Gojo Satoru pushed open the chapel doors.
"Riko!"
Every head turned toward him. It was like dropping cold water into hot oil—the entire room erupted.
"What's this, Riko? Your boyfriend?!"
"He's so handsome!"
"Look how tall he is!"
"Hey, big brother, take off the sunglasses!"
The girls' restraint didn't send them rushing at him. Instead, they all swarmed around Amanai Riko, voices buzzing with excitement.
Being good-looking was one thing. But this was a girls' school—even the teachers were emboldened to act a little shameless.
Only Riko's face drained of color.
It felt like one of those humiliating childhood moments when your hopeless older brother came yelling your name in front of all your classmates, waving like an idiot as he walked straight toward you.
Step by step he drew closer, and all she wanted to do was cover her face and run.
"Uh—sorry about this. It's urgent, so…" Gojo actually took off his sunglasses, revealing eyes as brilliant as sapphire. The chorus of squeals doubled instantly. Smiling dazzlingly, he greeted the students and teachers as if nothing was wrong, then strode right past them to stand in front of Riko.
"Don't get so full of yourself, hey!" Riko hissed, cheeks burning. She gave up trying to salvage her dignity and lashed out instead. "Damn it, how many times did I tell you not to show up in front of everyone?!"
"Curse users are here. Figure out the rest yourself." Gojo promptly scooped her up under one arm and leapt out toward the rooftops. "We're heading straight back to Jujutsu High."
Riko fought against his hold, bristling with resistance—until Gojo added casually, "Unless you want your friends dragged into this too?"
…
Bounding across the rooftops with Riko in tow, Gojo landed at the rendezvous point ahead of the others.
He set her down—and froze. His hand shot out, pulling her behind him.
A man stood there with a paper bag over his head.
"My thirty million."
The paper-bag man murmured softly. He'd finally found the target. Things on the other side weren't going so well, so he had to move quickly here.
Two identical figures stepped out of his body, forming a triangular encirclement around them.
Gojo scowled. "Seriously, what's so great about this kid? Why is everyone—"
He raised a palm skyward and unleashed his technique.
Boom.
The two clones were sucked upward at terrifying speed, slamming together in midair. The impact thundered, wind pressure bursting outward in waves.
Their bodies melted away like wax, vanishing in moments.
The last one leapt onto a rooftop, cold sweat beading his temple. Taken out instantly? What the hell…
"Those weren't shikigami—they were clones?!" Riko gasped.
"Not shikigami. All of them are the original body."
Gojo pushed her head down as a fist swung in. He sidestepped and countered with a strike that sent the man staggering.
But the paper-bag man stuck to close-range grappling.
Annoying. Sometimes Gojo's technique was too strong for its own good—impractical at close range, especially while he had to guard Riko and control the vector of his abilities at the same time.
This curse user could create up to five bodies, including the true one. There were only three here, but Six Eyes saw everything—two more were hidden somewhere close.
"He can swap which body counts as the 'real' one. If the current main body's in danger, he just designates a safe clone instead."
A troublesome technique. Like swatting flies.
Gojo's lips curled in a smirk. "But with two destroyed at once, you can't reproduce them right away, can you? Not for a little while."
He tilted his head mockingly. "It's a great technique. Shame you're so weak."
The man's eye flicked nervously toward Riko.
"Unlucky for you—I've got very good eyes." Gojo plucked off his shades and let them float between his hands.
…
The paper-bag man froze as those uncanny eyes met his. Inside Gojo's sockets was not flesh, but an abyss—hollow, desolate, crawling with countless crystalline motes of light. Pupils dilated at different rates, irises twisting in chaotic directions. Disorder. Madness.
A chill of exposure crawled down his spine. His mind grew scattered, emotions tangled.
Across the way, Soujun moved. Without wasting words, he flicked a hand and one of the clones crumbled instantly. His body blurred into distortion, turning immaterial until he reappeared right before another. Scarlet threads of hair lanced into the man's skull from behind, bloodlight flashing across his head. The clone stiffened, pupils contracting.
Soujun felt for a moment—then simply stood still.
That body was "absent."
…
The remaining paper-bag man leapt back, putting distance between himself and Gojo. Fear gnawed at him. His eye flicked to Riko again before retreating another step.
Then Gojo spoke.
"My technique is an infinite series. Anything approaching me slows down more and more, until the end result is simple—you'll never touch me."
The Limitless technique. Its neutral form was the Power of Stopping. Once activated, all attacks were trapped in a state of infinite approach—forever closing, never landing.
"And when I invert it, strengthening that convergence, it becomes the Cursed Technique: Blue!"
The man's chest tightened. He felt his heart leap into his throat.
Gojo appeared right in front of him, holding Riko effortlessly with one arm, his finger aimed at the man's brow. "And when I reverse it, dispersing that infinity instead, it becomes the elastic force of Red!"
Announcing his techniques aloud. Revealing information—yet in doing so, amplifying their success rate and their power.
The man panicked, crossing his arms over his chest, body instinctively recoiling.
Seconds ticked by. The strike never came.
He heard a quiet chuckle.
Cracking one eye open, he saw a fist rushing toward his face. A moment later he was airborne, smashed aside by brute force.
"Tch. Thought I had it this time," Gojo muttered.
The man's body melted away, dissolving into nothing.
"Ran off, huh?" Gojo clicked his tongue.
…
But elsewhere—
Scarlet light flared.
The sound of swallowing filled the air.
The paper-bag man's eyes widened with regret, with despair. He could've escaped. He could've…
His thoughts froze forever as crimson engulfed him. His body stretched, grew taller, reshaped—until only the paper bag on his head remained different. In every other way, he was indistinguishable from Minimato Soujun.
Soujun nodded in satisfaction. A thought, and the paper-bag melted into black mist, flowing back through his hair. Black lines spread across his half-bare torso, forming a faint, abstract sigil.
…
"You know, without mastering Reverse Cursed Technique, it's impossible to grasp technique reversal."
The voice drew Gojo and Riko's gaze.
Soujun stood there, arms tucked into his sleeves, collar hanging loose off his shoulders. His torso was bare, traced with black lines that followed the contours of his muscles, centering on that abstract paper-bag pattern.
Riko squealed, covering her face but peeking through her fingers. "Pervert! Naked pervert!"
But when Soujun's strange eyes caught hers, her voice faltered.
He ignored her anyway.
Gojo's gaze lingered on the markings, especially the sigil. The two men nodded once, then launched into an intense discussion about technique reversal.
Before long, Geto returned.
"Hm? Where's Kuroi?"
"What? She isn't back yet?"
The three exchanged uneasy looks.
"W-what do we do?! Kuroi—Kuroi's been—!" Riko's panicked cry cut them off as she held up her phone.
On the screen was a photo.
Kuroi Misato had been taken.
…Troublesome, Soujun thought with a sigh.
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