"Yo, Satoru."
"It's been a long time." (Hisashiburi da na).
Buddhist monk's robes, black hair tied in a half-up bun.
Suguru Geto smiled indulgently and waved to him gently, casually saying it had been a long time since they last met.
With the Six Eyes brought to their absolute fullest potential, mist and clouds seemed to swirl within them.
Gojo Satoru stared blankly at the figure standing before him, his thoughts churning chaotically.
A transformation technique?
White Zetsu in disguise again?
No!
The sensory information the Six Eyes gave him right now... it was the complete opposite of the answer given back in the Shibuya Underground Station when Kenjaku revealed himself.
The physical body in front of him was not Suguru Geto's original corpse!
But... the soul...
That incredibly familiar, gentle expression, and those dark eyes. The information that Gojo's soul relayed directly to him was incredibly truthful.
This is Suguru Geto himself!
"How can you let your mind wander during a battle, Satoru?"
Geto raised his arm and pointed his five fingers outward, and a black wave of Cursed Energy surged out!
His striking white hair swayed!
A beam of Cursed Energy passed incredibly close to Gojo Satoru's ear, suddenly blasting forward toward Sukuna, who had just launched a devastating sneak attack!
BOOM!!!
Sukuna easily deflected the incoming Cursed Spirit blast with one hand, a knowing glint shining in his eyes.
"Hehe. So it's a kind of spirit summoning technique."
Having failed in his sneak attack, Sukuna looked up at the sky and said, "That guy has quite a few trump cards up his sleeve!"
Thousands of meters above the ground.
In the center of the dark Kamui rift that physically divided the sky in two, sat an invincible figure resting on a throne built entirely of shadows.
Mirai propped one cheek up with his hand and looked down at the three people below with an incredibly bored expression.
This seems to be the Strongest Battle in Modern Times versus the Strongest Battle in History...
It's just a game to me.
Beside the dark throne, figures appeared one after another from the Kamui void.
White Zetsu Clone No. 1, Takako Uro, Nanako, Mimiko, and those already declared dead by Jujutsu High...
"Mai?!!"
In a secluded, heavily guarded space outside the barrier, the experts gathered there exclaimed in absolute surprise.
Seeing the familiar figures appear on Mei Mei's broadcasted big screen, Maki Zenin, Kyoto's Momo Nishimiya, Kasumi Miwa, and the others stood up in complete shock!
"Suguru... what on earth is going on?!"
On the battlefield, Gojo Satoru solemnly asked his newly resurrected best friend.
Suguru Geto twisted his neck slightly and glanced upward at the sky. "No time to explain right now, Satoru."
"The real terror is about to begin!"
...
Let's go back ten minutes.
High above the very center of the Culling Game Barrier, in the hidden Kamui dimension created by his divine power, the true form of the massive Divine Tree was faintly visible.
Besides Mai Zenin, there were also Nanako and Mimiko Hasaba, who were taken into Kamui by Mirai during the Shibuya battle before Sukuna could kill them.
There was also the Curse User, Granny Ogami. She was once imprisoned on the second basement floor of the Zenin clan estate.
She is the old woman from the original manga who summoned Toji Fushiguro's physical information in Shibuya. Several years ago in this AU, Hisashi Zenin was assigned by Mirai to capture the Curse User alive instead of letting her roam free. Hisashi was still alive today because he successfully completed that original mission.
As Jujutsu High analyzed, the Cursed Spirit Manipulation technique was an absolutely essential part of the grand goal of assimilating the Cursed Energy of hundreds of millions of people in Japan.
But Suguru Geto's original body was initially in the hands of Mirai.
At the very beginning, Shoko Ieiri had autopsied Geto's body after Gojo killed him in the Night Parade.
No signs of tampering were found, and she had logically attributed the mangled state of the body to normal, severe injuries sustained during his massive battle with Yuta Okkotsu.
However, before that autopsy, Mirai had already secretly collected the cells of Suguru Geto's original soul and body.
Even during the battle at the Shibuya Underground Station, Mirai deliberately prevented Gojo Satoru from physically calling out Geto's name to Kenjaku to ensure the absolute integrity of his scattered soul.
He casually tossed a small glass vessel in his hand to White Zetsu Clone No. 2 and ordered the old woman, "Do it. Summon Suguru Geto's soul."
