"Akiya!"
Getou Suguru cried out in alarm.
Since Getou Suguru had no ability to assess someone's physical condition, he immediately turned to Gojo Satoru for help.
Gojo Satoru's Six Eyes swept over Akiya from head to toe before he replied, "He hasn't fainted. He's asleep."
Tengen had watched the entire process of Asou Akiya shamelessly playing dead and kindly explained, "Your classmate has not rested for three days."
Getou Suguru lowered his head to look at him. Akiya's complexion was terrible. The tension between his brows had finally eased, as though he had found an opportunity to fall asleep in the arms of a friend. A wave of guilt washed over Getou Suguru, reminding him of everything hidden behind Akiya's silence. He and Gojo had defied Master Tengen for the sake of a girl they had known for less than three days, leaving Asou Akiya to clean up the aftermath for them.
Yet his concern for his companion overwhelmed his self-reproach.
"Gojo, let's keep our voices down," said Getou Suguru. "Don't wake him."
Gojo Satoru did not object. After silently watching Asou Akiya for a moment, he shifted his gaze toward Amanai Riko.
There was no longer any way for Amanai Riko to avoid the issue. Pretending to be unconscious would not help. Getou Suguru had already made sure she got a full night's sleep.
Inside the Tombs of the Star Corridor, the discussion regarding Amanai Riko's future continued.
Having finally extricated himself from the troublesome vortex of events, Tengen calmly faced the hatred and resistance that the Star Plasma Vessel held toward him.
"I don't want to assimilate..."
Unable to bring Kuroi Misato back to life, Amanai Riko finally voiced her refusal to Master Tengen regarding the assimilation. Choking back sobs, she spoke of her true wish.
"I only want to return to the way things were before. I want to play with my classmates, to experience more new things. I... I don't want to die and be reduced to nothing more than a fragment of consciousness."
"That's wonderful, Riko-chan."
Having listened through all her wavering and indecision, Getou Suguru finally heard her true answer and smiled from the bottom of his heart.
Holding Asou Akiya in his arms, he thought silently:
[Akiya, did you hear that? We managed to save an innocent life.]
Gojo Satoru remained expressionless.
"Suguru, the matter's settled. Let's go back."
Getou Suguru nodded, only to hear Tengen suddenly say:
"Since this is her choice, take her with you. She is no longer the Star Plasma Vessel. From this day onward, the affairs of the jujutsu world have nothing to do with her. I also hope that you will not publicize this matter. Keep my secret for me, and do not reveal to the outside world that the assimilation has failed."
Getou Suguru naturally agreed and could not help asking, "Can this really be kept secret? Do you need us to make a Binding Vow?"
Tengen replied, "That won't be necessary, Getou-kun."
Sensing the goodwill of the Curse Spirit Manipulator, she was willing to elaborate a little further.
"As far as the outside world is concerned, the best possible news from the Tombs of the Star Corridor is no news at all."
Tengen opened the barrier and allowed them to leave.
"If you see Yuki in the future, please convey my regards."
Seeing that Amanai Riko looked utterly lost and dispirited, Getou Suguru did not want to rush her. He remained where he was, waiting for her to catch up.
Gojo Satoru, however, was not known for his patience.
When he noticed that Suguru intended to wait, Gojo surprisingly did not disappear on his own. Instead, he extended a hand toward Getou Suguru.
"Give him to me."
Getou Suguru was startled. He felt that Gojo's brain had finally returned to normal. At the very least, he had remembered to show concern for Akiya.
Reassured by that thought, he readily handed Akiya over.
"You take Akiya back first and let him rest," said Getou Suguru. "I'll settle Riko-chan into Shoko's dormitory for the night so she has somewhere to stay. Hopefully Shoko won't throw me out afterward."
Gojo Satoru scooped Asou Akiya into a bridal carry.
The next instant, he vanished with a teleportation and was gone.
Turning to Amanai Riko, Getou Suguru spoke gently.
"Our dormitory is for boys, so it wouldn't be appropriate for you to stay there overnight. I'll take you to meet one of our female classmates. Shoko is a very kind person."
Now that she had lost the support she had relied on, Amanai Riko had become unexpectedly obedient toward Getou Suguru.
"Okay!"
At the girls' dormitory, Ieiri Shoko hurried outside to meet her classmate.
After hearing the explanation and seeing Amanai Riko, who was two years younger than herself, she shot Getou Suguru an exasperated look. In return, she received all sorts of promises of compensation from him.
In the end, Ieiri Shoko agreed to take Amanai Riko in.
Like an older sister, she arranged for the middle school girl to take a bath, change into pajamas, and sleep in the same room as her.
