Chapter 70: Victory Banquet
Sizzle.
Sizzle.
Thin slices of premium Wagyu hissed over the charcoal grill, their marbled fat turning translucent as the heat worked through them. Golden grease slid slowly along the surface of the meat before dripping into the glowing coals below, and every drop sent up another wave of rich, smoky aroma.
It was the kind of smell that made conversation pause for half a second.
The kind that made even the most disciplined person glance at the grill.
This was a high end yakiniku restaurant in Ginza.
Under normal circumstances, a place like this had nothing to do with Jujutsu High students living on thin stipends and convenience store budgets. It was the sort of restaurant they might pass by on the street, stare at for two seconds, and then keep walking before their wallets started crying.
But tonight was different.
Because tonight, the man paying the bill was the same man who insisted on calling himself the strongest.
"Eat as much as you want!" Gojo declared from the head of the long table, lifting a glass of expensive sake with shameless enthusiasm. "Your wonderful teacher is treating tonight!"
Even with the blindfold on, everyone could feel how pleased he was with himself.
"To the fact that nobody died," he added brightly. "Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
The private room erupted at once.
The mood was loud, messy, and alive in the way only a group of teenagers who had just survived a nightmare could be. The tension of battle had not vanished completely, but for now it had somewhere else to go. Into laughter. Into food. Into the kind of noise that made the room feel warm.
Nobara Kugisaki had already entered a state that could only be described as combat focus.
Her chopsticks flashed across the table with frightening precision, snatching pieces of perfectly grilled beef before anyone else could react.
"Senpai, that one was mine!"
"Shut up, first come first served."
Maki didn't yield an inch. Her chopsticks intercepted Nobara's over the grill with a sharp clack, and for a second it looked less like dinner and more like the overtime round of the Goodwill Event had somehow continued at the table.
Across from them, Megumi sat with a dead expression and the quiet resignation of a man who had accepted his fate.
He had become the grill master.
Without being asked.
Without being thanked.
He turned the slices one by one with practiced movements, eyes empty, face so calm it bordered on spiritual detachment.
"Fushiguro, two more plates of beef!"
Yuji shouted through a mouthful of meat, speaking like someone who had forgotten the basic purpose of a tongue.
"Don't rush me," Megumi muttered. "I only have two hands."
But he still reached for the next plate.
The grill crackled.
The table shook.
A towering figure suddenly dropped into the seat beside Yuji like a boulder deciding it wanted to socialize.
"My brother!"
Todo was shirtless for reasons no one had the strength to question anymore. He held a mug of beer in one hand and wore a grin so radiant and unsettling that the air around him seemed to bend.
"That battle was magnificent!" he boomed. "But our discussion is not finished!"
Yuji nearly choked.
"Why are you still on that?! We're eating!"
"Eating and philosophy are not opposites," Todo said with complete seriousness. "In fact, a man's soul reveals itself most clearly in the middle of a good meal. This is the ideal moment to pursue truth."
"That doesn't even mean anything!"
"It means everything!"
Watching the two of them go back and forth, Yami sat quietly in the corner with a cup of warm barley tea in hand.
The noise around him was almost overwhelming.
Nobara and Maki were still fighting over meat.
Megumi was already being treated like unpaid restaurant staff.
Yuji was trying and failing to survive Todo's friendship.
Gojo, who should have been setting a better example, was leaning back in his seat like a man enjoying a stage play he had personally funded.
And somehow, none of it felt annoying.
Yami lowered his gaze to the steam rising from his cup.
No blood.
No killing.
No cursed spirits.
No heavy air thick with the smell of rot and death.
Just voices.
Laughter.
A little chaos.
The warmth of food shared between people who were still alive.
"…This is nice," he murmured.
Once, in another life, something as ordinary as this would have been a luxury beyond reach.
As Tsugikuni Yoriichi, he had lived in an era where every reunion could be the last. Every meal might be interrupted by death. Every smile could vanish before sunrise.
But here, now, for this brief moment, no one was screaming.
