Blood dripped onto the scorched stone slabs of the Jujutsu High ruins, making a heart-wrenching sound.
""Cough... cough, cough..."
Accompanied by heavy coughing, Suguru Geto's tall, upright body finally gave out.
Having lost his right arm, he stumbled heavily, falling to his knees on the ground covered in rubble and dust.
To maintain the illusion of a fake death that could deceive the entire jujutsu world, he had just forcefully squeezed out the last bit of cursed energy in his body.
Now, an extreme sense of weakness, as if his very soul were being drained, was frantically devouring his consciousness.
"
Satoru Gojo's smile vanished instantly. He took a step forward, firmly supporting Suguru Geto's swaying body.
In those Eyes of the Blue Sky, which were usually filled with arrogant indifference, there was now unconcealed worry.
"Don't push yourself. Your injuries are at a fatal stage."
As Satoru spoke, he slowly funneled his own pure cursed energy into Suguru Geto's body.
He was trying to help stabilize the life signs that were rapidly fading.
However, the massive blood loss from losing his right arm and the internal organ damage caused by tanking Yuta Okkotsu's Pure Love Beam were not things that could be solved simply by infusing cursed energy.
Just then.
A set of hurried and discreet footsteps suddenly came from the shadows behind the ruins.
"Satoru, you idiot, just how many times are you going to make me clean up your messes before you stop?"
A slightly tired but incredibly familiar female voice rang out quietly in the night breeze.
Yoru and Satoru Gojo turned their heads at the same time.
A short-haired woman in a white lab coat with heavy dark circles under her eyes was running out from the shadows, gasping for breath while carrying a first-aid kit.
Shoko Ieiri!
As the only core medical personnel in the modern jujutsu world who could consistently perform the Reverse Cursed Technique on others for healing.
She should have been strictly protected by the higher-ups in the safest underground bunker.
But under Satoru Gojo's secret cover and arrangements, she had taken a massive risk to sneak into the center of the ruins that had just witnessed the battle of the century!
When Shoko's gaze landed on the blood-soaked man kneeling on the ground.
Her eyes, which were usually indifferent, froze instantly.
Ten whole years.
Since that summer when they parted ways, she had never seen this former classmate and dear friend who used to skip class and smoke on the rooftop with them.
"Shoko..."
Suguru Geto struggled to lift his head, looking at the familiar face before him with a bitter smile.
"Long time no see."
"You bastard... after getting yourself into this state, you have the nerve to say long time no see?!"
Shoko's eyes turned red instantly. She rushed forward and unceremoniously grabbed Suguru Geto's tattered collar.
But in the next second, she let go, took a deep breath, and forced back the tears in her eyes.
"Save the nonsense. Hold out your hand."
Shoko's hands instantly erupted with a brilliant white light. It was the Reverse Cursed Technique pushed to its absolute limit!
""Yoru, bring his severed arm over here!"
Yoru didn't hesitate for a moment. With a flash of his body.
He retrieved the severed right arm from the nearby ruins and held it firmly against Suguru Geto's wound.
"Buzz!!!"
Under Shoko's unreserved, full-power healing.
The pure white reverse cursed energy seemed to possess a life of its own, frantically repairing Suguru Geto's severed blood vessels, nerves, and muscle tissue.
Granulation tissue intertwined and reorganized at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In just a few short minutes, that right arm, which should have been miraculously reconnected to Suguru Geto's shoulder!
Not only that, but the near-fatal organ damage within him was also forcibly pulled back to the safety line by Shoko's limit-breaking treatment, which overtaxed her own cursed energy.
""Phew..."
Shoko breathed a long sigh of relief and slumped to the ground as if exhausted, her forehead covered in fine beads of cold sweat.
"His life is saved."
Shoko took out an unlit cigarette and held it in her mouth, glaring crossly at Suguru Geto.
"However, although the arm is reconnected, you absolutely cannot use high-intensity cursed energy for a while, otherwise it could snap off again at any time."
"Thanks, Shoko."
