"So, you actually heard it after all."
Roy nodded, somewhat surprised yet finding it perfectly reasonable.
No wonder you were making such an awkward expression.
But.
If you'd already heard it back then, how could you still say something like "Aren't you going to kill him?" on the spot?
That makes it even more filial!
What kind of brain do you have?
No, perhaps it's more accurate to say Toji was an utterly incompetent father.
"How much do you know about him?"
As the car moved steadily forward, Roy toyed with his phone and countered with an ambiguous question.
Megumi answered almost without hesitation, responding immediately.
"He's scum!"
Oh.
What a powerful impression.
Toji's failure as a father wasn't just minor.
"I don't actually know that much about him either. Asking me about this is somewhat misplaced."
Roy thought for a moment, then suddenly remembered something.
"Didn't Satoru Gojo tell you about your father?"
"No, that guy only told me about how my bastard father sold me to the Zenin family."
Megumi shook his head as he spoke.
Then Gojo bought Megumi back from the Zenin family and became his guardian.
Using the reasoning that "Megumi Fushiguro will definitely become a sorcerer in the future," he secured Jujutsu High's financial support for Megumi and his sister Tsumiki Fushiguro, preventing the siblings from becoming orphans.
Beyond that, Gojo hadn't told him anything else.
However, it seemed like when Gojo first found him, he might have wanted to say something.
Megumi recalled his first meeting with Satoru Gojo.
During that meeting, Gojo told him about the Zenin family and wanted to talk about Toji, but Megumi stopped him by saying he "didn't care at all about that man."
At that time, Toji had already disappeared for a year or two, completely abandoning him and Tsumiki.
No, even when Toji was around, he never cared about his family, almost never paying attention to his son and stepdaughter. His presence at home was no different from his absence.
As a child, Megumi had coldly declared his indifference toward Toji.
But now, Toji had actively appeared before him—as an enemy.
This stirred ripples in his long-calm heart.
"Toji Fushiguro was born into the Zenin family. He possessed the Heavenly Restriction, gaining the strongest human physique in exchange for having zero cursed energy."
Roy recalled what he knew about Toji and began explaining.
"The Zenin family... unless you've experienced it firsthand, it's probably hard to truly understand. But from Maki Zenin's experiences, you can grasp part of how rotten that family is."
Megumi nodded.
He was aware of Maki Zenin's circumstances and had some understanding of the ways of the Zenin family, one of the three great clans. They were a classic example of ancient nobility, completely stuck in the past.
They didn't see non-sorcerers as human.
They didn't recognize sorcerers outside the Zenin family as true sorcerers.
"Maki left the Zenin family, but because of people like you, her personality didn't change much. Though she did become sharper, at most it was just honing herself as a weapon—she didn't become withdrawn or radical or anything. But Toji was different. Ostracized and mocked by the Zenin family, he also left, only to end up living a rootless, solitary life."
It was around that time that Toji became a mercenary, earning the title "Sorcerer Killer."
Megumi's face remained impassive, though a subtle ripple of thought stirred within him.
So, the Zenin family was the root of all evil?
Even a man like Toji didn't turn out that way for no reason, huh?
"After living as a mercenary for a while, he fell in love with a woman and had a child. That child was you."
"After starting a family, Toji mellowed somewhat, became smoother around the edges… Honestly, I didn't witness it firsthand. If you ask me how he softened up, I wouldn't know. I can only relay what I've heard. The rest, you'll have to figure out on your own."
Megumi had indeed been about to ask how Toji had changed.
But hearing this, he nodded rationally and let the question go.
Information was just information—ultimately, he had to make his own judgments.
Megumi's nature dictated that unless his limits were crossed, he'd remain as rational as possible, never letting emotions dictate his actions. Even if his feelings about Toji were complicated, his approach wouldn't change.
"But the good times didn't last. Not long after you were born, your mother passed away from illness. After that, Toji became the dissolute man you knew—broke, drifting between women, occasionally taking jobs in the jujutsu world."
For a moment, Megumi froze, his eyes flickering faintly.
So, his mother's death had affected that man that much?
That man… had been capable of such emotion?
No—if it were him, if Tsumiki died—
Megumi suddenly raised a hand to his temple, veins faintly visible on the back of it.
He clenched his teeth, unable to even entertain the thought.
If Tsumiki died, he'd probably fall into ruin too.
Maybe even deeper than Toji had.
Not long after that, Toji took his son and married into the Fushiguro family, wedding a woman who had a daughter of her own. They formed a blended family, and he took the name Toji Fushiguro.
That was how Megumi and Tsumiki Fushiguro became stepsiblings, living together and relying on each other for over a decade.
"But not long after they married, they both vanished without a trace. Because we—Tsumiki and I—were burdens to them, right?"
Megumi tapped his temple, his voice laced with deliberately suppressed irritation.
What was he so irritated about?
What right did he have to be irritated?
That man had already been long lost, the kind of bastard who ignored his own son and stepdaughter even at home.
No matter how rough his early life had been, it didn't change the fact that he was scum!
"I don't know what Toji was thinking, but the reason he vanished wasn't because he wanted to abandon you—it's because he died."
"Died—?!"
Megumi's eyes widened in shock.
He stared at Roy in disbelief, but seeing the calm expression on his face, for a moment, he thought Roy might be lying to him.
"He took on a mission targeting Jujutsu High, fought Satoru Gojo, and died. He was killed by Gojo."
Roy's face remained completely impassive as he recounted Toji's death, as if the topic held no emotional weight for him. It didn't even seem like he was talking about a person's death.
