Chapter 29
"Yes," Geto nodded. "Because of that incident, Satoru's view of the jujutsu world completely changed. He began to transform this decaying system in his own way—although his methods are radical, often irritating that group of old men at the Headquarters."
When talking about Satoru Gojo, Geto's tone was noticeably lighter—a kind of genuine emotion that only appears when speaking of true friends, all pretenses dropped.
"Interesting," Genji smiled, a hint of "youth these days" in his smile. "It seems this era isn't a complete waste."
He paused, then asked, "You mentioned earlier that you discussed my barrier with another special-grade sorcerer?"
"Yuki Tsukumo," Geto answered immediately. "She operates abroad. She's one of the few experts studying the nature of cursed spirits and the theory of cursed energy. About five years ago, I met her on a mission and talked about the root cause of cursed spirits."
His expression became serious. "She told me that the barrier you set up has, over the past thousand years, suppressed the number of cursed spirits in the world to an extremely low level. Sorcerers only need to deal with the low-level cursed spirits that occasionally slip through the net. The entire jujutsu world has been in a 'comfortable' state. But in recent decades—population explosion, urbanization, information overload… people's negative emotions have grown exponentially. The barrier's absorption efficiency can't keep up."
Geto's fingers unconsciously tapped the table—a habitual action of his when thinking.
"I asked her if we could improve the barrier, increase its absorption efficiency. She shook her head and said it was impossible." He looked at Genji with complex eyes. "She said the barrier you created not only spans the world but also has a complex internal structure that modern jujutsu practitioners can barely understand. Automatically screening the cursed energy of ordinary people, avoiding sorcerers, using an embedded intelligent adjustment system… These functions cannot be replicated at the current level of technology, let alone improved."
He paused and smiled bitterly. "She also said that someone like you only comes along once in a thousand years. The old antiques of the Zen'in clan are desperately chasing after the Ten Shadows Technique, trying to replicate your legend. Although their behavior seems absurd, she understands the motive—because those who have seen the sun cannot tolerate the light of candles."
After these words, silence fell over the table once again.
The sky outside the window was completely dark. The streetlights connected into rivers of light. Traffic flowed. Tokyo's nightlife was just beginning. The customers in the café had changed. The couple in the corner had left, replaced by a college student with a laptop doing homework.
And at this table by the window, a conversation spanning a thousand years continued.
"So," Genji slowly spoke, breaking the silence, "this is the status quo. The barrier is saturated. Cursed spirits are reviving. The jujutsu world is scattered, only seeing one or two steps ahead… And you're still asking me, 'How do we destroy cursed spirits?'"
His tone was calm, but Eriri could sense an undercurrent beneath the calm—not anger, not disappointment, but a deep, almost bone-deep helplessness.
"Suguru," Genji looked at the young sorcerer in robes before him, his gaze like that of a teacher looking at a student who was trying to solve a problem but using the wrong formula. "What I left behind a thousand years ago wasn't an 'answer'—it was a 'tool.' The barrier is a tool. The theories are tools. Those research notes on the nature of cursed energy are also tools. The usefulness of these tools is to give later generations a higher starting point from which to solve new problems."
He paused, lowering his voice.
"But I didn't expect that after a thousand years, you're still using the tools I left behind to solve the problems of a thousand years ago. No, even worse than that—at least in my time, there were people thinking about 'how to become stronger,' but you…" He gently shook his head. "You don't even know how to use the tools properly."
Geto's face instantly paled. He opened his mouth to defend himself, to say, "We've been working hard too," to say, "Times are different," but all his words seemed pale and weak before Genji's eyes, which seemed to see through everything.
Because he was telling the truth.
What had the jujutsu world been doing for the past thousand years? Infighting, power struggles, maintaining bloodlines, suppressing dissent. The barrier operated silently, and they took it for granted. When cursed spirits decreased, they enjoyed the peace and quiet. Only when the barrier became saturated and cursed spirits returned did they start to panic and look for a "savior."
And the real "savior" had already given everything he could a thousand years ago.
"I'm sorry," Geto lowered his head, his voice dry. "I've disappointed you."
"Disappointment isn't the issue," Genji waved his hand, his tone softening. "Every era has its limitations. I just think… it's a pity. I had hoped that the world a thousand years later would surprise me."
He looked out the window, watching the pedestrians walking through the night. On each face were traces of fatigue, anxiety, and haste—the marks of modern life, the nourishment that gave birth to cursed spirits.
"But…" Geto finally looked up, his voice hoarse. "If we can't even use the 'tools' you left behind, if we can't even stand on the shoulders of giants to see further… then what should we do? Just passively exorcise cursed spirits forever, watching tragedies repeat, never reaching the root of the problem?"
A rare note of wavering appeared in his tone—wavering in his own ideas, in the jujutsu world, and even in the ultimate goal of "solving the cursed spirit problem." Nanako and Mimiko looked at him anxiously. Even Utaha stopped writing, her crimson eyes fixed on this former special-grade sorcerer with a complex expression.
Genji didn't answer immediately.
He picked up his reheated black tea. The rising steam blurred his deep eyes. He looked out the window at the bright night view of Tokyo, but his gaze seemed to pierce through time and space, falling on Kyoto a thousand years ago—a Kyoto that was more serene, yet also shrouded in deeper shadows.
"Suguru," Genji slowly spoke, his voice filled with the calm of a thousand years of sedimentation and a faint hint of subtle nostalgia. "You ask me what to do. Then let me ask you, and everyone here: What is a cursed spirit?"
