Cultists swarmed the outskirts of the evacuated village, but the "intel" Subaru provided—along with his ability to see the Unseen Hands—stripped the Fingers of their usual terror.
With Wilhelm slicing through flesh and false divinity like a localized storm, the threat felt manageable. Ferris wove between the few wounded soldiers, healing as fast as blades could tear, while Subaru moved through the chaos with purple cursed energy shrouding his arms.
Subaru buried a fist into a cultist's ribs, the impact launching the man like a ragdoll into a wooden fence.
"Oof... definitely not the main body..."
Subaru muttered, lowering his center of gravity and scanning the treeline.
A heavy explosion ripped through the far end of the village. Dozens of disfigured purple hands erupted into the sky, clawing at the air.
"——That way!"
Subaru barked, already sprinting. Wilhelm was a silver blur right on his heels.
They skidded into the village square only to find a cultist twitching unnaturally, his spine bent at a nauseating angle. That crooked, head-tilting posture was unmistakable.
Betelgeuse Romanee-Conti.
Even in a different vessel, the madness was identical. The broken laughter. The frantic, self-mutilating gestures.
"My brain... TREMBLES! TREMBLES, TREMBLEEES! You—!"
He bit into his own fingers, blood spraying over his chin as his eyes bulged.
"You thought crushing my head would end me?! FOOLISHNESS! Sloth! Yes...! That was SLOTHFUL! So very... very... VERYVERYVERY SLOTHFUL!"
"I've heard enough noise from you, Archbishop!" Wilhelm yelled as he rushed forth.
IIn an instant, a lattice of Unseen Hands surged to intercept him.
"Wilhelm, dead ahead!" Subaru shouted, acting as the old man's eyes alongside the scattered dust.
SWISH——!
Wilhelm didn't even look. His blade hummed, slicing through the air in a series of perfect arcs. Vertical. Diagonal. Horizontal. Each swing severed a spectral limb.
"No... nononononono—HOW?!"
Betelgeuse reeled in shock, his screeching voice hitting a glass-shattering register. He forced a massive purple hand to form from his chest, swinging it downward like a hammer.
Wilhelm lunged, shifting mid-air. He slipped through the narrow gap between the phantom fingers as they slammed into the dirt. Simultaneously, a strike lunged for Wilhelm's flank.
Subaru intercepted it, a cursed-energy-reinforced punch shattering the invisible arm like glass.
Wilhelm landed in a perfect crouch, his blade already humming. He pivoted, the steel catching the light for a fraction of a second.
The cut was deep and brutal. Blood sprayed in a wide fan, and this version of Betelgeuse collapsed, choking on his own blood and frantic devotion.
Subaru ran to Wilhelm's side, panting.
"How did you see that last one? I didn't even call it out!"
"I watched the displacement of the dust," Wilhelm said calmly, wiping his blade clean with a cloth. "The air tells a story if you know how to listen."
"Seriously badass…" Subaru muttered, shaking his head. Then his expression darkened.
"But what about his possession? Every time we kill him, he just hops into another cultist. Does he have a limit?"
Wilhelm didn't answer. His gaze snapped toward the shadows.
"Subaru. MOVE!"
A swarm of purple hands pulverized the earth where they had been standing a second prior. From the settling smoke, another cultist stumbled forward, his neck snapping into that familiar, horizontal tilt.
"You... YOUYOUYOU—!"
The new vessel dragged its feet, arms flailing.
"Where is GREED?! He was always so punctual! So diligent in his love—and yet he keeps me—WAITING?!"
Subaru tensed, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Wilhelm once more.
"So what's the plan, Sloth? We clear out every Finger until you run out of bodies to hide in?"
——————————————
Gojo was flung skyward, a bloodied silhouette against the gray sky.
BOOM—!
He slammed into the ravine wall, the stone groaning under the impact. Mid-spiral, his heel caught a jagged ledge, kicking up a spray of dust as he found his footing. He flicked a bloodied hand.
—Blue.
The technique howled into being. Its gravitational pull yanked his body sideways just as a blade of invisible stillness tore through the ledge he'd occupied a millisecond prior, slicing the air into a vacuum.
Gojo twisted mid-air, his feet surfing falling debris. His eyes locked downward.
Regulus stood untouched and unmoved—the still center of a collapsing world. The ravine groaned around them. Shattered stone floated in the air, suspended by the aftershocks of their clashing authorities. Smoke curled from the splintered walls, marking a war between monsters.
Gojo was heaving, his breath ragged. Blood spilled from wounds his Reverse Cursed Technique could barely keep up with. Regulus, by comparison, was utterly pristine.
But his calm had cracked. Just slightly. A frantic twitch pulled at the corner of his eye.
"Still dodging. Still dancing... how pathetic!!"
Gojo didn't answer; he couldn't. His right arm was a ruin of shredded muscle. His cursed energy worked overtime to re-stitch nerve and shattered bone. Every second was a miracle, and every second was a warning.
He watched. He waited.
BOOM—!!
Regulus vanished.
A swing of the Archbishop's arm sent a wave of stillness erupting, cutting through the cliff behind Gojo like an executioner's blade. Gojo twisted, his instincts screaming—but he was a fraction of a second too late.
