[You hadn't said "I want to kill you." You'd said "I will kill you."]
[It was lunacy without logic. With your current Cursed Energy reserves, facing Yuki Tsukumo was a pebble thrown at a mountain.]
[But the will behind those words cut through the pressure of a Special Grade.]
[Tsukumo blinked. Then, as though she'd stumbled upon something rare and precious, the smile on her lips spread wide, blooming into something almost absurdly radiant.]
["Wow, how scary~"]
[She patted her chest with theatrical flair, her voice carrying not a shred of fear. Only genuine admiration.]
["Baring your fangs at me? That's a good look in your eyes. Since you've already resolved yourself that far, I'll take back what I said. Turning the world into that kind of boring hell was never my intention anyway."]
[Silently, Tsukumo reassessed you.]
[She'd reviewed Jujutsu High's files beforehand. She'd assumed you were nothing more than a support talent with an unusual Cursed Technique.]
[The brass at the top had completely misread you.]
[Facing a Special Grade who wielded absolute violence, you hadn't groveled. Hadn't flinched. You'd drawn your blade over a clash of ideals. That temperament, that particular brand of arrogance that belonged to the strong...]
[A deep pang of regret flickered through her.]
[What a waste. What an absolute waste.]
[If this kid's Cursed Energy capacity were a little higher... no, even if it only reached the ceiling of a top-tier Grade 1 sorcerer.]
[With a Cursed Technique that could copy any flow of Cursed Energy, paired with the nerve to swing a sword at a god, becoming the fourth Special Grade wouldn't have been out of reach.]
[Compared to Geto, who had talent to burn but was drowning in doubt, the boy in front of her was weak yet already possessed the core of what it meant to be the strongest.]
["Well, I should get going."]
[Tsukumo reined in her presence, stood, and stretched with her whole body.]
["Bye-bye. Honestly, I was planning to say hello to Gojo too, but the timing didn't work out."]
["The three of us are all Special Grade. I hope we can get along going forward. And you too, of course, Hayase."]
[She walked to her motorcycle and pulled on her helmet, but before swinging a leg over, she paused as if something had crossed her mind. She turned back to face Geto and you.]
["Oh, right. One more thing."]
["About the Star Plasma Vessel. Riko Amanai."]
[At that name, something stirred in Geto's ash-dead eyes. Guilt, pain and a wretched, humble hope that maybe the sacrifice had meant something.]
["Don't worry too much about Master Tengen."]
[Tsukumo's voice came muffled through the helmet, threaded with resignation and irony.]
["Riko died. The merger failed."]
["But Tengen is stable. No signs of losing control or evolving into a hostile entity."]
[Geto went rigid. His voice came out dry as paper.]
["...Why?"]
[If the merger didn't happen, wasn't Tengen supposed to lose all reason?]
[Then what had their desperate fight that year been for? What had all that anguish meant?]
["Probably because they'd prepared other Star Plasma Vessels in advance."]
["Or maybe a new one was born at the exact moment Riko died."]
[Tsukumo shrugged, her tone weightless, as if mentioning something that barely mattered.]
["Point is, the world didn't stop turning because that girl died. The jujutsu world's barriers are still holding."]
["So don't beat yourself up too much, Geto. In terms of results, the mission wasn't a failure."]
[The motorcycle engine roared to life.]
[Tsukumo left behind a parting "Think hard about what your true feelings really are," then tore off down the road, leaving nothing but the fading smell of exhaust.]
[But those words landed heavier than her Cursed Energy ever had, and they broke the boy's spine.]
[The corridor held only the two of you now.]
["...Prepared in advance?"]
["Other... Star Plasma Vessels?"]
[Geto stood there, murmuring to himself. His voice was so fragile it could shatter at a touch.]
[You watched his back, and a helpless chill rose through your chest.]
[For Geto, Riko's death was a wound that would never close. But he might have been able to numb it with "it was for the greater good," "it was to protect the world."]
[Tsukumo's words had annihilated even that.]
[If there had been backup Star Plasma Vessels all along...]
[Then what had Riko Amanai been?]
[What had Misato Kuroi's near-fatal injuries been?]
[That year of their youth, that brutal battle, Gojo's brush with death, and the crushing guilt Geto had carried ever since...]
[Had all of it been pointless?]
[Had they been nothing more than replaceable parts in the eyes of those at the top?]
[You wanted to speak, but no sound came.]
[Because you knew. That was the truth. The jujutsu world was a cold, precise, and merciless machine.]
[Geto turned to face you. He wasn't crying. He wasn't screaming.]
[He wore that same gentle smile he always wore, warm on the surface, hollowed out to its absolute core.]
["Is that so... Tengen is fine, then."]
["That's... really great news."]
[Looking at that smile, ice crawled across every inch of your skin.]
[The Suguru Geto who'd always said "the strong must protect the weak" had shattered completely in that moment.]
---
[A few days later. The Jujutsu High infirmary.]
[The air reeked of blood, so thick it overpowered the usual scent of Shoko's cigarettes.]
[Kento Nanami lay on the bed, his face drained of color. His uniform was soaked through, stiff with dark red. And his right arm, the one that should have been gripping that bandage-wrapped cleaver, was severed clean at the elbow, the stump a mess of torn flesh.]
[Yu Haibara sat at the bedside, covered in blood, tears streaming without end, trembling like a puppy in shock.]
["Hold him down. I'm reconnecting the nerves."]
[Your voice was low and steady. Both hands hovered over the severed limb, which had been rushed back on ice. Intense Reverse Cursed Technique flowed from your palms as soft, blazing white light, forcing shattered bone, severed vessels, and torn muscle fibers to knit back together piece by piece.]
[Even through anesthesia, the agony of reattachment made Nanami clench his jaw until the veins in his temples bulged.]
[As the last strip of skin sealed shut, you peeled off your blood-soaked surgical gloves and let out a long, heavy breath.]
[It had cost him an arm, but with painstaking effort you'd restored it completely. No lasting damage.]
["I'm sorry... I'm so sorry! It's because I was too weak. Nanami only got hurt protecting me..."]
[Watching color return to Nanami's reattached arm, Haibara buried his face in his hands and sobbed.]
[The sunny boy who always shouted about giving everything his all had been ground to pieces by the jujutsu world's meat grinder called "reality" for the first time.]
["Shut up, Haibara. This isn't just your fault. It was a catastrophic failure of intelligence."]
[Nanami's voice was hoarse and faint, but it carried the same composure and precision that made him seem far older than his years.]
[He raised the freshly reconnected right hand, studied the new lines on his palm, then turned to look at you with an expression too complex to name.]
["Hayase-senpai... this time, I truly owe you."]
[You paused.]
[As Nanami recounted what had happened, you pieced together the full picture of how close the mission had come to ending in death.]
[Your near-harsh warning to Haibara in the corridor that day:]
["If you run into anything you can't handle, anything that feels even slightly off, you run. Immediately."]
[Haibara had taken it as nothing more than a senior looking out for him. But before the mission, he'd relayed it word-for-word to Nanami.]
[Coming from anyone else, Nanami might have let it go. But those words had come from you.]
[His mind had immediately flashed back to Okinawa, to the Star Plasma Vessel incident.]
[You'd found him then, claiming a premonition of extreme danger, and commandeered his cleaver on the spot.]
[What happened afterward was common knowledge at the school. Your group had run headlong into the Heavenly Restriction tyrant who'd nearly killed Satoru Gojo.]
[And you'd used that borrowed blade to pull off something impossible in a hopeless situation.]