Chapter 157: The Loneliness of the Strongest and Suguru Geto's Confusion
Time flowed quietly beneath a surface calm that hid countless undercurrents.
More than half a year had passed since the Star Plasma Vessel incident, the mission that had nearly overturned the entire Jujutsu World.
After his awakening, Satoru Gojo's strength created a gap so vast it was almost despairing.
He no longer needed to wear those heavy black sunglasses all the time. Most days, he switched to a lighter pair of round sunglasses. Sometimes, he did not even need those.
Because his Six Eyes and Limitless had finally achieved full automation.
"Look, Shoko."
On the grounds of Tokyo Jujutsu High, Gojo pointed arrogantly at a pencil in front of him.
An insufferable confidence flickered in his brilliant Six Eyes.
"I can now filter out any target that poses a threat with perfect accuracy."
He raised a finger.
"Not just Cursed Energy. Even tiny amounts of physical kinetic energy, speed, mass, and toxins floating in the air are all within my control."
Gojo flicked the pencil toward his own eye.
The pencil shot forward.
Then, less than a centimeter away from his pupil, it stopped in midair.
It was as if it had struck an invisible wall that could never be crossed.
"And that's not all."
Gojo smiled smugly.
He casually extended one finger toward a large tree dozens of meters away.
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue."
Hum.
There was no windup.
No chant.
No visible effort.
The thick tree was twisted apart by a terrifying gravitational force, splintering into countless pieces of wood that scattered through the air.
"See that?"
Gojo pushed his sunglasses down slightly.
"My Cursed Energy control is now refined to the atomic level."
"Tch. Boring little tricks."
Shoko Ieiri lazily blew out a smoke ring.
But beneath the dark circles under her eyes, there was a shock she could not completely hide.
As a medical Jujutsu Sorcerer who understood Reverse Cursed Technique better than anyone at the school, Shoko knew exactly what Gojo's current state meant.
His brain was constantly carrying the extreme load of operating his Cursed Technique.
At the same time, he continuously repaired that burden with Reverse Cursed Technique.
He had surpassed the ordinary limits of a Jujutsu Sorcerer.
He was no longer simply a talented sorcerer.
He was a walking absolute.
Suguru Geto stood silently nearby.
He watched Gojo casually perform a feat that broke past the limits of human understanding, and the light in his eyes dimmed almost imperceptibly.
A chasm had appeared.
A vast difference in strength that made the thought of catching up feel impossible now lay nakedly between them.
But behind Gojo's invincible brilliance, a loneliness that could not be described began spreading quietly.
Because he had become too strong.
Strong enough that even the higher ups feared him from the depths of their hearts.
Because of that, those rotten old men began assigning all the highest difficulty, most dangerous, and most troublesome missions to him alone.
And just like that, the once inseparable strongest duo was split apart, whether intentionally or not.
Gojo began carrying out missions alone.
Alone, he went to remote villages deep in the mountains.
Alone, he entered abandoned buildings swallowed by darkness.
Alone, he walked through cold hospital morgues where curses lingered.
He had mastered long term Limitless.
He had mastered Reverse Cursed Technique.
He had even begun using teleportation with increasing precision.
His back remained straight and arrogant.
But beneath the endless sky, that white figure sometimes looked strangely small.
Strangely lonely.
"I am the strongest."
One evening, Satoru Gojo sat on the roof of Jujutsu High and watched the blood red sunset sink beyond the horizon.
He murmured the words softly.
"Suguru, what do you think?"
He asked the question out of habit.
But when he turned his head, there was no one beside him.
Only empty air.
The phrase they used to say together had changed without either of them noticing.
We are the strongest.
It had become:
I am the strongest.
That shift from two people to one left an emptiness deep inside him that even Gojo himself could not put into words.
And the only person who sensed all of this clearly was Yami.
But Yami understood something else even more clearly.
Compared with Gojo's loneliness at the summit, Suguru Geto's condition was the real time bomb.
One that could explode at any moment.
After being separated from Gojo by the higher ups, Geto also began rushing alone from one filthy extermination mission to another.
One day, in a remote mountain village, Geto had just gone through a fierce battle.
He had risked injury and finally exorcised a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit that had been entrenched in the village.
When he walked out of the mountain cave, he was breathing heavily.
Mud clung to his clothes.
The foul blood of the Cursed Spirit stained his sleeves.
His body ached from exhaustion.
But when he stepped out to face the villagers he had saved, what awaited him was not gratitude.
Not relief.
Not even a simple thank you.
Only greedy, shifting eyes.
Only faces twisted with malice.
"Why did you only arrive now?"
A burly village chief pointed straight at Geto's nose and cursed.
"What do you people even get paid for?"
His voice grew louder.
"My pigs were eaten by that monster! Who's going to compensate me for that loss?"
"Exactly!"
Another villager immediately echoed him, eyes filled with disgust.
"I bet that monster was attracted here by unlucky people like you in the first place."
"Get out!"
"Don't bring your bad luck near us!"
Geto stood frozen in place.
He looked at those faces, twisted by selfishness and greed.
He listened to those vicious curses.
Then, without warning, another image flashed through his mind.
A few months ago.
The underground hall of the Tomb of the Star Corridor.
The members of the Star Religious Group cheering and applauding wildly for Riko Amanai's death.
That ear piercing applause overlapped perfectly with the villagers' curses.
Geto stood at the entrance of the village beneath the setting sun.
The sunset was red as blood, stretching his shadow long across the ground.
He slowly lowered his head and looked at his hands.
Hands covered in scars.
Hands stained with dirt.
Hands dirtied from saving people.
A chill rose from the soles of his feet and crawled straight up his spine.
"What exactly…"
Geto's voice was terrifyingly hoarse, as if squeezed out from the depths of his soul.
"...am I protecting these things for?"
The principle he had held onto for so long, the belief that the strong existed to protect the weak, wavered for the first time.
Then a crack appeared.
Small.
Fatal.
The collapse of faith often began with a single thought.
Once the seed of doubt was planted, it began taking root in the soil of his heart, which had already been pressed down by the constant consumption of Cursed Spirits.
The night wind blew through the village, carrying a faint chill.
Suguru Geto stood alone in place.
The abyss that, in the original course of fate, would lead him into darkness and destruction had opened its bloody mouth again.
It watched him from the dark.
And these changes inside him, who could he speak to about them?
Satoru Gojo, who now stood above the clouds and felt farther away than ever?
Or Yami, whose strength was unfathomable and whose eyes always seemed to see through everything?
Geto did not know.
He only felt his world sinking, bit by bit, into a boundless darkness.
....
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