The group left the Okinawa aquarium laughing, Riko Amanai gleefully drawing a thick line across the last item on her handwritten list—"See the whales."
Now what?
They had gone boating, played by the beach, toured the aquarium… all her "friendship recommendations" were done. For the first time in two days, she looked a little lost.
Her eyes lifted to Kuroi Misato, then to Soujun and the others. Maybe… this was enough.
Soujun slipped his phone out of his pocket and gave it a casual wave. "The bounty's been called off."
It had been canceled at eleven that morning. Good news on paper—yet instead of relief, a strange silence fell over the group. More than three hours had passed since then. All that remained was to escort Amanai safely back to Jujutsu High.
"Let's head back," Soujun said.
So it had come to this. Whether she accepted assimilation or tried to resist, the time for running was over.
"Okay," Riko forced a smile, balling her hands into tiny fists. "Thanks for putting up with me the past two days. You indulged me, you let me act selfish, and I really was happy."
…
At the foot of Mount Tengen.
They returned around four in the afternoon.
Here in March the air was still sharp with lingering cold, the wind carrying a bite that prickled against the skin. The horizon glowed yellow with the setting sun, the round moon ready to rise in its place.
Tomorrow would be clear.
The path back into Jujutsu High was different from last time.
They stopped at a crimson torii gate. Beyond stretched a winding stone approach leading deeper into the mountain. Endless rows of vermilion gates lined the path; no signs were needed, for the trail led unerringly to the main shrine at the summit.
They climbed step after step in silence. Finally, they passed the last torii and reached the front hall.
"We're inside the barrier now," Geto explained when the oppressive quiet became too heavy.
"That means we're safe!" Riko said brightly, pumping her fist.
"..."
"Don't rope me into this again. I'm not playing babysitter for brats," Gojo muttered, shooting her a sharp look.
"What?!" Riko bristled, hands on her hips.
But before she could argue further—
Soujun shoved Gojo hard. A blade flashed, piercing him clean through, missing only the vital points.
Too fast.
Impossible.
They were inside the Jujutsu High barrier!
Everyone stared in shock at the attacker.
A tall man with a mocking grin stood before them, a vertical scar cutting across his lips and down his cheek, lending his face a cruel, cold sharpness.
They had grown too reliant on cursed energy… and too confident in Jujutsu High's defenses.
Soujun was the first to react, pushing Gojo aside and shielding Riko and Kuroi. Geto immediately summoned his Worm curse.
Beads of sweat slid down Gojo's temple, but his grin was wild. "Haven't we met before?" His glasses slipped down just enough for his Six Eyes to scan the man, vague fragments of memory surfacing.
"No need to remember me. I'm no good at remembering men's names either," the man drawled, grin widening as his indifferent eyes locked on Gojo.
…
Fushiguro Toji.
The Sorcerer Killer.
He bore a heavenly restriction from birth—a "binding vow" etched into his very being. In exchange for being born with absolutely no cursed energy, his body was freed from all its natural limits. In return, he possessed monstrous physical strength and godlike athletic instinct.
That was why he could slip through Jujutsu High's barriers without triggering a single alarm.
"I've been waiting for this," Toji said lazily. On his shoulder perched a long, eel-like curse with a grotesque human face bulging from its end.
He couldn't see curses. But with his five senses honed beyond the imaginable and the aid of cursed tools, he could detect them, tame them, and wield them as weapons.
The blade that had skewered Gojo clattered from his hand. Toji's shoulder-curse spat up another hilt, and from it he drew a fresh longsword.
A storage curse…
"To think, decades ago, when that Six Eyes brat of the Gojo clan was born, the whole jujutsu world was thrown into turmoil. I even went to take a look myself. And that was the one and only time in my life someone actually noticed me standing right behind them."
His eyes flicked briefly to Soujun, then back to Gojo.
"That's why I had to design all this—to dull your senses, make you sluggish."
He had been the mastermind from the start.
The exorbitant bounty that lured swarms of curse users—just to wear them down, confuse them. Canceling the bounty at the last moment, to make them relax. Coming here ahead of time, flooding Jujutsu High with curses to tie up the other sorcerers, and lying in ambush at the entrance.
And now, when they were most complacent, he struck.
It worked perfectly.