No one was dying.
Everyone was still here.
And that alone was enough to make his chest tighten.
Then a clear mechanical chime rang through his mind.
[Ding!]
Yami's fingers paused around the teacup.
The noise of the room seemed to fade as his consciousness sank inward. A familiar translucent interface unfolded in the darkness of his thoughts, lines of text appearing one after another.
[Host performed excellently during the Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event.]
[Successfully repelled the Special Grade Cursed Spirit Hanami and severely injured the Special Grade Cursed Spirit Jogo.]
[Displayed combat instincts beyond mortal limits in coordination with Satoru Gojo.]
[Current synchronization increased to 22%.]
[Congratulations. Host has obtained special insight: the advanced form of the Transparent World.]
[Note: Though the Transparent World allows one to perceive the flow of all things, it remains only the limit of a mortal.]
[To step into the realm of gods, understand the essence of Cursed Energy, and even interfere with causality…]
[Perhaps what you need is a pair of eyes that can truly see everything.]
Yami's pupils narrowed.
Eyes that could truly see everything.
In this world, there was only one answer to that.
The Six Eyes.
The Gojo clan's divine inheritance. A miracle that appeared only once in centuries. Eyes so absurd they could overturn the balance of the entire Jujutsu world on their own.
His gaze lifted, almost on instinct.
At the head of the table, Gojo was laughing at something Nobara had yelled, casually holding a sake bottle in one hand while acting like an irresponsible uncle at a family reunion. Beneath the blindfold, those eyes remained hidden, but Yami could still feel their presence.
The system's meaning was too clear.
It was pointing him toward the Six Eyes.
A chill crept along his spine.
No.
That thought was insane.
Gojo was his teacher.
The person who had shown him the most open support since he arrived in this world. The person who had stood behind him without hesitation. Setting morality aside, strength alone made the idea laughable. Taking the Six Eyes from Satoru Gojo was not ambition.
It was suicide with extra steps.
And yet the system had raised the possibility all the same.
What if that truly was the road ahead?
What if syncing further with Yoriichi would eventually push him toward a future where he had to stand opposite the strongest sorcerer alive?
For the first time since gaining the system, Yami felt genuine unease.
"Yami."
A pair of tongs appeared in front of him.
He blinked and snapped back to reality.
Yuji stood there with a broad, stupidly bright smile, holding out a piece of freshly grilled pork belly.
"You were zoning out. Eat this. Fushiguro grilled it perfectly."
"I did not grill that for you to give away," Megumi said flatly from the other side of the table.
Yuji ignored him completely.
"If you don't eat it now, Nobara's definitely going to steal it."
Nobara immediately slammed her chopsticks against the table.
"Excuse me? What do you mean steal?! Say that again!"
"See?" Yuji said. "I'm protecting your dinner."
"You're dead!"
The whole table broke into fresh laughter.
Even Maki snorted.
Yami looked at the piece of meat in his bowl, then at Yuji's face.
Whatever the system meant.
Whatever path lay ahead.
Whatever absurd destination waited at the end of his synchronization with Yoriichi's power.
For now, this was where he stood.
Tokyo Jujutsu High.
At this table.
Beside these people.
He picked up the pork belly and placed it in his mouth.
The fat melted almost at once, rich and savory, with a touch of smoky bitterness from the charcoal. It was simple food, but in that moment it tasted better than anything he could remember.
Yami closed his eyes briefly.
I'll protect this.
The thought settled quietly in his chest.
Yuji's grin.
Megumi's exasperation.
Nobara's energy.
Maki's sharp gaze.
The noisy, ridiculous warmth of this room.
He would not let anyone take it from them.
Not cursed spirits.
Not the rot at the top of the Jujutsu world.
Not even Sukuna.
By the time the meal finally ended, everyone looked deeply satisfied and mildly feral, like a pack of wolves that had discovered fine dining.
They spilled out of the restaurant one by one, still talking, still bickering, still arguing over who had eaten more.
