There are two types of vampires: pure-bloods and kin.
The first type is the pure-blood vampire. They are the ones whose origin is closest to the original curse spirits, and their existence is clearly more complete and stable than that of the others.
The second type is the kin vampires. They are not always born directly from pure-bloods. Rather, they come into being from curse pressure or excess cursed energy that accumulates around a pure-blood vampire over a long period of time.
Once that power gathers to a certain level, it gradually forms a new existence on its own. And this type of vampire possesses only one fundamental instinct: to serve the one who gave rise to it.
However, once kin vampires develop stable bodies and identities, they are able to live within human society as well. They can have names, jobs, families, and leave descendants behind.
But as the bloodline continues, the cursed power within them gradually thins with each generation, until in the end their vampiric traits may almost completely fade away.
Even so, they never forget their original instinct.
...
The next morning, the three students were walking back from the shopping district in town.
Gojo carried several bags of sweets in his hands, while Shoko held the daily necessities she had just bought. Geto walked in silence, sweeping his gaze over the atmosphere of the city.
Even though this place was filled with curse pressure,
it was far quieter than he had expected.
Geto frowned slightly.
"This is unnatural."
Gojo, walking beside him, kept staring ahead.
"So you think so too."
Geto glanced at him slightly.
"Then why don't you use those eyes of yours to do something about it?"
Gojo let out a soft sigh.
"I more or less know where the source is, but the problem is that there's too much curse pressure in this city."
Geto frowned slightly and swept his gaze around the city on instinct. Crowds of people continued passing by without pause; everything was too busy to easily isolate what was truly abnormal.
Moreover, the city was so saturated with curse pressure that it was almost impossible to tell what the real anomaly was.
"Suguru, something's coming."
Geto immediately fell silent. Those words made the atmosphere around them tighten at once.
Gojo looked toward the source, which was blending into the pedestrians along the street.
At first, Geto could not tell who it was amid the crowd.
But once the curse pressure came close enough, all three of them realized at once that what stood before them was not just one thing.
There were two curse spirits.
They stopped and looked toward the crowd in front of them.
The two figures separated themselves from the people as if they had never intended to hide in the first place.
But the curse spirit in the form of a woman did not keep walking. She remained where she was, letting the volcano-headed one step forward alone.
One of them paused slightly the moment its eyes met the white-haired man's.
"...Gojo Satoru."
"I never thought I'd run into you here... Gojo Satoru."
Gojo raised one hand slightly, taking a fighting stance, and in the very next instant the distance between him and the curse spirit distorted, as if some invisible barrier had spread out between them.
Geto glanced around and frowned.
"Satoru, stop. We're in the middle of a populated area."
Gojo did not turn to look at him right away. His gaze remained fixed on the volcano-head in front of him.
"I know."
Gojo lowered his hand only slightly, but the pressure surrounding him did not fade in the least. His blue eyes remained locked onto the special-grade curse in front of him with chilling calm, as if he were judging whether he should deal with it right here.
"I never thought I'd run into you here... Gojo Satoru."
"And I never thought a curse like you would dare stroll around in broad daylight."
A faint smirk rose on Gojo's lips, making no effort to hide his scorn.
"Shall we move somewhere else and fight?"
Jogo had no intention of playing along with those words. He merely turned to look at the young woman standing behind him, as if he were waiting for her answer rather than responding to Gojo directly.
"That's up to you, but please do change the location."
The young woman answered in a calm and polite tone, as though the matter before her was not weighty enough to stir even the slightest emotion.
Jogo turned back toward Gojo's group. His thoughts had been clear from the very beginning.
The fact that the other side had already come outside the jujutsu school meant there were no other variables backing them up.
For Jogo, that alone was enough to call this an opportunity.
The young woman looked toward the volcano-head.
"In that case, please follow me."
1
The three of them followed the two curse spirits.
The atmosphere was so tense that everything seemed to be swallowed by silence.
Because of his curiosity toward the young woman walking ahead of them, Gojo was the first to speak.
"I've never seen a curse spirit in a human body before."
The young woman slowed her steps only slightly before turning back to look at him. Her expression remained calm and unchanged.
"My name is Rei. You must be Gojo Satoru, then?"
