[The elevator doors drifted shut behind you. You stood alone in the twentieth-floor corridor, thick red carpet stretching out beneath your feet, gaze resting calmly on the far end of the hall while your mind ran a high-speed debrief.]
[The dead man's Inverse technique had genuinely piqued your interest.]
[Credit where it was due: as a purely defensive mechanism, its activation logic was ruthlessly efficient. You'd felt it firsthand through Asakirimaru's handle, that sickening sensation of force draining away into nothing.]
[Deep in your consciousness, the comparison had already been drawn against Limitless.]
[Limitless was absolute defense, yes. But for any ordinary sorcerer lacking the Six Eyes, sustaining that level of atomic-scale spatial interference meant a computational burden on the brain and a drain on Cursed Energy that bordered on nightmarish.]
[Inverse, by contrast, held an overwhelming advantage in both mental load and base energy consumption.]
[You'd already dismantled the technique's essence in your head. At its core, it functioned as a highly specialized damage amplifier and reducer for Cursed Energy.]
[It accepted minor injuries as the cost of doing business, allowing each unit of Cursed Energy to generate disproportionate defensive returns against lethal strikes.]
[The trade-off cut both ways, though. A genuine double-edged sword. The higher the ceiling it could absorb, the lower the floor dropped against feeble attacks. A killing blow became a scratch; a gentle push became a sledgehammer.]
[A shame it had been wasted on garbage.]
[That was your silent verdict. Unlike Gojo, you didn't possess anything resembling that cheat code called the Six Eyes. You couldn't afford to ignore energy costs and judge a technique solely by its flashiest output.]
[For you, efficiency and practicality were the only metrics that mattered.]
[At the corridor's far end, outside the door to Riko Amanai's suite, a bizarre standoff had taken shape.]
[Two figures in the trademark white military uniforms of Q stood on one side: Kokun and Bayer, both already cataloged in your intelligence files. Facing them down were two uninvited guests. The first was a girl in a Renchoku Girls' Junior High uniform, bangs cut straight across her forehead. The second was a man whose face was grotesquely ugly, gripping a heavy iron chain that tethered a low-grade mutated Cursed Spirit the way someone might leash a dog.]
[The instant you saw the girl, alarms shrieked through your brain. A cold chain of logic snapped into place.]
[One thing you could confirm with absolute certainty, a student in a Renchoku uniform had zero business being here out of concern for a classmate.]
[Phantom Night Parade, coiled in your subconscious, had already unfurled in silence. The readings off that seemingly delicate body were unambiguous: active Cursed Energy, an Innate Technique woven into her circuits. Iron proof that she was anything but innocent.]
[The only variable separating this timeline from every prior simulation was you, wearing Toji Fushiguro's skin, dangling that astronomical bounty as bait. No ordinary schoolgirl stumbled into Riko Amanai's orbit by coincidence.]
[To put it more brutally... outside the upper echelons of the jujutsu world and the most elite information brokers, no civilian had any channel through which to learn Riko Amanai's current whereabouts.]
[Rather than some prodigious young Curse User, you suspected something far worse lurked beneath that skin. Some veteran killer who'd used deeply vile methods to assume a teenager's appearance.]
["Cut the crap!"]
[The ugly man, Niji Ebina, wrenched his chain hard. Greed twisted every line of his face as he snarled.]
["That bounty's worth a fortune! I don't care if it kills me today, I'm taking the Star Plasma Vessel's head and cashing in! You two freaks in white think you're keeping it all for yourselves? Dream on!"]
["Watch your mouth, filthy Curse User."]
[Bayer of Q flicked a cold glance his way. Fanaticism and contempt dripped from every syllable.]
["Q's sacred mission is to overthrow the existing jujutsu order. We have zero interest in some reeking black-market bounty. Our sole objective is to ensure the Star Plasma Vessel's death and the failure of Master Tengen's assimilation. Nothing more."]
[The girl disguised as a student let out a raspy giggle, utterly at odds with her innocent appearance.]
["Then there's no conflict, is there? You want her dead, we want the money... simple. We break down this door together. You get to witness the kill, and this guy with the dog and I split the bounty. Nobody wastes Cursed Energy tearing each other apart out here. How about it?"]
