Forget committing patricide and matricide in reality—this kind of script would be explosive even in a two-dimensional anime world.
Why was Uchiha Itachi in Naruto condemned for so many years? Because he did not merely slaughter distant clan members with lukewarm ties to him—he also killed the parents who had treated him well, committing the most unforgivable crime of all: the murder of his own kin.
The more Getou Suguru trusted Akiya's intellect, the more violently he was shaken by the "crime" pinned onto him.
This was the script Akiya had arranged for him.
This was a fragment of the future Akiya had predicted on his behalf.
Just like the parallel-world setting—Akiya could use a logically airtight narrative to trick Satoru into running in circles.
[This is impossible! How could Akiya dare arrange my birthday like this?!]
He wavered, gripped by fear. His heart contracted again and again. He recalled how, upon waking that morning, he had found himself holding a fruit knife; the metallic tang of blood filling the room; his father collapsed facedown on the floor; his mother lying on her back. Now, in hindsight, each image felt like a planted foreshadowing.
There had been no curse user.
The murderer was twenty-six-year-old Getou Suguru.
In "High School Reunion Ten Years Later," had he not become nothing more than a beast?
Getou Suguru's expression darkened. The justification that had supported him in seeking someone to settle accounts with began to crumble. And the ashes he had promised would not fall now clung to his shoes.
It was as though they were mocking his vow. He could even smell the fine dust in the air.
Enunciating each word, Getou Suguru said, "Satoru—if I had killed my parents, would I still ask you two about it?"
Gojo Satoru replied, "Who knows what you're thinking…"
Gojo Satoru crouched down and gathered a handful of ashes in his palm. He suppressed his emotions, relying entirely on the "himself" within the script to carry out the performance.
"You have a mouth, yet you refuse to talk to me. I didn't even know why you developed an eating disorder."
"You said it was summer fatigue. You said you were sick of soba noodles. All lies."
"All I know is that you left Shoko and me behind at Jujutsu High and ran off on your own. Your righteousness, your lofty ideals—I accepted the very thing I hated most. Because I thought that if I could make the world a little better, maybe you would come back…"
"I wanted to prove that what you couldn't accomplish, I could."
"Why won't you trust me?"
"Suguru, why did you let Akiya die for nothing? Why did you make your own convictions worthless?"
"Tell me—why?"
Gojo Satoru carefully gathered the scattered ashes. He did not lash out in anger. Instead, he remained crouched beside Ieiri Shoko, and together they looked at the man before them.
The script never explained why Getou Suguru had killed his parents. Gojo Satoru had secretly glanced at Shoko's script as well—it did not reveal the truth either.
It was as though that answer existed only in Getou Suguru's script, and yet he had clearly never been given one.
The living are inferior to the dead—that is only true within memories.
The ashes of the dead are inferior to the living—that is the reality.
Gojo Satoru would not kill Getou Suguru merely because he had accidentally smashed the urn.
After all, he was his "best friend."
He was grieving in silence, without so much as a sound.
Going their separate ways?
No. He refused. He wanted to remain their friend for a lifetime, to face every hardship together, shoulder to shoulder.
The sudden, explosive burst of acting was so convincing that Ieiri Shoko felt her scalp prickle, a chill creeping up her spine; it seemed that the one who had fallen too deeply into the role was not Getou Suguru alone.
"I—I don't know…" Getou Suguru stammered, panic-stricken and at a loss, staring down at his own trembling hands. "I didn't kill anyone. I could never kill my own parents… I have to go back and see them…"
No longer caring about the Gojo clan's barrier, Getou Suguru shot into the sky, fleeing toward the only place that could give him answers—the Getou residence.
Gojo Satoru's voice rang out behind him in a furious shout. "Get back here!"
Getou Suguru did not look back. Overwhelmed by fear and confusion, he found himself unable to face his two friends.
He did not want to stay.
He wanted to prove that he was not a beast.
At the Getou residence, Mr. and Mrs. Getou had already regained consciousness. They leaned against the sofa, gazing at the blood that covered the floor with lingering fear.
The front door was violently shoved open as a frantic Getou Suguru rushed in from outside. Overjoyed at the sight before him, his long hair was slightly disheveled, his half-loosened topknot hanging at the back of his head. The blood and bone ash staining his kasaya made him look like a different person entirely, his face twisted in a strange mixture of ferocity and elation.
Powerful cursed energy surged around him in waves—though invisible to ordinary people. Mrs. Getou had not yet fully recovered from the shock; when she saw her son dressed like a monk, her face grew heavy with complicated emotion. So, in the end, her little Suguru-kun would become a monk after all.
"Suguru-kun," Mr. Getou said, drawing his wife into his arms. Blood stained their clothes as well; they looked no better than Getou Suguru himself.
"Let's talk about cursed spirits, sorcerers, and the jujutsu world," Mr. Getou said calmly. He believed that major matters within the family required discussion, not rash decisions. To have a heart-to-heart with his sorcerer son on the day of his birthday—he considered that something worthwhile.
"Who told you?" Getou Suguru demanded, as the secret he had least wanted exposed was dragged into the open.
He was long past the age of wanting to confess everything to his parents. Concealing cursed spirits and disguising himself as an ordinary person had been his way of making up for the childhood he once had. He did not need his parents to know the truth; any regret that might follow would be meaningless.
"Was it Asou Akiya again?" Getou Suguru roared in fury. "How can he keep trampling on my bottom line again and again? Is he not afraid that I'll truly get angry—that I'll really want to cut ties with him? We're not at the point where we have no secrets between us!"