Taking the container holding Geto's preserved body tissue, White Zetsu muttered unhappily, "I knew you didn't have any good intentions in helping me get the Ultimate Mechamaru as my Clone Number Two body."
"I thought it was just a toy for me to play with, but I didn't expect it was specifically prepared as a vessel for that deadbeat."
Ignoring White Zetsu's complaints, Mirai simply watched the old woman perform her seance spell with a cold eye.
Granny Ogami's innate technique is called Seance Technique (Summoning Spirit), and it is a technique that is somewhat compatible with Ino's Auspicious Beasts.
The difference is that Ino summons spiritual beasts to possess himself, while Granny Ogami can summon the dead to possess others.
She had specifically set a strict Binding Vow for herself that she would only summon physical information, never soul information.
Because forcing two souls into the same vessel can easily cause unpredictable, disastrous consequences. For example, the summoned soul may be unable to control themselves, or they may become mentally unstable and completely ignore the summoner's commands.
Unless there's a moving corpse with no soul to begin with...
To safely maintain the limitations of a physical body and a soul.
Granny Ogami fiddled with the prayer beads in her hand, and the eerie fluctuations of her Cursed Energy grew even more intense!
While White Zetsu Clone No. 2 may be mischievous, he wouldn't neglect serious matters assigned by Mirai.
Sendai's outburst was also a final farewell party to his second body.
White Zetsu swallowed the vessel containing Geto's tissue in one gulp, and the White Zetsu consciousness within the mechanical puppet's body began to rapidly withdraw voluntarily, leaving it an empty shell.
Seeing the medium enter her intended target body, Granny Ogami's Cursed Energy surged to its absolute peak!
"Seance Technique: Suguru Geto!"
...
Five minutes later.
"Lord Suguru!"
Looking down at the two tearful, trembling figures hugging him tightly, Geto's lips curved into a very gentle smile.
"You're such big girls now. Why are you still crying like little kittens?"
Feeling the warm, familiar hand resting above their heads, Nanako and Mimiko—who regarded Suguru Geto as their adoptive father—cried even harder.
Geto turned his gaze to Mirai and said softly, "So the 'cooperation' you mentioned to me back then was serious."
Whether in the past or now, Suguru Geto's core philosophy had never truly changed.
To wipe out all ordinary, non-sorcerer humans and create a perfect, safe world inhabited only by Sorcerers.
But Zenin Mirai was even more ruthless!
Humans, Sorcerers, Cursed Spirits, and even entire nations. Mirai seemed to want to eliminate them all much more thoroughly.
During their previous five-minute information exchange in Kamui, Mirai didn't hide anything from him and briefly, honestly explained the current situation of the Culling Game and the Merger.
"How is this new body?" Mirai asked.
To ensure a perfectly smooth assimilation process, and to ensure Suguru Geto's full cooperation, all preparations had been meticulously made in advance.
"Indeed. I can sense the massive amount of Cursed Energy contained within this mechanical body."
Geto clenched his fist, testing the vessel, and said in a low voice, "I am now significantly stronger than I was in life."
"Of course you are! There is a massive total amount of Cursed Energy stored in Master Zetsu's body that is thousands of years old!" Beside him, White Zetsu Clone No. 1 grumbled unhappily.
Only the special nature of the Heavenly Restriction or a massive battery like Mechamaru could physically sustain the power consumption of a Special Grade Sorcerer's soul without burning out.
Otherwise, even with a different body, the absolute effects of Cursed Spirit Manipulation might not be fully realized for the Merger.
Stepping forward, Mirai said, "I've already told you the plan, and I think you'll cooperate willingly."
Granny Ogami's orders could not perfectly control a strengthened, Special Grade Sorcerer once they had free will. The tragic example of Toji Fushiguro in Shibuya was something Mirai didn't want to see repeated.
The absolute best way to manipulate Master Tengen's assimilation is for Suguru Geto to do it voluntarily.
In the slightly distorted void of Kamui, a non-human body tightly bound by the branches of the Divine Tree emerged.
Suguru Geto could clearly sense that the Master Tengen hanging in front of him had an evolved constitution that was much closer to that of a Cursed Spirit than that of a human. He could control her.
Nanako, Mimiko, and Geto, wiping away their still-damp tear stains, slowly walked forward out of the Kamui dimension.
Besides ensuring the safety of his found family... Geto also desperately wanted to talk to Satoru...
To fight alongside his best friend for the very last time.
This time...
No regrets!
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