[What have you done this time, Akiya?]
Getou Suguru communicated with a gaze steeped in the exhaustion of someone who had already seen through the vanity of the mortal world and found nothing left to be surprised by.
[Gojo is asking whether he should kill people, and that's the part you're focusing on, Suguru?]
Asou Akiya attempted to steer everyone's attention back to the actual issue at hand.
The most important matter for the three people present was not what he had done.
It was what Gojo Satoru was about to do.
[...]
After a long pause, Getou Suguru asked in a dry voice, "Who died?"
With an expression devoid of emotion, Gojo Satoru replied, "One of the masterminds behind the bounty on Riko. Fushiguro Toji killed him."
[One of the masterminds? So... are we really going to pursue this all the way to the end?]
Getou Suguru had never experienced Amanai Riko's death. In his understanding, the Star Plasma Vessel mission had already come to an end.
He despised the Time Vessel Association, but not to the extent of wanting to slaughter every last one of them.
For the moment, Getou Suguru couldn't think of a satisfactory solution. However, he knew there was someone who could handle this problem. Guided by the common sense of an ordinary person, he understood that professional matters should be left to professionals.
"Akiya," he said, "I'll leave this to you. Try to talk some sense into Satoru. Killing all these ordinary believers won't accomplish anything."
He hesitated for a moment before continuing.
"I want to go pick her up... Right, where is she? It's too dangerous outside."
He deliberately omitted "Riko's" name, unwilling to let the members of the Time Vessel Association learn that Amanai Riko had survived.
Getou Suguru's sudden act of avoidance forced Asou Akiya to speak up.
"I'll send you the address. Remember to calm her down, and don't let her return to Tokyo Jujutsu High."
Unable to face Gojo Satoru in his godlike state, Getou Suguru chose to avoid the confrontation altogether.
He made his escape without a second thought.
Even so, before leaving, he had made his position clear.
He did not want anyone to be killed.
At the headquarters of the Time Vessel Association, the believers ignored them entirely, each wearing the expression of people whose grief had long since passed beyond tears into numb despair.
In their eyes, they had squandered their fortunes and devoted everything they possessed to one final act of fanaticism, only to discover that they still could not prevent Master Tengen's "assimilation."
By overturning fate itself, Asou Akiya had transformed the malicious smiles and thunderous applause these people had worn in the original story into row after row of mournful, funeral-like faces.
The sight of it nearly made him laugh out loud.
Unfortunately, with the "Getou Suguru shield" that had always protected him now gone, Asou Akiya was left to face Gojo Satoru alone.
"Are you going to stop me?" Gojo Satoru asked.
There had been multiple masterminds behind this mission.
Asou Akiya could not wash away the suspicion surrounding himself.
The Six Eyes were like a mirror.
They reflected the human heart.
They reflected the darkest malice hidden within it, exposing murderous intent and ill will beneath the other's gaze.
Most importantly, Gojo Satoru himself radiated danger without restraint. His post-awakening transformation had widened the gap between himself and everyone else by an overwhelming margin. He no longer existed on the same plane as ordinary people.
Fushiguro Toji had used the price of his own life to hone that brilliance into an unstoppable edge.
[Gojo wants to kill.]
[No. Gojo has already killed. Having stained his hands with the blood of the strong, he has instinctively begun to look down upon human life.]
[Why? Because this is divinity. Divinity stands above everything in the mortal world.]
Asou Akiya understood.
Gojo Satoru possessed the desire to trample over everything, to dominate everything, to reshape the jujutsu world according to his own will and whim.
Getou Suguru wasn't here...
As long as he was willing to give it a push...
Sukuna.
Kenjaku.
None of them would be capable of defeating a Gojo Satoru who had strayed from the side of justice.
["Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one."]
Asou Akiya—the second mastermind behind the Star Plasma Vessel mission—felt his gaze waver.
The strongest Gojo Satoru had never been the Gojo Satoru who stood among the crowd.
[Then I wouldn't have to worry about the future anymore.]
Asou Akiya found himself tempted by the authority to decide Gojo Satoru's fate.
Before him stretched two roads.
One was the path that had already been laid out.
The other was the path of violent reform.
And upon that latter road, the jujutsu world might give birth to a great demon king bearing the Six Eyes.
[He won't be cut down at the waist...]
[He won't spend the rest of his life working himself to the bone, trapped in endless 007* shifts...]
*{Note: In Chinese internet slang, 007 refers to an extreme and illegal work schedule: 0:00 to 0:00, 7 days a week (working 24/7).}
[He won't become... that restrained and self-contained Gojo-sensei ever again...]
Asou Akiya suddenly spoke.
"The mastermind is already dead."
Gojo Satoru's vacant eyes lowered ever so slightly, settling upon Asou Akiya.
Joy and sorrow alike seemed to have drifted far away from this body.