There was no trace left of the refined, honor-student youth about him. He looked instead like a long-haired heretical monk on the brink of hysteria.
His oppressive presence and eerie aura instantly enveloped the entire two-story house.
A chill ran through Mr. and Mrs. Getou from head to toe.
Countless cursed spirits prowled within the murky currents of Getou Suguru's cursed energy. The density of cursed energy in the air spiked abruptly; though there was no wind, the curtains in the first-floor living room began to flutter wildly. A single man becoming an army—this was what it meant when a Cursed Spirit Manipulator had fully grown into his power.
A flicker of fear, a trace of resistance—such emotions naturally gave birth to cursed spirits upon the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Getou.
The high concentration of cursed energy provided fertile ground for fly-heads to grow.
Getou Suguru's narrow eyes widened, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints. "Cursed spirits…"
All this time, his parents had maintained a healthy state of mind, and their family life had been stable. Even if he had accidentally brought low-grade cursed spirits home with him, they had merely been filthy things picked up outside. Never once had he seen his parents generate cursed spirits right in front of him.
The ordinary people whom sorcerers risked their lives to protect were, in truth, the source of ninety-nine percent of the world's cursed spirits.
He knew that.
But this was supposed to have nothing to do with his own parents.
In the script recounted by Gojo Satoru and Ieiri Shoko, Asou Akiya had risked his life to save his parents—but ten years from now, would his parents still feel grateful to Asou Akiya?
No. They could not see cursed spirits; they could not see cursed energy. They might not even know how perilous Asou Akiya's battle against the curse user had been… They were merely people who had not evolved into sorcerers.
People do not feel gratitude for what they cannot see. For what they cannot see, they feel only fear—and that fear brings even more trouble.
He could not stop himself from spiraling into a dead end of thought. Had his parents dragged Akiya down? Could Akiya have escaped safely if not for them?
Yet it had been precisely because his parents were taken hostage—because of the moral weight of their lives—that Akiya had been forced into a life-and-death struggle with a curse user.
"Akiya… saved us for nothing…"
"So that's the answer Satoru wanted to ask me about?"
Getou Suguru felt as if he had been struck by a heavy blow; his body swayed, and he froze in the doorway.
Ten years later, in the script, the "him" of that story had come to visit his parents, only to learn that they had forgotten their savior, and then to witness the birth of cursed spirits before his eyes. It was understandable that his state of mind would collapse in an instant.
But murder? Killing his own parents?
Getou Suguru could not comprehend it. He clutched at his hair. "I would never kill anyone. That's impossible…"
Seeing their son on the verge of madness, Mr. and Mrs. Getou were stunned on the spot.
The last thing Mr. Getou wanted was to see his son in the throes of an episode. Out of habit, he scolded him, "You're a year older now. You should take responsibility like an adult. If there's something that needs explaining, explain it properly and sooner rather than standing in the doorway looking like a murderer."
Getou Suguru stared at them blankly. "You want me to explain?"
He stopped probing the script any further. An immense sorrow surfaced in his eyes. "Haven't I already told you?"
He spoke woodenly, as if every word had to be dragged out of him. "This world is full of monsters. They found me. They hunted me. I kept running, kept fighting, until I was finally able to destroy them… Only then did I gain the ability to survive."
"You took me to see a psychiatrist. There were so many monsters in the hospital too…"
"So many. So, so many…"
When he was a child, he had explained it countless times, yet no one understood. The psychiatrist had diagnosed him with childhood delusional disorder.
He had learned to lie in order to survive safely—what was wrong with that?
The ones at fault were the parents who did not trust him!
Getou Suguru drew in a shaky breath. "I already… stopped hoping that you would ever understand. And now, all of a sudden, you do."
Getou Suguru said flatly, "Fine. I have nothing more to say."
He turned to leave. "For you to remain in the dark for the rest of your lives would have been the best possible outcome."
Whether it was punishment and retaliation, or protection and indifference, he was forced to choose what his heart truly wanted. The resentment that had accumulated over so many years erupted all at once.
There had always been love, and there had always been hatred. He had never reconciled with the child he once was. Until this moment, he had thought what he needed was reconciliation—but now he realized what he needed was a complete and absolute release.
Ignorance was not a sin. The sin was that his parents were ignorant and weak, yet still tried to interfere in his life, believing that he would obey them forever.
[Who do you think you are?]
[Just because you are my parents, does that mean I must listen to you, that I must spend my entire life indebted to you?]
[You are not sorcerers. You are not my kind.]
Not far away, Getou Suguru, wrapped in utter desolation, came face to face with Gojo Satoru. There was only that one person standing there—yet he was worth more than the countless people who filled the ordinary world.
Nearby, a civilian was calling the police, claiming they had seen a monk drenched in blood, radiating a terrifying aura. When Getou Suguru heard this, he wanted to laugh. After all, he was a jujutsu sorcerer—a sorcerer who protected ordinary people.
And yet the muscles in his face had died; he could neither laugh nor cry. His soul and body twisted together, and he looked like a grotesque creature whose facial features had been crudely carved into place.
He wanted to sever all ties with the world of ordinary people. He wanted to return to the "normal" life of a sorcerer. If he did not speak now, he felt he would truly lose his mind.
"Twenty-six-year-old 'Satoru,' you are not blind. The one who is blind is me. I think… I can answer the question you asked."
"It was 'me' who personally killed those who did not understand gratitude…"
"I hate that they are ordinary people."
Save me.
I do not want to keep living in the mire of my childhood.
…
On his birthday, Getou Suguru left home, clad in his monk's robes.