Remember that phrase in John Wick
-You are not very good at retiring
-I'm working on that
Without any further to do, enjoy!
---------------------------
(Thousands of Years Ago)
(?'s POV)
The scent of wisteria and blood hung heavy in the night air. The fight was a ballet of desperation and cruelty.
Kanae Kocho, the Flower Hashira, moved with ethereal grace, her blade a whisper of pink petals against the overwhelming, freezing mist of Upper Moon Two, Doma.
But she was losing.
Her breaths came in ragged gasps, her movements slowing as a numbing cold began to seep into her limbs.
Doma, with his fan of frost and a smile of vacant delight, toyed with her.
"My, my, such beautiful determination!" he chimed, his voice like shattering ice. "It makes your spirit so very... delicious. It will be such a shame to break you. Don't worry, I'll make sure to remember every second of it!"
He lunged, his movements a blur, aiming not to kill, but to maim, to savour her despair. Kanae braced, knowing she couldn't fully block it.
The freezing wind threatened to lock her joints solid.
This was it.
Then, the world turned white.
Not with snow, but with light.
A thunderclap erupted from a clear sky, so immense it was less a sound and more a physical force that shattered trees and shook the very ground.
It was followed by an absolute, oppressive silence that swallowed all other noise.
Doma froze, his fan inches from Kanae's neck.
His psychopathic smile finally faltered, replaced by a flicker of genuine confusion.
The killing intent he had been exuding was instantly, utterly crushed by a weight so profound it felt like the sky itself had descended upon them.
Standing between them was a man.
He had not arrived; he had simply manifested.
The air around him crackled with unseen power, and the scent of ozone burned away the cloying sweetness of Doma's frost.
He was tall, wearing a modified Demon Slayer uniform with a haori the color of a stormy sky. His sword was already drawn, held in a relaxed, yet perfect, stance. Platinum hair, almost white in the moonlight, framed a face of brutal, mathematical perfection.
But it was his eyes that held Kanae and Doma captive…
Crimson orbs that glowed with a cold, ancient light, devoid of anger or hatred, only a profound, weary certainty.
"Thunder Hashira..." Kanae breathed, her voice a mixture of awe and shock.
He was a legend even among the Hashira.
He rarely appeared at headquarters, spoke even less, and his missions were completed with a speed and finality that bordered on the mythical. He was considered the strongest of them all, a title no one dared dispute. Not even the Stone Hashira, Himejima Gyomei, who once carried that title.
He was Yoshioka Akira, the Thunder Hashira
Doma's smile returned, wider now, tinged with insane curiosity. "Ooooh! A new friend! And so flashy! That was a wonderful entrance! Tell me, what—"
"Cease your noise"
The command was not a shout. It was a low, calm, resonant baritone that cut through Doma's prattling like a blade through silk.
It was a voice that brooked no argument, that expected absolute obedience. Doma's mouth clicked shut, his head tilting in genuine, unprecedented surprise.
Akira's crimson eyes shifted from the demon to Kanae for a fraction of a second. "Are you capable of retreat, Kocho?" His tone was that of a senior officer assessing an asset's operational status.
Kanae, stunned, could only nod mutely.
"Good. Do so."
He turned his full attention back to Doma, who was beginning to giggle again, the shock wearing off into renewed madness. "My, so rude! Interrupting our conversation and—"
Akira's form blurred. Not with the distinct steps of a Thunder Breathing user, but with an impossible, instantaneous acceleration that tore the ground at his feet.
"Thunder Breathing" he stated, his voice still that same, terrifyingly calm rumble, yet it carried over the building storm of his power. His drawn sword already sheathed by his side "First Form: Thunderclap and Flash..."
The world dissolved. It was not a single line of light. It was a cataclysm.
A million bolts of lightning erupted from his single form, a simultaneous, hyper-fast, million-fold zigzagging storm that filled the entire clearing.
