[IMPORTANT] [DELETE AFTER READING]TOP SECRET DOSSIER: Taizo Hasegawa
Birth/Death: Dates unknown. Evaluated and promoted to Grade 1 Sorcerer in April 1956.
Cursed Technique: Unknown. According to reports from sorcerers who served on missions with him, he primarily exorcised curses using basic Cursed Energy manipulation and hand-to-hand combat. Consequently, he remained relatively obscure among his peers.
Behavioral Notes: Prior to encountering the [REDACTED] Cursed Spirit, his behavior was highly eccentric. He lived as a transient in various public parks, preferring to reside in cardboard boxes regardless of the season. Because of this, he was known to locals as the "God of War of the Park."
Anomalies: Sorcerers assigned to his squad frequently died in various accidents. Perhaps due to the high mortality rate of his acquaintances, he often referred to himself as an "Absolute Loser" when meeting others.
Companion: Taizo Hasegawa was accompanied by a small Shiba Inu named Hachi. The dog showed no Cursed Energy reaction. Multiple witnesses observed this dog over a period exceeding twenty years, during which the animal showed no signs of aging. Researchers speculated that Hasegawa's true Innate Technique might be time-related.
Note: Following Taizo Hasegawa's death, the dog was taken out of the mountains by his (alleged) grandson, Hasegumo. It appears to have since lost its ageless properties.
1984–1994: Hasegawa ceased taking missions. As his contemporaries passed away, his name faded from memory, and the jujutsu world lost track of his movements.
June 1994: The strongest Special Grade Cursed Spirit in history, [REDACTED], rumored to be capable of destroying humanity, appeared and began a global indiscriminate massacre. Countless mid-to-high-level sorcerers died attempting to combat it; the world faced total annihilation.
Resolution: The curse was eventually exorcised by Taizo Hasegawa, who had reached Special Grade level strength by that time. Due to the properties of [REDACTED], no witnesses could accurately describe the battle.
Debrief: According to Hasegawa's own account, the curse's abilities were [Teleportation] and [REDACTED] (Indescribable on paper; only Hasegawa could articulate the nature of the power. Others could understand it upon hearing it, but remained unable to speak of or record it in any form).
Cost of Victory: Though defeating a teleportation-based technique is nearly inconceivable, Taizo Hasegawa succeeded at the cost of his Innate Technique and his entire Cursed Energy pool. Following the incident, he requested that all records be classified at the highest level of secrecy. Furthermore, all surviving sorcerers and civilians involved underwent memory alteration.
Final Years: Taizo Hasegawa lived in seclusion in the mountains following the event. He died in early 2000 (killed by a Cursed Spirit).
"So the old man actually saved the world? He never breathed a word of it to me."
Hasegumo sat on the train, rubbing his chin as he scrolled through the text Masamichi Yaga had sent to his phone.
"And Hachi is actually older than me? That's wild. A time-related technique... Kiyotaka Kansuuryuu..."
Hasegumo wasn't one to get bogged down in the past. He let out a small sigh of admiration, then tucked the thought away. He had too much on his plate right now and needed to get his facts straight.
"According to Wasuke Itadori, Kaori Itadori went missing once before I ever met her."
"Just when everyone assumed she was dead, she reappeared. But Wasuke was the only one who could see the stitches on her forehead."
"Is it a technique? I have a feeling that woman might have been a curse user. But now that she's dead, the debt is settled," Hasegumo muttered to the empty air beside him. "Old man, it's not that I'm not avenging you. She's already gone. If you want a rematch, you'll have to put in the work yourself in the afterlife."
Kenjaku had carefully leaked this information about his past identities to lead Hasegumo on a wild goose chase. The goal was to prevent Hasegumo from interfering with Toji Fushiguro's assassination of the Star Plasma Vessel. Even Wasuke Itadori had unwittingly become a pawn in Kenjaku's game, relaying a story that included the address of his son.
If Hasegumo had followed the clues, he would have spent at least three days chasing shadows, eventually finding a series of perfectly crafted "truths" designed by Kenjaku.
However, as they say, an idiot is a mastermind's natural enemy. Or perhaps Hasegumo was simply playing on a different level.