Shoko had no interest in asking about the Star Plasma Vessel mission, while Amanai Riko had no desire to talk to a stranger. Curled up on the inner side of the bed, she kept to herself, and the two passed the night without incident.
Compared to the peaceful atmosphere in the girls' dormitory, the situation in the boys' dormitory that night was considerably more complicated.
When Getou Suguru returned, he discovered that Gojo Satoru's room was completely empty.
The door stood wide open. The lights were off, and darkness filled the room.
Clearly, Gojo Satoru had no intention of sleeping in a bed that Amanai Riko had previously occupied. Instead, he had run off to someone else's dormitory.
"Gojo really is a spoiled young master," Getou Suguru muttered. "He won't even sleep in a bed someone else has used."
He was far too exhausted to think any further.
Staggering back toward his own dormitory, he could feel a dull ache coming from the chest wound he had suffered earlier that day.
At the very least, he would need a full day to recover from his injuries.
"After I lost consciousness, I think I heard something... About monkeys? What monkeys was it again...?"
"That Zen'in Heavenly Restriction guy is way too absurd."
Getou Suguru entered his dorm room, locked the door behind him, and threw his body heavily onto the soft bed.
He could no longer fall asleep as peacefully as he usually did. With his friend no longer by his side, he felt an indescribable sense of unease. The image of Fushiguro Toji silently assassinating Gojo Satoru resurfaced in his mind, and he could not help summoning his cursed spirits, arranging them in formation around the room like guards standing watch.
The cursed spirits he released this time had all been registered with cursed energy records, so there was no need to worry about Tokyo Jujutsu High's alarms being triggered.
Getou Suguru let out a quiet sigh.
"I'll ask Master Tengen about those things another time..."
His energy was depleted, and his strength had fallen. As for becoming stronger, that could be left to his future self after his injuries had healed.
Getou Suguru drifted into sleep.
In his dreams, he repeatedly heard indistinct voices. Fushiguro Toji became a nightmare that refused to fade away. Even though he had saved Amanai Riko, he still could not forget the fact that he had suffered a crushing defeat at Fushiguro Toji's hands.
The temperature in mid-April was pleasant, neither cold nor hot.
Inside Akiya's dorm room, the black-haired teenager lay sprawled across the bed without taking off his shoes or changing his clothes. It was the sort of sleep that resembled outright collapse from exhaustion, and Gojo Satoru's care for him could hardly be called attentive.
A pair of eyes, possessing the most dazzling shade of blue imaginable, stared fixedly at him.
Gojo Satoru sat crouched beside the bed, maintaining that posture for quite some time, like a large decorative statue.
"Akiya."
Gojo Satoru called out softly.
There was no response.
The other's breathing remained steady, slightly heavy, a clear sign that he had pushed himself far beyond his limits.
In the dead of night, the two friends were asleep in their respective ways. The underclassmen were not in the habit of staying up late either. Aside from those still troubled by the Star Plasma Vessel mission and unable to sleep, there was not a second person in Tokyo Jujutsu High who was awake for the simple reason that they were not sleepy.
Gojo Satoru had never been someone who blended easily with others. In every aspect of life, he only did the things he wanted to do, and very few people could force him to do otherwise. Yet paradoxically, he was also someone who disliked being alone. Whatever he did, he had begun to hope that someone would accompany him.
Now, listening to the sound of Asou Akiya's breathing, he found himself with the faint desire to force himself to fall asleep as well.
Without caring about the dust or the sweat, Gojo Satoru climbed onto the bed and claimed a corner of the blankets.
The forehead beneath his bangs still throbbed with pain. The fresh clothes he had changed into after returning to school concealed a body covered in wounds. His neck and chest were marked by shocking scars. For the first time in sixteen years, he had suffered such a crushing setback. Under normal circumstances, he would have stood in front of a mirror, obsessing over how to make every scar disappear. Instead, his heart was filled with a simple sense of indifference.
Gojo Satoru knew that his current state was rather strange. Everything in the world felt effortless and natural to him now. That dull, oppressive feeling that used to weigh on him had vanished completely.
He was perfectly normal.
Really.
When a person became stronger and felt happy and liberated because of it, how could that possibly be considered abnormal?
Using Asou Akiya as a body pillow, the long-limbed Gojo Satoru imitated the children he had seen on television hugging oversized teddy bears. It was effortless for him to wrap himself around the other boy. Resting his chin atop Akiya's head, he remained unable to fall asleep.
The other's breath brushed against the scar on his throat.
It tickled.
He had no desire to move away.
There was also the faint scent of blood on Akiya's body. Gojo could tell. It did not come from an external wound but from the injuries he had sustained while attacking Zen'in Naoya.
His muscles were not particularly developed, nor were his bones especially sturdy, yet his shoulders and back seemed to bear invisible pressures that no one could clearly see.
