[Your clean rejection didn’t faze Satoru Gojo in the slightest. He had no intention of backing down.]

[The man who’d always done exactly as he pleased, propped up on a pedestal by the entire jujutsu world as "the strongest," had never learned when to quit.]

[Since words couldn’t make you agree, he stopped caring whether you wanted to or not and defaulted to the simplest, most brutish approach available: letting his fists do the talking.]

[A shrill crack split the air beside your ear. Without so much as a syllable of warning, Gojo swung a fist laced with the gravitational pull of Blue, carrying enough cursed energy to warp the space around it and grind reinforced concrete to powder, and drove it straight at your exposed back.]

[As for how he justified what amounted to a sucker punch?]

[Simple. In his logic, you’d already mastered the Reverse Cursed Technique at an absurdly advanced level. As long as nobody vaporized your skull in one shot, you weren’t dying. And the monster who’d radiated killing intent thick enough to choke on in that corridor could absolutely take a casual punch.]

[Yet you didn’t even turn around.]

[You ignored the bone-chilling wall of pressure at your back, maintained your pace, and kept walking.]

[Simultaneously, cursed energy began circulating through your body along a hidden, precise trajectory. Your innate technique, Phantom Night Parade, activated in silence.]

[Through that impossible power of replication, the Gojo Clan’s Limitless unfolded around you in a flawless shell.]

[A deep, resonant hum detonated between the two of you.]

[Gojo’s devastating punch, still wreathed in Blue’s gravitational force, slammed to a halt mere millimeters from your back. An invisible, indestructible wall of infinity caught it dead. The raging pull dissipated like a stone dropped into the ocean, unable to disturb so much as the hem of your clothes.]

[This borderline humiliating response left Gojo seething.]

[You couldn’t even be bothered to turn around. You’d thrown up an identical copy of his own shell and nothing more. In his eyes, that was open, deliberate contempt.]

["Don’t you dare run from this! Turn around and fight me properly!"]

[You stopped. Slowly, you turned to face him. Those deep, unreadable eyes met his aggressive glare, and your voice carried the same maddening calm.]

["I’m not running. I’m demonstrating, in the language you understand best, exactly how impenetrable that defense you’re so proud of really is. And why, if all we do is probe each other with tricks like these, this fight will never mean anything."]

["Hah? Meaningless? I don’t think so!"]

[Gojo bared his teeth in a grin that was equal parts wild and dangerous.]

[He stomped the ground. Cursed energy erupted through him like a geyser as he cranked the output higher, glaring at you with savage focus.]

["Fine. If you insist on hiding behind that shell, then I’ll find out exactly how long your knockoff cursed energy holds up against the original!"]

[Before the last word left his mouth, he closed the distance. Blue compressed to its limit on his right fist, radiating a cold cerulean glow that set teeth on edge, aimed at brute-forcing through your Limitless defense with sheer volume of cursed energy.]

[This time, you didn’t stay passive. Expressionless, you raised one hand with surgical precision, met the oncoming wave of gravitational force head-on, and caught Gojo’s fist in an iron grip.]

[The instant their knuckles collided, the reversed cursed energy inside you erupted. Red, the force of absolute repulsion, poured from your palm without restraint.]

["Blue’s" maximum attraction against Red’s maximum repulsion, clashing at point-blank range, triggered a violent and lethal physical reaction.]

[The collision happened too fast for the two opposing energies to properly merge into the annihilating Hollow Technique Purple. But the raw positive-negative impact, the mutual repulsion and annihilation of opposing forces, still produced a devastating localized explosion.]

[The blast ripped the air apart. Shockwaves and searing heat tore outward in every direction like a hurricane unleashed.]

[Trees uprooted. Stone pavement shattered and ground itself to dust.]

[Yet at the epicenter of that disaster, you and Gojo stood untouched, both shielded by active Limitless. Two figures at the eye of their own storm, not a speck of debris on either of them, completely immune to the destruction they’d birthed.]

[Through the rolling clouds of dust, Gojo still had your wrist locked in his grip.]

[Long fingers clamped down like a vise, veins standing out across the back of his hand.]

[Even without a tactical advantage, he intended to force your submission through the sheer physical strength his cursed energy afforded him. To make you yield.]