It was a fractal hell of pure, white energy, a network of light so dense and fast it seemed to tear the very fabric of the night. The air screamed as it was ionized, the ground scorched in an impossibly complex pattern.
"Millionfold..."
The words were the only sound, clear and absolute within the maelstrom.
To Kanae, it was like watching a god pass judgment.
To Doma, it was the first and last time he felt true, incomprehensible terror. There was no technique to counter, no speed to match. There was only the light.
There was no clash. No dramatic parry.
There was only the light, and then the silence.
Akira reappeared behind Doma, his sword held loosely at his side. He didn't even look back. He simply flicked his wrist, clearing a single, non-existent drop of blood from the blade with a motion so precise it was an insult in itself.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Doma's body began to come apart. Not in large chunks, but in millions of perfectly symmetrical, tiny cubes of flesh and ice, each slice so clean and precise it seemed surgical.
His gaudy robes fell to the ground in neat ribbons. The fan in his hand clattered to the ground, sliced into a dozen perfect pieces.
The Upper Moon's face, still locked in an expression of vacant surprise, disintegrated before it could even register its own death.
The particles of his being didn't even have time to evaporate properly; they were simply unmade, erased from existence by the sheer, overwhelming precision of the attack.
Akira slowly sheathed his sword with a soft, definitive click. The sound was deafening in the new silence.
He turned his crimson gaze to Kanae, who was staring, utterly paralyzed, her own injuries forgotten.
The sheer scale of the power she had just witnessed had momentarily erased her ability to think.
But as the adrenaline faded, a sharp, hot pain lanced up her leg. A deep gash from Doma's ice she hadn't even registered. She stumbled, a faint gasp escaping her lips.
In that same instant, he was there.
Not a flash of lightning this time, but a shift in the air, a displacement of space.
He was simply beside her, his hand firm on her elbow, stabilizing her before she could fall. His touch was cool, not with the chill of ice, but with a steady, grounding solidity.
"Your leg is injured" he stated, his voice still that flat, analytical baritone. Yet, the action itself, the sudden, effortless proximity, was at odds with the impersonal words.
Kanae looked up at him, her wide, amethyst eyes reflecting the moonlight and the fading remnants of her fear.
She saw not a mythical then, but a man. A man with impossible power, yes, but a man who had placed himself between her and death. A man whose eyes, for all their indifferent weariness, held no malice, only a deep, unshakeable resolve.
Her heart, which had been hammering against her ribs in terror, did something else entirely.
Doki.
It was a single, heavy, resonant beat that had nothing to do with fear.
It was a feeling she had long buried under her duty as a Hashira, a feeling as sudden and undeniable as the lightning that had just saved her.
He released her arm once he was sure she was steady, his attention already shifting to their surroundings, scanning for any further threat with methodical efficiency. "Can you walk, or do you require assistance?" he asked again, the question purely practical.
"I... I can walk," Kanae managed, her voice softer than she intended. She forced herself to stand straight, ignoring the throbbing in her leg. "Thank you, Thunder Hashira. You saved my life."
He gave a single, slight nod, a gesture so minimal it was almost imperceptible. "The Upper Moon has been eliminated. The area is secure. That is the objective." He paused, and his eyes finally returned to hers. For a fleeting second, the intensity in them softened from analytical to merely observant. "Your Flower Breathing is elegant. Inefficient against an opponent of that calibre, but elegant."
It was the closest thing to a compliment she would ever get from him. And to Kanae, who had just faced the void of death, his words felt warmer than any sun.
"I already called for reinforcements. They shall help you. I will check the area for strays"
Then, he was gone. Not a flicker of movement, not a rustle of leaves. He was just there, and then he wasn't.
Kanae stood alone in the suddenly vast and silent clearing, the ruins of what was once a cultist building, the geometrically scorched earth stretching out around her.
The dissolving remains of Upper Moon Two were the only evidence of the battle. But that wasn't what she remembered.
She remembered the thunder. She remembered the light.
