The talisman peeled away.
The Gojo clan sorcerers hurriedly retrieved it before swiftly evacuating the area.
"Satoru-sama, I..."
The head of the Gojo clan had originally intended to stay and observe, but the very first person the cursed spirit chose to imitate rooted him to the spot.
A black-haired woman in a white kimono stood there beneath a crimson parasol. Her face was numb and expressionless, like someone lost in a snowy wasteland. From a distance, she gazed at the father and son, separated from them by the Gojo clan's harsh and merciless rules—a woman stripped of all freedom, hope, love, and hatred.
The fear people feel toward those who resemble themselves gave birth to the curse.
The Gojo clan head was not the one meant to confront cursed spirits, yet it felt as though a massive stone had settled on his chest.
"Wow!"
Picking up his friend's surprised verbal tic, Gojo Satoru hooked a finger on his sunglasses and lowered them, carefully observing the flow of cursed energy.
Is this the person most familiar to him?
No, she was clearly the stranger bound to him by the closest blood relation.
The very first figure to appear was his mother—in name, at least.
And she was in her youth.
The weight in the Gojo clan head's heart grew heavier. Before him, the white-haired boy revered as the divine child of the Six Eyes strode forward. Yet instead of killing the woman immediately, he cheerfully snatched the crimson parasol from her hands.
"You can actually take it!" Gojo Satoru exclaimed in delight. "This cursed spirit really put some effort into its imitation."
Next, the wooden handle spun rapidly in Gojo Satoru's palm. The crimson parasol bloomed above their heads like a flower symbolizing maidenhood and innocence, its vivid red petals whirling gracefully. It was a gesture full of childlike delight.
The shadow beneath the parasol concealed their expressions, but it could not hide the Six Eyes, bright as the open sky, nor the curiosity in Gojo Satoru's gaze as he studied the woman.
To the Gojo clan head's surprise, Gojo Satoru played with the parasol only briefly before tossing it aside.
The crimson parasol fell to the ground, covering the woman's face as she collapsed. Even in death, the Six Eyes granted her a measure of dignity.
Once upon a time, he had thought the birthday scenario Akiya prepared for Suguru was so entertaining that he'd jokingly complained he wanted a chance to kill his own father and mother too. Perhaps a sorcerer's words really did carry karmic weight. A careless joke had come back to haunt him in today's special training.
Looks like I'll be playing Uchiha Itachi today, Gojo Satoru mused. Time for a round of clan-clearing!
"Still planning to watch, you old fossil?"
Gojo Satoru shot a provocative look toward the old man who had been prying into his private affairs.
Desperate to survive, the cursed spirit immediately shifted to its second imitation.
This time, it became none other than the head of the Gojo clan.
"..."
Unable to meet the gaze of the Six Eyes, the Gojo clan head looked as though he had seen something unbearable. Without another word, he turned and fled.
It was an astonishingly discourteous retreat for the head of the Gojo clan.
He's afraid.
Gojo Satoru wanted to laugh—and so he did.
Everyone feared death, especially the sight of someone being killed.
Why be afraid?
Death was the inevitable destination awaiting every person.
I've never feared death. Simply because I wanted to live, I fought with everything I had to keep living.
Gojo Satoru had never expected the head of the Gojo clan to understand him.
Even so, when the man heard his laughter and hurried away as though fleeing from some monstrous calamity, treating him like a beast to be feared, a faint sting still pierced Gojo Satoru's heart.
You were the ones who created a god, then worshipped and revered it... So why are you so afraid of your own god?
Gojo Satoru murmured, "I'm not a god."
The Six Eyes was not a god. He laughed. He cried. He had been forced onto a lofty pedestal, despite a nature that could never bear loneliness.
His attention shifted to the cursed spirit's second imitation.
The kimono-clad man who had taken shape found his voice and spoke with perfect clarity.
"Satoru-sama, I am your father."
Gojo Satoru immediately grinned. He glanced around to make sure of his surroundings.
Good.
