[You don't beg. You don't run.]
[The gap between you is too vast for escape to mean anything.]
[You look at Geto and let out a small laugh.]
["Is that so... Then I wish you the best with your grand vision."]
[That easy acceptance catches him off guard. A flicker of surprise crosses those cold eyes, but it changes nothing. The sentence has already been passed.]
[The spike-shaped Cursed Spirit punches through your chest and shreds your heart to pulp.]
[Pain lasts one white-hot instant. Then endless cold. Endless dark.]
[Your body tips backward. In the last fragment of consciousness before everything goes, you see him.]
[Geto walks toward the setting sun, a girl tucked under each arm, treading across a carpet of the dead without a single backward glance.]
[That silhouette is lonely, absolute, and radiating a power that steals the air from the world.]
[You die.]
[Death condition detected.]
[Card "Parting Gift" [SR] activated.]
[Simulation ended.]
[Cause of death: Purged by Special Grade Curse User Suguru Geto.]
[Evaluation: As a bystander, you witnessed the birth of the most wicked Curse User in jujutsu history. You struggled to survive in the narrow space between power and protocol, and in the end, ideology crushed you. Your death was insignificant. But what you gained... is enough to change fate.]
[Calculating rewards...]
[Congratulations. You have inherited the following:]
[1. Memories from your tenure as an Assistant Manager at Tokyo Jujutsu High.]
[2. Minor Cursed Energy manipulation experience and minor barrier technique experience. Though combat was never part of your duties as an Assistant Manager, you never stopped training yourself.]
[3. Parting Gift unlock reward: Innate Technique, "Phantom Night Parade."]
[4. Cursed Energy increased. Your base Cursed Energy now scales with simulation count. Current Cursed Energy: 15 (5 x 3).]
[Rewards distributed!]
"Hhhh..."
Touma sucked in a ragged breath, hand clutching his chest on reflex. His heart hammered against his ribs as though the phantom of a spike still lingered inside him.
Then a fullness he'd never felt before flooded through his body.
Five points of Cursed Energy had placed him below average even among ordinary people. After the last simulation's payout bumped him to ten, he'd clawed his way to normal. Now, at fifteen, he'd crossed into genuinely respectable territory.
But the Cursed Energy boost wasn't what stopped him cold. Parting Gift had unlocked an Innate Technique. An actual Innate Technique.
That made him, officially, a jujutsu sorcerer.
A sorcerer who awakened his technique at fifteen. Not unheard of, but rare enough to count on one hand.
Unlike most who stumbled through weeks or months of trial and error to understand their gift, Touma could read it straight off the system panel.
[Phantom Night Parade: By reading and recreating the memories imprinted in Cursed Energy, this technique reproduces and deploys "phantom" versions of other Cursed Techniques.]
Reading memories in Cursed Energy...?
Reproducing and deploying... does that mean copying?
The description alone wasn't enough to pin down the specifics. As if sensing his confusion, the system text rippled and expanded into a detailed breakdown.
[Phantom Night Parade:]
[1. By reading a target's Cursed Energy, you can extract intelligence on their Cursed Technique. This applies to Cursed Spirits and jujutsu sorcerers alike, and can also be performed on the deceased.]
[2. Minimum reproduction condition: sufficient understanding of the target technique, including its principles and name. Knowledge of incantations and hand seals will affect reproduction quality. Information does not need to come from analysis alone; your own memories are equally valid.]
[3. Reproduced techniques function as standard casts of the corresponding technique. Effectiveness scales with your proficiency in the specific technique being reproduced, not with your mastery of Phantom Night Parade itself.]
[4. Note: Techniques requiring special physiology (e.g., Six Eyes) or unique conditions will be extremely difficult or impossible to fully replicate.]
Now the picture was clear, and it fit the Simulator like a glove.
The training workload had multiplied. Every technique he wanted to copy meant grinding proficiency from scratch. But with the Simulator feeding him lifetimes of practice, none of that was a real obstacle.
"Suguru Geto..." The name rolled through his mind, and he filed it under debts owed.
The fury wasn't the same as the first simulation, though, when Naoya Zenin killed him. Geto hadn't targeted him personally. The man had declared war on an entire system, and Touma happened to be wearing its uniform.
Touma agreed the world was twisted. He and Geto were looking at the same rot from different angles, and that difference in perspective pushed him to dig deeper into the question: where exactly does the problem begin?
But none of that philosophizing changed the practical truth. With a technique in hand, the next time he faced a situation like that, the outcome would be nothing alike.
Shinjiro's fingers clamped around his arm, the big man shaking so hard his teeth rattled. "Wh... why are you standing there spacing out?! We need to go! Mr. Sato's dead... that thing's coming up any second!"
But Touma had changed his mind.
He wasn't going to join Tokyo Jujutsu High as an Assistant Manager this time. He was going in as a sorcerer.
In a world where strength was the only currency that mattered, the blade in your hand was the only truth worth holding.
He peeled Shinjiro's fingers away, drew Asakirimaru from its sheath, and began walking toward the room that housed the Cursed Spirit. In the now-empty card slot left behind by Parting Gift, he equipped Thin Presence.
Shinjiro had no idea where the short sword came from. What shook him worse was watching Touma walk toward that door. Cold sweat poured down his face like rain. He was fighting to keep his voice low, but panic bled through every syllable. If his friend weren't still standing here, he'd have bolted long ago.
"Have you lost your mind?! What are you doing...?"
Touma didn't look back. His grip tightened on the hilt, each step carrying him closer to the iron door that opened onto hell.
Under Thin Presence's effect, his outline began to blur, dissolving into the darkness like ink dropped into black water.
"Get somewhere safe, Shinjiro." His voice was quiet, edged with a calm that left no room for argument. "Since the Windows crew hasn't shown up yet, I might as well... polish up the résumé a little."
"I'm going to kill that Cursed Spirit."