"Hollow Purple."
The techniques merged.
A sphere of void-blue and crimson swirled into one between Gojo's fingertips—
vibrating with a hum that cracked the air itself.
Reality bent. The sky recoiled.
For one suspended moment, the world held its breath.
Then—
FWOOM—
The Hollow Purple exploded forth.
A roaring wave of annihilation tore across the earth, space imploding and detonating in a singularity of light and darkness. Trees, stone, air — existence itself — were getting deleted by the spiraling vortex.
And Toji stood at the center of it.
Frozen.
Helpless.
BOOOOOOM—!!
Impact.
Hollow Purple crashed into him with the force of a collapsing world.
A grotesque, massive wound tore through his torso—
a yawning hole, brutal and precise, ripping through his chest and spine like paper.
Flesh ruptured. Ribs burst.
His heart, lungs, half his ribcage—gone.
Where Toji Fushiguro had stood, there was now just...
a hole.
Blood trickled from the edge of the wound.
Steam curled from the cauterized edges.
Yet somehow—
He didn't fall.
His legs locked in place.
Arms limp at his sides.
His weapon barely dangled from one hand.
But he stood.
Motionless. Upright.
Naoya stepped closer, slowly—expression unreadable.
"Any last words?" he asked, low.
There was no answer at first.
Just the soft patter of blood dripping onto stone.
Then—
Toji smiled.
His lips, cracked and blood-slicked, pulled into a final grin.
One corner twitching upward.
A single, choked syllable—
"Nuh-uh."
A whisper. Barely sound.
Then nothing.
His head slumped forward, chin resting against his collarbone.
His body didn't move.
Didn't fall.
Dead!
Undeniably, irrevocably dead.
Gojo and Naoya stood in the wreckage, the weight of the moment settling over them. No cheers. No words.
After a beat, Gojo turned away first, floating gently toward the distant silhouette of the Star Religious Group's compound. Naoya followed, sparing one last glance at Toji's standing corpse.
A smirk tugged at his lips.
Of course he'd die like this.
There are always sigma Zenin's… and bum Zenin's in this world.
Then he too walked away, leaving the Sorcerer Killer's body to stand vigil over the battlefield—
—a monument to his own stubborn defiance.
…
Ever since his reincarnation, Naoya had been obsessed with a single question: what would his Reversed Cursed Technique look like? Countless ideas spun through his head. Maybe his CTR would help mimic something like Ultra Instinct, pushing his reaction speed to divine levels through cursed energy manipulation and with the help binding vows.
Or maybe it would let him erase the boundaries of physics entirely—allow him to corrupt someone's movement data, twist their existence in one touch, and kill them instantly. But all of those were dreams—too unstable, too unrealistic—especially when he didn't even know what his technique's reversal would do.
Everything changed the moment he unlocked Reverse Cursed Technique. With that breakthrough, Naoya began to structure his ability much like Gojo's Limitless, dividing it into precise layers of function and application.
The neutral application of his technique remained true to its base: the "24FPS Rule." In this state, movement in the world was forced to obey a rigid frame-by-frame sequence—twenty-four frames per second. Any violation of that rule would freeze the target, locking them in time like a broken projection. This was the foundation.
But his reversal came from flipping the principle of time into space. Instead of projecting motion forward, he began to fragment his path, cut it into discrete motion snapshots, and—through Reverse Cursed Technique—reassemble himself at a previously traveled location. This evolved into the second layer of his technique: Projection Rewind.
To stabilize this effect, Naoya imposed a binding vow: he could only warp to places he had moved through within the past twenty-four seconds, creating a strict anchor on space-time navigation.
But when Naoya combined both the neutral application and the rewind, something new emerged. The 24FPS rule locked reality into a temporal grid. The rewind allowed him to cut himself out of it. The result was a gap—a deliberate void between frames. In that sliver of nonexistence, Naoya became intangible, completely absent from the current frame. Attacks passed through him. He couldn't be touched, sensed, or harmed.