No rotten old oranges watching him.
"If you weren't pretending to be him, this wouldn't be nearly as satisfying!"
He threw a punch, keeping his cursed energy output to the bare minimum. Then came a merciless beating. He knocked the man to the ground, straddled him, and happily rained down blow after blow.
"That's for running away!"
"That's for having the nerve to call yourself my father!"
"That's for taking concubines and keeping mistresses! You had time to sip tea, but none to care about my mother—the woman who was actually tied to me by blood!"
"You shameless old orange! You can't even manage the bare minimum of staying faithful to one person!"
The Three Great Sorcerer Clans were steeped in filth.
As a child, Gojo Satoru had seen every ugly corner of the Gojo clan, and his earliest disgust for those old feudal families had begun with his own parents.
What, in the end, did the words "father" and "mother" really mean?
Was the one they loved, hated, and longed for the "Six Eyes," or was it "Gojo Satoru"?
If it were Akiya, with how good he is with words, he'd definitely congratulate my parents on being reunited in the underworld.
"Heave-ho!"
Gojo Satoru's lips curled into a brilliant smile, utterly devoid of killing intent. The cursed energy around his fist suddenly surged, glowing a vivid blue that mirrored his heart.
Without the slightest hesitation, he blasted the terrified head of the "Gojo clan head" to pieces.
"Off to the underworld with you, you scumbag!"
—That feels good!
Gojo Satoru didn't bother attacking the headless corpse lying on the ground. He sprang to his feet, rolled his wrists, and waited for the next round.
What followed was the Gojo clan's grand giveaway.
From the clan elders at the top, to the servants who poured tea, all the way down to the veteran chef in the kitchen famous for making daifuku, every one of them became a target for the cursed spirit's imitations of Gojo Satoru.
The longer the cursed spirit spent imitating someone, the more lifelike its appearance became, and the stronger it grew.
Gojo Satoru conducted an experiment on the spot, allowing it to imitate a Grade 2 sorcerer from the clan. The cursed spirit couldn't replicate a sorcerer's cursed technique—only their cursed energy. After fifteen minutes of imitation, its appearance became increasingly realistic, and the total amount of cursed energy it possessed had actually reached the same level as the Grade 2 sorcerer's.
That might have been enough to fool an ordinary jujutsu sorcerer, but it could never deceive the Six Eyes, which saw through the flow of cursed energy.
"Still fake. It's like a paper cutout wrapped in human skin—not convincing enough. Besides, I'm not about to wait around that long."
With a casual flick of his hand, Gojo Satoru sent it on its way to the afterlife.
The first batch consisted of members of the Gojo clan, giving Gojo Satoru the one-day Uchiha Itachi experience he'd always joked about.
The second batch was from Tokyo Jujutsu High.
To be fair, every single one of them had helped Asou Akiya keep up his lie in last year's parallel-world fiasco—and they had all laughed at Gojo Satoru together.
Gojo Satoru wasn't the type to hold grudges.
But... who could possibly resist the satisfaction of getting even?
"Hahaha! This is your karma!"
One punch sent Mei Mei, the money-grubber, flying. One kick had Utahime Iori in tears.
"Yaga, catch this!"
Gojo Satoru threw himself into a fierce brawl with the cursed spirit's imitation of Yaga Masamichi, every punch landing with solid, bone-rattling force.
After taking down his own teacher and accomplishing the grand feat of teacher-slaying, his three juniors at Tokyo Jujutsu High—Nanami Kento, Haibara Yu, and Zen'in Naoya—appeared one after another, only to be obliterated without the slightest hesitation.
Every blow was filled with the heartfelt affection of an upperclassman.
There wasn't a shred of insincerity in it.
At last, one of the main events arrived.
His classmates from Jujutsu High.
Of the three, his female classmate appeared first. She had short hair, the beauty mark beneath her eye, and a school skirt, perfectly recreating the signature look of that perpetually world-weary girl—the top-tier healer whom the jujutsu world kept heavily protected far from the front lines.
