The announcement of the Star Plasma Vessel mission landed in their lives not with a bang, but with the quiet, final thud of a bureaucratic assignment slip. It was delivered by Yaga-sensei at the end of a long, grueling day of training, his expression as impassive as ever.
"Gojo, Geto," he said, his deep voice cutting through their exhaustion. "You two have been assigned a mission of the highest importance. You will be responsible for the escort and erasure of the Star Plasma Vessel, Riko Amanai. The mission begins in one week. Details to follow."
The air in the dojo grew heavy. Shoko, who had been patching up a cut on Satoru's arm, paused, her hand hovering in the air. Satoru's usual cocky grin was replaced by a look of sharp, predatory focus. Geto's expression was one of solemn, righteous determination.
Ryouta, standing off to the side, felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. It was here. The single most pivotal event of their youth. The mission that would forge Satoru into the man he was destined to be, and the one that would shatter Geto's soul. All his mental preparation, all his secret training, had been for this.
"Just the two of us?" Satoru asked, a hint of his usual arrogance returning. "For a mission of the 'highest importance'? Sounds like they don't think it's that tough."
"The assignment is based on your combined strength," Yaga stated. "The higher-ups believe you two are more than sufficient."
They're wrong, Ryouta screamed in the silence of his own mind. They're not accounting for the unseen variable. The ghost in the system. The Sorcerer Killer, Toji Fushiguro.
He had to be on that mission. His entire strategy depended on it. He couldn't let them face Toji alone, not the first time. But how to insert himself without raising suspicion? He was the "Silent Gojo," the quiet, supportive twin. He wasn't a frontline fighter.
He stepped forward, his movement so quiet it barely disturbed the air. "Yaga-sensei," he said, his voice calm and even. All eyes turned to him. "Permission to join the mission as a support element."
Yaga raised an eyebrow. "This is not a training exercise, Ryouta. It will be dangerous."
"All the more reason for a comprehensive support strategy," Ryouta replied, his words carefully chosen. He looked at Satoru and Geto. "Their offensive power is unparalleled. But that kind of power creates blind spots. They will be focused on overt threats. My skills are better suited for detection and reconnaissance. I can be their early warning system."
It was a perfect, logical argument. He was leveraging his reputation as the quiet, analytical one. Geto nodded in agreement. "Ryouta's sensory abilities are exceptionally fine-tuned. Having him along to watch our backs would be a significant tactical advantage."
Satoru, however, was frowning. "I don't need a babysitter, Ryo."
"I'm not there to babysit you," Ryouta said, meeting his brother's gaze. His silver-gold eyes were firm. "I'm there to make sure you can focus on the fight without worrying about a knife in your back."
The words hung in the air, oddly prophetic. Satoru, seeing the unshakable resolve in his twin's eyes, finally relented with a sigh. "Fine. But stay out of my way."
Yaga considered it for a long moment, then gave a curt nod. "Very well. Your request is granted. You will act as recon and support only. Do not engage any threats directly unless absolutely necessary. Your primary role is to keep them informed."
"Understood," Ryouta said, bowing his head. Relief, cold and sharp, washed over him. He was in. The first part of his plan was a success.
The week leading up to the mission was a study in contrasts. Satoru and Geto were a whirlwind of confident energy, their rivalry taking on a sharper edge as they prepared for their most important assignment yet. They trained together constantly, their battles shaking the very foundations of the school.
Ryouta, meanwhile, spent his time in solitude. He retreated to his hidden dojo and pushed his newly acquired "Primordial Echo Location" to its limits. He needed to master the art of seeing the unseen, of tracking the void that Toji Fushiguro would leave in his wake.
He would have Satoru or Geto walk through a training ground, then return hours later and try to trace their path, not by their residual cursed energy, but by the "echoes" of their passage. It was mentally exhausting work, like trying to reconstruct a song from the silence between the notes. But slowly, he got better at it. He learned to distinguish the faint "dent" that a sorcerer's presence left in the ambient energy field.
Then, he practiced the inverse. He would use his "Veil of Unbeing" to walk the same path and then use his Echo Location to see if he had left a trace. His goal was to move through the world as a perfect ghost, leaving no psychic footprints. If he was going to hunt a ghost, he had to learn to be one himself.
