The Honored One, Chapter 66

Three days later, Satoru stood beneath a ragged awning, listening to rumors flow from a nearby kiosk. The hawker sold enchanted bracelets, each pulsing with faint illusions. But the crowd wasn’t there for trinkets. They gathered around a man in simple robes, speaking in hushed tones.

“Dead,” he said, eyes wide. “All three heirs. Shibukawa, Ishimonji, and Yoruzu. Found in some old courtyard, half their limbs missing–bodies twisted and whatnot. Looked like they killed each other.”

People muttered. Some shook their heads. Others grinned, relishing drama. Satoru lifted his chin, tilting an ear closer. He heard new details: the clans had mobilized, each claiming innocence, each pointing fingers. A wave of tension spread through Shibuya like a slow fuse. 

He smiled, tapping a foot on the worn pavement. Three heirs, from three minor clans. That was no coincidence. Possibly the Genestealers. Possibly not. But his gut told him they’d done it. This city thrived on conflict, so minor wars weren’t new. Yet a triple death in one night? That was bold. A perfect spark for bigger flames.

He stepped away from the kiosk, weaving into the busy street. Sorcerers in dark cloaks rushed by, gossiping about clan heads preparing curses, forging alliances. The usual hum of Shibuya had sharpened. People spoke in quick, hushed bursts, their faces set in grim lines. Whispers of “war” danced on many tongues.

Satoru halted at a corner, watching two old men wave papers at each other, curses flickering around their fingertips. He guessed they were discussing the sudden turmoil. He drifted closer, Infinity muffling the sound of his approach.

“They’ll blame each other,” one old man spat, knuckles white on a rolled scroll. “That’s how it always goes. Then we get big flashy curses in the open. Fools.”

His companion gave a short nod. “The city bleeds. The big clans do nothing, as usual. Let the small fry kill each other. That’s the rule.”

They noticed Satoru and quieted, shuffling away. He let them go, turning instead to the wide boulevard ahead. He shoved his hands deeper into his cloak pockets, mind stirring. This was a start. But only a start. People died daily in clan feuds. Shibuya had seen a thousand mini-wars, most of which were internal and likely deliberate. If the Genestealers wanted a real crisis, they needed a bigger spark.

He wandered, scanning the streets. Over the next day, he caught glimpses of small skirmishes. Ishimonji clan members squared off against Shibukawa sorcerers, illusions smashing into lightning, the watchers cheering or cursing. Yoruzu loyalists sniped from rooftops. Minor districts flickered with ephemeral barriers. The city’s tension climbed, but not yet to cataclysmic levels. Just the same old clan fighting, given new impetus. If he was being honest, there was hardly a difference.

Then, late the next night, he heard a name he recognized. Arasaka Sasai. A major clan patriarch. People whispered that his firstborn son, Saburo, had turned up dead in his personal quarters. Killed with a lethal assassination technique. The talk spread like wildfire. By dawn, Satoru found himself near a small plaza, eavesdropping on frantic Sorcerers from the Arasaka clan.

“Saburo is gone,” one hissed. “We found him in pieces. No forced entry. Must have been an inside job.”

Another slammed a fist against a kiosk, cracking the wood. “Kiryuin must pay. They’ve hated us for centuries.”

Satoru arched an eyebrow. Kiryuin? That was one of Shibuya’s top powerhouses. Hearing them accused meant a major war could erupt. This was exactly what the Genestealers needed: a huge brawl that dragged major clans into the ring. And soon, news came that Arasaka Sasai had formally declared war on Kiryuin. That rarely happened, at least not in the last four thousand years if the book on Shibuya’s history were at all accurate.

He heard the city’s pulse quicken. A hush fell among the minor clans. People whispered, eyes darting. Some raced to fortify their wards, unsure if the conflict would spill into their district. Others cheered, hoping to see these two giants clash. Either way, tension soared.

Satoru strolled through it all, a slight smile ghosting his lips. The brood had done well. They’d orchestrated a perfect storm of blame and blood. Now the fortress guardians would watch the city tear itself apart. Or so he assumed. He wasn’t sure if the fortress would intervene, but if every major clan ended up in battle, that fortress might be forced to reinforce or clamp down. Or maybe they’d do nothing at all, which was also a distinct possibility, since Shibuya technically didn’t have a police force, because internal wars and even rebellions were encouraged by Ryomen Sukuna. 

