"And that's the long and short of it. I was let go," Yuki Tsukumo concluded.
"Hahahaha! Yuki, you're hilarious!" Satoru Gojo erupted into exaggerated, uncontrollable laughter. "What do you mean his Domain hacked into your 'dying vision' and resurrected you? Creating souls? Interfering with souls? If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were pitching the backstory for some manga's supreme deity!"
Yuki's expression remained entirely flat. She glared directly at Gojo, devoid of a single trace of amusement.
Laughing, Gojo slowly stopped laughing.
He turned to Tengen. "Is that even possible?"
After agreeing to the Binding Vow, Yuki hadn't wasted a single second. She rushed back to Japan at top speed and immediately contacted Tengen, demanding an urgent meeting. It had to be in a space absolutely isolated from the Jujutsu Headquarters' surveillance, and she insisted on bringing Gojo if possible.
Tengen immediately realized that whatever Yuki had to say would completely shatter the established common sense of the Jujutsu world, and critically impact how the Higher-ups handled the Lord of Cursed Spirits. Otherwise, she wouldn't be this paranoid.
So Tengen summoned Gojo, erecting a specialized barrier deep within the Star Religious Group's Star Tomb. This was the absolute safest place on Earth. Unless someone physically smashed their way in, no surveillance method in existence could penetrate it.
And here, without reservation, Yuki disclosed the entire contents of her 'dying vision.'
Tengen had long since lost her human appearance. While a rough humanoid silhouette remained, her entire form had mutated into something grotesque and alien.
Her head and neck had fused into a single rectangular block. Four eyes were branded into her face, but she lacked eyebrows or pupils. Wrapped in voluminous robes and pants, she looked exactly like a giant thumb tightly swaddled in fabric.
Anyone who laid eyes on her would instantly realize one inescapable fact: Tengen was no longer human.
She was currently far closer to a Cursed Spirit than a human, suspended in the liminal state between humanity and godhood. And in the near future, that intermediate state would break, completing her ascension.
Tengen crossed her arms, deep in thought. "Theoretically, it's impossible. Honestly, if Yuki hadn't returned in person to recount this, I wouldn't even be certain the 'dying vision' space truly existed. That touches upon the deepest, darkest secret of the world: the secret of 'Death.'"
"Unfortunately, Mahito absolutely has the ability to tamper with the world's deepest secrets. He beat you to the punch, Tengen," Yuki said slowly, staring at Tengen's alien form. "You should have discarded your human identity and embraced 'Godhood' a long time ago. Your hesitation caused your progress to stall massively. Today, that indecision has finally come back to haunt you."
"I have told you many times, Yuki."
Tengen's voice was flat. "The reason I refuse to ascend is that I cannot predict what actions I will take once I become a God."
"Losing a human body means losing the exact hormones that maintain human reasoning. A higher lifeform born entirely of pure will and hyper-logic... can you guarantee how it will think?"
Best-case scenario: she remains indifferent and her will goes unchanged.
Worst-case scenario: the God maintaining Japan's primary barrier simply decides to forcefully ascend the entire Japanese population, concluding with absolute, cold logic that doing so is what's 'best' for humanity. And at that point, no one would have the power to stop her.
Yuki shrugged. "Well, the facts prove you were worrying over nothing."
Tengen was currently in the intermediate state between human and God, yet her core will remained completely uncompromised. This proved her past fears were unfounded.
Tengen sighed, choosing not to argue.
"Alright, alright, stop fighting, you two," Gojo said, mimicking an idol drama heroine desperately trying to break up a fight between the male lead and the rival, pressing his hands down repeatedly in a placating gesture. "Aren't we supposed to be discussing the Lord of Curses? God this, God that... I'll be blunt. After seeing the tragic state Tengen is in right now, I definitely don't want to become any kind of God."
The 'tragic' Tengen remained completely silent.
Gojo kept gleefully rubbing salt in the wound. "I met Tengen in the past, you know. She was a total beauty! I remember she had this pale, flowing hair. Even if she didn't care much for her appearance, she had this dreamlike, divine aura. The moment you saw her, you just *knew* she was Tengen, the sacred guardian of Japan's barriers. But look at her now..."
Gojo clicked his tongue aggressively. "I don't want to be mean. But from 'beautiful girl' to 'giant thumb'... sorry, I just can't keep a straight face."