"Ieiri Shoko" raised both hands in surrender.
"Gojo, I give up. Don't kill me."
Gojo Satoru replied cheerfully, "Sure. I'm a gentleman—I don't bully girls. I'll wait for you."
"Ieiri Shoko" raised an eyebrow, "I think you've seriously misunderstood what 'treating someone well' means."
Gojo Satoru pointed his phone at "Ieiri Shoko" and tried to take a picture.
Nothing.
The cursed spirit wouldn't appear in photos, and there was no signal either. As expected, the barrier surrounding the Cursed Spirit Repository completely ruined any chance of sharing this for fun.
Gojo Satoru casually stomped the ground, blasting a crater into it.
"Got any last words? Make it quick."
"Ieiri Shoko" accepted her fate without hesitation.
"I know I'm a cursed spirit. But I exist based on your perception of me. My instincts are telling me that if I want to survive, I have to beg you for mercy. But that goes against who I am... I refuse to say anything that disgustingly sappy. That's not something I would ever do."
"Ieiri Shoko" irritably searched her pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and slipped it between her lips with obvious satisfaction.
"Gojo, light it for me. Once I've finished this cigarette, it'll be over."
"I don't have a lighter."
For once, Gojo Satoru was stumped.
In this lifetime, there was only one person in the world who would dare speak to the young master of the Gojo clan like this.
"Idiot. Can't you make fire by rubbing things together? Use that weird technique of yours or whatever. Just don't burn up my whole cigarette."
Gojo Satoru puffed out his cheeks and snapped, "You're just a lousy cursed spirit. Since when do you get to order me around?"
"Ieiri Shoko" suddenly looked completely fearless. A faint smile spread across her face, brimming with confidence.
"You wouldn't want me to ruin the image of me you've got in your head, would you?"
Gojo Satoru raised his voice.
"What image do you even have?!"
"Ieiri Shoko" replied calmly, "I'll burst into tears, grab your leg, and say, 'Gojo-sama, I'm carrying your child.'"
Gojo Satoru looked as though he'd been struck by lightning.
"Hold on, Shoko—are you really the Shoko in my head? Since when did you become this shameless?!"
"Ieiri Shoko" shot him a reproachful look.
"The way you imagined me is the real problem. You're the culprit here."
Gojo Satoru frowned.
"Did I watch too many cheesy soap operas lately...? No… I've been way too busy these past few months. Oh, right—I saw a scene like that while exorcising a cursed spirit. It was a cursed spirit born from family drama. It was pathetically weak."
He traced a hand through the air, manipulating cursed energy. Sparks flew, and he guided a tiny ember to the tip of "Ieiri Shoko's" cigarette.
"Ieiri Shoko" lowered her head and took a drag.
"Thanks. Haa..."
Gojo Satoru asked bluntly, "Can cursed spirits get pregnant?"
"Ieiri Shoko" shook her head.
"I don't think so. But there are so many different kinds of cursed spirits, who knows whether some weird species can."
Gojo Satoru waited until only a short cigarette butt remained between her fingers.
Just as she was about to exhale in contentment, before her expression had time to register what was happening, he erased her from existence.
The most merciful death had always been the one that came without warning.
"You got off easy, cursed spirit."
Gojo Satoru spoke the words coldly.
Then, in an instant, his expression changed completely. Every muscle in his body tensed as he entered a state of exhilarated battle frenzy.
"Next! Next! Come on! Pokémon Master—Weird Bangs!!!"
Even the emotionless special-grade cursed spirit was bewildered by a human so overflowing with emotion and so ruthlessly decisive.
"I'm cutting off those ridiculous bangs!"
"And that stupid man bun too! I'm ripping the bun right off his head... Though that might be a little too bloody. Fine, then I'll just shave him bald!"
"Suguru! Suguru! My best friend—get out here already!"
After much calling and waiting, "Getou Suguru" finally appeared before him, taking the form of his Tokyo Jujutsu High days in the school uniform.
