Chapter 15: Sherry's Returning to Japan, I'm Going to Pick Her Up
"It's the previous head of the family~" Gojo Satoru propped his cheek with one hand, his tone casual: "Starting from him, ever since this cemetery was built, every generation's head has to be buried right there."
"The previous head?" Kaito caught on quickly: "You mean... your dad, Uncle?"
Realizing he might have brought up a painful memory, Kaito felt he shouldn't push the topic any further. But Gojo Satoru looked completely normal, speaking without any hesitation: "Yeah, probably grieved way too hard after Mom passed away unexpectedly, so he fell sick from depression."
Kaito froze, only then realizing that Gojo Satoru had actually been all alone for a long time.
In all the time they had known each other, he had never heard his uncle mention his parents, and his own mom rarely talked about it either.
The deep sympathy impossible to hide in the boy's eyes made Gojo Satoru feel like laughing and crying at the same time.
To be honest, from the perspective of a transmigrator, parents in this world felt more like background cards randomly generated by the system. He had never met them since gaining consciousness, so naturally there wasn't much deep emotional attachment to speak of.
Still, for Jiang Wu, who had been an orphan since childhood, even if they were just background cards, they were still the flesh-and-blood relatives of this body after all.
Before officially returning to the Gojo family to take over as head, Gojo Satoru had always suspected Karasuma Renya was secretly behind his parents' tragic deaths, and he had even started investigating it over the past two years.
He didn't just visit witnesses involved in the accident back then, but also used his "Hypnotic Pocket Watch" to interrogate the driver serving a sentence in prison.
Yet every single clue pointed toward the exact same conclusion: it really was just an accident, with zero direct evidence showing that the Organization or Karasuma Renya had interfered.
As for his father's passing, the testimonies from everyone in the Gojo clan were completely consistent.
The old head completely lost his spirit after his wife passed away. After hurriedly sending the "Divine Child" abroad, he died of grief just a few years later.
Since he couldn't find any more valuable clues, Gojo Satoru temporarily put the investigation on hold, though his doubts about the boss never truly faded.
It didn't matter. Evil was just like a seed: even if buried under lies, it would eventually break through the soil at some completely unexpected moment.
Gojo Satoru had always been plenty patient.
He would wait quietly—until the exact moment that kind, fake mask got ripped away entirely.
"Um..."
Kaito suddenly spoke up, reaching out to tug lightly on his wide sleeve.
"Hmm?"
Gojo Satoru blinked, feeling a bit confused.
"I mean..."
The black-haired youth hesitated for a second. In the end, as if making up his mind about something, the tips of his ears turned slightly red, and his gaze drifted off to the side: "Even if your parents aren't around anymore, Uncle, you've still got me and Mom."
His voice grew quieter and quieter, yet carried a firm, unmistakable seriousness.
"We... will always stay by your side."
"..."
Caught completely off guard by this sudden direct hit, Gojo Satoru's pale blue eyes widened slightly, leaving him dazed for a brief second.
Right after, a brilliant smile broke out on his face. "Thanks, Kaito."
He reached out his hand, gently rubbing the boy's soft black hair.
...
Once they finished paying their respects, the two walked down the mountain along the green stone path. When they got back to the Gojo estate, a few familiar maids were out in the garden tending to the flowers.
"Welcome back, Lord Head, and Master Kaito!"
Whenever Tama got too busy on her own, they would take charge of looking after the head's meals and daily routine. Because of that, they got along pretty well with Gojo Satoru, occasionally cracking harmless jokes with him. After all, this young head never put on airs, and would even pop out out of nowhere while they were working, smiling as he asked for the freshest roses to decorate his desserts with.
Before long, Kaito, who couldn't sit still anyway, started chatting away with the pretty maids, even planning to go find Daifu to play hide-and-seek together.
Watching the cheerful back of his cheap nephew running off into the distance, Gojo Satoru rubbed his chin, feeling an odd sense of empty-nest loneliness for some weird reason.
"Whatever, not gonna do anything else today~ With the afternoon sun being this nice, taking a quick nap is practically a must."
Thinking like that, he headed back to his inner courtyard, lazily flopping onto a rocking chair. He waved the hand fan in his grip back and forth, feeling completely relaxed and carefree.
Right at that moment, the phone in his pocket started vibrating.
It was the special model reserved exclusively for the Organization.
Pulling it out to check, the word "Gin" stood out brightly on the screen.
Gojo Satoru raised an eyebrow.
The workaholic model worker actually had time to give him a call? How rare.
Knowing that every time that guy contacted him it had something to do with Organization missions, Gojo Satoru figured this time wouldn't be an exception either.
"Hello, Gin-chan?"
Gojo Satoru hit answer, putting on a full business elite posture: "Just to be clear, my time is super valuable, every minute is worth millions. Say what you gotta say, quick."
A laugh the man didn't bother hiding came through the phone: "Are you talking about lying in your yard counting ants?"
Wait, did you install a camera at my house?
"Of course not!" Gojo Satoru stated with utmost righteousness: "I am crazy busy, okay?"
Not only did he conscientiously manage the businesses under the Gojo family (even though most of the paperwork was tossed over to Gojo Kazuma), personally making the final call on every major decision, but he also successfully built up the brand for his own dessert chain, pulling in a lot of investments.