This question stunned Eriri. Utaha's pen tip stopped on the paper. Geto frowned. It was the most basic topic in the jujutsu world.
"It's a product of negative human emotions," Geto answered.
"Yes, but not quite," Genji slightly shook his head. "It is a 'being close to humans.' Its roots lie in everyone's hearts. Fear, anger, anxiety, despair… These emotions give birth to it, and its rampage in turn creates more fear and despair, forming an inescapable cycle."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the ordinary customers in the café—the tired office worker after overtime, the laughing couple on a date, the old man reading alone.
"So, who does this cycle affect?" Genji asked, and answered himself: "It's ordinary people, the overwhelming majority, who have no cursed energy. They endure the pain, fear, and death caused by cursed spirits, but they know nothing about the cause, classifying it only as 'accident,' 'illness,' or 'madness.' And who is theoretically supposed to solve this problem?"
His gaze returned to Geto's face.
"It's you—the sorcerers. How many sorcerers are there in an era? The Japanese archipelago together has less than five figures, right? How many are there in the whole world? Among them, how many are ordinary sorcerers, muddled along, only knowing how to take assignments, exorcise cursed spirits, and collect rewards, never once thinking about 'why cursed spirits exist' or 'how can there be no cursed spirits'?"
Genji's tone was very flat, but each word pierced Geto's heart like a needle. He thought of his classmates at the jujutsu college, the old men at the Headquarters, and the vast majority of his peers who regarded "curse exorcism" as just a dangerous job.
"In a thousand years, very few people have had the ability and talent to think deeply about this issue," Genji lowered his voice, a hint of deep regret in it. "And with that intelligence, willing to risk being ostracized by the mainstream and punished by the rules, truly trying to find another way… even fewer, very few."
Geto felt a chill. He understood that what Genji was describing was the lonely, difficult path he himself had walked. It was also the dead end that Satoru Gojo was trying to break through in another, more domineering way.
"So I once thought," Genji's eyes became distant, as if recalling a long-ago plan, "since the problem of cursed spirits is rooted in all of humanity, then the power to solve it should theoretically come from the wisdom of all of humanity as well. Relying only on the tens of thousands of people in the jujutsu circle, what kind of earth-shattering clever plan can they come up with behind closed doors? I couldn't think of one a thousand years ago, and a thousand years later, it's still spinning in place."
He took a sip of tea and continued:
"Back in my day, when I had enough freedom, I tried to do something. I called it… a 'limited integration project of the jujutsu world and the mundane world.'"
"Integration?" Geto's pupils slightly contracted. This concept was absolutely taboo in the modern jujutsu world. The Headquarters regarded "secrecy from non-sorcerers" as an ironclad law.
"Yes, limited integration," Genji nodded. "Not revealing the existence of cursed spirits to the whole world—that would only cause panic and create new cursed spirits. My idea was to limit the extraordinary 'knowledge' of cursed energy, cursed spirits, and jujutsu to a certain segment of the human elite."
His fingers traced on the table, as if drawing a blueprint:
"The top scientists, thinkers, artisans, doctors… those with the sharpest minds and the strongest spirit of inquiry in their respective fields. Let them know about the existence of a special energy called 'cursed energy,' and learn that there are monsters called 'cursed spirits' born from emotions in this world. And then—brainstorm."
Genji's eyes lit up. It was a kind of intellectual light, the instinct of a traveler to mobilize all available resources when facing a huge problem.
"Sorcerers are good at using cursed energy for combat, good at developing techniques and barriers against cursed spirits. But humanity's most powerful weapon is not just the strength of individuals—it's the fusion and inheritance of 'wisdom.' An outstanding doctor might find ways to alleviate a person's extreme negative emotions, both physically and psychologically. A brilliant craftsman might invent a device that assists the barrier's operation, increasing the efficiency of cursed energy use. A profound philosopher might propose new perspectives on emotions and existence, fundamentally weakening the breeding ground for cursed spirits…"
He paused, his tone becoming serious:
"I left behind the barrier and research materials, hoping to give future generations a higher starting point—a platform from which to see further landscapes. I even expected that a thousand years later, when technology is flourishing and the world is open, the jujutsu world would have the courage to once again attempt contact with the highest wisdom of the mundane world, using new tools and methodologies to gnaw at the hard bone of 'cursed spirits.'"
He looked out the window at the brightly lit Tokyo—a giant that embodies the highest technology and the most complex society of modern humanity.
"But I didn't expect that a thousand years later, the jujutsu world itself has built an even higher wall. You're still using the old tools I left behind to solve old problems that have become larger and more complex. And the ever-changing world outside the wall—with its nuclear energy, the internet, gene editing, and artificial intelligence—its wisdom and power are still completely isolated from the problem of cursed spirits."
Genji turned his head, his gaze once again falling on Geto's face, his eyes as deep as the sea:
"Suguru, you ask me for the answer. My answer actually had a prototype a thousand years ago: to solve the problem of cursed spirits, we cannot rely solely on sorcerers. We must break down barriers and unite the wisdom of all humanity. This is difficult—very difficult. It will affect many stakeholders, shake millennium-old traditions, and come with great risks and pain."
"But it is the only possible direction to cure the root of the problem. Otherwise, whether it's me, you, Satoru Gojo, or any future genius, we will only be playing the role of eternal 'cleanup crew' for all humanity. We kill cursed spirits, heal the wounded, and wait for the next wave of cursed spirits born from new human suffering… Cycle and repeat, endlessly."