[Maki, Toge, and Panda all broke into a cold sweat.]
[Geto had moved too fast. Far too fast. Their eyes hadn't kept up. Their bodies hadn't either. If that hand had gone for Yuta's throat instead of offering a handshake, none of them would have made it in time.]
[Geto didn't spare the others so much as a glance. He looked straight at Yuta with an almost religious intensity, voice dripping with persuasion.]
["You possess a magnificent power, Okkotsu. I believe power like yours should be used for something meaningful. Haven't you ever questioned this warped world? This ridiculous reality where jujutsu sorcerers, people with real power, have to skulk around in the dark just to keep ordinary society running?"]
[Yuta stared at him with a face that clearly said, What the hell are you talking about?]
["?"]
[Totally unfazed, Geto slung an arm over Yuta's shoulders. Standing in the middle of the training field like some professor giving a lecture, he launched into his sermon with broad, theatrical conviction.]
["To put it simply, we, the strong, are forced to accommodate the weak, those ants under our feet. The contradiction is absurd. It's tragic. The highest beings on this planet have stopped their own evolution just to coddle the feeble. It's nonsense. Humanity needs to rethink how it survives, and so..."]
[He leaned in close to Yuta's ear, finally showing the knife hidden under all that preaching.]
["I'd like your help."]
[Yuta recoiled a little, alarmed.]
["H-help you do what?"]
[Geto straightened and spread his arms wide, answering with the calm certainty of a man announcing divine truth.]
["Kill every non-sorcerer. Create a paradise where only jujutsu sorcerers exist."]
[The words landed like a thunderclap. Yuta's eyes went wide. Beside him, Maki, Panda, and Toge all recoiled like they were watching a lunatic grin at them.]
["Stop feeding that insane pitch to my students, Suguru."]
[Gojo's voice cut through the field just as he arrived, Yaga and the others right behind him.]
["Satoru! It's been forever!"]
[Geto's smile flared brighter, wilder, the second he saw his oldest friend.]
["I heard this year's first-years are pretty talented."]
[His gaze slid across the students, amusement flickering in his eyes.]
["Let's see... all your precious little pupils are here."]
[Then his expression sharpened.]
["A Special Grade cursed human. The last descendant of the Cursed Speech bloodline. An Abrupt Mutated Cursed Corpse... and oh."]
[His eyes landed on Maki, gripping her blade, and his lip curled like he was looking at trash.]
["The Zenin Clan's deadweight."]
[The next words came out cold and precise.]
["My world has no place for a monkey who can't even produce cursed energy."]
["Smack!"]
[Yuta slapped Geto's hand off his shoulder. For the first time, real anger burned across his face.]
["I'm sorry, Mr. Geto! I don't understand your grand philosophy at all, but... I'll never help someone who insults my friends! Take it back!"]
[Geto blinked once, then gave an easy shrug.]
["Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to upset you."]
[In the middle of that razor-taut tension, you moved. Silent until now, you stepped through the crowd and stopped beside Maki, whose face had gone pale with humiliation.]
[You didn't comfort her.]
[Instead, you reached up and took off the plain glasses resting on your nose.]
["Maki."]
[Your voice was calm enough to make people nervous.]
["Hold these for me."]
[She blinked, thrown off, and loosened one hand from her weapon on reflex to take the glasses, still warm from your skin.]
["Huh... Sensei?"]
[You didn't look at her. You turned your head, and your now-uncovered eyes, dark and still as deep water, passed over Gojo before settling on Geto's smug face.]
["Suguru Geto. I'll ask you this one last time."]
[You pointed first at Larue, half-naked and towering behind him, then at the twin girls.]
["Let me confirm something. The sorcerers standing with you, are they your people?"]
[Geto's gaze shifted to you. As he studied your face, something surfaced in his memory. Years ago, you had barely possessed enough strength to matter, yet you still tried to drag him back from the edge even if it killed you.]
[His expression softened for a second, almost against his own will. A trace of nostalgia crept into his voice.]
["It really has been a long time, Touma. Though I have to say, I didn't expect to see such a frightening look in your eyes..."]
[What sat in your eyes at that moment was pure killing intent.]
[No anger. No grief. Nothing human enough to call emotion.]
[Just the flat indifference of someone looking at a pile of meat.]
["..."]
[Once it became obvious you had no interest in old memories, Geto kept his composure and answered with that same easy smile.]
["A small correction. They aren't companions. They're family."]
["Family."]
[Your lips bent into something that held no warmth at all.]
["Then let me make sure I have this right. They're killers too? Curse Users with innocent blood on their hands?"]
[Even with the weight of your stare pressing down on him, Geto kept smiling. He even spread his hands a little, like he was proud of it.]
["Innocent blood... honestly, I couldn't give you an exact number. But if by 'innocent people' you mean those monkeys, then yes. Absolutely."]
[The answer settled in, and something inside your body shifted.
The tension across your shoulders loosened, just slightly.
You let out a long, slow breath.]
["I see."]
[One hand drifted behind your back and closed around the hilt of Asakirimaru, the short blade that had followed you through more battles than anyone here could count. When you spoke again, your voice had dropped to a murmur, but every person on the field heard it perfectly.]
["Now I have no reason to hold back."]
["What?"]
[Geto's brow twitched.]
[And the moment your words faded, without warning, without even a hint of buildup...]
[Phantom Night Parade roared to life.]
[You reproduced the Zenin Clan's prized legacy technique without hesitation: Projection Sorcery.]
[Its ability to split a single second into twenty-four frames and rewrite physical motion focused entirely on your right wrist, the hand that would throw Asakirimaru. Frame acceleration, pushed all the way to the edge.]
[Extreme Overload Control followed.]
[The body's usual thirty-percent output limit shattered instantly. The muscles in your right wrist swelled and hardened so violently your bones practically screamed, but you locked the output at exactly one hundred percent, just enough to complete one attack before the limb destroyed itself.]
[Then Ballistic Intuition locked in.]
[Your vision pierced space and time and fixed on a single point: the center of Larue's forehead, the biggest, easiest target standing at the back.]
[All three techniques stacked in 0.01 seconds.]
[Before anyone on that field, including Gojo and Geto, could fully understand what you were doing, your wrist snapped forward.]
[One hundred percent of your body's strength, combined with Projection Sorcery's absurd frame acceleration, hurled the short blade at a muzzle velocity fast enough to break the sound barrier.]
[The crack in the air came a fraction too late.]
[Then came the impact.]
["Fwip... SPLAT!"]
[Larue had been standing there with his arms folded, watching everything like it was a show.]
[The next instant, his head exploded like a watermelon hit point-blank by an anti-materiel rifle.]
[What was left of his skull vanished into a red spray, misting Nanako and Mimiko's stunned faces with blood.]