I didn't sleep.
Not because sleep is impossible here . I don't even know if my body needs it in this place , but because my mind hasn't stopped for a single moment since that message appeared.
"The world will collapse after the third day."
I sat on the ground in the middle of the empty village, staring at a sky I couldn't tell was real or just scenery painted by a world I don't belong to. The silence here carries a different kind of weight , not the silence of somewhere peaceful, but the silence of somewhere that used to be full of life and then, suddenly, wasn't.
Three days.
The first ended while I watched a battle that didn't exist in any version of the anime I'd ever seen. The second has started now. And only one day stands between this world and its collapse.
I said to myself in a voice no one could hear:
Fine. If it has to collapse, at least let me understand why.
I stood up. And walked.
I found Jujutsu High exactly where I remembered it.
Some things don't change even when everything else does , the main building, the barriers, that strange feeling that the place itself is watching you. But the barriers couldn't sense me. I passed straight through them like air, like a thought rather than a person.
Sometimes I wonder ,am I actually real in this world? Or am I just a ghost watching a film that no one knows exists?
A message appeared suddenly and cut through my thoughts:
— Congratulations —
You have unlocked the skill: Explorer(Level One)
Allows you to teleport instantly to any barrier you have previously visited.
Once every four hours.
I looked at the message with one eye.
Thank you so much. I would've appreciated this a lot more before I walked all that distance.
The message disappeared. The System apparently has no sense of humor.
I entered the school and started looking around.
Students moving, training, talking , a normal life for people who have no idea their world is on the edge of collapse. One of them passed very close to me, glanced in my direction for just a moment, then kept walking as though something had caught his attention without him knowing what.
I wonder what an Observer looks like to this world. Nothing? A shadow? A small distortion in the air?
I left the question and kept searching.
I heard them before I saw them.
Geto's voice first , quiet in a way that makes you pay attention, because real calm doesn't need to prove itself. Then Moro's , light and easy, the voice of someone who doesn't consider any conversation serious enough to deserve his full energy.
I moved closer slowly and hid at a distance close enough to hear.
Geto was staring at the ground, arms crossed, and there was a tone in his voice I'd never heard from him in the original anime , something between exhaustion and a decision already made:
Can't we just kill the higher-ups?
I stopped.
Is this the moment? Is Geto going to turn against the school here too? But... Moro is alive. The strongest is still standing. What's pushing him to this?
Moro answered without stopping his gaze at the horizon:
I won't let Tengen get away with what he did. I know how much Amanai meant to you. We'll kill him tomorrow , him and every executive involved.
But aren't you against this kind of massacre?
Moro was quiet for a moment. Then:
It won't be a massacre if we only kill the ones responsible.
He paused again. And this time there was something else in the silence , something deeply personal:
I made a promise to Amanai that night. I told her I wouldn't let her suffer because of that cursed thing. I didn't know then what that promise was going to cost me.
Geto looked at his friend for the first time since the conversation began. He said nothing. But in that look was everything that words don't need.
I stayed where I was after they left.
Amanai. Did she refuse the merger in this world? Was she forced? And Tengen — what exactly did he do that made Moro and Geto decide to kill him tomorrow with that terrifying calm?
I found no answer in my memory of the anime.
Because this world isn't the anime I watched.
I decided to find Tengen myself. I remembered the route — or thought I did. I stepped in the right direction, moved through the long corridor, and—
— WARNING —
Step back. Leave immediately.
— WARNING — WARNING — WARNING —
I stopped.
*What is this? Is the System malfunctioning? It's never done this before.
I turned around.
He was standing in front of me.
He hadn't been there a second ago. I'm certain of that. But there he was now, as though he'd always been there and I was the one who hadn't seen him.
Toji Fushiguro.
His body fills space in a way that has nothing to do with size alone — every muscle built beyond anything that should belong to a human being, and his eyes filled with a darkness that looks like they don't see anything in front of them at all. My skin prickled, my limbs locked, I couldn't move. Even breathing became difficult — even though I knew he couldn't see me.
How could anyone stand face to face in front of this monster?
That's when I truly understood the greatness of Satoru Gojo for the very first time.
Then...
In one moment...
He looked in my direction.
At me. Directly!
The air in my lungs forgot how to move.
He kept looking for one single second — but it was the longest second I had ever lived through in this world. Then he walked past me with calm, unhurried steps, as if whatever he saw wasn't worth more than a second of his attention.
And the moment he disappeared around the corner , the warning messages vanished.
I stood completely still.
I said to myself in a voice that came out hoarse:
Did he actually see me?