But most of all, she remembered the cool, steadying hand on her arm, the glimpse of something more than weary duty in those crimson eyes, and the single, traitorous beat of her own heart.
Doki.
---------------------------
(Present)
(Kasumigaoka Utaha's POV)
The decision was made with the cold, calculating precision of an author choosing a plot twist. Observation was yielding diminishing returns.
To truly understand the character, she needed dialogue. She needed to provoke a reaction.
The perfect opportunity presented itself two days later. She'd noticed he often remained in his classroom long after the final bell, using the quiet space to grade papers. Today, the room was empty save for him at his desk, a stack of essays before him. The setting sun cast long, dramatic shadows across the room, painting him in shades of gold, turning the mundane space into a stage for her inquiry.
Utaha paused at the doorway, observing him for a moment.
He didn't look up. He seemed to be in a state of deep focus, his red pen moving with swift, unforgiving precision. Each stroke was decisive.
There was no hesitation, no second-guessing. It was the hand of a judge delivering verdicts, not a teacher offering guidance.
She took a quiet breath, straightened her posture into something both respectful and subtly challenging, and stepped inside.
The click of her shoes on the linoleum was the only sound, a deliberate punctuation in the quiet room
"Yoshioka-sensei" she said, her voice a carefully modulated blend of polite student and intellectual equal.
His pen stilled. He did not startle. His head lifted slowly, those crimson eyes fixing on her. There was no surprise in them, only a flat, patient acknowledgment, as if her entrance had been a variable already calculated into his evening.
He said nothing, waiting.
The silence itself was a response, a challenge to state her business.
"I was hoping I could trouble you for a moment of your time" She continued, stopping before his desk. She held up a well-worn copy of William Blake's collected works. Her own copy she used to read, but didn't have the amount of deep until now "Regarding your lesson the other day. I heard about it. Your interpretation was… singular."
He placed his pen down neatly beside the papers, aligning it perfectly with the edge of the desk. "It was an interpretation. There are many," he replied, his voice that same low, sound-absorbing baritone. It wasn't dismissive. It was factual, a simple correction of her premise.
"Perhaps. But yours seemed to come from a place of unique authority" Utaha pressed, opening the book to "The Tyger" with a practiced flourish. "You spoke of 'fearful symmetry' not as a metaphor, but as an observable phenomenon. You described the creator not as a theological concept, but as a… craftsman. An artisan. One whose work is both beautiful and terrible"
She met his gaze, allowing her own curiosity to show, sharp and unblinking. "It made me wonder what kind of creations would warrant such a perspective. It felt less like literary analysis and more like… a field report."
For a long moment, he simply looked at her. It was not the look a teacher gives a student. It was the look one predator gives another across a neutral field—assessing, recognizing a different kind of sharpness, a different type of weapon.
"Analysis is rooted in observation, Kasumigaoka-san" He said finally. His voice was like a scalpel, precise and cool. "One can observe the nature of a thing by studying what it creates, and the methods of its creation. A sword can be a work of art in its balance and form. It can also be a perfect instrument of violence. The blacksmith understands both truths simultaneously. The appreciation of one does not negate the reality of the other. To ignore either is a failure of perception"
He spoke with a chilling matter-of-factness.
He wasn't defending his position
He was simply stating the parameters of a universe he understood intimately, a universe where beauty and horror were two sides of the same coin.
"So you see the world as a series of creations and tools?" She asked, leaning forward slightly, her hands resting on the edge of his desk "Including people? Are we all just… well-designed instruments?"
"People are simply more complex tools. Driven by more complex motivations. Sentiment, ego, fear. But the principle of analysis remains" His eyes held hers, and she felt a bizarre sensation, as if she were being X-rayed, her own writer's soul laid bare and categorized. It didn't displease her "We are all, in some way, fashioned by immortal hands. Be it genetics, circumstance, or our own choices. The question Blake asks is not 'who,' but 'what kind of hand?' A gentle one? A cruel one? A hand that fears its own work?"