The information contained within Asou Akiya's body was refreshed over and over again before the Six Eyes.
Ever since he had forcibly mastered Black Flash, Asou Akiya's strength had never achieved another qualitative breakthrough. The innate limits of his talent restricted the future he could attain as a jujutsu sorcerer. His cursed energy progressed so slowly that only the Six Eyes could detect the changes.
Gojo Satoru had always believed himself to be the protector.
Yet today, for the first time, he had experienced what it felt like to be protected.
It turned out that even the weak could defeat the strong if they made clever use of the methods necessary for survival.
Asou Akiya was weak.
But he's also calm and is unaffected by emotions.
Hiding in the shadows and striking like a villain, he had schemed against Zen'in Naoya. Gojo Satoru had not been killed by Zen'in Naoya, and in the end, he had received the protection of every one of his companions.
"That's kind of impressive."
Gojo Satoru said it without the slightest trace of negativity.
Perhaps disturbed by his constant muttering, Asou Akiya shifted in his sleep and tried to turn over.
But Gojo Satoru held him firmly in place.
With complete frankness, Gojo Satoru expressed his desire to be close to Asou Akiya. He wanted physical closeness, wanted to cling to him, even though the other person remained entirely unaware of it.
Suddenly, the leg Gojo Satoru had draped over Asou Akiya bumped against something hard.
Gojo Satoru's expression remained indifferent, yet his eyes shone with unusual brightness. He had long noticed Akiya's habit of carrying all sorts of miscellaneous items on his person. Today, however, there seemed to be an especially large number of them. Taking advantage of the fact that Akiya was completely unaware, he slipped his right hand into Asou Akiya's pocket.
A series of rustling sounds followed as he pulled out a mountain of items.
A cellphone.
A bank card.
A hair tie.
A lighter.
An earpiece.
A button.
A cursed spirit meatball that possessed a spatial storage technique...
Gojo Satoru compared the golden vortex-patterned button in his hand.
"Not Naoya's. This is the button that fell off my clothes."
Afterward, he turned his cold gaze toward the cursed spirit.
"The cursed spirit raised by Fushiguro Toji."
Even though the cursed spirit was covered by a lingering layer of Asou Akiya's crimson cursed energy, obscuring his vision, and had curled itself into a pitiful little ball, the Ugly Treasure's spatial storage technique still could not escape the scrutiny of the Six Eyes.
It was like a Russian nesting doll.
One layer concealed within another.
Gojo Satoru discovered a new source of entertainment. He pried open the Ugly Treasure's mouth and began rummaging through the contents stored inside.
Fushiguro Toji's personal mobile arsenal was laid completely bare.
Most of the contents were extraordinarily valuable cursed tools. Special Grade cursed tools, Grade 1 cursed tools, Grade 2 cursed tools—there was no shortage of any category. Their combined value was astronomical. These were the weapons the Sorcerer Killer had painstakingly earned money to purchase over the years.
In addition to those were ordinary weapons that even non-sorcerers could use, ranging from bladed weapons to firearms.
Finally, there were the everyday necessities Fushiguro Toji had stored inside waterproof bags...
Gojo Satoru fell silent.
A child-sized body bag and children's diapers existed side by side in the exact same storage space.
Ignoring the strange items, Gojo Satoru continued searching through the vast collection of weapons until he found what he wanted.
The look in his eyes turned completely cold.
Raising his fingers into position, he aimed at the object he had hated more than anything else in his entire life.
After Fushiguro Toji died in battle, the Inverted Spear of Heaven had fallen to the ground together with his severed right arm. At the time, Gojo Satoru had been too lazy to pick it up and had left it for Asou Akiya to deal with.
Now, as the exhilaration that had consumed him gradually faded with the passage of time, he recovered the wariness he had once felt toward that Special Grade cursed tool.
Crack.
With a single motion, he destroyed the Special Grade cursed tool that had given him the sensation of death for the very first time in his life—
The Inverted Spear of Heaven.
After destroying it, Gojo Satoru reflexively glanced at Asou Akiya to make sure the sound had not woken him.
Once he confirmed that Akiya was still asleep, he stuffed the rest of the weapons back into Ugly Treasure's stomach, stood up, and headed outside. His eyes remained distant and emotionless. He still had no desire to sleep, so he decided to wander around for a while.
Using the new abilities he had mastered, he crossed the distance between Tokyo and Kyoto in an instant, with the sole purpose of exhausting some of his excess energy.
Upon arriving at the Gojo Estate, Gojo Satoru entered the family vault and retrieved a new Special Grade cursed tool before stuffing it into Ugly Treasure's stomach.
Destroy one.
Replace one.
