Shadow and Inifinity

Opening Event—A Dead Man Walks Again

Gojo Satoru's breath was battered, his body rigid.

He had died countless times. He had faced the strongest of curses, the most lethal of sorcerers, and the abyss itself.

But nothing, nothing had ever set his blood to ice like this.

Itachi Uchiha was standing in front of him.

His body intact, his movements smooth, natural. But his presence?

It was wrong.

His eyes—eyes that had burned like fire-crab scarlet once before under the Sharingan—now shone as black empty space, roiling with something even Gojo's Six Eyes could not read.

Something not chakra.

Something not cursed power.

Pure, raw nothing.

"Did you miss me, Satoru?" Itachi spoke quietly, sounding amused.

But underneath the silky voice, something else existed.

Something that stank of decay.

Gojo's hands quivered. His lips dried up.

He had seen Itachi turn into light.

He had sensed his absence.

He had witnessed his death.

And now—this?

"That's impossible," Gojo growled.

"And yet," Itachi spread his arms wide, "here I stand."

The wind ruffled the destroyed battlefield in a fit.

Solarius moved forward, tense six arms outstretched, divine energy playing at the fingertips.

"What have they done to you?" The Eternal Watcher's tone cut, an edge of something Gojo had never heard in its voice.

Fear.

Itachi smiled wider.

"Oh, Solarius." He smiled warmly. "You of all creatures should understand—gods don't resurrect the dead for free."

And then—the atmosphere shifted.

Something dense and choking crawled into the battlefield.

Not like cursed energy.

Not like void energy.

Something worse.

Something ancient.

Gojo's Six Eyes blazed, attempting to follow the direction of the taint.

And that's when he saw them.

The entities are standing just outside the rift.

A council of robed entities, their bodies dripping with something darker than shadow.

The True Forgotten.

And at their center—a single woman stepped forward.

Tall and elegant, her body was wrapped in a dress made of shifting, living tendrils.

Her face was almost human—beautiful in a way that wasn't meant for mortals to understand.

But her eyes.

They were the same as Itachi's.

"So," she said, and her voice was soft but ate like infinite hunger. "This is the most powerful sorcerer?"

Gojo's whole body bristled.

Because for the first time in his life, his Six Eyes couldn't read her.

He saw nothing.

No cursed energy.

No mass.

No indication that she even existed.

Just a space occupied by a woman.

And she smiled at him.

"You may call me Nymeria." Her voice was silk braided with knives.

*And this—" she indicated Itachi, "is my gift to you."

Gojo's stomach turned.

"You brought him back," he snarled.

Nymeria leaned her head. "In a sense."

"Bullshit," Gojo growled, his fists clenching. "He's not the same. You corrupted him."

Itachi chuckled softly.

"Oh, Satoru." He took a step forward.

Gojo's instincts cued him to move.

"Do you really think I wouldn't come back? Different?"

And then—Itachi moved.

The First Clash—The Monster Wears His Face

Gojo's reflexes saved him.

The moment Itachi lunged, Gojo activated Limitless.

An instant barrier, warping space itself—the strongest defense in existence.

But Itachi—Itachi didn't stop.

He phased through it.

Through Limitless.

Through the one thing that had always made Gojo untouchable.

Gojo barely dodged as Itachi's blade sliced through the air, missing his throat by an inch.

Impossible.

Gojo teleported back, forcing distance, his mind racing.

"No one bypasses Infinity."

But Itachi just smiled.

"I do now."

Gojo's stomach churned.

This was not the Itachi he had known.

Something else occupied his body.

Slipperily quick—

Itachi struck at him again.

Gojo merely managed to raise his hand to block, cursed energy spilling from him, but the instant that their hands connected—

His own strength turned upon him.

An arc of bare corruption surged through his body and corrupted his cursed energy into an alien form.

Gojo bit his teeth against it, sending Itachi recoiling.

"What the hell did they do to you?"

Itachi exhaled softly.

"They showed me the truth."

His black void eyes locked onto Gojo.

"And now, I'll show it to you."

Gojo's mind screamed too late.

The moment Itachi's gaze met his—

Everything collapsed.

The Nightmare World—A Glimpse of the True Forgotten

Gojo was no longer standing on the battlefield.

He was. somewhere else.

Somewhere wrong.

The sky above him was crimson, burning with shattered constellations.

The earth was flesh, breathing and pulsing beneath his feet.

The air was alive.

And around him—figures started to rise up from the ground.

Not human.

Not cursed spirits.

Not anything that should be.

Their bodies were incomplete, their faces unfinished, their limbs blending into each other like wax.

They were the ones who had fallen previously.

"Do you see it now?"

Gojo turned.

Itachi was at the center of it all, his black eyes empty, bottomless.

"The world outside this one. The realm where the True Forgotten rule."

Gojo's heart pounded against his chest.

"You were never supposed to succeed, Satoru."

Itachi lifted his hand—and the sky howled.

The monsters charged forward.

The Breaking Point—Gojo's Escape

Instinct took over.

Gojo's cursed power burst forth, distorting the nightmare itself.

His six eyes tore the illusion to shreds—propelling him back into reality.

But when he hit the ground—he was on his knees.

Panting.

Shaking.

Itachi had just pushed him into a reality outside of his own.

And it had nearly shattered him.

Nymeria's laughter was gentle, but unforgiving.

"You see now, don't you?"

"You are no longer the strongest."

Gojo clenched his teeth and stood up.

His whole body hurt.

Itachi observed him intently.

And for an instant, Gojo saw something flash across his face.

A moment of uncertainty.

A moment of Itachi being himself.

And Gojo grasped that.

"I don't care what they did to you, Uchiha."