The air in the room felt thin. He was answering her questions, but each answer only opened a deeper, darker chasm of mystery.
He was giving her the text, but the subtext was a bottomless well.
She felt the thrill of the chase, the addicting rush of staring into an abyss that seemed to stare back with ancient, knowing eyes.
"And which are you, sensei?" The question left her lips before she could stop it, a bold, almost reckless stroke of the pen. She was breaking the fourth wall, addressing the character directly. "A creation? Or a creator who fears his work?"
A silence descended, heavier than before.
The faint sounds of the soccer team practicing outside seemed to fade away, swallowed by the intensity of the space between them.
Utaha held her breath, her writer's heart pounding.
This was it. This was the moment the character would break, or reveal a crucial piece of his backstory, the key to his entire narrative.
But Yoshioka-sensei did neither.
The ghost of something, not a smile, but a fleeting, profound weariness that seemed older than books on the shelves of a library, touched his features.
It was a look that spoke of eons, of cycles of creation and destruction witnessed and perhaps orchestrated. It was gone in an instant, replaced by the neutral mask. Almost imperceptible.
"I am a teacher grading papers, Kasumigaoka-san" He said, his voice never wavering from its calm, neutral tone, though the words now felt like a deliberate and elegant deflection. He picked up his red pen once more, a clear signal that the audience was over. "And you are a student with a perceptive, but ultimately unproductive, line of questioning. The bell for club activities has rung. You should not keep your classmates waiting"
The dismissal was absolute. Polite, final, and utterly impenetrable.
The curtain had been drawn shut.
He had taken her most daring probe and reflected it back, not with hostility, but with the unassailable authority of a man who had long ago settled all his own internal debates.
Utaha felt a thrill of frustration and exhilaration. He hadn't given anything away.
If anything, he had masterfully reinforced his mystery.
She had thrown her best verbal thrust, and he had parried it without even seeming to move. He wasn't just a character; he was a master of the narrative itself.
She offered a slight, respectful bow, a smile playing on her lips that was all artifice, a mask to hide her sheer admiration for his performance. "Of course, sensei. My apologies for the interruption. Thank you for your time. It was… truly illuminating"
She turned and left, the click of her heels echoing in the now-silent hallway.
Her mind was already racing, reconstructing the entire exchange, saving every word, every micro-expression to the hard drive of her memory.
He hadn't denied anything. He had simply reframed the conversation and ended it. That, in itself, was a data point. A massive one.
The Teacher Who Stands in the Doorway of Dawn and Dusk now had its first line of dialogue. And Kasumigaoka Utaha, her curiosity now a burning obsession, was more determined than ever to write the rest of his story, one cryptic clue at a time.
The mystery had deepened, and she was utterly, completely hooked.
------------------------
(?'s POV)
The walk home from school was a waking nightmare. It had only been seventy-two hours. Seventy-two hours since the world had fractured, since her vision had splintered to reveal the things that writhed and oozed in the spaces everyone else ignored.
Every shadow now held a new, terrible potential.
A flicker of movement in her periphery wasn't a bird or a leaf; It was the twitch of a spectral limb.
A sudden chill wasn't the wind; it was the breath of something unspeakable passing too close.
Her entire existence had been reduced to a frantic, internal scream constantly stifled behind a mask of forced normalcy.
Today's path was a convoluted nightmare, a route she'd charted through sheer, panicked trial and error over the last two days, taking her three blocks out of her way to bypass a particularly large, multi-eyed entity oozing black sludge near the usual bus stop.
Her heart hadn't stopped hammering since first period.
She turned down a quieter, tree-lined side street, hoping for a respite.
The air here was cooler, quieter.
For a blessed, heart-stopping moment, she saw nothing but dappled sunlight and heard only the rustle of leaves. She allowed herself a shallow breath, her white-knuckled grip on her school bag loosening slightly.