To enhance and stabilize the ability, Naoya crafted additional binding vows. He had to form a specific hand sign to activate the effect.
Can't attack while intangible (obviously).
Overusing it causes temporary frame stutters a visual side effect he called the "Glitch Effect"—momentary distortions in his body's projection that left him vulnerable.
The longer he used it, the greater the risk. Even worse, the cursed energy cost escalated exponentially the longer he remained in that in-between state. He capped its use at five minutes max—anymore, and it could kill him. And of course, even this level of technique wasn't invincible. Domain Expansion, Domain Amplification, or specialized tools like the Inverted Spear of Heaven could cancel his phasing altogether.
Naoya now casually phased through a wall, body flickering like a corrupted video frame, and stepped into the dark hallway beyond. He was having fun—still testing the limits of his new intangibility like a child discovering a new toy.
Eventually, they reached the chamber.
A still, silent room. At the center of it, a black coffin—ornate, sealed, cold.
Inside, the perfect replica of Riko Amanai's body, crafted over months of meticulous planning, lay covered beneath a ceremonial shroud. A flawless illusion, designed to trick even Gojo Satoru's eyes.
And then—Gojo appeared.
He stepped in behind Naoya, slow and composed, his eyes hidden beneath his hair. There was an air of indifference about him, as always—like he was above the moment, yet fully aware of everything happening around him.
Without a word, he approached the coffin. His steps were light, almost too graceful for someone with his immense power.
He reached out.
And lifted the false Riko's body into his arms—his face unreadable, a mask of calm detachment. His fingers brushed against the delicate fabric that covered the body, as though there were no weight in the world too heavy for him to carry.
Naoya's voice broke the stillness, cutting through the tension like a sharp knife.
"All that power," he said, his tone dripping with mockery, "and you still couldn't save a single girl. What a legacy."
Gojo didn't say anything. He simply walked past Naoya, leaving the room while cradling Riko's false body in his arms.
Naoya sighed, rolling his eyes, and followed Gojo. As they exited, they entered a large room filled with normal humans wearing religious clothes.
The moment they laid eyes on Riko's body, every single one of them started clapping in unison, their hands striking together like thunder, as if they were celebrating an enormous victory. It was a grotesque display of reverence, a celebration of death.
Gojo stood motionless, his expression unreadable, his Six Eyes betraying nothing as they celebrated the death of someone he had once considered close—Riko Amanai.
Naoya tilted his head slightly, his hair covering his eyes as he leaned forward, a mocking laugh escaping his lips.
"They're truly monkeys," he muttered, his voice full of disdain.
Suddenly, a door on the other side of the room burst open. Geto emerged at a hurried pace, clearly in a rush after Shoko had healed him.
Gojo walked toward him slowly, his gaze meeting Geto's with the same detached calmness he always carried.
"You're late, Suguru. No, wait—guess you got here fast," Gojo said, his voice almost casual.
"There are several Star Religious Group members in the city, after all," he added, shrugging slightly.
"Satoru? Is that you?" Geto asked, his voice filled with concern as he looked at Gojo, sensing something different in him.
"What happened?" Geto asked, his eyes now drifting to Naoya, noticing that the look in his eyes had changed too.
"I see you already saw Shoko," Gojo said with a knowing tone.
"Yeah, she healed me," Geto answered, his voice sounding distant, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. "I'm fine now… but me being safe here doesn't change anything."
He glanced at Riko's hand, which dangled lifelessly from Gojo's arms.
"I screwed up. You're not at fault," Gojo added quietly.
"Let's head back now," Geto said, his voice low, almost resigned.
Gojo paused for a moment, his dead gaze fixed on nothing in particular. "Suguru, should we kill these guys?" His words were flat, without emotion.
"With the way I feel right now, I doubt I'd care about it," Gojo added, his voice void of any real feeling, as the clapping in the background grew louder.
