[The third day. You'd made it back to the foot of Mount Mushiro, just outside Tokyo Jujutsu High.]
[Before you stretched an endless corridor of vermillion torii gates, receding into the dark heart of the mountain forest.]
[Three in the afternoon. Four hours remained until the bounty on Riko Amanai expired.]
[Geto felt the familiar pulse of the barrier wash over him, and three days' worth of tension finally loosened by a fraction. He turned to Kuroi and Riko with that trademark gentle smile.]
["We're inside the barrier now. Once you're here, you're safe."]
["Really?"]
[The dullness in Riko's eyes vanished in an instant. She broke into a grin.]
["Thank god! No more looking over my shoulder!"]
[Behind her, Kuroi couldn't smile.]
[She lowered her head. Her fingers clenched the hem of her skirt until her knuckles ached.]
[Because she understood what "safe" meant. Safe meant the end of Riko's time as a human being.]
["Good work, Satoru." Geto clapped his partner on the shoulder.]
[Gojo was shambling forward with all the grace of a marionette with its strings cut, shoulders slumped, sunglasses sliding halfway down his nose. Three consecutive days of maintaining Limitless on full automatic without a single hour of sleep had ground even him down to the bone.]
["Tch. Next time someone asks me to babysit some brat, I'm telling them to shove it." He reached up and kneaded his throbbing temples. "When we get back, I'm sleeping for three days straight. And someone better have Kikufuku waiting for me."]
[A lazy, end-of-mission atmosphere settled over the group.]
[All except you.]
[You trailed at the rear of the formation, and every muscle in your body was wound tight as a bowstring. Because you knew. The man named Toji Fushiguro, the only person alive who could kill Satoru Gojo at this point in time, the Sorcerer Killer, had yet to show his face.]
[The most dangerous moment was always the last step before the threshold.]
[You drew a slow breath, stopped walking, and swept the dead-silent treeline with sharp eyes.]
["We can't let our guard down. Until the assimilation is complete, this isn't over..."]
["Huh?"]
[Gojo turned around, his expression somewhere between disbelief and pity.]
["Touma, are you stupid? We're inside the barrier. This is Jujutsu High's... Touma!?"]
[The words died in his throat. Those pale blue eyes contracted to pinpoints.]
[Not because he saw an enemy.]
[Because he saw the look on your face.]
["Touma!?"]
[Geto's voice hit your ears, sharp with alarm, but it sounded like it was filtering through deep water.]
[Your vision blurred. You tried to speak, and hot liquid flooded your throat, thick with the taste of rust.]
["Ghk... hhg..."]
[Pain. Immediate, absolute, incomprehensible. It swallowed your mind whole.]
[The sensation of a heart being destroyed.]
[You looked down at your own chest. An ancient-looking blade, radiating something deeply wrong, had entered through your back, shredded your heart with surgical precision, and punched through the front of your ribcage.]
[No Cursed Energy fluctuation.]
[No killing intent.]
[Not even a whisper of displaced air.]
[The man had materialized behind you like a ghost, like a transparent thing that had never belonged to the world in the first place.]
["Prioritize the one with Reverse Cursed Technique... the annoying healer type..."]
[A low voice, flat and bored.]
[You couldn't think. Couldn't react. Couldn't so much as draw on your Cursed Energy.]
[Gojo's and Geto's faces, twisted with rage, froze in your darkening field of vision.]
["You're...!?"]
[Consciousness collapsed. In the final instant before death, you never even saw his face. Whatever happened next was beyond your knowing.]
[You died.]
[This simulation has ended.]
[Cause of death: Heart pierced.]
[Killed by: Toji Fushiguro.]
[Evaluation: You experienced the Star Plasma Vessel incident firsthand, yet failed to alter the final outcome. You remain ignorant of the core truth, but this death has shown you what real hunting looks like.]
[Calculating rewards...]
[Congratulations. You have inherited the following:
1. Over one year of memories as a student at Tokyo Jujutsu High.
2. Experience in Cursed Energy manipulation, Cursed Corpse crafting, Cursed Technique deployment, and barrier arts.
3. Cursed Energy increased. Your base Cursed Energy now scales with simulation count. Current Cursed Energy: 20 (5 x 4).
4. Card acquired: Tryhard [R].]
[Rewards distributed.]
---
"Hah... hah...!!"
Touma sat with his back against the wall, both hands pressed hard against his chest, dragging in ragged lungfuls of air. Cold sweat soaked through his shirt in seconds.
No wound. But the phantom agony of a frozen blade grinding through his heart was vivid enough to drive a person mad. That helpless, draining sensation of life being ripped from the body left his fingers trembling violently.
"Too careless... I was so goddamn stupid..."
He bit down and forced his racing pulse to slow.
The mistake was fatal, and it was simple. He'd treated himself like a spectator holding a script. Follow the plot. Watch for the moment Gojo gets ambushed. Stay on track.
He'd forgotten that his very presence had already set the butterfly effect in motion.
For a killer of Toji Fushiguro's caliber, intelligence was everything.
If the original script called for a head-on assault against Gojo, then introducing a suspected healer with Reverse Cursed Technique rewrote the playbook entirely. Kill the healer first. Then kill the damage dealer.
Put yourself in Toji's shoes.
Your target is the Star Plasma Vessel, guarded by Satoru Gojo.
Beyond neutralizing Gojo himself, you'd scrutinize everyone around him.
And someone who could drag a half-dead Gojo back from the brink at the critical moment? That person wasn't just a variable. That person was the worst kind of threat, more dangerous to the plan than Gojo himself.
"If I don't die, Gojo might not lose... so he had to kill me first."
A chill crawled down his spine. The realization also cast new light on Gojo's earlier suggestion, the scrapped plan to have Shoko disguise herself as Riko.
"If they'd gone through with that... that man would've taken Shoko's head without a second thought."
More than the surge of Cursed Energy flooding through him, what held Touma's attention was the system's parting evaluation. One line in particular.
[You remain ignorant of the truth.]
The Star Plasma Vessel incident ended with Riko dead and Tengen's evolution failing.
But that line implied something deeper lurking beneath the surface.
Was it about Tengen's true nature? Or some larger game being played behind the assassination mission itself?
The death had been brutal. But the harvest was enormous.
At minimum, he now understood exactly how small he was in front of Toji Fushiguro.
"Next time..." Something cold and sharp flickered behind his eyes. "Next time, you won't get me that easily."