Gojo raised an eyebrow a little. The smile on his face did not fade, but his eyes sharpened noticeably as they fixed on her.
"Oh? So you know me too?"
"Of course. I've heard quite a lot about you from that volcano-head over there."
Rei said this while casting a slight glance toward the volcano-head, as though confirming that he was indeed the source of all her information.
Before long, Rei led them to a wide, empty clearing near the mansion. The surrounding area was enclosed by forest so thoroughly that it felt almost cut off from the outside world, leaving only a silent stretch of flat ground in the center, as though it had been prepared specifically for this clash.
"So, are we doing this two against two?"
Gojo asked in an easy tone, as if inviting the other side to a game rather than a real fight. There was no sign of caution or tension on his face.
"No. I'll fight the lot of you myself. A few humans like this are more than enough."
Gojo let out a quiet laugh, as if he had just heard something amusing. He lifted one hand slightly, and the air in front of him distorted in silence. The pressure emanating from him changed instantly.
Limitless was fully activated beneath that same confident demeanor.
The moment the fight began, the volcano-head rushed straight at Gojo without hesitation. Flames erupted from its body as it threw a punch filled with destructive force.
And yet, at the moment that strike should have landed, everything stopped in front of the white-haired man, as though an invisible wall stood in the way.
A slight smile rose on Gojo's lips as he leisurely lifted a hand.
In the next instant, the volcano-head's body was violently torn away by an unseen force and hurled off at tremendous speed.
Jogo's body smashed into a large tree trunk with full force, coughing up purple fluid.
Gojo smiled faintly.
"Wondering why you can't touch me?"
He slowly raised his hand, his eyes never leaving his opponent.
"This is Limitless... It's the division of space into infinity. Anything that tries to get close to me slows down more and more until it stops right there. It can never truly reach me."
"So no matter what happens, you can't beat me."
The moment he finished speaking, Gojo vanished from where he stood and reappeared in front of the volcano-head before it had regained its footing.
He drove a fist reinforced with cursed energy straight into its torso. A heavy impact rang out as the curse spirit's body seemed to crumple under the blow.
But just as Gojo was about to follow up, the volcano-head's body vanished from in front of him. When he turned to the side, he found that the unconscious volcano-head was now being held by the collar in Rei's hand.
"Let's stop here for now."
Gojo simply stared at Rei, who stood there holding the volcano-head by the collar while it had already lost consciousness.
Although Gojo had not been serious from the start, he could not deny that the fact she had managed to pull the volcano-head away in the span of a split second was strange.
Fast as hell.
"The volcano-head and I are currently searching for something together. It would be inconvenient if he were to die before we find it."
...
"Why don't we part ways here? You all came out shopping, didn't you?"
A slight smile rose on Gojo's lips as he answered in a challenging tone.
"And what if I said I didn't want to?"
Kujo tilted her head slightly, her expression remaining calm and unchanged.
"I didn't quite catch that. Could you say it again?"
Gojo's smile widened a little, as though he had just found an interesting toy.
"I said... what if I don't want to?"
Rei went still for a moment before lifting the corner of her lips so faintly it could barely be called a smile.
"So that means you want to fight me, then?"
"Why should I listen to a curse spirit?"
"In that case, it seems it can't be helped."
She threw Jogo's unconscious body to the ground without a second thought, as though it were nothing more than an object.
The curse spirit's body hit the ground with a heavy thud, but Kujo did not even glance at it again. Her gaze remained fixed solely on Gojo.
Gojo shifted his foot slightly and lifted one arm, still looking as though he was not taking things seriously.
Rei moved first. She struck the air so violently that a tremendous shockwave erupted outward. Geto and Shoko lost their footing immediately, while the ground exploded and dust burst up in an instant, swallowing the field of vision.
When the shockwave died down and the curtain of dust gradually thinned, the scene in front of them slowly became visible again.
And in that moment, they realized both of them had disappeared.
"So if she can't win, she runs. I thought she was going to be serious. How boring."
Gojo's voice came through the dust with the same mocking tone as ever, but his blue eyes had not relaxed in the slightest.
Because he knew very well that Rei had not retreated out of fear.
