[The return flight's airport buzzed with the shuffle of passengers through security.]
[Geto watched you lift a long, cloth-wrapped object off the conveyor belt and raised an eyebrow.]
["Is that... Nanami's blunt cursed-tool cleaver? When did you borrow it?"]
[You slung the talisman-wrapped blade across your back, your tone as casual as a weather report.]
["Preparing for the worst case. The bounty countdown's almost up. Having an extra card to play never hurts."]
[Geto hesitated, swallowing whatever he'd been about to say. He didn't voice it, but you read the question in his eyes: Aren't you wound a little too tight?]
[Only you knew the truth. Even this felt insufficient against the man named Toji Fushiguro.]
[Still, the primary combatants would be Gojo and Geto, not you. Your role was to create every possible advantage for them.]
[Thanks to your advice, Gojo had rested. Not enough to reach peak condition, but far better than where he'd been at this same point in the last simulation.]
[Before reaching Jujutsu High, you excused yourself to the restroom and completed your final tactical preparations.]
[Linked False Bodies could generate up to five physical clones. Pain wasn't shared between the original and its copies, but vision was. As long as a clone survived, the original could swap positions with any of them instantaneously.]
[The drawbacks were severe. Each clone crumbled under minimal damage. Creating them split your Cursed Energy evenly, and the more you made, the weaker each one became.]
[You divided your remaining Cursed Energy in half. The real you slipped into the mountain forest to hide, while a clone carrying fifty percent of your power strapped Nanami's blade to its back and strolled to the rear of the group, fully visible.]
["Hey, Hayase."]
[Nothing escaped the Six Eyes. Gojo picked up the shift in your Cursed Energy immediately, frowning with mild confusion.]
["You copied that paper-bag Curse User's technique too? What are you doing? Scouting?"]
[No point hiding it now. You came clean.]
["If the enemy makes a move, they'll prioritize taking out the healer first, or the support who's annoying but low on combat power."]
[Gojo went quiet for two full seconds. Then his expression twisted into something caught between bewilderment and disgust, like he'd spotted an animal doing something deeply unnatural.]
["Hayase, do you have some kind of persecution complex?"]
[He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the rows of torii gates and barriers lining the mountain path behind them.]
["That's Jujutsu High's barrier right ahead. What kind of lunatic would try something here?"]
[You pushed your glasses up and said nothing.]
[Because you knew exactly what kind of lunatic. And he wasn't outside the barrier. He was already waiting on the other side.]
[Minutes later, the group crossed into Tengen's barrier surrounding Jujutsu High.]
[The Cursed Energy in the air shifted, becoming familiar and steady. Tengen's domain.]
[Geto felt the barrier's resonance wash over him, and three days of coiled tension finally eased a fraction.]
[He turned to Kuroi and Riko, and offered that trademark smile of his, warm and reassuring.]
["We're inside Jujutsu High's barrier now. From here, we're safe."]
["Really?"]
[The dullness in Riko's eyes vanished. She lit up, cheering aloud.]
["Finally! No more looking over my shoulder!"]
[But in the corner of his vision, Geto noticed you hadn't changed at all. No relief. No softening.]
[If anything, you'd done the opposite. The borrowed cleaver was off your back and in your hands, both fists locked around the grip.]
[You looked like someone about to kill.]
["Hayase, what are you... We're at Jujutsu High now. You don't need to..."]
[He never finished.]
["Wukong! Block!"]
[The Cursed Corpse perched on your shoulder launched from standby, staff whipping forward to intercept the shadow that materialized from nowhere.]
[It wasn't enough. Wukong, running on preset mechanical commands without direct Cursed Energy input, was sluggish at the best of times. Against Toji Fushiguro, that delay was a death sentence.]
[Mechanical instructions were too slow for this man.]
["Too slow."]
[A languid, gravelly voice.]
[Wukong's body hadn't even finished extending before it was dismantled mid-air, joints and limbs scattering across the ground like discarded parts.]
[Then a cold katana punched through your chest.]
[The blade entered from the front, shredded through your heart with surgical precision, and exited your back trailing a fine mist of red.]
[You'd seen this before. But this time, the agony from the last simulation never came.]
[The expected annihilating pain didn't drown your consciousness. Instead, Masochist activated.]
[The sensation of a pierced heart, that terminal plunge toward death, was violently rerouted through your neural pathways and converted into a flood of pure dopamine.]
["Ngh... ha...!"]
[The ecstasy of hurtling toward death nearly broke your mind.]
[Your pupils blew wide. Your lips pulled back, beyond your control, into a grin.]
[That reaction froze even Toji Fushiguro in his tracks.]
[The Sorcerer Killer had ended more lives than he cared to count. He'd seen them scream, beg, crumble into despair.]
[He had never seen someone take a blade through the heart and smile like they'd found paradise.]
["Hah? This kid... that's disgusting."]
[That single beat of hesitation was the only opening you'd ever get.]
["Hit... him!"]
[Fueled by the adrenaline that Masochist wrung from the wound, moving through a world that had slowed to a crawl, you swung the fastest strike of your life.]
[Gojo turning. Geto's horror. Riko's scream. Every sound stretched into something warped and infinite.]
[Your eyes locked on one thing only. The man's neck.]
[The blunt blade came down. Black Cursed Energy crackled along the steel, condensing into something that looked like visible lightning.]
