"A blood sample…" Gojo Satoru repeated, his earlier frustration morphing into a razor-sharp focus. The ethical murkiness of the mission suddenly had a potential exit. "So we protect the real girl, get a drop of her blood for you, and you create a puppet duplicate for the merger?"
"In theory," Kamo confirmed, his voice low. "The duplicate would be a biological replica, indistinguishable from her on a physical and energetic level. It would possess the 'special constitution.' The merger ritual should accept it. The real Amanai Riko could live."
The sheer audacity of the plan hung in the air. It was a direct deception of Master Tengen, of the entire jujutsu establishment. The risks were astronomical. If discovered, it wouldn't be a reprimand—it would be treason.
Ieiri Shoko was the first to voice the practical concerns. "Itsuki, even if you can replicate the body, can you replicate the 'constitution'? It's not just DNA. It's a metaphysical compatibility. Your puppets don't have souls."
"They don't need one," Kamo countered. "The merger, as described, is a physical and informational reset. It's about the vessel's body as a compatible terminal. My puppets are biologically perfect. They breathe, their cells metabolize, their cursed energy flows in patterns I dictate. If the constitution is a property of the flesh, I can copy it. If it's something more… we'll find out."
"And the blood sample?" Geto Suguru asked. "Obtaining it without her knowledge or consent…"
"Is the least of our moral dilemmas," Gojo finished for him, a grim smile on his face. "We're already planning to substitute a fake for her in a world-altering ritual. A pinprick is nothing." He looked at Kamo. "You're sure you can do it? Not 'maybe,' not 'in theory.' Sure."
Kamo met his gaze. "I have never failed to replicate a biological sample. The complexity is irrelevant. The only unknown variable is the metaphysical aspect of the 'vessel' designation. But if the ritual operates on the physical plane—and all evidence suggests it does—then it will work."
A tense silence fell, broken only by the distant sound of a ball bouncing in another part of the gym. They were standing at a crossroads. The official path led to escorting a girl to what was, for her, a death sentence for a greater good. The hidden path led into uncharted, dangerous territory—a gamble that could save a life but might unravel everything if it failed.
Ieiri Shoko finally spoke, her voice softer now. "We would be giving her a choice. A real one. Even if she never knows it. That… matters."
Geto Suguru nodded slowly, the conflict in his eyes resolving into determination. "Protecting the weak is our duty. This isn't just protecting her from assassins; it's protecting her from a fate decided for her before she was born. If there's a way, we have to try."
Gojo Satoru clapped his hands together, the sound sharp in the quiet. "Alright then! New mission parameters: Protect the girl, get a blood sample, make a clone, swap them at the last second, let the clone do the cosmic reboot, and send the real one off to live a normal life. Much more interesting than a boring escort mission." His grin was back, wider and more dangerous than ever. "Let's go save a girl and fool a god."
Kamo Itsuki allowed himself a small, private smile. The plan was set. The risks were immense, but the potential rewards—a life saved, a fundamental rule of their world bent, and the acquisition of a 'star plasma vessel' blood sample for his own research—were beyond calculation. As they left the gym to prepare for their journey to Osorezan, the weight of their conspiracy bound them together more tightly than any official mission ever could. They were no longer just students following orders. They were co-conspirators, stepping into the shadows to rewrite a destiny.
The smoke cleared not with a whimper, but with a sigh of displaced air. Gojo Satoru stood at the epicenter, untouched, a single finger raised as if shushing a noisy room. The myriad attacks—cursed energy blasts, projectiles, and conjured phenomena—hung suspended in a shimmering, distorted sphere around him, trapped in the infinite regression of his *Limitless: Neutral*.
"Tsk. Amateurs," he muttered, a flicker of blue light erupting from his fingertip. "*Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue*."
The compressed sphere of null-space collapsed inwards with a soundless, devastating pull. The trapped attacks were instantly crushed into nothingness, and the surrounding Q sorcerers were violently yanked off their feet, slamming into each other in a heap of tangled limbs and stunned curses at Gojo's feet.
He stepped over the groaning pile, not even bothering to look back. "Clean-up on aisle five, Suguru!"
Geto, meanwhile, had gently landed the manta-ray curse on the rooftop, the unconscious Amanai Riko cradled securely in its grasp. Ieiri Shoko was already there, her hands glowing with green light as she assessed the girl. "Minor shock and bruising. No serious injuries. She'll be fine."
Kamo Itsuki stood slightly apart, his eyes scanning the periphery. The initial wave was dealt with, but this was too easy. Group Q was a nuisance, but the real threat—the Time Vessel Association from the Bansei Cult—specialized in precision and esoteric techniques. They wouldn't engage in a frontal assault.
"We need to move. Now," Kamo said, his voice cutting through the momentary calm. "The cult will have observers. They know we have her."
As if on cue, the air around the rooftop rippled. Not like a curtain, but like the surface of a pond into which a stone had been dropped moments before. The colors bled, and time itself seemed to stutter. A figure stepped through the distortion—a man in simple gray robes, his eyes covered by a white cloth. He held an hourglass that glowed with a sickly, amber light.
"The vessel is not for your keeping," the man intoned, his voice echoing from multiple directions at once. "Her timeline ends here, as foretold."
He inverted the hourglass.
The world on the rooftop didn't slow; it fractured. Gojo, Geto, Shoko, and Kamo suddenly found themselves perceiving time at different rates. Gojo saw Geto moving like a statue, Shoko's healing light a frozen streak. Geto saw Gojo as a blurred afterimage. For Shoko, everything was a dizzying fast-forward. Only Kamo, through his hyper-acute bodily senses and cursed energy perception, managed to maintain a shaky synchronicity, but even he felt a nauseating disconnect between thought and action.
A temporal dissonance field. The cultist's specialty.
"Annoying," Gojo growled, his Six Eyes struggling to process the conflicting time streams. He could break the technique, but not without potentially harming the others caught in the field.
Kamo acted. He didn't target the cultist. He targeted the medium. A single, hyper-accelerated droplet of blood, infused with a curse-energy disruptor pattern, shot from his finger. It moved through the fractured time layers not as a projectile, but as a correction—a needle seeking the bubble of distorted causality.
It struck the hourglass.
The glass didn't crack. It sighed. The amber light within flickered and died. The temporal fracture smoothed out with a painful lurch, slamming their perceptions back into unison.
The cultist stumbled, a trickle of blood leaking from under his blindfold. "Impossible… that was a fixed point…"
"Nothing is fixed," Kamo said coldly, already in motion. A whip of solidified blood lashed out, not to strike, but to ensnare the hourglass and yank it from the man's grasp.
At the same moment, Geto's manta ray curse surged upward, carrying Amanai Riko and Shoko away from the rooftop. Gojo was a blur, appearing in front of the disoriented cultist.
"Nap time," Gojo said, and delivered a precise, merciful chop to the neck. The cultist crumpled.
The skirmish had lasted less than thirty seconds.
On the back of the flying curse, racing away from the apartment complex, Ieiri Shoko held the sleeping girl. Kamo examined the confiscated hourglass, its energy now inert. Geto monitored their retreat, and Gojo kept a watch on the skies, his Six Eyes scanning for further pursuit.
"First objective complete," Kamo stated, carefully storing the hourglass. He looked at Amanai Riko's peaceful, unconscious face. "Now, we need to wake her up, earn her trust, and get that blood sample. The real work begins."