Jujutsu Kaisen: Nozomi no Sora

On Toudou Aoi's face, so close to his, hung an almost fanatical anticipation; her eyes shone frighteningly bright in the night.

Tell me—what kind of woman do you like?

Xuan Yi's throat bobbed.

Of course he knew what the standard answer was. If he said the words "Kotakada" at this moment, Toudou Aoi would most likely burst into tears on the spot, regard him as a lifelong friend, and follow him wherever he went, even guarding him outside the toilet door—just like he did for Itadori Hisahito.

But the thought of that future sends chills down your spine.

"Huh? Why are you suddenly asking about this..." Xuan Yi feigned hesitation, averting his gaze and blushing slightly, as if caught off guard by this unexpected personal question. "Well... if I had to say, I prefer something more powerful! Something stronger!"

He deliberately lowered his voice to make it somewhat indistinct, as if he were a young man experiencing his first love being forced to reveal his innermost feelings.

The air was silent for two seconds.

Higashido Aoi tilted his head, his bulging muscles glistening in the night breeze, as if he were carefully savoring every syllable of the answer.

"Although that's a rather broad answer," he said slowly, a smile involuntarily creeping onto his lips, "knowing what kind of woman you like is far better than those boring guys!"

"I acknowledge you, Genichi Nishio! Now, we're allies!"

Xuan Yi breathed a sigh of relief.

Great, not "best friends"! There is a fundamental and huge difference between the two, which is related to the degree of happiness in their future lives.

He subconsciously glanced at Nishimiya Momo not far away.

The little witch was hovering above the broom, looking them up and down with the gaze one would give an alien creature, her expression a mixture of confusion, surprise, and some indescribable disdain.

Xuan Yi awkwardly looked away and shook his head slightly in place.

Sorry, Toudou! Although I was just talking nonsense, please don't cling to me like you cling to Katsushika in the future!

Please, please!

However, this brief moment of relaxation lasted for less than a breath.

In the distance, the crisp sound of ice crystals shattering suddenly exploded.

The frost and mist were dispersed by a violent spell, and Rime's figure slowly emerged from the broken ice shards.

A hideous bloodstain appeared on his forehead, and dark red liquid slid down his brow bone, leaving a glaring trail on his paper-white face.

"To be hit by a spell like yours and still walk out like nothing happened," Toudou Aoi's smile faded slightly. "Was it a reversal spell?"

He took half a step forward, subtly shielding Xuan Yi behind him.

"Hey! You curse caster over there! State your name!"

Rime raised his hand and wiped the blood from his forehead with his thumb. His movements were slow, with a condescending elegance, as if the blow that had just struck an ordinary person into mincemeat was nothing more than a sting from a flying insect.

"You lowlifes." He raised his eyes, his icy blue pupils churning with undisguised disgust. "You have no right to know."

Before he finished speaking, he spread his arms wide, ready to slam them down on the ground—

"Snapped!"

The crisp sound of clapping echoed through the cold night.

Rime froze.

His entire position was absurdly displaced in an instant.

"What?!"

A daze, a shock, followed by a furious outburst of feeling mocked.

Higashido Aoi's technique – "Unjust Game".

Using clapping as a medium, the spatial positions of two objects possessing magical power are forcibly swapped. No complicated hand seals or prerequisites are required; a single crisp sound is enough to tip the scales of the battlefield in an instant.

Higashido Aoi grinned maliciously, his bare upper body muscles clenched, and his fist aimed straight for Rime's waist!

In a hurry, Rime could only build an ice shield to his side. However, the moment his powerful punch, imbued with cursed energy, struck the ice, cracks spread wildly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The impact penetrated her body, and Rimei let out a muffled groan as her body was thrown out like a kite with a broken string.

In the direction he flew off to, another petite figure had been waiting in the air for a long time.

"Tsukumogami Technique - 'Kama-i-dan'!"

Nishimiya Momo swooped down on her broom, slashing towards Rimei with a storm of sand and dust!

Rimei steadied herself, neither dodging nor avoiding, but simply raised her hand to block.

"Damn it! Blocking it with his bare hands is so discouraging!"

Rime's eyes were icy as she raised her finger at Nishimiya Momo, and a sharp ice spike shot out.

Snapped!

The two sides have changed direction again!

Snapped!

Xuan Yiqi entered the battlefield.

Taking advantage of the gap created by Toudou Aoi, the black scythe in her hand, wrapped with cursed power that had not yet fully recovered, slashed diagonally upwards at the moment when Rime lost control!

Rime's pupils contracted sharply. She twisted her body forcefully in mid-air, barely avoiding the blow that could cut through steel. A few strands of her hair were cut off and floated down.

"hateful!"

Rime gritted her teeth, her hands suddenly opening wide, icy blue magical power frantically gathering in her palms. Since she couldn't target a specific enemy, she'd use one with a wider range—

"Ice Freezing Spell—"

Snapped!

It was that damn clapping again!

Xuan Yi's figure vanished abruptly. In his place appeared before Ri Mei a heavy, hammer-like fist and Toudou Aoi's arrogant, smiling face.

boom! !

The punch landed squarely on Rime's face, contorting his features. Rime's body flew backward, the spray of blood from his mouth arcing through the air.

Snapped!Snapped!Snapped!

The sound of clapping echoed continuously in the air.

In order to match the chaotic yet extremely oppressive close-range attack rhythm of Dongtang Kui, Xuan Yi simply withdrew the curse power from the scythe, turning the giant black scythe back into a pendant. He then poured all the curse power into his legs and fists, and together with Dongtang Kui, launched wave after wave of fierce attacks on the enemy in front of them.

