[This time, the wound did not kill you.]
[Boundless darkness. Crushing pressure. Cold that bit through to the marrow. Your consciousness sank into a depthless ocean with no floor in sight.]
[Gravity meant nothing here. The silence was so absolute it swallowed even the sound of your own heartbeat.]
[Only at the farthest edge above, at the surface so distant it seemed unreachable, did a faint sliver of light bleed through. The exit that meant "life."]
[Instinct drove your limbs to move, stroking toward that glow. But in the dead stillness of the black water, something changed.]
[A blurred silhouette rose without a sound from the abyss beneath you. Then a hand, stiff and cold as iron, clamped around your ankle.]
[A massive downward force wrenched through your body, dragging you back toward the bottomless dark.]
[You looked down. Through the murk, a face glared up at you, contorted with agony and hatred. Sato. The man who should have been long dead.]
[At the same moment, a chill kissed your right palm. Asakirimaru, the short blade stained with more blood than you could ever count, had materialized in your grip without you knowing when.]
[The edge gleamed with a sinister, seductive light in the dark water, whispering frenzy into the folds of your mind.]
[Cut him. Swing the blade. Sever that hand, kill him, and the weight falls away. You won't be dragged under.]
[A temptation distilled to its purest form: trade killing for freedom.]
[But you only stared down at Sato's writhing face with cold, unblinking eyes. The hand around the hilt was steady as bedrock. The blade did not move.]
[You ignored the agony crushing your ankle, clenched your teeth, and clawed through the freezing water with both hands, hauling his dead weight behind you, still fighting upward toward the light.]
[The abyss, it seemed, did not take kindly to your stubbornness. The water began to churn.]
[In an ocean where sound should not exist, a voice rang against your eardrums with nauseating clarity.]
["Oh? My dog... and where exactly do you think you're running?"]
[Your gaze flicked downward. Below Sato, another figure had surfaced. Naoya Zenin, golden hair drifting in the current, draped in that expensive kimono, one hand gripping Sato's shoulder.]
[That face still wore the same expression it always had. The look of someone watching a roach crawl across the floor, amused and cruel in equal measure.]
[Humiliation churned through your memory like venom, but you didn't acknowledge him. You didn't spare him so much as a glance. You just swam harder.]
[It was only the beginning. The abyss erupted. Figures swarmed upward from the lightless depths like piranhas drawn to blood, layer upon layer of them latching onto your body, dragging at your limbs.]
[Hei elites. Kukuru Unit enforcers. Zenin household servants you'd crossed paths with only once, people who had watched your degradation with indifferent eyes and done nothing.]
[They had become curses made flesh, climbing over one another to weigh you down. Their hollow stares all carried the same expectation: that hatred would consume you, that you'd swing Asakirimaru into their ranks, that you'd become the same breed of monster they were, one who crushed the weak with brute force and called it strength.]
[Because the moment you swung that blade here, your soul would plunge into their hell for good.]
[Your ascent ground to a halt. The weight was beyond imagining, enough to feel like your soul was tearing apart at the seams.]
[Still, you white-knuckled the hilt and refused to cut. Your face tilted upward toward that distant light, jaw set so hard it could have cracked stone. A string of bubbles escaped your lips alongside a murmur.]
["No..."]
["You're not the ones I'm here to kill. Debris caught in the gears of this world... you don't even rate high enough to die on my blade."]
[The abyss howled back. The numbers kept climbing.]
[Curse Users you'd defeated. Remnants of the "Q" organization. They coiled around you like rot eating into bone.]
[Then, from the very bottom, a pressure surged upward that froze the blood in your veins. Pure, tyrannical violence given human shape. Toji Fushiguro.]
[The towering phantom launched upward, moving so fast the water couldn't slow him.]
[Squelch.]
[Just like that hopeless moment during the Star Plasma Vessel mission, the katana in one hand and the Inverted Spear of Heaven in the other punched clean through your throat and skull simultaneously.]
[Phantom pain detonated through every nerve, enough to shatter a mind. Your eyes didn't waver. You didn't even reach for the blade lodged in your throat.]
[With a coldness that bordered on inhuman, you looked past the sea of twisted faces, down at Toji's specter, and forced words through the steel impaling your windpipe. A sentence stripped of all warmth. A verdict.]