[Seven to three. The critical point.]
["Oh?"]
[Toji's reaction defied reason. Even caught off guard, even facing your all-out strike, he raised his left hand.]
[In his world, which ran at a speed beyond yours, that hand moved faster than your blade.]
[Metal collided with flesh. The sheer difference in raw power ripped the cleaver from your grip and sent it spinning. Your palms split open.]
[But not for nothing. A gash opened along the man's left forearm, deep enough to show bone. Blood traced the ridges of hard muscle and dripped to the ground.]
[For a clone carrying half its original's Cursed Energy, drawing blood from the Sorcerer Killer at full strength was nothing short of a miracle.]
["HAYASE!"]
[Geto snapped out of it a beat later. The sight of the blade jutting through your chest wrenched his face into something feral. He screamed and launched his rainbow dragon forward.]
["Forget me! Go!"]
[You roared with every scrap of strength left in you.]
[The next instant, having absorbed damage past its threshold, your body didn't fall. It burst. Like a soap bubble popping, it dissolved into scattering motes of Cursed Energy light and vanished.]
[Only the blood-slicked katana remained, clattering to the ground alone.]
[Geto had never encountered the paper-bag Curse User, so he'd never seen Linked False Bodies. For a moment, he stared blankly at the empty air where you'd been.]
["The hell?"]
[Toji flicked the blood from his hand and eyed the spot where the corpse should have been, his frown deepening.]
["A clone? Tch. Played me."]
[Every scrap of intelligence he'd received about you had emphasized your Reverse Cursed Technique, the ability to heal others. Not a single word about clone-based survival skills.]
["Spread out!"]
[Gojo reacted fastest. The instant you dissolved, he understood your play.]
[Shock at how you'd managed to wound Toji in that situation could wait. He wasn't about to waste the second you'd bought with your body.]
["Have we met somewhere before?"]
["Don't worry about it. I'm not great with men's names either."]
---
[When your consciousness transferred to the real body, hidden kilometers from the battlefield, the pain didn't follow. Linked False Bodies severed the sensory link at death, so the twisted euphoria Masochist had triggered stayed behind in the destroyed clone.]
[But half your Cursed Energy was gone for good. Tangible weakness settled into your limbs like wet sand.]
[By any reasonable measure, the plan had worked. Compared to the instant death of the last simulation, you'd made a real difference this time.]
[Then you saw them. Flocks of birds erupting from the distant treeline in panicked clouds.]
[Even from here, the scale of whatever was happening over there was visible to the naked eye.]
[Unease crept in. You'd wounded Toji. With Gojo and Geto fighting together, with Gojo better rested than last time... it should have been enough. Why did it look like the world was ending over there?]
[Dread coiled in your gut. You broke into a run toward the battlefield.]
[The closer you got, the more you felt it. Gojo's Cursed Energy, blazing wild and reckless.]
[You had never felt him burn like this. Every other time, the Six Eyes had ensured perfect efficiency, each drop of Cursed Energy leveraged to its absolute maximum. Not a fraction wasted.]
[This wasn't efficiency. This was a dam breaking. A final, desperate eruption.]
[The moment you reached the edge of Jujutsu High's barrier, that raging Cursed Energy... vanished.]
[Not fading. Not winding down. Snuffed out, like a candle pinched between two fingers, leaving nothing behind.]
[The world fell silent as a grave.]
["No..."]
[Your heart clenched so hard it hurt. Black dread crashed over you like a tidal wave.]
[You ignored the weakness dragging at your body, stumbled around the corner, and looked.]
[Rubble, shattered flagstone and a figure lying in a spreading pool of red.]
[The boy who always held his chin high, who looked at the entire world like it was beneath his notice, lay still in a lake of his own blood.]
[His throat had been opened clean through. Blood still pulsed from the wound in weakening spurts, soaking into that blinding white hair.]
[Worse was the forehead. Something sharp had punched straight through it.]
[His sunglasses lay shattered nearby, the broken lenses reflecting a sky gone pale and empty.]
["Damn it! This wasn't supposed to happen...!"]
[You sprinted forward and dropped to your knees in the blood. Your hands shook as you pressed two fingers to his carotid.]
[No pulse.]
[No breath.]
[Even the oppressive weight of his Cursed Energy, the constant pressure that followed him everywhere, had receded like a tide that would never return. Nothing left but cold silence.]
[Satoru Gojo was dead.]
[Your mind went blank. A thousand thoughts tore through your skull at once.]
[Why? In the last simulation's data, he'd nearly died but pulled through. He survived. He was supposed to survive.]
[Was it because of me?]
[Because I told him to drop Limitless and rest these past few days, and it cost him the reaction speed he needed at the critical moment?]
[Because my clever little decoy stunt with the clone threw off his judgment instead of helping?]
[Did I... kill him?]
[Once that thought took root, it coiled around your heart like a viper and wouldn't let go.]
["Don't you dare! You're supposed to be the strongest! Wake up!"]
[A raw, furious snarl ripped from your throat. You didn't care whether Toji Fushiguro was still nearby. Both hands slammed down onto Gojo's ruined neck and the hole in his forehead, and you poured everything into Reverse Cursed Technique.]
[Atonement. That was the only word for it. Clawing at a mistake you couldn't take back.]
["Even if it's a last flicker... move! Give me something!"]