Either way, it meant more chaos. 

Good.

Within a week, Shibuya descended into havoc. Streets became battlefields. Sorcerers roamed in squads, each wearing clan crests. Illusions and elemental curses lit the skies. District after district saw duels, ambushes, entire blocks hammered by catastrophic spells. Civilians fled or locked themselves inside warded shalters. Shops closed. The daily hum gave way to war cries and blasts of raw cursed energy.

Satoru watched from vantage points, Infinity cloaking him from stray curses–of which few ever reached him to begin with. He hopped rooftop to rooftop, scanning the carnage below. Collapsing towers, swirling vortexes that shredded entire blocks. The air bristled with the tang of overlapping cursed techniques, too many to count. People screamed or bellowed. Fire raged in some alleys. Streets lay empty, abandoned by common folk. Only Sorcerers remained, prowling for enemies.

He paused on one rooftop near a half-destroyed tower. He saw a swirling clash between Kiryuin elites and Arasaka loyalists. One brandished a domain, a flickering realm of molten stone that consumed a chunk of the street. Another conjured spectral beasts that roared and lunged. Meanwhile, lesser clan Sorcerers fought in the distance, curses colliding in thunderous arcs. Satoru felt the ground tremble.

He smirked. This was the opening he wanted. The city’s defenders, its strongest clans, all embroiled in a savage fight. Soon the fortress would stand short-handed, or at least distracted. He needed to act.

He hopped across a series of battered rooftops, scanning for vantage. He found a tall spire still intact, its top half a jagged ruin of twisted metal, but enough space to stand. Perfect. With one leap, Infinity guiding him, he landed on the spire’s summit, boots crunching loose debris.

Below him, Shibuya raged. Purple flames licked across a block where arcs of lightning  met conjured storms. Gunshots rang out—some clans used ballistic cursed weapons. Spiraling domain expansions tore holes in lesser wards. The swirl of energies nearly blinded lesser senses, but Satoru’s Infinity filtered it all. He felt it as a chaotic sea, each wave a violent technique.

He inhaled. This was the moment. He could slip into the fortress. But… he wanted to punch a bigger hole first. Make them panic. Wreak havoc. That was the simplest way to ensure they scattered. He also kind of wanted to blow up the fortress. Its walls were heavily saturated in Cursed Energies; Satoru wanted to see just how strong they were. 

He spread his feet, turning to face Sukuna’s fortress. Its colossal walls loomed, overshadowing the skyline. He flexed his fingers, letting cursed energy pool in his core. The swirling energies of the city masked his gathering power. No one would pinpoint him with so many cursed techniques flying everywhere–and especially not with the Genestealers making an even bigger mess of things.

He closed his eyes, inhaling slowly. Infinity expanded around him, creating a still bubble where dust and debris hovered in midair. Then he began to channel. Red from one side, Blue from the other. He forced them to collide, forming Purple. But this time, he kept going, feeding it more and more cursed energy.

A faint tremor ran through the spire as the singularity grew in his outstretched hand. The air near him distorted, edges warping as if reality bent. The chunk of the roof beneath his feet cracked. 

He pictured everything he’d lost—his old students, his friends. A small black sphere appeared between his palms, edges flickering with deep purple arcs. Slowly, it expanded, each second fed by the swirling cursed energies Satoru commanded.

Dust and debris all around him began to swirl in a slow orbit, drawn by the singularity’s pull. Loose chunks of masonry lifted from the spire’s edges. The sky overhead flickered with random projectiles still drifting from the city’s battles. They parted around him, leaving him in a circle of calm.

He didn’t rush. He poured more cursed energy in; he had unlimited amounts of it, after all, due to his vow with Tzeentch. The sphere grew to the size of his head, then bigger, eventually large enough to swallow a small boulder, and then a bigger one, until it grew large enough to devour an entire mountain. He felt the effort, sweat beading on his brow. There was a weight to it, Satoru noted, a metaphysical one.

