Chapter 113: A Strange Street Across Time
Summer, 2006.
Shibuya Crossing.
The traffic light ticked with a dull, mechanical rhythm.
Yami moved with the crowd, a slightly worn black guitar bag slung over one shoulder. Heat shimmered above the asphalt, blurring the distant storefronts. Cicadas screamed from somewhere between the buildings, their voices rising and falling like an endless, irritating chorus.
Everything was noisy.
Everything was alive.
Standing amid the river of pedestrians, Yami lowered his gaze to the flip phone he had just bought from a convenience store.
The screen was small. The casing felt cheap. The buttons gave a stiff click beneath his thumb.
But the date displayed there made his heart, which had remained steady through countless life-and-death battles, skip for half a beat.
Heisei 18.
"So it really is…"
Yami exhaled slowly.
He had already confirmed it through the office worker in the alley. The system had also made it painfully clear. He had been thrown twelve years into the past.
Even so, standing here in the middle of Shibuya, surrounded by people who knew nothing of Curtains, massacres, sealing plans, Culling Games, or the horror that would devour this district years later, the unreality of it still pressed against his chest.
There was no smoke.
No collapsed buildings.
No smell of burned Cursed Spirits.
No screams echoing from Underground Level Five.
Only the mixed scent of takoyaki, summer air, and car exhaust.
The scent of peace.
The scent of a time before all those tragedies had begun.
"Since I'm back…"
Yami lifted his head. Something hot and silent burned behind his dark eyes.
"Then I'll break every single one of those damn blades of fate."
He thought of the white-haired man sealed inside the Prison Realm.
He thought of Megumi Fushiguro losing himself in despair for his sister during the Culling Game.
He thought of Junpei, twisted into a monster by Mahito.
He thought of Kento Nanami, burned and broken in Shibuya.
Those regrets had not faded with time. They had only sharpened, lodging themselves beneath his ribs like thorns.
Yami reached back and touched the guitar bag.
There was no guitar inside.
Only a steel pipe he had picked up from the roadside, wrapped messily in old newspaper so it would not draw attention.
Shiranui had been left behind in the ruins of 2018.
Right now, aside from his swordsmanship, his body, and his Breathing Techniques, Yami had almost nothing.
"But that's enough."
The corner of his mouth rose slightly.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi's strength had never come from the blade itself.
It came from the one holding it.
Yami adjusted the strap on his shoulder and set off through the crowd, following the rough route from his memory toward the place where a key figure was most likely to appear.
The system had issued the mission: rewrite the ending of the Hidden Inventory Arc.
Then the first thing he needed to do was find the people at the center of that summer.
Because of the backlash from being thrown through time, he could not maintain the Transparent World for long. Even so, his senses had been honed beyond ordinary limits. Every ripple in the surrounding air, every strange fluctuation of Cursed Energy, every unnatural disturbance in the flow of life around him stood out like ink spilled onto white paper.
Then, suddenly, he felt it.
An arrogant, unrestrained surge of Cursed Energy burst into his perception like a depth charge detonating in a still lake.
Powerful.
Domineering.
Brilliant to the point of being suffocating.
Like the sun hanging overhead at noon.
Yami stopped.
"…Found him."
He turned toward a high-end dessert shop on the corner.
A long line stretched from the entrance. Office ladies, students, and tourists waited beneath the striped awning, fanning themselves with flyers and chatting idly.
At the very end of the queue stood a tall youth in a black Jujutsu High uniform, boredly kicking a pebble near his foot.
Small round sunglasses sat on his nose.
Snow-white hair shone almost painfully under the sunlight.
His features were still youthful, not yet sharpened by loneliness or responsibility, but that "I am the greatest in the world" arrogance was already carved deep into his bones.
Satoru Gojo.
Not the blindfolded strongest of 2018.
Not the teacher who joked too much and carried the weight of an entire era.
This was Satoru Gojo during his Jujutsu High years.
Beside him stood a black-haired youth with narrow eyes, strange bangs, and a topknot. He held two bottles of ramune and wore a gentle smile that still seemed untouched by blood.
Suguru Geto.
Alive.
Young.
Still standing beside Gojo.
"Satoru, stop complaining," Geto said, his voice carrying a patient amusement. "The kikufuku from this shop is limited edition. You were the one who wanted it."
"Hah?" Gojo clicked his tongue. "I'm the strongest. Why am I lining up like an ordinary person? Suguru, let's just teleport inside and take some."
"That would cause a scene."
"So?"
"We have to follow the rules of non-sorcerer society."
"Tch. Rules exist so interesting people can break them."
Geto sighed. "That is not how society works."
Listening to that familiar exchange, watching those two figures standing shoulder to shoulder beneath the summer sun, Yami felt something warm and painful rise behind his eyes.