He also spent hours in the library, poring over old mission reports and clan records, his past-life knowledge guiding his research. He searched for any mention of the Zenin clan, of Heavenly Restriction, of sorcerers who operated outside the traditional system. He found a heavily redacted file on a mission that had gone wrong a decade prior, where an entire team of Grade 1 sorcerers had been wiped out by a single, "unidentified" assailant with no cursed energy.
Toji, Ryouta thought, his fingers tracing the blacked-out lines of the report. He's been active for a long time. The higher-ups know about him, but they've buried the information. They're afraid of him. And they're about to send my brother into his hunting ground completely unprepared.
The weight of his knowledge was a physical thing, a constant pressure behind his eyes. He felt a profound, bitter loneliness. He was surrounded by his closest friends, his other half, yet he was utterly alone with his secrets. He couldn't share the burden, couldn't warn them of the specific danger they were walking into. To do so would be to admit to an impossible source of information, to shatter the carefully constructed reality he had built around himself.
The night before the mission, he found Satoru on the roof again, staring up at the city lights. This time, Geto was there too. The two of them were quiet, the usual boisterous energy replaced by a solemn, shared anticipation. Ryouta joined them, a silent addition to their vigil.
"It's strange, isn't it?" Geto said, breaking the silence. "Tomorrow, the fate of the entire jujutsu world rests on us. On a couple of sixteen-year-olds."
"We're not just any sixteen-year-olds," Satoru said, his voice quiet but laced with an unshakeable confidence. "We're the strongest." He looked at Geto, a genuine, warm smile on his face. "And as long as I have you with me, there's nothing we can't do."
"The same goes for me, Satoru," Geto replied, his own smile reflecting his deep respect and affection for his friend and rival.
Ryouta watched them, a painful lump forming in his throat. He was witnessing a scene he had only ever read about. This was the peak of their friendship, the moment of perfect, balanced power and mutual trust before it all came crashing down. He was a ghost from the future, watching a beautiful, tragic memory unfold in real time. He felt an almost overwhelming urge to say something, to warn them, to scream at Geto not to let the darkness take him, to tell Satoru to cherish this moment because it would be gone all too soon.
But he held his silence. It was not his place. His role was not to prevent the storm, but to ensure they survived it.
As if sensing his turmoil, Satoru turned to him. "You're thinking too loud again, Ryo."
Ryouta let out a slow breath. "Just… be careful tomorrow," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Both of you."
"We will be," Geto said, his tone reassuring.
"Don't worry," Satoru added with a grin, bumping his shoulder against Ryouta's. "We've got this. And we've got you watching our backs. What could possibly go wrong?"
Everything, Ryouta thought, but he just nodded, his face an unreadable mask.
The mission began the next day. Their target was Riko Amanai, a cheerful, ordinary-looking girl who was completely unaware of her cosmic significance as the next vessel for Master Tengen. Their job was to protect her from two groups: the curse user group "Q," who wanted to overthrow the jujutsu establishment, and the religious group, the "Time Vessel Association," who worshiped Tengen as a pure being and wanted to prevent the merger by killing the vessel.
The first few days were a blur of minor skirmishes. The assassins sent by the Time Vessel Association were laughably weak, easily dispatched by Satoru and Geto. It was almost a game. Satoru, in his arrogance, barely bothered to keep his Infinity active, treating the mission like a vacation. Geto was more serious, but even he seemed to be enjoying the relative ease of their task.
Ryouta, however, was a bundle of raw nerves. He was constantly scanning, his Primordial Echo Location active at all times. He was looking for the void, the tell-tale signature of Toji's presence. He felt like a man listening for the tell-tale silence that precedes a tsunami. He subtly altered their routes, guided them away from unusually quiet alleyways, suggested they take a different train, all under the guise of "tactical caution." He was successfully steering them away from Toji's ambush points, but he knew he couldn't do it forever. Toji was a master hunter. He would adapt.
The first real crisis came not from Toji, but from Q. They managed to create a large-scale diversion on one side of the city, drawing Satoru and Geto away. It was a classic pincer movement. While the two strongest were occupied, a different team from Q, led by a sorcerer named Bayer, cornered Riko and her attendant, Misato, in the crowded halls of the school.
Ryouta, who had been tasked with staying with Riko, suddenly found himself as her last line of defense. His Veil of Unbeing had kept him unnoticed, and the attackers didn't even realize he was there until he moved.