After they spent some time checking the surrounding area and confirming that their opponents had left behind no easy trail to follow,
Geto was the one who immediately contacted the school and reported everything, while Gojo still stood motionless in the middle of the open clearing.
"That curse spirit called Rei really did get away."
Gojo was the first to speak at last.
Geto answered,
"I know. But the problem is, we still don't know why she chose to pull back."
"Easy. She probably just didn't want to fight us, the strongest."
After all, moments earlier, both they and Shoko—despite having Limitless on their side—had nearly lost their lives from a single blow from Rei.
So Geto did not believe those words at all.
"Whatever the reason, at least you two didn't wreck this place any more than you already did."
No one answered that.
And the next day, the person the three of them had to report to arrived together with Yaga-sensei.
Originally, Yaga had not intended to come in person, but the moment he heard that two special-grade curse spirits had appeared together the day before, he changed his mind immediately.
"Tell me everything from the beginning."
In the sitting room, Yaga spoke the moment all three of them sat down.
Geto began the report first, in orderly fashion, while Gojo leaned back silently in his chair beside him. But the instant the name of the curse spirit Rei came up, Yaga's expression shifted slightly.
"No matter how you look at it, this is no ordinary case."
Yaga continued,
"Did she say what she was looking for?"
"She only said she was searching for something together with that volcano-head. That's all."
Gojo answered while resting both hands behind his head, as though what he was saying were nothing serious.
The room fell silent for a moment.
"If that's really the case, then from now on your duty is to find out what they're after."
Yaga's voice grew firmer.
"Whether or not there are any further signs of that curse spirit calling itself Rei, or that volcano-head, you are not to let your guard down under any circumstances."
"Yes, sir / Yes, ma'am."
All three answered at once.
2
At present, I had dragged Jogo away from those jujutsu students and laid him down.
Before long, his body began to recover, and he regained consciousness.
"How do you feel? Have you at least lost some face after getting beaten by a human?"
"So that's the first thing I hear after waking up."
"Well, you were that confident before the fight. It must feel pretty awful to lose without accomplishing anything at all."
Jogo slowly pushed himself upright and touched his own face, as though checking that his body was functioning normally again.
"I never imagined Gojo Satoru would have an ability like that."
"You mean that Limitless of his?"
"Yes."
To me, it was a technique with flawless defensive capability.
But if it were Mahoraga, in the end it would probably adapt and find a way to break through that defense soon enough.
If that were true...
Then that meant if I hadn't possessed the Ten Shadows Technique from the very beginning, I would never have had any chance of climbing to the position of the strongest.
I swept my gaze over Jogo, who remained silent as though replaying the battle in his mind.
"Have you thought of anything that could get through his defense?"
"Do you know Domain Amplification?"
I shook my head slightly.
"I've never heard of it."
Jogo looked at me for a moment before answering in a calm voice.
"It's a different way of using a domain. Instead of expanding it outward, the user keeps the domain pressed tightly around their own body."
"When it makes contact, it temporarily overwhelms or erases the other person's technique."
I narrowed my eyes slightly.
"So... it can get through Gojo's Limitless?"
"But it comes with a trade-off."
I looked at Jogo in silence, waiting for him to continue.
"While using it, the user can't fully draw out their innate cursed technique."
"That doesn't sound very worthwhile."
"Of course it isn't something you can use in every situation. But when the opponent is Gojo Satoru, just having even one method to touch him is already worth it."
...
After spending about a week with Jogo, it happened rather suddenly, but Jogo told me he would likely need to isolate himself for a while.
At the very least, until he could develop his Domain Expansion and Domain Amplification enough to counter Gojo's Limitless.
I had only just come to understand myself that even Gojo could not avoid the guaranteed-hit effect of a Domain Expansion.
After suffering defeat at the hands of a human like that, it seemed Jogo wanted to spend time training and reviewing the battle by himself.
In truth, Jogo had feelings in his own way as well.
He did not show it clearly, but that defeat had undoubtedly left its mark.
Even so, I simply inclined my head slightly before bidding him farewell.
"Good luck. Let's look for the fingers together again sometime."
"Finding the fingers isn't something that always requires me."
Jogo looked at me for a moment.
"Just don't die before then."
"The same goes for you, Jogo."
And so, that became the night I was free once again.