The strongest sorcerer was already half-crippled.
Geto stepped forward beside Gojo, but Gojo lifted an arm to stop him. "I'll handle this. You take Riko and Kuroi to Master Tengen."
"But—"
Toji gave them no chance to argue. He was already in front of Geto's Worm curse, bisecting it with a single slash. His body tore through the curse like a bullet, gore splattering across him before the curse vanished entirely.
Geto's heart sank. He felt it—the Worm's soul annihilated in that instant.
A special grade cursed tool. A blade that could cut even souls: the Inverted Spear of Heaven.
Such weapons were rare, their forms and effects catalogued in detail. One glance was enough to recognize it.
Toji shoved the soul-cleaving blade back into his storage curse and drew another weapon: a chipped, ugly dagger.
The Inverted Spear of Heaven, a blade that forcibly nullified any cursed technique it touched.
His eyes swept the field with swift calculation.
The Star Plasma Vessel was protected by that strange sorcerer—best to avoid her for now. The maid was a noncombatant. The boy with curse manipulation was irritating, but manageable. Only Gojo Satoru… he had to be eliminated first.
"This is my fight," Gojo repeated, teeth bared.
Soujun tightened his grip on Riko and Kuroi, already steering them back. He knew exactly what was going through Gojo's head. Injuries, duty, mission—none of it mattered. Facing such an opponent, Gojo lived only for the battle. Whether he killed Toji or died by his hand, either outcome would satisfy him.
Soujun's own blood itched for the fight, but he forced it down. "We're leaving."
Geto lingered, then reluctantly followed.
…
Gojo raised his palm, conjuring a spiraling orb of light, and hurled it at Toji.
Toji twisted aside, his body lingering impossibly in midair before landing atop a nearby roof. "Fine. I'll kill you first—then I'll kill the girl."
"Is that so?" Gojo grinned savagely, though inside he felt a chill.
Too fast. Too strange.
This man had no cursed energy. Not a single spark. Even the Six Eyes couldn't read his movements.
"I know every trick in your arsenal," Toji said, weaving effortlessly through Gojo's attacks. "The Gojo clan—one of the Three Great Families. Yet tell me, do any of you still bother to develop your inherited techniques?"
He slipped close and drove an elbow down. Gojo barely managed to block, but the force crushed him to his knees.
"What a letdown. Show me something new."
Gojo rose, wiping blood from his temple. "You spent all this time scheming, and this is all you've got? That's pathetic."
"So what? All that matters is I can kill you," Toji sneered. "Only the weak care what others think."
"You're right about that," Gojo hissed, his grin widening. He tracked Toji's blur as the man bounded from roof to roof, vanishing into the forest.
Too fast!
No cursed energy to follow. But… the storage curse on his shoulder—that left traces.
"Then I'll just do this…"
"Maximum Output. Technique Reversal—Blue!"
A dense azure sphere blossomed between his palms. His eyes locked on the trace of the curse's residue within the woods.
There!
His finger jabbed toward the forest. The world warped. Rocks shattered, trees tore free of their roots, the land caved into a crater as if crushed by an invisible fist.
The cover was gone. His view stretched wide—
But Toji himself was nowhere.
A buzzing hum swelled. A cloud of fly-headed curses swarmed around Gojo.
He cursed under his breath. So that was it—masking the storage curse's presence among the swarm. He couldn't pinpoint Toji's location.
He turned, scanning frantically.
Wait.
No… his target couldn't be—
"Riko—?!"
Then it hit.
Every nerve screamed, electricity lancing through his body, needles stabbing every synapse. Death loomed an instant away.
He spun. Blue flared instinctively—only to be torn apart, forcibly nullified by the ugly blade.
The Inverted Spear of Heaven.
Its tip drove clean through his throat.
Blood sprayed.
Gojo's hands clamped around the blade—
But Toji ripped it free.
Steel punched through his chest.
Then his stomach. His thigh. Over and over—
Until at last Toji shoved him aside.
Gojo's body collapsed in a spreading pool of red.
Toji flicked the blade, droplets spattering the stone. His grin widened.
"The feeling's coming back," he murmured. "It's been too long."
He lifted his gaze toward the heart of Jujutsu High.
Gojo Satoru lay bleeding out at his feet.
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