"Sigh..."
A cool autumn breeze, tinged with a hint of chill, swept through the vast yet empty training grounds of Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Satoru Gojo stood alone in the center of the training field, silent and still.
He wasn't wearing his iconic black blindfold. Instead, he wore a pair of small, dark circular sunglasses, revealing those 'Eyes of the Blue Sky'—eyes as clear as the heavens yet deep enough to be suffocating.
His tall, slender silhouette was stretched long by the setting sun.
"So quiet," he whispered.
Gojo muttered to himself, hands shoved in his pockets, as he looked up at the clouds stained blood-red by the evening glow.
On that handsome face, usually adorned with a peerless and arrogant smirk, there was now a rare trace of loneliness and exhaustion.
Ten years ago, this place wasn't so lifeless.
Back then, Suguru always had a stern face, lecturing him with those nauseatingly righteous theories.
And that monster, Yoru, would sit on the stone steps nearby, peeling an apple with Shiranui while looking at the two of them fooling around as if he were watching idiots.
Back then, Satoru Gojo thought that as long as he was strong enough, he could make those noisy yet warm days last forever.
But now...
Suguru had become the 'Most Evil Curse User,' wanted by the entire jujutsu world, sinking deeper and deeper into the dark mire.
And Yoru...
'You reckless madman, you promised I'd protect everyone...'
Gojo recalled the heart-shaking scene in the forbidden area of the back mountain ten years ago, and a self-deprecating smile touched his lips.
"I'm the strongest, you know? You think a little thing like this could be too much for me?"
"It's just..."
"You bastard, just how much longer are you going to make me wait?"
Step... Step... Step.
Just as Gojo was lost in the solitude that belonged only to the strongest...
A steady set of footsteps broke the dead silence of the training grounds.
Masamichi Yaga, the current principal of Jujutsu High, walked over from the nearby tree-lined path with a heavy expression.
In his hand, he tightly gripped a document stamped with the top-secret seal of the General Headquarters.
"Satoru."
Yaga walked up to Gojo's side.
Looking at his former most troublesome student—who had now become the sole pillar of the entire school—a complex mix of emotions flashed in his eyes.
"Thinking about Yoru and Suguru again?"
Gojo didn't look back. He simply shrugged, his tone returning to its usual playful, irreverent cadence.
"As if. I'm a busy man; I don't have time to think about those two heartless bastards who abandoned me."
"Well, Principal? What kind of nonsense are those rotten oranges up to now?"
Yaga sighed and handed over the top-secret document.
"Those guys at General Headquarters are becoming increasingly restless."
"They're trying to use Suguru Geto's defection as an excuse to completely suppress the Gojo family's influence in the jujutsu world."
"They even want to pin all the responsibility for the deaths of the political and business leaders killed in Suguru's attacks on you, claiming a failure in supervision."
"Oh?"
Gojo raised an eyebrow. Beneath his sunglasses, a terrifying, bone-chilling coldness flashed within his Eyes of the Blue Sky.
"They really aren't afraid to die, are they?"
"Do you want me to go over there right now and crush those old geezers' bones, one by one?"
As Gojo's words fell...
An incredibly horrifying, invisible pressure—one that seemed capable of completely crushing the surrounding space—instantly erupted with him as the epicenter!
"Vvmmm—!"
The Limitless cursed technique, known as the absolute defense surrounding his body, began to operate violently and automatically without any conscious control!
Dust, fallen leaves, and even light in the surrounding air were completely distorted and annihilated the moment they approached Gojo's body, struck by that invisible barrier!
Yaga's entire body shuddered. Even as a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer, he couldn't help but take a half-step back in the face of this despair-inducing pressure that felt as if it were stripping away his ability to breathe.
This... was the Strongest in his complete form!
No hand signs, no incantations, not even any extra effort of cursed energy.
Just by standing there, he was enough to make the entire world tremble!
"Satoru, calm down," Yaga said in a deep voice, barely enduring the suffocating sensation.
"You know that simple violent suppression won't solve anything."
"Those rotten oranges may be corrupt, but they control the intelligence networks and resources of the entire jujutsu world."
"If you kill them all, the entire jujutsu world will paralyze. Ordinary sorcerers will suffer heavy casualties due to the loss of command and logistics."
Gojo snorted coldly. The world-ending pressure receded as quickly as a tide, as if nothing had ever happened.
"I know that, obviously."
