortless grace, as if dancing to a song only he could hear. Then he stopped moving.
Itadori: Let's get real.
He vanished. There was no blur, no afterimage. One moment he was five paces away, the next he was inside Todo's guard, his right fist buried in the adventurer's armored stomach.
THOOM.
The impact wasn't a punch; it was a localized explosion. The ornate silver chest plate didn't just crack—it disintegrated into a cloud of metallic shards. Todo's breath left him in a silent gasp as he was launched backward like a cannonball, sailing across the arena to smash back-first into the reinforced stone wall. The impact spider-webbed the masonry with fissures a foot deep. He slumped to the ground, armor in pieces around him.
Itadori: Wow. You are weak.
The words were soft, almost pitying. In that moment of agonizing impact, the true, yawning chasm between AA and S was carved into Todo's soul. It wasn't a difference in degree. It was a difference in kind.
Groaning, Todo pushed himself up on trembling arms. He looked down at the ruins of his chest plate. This alloy… it withstood a direct charge from a Granite-Tusked Boar… and he shattered it with his fist?
His eyes, wide with desperation, darted to his katanas, still lying where he'd dropped them. Instead of picking them up, he stumbled over, gripped the hilts, and with a roar of effort, drove both blades deep into the arena floor until only the hilts and a third of the blades were visible. The crowd murmured in confusion.
Spectator 3: What is he doing? Surrendering?
Spectator 4: No… that's a seal! He's anchoring his Art!
In the balcony, Akari leaned so close to Shiro her whisper was a breath in his ear.
Akari: Now, Haku. Watch. This is him pouring every drop of mana he has left. His maximum output.
The air around Todo began to thicken. It grew heavy, viscous. The fine sand on the arena floor started to tremble and rise against gravity. Todo's veins stood out on his neck and temples. He glared at Itadori, who watched with mild curiosity.
Todo: MAXIMUM ART…
The ground within a ten-meter radius of his katanas fractured violently, chunks of stone tearing free and hovering in the air before suddenly freezing in place, held by his will.
Todo: …THE KEYSTONE FIELD.
He raised his right hand, fingers splayed, pointing directly at Itadori. His whole arm trembled with strain.
Todo: DOWN.
He slashed his hand downward. The space Itadori occupied collapsed. It wasn't an attack from above; the very gravity in that cubic area multiplied a hundredfold in an instant, crushing downward with the force of a falling mountain. Itadori, however, was already a blur of motion, having pushed off the very air to leap sideways just as the invisible force smashed his previous location into a compact, concave pit.
Before Itadori could land, Todo's hand shot up, palm open.
Todo: UP.
The gravitational polarity inverted. Itadori's upward momentum didn't just stop; it reversed violently, yanking him toward the ceiling as if hooked by a sky-bound titan. As he was hauled upward, Todo, sweat pouring down his face, brought both hands together, palms facing the floating debris. He made a slow, grinding motion as if molding clay.
Every piece of shattered arena stone—from pebbles to boulders—shot toward the helplessly ascending Itadori from all directions, converging on him in a crushing sphere of rock.
Todo: (Gasping) You should… have drawn… your katana… Lord Itadori!
He clenched his fists. The sphere of rock contracted with a deafening CRUNCH, compacting into a dense, rocky tomb in mid-air.
Silence.
Then, a soft tap. A crack appeared on the surface of the rocky sphere. Then another. Then it silently exploded outward, not with violence, but as if it were a sandcastle disintegrating in a breeze. Itadori drifted down through the shower of harmless gravel, landing softly, without a single scratch or speck of dust on his clothes.
Itadori: Is this your maximum Art? Not bad. For an AA-Class.
He began to walk. Each step was slow, deliberate. As he did, the crushing, oppressive gravity field Todo had poured his soul into maintaining… simply snapped. It was replaced by something else—a chilling, palpable intent. It wasn't a physical pressure; it was the feeling of being stared at by a predator from the top of the food chain. The arena's air grew cold.
Itadori: If that's all you've got, I'm sorry. This ends now. You're a thousand years too early to fight me as an equal.
Todo was paralyzed, not by magic, but by primal terror. As Itadori advanced, he frantically gestured, trying to summon weaker gravity wells, to push, to pull—but the forces scattered harmlessly around Itadori like water around a stone.
Desperate, Todo scrambled on hands and knees toward his embedded katanas. His fingers were inches from the hilt when Itadori was just… there. Not having moved, but simply present, his fist already pulled back for the same devastating gut punch.
With a final scream, Todo abandoned the draw and instead swung the still-embedded katana in a wild, upward arc. The blade passed through empty air. Itadori was gone.
A voice spoke from directly behind Todo's ear.
Itadori: A thousand years too early.
Todo felt a gentle touch, a finger shaped like a gun, pressed lightly against the back of his helmet, twenty centimeters from his skull.
Click.
Itadori mimed pulling a trigger.
Todo's reinforced steel helmet didn't just break—it atomized into a cloud of fine metallic dust. The psychic grip on the floating rocks vanished, and they pattered to the ground like harmless rain. Todo's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed face-first into the dirt, unconscious.
The fight was over. The silence in the stadium was absolute, broken only by the gentle plink of falling pebbles.
Guild medics rushed into the arena, carefully rolling Todo onto a stretcher and hurrying him away.
Akari: Did you see?
Shiro slowly let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. His hands were clenched tight on the railing.
Shiro: I could barely follow the AA-Class's moves. That last attack… all I saw was a flash, and then he was on the ground.
Akari: Figures. This is why they say only an S-Class can truly test another S-Class.
They both stood up, the movement breaking the spell of the battle.
Guild Master: Leaving so soon? The show is just getting interesting!
Akari: Yes. I don't mind staying, but Haku has to be at the academy tomorrow. Can't have him sleeping through Professor Kareth's lectures again.
Guild Master: Ah, of course! An academy student. Shikai Academy, I presume?
Akari smiled, a hint of pride in her eyes.
Akari: The very same. Now, if you'll excuse us.
As they turned to leave, a voice, smooth and clear, echoed up from the empty arena floor.
Itadori: That wasn't much of a fight, was it? Not even enough to raised my pulse. What about you, Asahina's little brother? Learn anything?
Itadori was strolling casually toward his discarded katana. He bent, picked it up, and slid it into its sheath with a soft click. He then turned his gaze up to the balcony, his eyes settling on Akari.
Itadori: As his big sister, you have a duty to educate him, don't you think, Lady Asahina? To show him the heights he should aspire to?
He paused, closing his eyes as if in deep thought. A moment later, they snapped open, and he smiled. He raised his hand, not in a weapon, but in a formal, pointed gesture of challenge directly at Akari.
Itadori: Well then, let's make this educational. You know the old saying: 'Only an S-Class can rival an S-Class.' So, for your brother's curriculum…
His smile widened, sharp and thrilling.
Itadori: I formally request a duel between two S-Class adventurers. No holds barred. Right here, right now.