["You... don't rate either."]
[You would destroy the rotting root of this entire world. Your blade was never meant for petty grudges or venting rage.]
[Because if it were, there'd be no difference between you and these wretches sinking willingly into the dark.]
[You refused that outcome. Your anger was not something so cheap.]
[The abyss fell silent.]
[As though it had finally understood that fear and hatred rising from below could never shatter your will, the churning water went eerily still.]
[This time, the change didn't come from below.]
[It came from the light itself. From that glow you'd been staring at, swimming toward, fighting for with everything you had. A figure descended slowly through it.]
[A silhouette you knew too well. Suguru Geto.]
[But he wasn't struggling the way you were. His eyes were closed. His face carried a serenity that was heartbreaking in its completeness, the peace of someone who had surrendered all resistance and let gravity take what it wanted. His heavy body drifted downward, slow and irreversible, into the endless deep.]
[When he passed you, close enough to touch, time seemed to stop.]
[Looking at him now, watching Geto sink, was like staring into a mirror labeled "fate."]
[You saw it clearly. The version of yourself that might have been, if the weight of righteousness had crushed you flat and despair had swallowed what was left. The you that walked to the other extreme.]
[No hesitation. You released Asakirimaru. The blade that symbolized killing tumbled away into the dark, and your empty hand shot out and locked around Geto's wrist.]
[The instant you grabbed him, an impossible weight slammed through his arm and into your body.]
[It wasn't just him. Horror clawed up your spine as you saw what hung below. From the deepest reaches of the abyss, hundreds of hands reached upward, caked in mud and blood.]
[The 112 villagers he had slaughtered. Their hatred had curdled into something toxic and tangible, and they clung to his legs, his waist, wailing and cursing, dragging the fallen god who had stolen their lives down into hell with them.]
[This was the sin he had chosen to carry. And this was a weight you were never meant to lift alone.]
[Your finger bones screamed. You burned everything you had, down to the soul, and still couldn't stop his descent. Worse, his weight was pulling you away from the light, dragging you down inch by inch.]
[Then Geto opened his eyes.]
[He looked at your face, twisted to its breaking point with effort and grief, and through the freezing water you heard his murmur. Threaded with a sadness so deep it had no bottom.]
["I'm the one who chose to fall... so why do you look so heartbroken, Hayase?"]
[That was the straw that broke you. You had reached your limit. Under your desperate gaze, your clasped hands slipped apart, finger by finger, fraction by fraction.]
[All you could do was watch as his face, wearing that desolate trace of a smile, sank beneath the tide of black, grasping hands.]
[And was swallowed whole by the abyss.]
[An eternity passed. Or perhaps no time at all. The crushing cold of the deep sea began, at last, to recede.]
[The sharp, acrid bite of antiseptic flooded your nostrils. Beyond your heavy eyelids, pale light bled in. Real light. The light of the waking world.]
[And from the corridor outside, voices raised in tense, fractured argument pulled your hearing back from the void, one thread at a time.]
["...What?"]
[That was Gojo's voice. Gone was the effortless swagger, the lazy drawl that made everything sound like a joke. What remained was something rare enough to be almost comical: blank, uncomprehending shock.]
[Across from him, Masamichi Yaga looked like he'd aged a decade in a single night. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and the sigh that left him could have bent steel.]
["How many times do you need me to say it, Satoru? Suguru critically wounded Touma, massacred all one hundred and twelve residents of the old village, and has since gone missing."]
[Behind those dark lenses, the blue of Gojo's eyes contracted to pinpoints. He stared, wide-eyed, and his voice cracked upward.]
["I heard you the first time! That's why I'm asking what the hell you're talking about!"]
[He raked both hands through his white hair, pacing like a caged animal confronted with a punchline that made no sense.]
[Yaga's throat worked as he swallowed. He looked away, and when he continued, his calm was the kind that cut deeper than shouting.]
["There's more. Suguru's home... it was empty. Completely cleaned out."]
["The higher-ups sent a team. Based on bloodstain distribution and Residual Cursed Energy analysis at the scene... the assessment is that he killed his own parents."]
[The words hit Gojo like a wrecking ball to the chest.]