Tengen snapped. "This is entirely your fault," she said coldly.
Gojo shrugged. "Fair enough. That is entirely my fault. Can't argue there."
It happened back when Gojo was in high school. At the time, Tengen didn't look like a thumb; she possessed the exact divine beauty Gojo described. But the cost of maintaining that human shape required her to assimilate a Star Plasma Vessel at regular intervals.
The Star Plasma Vessel was simply a human girl whose soul was compatible enough to merge with Tengen's.
Gojo's mission at the time was to safely escort the Vessel to Tengen. According to Tengen, this was the destined duty of the Six Eyes in every era. However, thanks to the interference of the Sorcerer Killer, Toji Fushiguro, Gojo experienced the one and only failure of his entire life. Because of that failure, Tengen had no vessel to assimilate.
From that day onward, her body began an unstoppable descent toward Godhood. Today, maintaining her human shape was completely impossible.
Incidentally, there had been a backup Star Plasma Vessel, but Tengen had refused to assimilate her. Perhaps Tengen had sensed the shifting tides of the era and actively decided to embrace evolution.
Unfortunately, she realized it a bit too late.
Yuki Tsukumo had actually been Tengen's Star Plasma Vessel. When she learned of her fate back then, she rebelled violently. With Tengen's half-hearted permission, Yuki bought her freedom, mastered her power, and eventually became a Special Grade Sorcerer.
Yuki rubbed her temples, a headache forming. "I'm starting to regret calling you here, Gojo. Can you stop screwing around?"
Gojo threw his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright! I just thought you guys were being way too depressing, so I was trying to lighten the mood."
He paused, his expression instantly dropping into dead seriousness. "I understand the situation. The enemy I'm facing is a literal, genuine monster. Not just a monster in terms of raw output, but a being that straight-up doesn't have a concept of 'Death'!"
"An entity that can repeatedly resurrect itself and possesses limitless growth potential has fully matured right under our noses."
"It's my failure," Gojo admitted openly. "I always figured that no matter how much the King of Curses grew, he'd never be a match for me. The second my eyes locked onto him, I was confident I could just rip his head off... But no matter how wild my imagination gets, I never imagined he could reach a level like this."
"No, it's not your fault," Tengen sighed. "It's mine. There is a spy for the Lord of Cursed Spirits within the absolute highest echelons of Jujutsu Headquarters. And not just any executive—someone with the clearance to contact me directly."
Gojo was genuinely stunned. "Are you absolutely sure? There are barely any people with that clearance!"
Even Gojo didn't have that clearance!
Because of Tengen's extreme circumstances, the people allowed to contact her directly were incredibly rare and held absolute supreme authority. Gojo originally had the right, but since he'd practically declared open war on their system to enact his reforms, there was no way the Higher-ups would grant him that privilege.
The same went for Yuki Tsukumo. A woman willing to openly flip the bird to Jujutsu Headquarters wasn't exactly going to get VIP treatment from them.
In any given era, Special Grade Sorcerers were the ultimate trump cards of the Jujutsu world; their status was unquestionable. But this era was an anomaly. Including the late Suguru Geto, these Special Grades were so aggressively rebellious and unorthodox that the Higher-ups couldn't trust a single one of them.
Yuki explained, "I discussed this with Tengen before. I was going to use myself as bait to meet the Lord of Cursed Spirits. Because Tengen had my back, as long as I met Mahito within Japan's borders, he wouldn't be able to escape Tengen's omniscient surveillance. The moment he appeared, checkmate."
"And you saw the result." Yuki shrugged. "Mahito didn't even give me the chance. The second he contacted me, he instantly demanded a Binding Vow and forced the meeting location overseas. Tengen's surveillance network is a godsend, but she can't see outside the country."
Gojo's brow furrowed tightly. "I find it hard to believe... No, wait, it's actually completely plausible. The actual ruling body of Jujutsu Headquarters right now... aren't they basically all ancient fossils? There isn't a single young person up there, is there?"
He directed the last question at Tengen.
Tengen nodded. "Correct."
"Immortality, huh..." Gojo sighed, pieces clicking into place.
The supreme rulers of Jujutsu Headquarters were supposed to be the most ideologically pure members of the society. Only with absolute, rational orthodoxy could they guide the future of the Jujutsu world. You could call the Higher-ups thoroughly rotten, but they nailed their baseline duties: they were violently conservative and stubborn. 'Rotten' was synonymous with 'traditional.'
