The aftermath of the attack at the school was a strange, tense quiet. The immediate threat had been neutralized, but the incident had left an indelible mark on the group dynamic. Satoru, for the first time, had been relegated to a secondary role, arriving after the fact to a situation his brother had already "handled." Geto's respect for Ryouta's tactical mind had deepened into a wary curiosity. And Riko Amanai, the cheerful girl at the center of it all, now looked at Ryouta with a mixture of gratitude and profound fear.
They were relocated to a more secure location, a high-rise hotel in Shinjuku under heavy jujutsu protection, to await the final escort to Master Tengen's domain. But the illusion of safety was gone. The enemy had proven they could get close.
That night, Ryouta stood on the balcony of their penthouse suite, his hands resting on the railing as he stared out at the sprawling, glittering expanse of Tokyo. He wasn't admiring the view. He was listening. His "Primordial Echo Location" was active, not scanning for afterimages, but for the inverse: the void. He was searching for the tell-tale signature of a Heavenly Restriction user, the hole in the world's cursed energy that would signify the arrival of Toji Fushiguro. So far, there was nothing. Just the dense, chaotic hum of the city.
It's too quiet, Ryouta thought, his internal monologue a low, anxious thrum. According to the manga's timeline, Toji's first move should have been a direct assault. My interventions, my subtle course corrections, they've altered the flow of events. I've been steering them away from his ambushes, but that doesn't mean he's gone. A hunter like him doesn't give up. He adapts. He's watching. Waiting for the right moment. Waiting for Satoru to get arrogant.
And Satoru was getting arrogant. The failure of the assassins and the ease with which they'd handled the curse user group Q had only reinforced his belief in his own overwhelming strength. He had seen what Ryouta did at the school, but his pride interpreted it not as a sign of his own vulnerability, but as further proof of the Gojo twins' absolute superiority.
The balcony door slid open, and Satoru stepped out, a can of soda in his hand. He leaned against the railing beside his brother, mimicking his posture.
"You're thinking so loud I can almost hear it, Ryo," he said, his tone light, but his blue eyes were sharp, analytical. "What's got you so wound up? We're winning."
"Winning battles is not the same as winning the war," Ryouta replied, his gaze still fixed on the city below. "The enemies we've faced so far... they're amateurs. They're predictable."
"So? Let them come. We'll crush them," Satoru said with a confident smirk.
"You can't crush what you can't see," Ryouta said, the words heavy with a warning Satoru couldn't possibly understand. He turned to face his brother. "Satoru. That promise you made me. About not being arrogant. I need you to remember it now more than ever." He took a breath, deciding to give him another piece of the puzzle, a breadcrumb of truth. "There are sorcerers, or those connected to the jujutsu world, who operate on a completely different axis. They don't use cursed energy in the way we do. Some have none at all."
Satoru frowned, his interest piqued. "Like a complete Heavenly Restriction? Like Maki Zenin, but on a different level?"
"Exactly," Ryouta confirmed. "A being with zero cursed energy would be completely invisible to the Six Eyes. You wouldn't be able to detect their presence, their movements, their intent. They would be a ghost in your perception."
"But they wouldn't have a cursed technique," Satoru countered. "Without cursed energy, they're just a normal person with a weapon."
"And if that person was trained from birth to be the perfect killer? If they possessed superhuman physical abilities granted by the Restriction? If their weapons were cursed tools of the highest grade?" Ryouta pressed, his voice low and intense. "They wouldn't need a cursed technique. They are the technique. A perfect, invisible blade aimed at the heart of the jujutsu world. How would you fight that, Satoru? How would you stop a monster you can't even see?"
Satoru was silent for a long time, the implications of Ryouta's hypothetical scenario sinking in. He was used to battles of overwhelming power, of cursed techniques clashing like forces of nature. A fight against an invisible, untouchable assassin was a kind of warfare he had never even considered. His Six Eyes, his greatest asset, would be useless.
"I'd..." Satoru started, but he had no answer.
"You'd lose," Ryouta finished for him, his voice flat. "The first time, you'd lose. Because you wouldn't be prepared for a fight that doesn't play by your rules." He softened his tone, seeing the flicker of uncertainty in his brother's eyes. "I'm not saying this to scare you. I'm saying it so you'll be ready. Keep your Infinity active. At all times. Don't let your guard down for a second. Treat every shadow as a potential threat. Assume you are being hunted, always."
Satoru stared at his twin, at the grim seriousness etched on his face. He didn't know where Ryouta was getting this information—this wasn't theory, it felt like a warning born from experience—but he trusted him implicitly. The image of the curse vanishing without a trace, of Ryouta's quiet, absolute power, was still fresh in his mind.
"Okay," Satoru said, his voice subdued. "Okay, Ryo. I get it."
Inside the suite, Geto and Shoko were having their own, quieter conversation. Riko, exhausted from the stress of the day, was asleep in her room, with her attendant Misato watching over her.
"Satoru is getting cocky," Geto said, his brow furrowed with concern as he watched the twins on the balcony. "And Ryouta… he's getting more intense. Did you see what he did at the school? I've never seen a technique neutralized so completely."
"It wasn't a technique," Shoko said, taking a long drag from a cigarette she had filched from one of their handlers. "Or at least, not one I've ever heard of. It was more like… a denial. He just decided the other guy's power wasn't allowed to work." She blew a stream of smoke. "He's always been weird, but he's getting weirder. And scarier."
