The world around Toji was dust and ash and silence.
Blood dripped down his knuckles, dried along his blade.
Behind him, Kuro sniffled, confused and terrified by what she had just witnessed.
She had never seen him like this.
Not like this.
And Toji stood still.
The city stared.
But in that silence, something pulled at the back of his mind. Not a voice. Not words. Just... memory.
A boy stood barefoot in a gravel courtyard, windless and gray, beneath the endless walls of the Zen'in estate.
"Look at him," someone sneered behind paper screens, their voice hushed but not hidden. "A child born without cursed energy. A shame."
"You sure he's even mine?" another voice laughed, his father's. "He's got no worth. Just throw him in the pit."
That boy didn't speak.
Didn't cry.
Crying never helped.
Crying only made the kicks worse, made the bruises last longer.
He remembered those nights.
Alone in a cracked shed, his fingers numb from winter, his body shaking.
No fire.
No food.
Only silence.
The other children whispered about cursed techniques, about becoming sorcerers, inheriting power.
He had nothing to inherit.
No worth.
No technique.
Not even a future.
He had been born into a world that had already decided to discard him.
So, he became something else.
A shadow among blades.
A devil in flesh.
He tore down their expectations and sold them for coin.
He learned that in a world of systems, the only way to win was to burn the rules.
Let them worship power.
He would become fear.
Toji blinked.
The courtyard was gone. But the feeling wasn't.
He saw them again now.
These gods and adventurers.
Faces full of contempt or confusion or cowardice, trying to mask it behind laws and hierarchy and pantheons.
The same way the Zen'in had hidden behind bloodlines and tradition.
It was always the same.
Power is only respected when it terrifies.
That was what they had taught him.
That was what he had learned.
And for years, he let it rot inside him.
Let it fester.
Let it sleep, because he had nothing left to protect, no reason to stand for anything but his own existence.
Until that girl looked up at him with tearful, uncomprehending eyes, not afraid of him, but afraid of being alone.
Just like he had once been.
Toji raised his hand slowly.
.
.
.
.
.
...
Ah...
These fucking rules...
How annoying...
They just won't listen.
Why is everywhere like this?
They judge people without even understanding their side of the story....
Just like him... Naobito Zen'in.
...
...
...
...Fuck it...
I'm done messing around...
I've ignored everything for so long...
This goddamn city is rotten.
Just like the zen'in clan.
I'm making the same mistake like before.
Got the strength but refuse to fix the problem.
And in the end, the clan is still as rotten as how it used to be.
People with low cursed energy still being treated like trash.
And i, someone strong enough to fix that.
Go to Kyoto and live the most miserable life ever...
...
I'll fix the problem this time.
The Xenos already wanted peace, next is humanity...
I'll force them to listen this time...
Even if i have to beat them up into a pulp of bloods.
Naobito, you wanna see me with a cursed technique?
"Domain Expansion..." His voice was low, guttural. The sound didn't echo, it sank into the air like lead.
Then he spoke the name that would mark this day in Orario's history, the day when a man, to protecting a monster, faced a large number of adventures, on his own.
"Chimera Shadow Garden."
The world twisted.
In an instant, everything changed.
An enclosed barrier snapped into existence, blotting out the city above them.
The blue sky bled into a negative palette, blacks became white, white turned to black, and color ceased to exist.
Shadows pulsed from every surface, inky and alive.
Roots twisted from the void below, snaking around buildings and cobblestones.
A massive, grotesque construct, two towering spinal columns with curved ropes and ossified roots, materialized above like some desecrated shrine.
It hung for only a moment before crumbling into the shadows beneath.
Silence.
Then came the effect.
Every single adventurer, more than seventy, from random mid-tier hunters to elite Loki Familia members, sank.
Their feet, unguarded by any cursed energy, were swallowed by the blackened shadow below.
Trapped. Immobilized.
Their bodies stuck waist-deep or knee-deep in the writhing abyss.
"What... is this?! My legs—!!" one screamed.
"Magic... I can't cast! I can't—move!" shouted another.
Riveria attempted a chant, but the dense cursed space warped the mana structure.
Her words fizzled on her lips.
Even her high elf heritage and magical prowess couldn't stabilize the casting here.
Loki watched from outside the barrier, her divine form unable to cross into the Domain's sealed space. Her wide eyes trembled.
"...That bastard..."
Inside, Aiz clenched her jaw, sweat pouring down her face. "I can't move...!" She tried to reinforce her legs, but without cursed energy, there was nothing to push against.
She was stuck, her blade arm useless, her instincts helpless.
And Toji?
He had vanished.
Or rather, multiplied.
From the depths of the writhing shadow below, dozens of Tojis rose, each a perfect replica of the original, formed of cursed energy and shadow.
Each wielded Playful Cloud, the three-sectioned staff that moved like a blur in their grip.
They walked from the walls, from the ground, from the darkness between breaths.
Seventy adventurers.
Against an army of one.
A clone appeared behind a spearman and caved in his skull with a sideways swing.
Another stabbed straight through a Level 4's arm before he could scream.
Playful Cloud swept through bone and armor like water.
Each Toji fought with precision, no wasted movement, no wasted breath.
Aiz tried to intercept a clone with a side slash, but her blade was too slow.
The clone caught it mid-air and shattered the metal with a precise flick of cursed energy.
"Impossible..." she gasped.
Toji's real form strode through the chaos, hands loose at his sides, eyes half-lidded with the same detached indifference he wore on execution missions.
A slash from a sword came his way, he didn't block it.
Mahoraga did.
The wheel above the shikigami's head spun once, adapting, learning.
The blade struck Mahoraga's skin, but the next time that same adventurer tried to stab again, the impact redirected itself and shattered against Mahoraga's hide.