To be brutally honest, in the original story, if Gojo had fully submitted to the Higher-ups' logic—executing Yuji Itadori immediately upon capture, or personally handing Suguru Geto's corpse over to Shoko Ieiri for complete physical and supernatural disposal—Kenjaku wouldn't have been able to pull off half of his master plan, regardless of how many cheat codes he had.
You could complain all day that they were excessively draconian and entirely heartless, but you couldn't argue with results!
Of course, being excessively draconian and heartless naturally triggered massive backlash. Exhibit A: Gojo and Yuki explicitly giving the middle finger to the Higher-ups. Even Yuta Okkotsu, who outwardly played the good soldier, was constantly running back-channel operations against them.
The modern era had three living Special Grade Sorcerers, and at the end of the day, not a single one listened to the Higher-ups! Oh, and the dead one, Suguru Geto? He just launched a full-scale terrorist rebellion!
Four Special Grade Sorcerers: three insubordinate, one outright treasonous. Wasn't that hilarious? That was what happened when you lost the faith of the people. The Higher-ups were absolutely long overdue for a total purge.
Back to the point: historically, Tengen personally vetted the rulers of Jujutsu Headquarters upon their ascension. This ensured the Higher-ups never crossed the bottom line of maintaining the balance of the Jujutsu world. She had done an impeccable job for a thousand years. But today, the temptation of 'Immortality' had utterly shattered a millennium of credit.
Especially when a perfect, working prototype of Immortality was parading right in front of them! Kinji Hakari had never bothered hiding his Domain's mechanics. He underwent every medical examination without a shred of psychological guilt, which meant the Higher-ups had fully decoded exactly what kind of 'Immortality' the Lord of Cursed Spirits was dealing out.
Forget the Higher-ups—even Gojo, looking at those medical readouts, had to praise it: *This is flawless immortality.*
It was no wonder some of the men sitting at the pinnacle of Jujutsu Headquarters had their greed inflamed.
That was why Tengen said it was her fault. She hadn't anticipated that the sheer allure of eternal life would be enough to tempt her heavily vetted, supreme rulers into high treason. That was genuinely her failure.
Gojo's face was completely devoid of emotion. "So, what you're saying is our enemy isn't just the Lord of Cursed Spirits, his army of highly intelligent Curses, and rogue Curse Users. Our enemy is also our own high command. We don't even know how deep the rot goes. Worst-case scenario? Every single one of them has been bought off, and the only difference is the price tag on their treason."
After all, this was Immortality!
Gojo wasn't naive. He always defaulted to the absolute worst depths of human malice. If push came to shove, he was fully prepared to take on the entire world completely alone.
"It shouldn't be that bad yet..." Tengen offered weakly.
Gojo let out a dry, hollow chuckle and dropped the subject.
Yuki looked between Tengen and Gojo, sighing. "Mahito called it perfectly. Releasing me was purely to stall for time... As long as he doesn't reveal his true combat parameters, our own paranoid imaginations will keep our war councils paralyzed with indecision."
The atmosphere in the room was so incredibly dense that Yuki felt like she was at the bottom of the ocean. The psychological pressure was crushing, thick enough to touch. Even the invincible Satoru Gojo had dropped his usual arrogance. Despite humanity holding a massive advantage in raw, head-to-head firepower, their war council felt more like they were drafting terms of surrender.
Gojo rubbed his chin. "When exactly did you start calling the Lord of Cursed Spirits by his actual name, 'Mahito'? And when did your pronouns for him shift from 'it' to 'he'?"
"I know exactly what you're implying. I questioned if my own mind had been twisted too."
Yuki spoke openly. "Before you got here, I ran a full diagnostic on myself, and I had Tengen check me too. It's not just a question of psychological tampering. We needed to be extremely vigilant about whether this resurrected soul had any parasitic Cursed Energy left behind."
Gojo immediately looked at Tengen.
Tengen didn't hide anything. "If Yuki hadn't told us herself, there'd be zero reason to think she was lying, or that she had even died in the first place. It is a completely flawless resurrection. Just like how the Lord of Curses inverted your student's gender without a trace, I am fully convinced even the most pedantic medical experts would weep in awe."
