Chương 98: Void

[Author Note]

Disc: HrPrTeam

...

F*ck you, Bleap.

__________

Shinjuku

Naohiro appeared in front of Gojo and threw a punch. "[Black Flash]!"

*BTZ BAM*

Gojo lifted his arms to block, but they were crushed under the force of the strike.

*BOOM*

As far as Naohiro knew, Gojo's technique was still burnt out, so it was the perfect opportunity to strike.

Gojo was superior in hand-to-hand, but having a black flash on hand could make up for the difference.

Naohiro smiled. "Now that I've adapted to red and your domain, what are you going to do?"

*phew*

Rather than replying, a red beam flew up from the debris.

However, Naohiro knew where this was going. 'The blue he created at the start hasn't disappeared yet! How? It should've left when his technique burned out!'

He had seen this exact move before.

Naohiro narrowed his eyes as he jumped toward the blue orb. 'He refreshed his cursed technique...I need to prevent him from getting unlimited hollow purple off.'

Quickly removing the blue orb by using his adaptation to delete it, Naohiro turned around and rushed toward Gojo as the red flew past him.

The dust cleared, and Gojo was seen with a smirk. "Figured me out, huh?"

Naohiro landed a couple of meters away from Gojo. "It shouldn't be possible to keep your blue active when your cursed technique burns out...unless."

Gojo smiled. "Unless it never burned out in the first place?"

Naohiro laughed. "HAHAHA, the both of us really do break the rules of Jujutsu. It's almost unfair how we can change the rules."

Gojo found out that Naohiro could avoid the burnout problem during their fight against Sukuna, so he used his six eyes to analyze Naohiro's adaptation and produce a similar result by limiting his domain's output.

His technique was fairly exhausted, putting him on low output, but he was able to maintain a blue during the time his domain shattered.

He is the only Jujutsu sorcerer to figure out how to limit the burnout of a domain expansion that didn't have special traits like adaptation.

Now that he was done with the blue, he could refresh his technique by destroying the portion of his brain since he didn't need to maintain the blue any longer, and he wasn't going to use a domain again.

Naohiro smiled as he brought his hands together. "Well, it was fun, Satoru. [Domain Expansion: Cycle of Saṃsāra]."

Gojo shifted his stance. "[Simple Domain]."

Although he could avoid the sure hit, Gojo was trapped.

He couldn't clash without burning his technique, and he wouldn't be able to escape since Naohiro would prevent him from making a hole in the domain's barrier.

Naohiro has already adapted to his primary techniques, and purple was off the table because he could not charge it fast enough.

He had seen through his unlimited hollow purple, which was his one chance to get purple off.

Gojo was a bad match for someone who could adapt to his techniques, especially if he went into a fight with some of them already adapted to.

Naohiro is limited in his own techniques due to most of his ranged attacks having the ability to be blocked by infinity.

Only special ranged attacks like Sukuna's World Slash can be fired from a distance, and they require a charge-up time.

Gojo's problem is his lack of diverse techniques.

His main arsenal only contains five.

Red, blue, purple, infinity, and domain expansion.

Two of these techniques were taken when he was a child, and now that his domain and red are useless against Naohiro, he should only have purple left.

To remedy this, he wanted to ensure that he had something in his arsenal that he could hold back until he inevitably fought against a full-powered Naohiro.

Something he ended up creating when he was a teenager.

The maximum technique of the limitless.

While his domain expansion could be seen as his ultimate technique, the refinement and raw output of his maximum technique surpassed anything he had previously used.

The peak of space manipulation.

...

Deleting space itself.

...

Red, blue, and purple all work with the world, correcting the balance of the void produced in space, which is where the destructive capacity comes from.

Red adds a surplus of space, blue takes space in a vacuum, and purple creates imaginary mass.

The maximum technique of the limitless creates the impossibility of the removal of space itself as if it never existed in the first place.

The erasure of existence.

Reverse cursed technique or adaptations, none of it matters if the part affected never existed in the first place.

Since how can you heal something that never existed?

The question that lingered in Gojo's mind was if Naohiro could adapt to it.

Naohiro has shown that his technique isn't simple. He seems inhuman since his cursed technique seems separate from how his body functions.

After this fight, he would no longer be able to fight against Naohiro because he had adapted to his techniques.

No matter the outcome, he will never be able to beat Naohiro after today.

They have both proven that they are willing to go far enough to kill each other to see who is the strongest.

Even though they are best friends, this would be the last fight where they could go all out, making it one where they couldn't hold back any of their techniques or hesitate.

In the past, he thought he would stand alone as the strongest, but it ended up being the reverse. He saw Naohiro as the final obstacle to prove to himself that he could be called strong.

It was the main reason he challenged Naohiro so many times throughout the years: to understand what it means to be strong.

Only someone who could stand at the peak could help one understand the meaning of true strength.

It was what he realized when he awakened as the honored one.

"Now...now I see what I've been missing."

Something similar plagued Naohiro's mind.

"Everything should be over, so why do I feel unfulfilled?"

Sukuna lived and breathed by the ideology of his own stature as the strongest.

Everyone who stands at the peak of sorcery has trouble understanding the meaning of true strength.

Hajime Kashimo wanted to fight Sukuna to understand him, and Gojo, in the previous timeline, wanted to reach Sukuna to help him understand the loneliness that comes with unrivaled strength.

And now, Gojo was going to teach Naohiro the meaning of unrivaled strength.

...

"[Maximum: Void]."