Yet, the words he spoke didn't sound like a lie.
Megumi's mind went blank for a moment.
Strangely enough, he accepted this outcome almost immediately, as if it were the most natural conclusion.
Why did it feel so inevitable?
Or was it that, deep down, he had been expecting—even hoping—for this kind of outcome, because it was the easiest to accept?
"But… then the man today…"
"That was the technique of that granny curse user. She can summon the dead, but because Toji had zero cursed energy, the situation spiraled out of control. Maybe even fate couldn't handle it."
"..."
Megumi fell into a stunned silence, his expression blank.
"As for Tsumiki's mother, she really did vanish. She might have been killed by a curse, or maybe she just thought you and Tsumiki were burdens and left… No one knows for sure."
"That's everything I know about Toji. Like you said, he was a scumbag, but he wasn't always like that. People are complicated, and as an outsider, I won't judge him further."
Roy looked at Megumi, who still sat there with an expression of disbelief.
Seeing this, Roy extended his hand.
"If you don't believe me, I can take you to him right now so you can ask him yourself. What do you say?"
He could sense Toji's location at this very moment.
Though he was constantly moving, with a teleportation technique, Roy could appear before him in an instant.
Toji had Heavenly Restriction—a natural zero cursed energy user, making him highly resistant to cursed energy interference. But cursed energy markers were different—they weren't interference. They could be placed on people, buildings, and even the Heavenly Restriction.
"…No, that's fine."
After a long silence, Megumi exhaled deeply, his usually straight posture slumping slightly.
"I believe you. It's just… hard to process."
So Toji had been dead all along.
And he had died at Gojo's hands.
As a mercenary, death was always a possibility—just like for a sorcerer. Megumi himself had long prepared for the idea of dying somewhere.
And since Toji had been the one to provoke Jujutsu High, Megumi didn't blame Gojo for killing him.
If anything, the fact that Gojo had raised his enemy's son for so long, even after learning that his technique could counter him, and still didn't try to eliminate him—that made Gojo practically a saint.
In the end, whether Toji was alive or dead didn't change Megumi's opinion of him.
Even if he had his reasons, even if he had a tragic past, it didn't change the fact that he was a scumbag father who abandoned his own son!
But after learning about these things, the image of that deadbeat father in Megumi's mind, which had once been a complete blank, had unknowingly become a little more fleshed out.
At least now he knew what kind of person his father was.
It was almost laughable.
"Alright, I don't have anything else to tell you. Now, let's talk about your bad habit of defaulting to Mahoraga whenever you're indecisive!"
Roy put down his phone and stretched. The car had already left the city center and was speeding toward Jujutsu High in the suburbs.
Hearing this, Megumi suppressed the complicated emotions in his heart and wore an expression that said, "Here we go again."
"I said the same thing to Itadori, and I'll say it to you too, Roy-sensei. I don't think my choice was wrong. Didn't you say it yourself? The outcome was good."
"Hmm, I'm not denying that," Roy chuckled, a mysterious smile appearing on his face. "I just have a bit of a selfish wish—I want to give a certain King of Curses a big surprise… Megumi, let's make a deal!"
"A deal?" Megumi looked at him in confusion.
"Yeah. You give me Mahoraga, and I'll engrave a brand-new, fully controllable technique onto you." Roy picked up his phone, opened a file, and handed it to Megumi. "You can choose any technique from here!"
"Engrave? Choose?" Megumi froze for a long moment before suddenly realizing what Roy meant. He gasped sharply, staring at him in disbelief. "Sensei… you're not saying you can freely bestow techniques on others, are you?!"
And letting him choose, no less!
In the entire thousand-year history of the jujutsu world, such a thing had never happened before!
Techniques were innate, engraved into one's body—utterly impossible to interfere with through human means. That was an ironclad rule of the jujutsu world.
Roy's claim, as if he could truly bestow techniques at will, was practically shattering Megumi's worldview!
"That's exactly what I mean!" Roy crossed his legs, looking thoroughly pleased. "I myself have more than one technique—they're ones I bestowed upon myself."
So that was why he called himself the "Omni-Technique."
What a freak!
A guy like this was probably even scarier than Satoru Gojo.
"But… if you have this ability, couldn't you just take Mahoraga without needing a trade?" Though the opportunity to gain any technique was tempting, Megumi didn't lose his rationality. He voiced his thoughts carefully.
He didn't have any attachment to Mahoraga anyway—it was something he couldn't control at all. With his current strength, he'd never be able to master it in this lifetime. In essence, it was just a suicide bomb for mutual destruction.
If he could trade an uncontrollable Mahoraga for a stable and powerful second technique, he'd be all for it.
"I'm still your teacher, after all. Taking something without asking isn't something a teacher should do." Roy shrugged, grinning as he urged Megumi.
"Alright, hurry up and choose. Any ability marked with a check is available to you!"
Megumi couldn't help but chuckle slightly.
Immediately after, he turned his attention to the document on his phone.
It was densely packed with numbered abilities—a quick glance revealed there were over a thousand!
Most of them were already checked, meaning these techniques were likely already in Roy's possession.
Just thinking about it, the sheer extent of Roy-sensei's power was terrifying!
Megumi quickly grasped the pattern: the stronger the technique, the higher it ranked. The top-ranked technique was Satoru Gojo's Limitless.
"Limitless Cursed Technique isn't checked?"
"Yeah, that one's pretty much impossible. I regret it too."