That was utterly terrifying. It proved that if the Lord of Curses wanted to, even if they explicitly killed him, he could quietly respawn in some forgotten corner of the world without a single lingering side effect.
How do you fight a raid boss like that?
To be fair, Tengen missed the mark here. The [Thought Imprint] technique didn't leave behind Cursed Energy Residuals; it was a fundamental physiological rewrite of the brain. If a neurologist could miraculously compare a high-res scan of Yuki's brain from before the fight with one from after, they might spot the anomaly. Cursed Energy diagnostics were entirely useless.
But current medical science was nowhere near capable of that. The human brain evaporates hundreds of thousands of cells every single day—how could you possibly isolate the anomaly in a baseline comparison?
Gojo spoke with absolute, terrifying sincerity. "It really feels like they're the players in an RPG, and I'm just the Raid Boss sitting in the final room waiting for them to log in and grind me for loot."
"It hasn't devolved to that point yet. After all, he only resurrected me to buy time, didn't he?" Yuki said bitterly. "Unfortunately, I completed my mission perfectly. But this proves one thing: for the immediate future, he absolutely does not want to square off against Satoru Gojo."
"Which means the day he actively invites me out is the day he's mathematically certain he can kill me," Gojo said coldly.
The room plunged into silence. No one argued against the grim reality of that statement.
Gojo didn't resort to hollow bravado like *'I don't believe that.'* Instead, he spoke with absolute calm.
"Let's break down exactly what the Lord of Cursed Spirits is actually capable of right now. Let's trace it back to the very moment he spawned. I refuse to believe he's flawless; if he was, he wouldn't be hiding from me right now."
"Excellent. At least our absolute strongest asset hasn't lost his nerve. That's the best news I've heard all day," Yuki praised.
Gojo waved a hand dismissively. "I know perfectly well if I'm invincible or not. If I was truly untouchable, why would I specifically obliterate the tools that threaten me? I know exactly where my limits are. It's just that no one has ever pushed me anywhere close to them, so I slack off."
*But he couldn't slack off anymore.* Everyone heard the unspoken subtext.
Tengen nodded with deep relief. "Even spanning the last thousand years, Gojo, you are the absolute pinnacle. I believe your capacity for growth will yield to no one, not even the Lord of Cursed Spirits. Give it everything you have. We will support you to the absolute maximum extent of our power."
Gojo chuckled. "Hearing that from you, Tengen, actually puts my mind at ease."
He paused, then fired back. "You still didn't answer my question, Yuki. I can clearly sense you've lost most of your hostility toward the Lord of Curses. If he didn't implant some twisted psychological trap in your head, then why...?"
Yuki spoke slowly. "Because... I think I'm starting to understand Hakari."
Gojo blinked. "Kinji? What about him?"
"Didn't he say he wanted to see Mahito take the throne?" Yuki admitted. "I... kinda want to see that too."
Tengen and Gojo physically recoiled.
Before this, Yuki Tsukumo was a hardcore radical! Her life's goal was literally eradicating all Cursed Spirits! Hakari had bared his soul to Gojo, and while Gojo hadn't agreed, he had at least softened his hostility slightly toward Mahito. But Yuki Tsukumo was the kind of person who wouldn't have listened to a single damn word Hakari said!
What the hell changed?
Gojo pointed aggressively at Yuki and looked at Tengen. "Are your eyes broken?! You call that 'no psychological tampering'?! She's a completely different person!"
Tengen stared hard at Yuki, hesitating. "Should I... maybe run the diagnostic one more time?"
Yeah, even she was doubting her own handiwork now.
Yuki completely ignored both of their protests, lost in thought. "Mahito's soul is perfectly clean. It's utterly pristine."
"I can't articulate why. The Binding Vow completely erased my memory of the battle itself. But I am absolutely certain... Mahito possesses a singularly noble soul, completely unprecedented in the entire history of the Jujutsu world."
Gojo's mouth twitched. "What the hell is a 'noble soul'? Since when did souls have a class system? Have you finally completely lost your mind?"
"No. Souls do indeed carry a measure of nobility," Tengen said, nodding thoughtfully. "I see. So that explains the Lord of Cursed Spirits' recent behavior."
Gojo stood entirely deadpan. Great. Now he was the uneducated one in the room!