On top of that, the jewelry appraisal center and auction house co-founded with the Karasuma Group needed his periodic attention too (even though they still hadn't found any trace of the Pandora gem yet), which swallowed plenty of energy as well.
Even the four human-shaped cursed corpses he created two years ago had finished their learning and returned, each taking on their own duties: Yuki and Tsuki opened a secret intelligence house in Tokyo, specializing in gathering info from various factions; Hana and Kaze ran a seemingly ordinary jack-of-all-trades shop, helping solve "small troubles" regular folks couldn't handle.
Even though Gojo Satoru didn't step in to manage their day-to-day operations directly, only providing support when necessary (slacking off completely loud and proud), wasn't that precisely the wisdom a big boss behind the scenes ought to have?
Not to mention he had even kindly helped Gin handle a few missions along the way.
"I actually work hard for the Organization too, alright? Didn't I just help deal with that smuggling gang last month?"
Gin sneered coldly on the other end of the line: "Your definition of 'working' is carefully picking out loan shark presidents who drive people to ruin, or big-time drug lords to target, right? Looks to me like you're just killing whoever you personally dislike."
Besides, compared to a dedicated hitman like him who basically worked year-round without a break, Caesar's tiny workload was completely laughable.
Then again, who made that gentleman favor his adoptive son so much?
Usually, Caesar was left completely free to act as he pleased, with almost zero forced mission targets. Compared to those lower-level members who did all the dirty work just to climb up, it was practically night and day.
"Hmph." Gojo Satoru let out two stubborn grunts: "Keep saying I'm doing nothing, and see if I don't report you to the boss next time, saying you're an FBI mole sent into the Organization."
"..."
Gin on the other end of the line was clearly rendered completely speechless by this baseless threat.
Even saying Gojo Satoru himself was an undercover agent would sound way more convincing than calling Gin one, wouldn't it?
"Not gonna waste time bickering with you." Gin decided to wrap up this totally meaningless argument: "Caesar, I've got something to ask you."
"What is it?"
Gojo Satoru grew interested.
"You know Miyano Shiho, right?" Gin paused, correcting himself: "No, she should be called 'Sherry' now."
Gojo Satoru caught onto something, his mind shifting: "Sherry? A new codenamed member? That's a pretty nice name."
"Don't play dumb." Gin's tone dropped low: "I casually checked before and found out you had overlaps with Sherry back at MIT. At the time, people in the Organization originally wanted to issue a 'warning' action against anyone getting close to her, only to end up getting a total shock when they realized it was you."
"Oh~ You mean back then. What about it?"
"That gentleman values her research abilities a lot. She just graduated from school, and was exceptionally granted the wine codename 'Sherry'. Because of that, I'm only asking you one thing—" Gin's words carried a thread of danger: "During your time interacting with her, did you pick up on any signs that she wants to betray the Organization?"
Hiss, don't tell me Gin thought he intentionally approached Sherry back then just to secretly monitor her loyalty?
Did he look like someone so deeply loyal to the Organization?
"Betray the Organization?" Gojo Satoru acted like he found it really hard to get his paranoia: "You're overthinking it, aren't you? That girl only has studying in her head, staying in the lab doing research all day long. She just talks with a bit of a sharp tongue, that's all."
"Meaning she's just a nerd?"
Gin on the other end stayed silent for a few seconds, not clear on whether he bought it or not.
In the end, he just let out a cold chuckle: "Whatever, even if she has some dishonest thoughts in the future, it doesn't matter—that older sister of hers, though completely useless, is enough of a bargaining chip for the Organization to hold over her."
Gojo Satoru asked, knowing the answer full well: "Oh? She has an older sister?"
"Miyano Akemi, just an ordinary Organization member... every once in a while she asks people in the Organization about her younger sister's recent situation. Truly deep sisterly love." Gin's voice suddenly turned icy: "However, if they ever fail to appreciate our kindness in the future and harbor thoughts they shouldn't have, when that time comes, neither I nor the boss will let them off."
"Alright, that's all."
Having said up to here, Gin planned to hang up the call.
Gojo Satoru spoke up just in time to stop him: "Wait!"
"What else?"
"Since Sherry has already graduated from school, when is she coming back to Japan to work for the Organization?"
Gin gave a short, succinct reply: "At four this afternoon, I'm going to the airport to pick her up."
That fast?
Gojo Satoru originally thought Miyano Shiho would take a while longer to return to Japan, never expecting it to be today.
He instantly perked right up, bugging him in a clingy tone: "Ehh—! Why didn't you mention such an important thing earlier! I wanna go too! Take me along!"
Sherry's returning to Japan, I'm going to pick her up!
Gin seemed completely baffled by his sudden burst of enthusiasm: "...What are you going for?"
"I haven't seen that kid in a while either, you know," Gojo Satoru shot back with a question: "As a senior who used to look out for her, going to welcome her back to Japan is only natural, isn't it?"
Gin thought for a few seconds, seemingly weighing how reasonable this request was.
"Fine, up to you. Come to think of it, when you were abroad, you didn't tell Sherry you were part of the Organization too, right? Now you suddenly turn around and become a 'colleague' here to receive her... Tsk, really don't get what fun you find in teasing a young girl like that."
Could it be that what this guy wanted to see... was the painful expression on Sherry's face when she realized she had been betrayed?
Gin's mind ran wild, suddenly feeling Gojo Satoru had truly gotten more and more twisted over the years. As expected, he still didn't understand the guy enough.
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