Chapter 138 — Kashimo's Battle
Crack… crack…
Before long, the spherical barrier shattered again—
Gojo and Sukuna's domains collapsed simultaneously.
Both fighters were wounded, but only for an instant.
In the blink of an eye, each used Reverse Cursed Technique to heal themselves completely.
"Shall we continue?"
Sukuna asked lightly, already poised to expand his domain again.
At this point, his condition was outright monstrous—
More absurd than even a fully amped Kinji Hakari.
Infinite domain casts. Infinite cursed energy.
Four arms. Two mouths.
A configuration bordering on the "perfect" sorcerer.
Gojo glanced at Sukuna, then casually returned to stand beside Zen'in Shinsuke.
"Well?" he asked.
With Sukuna's current nature, he was practically unkillable unless someone forced him to take a domain attack without defending.
That wasn't something Gojo could accomplish alone.
"Let him go next," Shinsuke replied, sitting down casually on a clean patch of stone.
"Otherwise the guy won't ever get his chance to fight Sukuna."
"I, Kashimo Hajime… will be your opponent."
Kashimo stepped forward, eyes blazing with savage anticipation—
despite having only one arm left.
Gojo raised an eyebrow, then sat down as well.
"…He won't just get himself killed?"
Gojo asked.
"If he dies, he dies."
Shinsuke shrugged.
"It's his choice.
He crossed time just to fight Sukuna fair and square.
You gonna take that away from him?"
"Tsk, tsk.
Heartless as always."
Gojo muttered, but he didn't move to interfere.
Truth was, he understood.
If he were the only strongest left, he wouldn't let anyone else interrupt his fight with Sukuna either.
Thankfully, there were still plenty of people left to help.
"You?"
Sukuna looked at Kashimo and immediately saw it—
a profound loneliness, one that bored him.
"You must've been strong in your era."
Sukuna said flatly.
Kashimo answered instead:
"Sukuna… do you know how to live among people?"
"I don't know how to interact with anyone.
I don't understand how to care for others.
In my era, aside from me, everyone was fragile—like wet clay.
Tell me… must the strong always walk alone?
Maybe… this era suits me better."
As he spoke, lightning exploded from his body.
"Mythical Beast Amber!"
A thunderous roar ripped across the battlefield—
the crackling lightning compressing into the shape of a massive thunder-beast.
It lunged at Sukuna like a living storm.
Sukuna blinked once.
"…Honestly. One after another, all of you are too greedy."
The thunder-beast hit head-on.
Sukuna raised both arms and took the full brunt of the impact—
his massive frame blasted backwards several meters.
His hands were scorched black, flesh charred to the bone.
Kashimo did not chase after his previous hit.
Instead, he arched his entire body like a drawn bow.
Air surged violently into his lungs as lightning gathered in his mouth.
"BOOM!!"
The compressed thunder detonated outward—
the blast was so violent it ripped his entire face into the shape of a cannon muzzle.
The lightning beam struck Sukuna instantly, drowning him in roaring electrical current.
Crackling arcs wrapped around Sukuna's body, sizzling as if trying to evaporate him whole.
Yet Sukuna simply waved his hand.
The thunder dispersed like mist brushed aside by a breeze.
A dense layer of cursed energy coated his skin—
Lightning, no matter how intense, could barely scratch him.
"Loud,"
Sukuna mocked with a smile.
Kashimo ignored the taunt.
His form shifted—
lightning rewrote the very structure of his flesh,
transforming him into a pure thunder-beast, crackling with violent yellow-white arcs.
A third eye opened on his forehead.
He vanished in a streak of lightning.
A thunder-clad palm strike shot toward Sukuna's skull.
"Pak."
Sukuna raised his upper left arm and caught the strike effortlessly.
His lower left arm intercepted Kashimo's rising knee.
His two right arms gathered cursed energy—
then slammed into Kashimo's core.
"BANG!!"
The blow sent Kashimo rocketing into the sky.
Righting himself mid-air, he raised both hands overhead.
Lightning swirled between his palms, condensing into a single catastrophic blast.
He fired.
Sukuna didn't even brace.
The massive mouth on his abdomen began chanting:
"Dragon Scales—
Repulsion—
Paired Falling Stars."
Sukuna lifted one hand and warned politely:
"If you don't dodge, you'll die."
Release.
A world-cleaving slash ripped through the battlefield—
erasing Kashimo's thunder-blast entirely.
Kashimo dodged at the last second,
but even so, half his shoulder vanished—
scattered into blood mist swallowed by lightning.
A colossal ravine carved itself across the earth behind him.
Sukuna smiled in satisfaction.
"Strong people being lonely? That's a joke."
Kashimo steadied his breath.
"In your time," he said,
"countless strong men must have challenged you.
They staked their lives on the chance to earn your acknowledgment—
—and you killed them."
He gathered thunder in his hand.
"You asked me if I knew how to care about others…
Back then, people hated me too.
Honestly, they still do.
But because we grow strong, people come to love us—
and we respond to that love.
Even so, you're anxious about loneliness?
That's why I say you're greedy."
Sukuna didn't understand him at all.
"You want power," Sukuna replied flatly,
"yet you fret over the loneliness that power brings.
Seeking opponents just to soothe your own emptiness—
what a tedious mindset."
Kashimo narrowed his eyes.
"Then why did you scatter your fingers across time
and reincarnate into the future?"
Sukuna answered without hesitation:
"Because I understood everything already.
Love? Recognition? Laughable.
I've never once wanted others to please me.
If I want to eat, I eat.
If something disgusts me, I kill it.
If someone amuses me, I play with them.
I've always lived by my own rules.
If others can't understand—
that's their problem."
He said it as if stating the weather.
"And you never get bored?" Kashimo asked quietly.
Sukuna chuckled.
"You'd be surprised.
The flavors of humans are wonderfully diverse.
Taking my time to savor them?
A perfect way to pass the centuries."
His eyes drifted toward the distant rooftop,
where Zen'in Shinsuke and Gojo watched calmly from afar.
"This era," he said with a smirk,
"has a lot of interesting people."
Kashimo didn't quite understand him—
but he said nothing more.
Instead, the power in his hands flared, reaching its final peak.
He burst forward, leaving only a lightning afterimage.
But—
He stopped abruptly.
Because before him, filling the sky,
was already a woven lattice of world-severing slashes.
"KRRAAAAAA—!!"
The net of blades descended.
Kashimo's body was shredded apart—
his consciousness dissolving into darkness
bit by bit…
until it vanished.
He felt no regret.
For the first time…
he did not die alone.