Once he learned Kaori Itadori was dead, he lost all interest in further investigation. He turned around and hopped on the first Shinkansen back to the city. At this rate, he'd be back at the school in a day and a half.
"I feel like everything lately has been a bit too coincidental," he mused. He sensed something was off, but being a natural optimist, he didn't dwell on it. "Whatever. The outcome is good. I'm just glad I didn't have to kill anyone."
Hasegumo had been exorcising curses since he was fourteen. In those six years, he had rarely encountered curse users and had never taken a human life. Despite the countless curses he had destroyed, he remained deeply averse to the idea of killing his own kind.
Meanwhile, Satoru Gojo and his group were loitering outside a girl's school.
"Wouldn't it be safer to just head back to Jujutsu High?" Gojo complained into his phone. "Are we really supposed to play house with her all day?"
"Regrettably, yes. Those are Master Tengen's orders," Yaga's voice replied calmly from the other end. "We are to satisfy all of Riko Amanai's requests."
"Tsk." Gojo rolled his eyes. "So if she says she doesn't want to merge, we just go along with that too?"
Click—
Yaga, hearing Gojo starting to run his mouth, promptly hung up.
"They're spoiling her too much. She knows it's dangerous and she still wants to come to school," Gojo muttered, feeling like Riko was a divine punishment sent specifically for him. "If I'd known it would be like this, I would've bailed like Gumo. He's got the right idea."
"Don't say that, Satoru," Suguru Geto countered. "We're indulging her because once she merges, she becomes Master Tengen. She'll be the foundation of the barriers at the base of the school, never to see her friends, her family, or anyone else ever again."
His voice carried a mix of pity and somber duty. "Let her spend her remaining time in freedom. That is our mission."
Mid-conversation, Gojo remembered something. "Suguru, what about the cursed spirits you sent out for surveillance?"
"Those? I wish I could share their vision like Mei-san does with her crows, but if anything happens, I'll know immediately—" Geto stopped, closing his eyes to sense the spirits he controlled.
"Satoru. Go find Riko. Now."
"Huh?"
"Two of them were just exorcised."
"Is it a remnant of 'Q'? Or did the Star Religious Group send them?" Geto mused as he split off from the others. He was the first to encounter an enemy.
"Oh? That uniform..."
Standing before Geto was an elderly man with a white turban wrapped around his head and thick glasses. As he spoke, he infused a talisman with Cursed Energy. Two mole-like shikigami emerged, flanking him like sentries.
He saw the school uniform and immediately went for a numbers advantage. Shikigami protecting his front and back... he's a veteran, Geto analyzed. Beneath his feet, two mushroom-headed spirits—the so-called "Haiku Deities"—crawled out.
"No medium? And your energy is different from a typical sorcerer... Could it be Cursed Spirit Manipulation?"
"Correct. It seems you haven't lived this long for nothing, old man."
"I haven't actually lived that long. Mostly because just staying alive is far too expensive."
The two men, both with their eyes narrowed to slits, analyzed the path to victory. The old man assumed Geto was a purely long-range summoner. To win, he just needed to close the distance.
"You're thinking too much. It's useless," Geto said. Behind him, a massive Sandworm Curse erupted from a portal, charging toward the man. The resulting dust cloud filled the entire corridor.
"One left," Geto said, turning to leave.
"Got you!"
The old man burst through a window from the side of the corridor, short-sword in hand. To be fair, his logic wasn't flawed. He used the dust in the hallway to mask his movements and attempted a flanking ambush to end the fight quickly.
What he hadn't accounted for was that this teenager, despite possessing a powerful Innate Technique, was also a monster in close-quarters combat.
Facing the old man's ambush, Suguru Geto showed zero respect for his elders. He unleashed a flurry of strikes that looked like a high-frame-rate combo from a fighting game. In a matter of seconds, he had beaten the old man into a state where his life was flashing before his eyes.
"You were dying for a chance to get close to me, weren't you?" Geto said, grabbing the man by the jaw. "People like you, who have a fixed idea of how they're going to win, are easy to bait. Now, are you with 'Q' or the Star Religious Group?"
On the other side of the campus, Satoru Gojo had successfully snatched Riko Amanai away from a crowd of adoring schoolgirls.