In his godlike state of mind, the arrangement seemed perfect.
There was no problem at all.
"Lord Satoru, you cannot casually take Special Grade cursed tools from the vault—"
The head of the Gojo Clan had rushed out in the middle of the night after hearing the alarm. Before he could finish his attempt to stop Gojo Satoru, he suddenly recoiled in shock and took a step backward.
Gojo Satoru's gaze was vast and empty, impossibly distant, like the child of a god descending from Takamagahara itself. He looked down upon the current head of the Gojo Clan. After experiencing life and death and stepping into the realm of the strongest sorcerer, even the blood ties between them had fallen to an all-time low.
"I learned Reverse Cursed Technique."
Gojo Satoru informed the Gojo Clan of this fact as if it were a simple notification.
In the past, the bearer of the Six Eyes was not permitted to have parents.
Now, he simply no longer needed them.
His heart had been cleansed of impurities.
It could no longer accommodate even the slightest trace of impure familial affection.
The head of the Gojo Clan closed his eyes briefly, suppressing the ache in his heart. After noticing that the Special Grade cursed tool Gojo had taken was one created from the corpse of a Reverse Cursed Technique user, he changed his approach.
"Yes, I understand. Then when does Lord Satoru intend to succeed to the position of clan head?"
"Whenever I feel like it."
Having said that, Gojo Satoru carried Ugly Treasure away from the Gojo Estate.
Only after making a round trip of several hundred kilometers did he finally begin to feel sleepy.
In the end, the two of them spent the entire night sleeping in each other's embrace.
...
April 13th.
12:35 PM.
No one knocked on the door to disturb them.
"I haven't actually woken up yet, have I?"
After sleeping straight through until noon the following day, Asou Akiya opened his eyes and immediately saw fragments of the Inverted Spear of Heaven scattered across the floor.
He instantly assumed he was still dreaming.
Otherwise, how could he possibly be witnessing such a horrifying scene?
He lay back down again and squeezed his eyes shut, desperately trying to hypnotize himself into believing that he had not actually woken up.
"It's all fake... fake..."
The Special Grade cursed tool, the Inverted Spear of Heaven, was worth a fortune. In Jujutsu Kaisen, it was a trump card powerful enough to be kept in reserve until the most critical moment.
More importantly, it was one of the precious keys capable of unsealing the Special Grade cursed object, the Prison Realm.
Asou Akiya's self-hypnosis failed.
The numb sensation throughout his body told him he was fully awake. Resting against his shoulder was a fluffy head of white hair.
Gojo Satoru's devastatingly handsome face was right in front of him.
[W-What an absurdly magnificent face.]
Having returned to his usual emotional state, the white-haired teenager called out cheerfully,
"Akiya~, I'm hungry."
[Hungry? Why are you in my dorm room?]
Asou Akiya sat up mechanically.
He reached into his pocket. Ugly Treasure was still there.
Then he looked back at the floor.
His gaze moved repeatedly between the cursed spirit and the shattered fragments. His brain seemed to freeze. He shoved a hand into Ugly Treasure's mouth, trying to pull out a second Inverted Spear of Heaven.
Ugly Treasure twisted and squirmed frantically, as if trying to say:
No.
There isn't one.
There really isn't one, Master.
Asou Akiya broke out into a cold sweat.
No matter how hard he searched, he could not find the famous strange dagger from his previous life.
In the Shibuya Incident of 2018, Kenjaku had used the Prison Realm to seal Gojo Satoru. The Inverted Spear of Heaven was capable of countering the Prison Realm.
Curious, Gojo Satoru asked,
"What are you looking for?"
Looking utterly helpless, Asou Akiya cried out,
"The Inverted Spear of Heaven! The Inverted Spear of Heaven I stuffed into Ugly Treasure yesterday! Where is it?!"
Gojo Satoru pointed at the floor.
"Isn't it right in front of you?"
He wrinkled his nose in displeasure. Then, after seeing the shattered pieces, he became visibly happier and said,
"I hate that thing. Why do you want it? The Special Grade cursed tools Fushiguro Toji left behind after he died are more than enough for you to use for the rest of your life."
The two stared at each other.
Innocent sincerity versus absolute terror.
Several seconds passed in complete silence.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!!!"
Asou Akiya let out a bloodcurdling scream.
GOJO SATORU!!!
I would rather trade away every single Special Grade cursed tool in existence in exchange for the Inverted Spear of Heaven!
This was a priceless treasure!
This was a life-saving item!
This troublemaking cat couldn't be kept anymore—AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!
——————
Author's Note:
The Inverted Spear of Heaven was worth at least several billion yen and was Fushiguro Toji's most precious cursed tool.
Akiya suffered catastrophic losses overnight.