"No… there's no point," Geto replied, looking down. "It seems like there are only common believers here. The mastermind who knows about our world has probably fled by now."
"No point, huh?" Gojo repeated, his tone distant as he began to leave the room.
"Does there really need to be any point to it?" Gojo stopped abruptly and asked, his back turned, not bothering to look at Geto.
Without waiting for an answer, Gojo continued walking, his footsteps echoing as he left the room.
Geto stood there for a moment, looking at the people clapping, his expression unreadable. The noise of their celebration seemed to blend into the background. With a deep breath, he turned and walked out of the room, his footsteps fading into the distance.
Naoya, however, remained by the wall, his gaze fixed on the common believers, watching them as they reveled in their twisted victory. His thoughts were unreadable, his expression just as blank as ever. Yet, there was something unsettling about the calmness in his eyes—an eerie stillness that radiated a quiet, dangerous energy.
And then—
Naoya's hands moved with deliberate precision, fingers forming a hand sign. He spoke the words slowly, almost reverently.
"Domain Expansion."
As he spoke, his domain began to expand outward, the air shifting around him as if reality itself were warping to his will.
Behind him, a massive mechanical projector-eye emerged, its pupil glowing like a camera lens. It scanned the room, locking its vision onto the humans present, its gaze both cold and calculating. The golden light from the domain illuminated everything, casting a strange glow over the scene.
A golden corridor stretched endlessly in every direction, its walls adorned with intricate paintings, each one capturing warriors frozen in eternal combat. The floor beneath gleamed like polished marble, reflecting the light and adding to the surreal beauty of the space.
At the center of it all stood the giant mechanical projector-eye, its unblinking gaze fixed on everything within the domain, trapping the world in its unyielding focus.
The sure-hit effect of the domain activated instantly, injecting films of animation frames into the necks of the humans within its reach.
At first, the commoners didn't understand what was happening. They believed it to be a divine revelation from their god, Tengen, rewarding them with a beautiful spectacle. Without realizing the danger, they continued to celebrate.
The moment they clapped again, however, they violated the 24FPS rule.
Those who moved within the domain now suffered the consequences. Their bodies couldn't obey the strict frame-by-frame sequence of Naoya's Projection Sorcery, and as soon as they tried to move—blood splattered.
Ahhh! One man screamed as his arm stiffened and trembled, blood leaking from every tiny cut.
"My leg! My leg!" Another cried out, his body trembling uncontrollably, his knee buckling as his leg was cleaved.
The more they moved, the more severe the punishment. Every cell in their body was cut and shattered. The pain was overwhelming, and they couldn't stop their movements fast enough to avoid the growing injuries.
My eyes—my eyes! A woman shrieked as the cells of her eyes ruptured, her vision becoming blurred by the searing pain as blood poured from the corners of her sockets.
The domain didn't stop at small cuts—it was far worse. Those who attempted to force a movement, thinking they could escape, found their limbs severed entirely. A scream echoed as a man's arm was completely severed as he tried to stagger forward, his appendage falling to the floor in a grotesque heap.
There was no escape.
Each step, each breath, each twitch only deepened their suffering. The precision of the cursed technique left no part of their body untouched, rendering them immobile with each violation of the frame sequence.
Naoya stood in the center of it all.
Cold. Indifferent.
His eyes swept across the chaos like a lens, unblinking, detached. The giant mechanical projector-eye behind him mirrored his gaze, recording the massacre frame by frame, perfect and merciless.
"Faith," Naoya said, his voice echoing in the blood-stained chamber, "is just motion without thought. And motion... gets punished."
He took a step forward, watching a man convulse and collapse under the weight of a thousand invisible blades.
"You should've stayed still," Naoya murmured. "Sometimes that's all it takes to survive."
He glanced up, lips curling into a faint smile as screams cracked the air like static.
"Turns out god did answer," he said, tilting his head. "Just not the way you hoped."