Asou Akiya: "Getou doesn't want you to kill anyone. And if you go through with it... you won't be able to remain our classmate anymore."
The higher-ups of the Jujutsu Headquarters would erupt into chaos.
Tokyo Jujutsu High would expel Gojo Satoru.
Avoiding Gojo Satoru's gaze, Asou Akiya fixed his eyes upon the Time Vessel Association's golden emblem.
It was as though, by doing so, he could reclaim the perspective of an outsider—could rediscover the version of himself who, amidst countless choices driven by competing interests, held up a lantern to illuminate a path toward the future for everyone.
His fingers brushed aside the loose strands of hair by his ear.
He tidied them absently, suppressing the turbulent undercurrents surging through his heart before finding the composure to continue.
"Gojo, there are many lives here."
"A total of seventy-nine people."
"Not a single one of them is innocent."
"I've considered killing every member of the Time Vessel Association on your behalf."
"My conclusion was that it wasn't worth it."
"Yes, killing them would let us vent our hatred more thoroughly, but the price would be that the higher-ups would investigate the matter from top to bottom. Master Tengen wouldn't conceal the truth for my sake, either."
"For me to sacrifice my own future because of this pack of scum..."
"Is simply isn't worth it."
The stars woven into the emblem reflected in Asou Akiya's eyes.
Tiny flecks of golden light shimmered there—the light of someone gazing toward the future.
"Likewise, you're standing before a choice much like the one I faced."
"If you choose to walk this path..."
"I won't approve of it."
"But I won't oppose it, either."
"Because you're not me."
"And you're capable of bearing the consequences of taking lives."
"I know that what you want to hear isn't a cold calculation of costs and benefits."
"What you want is my support."
"Or Suguru's."
"You long for someone to stand behind your decision."
"And I..."
"I also long to give you that final push."
"But I can't."
"There are no gods watching from three feet above our heads. Human beings should hold a sense of reverence for life."
Asou Akiya understood that, in this world where causality and destiny were hopelessly entangled, the power born from negative emotions drove countless people to abandon their principles and sink into darkness.
In the end, people like them ought to commit fewer evil deeds and do a few more good ones instead.
Asou Akiya made his choice.
"Gojo, I hope that one day, you become a Buddha rather than a demon."
[Please hear the voice of my heart.]
[Please remain as I once hoped the fourteen-year-old you would be—save those you are able to save, and even if you plunge into the depths of the sea for their sake, do so without regret. Every single time, you answered my requests by following your own heart.]
"This isn't a curse."
"It is merely my regret, after looking across the entirety of the jujutsu world and finding neither gods nor Buddhas anywhere within it."
"The Buddhas seated within the temples are false Buddhas."
"The gods worshipped within the Time Vessel Association are false gods."
[As for Master Tengen? There is merit, and there is karma.]
A trace of mockery touched Asou Akiya's smile.
He still remembered the helplessness he had felt when the Indonesian tsunami had swept across more than a dozen countries, claiming the lives of two hundred and ninety thousand people, while not a single soul had been capable of saving them.
"If, by the end of their lives, sorcerers have saved so many people and endured so much suffering, and this world still cannot allow sorcerers with immeasurable merit to become gods or Buddhas..."
"...then it is the world that is wrong."
—The one at fault is not you.
The only person in this world who possessed even the slightest hope of attaining Buddhahood...
...was Gojo Satoru.
Divinity could also become Buddhahood.
[???]
For a brief moment, Gojo Satoru forgot how to speak.
The part of his mind responsible for processing information ground to a halt.
From Asou Akiya's words, he had somehow interpreted a meaning of, "May you become a Buddha."
And that—
That was the reason Asou Akiya had chosen not to kill.
[Wait.]
[Wasn't I asking about killing people?]
[Buddha? What Buddha? Who's becoming a Buddha? Me? Yours truly?]
After going so long without blinking, Gojo Satoru's eyes finally remembered the instinct to blink once more.
Under the weight of Asou Akiya's wish—a wish grand enough to be called shocking and unprecedented—the person upon whom that wish had been bestowed, Gojo Satoru, abruptly found his humanity surging back to the surface.
It was gods and Buddhas who answered prayers unfailingly.
It had nothing to do with him.
Gojo Satoru suddenly understood Getou Suguru's choice.
Taking Getou Suguru's hasty retreat as the model answer, he made his decision without hesitation.
He turned, pushed open the door, and walked away cleanly.
"Are you still going to kill them?"
From behind him, Asou Akiya asked the question in a tone that was subtle, yet tinged with curiosity and quiet scrutiny.
"..."
Within that infinitely vast world he had awakened to, Gojo Satoru recovered a fragment of reality.
Killing people was simple.
Anyone could do it.
The only difference was whether he was willing to walk down that road—the road his friends had refused to take.