[You felt the crushing pressure on your wrist. You didn’t struggle. A quiet sigh escaped into the haze, and you spoke in a voice stripped of all emotion.]

["If, in the instant I channeled ’Red’ and triggered that explosion, I’d also reversed my technique to forcibly shut down your Limitless... what do you think the outcome would look like right now?"]

[The words drifted out light as smoke, but they struck Gojo’s mind like a thunderbolt.]

[He froze.]

[Those sky-blue eyes, wide with adrenaline a moment ago, contracted to pinpoints. In a fraction of a second, he recalled exactly what your technique reversal could do: forcibly seal another sorcerer’s Cursed Technique.]

[Cold sweat traced a silent line down his pale temple. The realization hit him with nauseating clarity.]

[If you’d done it, if you’d stripped his Limitless in the heart of that explosion, he would have been the only person at ground zero without a defense.]

[And the cruelest irony? He’d poured everything into amplifying "Blue" to break through your barrier. That extra cursed energy would have fed the explosion exponentially, turning his own power into the sharpest blade carving through his body.]

[Without lifting a finger beyond what you’d already done, you had maneuvered him into a death trap.]

[You felt the muscles in his arm go rigid. The crushing grip loosened. The boiling current of his cursed energy stuttered and stalled.]

[Watching the blank look settling over his features, you continued in the same even tone.]

["One more thing. Just now, Limitless was the only technique I used. But I’d have thought you’d figured this out already. Limitless isn’t the only technique I can replicate. You understand?"]

[Gojo released your hand. He stood rooted to the spot, staring at you through his sunglasses, motionless.] 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

[Of course he understood. Behind those eyes, the mind hailed as generational genius churned like a sea in a storm.]

[In this brief exchange, you’d wielded nothing but a copy of his Limitless, exploited the principle of technique incompatibility, and already pushed him to the edge. You hadn’t drawn on a single other technique. You’d been holding back enormously.]

[And a memory flashed through his mind: the hotel corridor. When you’d dropped your mask and let genuine killing intent flood the hall, Panda had been at your side. That meant your true, full-power state required Panda for coordinated multi-front combat.]

[What had happened just now wasn’t a real fight. It was a guided sparring session where you could have killed him at any moment you chose.]

[You held the white-haired sorcerer’s gaze for a long, silent beat. Rather than grinding his bruised pride any further into the dirt, you fished a pack of cigarettes from your pocket, tapped one free, bit down on the filter, and lit it with a sharp click.]

[You pulled hard through the curling smoke. The sting of nicotine flooded your lungs and dulled the fatigue that operating Limitless had left behind.]

[A slow ring of smoke drifted upward as you tilted your head back, eyes half-lidded and distant.]

["If I were you, instead of picking fights like some street thug, I’d master Domain Expansion first, an actual finishing move, and then come ask for a match."]

[You paused. Something rare crept into your voice, a tangled thread of weariness, sincerity, and something achingly close to a sigh.]

["Sometimes I envy you, Satoru. You were born with what countless people would sell their souls for: the Six Eyes and Limitless, gifts handed to you by this world itself. A little effort, a nudge in the right direction, and you cross chasms that others couldn’t bridge in a lifetime. Power that some people would sacrifice everything for and still never touch."]

[Gojo’s young, defiant face scrunched in confusion. Through the drifting smoke, he shot back.]

["Hah? The hell are you talking about? Aren’t you the one who picks this stuff up easier? You’re the real monster here."]

[From where he stood, it was the truth.]

[The impossibly complex Reverse Cursed Technique, the theoretically conceptual Hollow Technique "Purple," you had mastered both first. You’d been the one to guide him, to punch through his final barriers. Hearing you claim envy for his talent sounded like a bad joke.]

[You looked at that face. A face that had never truly known despair.]

[A laugh escaped you, quiet and involuntary.]

[Buried in it was a bleakness no one alive could have deciphered, wound together with something like release.]

["Easy, is it?"]

[You flicked the ash from your cigarette. Your gaze drifted to the towering edge of Jujutsu High’s barrier in the distance, and the words came out barely above a whisper.]

["Maybe so..."]

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