He turned his head to look at Yaga, a mocking sneer curling his lips.
"Yoru told me a long time ago that killing those idiots is easy, but it would just mean a new batch of idiots taking their place to continue rotting."
"If you want to truly change this corrupt world, you don't do it through slaughter."
"Instead..."
Gojo paused. A rare look of seriousness and tenderness flashed in those Eyes of the Blue Sky.
"You foster a group of allies who are as strong as I am—and who will absolutely never compromise with those rotten oranges."
This was the real reason why he, despite possessing the absolute power to easily overthrow the entire jujutsu world, was willing to stay at this small Tokyo school.
This was why he wore that blindfold to hide his sharpness and acted like a delinquent teacher who hung out with his students every day.
He wanted to plant countless seeds capable of piercing the darkness in this rotten soil before Yoru returned!
"I'm relieved you think that way," Yaga said, letting out a long sigh of relief, though the gravity on his face didn't lessen in the slightest.
He hesitated for a moment before turning the file to the final page and holding it out to Gojo.
"But regarding Suguru..."
"The situation might be much worse than we imagined."
Gojo's eyes narrowed instantly. He snatched the document and quickly scanned the intelligence.
The contents were extremely bloody and cruel.
It detailed Suguru Geto's terrifying actions over the past few months, leading the remnants of the Star Religious Group to frantically amass wealth, not even hesitating to commit mass murder.
Among those killed, most were indeed villainous mob bosses, greedy and corrupt politicians, and underground syndicates involved in human trafficking and illegal experiments.
But mixed within those blood-soaked records were some shocking names.
Ordinary people who had tried to resist, or were simply caught in the crossfire!
"This..."
Gojo looked at the grisly crime scene photos.
The corpses brutally torn apart by cursed spirits, the faces twisted in despair.
His pupils shrank suddenly.
"Suguru... did he really do this?"
Gojo's voice carried a rare tremor of disbelief and denial.
He knew Suguru was acting; he knew that to deceive that thousand-year-old fox, Kenjaku, Suguru had to pose as a ruthless, peak-evil curse user.
But they had clearly promised each other on the stone steps of the shrine that no matter what, they would never cross that absolute line!
But now...
Looking at the blood of those innocent people...
For the first time, a real sense of pain and alienation formed in Gojo's heart.
Could that gentle youth, who used to spout righteous theories and wouldn't even step on an ant, have been completely assimilated by that terrifying malice after struggling in the darkness for ten years?
"The intelligence department has confirmed it."
Yaga's voice was extremely low, as if every word weighed a thousand pounds.
"While most of those Suguru Geto killed were scum, in his most recent operation to seize a special grade cursed object, he allowed his cursed spirits to slaughter an entire street of innocent civilians."
"Satoru, regardless of his reasons for leaving the school..."
"He is now a cold-blooded murderer through and through."
"The higher-ups have issued a final ultimatum. If you don't take a stand, they will mobilize all resources to eliminate Suguru Geto at any cost."
"When that time comes, even you won't be able to protect him anymore."
After saying this, Yaga gave Gojo a deep look before turning and silently leaving the training grounds.
He left that maddening silence to the Strongest, who had to bear everything alone.
Gojo gripped the document so tightly that the veins on the back of his hand bulged.
The invisible barrier of Limitless fluctuated violently and uncontrollably again, carving countless terrifying cracks into the ground around him!
"Suguru..."
Gojo suddenly looked up. Beneath his sunglasses, his Eyes of the Blue Sky were filled with a complex struggle and resolve.
He was afraid.
The Strongest—the man who could laugh off the malice of the entire world—felt afraid for the first time in his life.
He was afraid that his best friend, the one who once fought by his side, had truly turned into a monster he no longer recognized.
And he was even more afraid that one day, he would have to personally crush that monster's head.
"If you really have crossed the line, if you've really become one of those rotten oranges that even you would find disgusting..."
Gojo took a deep breath, instantly crushing the blood-stained document into nothingness with his cursed energy.
"I will kill you with my own hands."
He looked up at the setting sun, which had now completely dipped below the horizon, a look of extreme, weary resolve in his eyes.
"But before that..."
"Yoru, you bastard, when are you finally going to get your ass back here!"
Having made his decision, Gojo Satoru, the Strongest in his complete form...
How will he face his best friend, whose true nature has become indistinguishable in the darkness, and who may have even lost himself?
And how will this decade-long, cruel act finally come to its tragic end?
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