Unpredictable! Unable to retaliate!

He was like someone thrown into a runaway blender, forced to passively endure the impacts from all sides.

At this moment, the people inside the barrier appeared one after another. As the last "tent" disappeared, the huge black curtain that shrouded the 2.5-kilometer radius around Kyoto College also collapsed.

They watched the fierce battle not far away, which was almost a one-sided brawl, and their expressions varied.

"What's going on?"

The songstress's gaze swept across the ravaged battlefield and landed on the chaotic melee, which was almost a one-sided rout.

"It seems to be a curse master guarding the barrier," Nishimiya Momo landed on her broom.

"Hey! Instead of worrying about those two's fight," Zenin Mai's voice suddenly broke in, trembling almost imperceptibly. She pointed to the end of the street, her face pale under the streetlights, "why don't you look over there, Songstress!"

Everyone looked in the direction of the sound.

At the street corner, a dark mass of people surged like a tide, chanting a uniform and chilling incantation.

"Are those all sorcerers?" Noriyuki Kamo frowned, having already drawn several arrows from his back.

"They're probably all ordinary people!" The panda's round face lost its smile, and its voice became deep.

"tuna!"

Just then, Ankahime's phone rang.

"Hello, is this Mechanical Maru?"

"Teacher," came Singi's hoarse and weak voice from the other end of the phone, with faint alarms and crackling electrical noises in the background, "Lord Tengen's barrier has been breached."

The songstress's heart sank.

"Just an hour ago, someone broke into Lord Tianyuan's barrier and killed the guards. My puppet... couldn't stop him... cough..."

A violent coughing sound came from the other end of the phone, as if blood and foam were stuck in the throat after internal organs had been injured.

"Mechanical Maru, how are you?"

"I'm fine." Singi forced back her cough, but her voice was even weaker than before. "However, Principal Raiyan Temple is badly injured. He didn't seem to intend to kill us and left after the tent was closed. Songstress, do you know that person?"

"Who is it?"

There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone.

A few seconds later, that name landed heavily on Anka-hime's chest—

"It's Xia Youjie."

In the midst of this deathly silence, a chilling, amused voice slowly rang out before them.

"Oh my! I didn't expect everyone to be here!"

The voice wasn't loud, it was even quite gentle, yet it was like a cold, venomous snake, slowly crawling up everyone's spine.

The moment they heard that voice, everyone's gaze—including that of Toudou and Genichi, who were locked in combat with Rime—involuntarily turned in that direction.

It was this brief moment of distraction that gave Rime a chance to catch his breath.

"Ice Condensation Spell - 'Frostnagi'!"

In an instant, a howling blizzard swept across the entire area, and the crisp sound of ice crystals freezing echoed throughout, sealing everyone present, along with the air, inside a thick layer of ice.

"What?!"

"I'm completely...immobile!"

Higashido Aoi watched as Rimi slowly stood up, casually brushed the dust off her robes, and then walked calmly to the side of that figure.

From beginning to end, he didn't even spare a glance for the two people who were still fighting fiercely.

"Xia Youjie?"

"Hey, long time no see, songstress." Lu Suo smiled and raised his hand, waving casually at her as if he had just bumped into an old acquaintance on the street.

"No! You're not, who are you?" The songstress's voice changed due to extreme astonishment, and fine beads of cold sweat instantly appeared on her forehead.

Her mind was in complete chaos—

Why? How did Xia Youjie end up here? Wasn't he killed by Gojo Satoru a year ago?

"Hmm, you want to ask me how I'm still alive, right?" Ryosaku rested his chin on his hand, tilted his head, and pretended to be deep in thought, but a playful smile curled at the corner of his mouth. "Who knows? Could it be that Gojo Satoru deliberately let me go? Or... is Gojo Satoru actually one of my men?"

"What are you talking about!" Angehime roared, her cursed power surging uncontrollably around her.

"Hahaha! You're still as short-tempered as ever." Lu Suo laughed and waved his hand, as if soothing a cat with its fur standing on end. "Alright, alright, I won't tease you anymore."

He strode confidently through the crowd, a smile playing on his lips. Wherever he went, everyone froze, not out of fear, but out of a deep-seated dread of the Grandmaster Cursed Master.

His gaze pierced through the crowd, accurately and firmly locking onto Xuan Yi not far away.

"Genichi Nishio." He smiled and waved, his tone light as if greeting an old friend, "I didn't expect to see you here!"

Xuan Yi clenched his teeth involuntarily.

"You bastard..." His voice was terribly dry, "What did you do?"

"Thanks to you!" Lu Su sighed helplessly, spreading his hands and adopting a victim's posture. "If you hadn't ruined my plans time and time again, how could I have had such a good inspiration? Genichi-kun."

Xuan Yi frowned but did not reply.

Lu Suo stopped walking.

"You let Gojo Satoru see through my elaborate plan at the Kyoto sister school exchange meeting, except for Ruko and Hanami... So I've always been curious, Genichi-kun."

He raised his hand and gently tapped his temple.

"Are you a worm in my brain?"

The night wind whipped up shards of ice crystals from the ground, swirling them between the two.

"You've cut off all my escape routes step by step. Now I have no choice but to take action myself—"

Lu Suo's tone remained calm, yet it sent a chill down everyone's spine.

"Let humanity enter a new era!"

As he spoke, he took a bundle off his back and slowly opened it.

Inside lay a mass of flesh covered in sutures, and the eyeball on the mass slowly turned, eventually focusing on Xuan Yi.

The pupil constricts and bends.

It narrowed its eyes.

It's laughing!