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.
In 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's bloodied, shirtless form was flung skyward like a cursed comet.
He slammed into the ravine wall, the stone groaning under the impact. Mid-spiral, his heel caught a jagged ledge, kicking up a shriek of dust as he found his footing before he swiftly 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 of silence.
Gojo twisted mid-air, his feet surfing the falling debris. His eyes locked downward.
Regulus.
The Archbishop stood untouched and unmoved——the still center of a collapsing world. The ravine groaned like a dying beast around them.
Shattered stone floated in the air, suspended like dead stars by the aftershocks of their clashing authorities. Smoke curled from the splintered walls, painting the outline of a war between monsters.
Gojo was heaving, his breath ragged and shallow. Blood spilt freely from wounds his reverse cursed technique could barely keep up with.
Regulus, by comparison, was utterly pristine.
But his calm had long since cracked with a frantic twitch at the corner of his eye.
"Still dodging. Still dancing... how pathetic!!"
Gojo didn't answer, though mainly because he couldn't. His right arm was a ruin of shredded muscle; his cursed energy was working overtime to re-stitch nerve, tendon, and shattered bone. Every second was a miracle, and every second was a warning.
He watched. He waited.
Before suddenly, Regulus vanished.
A swing of the Archbishop's arm sent a wave of stillness erupting mid-motion, cutting clean through the cliff behind Gojo like a divine executioner's blade.
Gojo twisted, his instincts screaming——but he was a fraction of a second too late.
"——Tsck!"
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.
Regulus was on him again and Gojo was forced to ducked low, the stillness shaving the air just millimeters above his white hair——an absence of matter so sharp it burnt.
He countered with a jab before it retreated mid-swing, a perfectly timed feint that revealed the true attack. A blistering roundhouse kick, fast enough to collapse the stone beneath them before it even connected.
The kick landed at full force.
"Black Flash——!"
The region around them cracked and light imploded at the point of contact. The sheer mathematical impossibility of the strike should have levelled a mountain.
But of course, Regulus didn't even blink from the force of the blow.
"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 the scale of 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, playful 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, unadulterated outrage.———————————————
"GGRHHKK!!"
Subaru sank to his knees, his fingers digging deep trenches into the freezing soil. His lungs seized, and his skull felt like it was being ripped open from the inside by a thousand serrated needles.
Something was in there.
Betelgeuse was crawling through his synapses, a frantic, desperate virus with too many limbs. Subaru gritted his teeth, the taste of copper filling his mouth. He had a weapon—one he detested, one that had cost him everything in prior lives—but it was all he had left.
With the Witch's miasma thick in his lungs, Subaru forced the thought to the front of his thoughts. He felt the strange chill nibbling at his heart, scraping against the very edge of his spirit.
"I… I can return by de—GRRHK!!"
His body locked. The Unseen Providence of the Witch clamped down on his heart like a frigid vice. Pain screamed through his nerves, a primitive warning from the entity watching him from the shadows.
A few excruciating moments passed. The weight in his skull lessened. The creeping sensation in his spine vanished into the blackness.
Silence.
He was alone in his brain again. No Archbishop, no manic laughing. Subaru breathed sharply, forcing himself to his feet on shaky legs.
"Whoo…"
Wilhelm approached, his blade chipped and soiled. His eyes were narrowed, keen with apprehension.
"Are you alright, Subaru?"
Subaru issued a weary half-shrug.
"Yeah… Betelgeuse tried his possession trick. I don't know exactly what occurred, but… he's gone. For a while, at least."
He looked out over the village. It was a graveyard of splinters and ash. But as the knowledge dawned on the surviving soldiers that the Archbishop was indeed dead, a ragged, genuine cheer erupted into the smoky sky.
A unexpected burst of wind ripped through the celebration. Subaru's head snapped toward the sound.
"Gojo-sen—sei...?"
Gojo stood there——barely. He was painted in blood from his forehead to his waist, his skin looking like shattered porcelain. His stance fluctuated, his eyes half-lidded.
"We won't be seeing Regulus for a while…"
That was all he achieved before his legs gave out. He collapsed into a sitting position, shoulders shaking.
"If that fight lasted any longer… I would've been totally screwed!"
There was no sneer. No cocky retort. Just the raw honesty of a man who has been pushed to his absolute maximum.
Felix raced over, his feline ears flattened.
"Nyaaa—! You look like you been dragged through a mountain! Sit still!"
"Well… I actually did, but that's besides the point——"
Gojo glanced at the blood flowing from his fingertips.
"I'm pretty sure he launched me cross-country; it was all snowy and cold!"
Subaru knelt alongside him.
"But it's over, right? We won."
Gojo didn't answer immediately. He merely stared up at the gloomy sky. Then, his brow wrinkled.
"…Snow? Why is it snowing?"
The temperature plunged. Subaru's heart stopped. He remembered this cold. This wasn't weather; it was a burial shroud.
A world without Lia is not a one I wish to live in.
"No… no, nono…" Subaru's voice broke. "This means that… Emilia is…"
Gojo pulled himself up, his eyes twisting like shards of ice as Felix's healing took hold.
"Where were they headed? Tell me!"
"The capital..." Felix murmured, shuddering. "Near Flugel's Tree."
Gojo grabbed Subaru's hand. The globe surged, space collapsing in on itself. When the vertigo dissipated, they were at the base of the enormous Flugel's Tree.
Everything was frozen. A merciless gale of snow whipped around them, burying the remains of cultists and children alike.
Then, two golden eyes sparkled through the mist.
A huge paw tore through the fog. The Beast of the End arose, a towering monstrosity of frost and fur.
"P-Puck…?"
Subaru gasped, the air searing his lungs.
"Ah… so you do recognize me?" The voice was a tectonic rumble. "No matter. In accordance with my contract… I shall terminate this world."
"Emilia died protecting the children..." the beast said, its voice deepening. "They were too numerous. Now, everything must cease."
Gojo went forward, ruffling his white hair.
"Bouncing from one final boss to the next, huh? Subaru, this is horrible. I'm almost entirely burnt out."
Ice began to spiral up Gojo's legs, the cold biting into him, even if he didn't flinch.
"You should get out of here. I'm not sure how this person matches up against Regulus but he gives me a menacing vibe."
As Subaru was frozen in place by the encroaching cold, Gojo charged.
Gojo's fist hit, fracturing one of Puck's huge fangs. But the response was a storm of ice crystals the size of houses.
Gojo landed hard, his fingers barely curling. He drew a deep, steadying breath, his face a mask of total concentration.
"——Falling Blossom Emotion."
A veil of cursed energy engulfed him——a tactic designed to counter the sure-hit effect of a domain by striking back at the time of contact.
He rushed up a jagged spire of ice, the cold stinging through his bare soles.
He was a blur of motion against the white backdrop, 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 which was freezing his entire body had already worked it's way up his neck, past his face and toward his brain, and then——