"C'moooooon. Live a little!" He wiggles his fingers enticingly.

...no hostility that he can detect. So he can... see what that's about.

He narrows his eye but takes a few steps towards the sorcerer and tries to touch his hand.

Something stops him centimeters away from Gojo's outstretched fingers. Or - no, his hand is stopped in something.

"The closer you get, the less you move. You can push as hard as you like, and you'll get absolutely nowhere. Unless!" He reaches his hand further and gently touches the curse's. "I let you. See? And now we can hold hands. I'm sure that's all you were after, right?"

He entwines his fingers with Jogo's, grinning.

It... his hand... stops just before him...

"I—refuse—damn you—!"

"What, I'm not your type? Aw. I'm hurt."

He releases Jogo's hand, giving a shrug. "Oh well. Guess we can go back to fighting. It was my turn next, right?"

What follows is a brutal series of blows that are far too fast for Jogo to wrap his poor volcano head around, ending in being casually booted off of the side of the mountain.

Out and down he goes, bouncing off the side of the mountain under gravity.

That power... And it's not even just curse-enhanced hits...

He don't understand. It doesn't make sense. He has to understand...

"To put it in very simple terms, I warp space itself. Traditionally, the ultimate form of the technique of the Gojo clan would be to warp space to create a vacuum." He holds up a single finger, and a red orb starts spinning on the end of it. "But just warping space in one direction is boring, isn’t it? With space warping you have so many options! What do you think happens when you reverse the effect?"

Answer: you get a great big explosion that sends the curse flying.

He's launched, far into the air above the woods. Far, far too far.

He must not think. He must act.

It takes several tries to arrest his momentum, hitting into trees and the ground over and over again, but eventually he manages it, and tries to pivot some of that acquired momentum back into a flaming punch—of course Gojō Satoru is still following him, of course the sorcerer's hot on his heels—but if he can land something—anything—

Wait, actually, where did the sorcerer go?

...the hell.

Did he... flee?

Not quite!

Back at an underground apartment where a movie marathon is going on, Gojo appears out of thin air behind Tokan.

"Field trip!" he calls, cheerfully.

"Sweet baby Buddha," says Itadori, nearly jumping out of his skin.

His cursed energy output is steady, though; the bear remains asleep.

"Oh, well done! C'mon, we don't want to keep our guest speaker waiting."

And then he reaches out and grabs Itadori by the shoulder, and—

—they are out on a mountainside that looks like it's been having itself a bad time.

"Sorry about that!" calls Gojo, to the curse. "I'm a teacher, you know. I can't pass up the excellent teaching opportunity you offer!"

"—give a brother a warning!" Pause. "Where, uh, are we?"

In the middle of a shallow lake, it seems, where a weird bipedal curse has been looking for—for—

"Sukuna's vessel," says the curse, dumbly. He's alive?

"I did give you a warning. It doesn't really matter where we are, don't worry about it."

Then, to the curse: "And yes, but it's very interesting that you recognized him immediately."

Seeing the curse's legs half sunk into the water makes Itadori notice that his legs aren't, and he blinks as he lifts and lowers his right foot. "Why aren't we sinking?"

"Planning on using him as a shield, are you?"

"Shhhh," says Gojo, patting Tokan on the head to quiet his many questions. "Pay attention. No, of course not, did you not hear what I just said? He's here for what you're going to do next."

"What.. I'm going to do next? Bringing someone who's just going to slow you down is stupid."

"Aww! Your concern is touching, but I'll be fine. C'mon, I just showed you how you have no chance of hitting me, what are you going to do about it?"

...it's a trap.

It's so obviously a trap.

And Gojō Satoru is literally mocking him about it. "You fucking brat," he screams, the top and sides of his head erupting into enormous jets of lava. "Do not underestimate me!" He brings his hands together, tips of the index fingers and thumbs touching, middle fingers side-by-side, little fingers pulled back. "Domain Expansion."

It extends from behind him, a curtain of pure blackness that surrounds the three of them... and which then sprouts volcanic rock on the ground, walls, and ceiling, with cracks spouting lava everywhere as their only light sources.

  "Coffin of the Iron Mountain!"

"There we go. Thank you!" calls Gojo, brightly. His left hand keeps a firm grip on his student's shoulder. "So! You've already encountered this sort of thing before, Tokan-kun. What is it, and how does this compare to the others you've seen?"

Tōkan is... frozen.

"It's, it's a Domain Expansion. But it's... more like Sukuna's than the other curses'," he says, looking around with saucepan eyes. "I don't know how. But it is."