Maybe… maybe it was over. Maybe her brain had decided to stop its cruel, hallucinatory rebellion.
And then she saw him.
Standing in the middle of the empty street was a man. He was as still as a photograph, his back to her, his platinum hair almost glowing in the late afternoon sun.
He was just… looking at nothing, his hands held loosely at his sides. He didn't belong. He was too still, too perfect. In her new, terrifying world, he registered as another anomaly.
Miko froze, her survival instincts, instincts that were only two days old and raw as an open wound, screaming at her to turn around and run the other way. Not another one. Please, not another thing.
But before she could move, she saw it.
Lumbering out from behind a telephone pole was… something else.
Something worse. It was a grotesque thing, all mismatched limbs and a single, massive weeping eye in the centre of its shapeless head.
It was more solid, more real than the shifting shadows and faint shapes she'd been seeing.
It let out a wet, gurgling sound that grated on her ears, raising the hairs on her arms. It began to shamble toward the motionless man, its intention malevolent and clear.
'No' She thought, a cold dread colder than any she'd felt in her short seventy-two hours of hell washing over her. It was going to hurt him.
It was going to happen right in front of her, and she was just going to watch, paralyzed, because that was all she knew how to do.
The man, Yoshioka-sensei, some distant, rational part of her brain supplied, recognizing him from the teacher introductions assembly, and her friend's ramblings about his handsome features, didn't turn.
He didn't flinch. He didn't even seem to notice the approaching horror.
He simply raised his right hand, index finger extended, as if pointing at something in the distance.
The grotesque spirit was mere feet from him, one twisted limb reaching out.
Yoshioka-sensei made a small, almost lazy flicking motion with his wrist.
There was no sound. No flash of light. No burst of energy.
The thing simply ceased to be.
It didn't pop, dissolve, or fade. One moment it was a terrifying, physical reality, and the next, the space it occupied was empty.
It was erased, utterly and completely, as if it had never existed at all. The faint, oppressive aura that had accompanied it, a pressure she was only just learning to feel, vanished, leaving the street feeling startlingly clean and quiet.
Miko stared, her mind short-circuiting. The part of her that was still convinced this was all a horrific mental break struggled to compute the evidence. It was over so fast, so quietly, it felt like a trick of the light. But the absence of the thing was more profound, more real, than its presence had been. The silence it left behind was the loudest thing she had ever heard.
Yoshioka-sensei lowered his hand. He didn't look around.
He didn't react at all. It was as if he had just swatted a fly that only he could see. He simply adjusted the strap of his briefcase and began to walk down the street.
He was going to walk right past her.
A tumult of emotions warred inside her: sheer, petrifying terror at what she'd just witnessed… and a desperate, blazing spark of hope so sudden and violent it was painful.
'He could see them.He could see them too.And he could make them go away' The thought was so powerful it overrode her fledgling self-preservation instincts. This wasn't just about her terror anymore.
This was about Hana. This was about the thing that had been coiling around her best friend's neck at lunchtime, its gaseous form whispering things Miko couldn't hear.
This was about never having to just stand there, helpless, ever again.
As he passed by, his crimson eyes glanced in her direction. There was no surprise, no concern. Just a flat, observational look, as if noting her presence like he would a streetlamp.
That look broke the dam. The fragile mask of normalcy she'd clung to for two days shattered completely.
"Y-Yoshioka-sensei!" The words tore from her throat, raw and desperate, before she could stop them.
He stopped. He turned fully to face her, his expression unchanging. He waited.
Miko trembled violently, hugging her arms around herself, making herself look smaller than she was. She was a raw nerve, exposed and shaking on the sidewalk.
"You…" she stammered, her voice a terrified whisper, tears already beginning to stream down her face. She had no strength left to hold them back. "You saw it too… didn't you? That… that thing. You… you made it disappear."
She wasn't asking. She was pleading. Pleading for him to confirm that she wasn't insane. That the world had actually become this terrifying place and it wasn't just all in her head.
