The Inumaki Clan Prodigy [Jujutsu Kaisen]

11:07 P.M. SHIBUYA

Buildings collapsed as cars exploded. Lava poured through the city streets of Shibuya as Jogo grew more and more desperate to get this over with. To finally kill the vicious beast of a man. Every attack was weaved and dodged as the man closed in on him.

Jogo's face was palmed by the man's left hand, slamming him into and through a brick wall. The man's machine dug into his guts before slashing out of his side causing his intestines to spill out everywhere. Volcanos formed on every wall, ceiling, and inch of floor before they erupted, consuming them and the entire building in flames and lava.

Even still, the man was able to take an arm and a leg before he was forced back by the explodion. The building fell around Jogo as he quickly regenerated from the mans onslaught. It was not looking well for Jogo.

It turns out, the man was able to heal. Not very quickly, mind you, but it was still there. It didn't seem like reverse cursed technique either, Jogo had no idea how it was done. And it was slightly out pacing the rate at which Jogo was able to deal damage. Jogo needed to land a decisive blow soon or he'd lose. Maybe a domain or his maximum technique.

Jogo rushed in, sending insects in ahead of him. They were all sliced apart as volcanoes appeared to either side of the man. He dashed towards Jogo and out of the way of the lava, slicing off one of Jogo's arms. With the other, Jogo blasted fire, forcing him back. At the same time, Jogo kicked the still mid air arm towards the man.

The man blocked the arm with his blade before back-stepping away once the appendage began to explode. Just as he back stepped, two shikigami insects stabbed into his back before screaming and exploding as well.

Jogo didn't let up, blasting fire balls, lava streams, more insects, everything and the kitchen sink at the quickly growing tower of smoke. The entire street and any nearby buildings were destroyed from merely the shock waves emitted from the explosions.

The sound of footsteps were heard behind Jogo as a sudden cursed energy aura appeared. Jogo turned just in time to prevent decapitation via katana. Wait. A katana? Not a machete?

"Come here." The man, wrapped in smoke and wielding the katana, said before Jogo felt like the origin of gravity switched and he was pulled towards the man at extreme speeds. Jogo heard mumbling before a white circle formed around the sorcerer, clearing away the smoke and giving a clear view of the attacker to Jogo.

Jogo gritted his teeth as he saw who it was and processed the implications. If the brat who'd killed Dagon was here, the same one Hanami was fighting minutes before, that meant he won the fight. Hanami was dead.

"Die!!" Jogo screamed in rage, tilting his head down to aim the opening of his volcano head towards the brat, firing an intense beam of lava straight towards him.

——

Something about the way the plant curse used its ball of cursed energy interested Isamu. The way it fed it into the environment to block cursed energy and slow down attacks. Isamu wondered if he could apply that concept to his simple domain.

As soon as he saw the attack coming, Isamu filled his simple domain with a thick air of cursed energy. The cursed energy got in the way of the beam of lava, slowing it considerably, giving the domain more time to eat away at its power along said taking some of the energy away from the blast itself.

It nearly tripled the amount of energy needed for the simple domain but Isamu didn't care much. Why care about cursed energy when there was a huge cursed battery right in front of him?

"New Shadow Style: Batto Sward Drawing." Isamu cut right through the heavily weakened lava in a vertical slash, slicing the cursed spirit right behind it from volcanic forehead to groin. If they'd been a foot closer, the curse would've been cut clean in half.

Isamu was glad they weren't a bit closer though. He still had more to learn. Isamu struck out in the next second, planting a kick into the curses gut and sending him away. He flicked his sword to the side, splattering the ground with the cursed purple blood of a cursed spirit.

"Don't falter too fast." Isamu commanded. While it was meant more as a taught than an actual command, his technique took it seriously. The curses body was suddenly infused with a bit more energy, its cursed energy pools raised a bit, the toughness of its skin and bones raised a little. Isamu was a bit surprised that even worked, not that he was complaining.