"—Tch!"
His left arm was gone. Ripped clean off at the shoulder.
Then came the shockwave. Ribs shattered, and his lungs filled with the metallic taste of blood. He tumbled across the jagged debris, coughing crimson into the dirt.
SWOOSH—!!
Regulus was on him again. Gojo ducked low, the stillness shaving the air millimeters above his white hair—an absence of matter so sharp it burned.
He countered with a jab before pulling back—a perfectly timed feint. He followed through with a blistering roundhouse kick, fast enough to collapse the stone beneath them before it even connected.
The kick landed at full force.
"Black Flash—!"
Space cracked. Light imploded at the point of contact. The mathematical impossibility of the strike should have leveled a mountain. But Regulus didn't even blink.
"You're wasting your effort," Regulus said coldly, looking down at the leg pressed against his ribs. "To touch me is to prove only your own ignorance. You cannot comprehend what I am."
Gojo's bruised face twisted into a jagged, bloody grin. He spat a mouthful of red onto the ground.
"Mmmm? Is that so?" Gojo's voice was a rasping taunt. "Well, I still find it pretty funny watching those pathetic little swings of yours, so I don't really caaaare..."
Regulus's face turned a deep, insulted purple. He snarled in pure outrage.
———————————————
"GGRHHKK!!"
Subaru collapsed to his knees, his fingers digging into the frozen soil. His lungs seized, and his skull felt like it was being split by a thousand needles. Betelgeuse was writhing through his synapses—a manic, desperate virus.
Subaru gritted his teeth, the taste of copper filling his mouth. He forced the one thought he hated to the front of his mind. He felt an unnatural cold gnawing at his heart, scraping the edge of his soul.
"I… I can return by de—GRRHK!!"
His body locked. The Witch's shadow clamped down on his heart like a vice. Pain screamed through his nerves—a warning from the entity watching him. A few moments passed. The weight in his skull lightened. The crawling in his spine receded.
Silence. He was alone in his head again. Subaru pushed himself up on trembling legs.
"Whoo…"
Wilhelm approached, his blade chipped. "Are you alright, Subaru?"
"Yeah… Betelgeuse tried his possession trick. He's gone for good."
He looked over the village. It was a graveyard of splinters. As the soldiers realized the Archbishop was dead, a ragged cheer rose into the sky.
SWOOSH——!
A gust of wind cut through the noise. Subaru's head snapped toward it.
"Gojo-sen—sei...?"
Gojo stood there—barely. He was painted in blood from forehead to waist, his skin looking like cracked porcelain. "We won't be seeing Regulus for a while…"
His legs gave out and he slumped into a sitting position. "If that fight lasted any longer… I would've been totally screwed!"
There was no smirk. Just the raw honesty of a man pushed to his limit. Felix bolted over, ears flattened. "Nyaaa—! You look like you got dragged through a mountain! Sit still!"
"Well… I actually did, but that's besides the point." Gojo glanced at the blood on his fingers. "I'm pretty sure I lost about twenty-five limbs back there. He might have actually launched me into a different map."
Subaru knelt beside him. "But it's over, right?"
Gojo didn't answer. He stared at the grey sky, his brow furrowing. "…Snow? Why is it snowing?"
The temperature plummeted. Subaru's heart stopped. This wasn't weather; it was a funeral shroud.
A world without Lia is not a world I wish to live in.
"No… no, nono…" Subaru's voice broke. "This means that… Emilia is…"
Gojo forced himself up, his eyes turning to ice as Felix's healing took hold.
"Where were they headed? Tell me!"
"Toward the capital..." Felix whispered, shivering. "Near Flugel's Tree."
Gojo grabbed Subaru's hand. The world pulsed, space folding. When it cleared, they were at the base of the massive Flugel's Tree. Everything was frozen. A gale of snow whipped around them, burying cultists and children alike. Petra's glassy eyes stared into nothingness.
Two golden eyes gleamed through the mist. A colossal paw tore through the fog as the Beast of the End emerged.
"P-Puck…?" Subaru gasped, the air burning his lungs.
"Ah… you recognize me?" The voice was a tectonic rumble. "No matter. In accordance with my contract… I will end this world. Emilia died protecting the children. They were too numerous. Now, everything must go."
Gojo stepped forward, ruffling his white hair. "Bouncing from one final boss to the next, huh? Subaru, this is bad. I'm almost completely burnt out."
Ice spiraled up Gojo's legs around the Infinity. He didn't flinch.
"You should get out of here. He gives me a dangerous vibe."
As Subaru was locked in place by the frost, Gojo charged. His fist connected, shattering one of Puck's fangs, but the beast retaliated with a storm of house-sized ice crystals.
Gojo landed hard. He took a deep, steadying breath.
"——Falling Blossom Emotion!"
A shroud of cursed energy enveloped him. He sprinted up a jagged spire of ice, the cold biting through his bare feet. He was a blur against the white, closing the distance to the behemoth's head.
"Satoru Gojo... you truly are something impressive..." Puck rumbled.
The Honored One and the Beast of the End collided at the eye of the storm. The ice freezing Subaru's body had already reached his neck, passing his face toward his brain, and then——