[In the space between life and death, Satoru Gojo's consciousness was falling through darkness.]
[In that final moment before dying, he'd thrown every shred of focus he had left into Reverse Cursed Technique.]
[For one fleeting instant, he'd grasped it. The sensation of multiplying negative Cursed Energy against negative Cursed Energy to produce something positive. A formula, a key.]
[But he was so tired. His oxygen-starved brain flickered in and out, and that formula hung before him like a lighthouse in fog, guttering, threatening to wink out for good.]
[Just as the last ember was about to drown in the dark, a wave of warm, fierce, impossibly pure positive energy crashed into him from outside.]
[Not just reviving his fading consciousness, but laying the answer bare before him, like someone had written the solution across the inside of his skull.]
[The Reverse Cursed Technique energy you'd forced into him threaded through his dying brain, tracing the exact path that power was meant to follow. A map drawn in light.]
[Ah... so that's how it works.]
[This is... Reverse Cursed Technique.]
[Just follow this feeling... negative times negative equals positive.]
[Back in the real world.]
[Your Cursed Energy was guttering out. The brute-force application of Reverse Cursed Technique had drained you nearly dry, and the vertigo hit so hard you could barely stay upright.]
[Gojo's face hadn't changed. Still blank. Still lifeless. Guilt and despair burned behind your eyes until they went red, and a bead of cold sweat traced down your temple, mingling with something warmer at the corner of your eye before it fell and struck his cheek.]
[Causing someone else's death through your own mistakes. That was so much worse than the last simulation, where it had only been your own negligence that killed you. This was the kind of failure you couldn't live with.]
["Damn it... please... don't die..."]
[You were ready for the worst. Ready to accept that this was how it ended.]
[A blood-soaked hand shot up without warning and locked around your wrist.]
[The grip was inhuman. Iron-vise pressure that threatened to grind your bones together.]
[Every muscle in your body seized. Your heart skipped.]
[Those closed eyes opened.]
[The clear pale blue that usually lived there was gone. What stared out now burned with something close to madness.]
[His pupils no longer reflected the narrow sky above Jujutsu High. They held something farther, something vast, something that had crossed the boundary between life and death and brought back a truth from the other side.]
[A god, freshly awakened.]
[Cursed Energy erupted from his body.]
[It repaired the fatal wound in his throat in an instant, and the sheer overflow slammed into your nearly depleted reserves, shoving your own spent energy back like a tide reversing course.]
[Gojo sat up. He didn't immediately chase after Toji Fushiguro. Didn't spare a glance at his shredded uniform.]
[He just raised one hand, dragged a thumb carelessly across his eyes to smear away the blood caked over them, then tilted his head and looked down at you. Kneeling in front of him. Nosebleed streaking your face. A wreck.]
[His lips peeled back, slow and wide, into that signature grin. But wilder this time. Unhinged at the edges.]
[He was riding the peak of an adrenaline high, his brain lit up like a circuit board running past redline.]
["Hey..."]
[Hoarse. But threaded through with a pleasure that raised the hair on the back of your neck.]
["Quit screaming. You're loud."]
[He studied your expression, the look on your face, and something flickered through his gaze. Brief and complicated. The kind of acknowledgment that only existed between people who'd dragged each other back from the brink.]
[He leaned in close, those Six Eyes filling your vision until they were nearly touching the lenses of your glasses. His voice dropped to something conspiratorial, teasing, barely above a whisper.]
["I'm not dead yet."]
["Also, Hayase... what's with that face? You look awful."]
[His grin widened, baring blood-stained teeth, reckless and blazing.]
["Don't tell me you were about to cry?"]
["..."]
[Silence first. Then you spoke.]
["Not a chance. Or are you saying the strongest needs that kind of thing?"]
["Come on, Hayase."]
[Gojo didn't press it. Still riding that manic high, he grabbed the back of your collar and hauled you off the ground like you weighed nothing. Like picking up a kitten by its scruff.]
["Since you're here anyway, stick around. Let me show you something."]
["That 'positive energy' you shoved into my head? I'll show you what it looks like when you actually run it through a Cursed Technique."]
[You didn't even have time to refuse before he dragged you forward at a speed that defied physics, hurtling toward the entrance to the Tombs of the Star.]
[And there, at the end of the corridor, Toji Fushiguro stood in a fitted bodysuit with a long blade slung over one shoulder, about to leave.]
[The Sorcerer Killer had just defeated Suguru Geto and slaughtered the Star Plasma Vessel. When he saw the blood-drenched white-haired boy still standing, still alive, genuine shock crossed his face for the first time.]
["Hah?"]
[Toji stopped. His brow furrowed, disbelief cutting through that perpetual calm.]
["...Gojo? You're alive?"]
[He was certain the throat slash had been clean. The strike through the skull, absolute. Nobody survived that.]
["Hey, long time no see."]
[Gojo didn't rush to attack. He greeted Toji with that manic grin still plastered across his face, casual as running into an old classmate on the street.]
["You serious?"]
["Thanks to you, actually. I feel incredible. Not only didn't I die, I've never felt better."]
[While he talked, he swept his hair back to reveal the scar still lingering on his forehead. Not fully healed. Pink and fresh.]
[Toji saw that tender new tissue and understood immediately.]
["Reverse Cursed Technique?!"]
[His gaze shifted past Gojo to you.]
["Tch. So that's it... the healer brat pulled something."]
[You stared at the blood on Toji's body. Still wet. Then at the weapon in his hand, conspicuously clean.]
[That direction. He'd come from the lower levels of the Tombs of the Star.]
[If he was already out, then Riko... and Geto...]
["Let go of me!"]
[You tore free from Gojo's hand and bolted toward the depths of the Tombs without thinking.]
[The sudden movement caught Toji's attention.]
["Tch. Annoying little healer."]
[He didn't know whether you could bring back the dead. But killer's instinct told him to eliminate the variable first.]
[If killing you once hadn't stuck, he'd cut you into pieces this time.]
[His silhouette vanished. When it reappeared, the Split Soul Katana, the blade stained with the blood of countless Jujutsu Sorcerers, was already arcing toward your throat.]
[Too fast. Even your dynamic vision, dulled as it was by exhaustion, couldn't fully track the movement.]