Gojo rubbed the blood off his lips, smiling again, but this time sharper.

"I'm bringing you back."

Itachi's smile wavered.

Nymeria's eyes narrowed.

And the war officially started.

The battlefield was silent.

Not the kind of silence that resulted from peace—but the kind that preceded destruction.

Gojo remained frozen, his heart racing in his chest.

Itachi Uchiha stood in front of him.

But it wasn't the Itachi he had fought with.

It wasn't the man who had rewritten destiny, offering himself up to destroy Erebus from the universe.

This Itachi was different.

Something aberrant.

He was a hurt in reality itself.

His eyes, once blood-red with the Sharingan's power, are now hollow vacuums, churning with something darker than darkness.

And at his side, the woman who had done this.

Nymeria.

A name Gojo had never encountered.

A name that made his spine tingle.

Her looks were unnatural, her attire rippling and twisting as if it consisted of living darkness.

She leaned her head, regarding him with those vacant, starving eyes.

"You don't look pleased, Satoru."

Gojo clenched his jaws.

"What the hell have you done to him?"

Nymeria smiled.

"Oh, I just gave him another opportunity."

Gojo's fists quivered at his sides.

"Bullshit."

Nymeria sighed, shaking her head.

"Why do you humans never listen? He is not hurting. He is not lost. He has merely… evolved."

She touched Itachi's shoulder, a gentle touch.

A dark aura throbbed from her fingertips, and Itachi's face contorted—just for an instant.

As if he were struggling with something within himself.

Then his face smoothed out and resumed calm indifference.

"Enough words." Itachi's voice was like ice, vacant.

And then he stepped back.

Gojo had battled thousands of wars.

He had seen every possible attack pattern and countered every imaginable style.

And yet he barely reacted in time.

Itachi's speed was beyond anything he had faced before.

One second, he was ten feet away.

The next, his blade was already slicing toward Gojo's throat.

Gojo's Infinity activated automatically.

A barrier of space formed around him, an impenetrable wall.

And Itachi's blade slipped through it like air.

Gojo jerked backward, barely avoiding the strike.

"What the hell?!"

His mind flew to break down the technique.

No one but Sukuna, no, not even the most powerful curses, had ever slipped past his Infinity so easily.

But Itachi had.

And he wasn't finished.

Gojo contorted his body, avoiding three additional strikes that arrived quicker than thought.

A kunai lodged itself into his shoulder.

His Infinity had failed once more.

He clenched his teeth, warping back, creating space between them.

But Itachi didn't follow up.

He merely stood there, tilting his head slightly.

"You appear bewildered, Gojo."

Gojo spat blood.

"No, only angry."

Itachi smiled, but it was not his.

Hollowed.

"You still do not realize, do you?"

His dark, void eyes blinked.

"Infinity is formed based on space's laws. My new state of being defies such rules."

Gojo's gut lurched.

Which meant.

Itachi no longer occupied the same plane of reality as him.

His very essence is something else. Something inhuman.

Nymeria's mirth was silken, teasing.

"This is the power of the Forgotten."

"Your techniques, your strategies, your limits."

"None of them matter anymore."

Gojo tightened his fists.

"We'll see about that."

His six eyes flared.

And then he attacked.

He moved faster than sound.

Gojo teleported behind Itachi, his fist coated in Limitless Zero, aiming to end this in a single, devastating blow.

His fist collided

And Itachi caught it.

Gojo's eyes widened.

"That's not."

A shockwave of pure force exploded outward.

Gojo was launched flying backward, crashing through the wreckage of the battlefield.

Pain tore through his body.

He twisted in midair, sliding to a halt, his feet sinking into the broken earth.

He slowly exhaled, curling his fingers.

Itachi remained where he had been, utterly unharmed.

His blank expression met Gojo's.

"You cannot win the battle, Satoru."

Gojo's hard laugh rang out.

"Yeah? They all say that."

He disappeared once more.

This time he aimed for Itachi's mind.

A single flick of his wrist

Reversal Red.

A crimson sphere of destruction shot forward, collapsing space in on itself.

Itachi didn't move.

The attack hit directly.

A massive explosion erupted, consuming him in an inferno of cursed energy.

The ground shattered, the shockwave ripping through dimensions.

Gojo lowered his hand, breathing heavily.

Then Itachi stepped out of the smoke.

Completely untouched.

Gojo's chest tightened.

Itachi raised a single hand.

And reality fractured.

A ripple coursed through the air.

The battlefield was altered.

The sky was no longer overhead.

The earth was no longer below.

Gojo's mind was reeling.

Because within the space of a single breath.

Itachi had rewritten reality's rules.

This wasn't Genjutsu.

This wasn't an illusion.

This was real.

And Gojo was stuck within it.

Itachi moved closer, his presence weighing more and more.

"I told you." His voice was a whisper from nothing.

"You no longer exist in my world."

Gojo clenched his teeth.

"Then I'll just destroy this world."

His fists created a seal.

And then

Domain Expansion.

Hollow God's Wrath.

The surrounding space disintegrated.

Pure, limitless cursed energy burst outwards, remodeling everything it came into contact with.

Itachi blinked for the first time.

And Gojo smiled.

"Let's see you ignore this, Uchiha."

The fight was far from over.

Nymeria observed from the shadows, her face inscrutable.

Solarius re-gripped his shattered weapons.

"This is beyond us now." His voice was grim.

"We are witnessing the birth of something unnatural."

Nymeria smiled softly.

"No."

"We are witnessing the end of a god."

As Gojo and Itachi's battle ripped through the last remnants of reality

The universe itself began to unravel.

And the True Forgotten stepped forward.