[The strongest sorcerer alive, the man who stood at the summit of the jujutsu world, stood frozen in that hallway like a lost child. His lips trembled. The words came out broken, barely formed.]
["That's... not possible..."]
["You think I don't want answers?!"]
[Yaga pressed both hands against his skull, exhaustion and despair leaking through the gaps between his fingers.]
["I don't... I can't make sense of it either. What happened to him, what the hell was going through that bastard's head..."]
[A faint rustle of fabric from the hospital bed. Your lashes fluttered. Slowly, your eyes opened, and your gaze drifted toward the two figures arguing by the door.]
[Both men went silent the instant they heard the movement. They were at your bedside in a heartbeat.]
["Hayase! You're awake? How do you feel?!"]
[Yaga leaned over you, searching your face, white as paper.]
[Gojo didn't bother with pleasantries. He grabbed your shoulders and hauled you halfway upright.]
[His gaze dropped to your abdomen, wrapped in thick layers of gauze still spotted with old blood, and something dangerous ignited behind those blue eyes. Fury held on a short leash. Desperation clawing beneath it.]
["What the hell happened out there?! Who did this to you? Was it really that bastard Suguru?!"]
[You didn't look up. You couldn't meet those urgent eyes. Your head stayed bowed, gaze falling to the wreckage of your own body, a body that had given everything and still hadn't been enough to change a single thing. In the ocean of your mind, the image of Geto sinking into darkness lanced through you again.]
[Your cracked lips parted. The voice that came out was sandpaper on stone, barely above a whisper.]
["I'm sorry... it's all because of me..."]
[The instant the words left your mouth, Gojo saw it. That expression on your face. He'd seen it before, and it made something in his chest ignite.]
[The same suffocating guilt and self-destruction you'd worn during the Star Plasma Vessel incident, drenched in blood, pouring every last drop of the Reverse Cursed Technique into keeping him alive while your own body fell apart.]
[A formless rage snapped the last tether on Gojo's composure. He had no way of knowing what had gone through Geto's deranged mind during the massacre. But he knew, with absolute certainty, what kind of person was lying in front of him right now.]
[Someone who would let their own body be torn to shreds before they stopped reaching into hell to pull others out. And that person had no business carrying this guilt.]
["What the hell are you apologizing for?!"]
[He couldn't take it anymore. Both hands seized your shoulders hard enough to grind bone, and the words tore out of him in something close to a roar.]
["That bastard nearly killed you! You almost died! So why are you the one lying here saying sorry?! What do you owe him?!"]
["Satoru! What do you think you're doing?!"]
[Yaga went pale, lunging forward. He hooked an arm around Gojo's neck from behind and hauled him backward, bellowing.]
["He's in critical condition! Calm the hell down and let him finish!"]
[Gojo thrashed against the chokehold, still seething. You hadn't moved. Your head stayed low, eyes hollow, and in that same empty murmur, you completed the sentence he'd cut off.]
["I'm sorry... it's all because of me... that I couldn't stop Suguru."]
[The full sentence landed, and Gojo went still mid-struggle.]
["Yaga! Are you hearing the nonsense coming out of this kid's mouth?!"]
["Tell me, since when has a Special Grade Sorcerer gone on a rampage and been easily stopped by a measly Grade 2?! Does this kid think he's the goddamn messiah?! Do you want to hear how delusional Hayase sounds right now?!"]
["..."]
[Yaga said nothing.]
[The words were sharp. Cruel, even. But he understood exactly what Gojo was doing. Using the most brutal honesty available to hammer a single fact into your skull: this was not your fault. You had already done more than enough.]
[A Grade 2 sorcerer, one whose Grade 1 evaluation hadn't even been finalized, had survived a berserk Special Grade's onslaught and still tried to stop him. That alone was a miracle.]
[Yaga released his arm from Gojo's neck. Then, in the split second Gojo's guard dropped...]
[WHAM.]
[Yaga's fist, roughly the size of a cast-iron skillet, crashed down on the top of Gojo's head with the full weight of years of experience behind it.]
["Ow! What was that for?! I was stating facts!"]
[Gojo clutched his skull, indignant.]
[Yaga's face was dark as a thundercloud. He ground out each word through clenched teeth.]
["Facts or not, you don't scream them at a man who's barely alive! Show some respect for the patient, you idiot!"]
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