Bayer, a cocky sorcerer with a technique that allowed him to manipulate non-living objects, sent a barrage of debris—desks, chairs, chunks of the concrete wall—flying towards Riko.
There was no time for subtlety, no time for a hidden, conceptual attack. He needed to protect her, now. He stepped in front of Riko and Misato, his expression for the first time filled not with calm, but with a cold, hard fury.
He didn't erect a barrier. He didn't use Blue or Red. He simply held up a hand and activated his Domain Amplification. Not the full Domain Expansion, but a simplified, external version of it—a technique used by curses to neutralize other techniques. In his case, it was a field of primordial authority that didn't just neutralize techniques, it un-made them.
The flying debris, all of it imbued with Bayer's cursed energy, entered the field around Ryouta. The moment it did, the cursed energy within it was not nullified; it was conceptually erased. The desks and chairs, stripped of their momentum and the will that was guiding them, simply fell to the floor with a clatter.
Bayer stared, his jaw slack. "What? What did you do?"
"You are not worthy of wielding cursed energy," Ryouta said, his voice flat and utterly devoid of emotion. He took a single step forward. He wasn't using the Veil of Unbeing anymore. He was letting his presence be felt, and it was suffocating. The air grew heavy, thick with a pressure that had nothing to do with cursed energy and everything to do with pure, absolute authority.
He raised a finger, and the system, sensing his intent, flashed a panel into his mind.
╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
║ ◇ PRIMORDIAL SYSTEM ◇
║
║ [TECHNIQUE LEARNED: Hollow Purple - Matter Erasure]
║ [CURRENT MASTERY LEVEL: THEORETICAL]
║
║ [10X PRIMORDIAL AMPLIFICATION AVAILABLE]
║
║ AMPLIFIED FORM: "PRIMORDIAL COLLAPSE"
║ [MASTERY LEVEL UPON AMPLIFICATION: TRANSCENDENCE]
║
║ Primordial Collapse is the conceptual fusion of "approach"
║ and "separation." It does not erase matter. It erases the
║ very concept of "existence" from a target, causing
║ reality to collapse in on itself to fill the void. It is
║ not an attack; it is a judgment, a final, absolute erasure
║ from the story of the universe.
║
║ ► YES - Transform to "Primordial Collapse" forever
║ ► NO - Develop standard Hollow Purple
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The warning was clear. This power was too loud, too absolute. Using it would shatter his cover completely. He looked at Bayer, at the fear and confusion in his eyes. This man was not the true threat. He was just a pawn. Using this power on him would be like using a nuke to kill a fly.
He dismissed the panel. NO.
For the first time, he refused an amplification. It was a strategic choice. He had to save his trump cards for the real monster.
Instead, he pointed his finger at Bayer and unleashed a simple, non-amplified, and incredibly compressed blast of raw cursed energy—his Primordial Javelin, but stripped of its conceptual power. It was just pure force. It struck Bayer in the chest, not killing him, but hitting him with the force of a freight train, sending him flying through the back wall and knocking him unconscious.
He turned to the other members of Q, his silver-gold eyes glowing with a cold, terrifying light. They dropped their weapons and fled.
He stood there for a moment, his heart pounding. The balancing act between concealment and intervention was more difficult, more precarious, than he had ever imagined.
He turned to Riko and Misato, his expression softening, the immense pressure in the room vanishing as if it had never been. "Are you alright?"
They could only nod, staring at the quiet boy who had just displayed a power more terrifyingly absolute than anything they had ever witnessed from the famous Gojo Satoru.
Just then, Satoru and Geto burst into the room, their battle with the diversionary force finished. They took in the scene—the unconscious Bayer, the hole in the wall, the terrified looks on Riko and Misato's faces, and Ryouta, standing calmly in the middle of it all.
"What happened?" Satoru demanded, his Six Eyes scanning the residual energy in the room. He could see the ghost of Ryouta's Domain Amplification, the echo of the Javelin. He couldn't understand them, but he could feel their immense, overwhelming power.
"We were attacked," Ryouta said simply. "I handled it."
Satoru looked at his twin, a new, complex emotion in his eyes. It was a mixture of pride, frustration, and a growing, dawning realization. He was the sun, yes. But he was beginning to understand that the shadow beside him was not just a shadow. It was a storm, a quiet, patient, terrifying storm, waiting for the right moment to break. And he wasn't sure if the world was ready for it.