Chapter 50: Suguru Geto Appears
"It's over."
Yami's voice was cold enough to freeze the air.
With a slight turn of his wrist, the crackling lightning wrapped around the Special Grade Cursed Tool, Shiranui, surged once more. His previous strike, Flaming Thunder God, had severed Mahito's hands and torn apart the guaranteed hit effect of the domain before it could fully manifest, but it had not killed him.
A Special Grade Cursed Spirit born from human hatred was not something that died so easily.
As long as Mahito's core soul remained intact, ordinary physical damage meant nothing.
But Yami's blade could cut the soul itself.
"The next strike," Yami said, lowering his stance, "will take your head."
He did not waste another word.
The instant his foot touched the ground, the earth beneath him shattered again. He shot forward like an arrow loosed from the bow, leaving behind a burst of scorched dust and fading sparks.
Strike while the opening exists.
For the first time, naked fear appeared in Mahito's eyes.
He could feel it.
This boy with no Cursed Energy could truly kill him.
The dread rising from the depths of his soul slowed even his regeneration. It was not just pain. It was instinctive terror, the kind prey feels when faced with a natural enemy.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"
Mahito staggered backward in a panic. Without his hands, even shaping techniques had become difficult. He could only retreat, dragging his ruined body away as fast as he could.
Yami closed the gap in an instant.
Shiranui descended.
And just before the black red edge reached Mahito's throat, the battlefield changed.
"Ah. What a miserable sight, Mahito."
A gentle voice drifted through the sewer, mild and amused, as though commenting on a child's clumsy failure.
The next moment, a grotesque pelican like cursed spirit burst into existence from the darkness. It spread its massive wings, opened its beak, and swallowed the heavily wounded Mahito whole.
Clang!
Yami's blade crashed against one of the spirit's iron hard wings, scattering a storm of sparks through the gloom. The recoil traveled up his arm and numbed his fingers.
He instantly used the force to leap back, landing in front of Nanami with perfect balance.
His sword remained leveled forward.
His crimson eyes narrowed.
From deeper within the sewer, a figure slowly emerged from the shadows.
A tall man in monk like robes. Calm expression. Warm smile. Black hair. And a line of stitches running clearly across his forehead.
"Pleasure to meet you, Yami kun."
His tone was gentle, almost elegant, like an old acquaintance greeting a friend after a long separation.
"I am Suguru Geto."
Nanami's pupils contracted.
For the first time since entering the sewer, true shock cracked his composure.
"Geto senpai?"
His voice dropped.
"That's impossible. You were killed by Gojo san."
The man wearing Geto's face only smiled more deeply.
"In a world ruled by cursed energy, even the dead returning is not entirely unimaginable, is it?"
His gaze slid past Nanami and settled on Yami.
He observed him with open interest, the way a collector might study a rare and beautiful weapon.
"No cursed energy, yet capable of breaking a domain with nothing but technique. An extraordinary body, too. To withstand that kind of instantaneous burden without collapsing…"
His eyes gleamed.
"How fascinating."
Yami said nothing at first.
But inwardly, his expression hardened.
That face was Suguru Geto's.
What stood before him was not.
Kenjaku.
The ancient curse user who had stolen a corpse and turned another man's body into a shell.
Even if he introduced himself as Suguru Geto, the thing inside that skull carried a different stench entirely, something rotten and old and profoundly wrong.
Yami's grip on Shiranui tightened.
"Hand Mahito over."
His voice was flat.
Kenjaku tilted his head.
"That won't do."
Behind him, the pelican curse spirit beat its wings once and rose into the air, Mahito still trapped inside its beak like a half dead animal being hauled away.
"He is still just a child," Kenjaku said lightly. "A troublesome one, certainly, but gifted. I cannot allow him to die here before he reaches his proper height."
Then his eyes lifted slightly toward the tunnel ceiling, as though sensing something distant.
The smile on his lips thinned.
"And that troublesome pair of Six Eyes is getting closer."
He sighed, almost theatrically.
"My objective for today has already been achieved. There is no reason to linger."
Several shadows beneath his feet swelled at once.
A cluster of large cursed spirits burst out from the darkness and surged between him and the others, instantly cutting off pursuit.
Kenjaku, however, did not retreat immediately.
Instead, he looked at Yami one last time.
There was amusement in his expression, but something colder beneath it. Curiosity. Calculation. The kind reserved for variables that might become problems later.
"Yami."
His tone turned soft.
"You exceeded my expectations."
"As a variable outside the board, you are very interesting."
He smiled.
"I look forward to meeting you again in the new world that is coming."
With that, he seized one of the pelican spirit's legs and rose rapidly upward into the darkness. In just a few breaths, both he and Mahito vanished into the labyrinth of the sewer beyond sight.
Yami shifted, ready to pursue.
"Don't."
Nanami's voice cut through the tension.
He placed a hand over the wound at his side, blood still seeping through his shirt, though his expression had already regained its usual hard calm.
"That was Suguru Geto. Or something wearing Suguru Geto's face."
His eyes remained fixed on the place where the enemy had disappeared.
"Whatever the truth is, he is not an opponent we can defeat here and now."
His voice lowered.
"And he was right about one thing."
"Gojo san will be here soon."
Yami slowly lowered Shiranui, then sheathed it in one clean motion.
The sharp pressure around him faded at once, as though the heat of battle had never existed.
Only then did he turn toward the corner of the tunnel.
Yoshino Junpei was crouched there, trembling so hard his shoulders shook. His mother lay unconscious nearby, breathing but pale.
Junpei looked as though his entire worldview had just been torn apart and rebuilt in front of him.
The man who had whispered poison into his ear.
The cursed spirit who had lured him toward darkness.
The thing he had once half believed to be some answer to his misery.
It had been reduced to a screaming wreck, cut down and carried away like a stray dog.
Yami walked over and crouched until his eyes were level with Junpei's.
No lecture.
No false softness.
Only simple honesty.
"Some roads," he said quietly, "cannot be walked back once you go too far."
Junpei's fingers trembled.
"But you haven't crossed that line yet."
Yami extended a hand.
"So turn around now."
"Come to Tokyo Jujutsu High."
"There are plenty of strange people there," he added, a faint trace of humor entering his voice, "but no one there will exploit your kindness."
For a moment, Junpei only stared at that hand.
Then the tears that had been building finally spilled over.
"Yami aniki… I…"
He could not even finish.
He simply grabbed Yami's hand with both of his and held on like someone clinging to the first solid thing he had ever found.
At that moment, the despair hanging over him finally broke.
[Ding.]
[Key storyline successfully altered: Yoshino Junpei and Yoshino Nagi have been saved.]
[This intervention is highly consistent with Yoriichi Tsugikuni's core ideal of protecting life.]
[Role synchronization greatly increased.]
[Current synchronization: 18 percent.]
[Unlocked: Water Breathing, Forms One through Ten.]
Yami listened to the system notification in silence.
Then he glanced at Junpei, at Nagi, at the two lives that had been pulled back from the edge, and a genuine smile, faint but real, appeared on his face.
This was what he wanted.
Not the reward.
Not the percentage increase.
Just this.
To stop gentle people from being broken by a cruel world.
A vibration came from his pocket.
Yami pulled out his phone.
One message.
From Satoru Gojo.
The exchange event is about to start. Return immediately.
Yami read it once, then put the phone away.
He looked up at the dark sewer ceiling.
The battle here had ended.
The next one was already waiting.
And this time, he would be the one stepping onto the field first.
.....
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