Before the curse could respond or Isamu could make another move, a man in white, his eye as black as pitch, rushed in from Isamu's side. It was only due to his heightened awareness that Isamu was able to prevent decapitation.

The man was completely undetectable, trying to sense him was like trying to sense the cursed energy aura of a chair or door. There just wasn't one. Isamu blocked the chop of the machete, a flash of sparks raining over them both as their blades met.

Isamu's drew his other blade with his left hand and slashed out under the man's guard in one smooth motion. He back stepped just barely out of the way before punching Isamu in the gut with his left hand.

"Don't move." Isamu said, commanding the man to stay as he was while he lined up his blades, ready to snip off his arm. The command had an effect but it was weakened and considerably less potent than pretty much any other command he ever used. It reminded him of all the times he tried to command Maki.

Did this man have a similar heavenly restriction? Judging from the speed and strength of the man, Isamu figured his version was more perfected. Still, the command would've bought him just enough time to cut the arm off, if the curse hadn't interfered.

The entire alleyway they'd clashed in was suddenly filled with fire, every corner of stone burned to a crisp. Isamu jumped, kicked off the wall, and landed on the edge of one of the buildings while the man appeared on the adjacent building, right across the alley from him.

They both jumped and swung at each other in the same moment, meeting equally again before they were forced apart by the curses fire, forcing them back to their rooftops. The building Isamu stood on surged as lava leaked through the stone, the entire building collapsing under him.

"Crush him." Isamu said, commanding the entire building to move as one, forming into a wave of molten stone and lava before it crashed down on the man. He dodged away towards the cursed spirit, cutting through the shikigami it summoned to try defend it before it nailed it in the head with a flying knee.

The curse was pushed into and through a building from the force of the knee before the man somehow pushed off the air itself back towards Isamu.

"Plummet." Isamu said, pushed off the small piece of building he'd left for himself towards the man before moving past him as the man was slammed into the ground in an unavoidable attack. Isamu forced cursed energy to gather beneath his feet, solidified it, then pushed off it, forming his own little footing.

Isamu had never thought it would work but after seeing the man do it, he figured it out easily enough. Isamu flew through the hole created by the curse turned projectile, going clean through the building to find the curse.

Five mini volcanoes blasted towards him, shikigami tried to impale him, fire covered his only path of escape. Overall, the curse had made pretty good use of his short time to prepare.

"Dissipate." Isamu commanded, forcing all of the cursed energy in the air and more importantly, fueling the techniques, to simply stop doing that. To release itself into the environment instead of running through the techniques.

The lava, fire, and even shikigami disappeared and Isamu darted through the resulting steam, grabbing the surprised cursed spirit. He grabbed its small body by its left ankle and its right wrist, having sheathed his swords moments before. He then turned and held the curse up like a shield as the man danced through the air towards them.

The man with the black eyes cut the curse clean in half at the waist before Isamu shifted his body to roll around the man's back, circling around him before striking his left side with the curses upper body which he still held. Isamu let out a crazed laugh as the man smashed through the wall.

He discarded the curses body, knowing it was not dead. He was having so much fun playing with them. With every clash, dodge, and attack his relationship with cursed energy grew stronger and deeper. He got faster and stronger with each passing minute. The longer this fight drew on, the more powerful he'd be by the end of the night.

Isamu rushed after the man, wanting to give the curse enough time to heal itself. The man was only just recovering, rolling back onto his feet after taking a bit of a tumble, when Isamu palmed his face and slammed him through a stone wall and into a destroyed and deserted street.

Isamu drew Maya, stabbing it into his shoulder as he in turn stabbed his machete into Isamu's gut. He ignored the pain of being gutted alive in favor of letting go of Maya and plunging his thumb into the man's left eye.

As Isamu gouged his eye out, the man cut across his entire stomach before leaving the machete in the right side of his abdomen. He then plunged his hand into Isamu's guts and started ripping his intestines out.