With no discernible fluctuation in his voice, Gojo Satoru said, "The sun's setting. Finish what you need to do and come back."
He strode forward in long, decisive steps.
"Suguru is waiting for us."
At this point, he no longer cared about Asou Akiya's schemes and calculations.
All he wanted was to devote himself wholeheartedly to enjoying this new world.
He would become neither a demon...
...nor a Buddha.
At 5:45 p.m., as the sun dipped below the horizon, the mission was officially declared a failure.
Gojo Satoru had arrived like a storm, swift and overwhelming.
And when he left, he did so with equal decisiveness, without the slightest trace of hesitation, abandoning Asou Akiya behind without a backward glance.
Deep down, Gojo Satoru had never understood how to take care of the weak.
Besides, on another level entirely, he did not consider Asou Akiya weak.
After all, Asou Akiya could accomplish things that no one else could.
The one thing Gojo Satoru failed to perceive, despite briefly seeing through so much of the world, was the disappointment hidden within Asou Akiya.
Asou Akiya murmured softly,
"I want to fly back too..."
Gojo Satoru could teleport.
Getou Suguru possessed flying cursed spirits.
For ordinary jujutsu sorcerers, however, the very notion of flight was nothing more than an impossible dream.
Even among special-grade cursed tools, there existed no type designed to grant its user the ability to fly.
The gap between one person and another could be unimaginably vast.
All Asou Akiya could do was seize every opportunity with everything he had.
For example, the inheritance left behind by a certain Zen'in heir and Fushiguro Toji.
At 5:50 p.m., following the lingering traces of cursed energy left by the curse spirit, Asou Akiya finally caught up with Ugly Treasure outside the Time Vessel Association's headquarters.
Only half of its body remained.
It resembled a reddish-brown caterpillar with a human face, possessing characteristics reminiscent of an arthropod. Its plump, fleshy body wriggled forward little by little as it struggled to escape at a pitiful pace. Purple curse spirit blood seeped from the severed end of its body.
"Ugly Treasure, are you afraid of me? Isn't that a little disrespectful?"
The sight of Ugly Treasure attempting to flee at the speed of a turtle amused Asou Akiya so much that his eyes curved into a smile.
He lifted his foot and stepped directly onto its body.
Pinning Ugly Treasure firmly to the ground, he said,
"The cash box in your stomach belongs to me. Please return it."
Stimulated by the cursed energy Asou Akiya released, Ugly Treasure trembled, the few sparse hairs on its head quivering.
After a moment— having apparently understood human speech— it opened its tiny mouth and spat out the saliva-covered cash box, returning the fifty million yen to its rightful owner.
"I didn't ask you to spit it out. Swallow it again."
Asou Akiya neither withdrew his foot nor reached for the filthy cash box.
Ugly Treasure froze in confusion.
Left with no choice, Asou Akiya decided to teach it personally.
"Your master is dead. I was his final employer, and I've come to receive his inheritance."
"Do you remember the traces of cursed energy I left behind?"
"That was my mark on you."
Ugly Treasure still refused to acknowledge him.
It struggled desperately, crying out unconsciously toward the distance,
"Mama—! Mama—!"
After losing its master, Fushiguro Toji, the next owner it had set its sights on was a Cursed Spirit Manipulator.
A Cursed Spirit Manipulator possessed an extraordinary allure to ownerless curse spirits.
However, Getou Suguru had run off to see little Riko.
No matter how hard Ugly Treasure tried, it had never managed to find Getou Suguru.
Asou Akiya's eyes lit up with delight.
"Are you calling for me?" he asked in pleasant surprise.
Asou Akiya continued speaking to himself as though no one else were present.
"Even though I'm not a woman, for Ugly Treasure's sake, I don't mind being a dad-mom for once."
Picking up the Ugly Treasure that was squirming and writhing on the ground, Asou Akiya pressed down on its head and made it swallow the cash box back into its stomach.
Then flames ignited in both of his hands.
Under the pressure of his technique, Ugly Treasure shrank continuously, its body compressing smaller and smaller until it became a reddish-brown meatball that emitted a faint, tainted aura.
Thus, he completed an act of curse spirit subjugation that was not particularly rare within the jujutsu world— yet was undoubtedly one of the greatest bargain pickups imaginable.
Asou Akiya hesitated for a moment.
In the end, he did not swallow the curse spirit into his own stomach. Instead, he tucked it into the pocket closest to his body.
Very good.
He had just picked up a mobile weapons arsenal for free.
Special Grade cursed tools acquired
At 6:00 p.m., as the sun completed its journey westward, the lingering glow of dusk illuminated the world before gradually fading away.
Asou Akiya went to check on Zen'in Naoya, whom he had left behind to deal with later.
Zen'in Naoya remained beside Fushiguro Toji's corpse.