This was what could never be recovered.
Youth.
Trust.
The brief moment before everything went wrong.
The beginning of all the regrets.
He drew in a slow breath, steadying the surge of emotion in his chest, then walked forward.
One step.
Two.
Three.
As the distance closed, Gojo noticed him.
The white-haired youth turned his head sharply.
Behind those round sunglasses, a pair of azure eyes locked onto Yami with terrifying precision.
Their gazes met.
For a heartbeat, even the summer air seemed to pause.
Gojo frowned.
Because in his Six Eyes, the stranger carrying a guitar bag was bizarre.
No Cursed Energy.
None.
He should have been a transparent human, an ordinary person with no value on the battlefield.
But that body…
Gojo's gaze sharpened.
The density of his muscles. The strength of his bones. The explosive pressure contained within his blood flow. The way his weight settled into the ground. The silent balance in every joint.
It was absurd.
No Cursed Energy, yet his body was like a prehistoric beast compressed into human skin.
"Hey."
Gojo was the first to speak.
He tugged his sunglasses down slightly, revealing those brilliant blue eyes, and looked Yami up and down without restraint.
"You've been staring at us for a while."
His lips curved.
"Wanna fight?"
Geto turned as well, his expression still mild, though a trace of caution had entered his gaze.
"Satoru, don't start trouble in front of a dessert shop."
"What? He looked interesting first."
"That is not a reason."
"It's absolutely a reason."
Yami stopped three paces away from them.
He looked at Gojo's familiar but younger face. At the sharp smile that had not yet learned how to hide fatigue. At the posture that practically begged someone to punch him.
He could not help smiling.
There was reunion in that smile.
And grief.
"Long time no see."
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
"Gojo-sensei."
The street seemed to fall silent for a second.
Gojo froze.
Geto froze.
Even a few people nearby turned to look at them with confused expressions.
Gojo pointed at himself.
"Hah?"
His face twisted with disbelief.
"Who are you calling teacher?"
He spread his arms slightly, as if presenting the obvious.
"I'm sixteen. Sixteen. Still a student. An invincible Jujutsu High student, sure, but still a student."
He leaned closer, squinting at Yami.
"Are you okay? Did your brain melt in the heat?"
Yami did not explain.
The current Gojo would never believe he had come from the future. Even if he believed it, he would only ask annoying questions until Yami wanted to hit him.
So Yami simply looked at the two of them, his eyes calm and clear.
"Sorry. It slipped out."
Then his tone shifted.
"But…"
Before he could finish, the air changed.
Deep inside the commercial street, from the abandoned unfinished building wedged between newer developments, a nauseating wave of Cursed Energy erupted.
Boom!
The ground shuddered.
The sky above the block darkened at once, as if ink had been spilled across the summer sun.
A Curtain descended.
Pedestrians around them did not fully understand what was happening, but instinct still made them stop. Phones dropped. Conversations died. Several people gasped as the light warped overhead.
Geto's expression changed immediately.
"Satoru."
"I know."
Gojo pushed his sunglasses back up, irritation flashing across his face.
The playful laziness in his posture vanished, replaced by a battle-ready sharpness that made the surrounding air feel thinner.
"Semi-Special Grade?" Geto murmured, eyes narrowing. "It's the mission target."
"Tch. Seriously?" Gojo clicked his tongue. "Bad timing."
Despite his words, excitement glimmered in his eyes.
Geto released one of the ramune bottles and let it fall into the shadow of a waiting curse spirit. "We'll handle it quickly."
The two were about to rush toward the building.
But someone moved first.
Wind exploded.
Gojo only saw a blur.
The strange boy with the guitar bag disappeared from where he stood.
Not teleportation.
Not a Cursed Technique.
No residue.
No fluctuation.
Pure physical speed.
Gojo's pupils contracted behind his sunglasses.
"So fast…"
Geto's eyes widened.
"Hey! It's dangerous over there!"
But Yami had already crossed the street and charged straight into the newly lowered Curtain.
Only his voice remained behind, drifting through the heated air.
"As a student…"
His figure vanished into the darkness.
"I can't just stand by when someone is in danger."
Gojo stared at the point where he disappeared.
For a second, he was silent.
Then the corners of his mouth slowly stretched into a grin.
A sharp, reckless, delighted grin.
"Interesting."
Geto glanced at him. "Satoru."
"Really interesting."
"Satoru, we're on a mission."
"I know."
Gojo cracked his knuckles, the excitement in his voice impossible to hide.
"Come on, Suguru."
He stepped forward, Cursed Energy gathering around him like a storm.
"Let's go see what kind of weirdo calls me teacher."
.....
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