Shibuya Station was a crush of sound and motion.
The air was thick with the chatter of thousands, the rattle of trains, and the faint hum of the fluorescent lights overhead.
Every surface seemed to shine with reflections from the station's polished tiles, each footstep echoing up into the high ceilings. Beneath all of that, an undercurrent pulsed, heavy and invisible, a tide of cursed energy that only the few could sense.
Gojo Satoru felt it as soon as he stepped into the station.
His gaze swept the crowd. Families with luggage. Office workers scrolling through their phones. School kids laughing in tight groups.
None of them noticed the way shadows seemed to hold for a second longer between blinks of the lights.
None of them noticed the three shapes standing far down the concourse, watching him through the moving tide of bodies.
Choso. Jogo. Dagon.
They weren't rushing him. They didn't have to. Every second they stood there was a second the air grew heavier. He could feel the calculation in it.
"This is the plan? Try to take me out while using non-sorcerers as meat shields, huh?" Gojo murmured.
They began to move as one, weaving through the crowd without ever losing sight of him. Gojo mirrored them, stepping forward casually, hands in his pockets. The space between them closed, and with it, the margin for using his techniques without collateral damage.
The curses struck first.
Jogo's fiery blast ripped down the tiled wall to Gojo's right, exploding in a spray of stone and dust.
The crowd screamed, surging in panic, pressing against one another in a crush that left no room to breathe.
"W-whats going on?! A gas leak?!" Bystanders were confused, as most could not even see the curses that were endangering their lives.
Choso moved in the chaos, blood already pooling in the air around his hands. Many took notice of him and took steps to somehow avoid him, since he was half-human and knew to avoid getting in his way.
Dagon flipped his muscled arms, waves of water slipping out from underneath his cloak and rushed towards Gojo, pushing many others into his infinity and creating a sort of crowd crush around him.
Gojo didn't move to counter. Not yet. Infinity held the worst of it at bay, but his eyes never left the shifting mass of civilians between them. He could feel their fear. The curses knew exactly what they were doing.
Every time he made to advance, a terrified bystander was shoved into his path. A man tripped and fell in front of him, and before Gojo could move him aside, Jogo's next strike came, a volcano sprouting from the ceiling as a torrent of magma fell down on top of Gojo.
At the same time, Choso's piercing blood sliced through a dozen people and clashed with his infinity.
"You all... are getting quite cocky." Gojo's gaze turned cold as his blindfold slipped off.
Jogo's back trembled at the mere sight of Gojo's eyes.
The next moment, Jogo felt his entire being crushed into the ceiling; a mere blue-enhanced punch from Gojo was enough for him to be vomiting his purple guts out of his mouth.
Dagon moved to help, a torrent of water filled with phirannas flowing towards Gojo.
But the Strongest did not care for his paltry tricks. Dagon barely had the time to react as Gojo's fist buried into his guts, sending him flying towards the less populated train line.
Choso sweated heavily as he weaved into a crowd of panicked civilians. He made sure they would stick too close to him for Gojo to approach.
At the end of the day, Gojo only saw casualties as acceptable as long as he was not the direct cause of them. They were trying to drain him, not of energy, but of time, of focus.
Kenjaku's plan was starting to take shape. Then the air shifted.
From some other place, out of the subway tunnels, countless small curses poured in. They skittered across the walls, dropped from the ceiling, burst from the stairwells. Their shrieks ripped through the station, and the crowd's panic hit its breaking point.
The press of bodies became a living wall. As curses started chewing and devouring them in real time.
Gojo's jaw tightened. In an instant, he made the call. He would either exorcise the curses, or civilians would die.
"Domain Expansion..."
Jogo, Dagon and Choso reeled back in panic, but no one could move fast enough to avoid the strongest.
"Infinite Void!"
For 0.2 seconds, his domain expanded, shimmering into existence just far enough to touch every mind within reach.
The effect was immediate; thousands of bodies froze, eyes glassy, every muscle locked. And then, as the domain dissipated. A two-second burst of infinite information had been blasted into the brains of everyone present.
It was merely the duration that Gojo had judged to be suitable, so that the civilians would not end up with brain damage.
Gojo moved like lightning through the silent station, erasing every lesser curse in a blur of motion. Blood splashed across tiles. Limbs vanished in the air between blinks.
When the last small curse fell, the civilians were still frozen in their own minds, unaware of what had just happened.
It was mere minutes, Gojo weaved through the stunned crowd and exorcised them all, his entire body filling with purple blood as he panted heavily.
Gojo's eyes immediately widened as he looked behind him to see a strange cube, one that had an eye staring straight through his flesh and right into his soul.
It was only then that he saw him.
Geto Suguru, dressed in the same Monk clothes that he had seen him in prior.
The figure stood calmly beyond the carnage, framed by the station's lights, untouched by the chaos. The sight hit Gojo like a blow that Infinity could not block. For the first time that night, he stopped moving.
"...Suguru?"
The man smiled faintly. "Not quite."
Realisation spread cold through Gojo's veins, anger following fast behind. His expression hardened. The question of how was already answered in his mind.
He didn't get the chance to move.
From behind Gojo, that strange cube began to unfold. The Prison Realm opened like a blooming flower of black flesh. It tied him up almost immediately,
An invisible weight crashed down on him. Muscles refused to obey. Cursed energy could not move.
For the first time in years, Gojo was still.
Kenjaku's voice was calm, almost gentle. "You've been caught, Satoru."
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Word spread fast.
The message hit every sorcerer within reach, crisp and sharp through the channels that carried emergency calls.
'Gojo Satoru has been captured.'
At Jujutsu High, Mahito was still relaxing, awaiting his cue. And it was then that he received a call.
"Mahito," Principal Yaga's voice could be heard on the other side.
Mahito listened with an expression that could almost pass for concern. Almost.
"We need you in Shibuya," Yaga said. "Now. Gojo's been sealed. Every available sorcerer is moving to extract him. This is desperate enough for us to call on you... I just hope Gojo's trust wasn't misplaced."
Mahito smiled widely, his eyes almost twisting as he tilted his head.
"Understood~" he replied. His voice carried the right note of urgency, of commitment.
When the call ended, he let his smile widen even more. This was exactly the moment he had been waiting for.
Gojo's strength was necessary at first; he provided protection as Mahito grew even further.
But he was bound to become an obstacle after a while; no matter how much the Strongest had pretended to trust him, he was still just a Curse to those around him, and one misstep would have gotten him exorcised.
Alas, the strongest was gone.
Shibuya would be a battlefield, and everyone's eyes would be on rescuing Gojo.
Which meant Mahito could move freely once more.
He stepped away from the quiet of the Jujutsu High courtyard and began walking toward the city lights. Every step was unhurried. There was no need to rush.
There were other objectives to secure tonight. And with Gojo out of the way, nothing in Shibuya could stop him.
'Mahoraga's soul... I wonder how it will taste~'