He regarded her for a long, silent moment, taking in her trembling form, her tear-streaked face, the absolute desperation in her eyes.
The street was utterly still. The impassive mask on his face seemed to soften, just a fraction. A faint, almost human sigh escaped him, a sound that seemed profoundly out of place.
"I did," he said, his voice quieter now, less like a statement of fact and more like a person speaking. It was still calm, but the edges were less sharp. "It was a dangerous thing. Your fear was a rational response."
A sob of relief hitched in Miko's chest. He wasn't denying it. He was agreeing with her.
"Please…" she whispered, the word barely audible. She hugged herself tighter, as if she could physically hold herself together. "My friend… Hana… she can't see them, but they're always around her… they're attracted to her… I saw one on her today… I can't… I can't always protect her. I just… I only started seeing them a few days ago and I… I can't do this alone anymore."
She was crying openly now, the weight of the secret, the immense, lonely burden of it that had compressed her entire world into a single, terrifying week, finally cracking her apart on the sidewalk.
Yoshioka-sensei watched her, that same strange, tired understanding in his crimson eyes. He was silent for a long moment, as if weighing a great many things.
Then he did something that shocked her. He walked back to her and knelt down, bringing himself to her eye level. His movements were still precise, but they lacked their usual machine-like quality. He was… present.
"Look at me, Yotsuya-san" he said, his voice low but firm. "What you are experiencing… it is a heavy sight. Carrying this by yourself after only a few days... that is too much for anyone. Especially a student"
He paused, choosing his words with a care she could feel. "I am your teacher. It is my responsibility to help. Not just with schoolwork." He glanced in the direction the spirit had vanished. "With this, too."
Miko stared at him, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing. This wasn't a hallucination. This was real
"I cannot make them stop coming, there are connected to the laws of this world" He said honestly, his gaze direct. The last part almost muttered, her mind filled with emotions not truly registering those words "But I can teach you how to be safer. How to shield yourself. How to protect your friend better." He offered her a small, clean handkerchief from his pocket. "It will not be easy. The learning curve is steep. But you will not be alone in it anymore"
Miko took the handkerchief with trembling hands, fresh tears flowing, but these were different. They were tears of relief, of a weight finally, finally being shared. The cloth was soft and smelled faintly of ozone and something unidentifiably clean.
"T-thank you, sensei," she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion.
He gave a small, genuine nod and stood up. "Go home now, Yotsuya-san. Get some rest. Your nerves need it. We will speak more tomorrow." He offered the faintest hint of a reassuring smile, a gesture that seemed both foreign and deeply comforting on his features. "You have been very brave these last few days. Bravery without guidance is exhausting"
As she watched him walk away, the setting sun casting his long shadow down the street, Miko felt something she hadn't felt since this began—a flicker of solid, real hope. The nightmare wasn't over, but for the first time, she had a guide. She wasn't just a lost, terrified girl seeing monsters. She was a student with a teacher.
And that changed everything
------------------------
(?'s POV)
He was halfway through a truly sublime crepe, a limited-edition matcha-and-white-chocolate masterpiece, when he felt it
It wasn't a surge of cursed energy. It wasn't the familiar, grating signature of a curse being born, or the violent, satisfying pop of one being exorcised. It was the exact opposite.
Somewhere across the sprawling, suburban area, a Cursed Spirit, a minor one, probably a Grade 3 or 4, something pathetic born of rush-hour frustration and existential dread on the Yamanote Line, simply ceased.
He paused, a dollop of perfectly whipped cream hovering just before his lips.
This wasn't an exorcism. Exorcisms had a flavour. They were messy, violent, a release of energy.
You could taste the technique used, the crackle of a Lightning user, the caustic burn of Cursed Speech, the unique, boundless void of his own Hollow Purple.
You could feel the spirit's energy unravel, its negative emotions dissipating back into the atmosphere like a foul smell slowly clearing.
This was different. This was… deletion.
