Ultimate Man [JJK X SOL]: Loading Golden Entries at The Start

A moment ago, Yuji had been standing with her. Now, he had vanished without a trace.

For a second, a chill ran down Nobara's spine.

"Itadori! Itadori!" she shouted, her voice echoing through the stillness.

At the same time, nails infused with cursed energy materialized in her hands, her weapons for casting techniques.

"Maki! Maki-senpai!" she called again, louder this time, her voice tinged with desperation.

But her calls were met with silence. The dark forest remained eerily quiet, its oppressive stillness gnawing at her.

Suddenly, an unfamiliar sensation began to creep in—a profound loneliness, as if the entire world had abandoned her. It felt like she was the last person left alive.

---

On the other side, Yuji was equally confused.

He had just turned his head for a moment, and when he looked back, Kugisaki Nobara was gone.

"Kugisaki! Kugisaki!" Yuji yelled, his voice sharp with concern as he began searching the area.

He couldn't fathom what was happening. It wasn't like Nobara to wander off or disappear without a trace.

"Kugisaki! Where are you?"

But no matter how much he called out or scoured the forest, there was no sign of her.

"What's going on?" he muttered, frustration building.

He couldn't hear any sounds of a struggle or danger, nothing that suggested Nobara was in trouble. And yet, she was nowhere to be found.

As Yuji wandered through the shadowy woods, a sense of helplessness washed over him.

"Why does it feel… so lonely?"

It was strange. Yuji had been alone before plenty of times, in fact—and he'd never felt this kind of emptiness. Scratching his head in confusion, he came up with an idea.

"Sukuna! Can you hear me? Say something!" he shouted, hoping for a response from the King of Curses who shared his body.

But all he got in return was silence.

"Damn it, he's ignoring me again," Yuji grumbled, his irritation growing. "Of course, when I actually need him, he's no help at all!"

Frustrated, he slapped himself twice on the face to refocus.

"Ow!" He winced at the sting. Perhaps he'd hit himself a little too hard.

Still, there was no response from Sukuna.

"When I get stronger, I swear, I'll make you pay for this!" Yuji muttered bitterly. He knew there was no point in dwelling on Sukuna's unhelpfulness now, so he continued trudging through the forest, feeling more lost than ever.

What Yuji didn't realize, however, was that Sukuna wasn't deliberately ignoring him this time.

---

Within Sukuna's domain, a space built from bones and shadows the King of Curses sat on his throne, his expression calm and eyes closed as if in meditation.

But then, suddenly, his eyes snapped open.

"What's this? That brat's presence is gone!" Sukuna growled.

It was unusual—unnerving, even. He could no longer sense Yuji's presence.

He was certain Yuji hadn't died. If the boy had, Sukuna would have been dragged down with him, and that clearly wasn't the case.

But something was wrong. Very wrong.

And it wasn't just Yuji. Sukuna could sense it, an unfamiliar emotion stirring within him. It was the same sensation that seemed to grip Maki, Nobara, and Yuji at this moment.

Loneliness.

For a moment, Sukuna frowned. This feeling was foreign, almost laughable. After all, he had existed as a cursed king for over a thousand years, utterly indifferent to such emotions.

But Sukuna wasn't one to overlook the obvious. He knew this loneliness wasn't natural. It hadn't come from within, it had been forced upon him.

"Hahaha! So that's how it is!" Sukuna's laughter echoed through his domain.

"Loneliness, huh? Interesting. Very interesting!"

For the first time, Sukuna began to understand the true nature of the space they had been trapped in.

Previously, Sukuna had dismissed the area as an incomplete domain, a flawed space without the guaranteed hit effect that domains typically possessed.

But now he realized he'd been wrong. This wasn't an incomplete domain at all.

"This domain doesn't lack a guaranteed hit effect," Sukuna murmured to himself, his eyes gleaming with understanding. "It's been replaced with something else entirely."

What could replace a guaranteed hit effect? Sukuna already knew the answer:

Cursed Binding.

As the King of Curses, Sukuna was intimately familiar with the concept of cursed binding.

Binding curses involved sacrificing something in exchange for gaining something else—like a trade-off.@@novelbin@@

Take the first generation of "Heavenly Restriction," for example: Fushiguro Toji. He had given up all cursed energy in exchange for monstrous physical power that surpassed human limits.

It was a balance of extremes. Excelling in one area meant being utterly devoid in another.

And now, it was clear that this cursed domain operated on a similar principle. The loneliness they felt wasn't a coincidence, it was the binding.