"Idiot! I told you not to show your face in front of your classmates!" Gojo shouted. Riko, who had decent physical specs for a civilian, was running alongside him.
"Assassins are here! Do I really need to explain the rest?" Gojo realized she couldn't keep up as he accelerated. He unceremoniously scooped her up, holding her like a basketball under his arm.
"Whoa! Why am I floating?!" Riko wondered for a split second if she had finally awakened superpowers.
"We're heading straight back to Jujutsu High," Gojo said, leaping onto the roof. "You don't want your friends getting caught in the crossfire, do you?"
...
"A thirty-million-yen bounty on her head?"
Gojo stood outside the school building, surrounded by several burly men who were dressed identically—right down to the supermarket paper bags over their heads. He remained calm, continuing his phone call with Geto.
"One, two, three, four... they all have the exact same build. Shikigami?" Riko asked, trying to use her limited knowledge of jujutsu to help.
"Man, we're always shorthanded at Jujutsu High," Gojo ignored her, instead pitching to the masked men. "You're welcome to switch careers, old timers. We have great benefits."
"Forget it. Government work is too much of a pain," one man replied. With a wave of his hand, another identical burly man grew out of the ground.
"What's so great about a little girl like this?" Gojo asked. While he spoke, he pulled a dirty trick, swinging his free hand. Two of the clones were sucked together by the Limitless, their heads colliding with a sickening crack as they slumped to the ground.
"What was that just now?" The bag-headed man clearly wasn't the brightest; the fact that he'd taken a job involving the Gojo clan without knowing about the Limitless made him a model of "brave but stupid" labor.
"The shikigami didn't disappear. Which one is the real one?" Riko persisted with her analysis.
"These aren't shikigami. They're clones," Gojo corrected, finally putting an end to her guessing game.
In the next instant, two more clones rushed forward, aiming punches at Gojo's face. Their fists stopped inches away, hovering in mid-air.
"What is this?!"
Gojo took the opportunity to show off. "Infinity. It's like the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise."
"Huh?" The supermarket-bag man was clearly not well-educated enough for Zeno's paradoxes.
"It means you need to stay in school," Gojo said. Two punches later, both clones were on the ground.
"A cloning technique with a maximum of five bodies including the original," Gojo explained, breaking down the enemy's power to shatter his morale. "You can swap the 'real' body to any of the clones at will. If the main body is in danger, you just switch to a safe clone. It's a handy technique."
Then came the jab. "I just don't get why you're so incredibly weak."
"I see... so you can't make new clones if the current ones are destroyed?" Gojo noted that no more men were growing out of the pavement.
"How do you know my technique so well?!" the survivor asked, clutching his head.
"Sorry, I just have great eyes." Gojo pulled down his sunglasses. He was playing with a map-hack, unlike this "legit" player.
"My technique is like a convergent infinite series. It makes things approaching me slower and slower until they can never touch me. When I strengthen that, it becomes 'Blue'. Think of it as 'negative natural numbers'—like creating '-1 apples.' It creates a fictional space that generates an attractive force, like what I just did to your clones. But honestly, it's a pain. I can't create big reactions too close to myself, and if I have to worry about the direction of the pull... the Cursed Energy manipulation becomes a nightmare."
He gave a charming, arrogant smile. "Basically, it's exhausting."
Regardless of why Gojo felt the need to "Reveal his Hand" to such a weak opponent, he proved one thing: his lack of a "limit" was a personality trait, not a side effect of his technique.
"But that's all just the 'Lapse' technique."
The man on the opposite roof couldn't understand the math, but he could feel a "big one" coming. He wisely chose to bolt.
In the world of sorcerers, winning without a flashy finisher is like winning a fighting game with a light punch—it's just disrespectful.
"Cover your head." Gojo's hand extended. In a blink, he had teleported into the building across the street, closing the distance to a single meter. He made a finger-gun gesture at the man.
Deep red light, condensed from a massive amount of Cursed Energy, flickered at his fingertip. It looked as though it could erase anything from existence.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red!"
However...
"It failed."
Gojo, having reached a new low of "zero-limit" behavior, simply punched the terrified man into the floor. He flexed his hand. "Darn. I really thought I had it that time."
"What is wrong with this guy?" Riko wondered, completely lost.
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