Mahoraga crushed the attacker beneath its heel.
Spells exploded.
Blades danced.
Screams echoed.
Toji's clones overwhelmed the battlefield, blitzing the adventurers while they remained glued in place by the ever-writhing shadow.
Those who tried to climb out were grabbed by Divine Dogs that tore them down.
Nue struck from above, raining down cursed lightning.
All of Orario watched in horror.
From rooftops. From divine palaces. From the Guild.
Even the gods who had watched him before, Hermes, Loki, Hecate, Ganesha, were silent.
The man who had once simply been a wildcard was now something else entirely.
An opposing world, a rejection of rules, an unholy dominion born of power not granted by any god.
"Get out of there!" Loki shouted from the outside. "Damn it, Get out!!"
Inside, Lefiya huddled behind a fallen wall.
Her staff trembled in her hand, and sweat dripped down her forehead.
"I-It's like... a curse," she whispered.
She watched as Toji struck down a Level 5 with a clean blow across the chest.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
Just surgical, brutal finality.
One by one, the adventurers fell.
Either unconscious, crippled, or even half-dead.
Some screamed for mercy.
Some tried to crawl away.
And finally, Toji cancelled the Domain.
The light returned.
The shadows receded.
Bodies lay in heaps across the broken street.
The air was filled with the smell of blood and scorched earth.
Some groaned in pain.
Some didn't move at all.
Toji stood in the middle, his shirt soaked in blood, none of it his own.
Behind him, Kuro still clutched her head, lost in her monstrous instinct, but even now, some part of her recognized the figure standing between her and the world.
Toji didn't speak.
He didn't apologize. He didn't gloat.
He simply turned and looked toward the gods watching from the heights.
Let them judge.
He protected her because he decided to. No god. No Familia. No rule would stop him.
And everyone in Orario now understood.
The monster wasn't the girl behind him.
It was the man in front.
...
The silence following the clash had a weight to it.
Heavy, like the aftermath of a storm that had torn through not only walls, but pride, fear, belief.
Smoke drifted in faint tendrils above cracked stone and scattered weapons, the cobbled square marred by craters and deep slashes, splashes of blood still fresh.
The air stank of scorched magic and panic.
Adventurers lay scattered, bruised and beaten, some groaning, others too unconscious to feel their injuries.
The remnants of one of the most feared Familias in Orario, the Loki Familia, had been cast aside like children with sticks.
And at the center of it all, he stood, black sleeves torn at the edges, collar shadowed with blood, not all of it his.
Muscles tense, yet casual, movements still and without urgency, as if what had happened just now was no more than a morning warm-up.
Toji Fushiguro, a man spoken of in rumors and murmurs, now undeniably real, undeniably dangerous.
Behind him, the girl trembled, her hands curled against her chest, her eyes confused, wide, inhuman.
No longer a girl, at least not to the world.
A monster.
A Xenos.
But she clung to him still, drawn by the invisible, brutal gravity of his presence.
He hadn't needed to say anything to protect her from the hail of spells and blades.
His steps had done enough.
When he moved, people ran.
When he raised his blade, people fell. When he simply stared, they hesitated.
The adventurers had gathered quickly, outraged by the sight of her in the city, unshackled, exposed.
They demanded her execution.
They spoke of rules, of dangers, of the sacred pact between gods and mortals.
But Toji hadn't listened.
Not once.
Instead, he had walked past them, unbothered by the rising threat, shadows crawling at his heels like beasts given form.
And then the fighting began. It had not lasted long.
Now, he looked at them all.
Gods in balconies above, adventurers gathering further back, Guild messengers arriving too late to be useful.
They watched with unsteady breath, waiting for him to leave, or speak, or die.
None of them truly understood what he had done.
Not the domain that had trapped dozens like prey beneath his feet.
Not the impossibility of the beings that had moved through it, guided by him alone.
Not the blade he carried with lazy precision, as if it weighed nothing at all.
But they understood fear.
They understood that their strongest had fallen, that their best plans had crumbled, and that he—one man—stood unshaken.
Then, he spoke.
"They live here now," he said, voice cold, low, without theatrics, "the Xenos. On the surface. With everyone else."
No one answered. They only listened. Because if they didn't, they feared they would be next.
"You don't touch them. You don't chase them. You don't raise a blade. If I hear a whisper that one of you tried..." he let the words trail off, not for lack of clarity, but because nothing more needed to be said.
They all saw it. The aftermath. The silence where defiance had once been.
"I don't care who you are. I don't care who you pray to. If you harm them," he paused, tilting his head slightly, eyes narrowing, "I'll kill you. All of you."
"I will burn this city down, like what i should've done to that clan"
A breeze swept through the broken plaza, catching on the torn banners and smoke, brushing his hair across his forehead.
Somewhere, the faint sob of a child echoed from a window.
No one dared move.
The gods watching above did not interject.
The Guild officials held their tongues.
The adventurers watched the man who had turned their strongest into corpses waiting to happen and saw no bluff, no performance, no delusion of justice.
Just a promise.
Then, as simply as he had arrived, he turned.
He didn't wait for their permission.
He didn't ask what would be done next.
He walked, slow and heavy-footed, as if the earth itself had to catch up with him.
The girl, Kuro, trailed behind him, still monstrous, still afraid, but not of him.
Never of him.
As they vanished down the alley, no one followed.
And the city was left in the grip of a new truth.
A man had made his own law in Orario, not with politics, or power, or divine right, but with violence, impossible and raw.
The gods whispered his name, some with interest, others with dread. But none spoke of interfering.
Not now.
He had not asked to be feared.
He simply was.