[Ebina glanced at the two Q members and bit down on something bitter.]
["Tch. If it means I don't have to fight you lot, fine. Half the bounty each!"]
[You watched the three-way standoff without a flicker of expression.]
[A pile-up. Killers who'd converged from different directions for different reasons had collided in a hallway, each convinced the prize was already theirs. All they'd been arguing about was who got first dibs on murdering Riko Amanai.]
[Your footsteps snapped the silence. Every head in the corridor turned in unison.]
[You'd already suppressed your Cursed Energy to its absolute floor, but two things screamed for attention regardless: the Jujutsu High uniform marking you as an official operative, and the elevator doors at your back, still weeping fresh blood, radiating the stench of iron.]
[By all rights, the appearance of a Jujutsu High sorcerer should have put these Curse Users on edge.]
[But when their gazes met the glacial emptiness in your eyes, the undisguised, fully materialized killing intent pooling behind your irises, something shifted.
These career criminals, shaped by years of violence in the underworld, instinctively classified you not as a righteous protector arriving to save the day, but as some deranged competitor who'd come for the same bounty they had.]
[So they spared you a single wary look, turned back around, and resumed their nauseating negotiations.]
[Q's Kokun and Bayer were, in a twisted way, the most straightforward of the bunch. They hadn't come for the bounty at all. Long before the black-market contract had surfaced, these zealots had already committed themselves to killing the Star Plasma Vessel and tearing down the jujutsu world's existing order.]
[The fake schoolgirl and the man with the chained Cursed Spirit, on the other hand, had been driven here by pure, blinding greed.]
[You had no interest in whatever drivel they'd exchanged before your arrival.
From the fragments of haggling you caught now, the picture was clear enough... this rabble had nearly cobbled together a fragile alliance.
Break down the door together, kill Riko Amanai, confirm the death, then split the bounty. No one would be stupid enough to start an internal bloodbath in the corridor and burn through their fighting strength before the real target was dead.]
[After a few more clipped exchanges, Everyone seemed to reach the same conclusion. Then, as one, they turned to face you, the ghost who'd been standing several meters away in silence.]
[Ebina, the one with the chained spirit, the one whose face looked like it had been assembled from spare parts, yanked his iron chain and bared a mouthful of yellowed teeth in your direction.]
["Hey! Latecomer in the uniform! There's nothing left for you here! Whether you came for the bounty or some bullshit mission, the grown-ups have already closed the deal. If you don't want to die, get lost!"]
[At that moment, Panda, who had been draped over Touma's shoulder since the beginning, maintaining the perfect stillness of a lifeless stuffed toy, turned his head a fraction of an inch and whispered in a voice only you could hear.]
["Looks complicated. Need a hand?"]
[Your eyes didn't so much as flicker. Your arms hung loose at your sides.]
[Then, in the space of a heartbeat, the shadows pooling in both palms began to churn and twist like boiling swamp water. With steady, unhurried precision, your hands drew downward, and from the left shadow rose the Inverted Spear of Heaven, radiating its sick, technique-devouring aura, while from the right emerged the razor edge of Asakirimaru.]
["No. You don't need to move yet."]
[The words came out low, flat, perfectly calm.]
[In truth, you had no habit of dual-wielding. The only reason both weapons were in your hands was practical... you were about to switch Innate Techniques.
To avoid a conflict between active abilities, the shadow storage space provided by Ten Shadows Technique needed to be emptied of anything important first.]
[Cold steel filled both fists. You ignored Ebina's barking entirely.]
[Your chin lifted slightly. When you spoke, the volume was barely above a murmur, yet somehow the words carried with unnatural clarity to every person on the floor, as though the corridor itself had chosen to amplify them.]
["Is there anyone among you... who hasn't killed before?"]
[Silence seized the hallway.]
[No one answered the question. No one dignified it with anything beyond sneering contempt.]
[Every one of them turned to face you fully now, and the look in their eyes was identical... the cold appraisal of predators sizing up a corpse that hadn't realized it was dead.]
[Kokun and Bayer had already raised their hands without hesitation, Cursed Energy surging to their fingertips, clearly prepared to blast you into paste the instant you took half a step closer.]
[You watched their reactions. Read their eyes. Gave a small nod.]
["I see. That's your answer, then."]