"Blast away." Isamu said, forcing the man away and hurtling into a brick wall on the other side of the street, not quite breaking through the wall but still cracking it all over. As he flew, the man kept a good hold in Isamu's intestine, ripping most of the organ out of his body.

Isamu ripped the machete out of his side and cut the organ away before pumping positive energy into his body, getting him back to perfect physical condition. The man, having let go of the bloody organ, grabbed Maya from his left shoulder and faced off as Isamu grabbed his own intestines with his left hand.

He dashed to the right as he infused them with cursed energy, manipulating it to dart behind where he just was. Just as the cursed spirit, now healed back up, escaped out of the dust cloud created by the constant destruction, the organ wrapped around his ankle and formed a knot.

Isamu whipped his intestine to the right, throwing the curse towards the man with the black eyes as the curse let out a surprised growl. The man dodged the attack but the curses skull was still crushed. Luckily for it, the wall had no cursed energy infused in it, making it impossible for the attack to ever kill.

Isamu ducked a slash from the man like he was playing limbo before backflipping away. He pushed away from the ground using his hands, grabbed a nearby street sign with his left hand, and blocked a follow up blow from the man with the machete in his right.

Isamu pushed back on Maya before kicking the man's left side, the man's left hand and arm grabbed Isamu leg and trapped it against his body the moment after Isamu's attack connected. The man's right leg kicked out at Isamu's other leg, seeking to take him to the ground.

Isamu moved his leg off the ground willingly, bringing it up to kick the man under the chin. Isamu's threw the machete into the man's left bicep as he fell, forcing him to let go. Isamu rolled away and back onto his feet while bringing the street sign he still held in his left hand up to block another attack.

Maya cut clean through the street sign but it slowed the attack enough for Isamu to move out of the way, still holding both sides of the poll. The end with the 'do not enter' sign smashed into the man's guard, forcing him back while Isamu infused the other end with cursed energy and flung it towards the cursed spirit, who was just getting out of the crater the intestine sling had created, impaling it through the gut.

The curse exploded in a torrent of rage, sending fire and lava everywhere as Isamu and the mystery man dodged out of the way and made some distance. Isamu grinned as he watched the destruction go on. He knew he should be worried for the civilians and he knew he would morn their loss in time. But for now, all he could think about was the learning experience those powerful flames represented.

"YOU!!! YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME FAR TOO MUCH TROUBLE FOR SUCH A WEAK AND INCONSEQUENTIAL BRAT!!" The curse screamed, lava shooting from its head and ears, lava flowing freely through the streets, collapsing buildings as they went.

Isamu drew his sword, figuring the fight had finally gotten serious enough to warrant the special grade cursed tool.

"Maximum Technique: Meteor!!" The curse shouted as all of the ruble and debris created by the fire and lava rose and formed into a large ball, no, meteor, in the sky. It was the size of a few buildings and would probably kill any one of them if it actually hit.

If he's using his maximum technique, why shouldn't Isamu use his own?

Isamu had pondered a maximum technique for a while, pretty much since he learned what one was. No one in the Inumaki clan had a maximum technique so he couldn't take inspiration from an already existing technique like he had with his extension technique. So his maximum technique would be 100% his own but that also meant it would take a while to figure out what he wanted to do.

He had some idea of what he wanted to do with it. At least what he wanted from it, even if he didn't know what form that would take. He wanted a "damage over time" type of technique. Most maximum techniques, as rare as they were, were usually big attacks, fight enders. Like 'Uzumaki', Geto's maximum technique. Or this one, 'Meteor'.

But cursed speech was already good enough. Why use a ton of cursed energy on a maximum technique when you can put that same amount of cursed energy into a 'plummet' or 'explode' command and kill the opponent that way? With that in mind, he commanded the cursed spirit, moments before the Meteors impact, Isamu's spoke the chants for his maximum technique.

"Maximum Technique: Echoing Command!"