"He's protective," Geto mused. "Everything he does seems to revolve around keeping Satoru safe. Even his arguments. It's like he's constantly trying to prepare Satoru for something only he can see coming."
"They're twins," Shoko said with a shrug. "It's a weird twin thing, I guess." But even she didn't sound convinced. The dynamic between the Gojo brothers was something beyond normal sibling affection. It was something deeper, more absolute, and, she suspected, far more tragic.
The next few days were a tense, quiet waiting game. Satoru, taking Ryouta's warning to heart, kept his Limitless active constantly, a shimmering, invisible field of infinity around him. The change was subtle, but Ryouta could perceive it. The slight drain on Satoru's cursed energy, the faint hum of power that now surrounded him at all times. He wasn't using the Reverse Cursed Technique to refresh his brain yet—he hadn't had his breakthrough—so the constant use of his power was slowly, imperceptibly, tiring him out.
This is the trap, Ryouta realized with a jolt. Toji isn't attacking because he's waiting. He's waiting for Satoru to exhaust himself. The manga never showed this part—the psychological warfare, the war of attrition.
He had to do something. He needed a distraction, something to break the pattern. He approached Geto with a suggestion.
"We're sitting ducks here," Ryouta said. "The enemy knows we're protecting Riko. They know our general location. They're just waiting for an opportunity. We should take her out, let her have one last day of normalcy. It would be good for her morale, and it would make us a moving target, harder to pin down."
Geto was hesitant. "It's risky."
"It's riskier to stay in one place and wait for the hunter to choose his moment," Ryouta countered. "Let's take her to Okinawa. It's far from the usual centers of jujutsu activity. We can secure a location, let her have a day at the beach. It's the last place they would expect us to go."
The plan was audacious, but it had a certain strategic brilliance. Geto, swayed by Ryouta's logic and his own compassion for the girl who was about to have her entire existence erased, agreed. Satoru, bored out of his mind, was all for it.
A few hours later, they were on a private jet to Okinawa. Riko, who had been withdrawn and frightened since the attack, seemed to come alive at the prospect. The change of scenery, the bright sun, the smell of the ocean—it was a powerful balm.
They spent the day at a secluded beach. Satoru and Geto, their guard slightly lowered by the relaxed atmosphere, were acting like normal teenagers, splashing in the water and complaining about the heat. Shoko, surprisingly, seemed to be enjoying herself, collecting seashells with Riko.
Ryouta, as always, was the sentinel. He stood at the edge of the water, the waves lapping at his ankles, his eyes closed. He was using his Echo Location, not to scan for threats, but to listen to the island. He could feel the ancient, dormant cursed energy of the land, the vibrant life force of the coral reefs, the joyful, uncomplicated energy of his friends. It was a beautiful, peaceful symphony.
And then he heard it.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a presence. It was the opposite. It was a sudden, jarring silence in the symphony. A void. A patch of reality on the road leading to their beach that had suddenly stopped emitting any energy signature at all. It was the echo of a ghost.
He's here.
Toji had found them.
Ryouta's blood ran cold. His plan to create a moving target had worked, but it had also isolated them.
He opened his eyes. His friends were laughing, playing in the surf. Riko looked genuinely happy for the first time since they'd met her. It was a perfect, beautiful moment. A moment just before the slaughter.
He had a choice to make. He could alert them, shattering the peace and putting them on immediate high alert. Or he could handle it himself. He was the only one who could "see" Toji. He could use his Veil of Unbeing to become a ghost himself, intercept the Sorcerer Killer, and try to divert him, to fight a battle of shadows that his friends would never even know was happening.
It was an insane risk. He had never faced an opponent of Toji's caliber. His own combat experience was limited to sparring and a few one-sided annihilations of lesser threats. But if he didn't act, Toji would reach the beach, and the first person he would target, the weakest link, would be Riko.
He looked at Satoru, laughing as he was splashed by Geto. He saw the genuine, unburdened joy on his brother's face, a joy he knew was about to be stolen from him forever.
My job is to take care of the shadows, he remembered telling his brother. So you can shine brighter without being burned.
He had never meant it more literally.
He turned to Shoko, who was watching him, her expression quizzical. "I'm going to check the perimeter," he said, his voice betraying none of his internal turmoil. "I have a strange feeling."
"Be careful," she said, her eyes narrowing slightly, sensing that something was wrong.
Ryouta nodded and walked away from the beach, up the path leading to the road. As soon as he was out of sight, he activated the Veil of Unbeing at its absolute maximum. To the world, to reality itself, he ceased to be a person of interest. He was just another part of the scenery. He also activated his Primordial Echo Location, his vision shifting to a monochrome world of energy and its absence. He could see the "Toji-shaped" hole in reality moving steadily down the road towards them.
He took a deep breath. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. He was terrified. He was a sixteen-year-old boy about to face a legendary monster, alone. But he was also Ryouta Gojo. And he would not let anyone harm his brother.
He moved into the trees, a ghost preparing to hunt a ghost, ready to fight a battle that would never be recorded, for stakes that were nothing less than the future of the entire world. The idyllic day was over. The Sorcerer Killer's shadow had fallen over their paradise, and the true mission had finally begun.