Suguru Geto moved his newly recovered right arm, feeling a long-lost sense of wholeness, and couldn't help but chuckle self-deprecatingly.
"It seems my life isn't over just yet."
Yoru stood quietly to the side, watching this reunion of the youth trio, a faint sense of relief flashing in his deep red eyes.
Even though ten whole years had passed.
Even though each of them bore too many scars and secrets.
The bond that belonged to their Jujutsu High days had never truly been broken.
Just like the laughter and chatter in front of the oden stall during that summer they could never return to.
"Suguru."
Yoru walked slowly toward Suguru Geto, his expression gradually becoming solemn.
"The road ahead might be even tougher than the last ten years."
"Kenjaku took Rika's body. He has mastered the ultimate cheat of Mimicry. That terrifying game could begin at any time."
Yoru pulled out an encrypted miniature scroll from his pocket and solemnly handed it to Suguru Geto.
"This contains fragments of clues about the core bases where Kenjaku might be lurking and his thousand-year plan, which I've gathered secretly over the past ten years."
"From now on, you will fade completely into the darkness."
"Jujutsu High's defenses and investigations on the surface will be handled by Satoru and me, while you will be the sharpest blade we have hidden in the night."
This was an ultimate handover that transcended life and death.
Suguru Geto took the scroll, a flame of determination more resolute than ever burning in his narrow, fox-like eyes.
"Don't worry."
"This time, I definitely won't let him succeed again."
At the moment the two completed the handover, Yoru suddenly felt the surrounding air become strange.
He slowly turned his head, surveying the ruins that had been completely destroyed by the flames of war.
Broken stone pillars.
Steel bars melted by high temperatures, and a massive crater nearby that had been deeply gouged out by an energy impact.
This sense of ruin, familiar to the very bone, made Yoru's pupils contract to the limit!
Wait!
This place is... the abandoned construction site behind the Jujutsu High mountain?!
Countless memory fragments flashed through Yoru's mind like lightning.
He suddenly realized that these ruins, scarred and battered after the final battle of the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons...
Were exactly the same as the ruins he had found himself in when he first transmigrated to this world!!
The gears of fate let out a scalp-numbing roar at this moment!
"What's wrong, Yoru?"
Suguru Geto keenly sensed the intense emotional fluctuation that flashed across Yoru.
He stood up, wiped the blood from his face, walked to Yoru's side, and patted his shoulder.
Looking at Yoru's eyes, which were beginning to show strange spatial fluctuations, Suguru Geto seemed to understand something.
He didn't ask much, only offering a relieved and free-spirited smile.
"It seems your time has come."
Suguru Geto took half a step back, looking at the man who had changed the trajectory of his life—both a mentor and a friend—his voice filled with unspeakable gratitude and respect.
""Go. Do what you have to do."
"See you in the future, Yoru."
Yoru took one long look at this dear friend who had struggled for ten years but still held onto his true self.
He knew that in the years to come, Suguru Geto would become a nameless ghost, walking alone in the darkest abyss.
Until the final battle that would decide the fate of humanity arrived.
Yoru nodded solemnly. Without saying a word of farewell, he turned and strode toward the deepest part of the ruins.
Just as he turned around, the cold system notification finally exploded in his mind!
[SYSTEM: DING!]
[SYSTEM: MAIN MISSION: REWRITE THE ENDING OF THE HIDDEN INVENTORY AND PREMATURE DEATH ARCS HAS BEEN PERFECTLY COMPLETED!]
[SYSTEM: MISSION SETTLEMENT IN PROGRESS...]
[SYSTEM: TIME-SPACE ANCHOR LOCKED SUCCESSFULLY. RETURN COUNTDOWN: 1 HOUR!]
Yoru's footsteps paused slightly, then he walked on even more firmly.
There was less than an hour left.
Before completely leaving this "past" timeline, he had to complete the final and most important move.
And that was...
To pave the bloody road to invincibility for his ten-years-ago self—the version of him who had just transmigrated and hadn't even fully understood the system!
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