Below, the city roared with curses and blasts. No one looked up. No one sensed the monstrous technique forming overhead. The chaos drowned out every alarm.

Satoru breathed in, steadying the swirling Purple. He’d never shaped one this big. The gravitational distortion made the spire shudder. A chunk of twisted metal crumbled off an edge, sucked partway in before Infinity blocked it from merging with the technique.

At last, the sphere reached a size he deemed enough—a monstrous orb that pulsed with black-violet light, edges shimmering with destructive potential. The rooftop beneath him cracked in spiderweb patterns.

He exhaled sharply, focusing on the fortress. The gates soared miles away, overshadowed by flanking watchtowers. He raised his arms, aiming the singularity. Chunks of debris drifted around him in slow arcs. He let a grin cross his lips. Let’s see how strong those walls are.

He unleashed it.

The sphere streaked forward, a silent darkness that cut through the sky. Where it passed, the air distorted, absorbing light around it. Down below, a few Sorcerers glanced up, eyes going wide. But it moved too fast, a dark comet heading straight for a district near the fortress gates.

In the next instant, the sphere slammed into the district’s outskirts. Everything in its path disintegrated, drawn into that unstoppable void and utterly annihilated. Buildings, roads, vehicles, all folded inward with no time to crumble or explode. They simply vanished, swallowed by the singularity. A hush fell, as if sound itself was devoured.

Then the compressed Purple reached the fortress gate. The shockwave of erasure roared outward. Stone, steel, even wards flickered and vanished under that hungry pull. The outer wall trembled, huge chunks eroding. The Men of Iron stationed outside never stood a chance. Their metallic forms crumpled into the void, gone. The singularity ate entire sections of the gate, spitting out nothing but vacant air behind.

A silent heartbeat passed. Then a deafening thunderclap tore through the atmosphere. The singularity collapsed, releasing a final burst of destructive force. Shockwaves rippled outward, toppling entire city blocks around the crater. Satoru felt the aftershock slam the spire beneath him, making it lurch. He steadied himself with Infinity, cloak whipping as dust clouds billowed toward the sky.

He gazed at the impact zone. Where the district once stood, there was an empty swath of nothing—maybe two kilometers in length and hundreds of meters wide, an artificial valley filled with swirling dust. The fortress gate was partially gone, replaced by twisted gaps. The outer defenses had a hole straight to the lower levels, exposing internal corridors, but the purple was stopped before it could reach the main tower, which meant the damn thing was covered in something akin to a domain amplification. 

Satoru spotted a few flickers of movement inside, likely fortress guardians reeling in alarm. The fortress gates had taken a direct hit. 

A hush lingered across Shibuya’s battlefield. Sorcerers paused mid-fight, scanning the horizon. Some gawked at the massive crater. Others hurried to guess which clan unleashed that monstrous technique. The more astute felt a new wave of dread, recognizing a scale of destruction rarely seen.

Satoru grinned, stepping back from the spire’s edge. The fortress wasn’t leveled entirely. Far from it. The structure was too huge and reinforced. But the outer gate area was in ruins. The defenders would scramble. They’d suspect an invasion. The city clans, already at each other’s throats, might assume it was the work of a rival clan. Or maybe they’d suspect the fortress was attacked by yet another fool who was looking to get in. Heck, maybe some of the major clans would try to break in as well. Chaos, in short, would multiply.

He hopped onto a sturdier section of roof, Infinity negating the debris that fell around him. He glanced down, seeing stunned Sorcerers in the lower streets pointing at the crater, eyes wide, mouths agape. Some soared on cursed wings to investigate. Others ran in panic. Flames flickered across the city, illusions faltering as their creators lost concentration, overshadowed by raw shock.

He let out a quiet chuckle, turning away. “Oh, this is going to be fun.” 

He moved quickly, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, Infinity cushioning each landing. If any watchers tried to track him, they’d see only a blur vanishing in the dust-laden air.

Far behind him, the fortress stood wounded. Sirens or alarms—some mechanical, some cursed-based—likely blared, though the city’s clamor drowned them out. Legion after legion of defenders would pour into the breach, expecting an attack. Meanwhile, the clans kept tearing each other apart, uncertain who to blame for the gate’s destruction.