[September. The old village reeks of rotting straw, and the air sits thick enough to choke on.]
[The car lurches to a stop on the rutted dirt road.]
[You kill the engine and glance at the passenger seat.]
[The Special Grade sorcerer beside you hasn't spoken for nearly the entire drive. His head rests against the window, eyes fixed on the barren landscape outside, hollow as a dry well.]
["We're here, Geto."]
[He blinks back to the present. That trademark gentle smile slides into place, but it fits poorly, like a mask a size too small.]
["Thanks. I'll circle the village and map the Residual Cursed Energy. You talk to the village chief, get us up to speed."]
[The two of you split up.]
[Cursed Energy Allergy has been prickling since you arrived, a low, persistent sting. But the warning doesn't point to a powerful Cursed Spirit. It's something else. Something thicker. More nauseating. A malice that feels distinctly human.]
[The village chief finds you first, flanked by a cluster of villagers whose eyes won't stay still.]
[A few questions in, and the picture starts to curdle.]
[There's no trace of a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit here.]
[Not even a halfway decent curse.]
[The "disappearances" and "mysterious deaths" smell far more like a cover-up than a haunting.]
["It's... over there."]
[The chief points toward a decrepit shack at the edge of the village, his face caught between fear and revulsion.]
["Those two freaks are behind everything! Get rid of them and the village goes back to normal!"]
[You push through the crowd and walk toward the shack. When you see what's inside, your pupils contract to pinpoints.]
[A wooden cage. Cramped, filthy. Two skeletal girls huddled inside, skin mottled with bruises and scars.]
[They cling to each other, eyes wide with a terror that's long since curdled into despair.]
[Faint Cursed Energy pulses off their bodies. Gifted and born with the potential to become jujutsu sorcerers.]
[For one searing instant, you see yourself. The last simulation. The Zenin Clan. Treated as something less than human, dignity ground into the dirt, penned up like livestock.]
[Logic says wait. You're an Assistant Manager with no combat mandate. Let Geto handle this.]
[But the rage born from recognition won't let you stand idle.]
["Open the cage."]
["Are you insane?!"]
[The chief's composure shatters. He hoists a hoe overhead.]
["You're one of them, aren't you? I knew it! Can't trust anyone from the city! They killed the Tanakas, and they need to die for it!"]
["Yeah! Kill the freaks!"]
["Don't let him set the monsters loose!"]
[Ignorance ignites like dry brush. Dozens of villagers close in with clubs, stones, and farming tools.]
["I'm a government-appointed..."]
[You reach for your credentials, but a fist-sized rock cracks into your forehead before the words land. Blood sheets down, blurring your vision.]
[A thick wooden club slams across your back.]
[Bearing Insults and Heavy Burdens activates. Pain reduced by 30%. Physical defense slightly increased.]
[You stagger. Don't fall.]
[One flick of intention and you could snap the chief's neck. Three minutes, maybe less, and every villager here would be a corpse.]
[But you can't.]
[Jujutsu sorcerers are forbidden from harming non-sorcerers.]
[Iron law of the jujutsu world.]
[The moment you strike back, you become a Curse User. Every month of infiltration, every carefully laid plan, the full year spent cooling your heels and building a cover, all of it turns to ash.]
[After a bounty goes up, Gojo himself might come for your head.]
[For the bigger picture, you endure.]
[Arms wrapped around your skull, you let the blows rain down.]
[The card dulls the worst of it. The pain is manageable. But the humiliation burns deeper than any wound.]
[Why am I letting this trash beat me?]
[Why have power if rules chain it down?]
[Is this what it means to be weak?]
[Blood soaks through your white dress shirt. Your knees hit the dirt.]
[Then the noise stops.]
[All of it. At once.]
[A cold that grips the soul descends over the village like a guillotine blade. Every villager freezes mid-swing, clubs suspended in the air, faces twisting toward something behind you.]
[You drag your head up. Through blood-smeared glasses, you see him.]
[Geto stands motionless, bangs veiling his eyes. The air around him has turned solid. His shadow writhes and spreads across the ground, swelling, as though it's opened a door to somewhere far worse than here.]
[He takes in the scene.]
[Two girls with the gift of jujutsu, locked in a cage, treated like dogs.]
[And the Assistant Manager he brought along, a nobody at the bottom of the Jujutsu High hierarchy, beaten half to death by a mob of people without a drop of Cursed Energy between them. Beaten because he tried to protect those girls.]
[The strong protect the weak?]
[This is the righteousness I've been clinging to?]
[The wire inside Geto's mind, stretched taut since the start of summer, snaps.]
["Monkeys."]
[The word leaves his lips barely above a whisper. Hell follows.]
[A massive Cursed Spirit erupts from his shadow, scything through the crowd the way a blade passes through wheat. The villagers around you come apart in an instant.]
[The mob that swaggered with such vicious confidence seconds ago crumbles like wet paper.]
[This isn't a fight. It's a harvest.]
[You press a hand to your bleeding forehead, sway to your feet, and stare at the village that's become a slaughterhouse.]
[Part of you wanted to kill them too. But you never imagined Geto would go this far.]
[This isn't murder. This is a declaration of war against the entire jujutsu world.]
[Thirty seconds, and the village falls silent. Nothing left but the wet sounds of a Cursed Spirit feeding and the distant scream of cicadas.]
[Geto walks to the cage. Gentle hands tear the wooden bars apart. He kneels and extends an open palm to the two trembling girls.]
["Don't be afraid. No one will ever hurt you again."]
[Once the girls are settled, he turns slowly toward you, standing in a pool of someone else's blood.]
[Those narrow eyes hold nothing of their old warmth, nothing of the old confusion. What's replaced them is a clarity forged from seeing through to the other side of life and death, cold and sorrowful in equal measure.]
["You plan to betray Jujutsu High? Kill this many people, and the higher-ups won't let it slide."]
[A bitter smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.]
["Betray? No."]
["I've chosen the greater good. A paradise... where there are no monkeys. Only sorcerers."]
[His gaze refocuses on you. The look in his eyes is the way someone regards a tool that served well enough but has outlived its usefulness.]
["Touma. These past two years, you've worked hard."]
["You're a solid Assistant Manager. Putting up with Satoru's antics, stepping in front of those girls just now. Not many would."]
["But... I'm sorry."]
[He raises one hand. A spike-shaped Cursed Spirit materializes behind him, aimed squarely at your heart.]
["You're still a cog in a rotting machine. The rules you uphold are the very root of this hell."]
["For the new world, the dust of the old one has to be swept away."]