The dead man still stood upright, refusing to collapse even in death.
Naoya had not moved an inch from his side.
He looked utterly devastated, as though trapped within memories only he could see.
To Zen'in Naoya, Fushiguro Toji represented his childhood—
a past in which a little boy had worshipped his older cousin with all his heart.
Asou Akiya picked up Fushiguro Toji's severed arm along with the Inverted Spear of Heaven, then rose to his feet.
"Naoya," he said, "I'll leave Toji's body in your care."
"After you cremate it completely, scatter his ashes into the sea."
"He wouldn't have wanted to be buried in the Zen'in Clan after death."
Zen'in Naoya refused to speak to him.
Asou Akiya merely smiled.
Contrary to what Naoya had expected, he did not act arrogant or overbearing.
He allowed Zen'in Naoya the right to grieve.
He allowed him the opportunity to handle the funeral arrangements.
He even allowed him to return to the Zen'in Clan.
"Shoko's treatment can only do so much for your injuries. Go home and recuperate for a while. Return to school once you've recovered."
"As for matters concerning me, remember to keep them secret."
"When you report what happened, gloss over the important parts and shift the blame onto someone else."
"I'm sure that's one of your specialties."
"Toji's arm and the special-grade cursed tool will be coming with me."
"Until next time."
Asou Akiya turned and departed from the Time Vessel Association.
He left behind a dumbfounded Zen'in Naoya, standing motionless as though he had been struck by lightning.
At 7:00 p.m., Asou Akiya met the final person he needed to see, completing the closed loop of fate.
He handed Fushiguro Toji's severed arm over to Kong Shiu.
"Gojo came back to life. Toji died in battle."
"Take care of burying the arm."
"Set up a gravestone."
"And don't bury it anywhere that held significance for him."
"..."
There was far too much meaning hidden within those words.
Kong Shiu abandoned his original intention of laying Fushiguro Toji to rest beside the woman he had loved most.
He simply nodded and accepted the responsibility of handling the burial.
Before Kong Shiu could distance himself from this Tokyo Jujutsu High student, Asou Akiya uttered the very words he least wanted to hear.
"Leave me the address of Toji's second wife."
—It's so over.
Kong Shiu felt that Fushiguro Toji's luck had somehow become even worse after death.
"Did you hate him?"
Falling silent for a moment, Kong Shiu asked a question no broker should have asked—a question born purely from personal sentiment.
"I did hate him," Asou Akiya replied. "But that hatred vanished into smoke along with his death."
He took a lighter from his pocket and tossed it over.
The pressure weighing on Kong Shiu was immense. He had little choice but to rely on cigarettes to ease the discomfort knotting in his chest.
"...Do I really have to tell you?" Kong Shiu asked, making one final attempt at resistance. Unaware of Fushiguro Toji's dying wishes, he struggled to fulfill what little loyalty remained.
"What if I told you..."
Asou Akiya pulled a cigarette from Kong Shiu's pack.
Igniting it at his fingertips, he placed the second cigarette between his lips and spoke honestly through the drifting haze of smoke.
"...that I once admired him?"
Kong Shiyu's pupils shook violently.
He nearly dropped the cigarette clenched between his teeth.
Asou Akiya joked, "When I first met him, I was just a poor nobody. I couldn't afford to keep him."
"By the time I finally had money..."
"...it was also the moment he had to die."
"I only met him at Naha Airport."
"By then, it was already too late."
Back when he loved no one and had yet to awaken cursed energy, Fushiguro Toji had been the ideal choice among non-sorcerers.
Even in death, Toji's remains could still serve as a trump card capable of catching enemies off guard—
the natural bane of any hostile curse users who relied upon séance techniques.
Thinking of the old curse user, Ogami, Asou Akiya unconsciously took several hurried drags from his cigarette.
The smoke hit too harshly.
He lowered his head and coughed a few times.
"I'll help take care of his son."
"I'll use the fifty million yen as child support."
"From this point onward, let's consider all debts and grudges settled."
Having inherited Fushiguro Toji's Ugly Treasure, Asou Akiya would naturally look after Fushiguro Megumi as well, ensuring that the boy would not walk down the same path he had in the original story.
[Your "blessing"... one day, the two of you will meet again.]
Those were words he could never say to Fushiguro Toji.
Even if the one who returned in the future would not be a complete Fushiguro Toji.
A father and son beating each other up?
"What's your surname?"
How could I possibly miss something that entertaining?
___
TL Note:
And that's the end of the Star Plasma Vessel Arc, ladies and gents! It's easily one of my favorite parts of the entire fanfic.
Oh, and one more thing—I'm going to take a short break for a week or two. I'm running low on translated chapters, so I'll be using the time to build up my backlog and get more chapters translated before I resume posting.
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all soon!