It was like a single pixel on a massive, high-resolution screen had been selected and erased, not just turning it black, but leaving a perfect, seamless patch of the image behind it in its place.
The absence was so absolute, so surgically clean, it was louder and more jarring than any explosion of cursed energy could ever be. It was a silent, impossible subtraction from reality itself.
It was, by every law of jujutsu he knew, impossible. And therefore, incredibly, delightfully interesting.
A wide, manic grin spread across his face beneath the blindfold. "Well, well, well," he murmured to himself, lowering the exquisite crepe as if it were now nothing more than a mundane piece of bread. "What do we have here? A new player on the field? And one with such… impeccable manners. No mess at all"
He didn't need to track residual energy. There was none to track. Instead, he tracked the absence.
The hole it left in the city's constant, low-level background spiritual static was a beacon to his Six Eyes. It was a perfect, silent crater in the metaphysical landscape.
In a flash of distorted space, the world around him bent and folded. The sounds of the upscale shopping district, the chatter, the music, the clinking of coffee cups, vanished, replaced by an instant of crushing pressure and silence.
He reappeared an instant later in the middle of a quiet, tree-lined side street in a nondescript residential neighbourhood. The transition was so seamless that not a single speck of sugar from his crepe was disturbed.
The air here was… clean. Sterile. It was the most spiritually neutral ground he'd felt outside of his own personally warded barriers. The "crime scene" was pristine. There was nothing to analyse, no energy signature to dissect, no lingering malice or fear to taste.
Just… nothing. A perfect blank slate.
Gojo stood perfectly still, his senses expanded to their absolute limit.
The Six Eyes, the pinnacle of jujutsu perception, went to work. They didn't just see cursed energy; they perceived the flow of information and reality itself at a molecular level.
They scoured every molecule of air, every photon of the fading afternoon light, every quantum fluctuation in the immediate area, searching for a tear, a scar, a hint of the mechanism behind the erasure.
Nothing.
Whoever, or whatever, had done this was gone.
Not just physically gone, but completely undetectable on every conceivable level.
They had left no spiritual scent, no residual technique, no curse energy trail, no disturbance in the atomic fabric of the space.
It was as if the universe itself had simply recalculated its equations and decided that particular curse had never existed in the first place.
The absolute, terrifying precision of it was staggering.
This wasn't brute force. This wasn't power overwhelming. This was control. A level of finesse and authority over reality that shouldn't be possible.
It wasn't a hammer; it was a scalpel wielded by a god-tier surgeon.
A slow, delighted chuckle escaped him. He tilted his head back, addressing the sky. "My, my," he whispered to the empty street, his grin widening to an almost painful degree. "Aren't you a neat little mystery? So clean. So quiet. It's almost rude, how good you are"
He ran through the mental list of every major and minor player in the jujutsu world. Every clan technique, every secret art, every cursed tool of note.
This was none of them. This was something entirely new.
An outside-context problem. A variable that didn't just change the equation; it was written in a different mathematical language altogether.
The grin on his face was now utterly unhinged with pure, undiluted curiosity and glee. This was better than a Special Grade curse. This was a puzzle box with no apparent seams.
"Heh," he snorted to himself, shoving his hands in his pockets. "A ghost in the machine. How poetic"
He wasn't dealing with a sorcerer or a curse. He was dealing with a phenomenon. A natural disaster that left no damage. A ghost that erased other ghosts.
And Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer, the guardian of the balance, the self-proclaimed arbiter of what was fun and interesting in this world, made it his personal mission to find the most fascinating toys to play with
In a flicker of distorted space that compressed the avenue into a single point, he was gone, leaving the perfectly clean, empty street behind. The hunt was on.
And for the first time in a very, very long time, Satoru Gojo had no idea what he was looking for. No scent to follow, no energy to trace, no legend to investigate.
Just the lingering echo of a perfect, impossible nothing.
He couldn't wait to find it. The game had just gotten a whole lot more interesting.