"Getou Suguru" greeted him with an easy smile.
"Yo, scumbag Satoru. Finished wiping out your whole clan?"
Gojo Satoru answered by raising a clenched fist.
"Never better. That was really satisfying. Just seeing you makes this whole day worth it."
The dangerous atmosphere caused "Getou Suguru's" expression to grow serious.
"Satoru, how about we make a deal? Look—I have so many restrictions on me. How about we settle this with hand-to-hand combat only?"
"No way! Cursed Spirit Suguru! Get ready to go bald, then lose to me!"
"...The bald one is obviously you!"
The moment "Getou Suguru" heard his friend's declaration of war, he was genuinely enraged.
A warrior could be killed, but not humiliated!
There was no need for a referee to start the match. Just the threat of becoming bald was enough for them to charge at each other.
For the time being, Gojo Satoru refrained from using cursed energy, genuinely testing his skills in pure hand-to-hand combat.
He absorbed experience at an astonishing pace, growing stronger with every exchange—far beyond what anyone could have imagined. The cursed spirit's imitation of Getou Suguru, whose combat experience had remained frozen in the past, was thoroughly shaken.
Even as he died, Cursed Spirit Getou couldn't help widening his narrow eyes. Sorrow filled his voice as he asked,
"Satoru... are you going to leave me behind again?"
Gojo Satoru looked down at his body and replied,
"I'm waiting for you to catch up."
He would never abandon any of his friends.
Suguru, the fact that you'd say something like that only proves you're still not strong enough. The real Suguru would grit his teeth and keep chasing after me.
Gojo Satoru gave the cursed spirit's corpse time to transform. As expected, he muttered, "I really don't want to fight the last one... Maybe I should just exorcise the cursed spirit now."
For once, the usually decisive Gojo Satoru hesitated. A smile of anticipation spread across his face at the thought of seeing someone.
Part of him thought it was only fair—everyone else had gotten beaten up.
The other part simply wanted to know what Cursed Spirit Akiya would say.
"Akiya~ You won't blame me for making you come out, right?"
Gojo Satoru's voice was light and playful.
"Of course not."
The cursed spirit's body transformed into a slender Jujutsu High student.
He resembled the hauntingly beautiful black-haired girl from the Junji Ito story, shrouded in an air of quiet melancholy.
When Cursed Spirit Akiya first appeared, he radiated an oppressive gloom. But the moment he saw Gojo Satoru—or rather, the moment he met the gaze of the Six Eyes—his attitude toward the world changed.
It was as though he had turned toward the sunlight.
Warmth filled his eyes, gentle enough to melt the frost in another's heart, bringing a genuine smile to Gojo Satoru's face.
The one Gojo Satoru saw was the real Asou Akiya.
The person who accepted him.
The person who had never feared him.
"Asou Akiya" smiled as he always did.
"Everything you do is right, Satoru. Every choice you make has its own reason."
Just as always, "Asou Akiya" stood unconditionally on Gojo Satoru's side.
"Go ahead and kill me, Satoru. I'm begging you."
"Asou Akiya" stepped forward, defying the cursed spirit's instinct to survive. He reached out, wanting to cradle Gojo Satoru's face, only for the Limitless to stop him cold.
The black-haired youth stood there with a calm expression that concealed a nearly hysterical madness. Though weak in strength, his voice was unexpectedly resolute.
"Being unable to touch you... is more painful than death itself. How can you expect me to endure that?"
He was actually reproaching Gojo Satoru.
...
Gojo Satoru: What a creepy thing to say. This fake Cursed Spirit Akiya is seriously unhinged.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Author's Note:
Did everyone notice?
The Cursed Spirit Akiya in front of Gojo Satoru calls him "Satoru."
In Gojo Satoru's heart, it has always been that way. Whenever Akiya says "Gojo," his ears automatically hear it as "Satoru."
———
TL Note:
I think my parents signed me up to a cult... I'm so cooked (〒﹏〒)