[You hadn't stayed to watch the rest, but the result played out exactly like you'd expected. Yuta Okkotsu took Gojo's offer, that lifeline disguised as salvation. Not long after, he put aside the idea of killing himself and stepped through the gates of Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High.]
[For him, it was a turning point. To you, it was more like letting a warhead with a bad fuse into the building.]
[You kept your word. Once you'd made your position clear in that conversation, you stuck to it. From the day Yuta enrolled, you refused to take any part in his training or supervision. No lectures, no guidance, no exceptions. It was a quiet line in the sand, and the last one you were willing to draw as a member of the faculty.]
[The usual loose, half-ironic mood at Jujutsu High got heavier after that.]
[Everyone noticed. Hayase-sensei's coldness toward the "Special Grade transfer student" didn't look personal. That was what made it worse. It was clean, principled rejection, the kind that left no room for appeal, and nobody was stupid enough to pry.]
[So the school settled into a silent understanding. If you showed up at one end of a corridor, Gojo would read the air instantly and take his student somewhere else.]
[Yuta understood that better than anyone. He never showed resentment. If anything, he acted like someone carrying a sentence on his back, your warning from that day in the confinement cell carved straight into him. Whenever you crossed paths on campus, he'd stop at once, bow stiffly, and call you Hayase-sensei in a voice so careful it almost hurt to listen to.]
[You would pause. Light would glance off your lenses in one cold flash, and then you'd give him nothing but a small, flat nod. That kind of politeness, stripped of any warmth, cut deeper than a scolding ever could.]
[The first real turning point came on his first field mission after enrolling. Gojo, in his usual way, bulldozed protocol and shoved Yuta into a team with first-year Maki, sending them to exorcise a curse at an abandoned elementary school.]
[After the mission, you were the first one to see Maki in the infirmary. She looked exhausted, but there was something else in her eyes too. Something sharp. Something she hadn't had before.]
["Sensei, that guy... he's not like us."]
[Sitting on the cot, Maki told you what happened. She walked through the fight from start to finish, but the moment she got to the part where the tide turned, where the Special Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit Rika manifested and erased the curse in a single blow, you cut in. Your face had already gone hard.]
["You're saying Rika didn't go berserk because his life was in danger. She... answered Yuta Okkotsu's will?"]
[Your voice had gone low enough to make the air feel dangerous.]
[Maki blinked, then nodded.]
["Yeah. I saw it. He talked to Rika first. He called her out on purpose."]
[She kept talking after that, sounding half impressed by how Yuta had found the resolve to save the missing children in the middle of a crisis, but you barely heard any of it. By then, the rest had turned into static. Only two words stayed behind, hitting the inside of your skull again and again.]
[Deliberate summoning.]
[Your expression darkened all at once.]
["So it can be controlled after all."]
[Your head dipped. The words came out barely above a murmur, but the disgust in them was enough to make skin crawl.]
["A curse born from love, turned into a tool for killing. That's disgusting."]
[The revulsion was real. Not because of the curse itself, but because of the ugliness underneath it. Someone holding the launch codes to a disaster and still pretending to be the victim.]
["Sensei... what did you say? What's disgusting?"]
[Maki stared at you, caught off guard. She had never seen that look on your face before, that naked contempt with nothing covering it.]
[You took one slow breath. Life is Like a Play activated. In less than a heartbeat, the darkness was gone. By the time you lifted your head again, your usual expression had settled back into place, steady and warm and reliable.]
["Nothing."]
[You patted her shoulder, gentle and measured, every bit the responsible instructor again.]
["You're safe. That's enough. Go get some rest."]
[The second the door shut behind you, you stopped pretending. You cut across the empty wooded path on campus and pulled out your phone, dialing a number you hadn't touched in a long time.]
["Moshi moshi, my dear busy man. What is this, the sun coming up in the west? You suddenly remembered I exist?"]
[Mei Mei's lazy voice drifted through the receiver, all smooth edges and the smell of money.]
["Got a new job that's going to make me rich?"]
[You ignored the banter completely.]
["Mei. I need you to arrange a meeting."]
[Straight to the point. Your voice was hard and cold.]
["I want to speak with the higher-ups. All channels go around the Gojo Clan and anyone tied to it. And this stays completely hidden from everyone at Jujutsu High. Can you do that?"]
[There was a brief silence on the other end, three seconds maybe. Mei Mei was going to take the job, that part was obvious. She was just too curious not to ask.]
["Keeping it from Jujutsu High and the Gojo Clan too... wow. That's a fun request. For you to go this far, the topic must be..."]
["I want to talk about Yuta Okkotsu."]
[You answered without the slightest pause.]
["The current arrangement has gone off the rails. I have a different view of it."]
[With Mei Mei handling things, the process moved faster and cleaner than expected.]
[Part of that was because the whole thing was unusual. This was the first time the ghost called Touma Hayase, the man who had almost crippled the Zenin Clan in a single night and then spent years quietly teaching at Jujutsu High, had ever reached out to the higher-ups on his own.
And once you made it clear that Gojo's eyes and ears were to be avoided, the old men's curiosity lit up immediately. So did their greed. Anything that might give them leverage over Satoru Gojo was bait they couldn't ignore.]
[The meeting was arranged soon after.]