Gojo remained behind for a moment, holding the absurdly long bill in both hands.
"So expensive," he muttered. "Seriously, what a scam. Am I being robbed?"
But even as he complained, the corners of his mouth kept lifting.
For Gojo, money meant very little.
Seeing these kids walk out of a fight like that and still have enough spirit left to laugh over grilled meat?
That mattered more.
The life of a sorcerer was always shadowed by death. Separation came easily in this world. Too easily.
Which was exactly why nights like this had value.
Because joy, however brief, was not something they could take for granted.
Far away from the lights of Ginza, in a sewer buried beneath the city, another gathering was taking place.
Water dripped from rusted pipes overhead.
Plink.
Plink.
Each drop struck the stagnant surface below and sent ripples through black water thick with grime. The air smelled of mold, sewage, and something old enough to feel diseased.
"Wow. You look terrible, Jogo."
Mahito's voice carried lazily through the dark.
He sat atop a heap of discarded construction debris, one leg swinging idly while he turned a human skull in his hands like a toy. His smile was the same as always, playful and childish in a way that made it even more grotesque.
Jogo sat slumped against the wall opposite him.
Even by cursed spirit standards, he looked awful.
Half his body had been erased. One side of his form looked as though it had simply ceased to exist, leaving a mangled edge that even his regenerative ability struggled to rebuild. The damage from Hollow Technique: Purple was not something ordinary healing could brush aside.
Beside him, Hanami was in no better condition.
Its armored body was fractured all over, bark like skin split by deep cracks. And across its chest ran a sword wound so severe it looked less like a cut and more like a brand burned into the core of its existence.
That was Yami's work.
The wound refused to close.
Even now, a faint heat lingered inside it, interfering with the flow of cursed energy and preventing proper regeneration.
Jogo's single eye twitched irritably.
"Shut up, Mahito."
Mahito tilted his head.
"That kid really did a number on you, huh?"
Jogo's jaw tightened.
"That brat's sword is wrong."
"Oh?"
Mahito's interest sharpened at once.
He sat up a little, grin widening.
"How wrong?"
Jogo fell silent for a beat, as if reliving the strike itself.
Then his voice came out low and ugly.
"There was something on that blade. Not cursed energy."
His remaining eye narrowed.
"It felt like the sun."
Mahito blinked.
Then he burst into laughter so loud it bounced off the sewer walls.
"The sun? Seriously?"
He clutched his stomach, cackling.
"Jogo, did Gojo hit you so hard your brain melted? Cursed spirits hate sunlight. What, are you saying some brat is swinging the sun around in his hand?"
Jogo's eye burned with irritation.
"Believe whatever you want."
He stopped talking after that.
The laughter lingered for a few seconds more before footsteps echoed up from deeper in the sewer.
Slow.
Measured.
A man in monk's robes emerged from the shadows, the stitches across his forehead visible even in the low light.
Kenjaku.
His expression held no disappointment when he looked over the battered cursed spirits before him. If anything, there was a trace of amusement in his eyes, the quiet satisfaction of someone whose interest had only deepened.
"You all worked hard," he said.
Mahito hopped down from the debris pile, still smiling.
Jogo did not respond.
Kenjaku walked past them and crouched in front of Hanami. He reached out and ran his fingers lightly over the wound on its chest.
The moment he touched it, a faint stinging sensation rose through his skin.
His eyes narrowed.
"So that's how it is…"
The words were quiet, almost thoughtful.
He straightened again, his smile faint and unreadable.
"That boy really is a troublesome variable."
No one interrupted him.
The sewer seemed to grow darker around the edges.
Kenjaku turned and looked into the tunnel stretching away behind him, where the city's buried shadows pooled into something almost endless.
"But variables can still be handled."
His tone remained calm.
Mild.
Which only made it worse.
"If a direct approach doesn't work, then we change the method."
The smile on his face deepened by a fraction.
"After all, if you want to break someone…"
His gaze drifted into the dark.
"…the easiest place to drive the knife is usually where their heart already is."
.....
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