[The hall was almost completely dark, the kind of dark that made even candlelight look rotten. Behind a line of tall screens painted with grotesque patterns sat the shadows gripping the throat of the jujutsu world. The candles flickered weakly. The air smelled like stale sandalwood and old fear.]
["Touma Hayase."]
[The first voice to speak was dry enough to sound like dead wood scraping together.]
["You've gone behind Satoru Gojo's back to contact the council directly. What do you want?"]
[You stood alone in the middle of the hall, facing the people who liked to call themselves the peak of order. The pressure rolling off those screens was fake and cheap, and it did nothing to your pulse. You adjusted your glasses, calm enough to look like you'd shown up for an ordinary staff meeting instead of a negotiation that could end in blood.]
["This seems to be our first formal meeting, but none of you sound unfamiliar with me, so let's not waste time pretending otherwise."]
[You raised two fingers, clear and steady in the dim light.]
["I want one confirmation, and one request."]
["Insolence!"]
[An angry voice burst from behind one of the screens.]
["Who do you think you are? You dare come here and talk about negotiation with us?"]
["If I had really decided to do something insolence..."]
[You paused. Your tone stayed flat, which only made it colder.]
["...then after that night, the Zenin Clan might not exist anymore. You should be grateful I'm still willing to sit here and help you prop up this limping excuse for order."]
[You didn't raise your voice. You didn't need to. The words rolled through the black hall like distant thunder.]
[The silhouettes behind the screens went stiff. One representative with deep ties to the Zenin Clan grabbed his armrest before he even realized he was doing it.]
[They remembered.]
[That night years ago, you hadn't stopped because you lacked the strength to finish it. You had stopped because you chose to. That restraint, total and deliberate, was exactly what made you terrifying.]
[If combat record alone decided rank, you were arguably the unquestioned second under Gojo, with a gap between you and everyone else that few people even wanted to think about.]
[There was a murmur of low discussion behind the screens. At last, one relatively composed elder spoke.]
["...Say what you came to say."]
[You lowered one finger.]
["First, I want to confirm something. In the incident involving Yuta Okkotsu, has your final judgment classified him as a Curse User? If not, then while he remains a jujutsu sorcerer, does the Jujutsu Sorcerer Code of Obligations apply to him like it would to anyone else?"]
[The question dropped into the room, and the hall stayed quiet for a long while. The old foxes traded glances. They had expected you to come here on behalf of the Gojo Clan, or maybe to ask for political room to expand your own authority. They had not expected you to go through all this trouble just to confirm the rules.]
[The question was too simple. That was what made them wary. Something that simple always had teeth hidden in it.]
[After a long pause, an old voice finally answered.]
["The former is negative, for now. As long as he remains at Jujutsu High, he is under observation. As for the latter... naturally. So long as he acts as a jujutsu sorcerer, all provisions of the Code apply to him."]
[You nodded once. No pushback. No extra comment. For a second, you looked less like a negotiator and more like a researcher who'd just gotten the data point he needed.]
["Then what is this request of yours?"]
[The question came out edged with caution.]
[You lowered your second finger and looked toward the shadows behind the screens.]
["I want the authority over Yuta Okkotsu's secret execution transferred to me. I also want equal authority to judge whether he has become a threat. I believe I'll need that legitimacy."]
[That landed, and this time the silence didn't hold.]
["What?!"]
["You want to kill the boy Gojo fought to protect?"]
["Why would you ask for that?"]
[Shock rippled behind the screens. In their minds, you and Jujutsu High were basically one faction, and Jujutsu High was just Gojo's private garden. They had assumed you were sent here to oppose the execution order. The possibility that you had come to take that authority for yourself had never crossed their minds.]
[One elder spoke, bewilderment thick in his voice.]
["Gojo is the one who threatened us over the execution. Touma Hayase, are you saying you intend to betray Gojo and kill Yuta Okkotsu?"]
["Big words."]
[Another voice sneered.]
["And you think you can really kill that Special Grade Rika?"]
[Through all of it, your face didn't change.]
["Don't misunderstand me. There is a lot about the way you people operate that I cannot stand. But in this matter, my position overlaps with the interests of order. Yuta Okkotsu is an unstable bomb. In the current state of society, and under the system barely holding that society together, he is a massive risk."]
[You adjusted your glasses. Your gaze felt sharp enough to punch straight through the screens and into the people hiding behind them.]
["As for Special Grade, if he ever falls far enough to become irredeemable trash, I'll handle it myself. His classification means nothing."]
[The room went still for a beat. When you spoke again, your voice carried a killing intent so cold it changed the air.]
["Suguru Geto fell because I failed to stop him in time. If he stood in front of me now, I would kill him with my own hands and clean up the mess I left behind."]
[After those words, the hall dropped into absolute silence.]
[The figures behind the screens exchanged uneasy looks. What they heard in that speech was responsibility pushed so far it curved into something almost pathological.]
[It also forced them to rethink something.]
[The Zenin Clan incident had been catastrophic, but not a single person had died. Combined with what you'd just said, the picture of you became suddenly, uncomfortably clear.]
[Compared to the rebellious and emotional Gojo, the man standing before them was much worse. Because in a twisted way, your principles leaned closer to "order" than theirs did.]
[And the request you had made... from their perspective, it barely had a downside. If anything, it sounded convenient.]
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Next Target 200PS