Pain was a language Kage had learned young.
The Zen'in training pits had taught him its vocabulary—sharp versus dull, surface versus deep, temporary versus permanent. But this was different. The Inverted Spear's nullification had carved something beyond physical damage into his shoulder. It had touched the place where his cursed energy lived, where his techniques originated, and left corruption in its wake.
His body was trying to heal. His cursed energy was trying to flow.
The two processes were fighting each other.
"Stay still, idiot."
Shoko's voice cut through the haze. Her hands glowed green, reverse cursed technique pouring into Kage's ruined shoulder with the efficiency of someone who'd done this too many times.
"Riko—" Kage tried to sit up.
"Is gone. Toji took her. And you're going to bleed out if you don't stop moving." Shoko's cursed energy intensified, forcing Kage's body to prioritize survival over heroics. "Gojo's over there, also unconscious, also stupid. You two really know how to make my job difficult."
Kage's enhanced senses catalogued the infirmary. Gojo on the adjacent bed, his cursed energy signature flickering erratically—not weakening, but changing, like watching a star collapse and reform into something denser. Suguru somewhere nearby, his cursed energy carrying devastation. And no Riko.
No Riko.
"How long?" Kage's voice was rough.
"How long what?"
"How long has she been gone?"
"Forty minutes. Maybe more. I lost track while keeping you alive." Shoko pulled back, her RCT complete but her expression grim. "The Inverted Spear did a number on you. Your cursed energy pathways are compromised. Normally I'd say bed rest for a week, but—"
Kage forced himself upright. Every muscle screamed. His cursed energy sputtered like a dying flame. But Riko was out there, probably dying, definitely terrified, and he'd promised to protect her.
"—but you're an idiot who doesn't listen," Shoko finished tiredly. "Sit down before you pass out again."
"Can't. Need to find—"
"Toji. Yeah, I got that. But you're not finding anyone in this condition." She grabbed his arm, physically restraining him with surprising strength. "Kage, listen to me. Your cursed energy reserves are at twenty percent. Your shoulder is held together by RCT and stubbornness. You pursue Toji now, you die. Permanently."
"Better than living with—"
"With what? Failure?" Shoko's voice turned sharp. "You think dying heroically erases that? You failed. Own it. Learn from it. Get stronger. But throwing your life away accomplishes nothing except making me fill out more death certificates."
The words hit like physical blows. Failed. He'd failed Riko, failed his friends, failed to act when it mattered. All his strength, all his techniques, all his training—useless when confronted with someone who understood violence better than he did.
"I felt him in Okinawa," Kage admitted, his voice hollow. "Toji. I sensed his presence and said nothing. Wanted to give Riko one more day of happiness. And that choice—"
"Saved nothing and cost everything." Suguru's voice came from the doorway. He looked worse than Kage felt—clothes torn, blood dried on his face, cursed energy signature carrying something broken. "I thought I could protect her. Manifested everything I had. Wasn't enough."
"None of us were enough," Kage said. "The three strongest second-years in jujutsu history, and we lost to one man with a sword."
"Not just any man." Gojo's voice was different—colder, more certain, carrying an edge that hadn't existed before. "The Sorcerer Killer. And he didn't win because he was stronger. He won because we were arrogant."
Kage turned to find Gojo sitting up, his Six Eyes glowing with unnatural intensity. The cursed energy radiating from him was wrong—too dense, too controlled, like watching infinity compressed into human form.
"You're awake," Shoko observed clinically. "And different. What happened?"
"I died." Gojo said it casually, like discussing the weather. "Technically. Heart stopped for three seconds. Brain activity ceased. I was gone." His smile was sharp, empty. "And in that space between death and rebirth, I understood."
"Understood what?" Kage asked.
"Everything." Gojo's cursed energy pulsed. "Infinity isn't just a defensive technique. It's a state. I was treating it like armor—something to activate when threatened. But that requires conscious thought, reaction time, processing. Toji exploited those gaps."
"And now?"
"Now Infinity is automatic. Constantly active. Sorting threats by mass, speed, and cursed energy, stopping anything dangerous before it reaches me." Gojo flexed his hand, space distorting around it. "I don't have to think about it. It just is. Like breathing."
The implications were staggering. Automatic Infinity meant Gojo was effectively untouchable—no surprise attacks, no exploiting reaction time, no gaps for weapons like the Inverted Spear to find.
"You evolved," Kage said quietly.
"I transcended." Gojo's expression was cold. "And now I'm going to find Toji and show him what real strength looks like."
"We're going together," Kage insisted, forcing himself to stand despite his injuries. "This isn't just your fight—"
"Yes, it is." Gojo's cursed energy flared, making the infirmary tremble. "You're both injured. Riko's already dead—I can feel the absence where her cursed energy should be. This isn't about rescue anymore. It's about ensuring the Sorcerer Killer never kills again."
"So it's revenge."
"It's justice." Gojo's voice was absolute. "Toji chose to attack us, chose to kill Riko, chose to make an enemy of the strongest. Now he faces the consequences."
Kage felt it then—the shift in Gojo's cursed energy, the way his friend's personality had fractured into something colder, more ruthless. Death had changed him. Defeat had changed him. And the person standing before them wasn't the Satoru Gojo who'd joked about jellyfish and bought too much food.
This was someone who'd touched mortality and rejected it.
"Satoru—" Suguru started.
"Don't." Gojo's tone brooked no argument. "I know what you're going to say. That revenge isn't the answer, that we should process this properly, that killing Toji makes us no better than him." His Six Eyes glowed. "But here's the thing, Suguru. I don't care. He killed our friend. He needs to die. It's simple."
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken fear. Because Gojo was right—it was simple. Toji had murdered Riko. The logical response was elimination. Cold. Practical. Justified.
But something in that simplicity felt wrong.
"I'm coming with you," Kage said finally.
"You're barely—"
"I'm coming." Kage's cursed energy sparked to life, his shadow expanding despite the pain. "You're right. Riko's probably dead. This is about justice now. And I need—" His voice cracked. "I need to face him. Need to prove I can do what's necessary when hesitation fails."
Gojo studied him with those impossibly perceptive Six Eyes. "You hesitated against Toji because he trained you. Because you couldn't bring yourself to seriously hurt your teacher."
"And because of that hesitation, Riko's dead."
"So you'll kill him? Actually go through with it?"
Kage thought about the aquarium. About Riko's laughter. About her deciding she wanted to live and trusting them to protect that choice. About how his own selfish desire to give her happiness had led directly to her death.
"Yes," he said, and meant it. "I'll kill him."
Rage and evolution.
Something shifted in Kage's cursed energy.
His shadow, which had been slowly expanding, suddenly exploded outward. Darkness consumed the infirmary—not his controlled Abyss technique, but something rawer, angrier, more primal. The void where his eyes should've been was manifesting externally, turning reality itself into absence.
"Kage!" Shoko's voice cut through the darkness. "Control it!"
"I can't—" He couldn't. His cursed energy was responding to rage, grief, guilt, all of it mixing into something that bypassed conscious control. The darkness spread, consuming light, swallowing sound, turning everything into the void he'd been born into.
A proto-domain. Incomplete, unstable, but powerful.
"KAGE!" Gojo's hand grabbed his shoulder. "You're manifesting a domain! You need to stop before it collapses and kills everyone in range!"
"Rico's dead because I hesitated!"
"And killing yourself won't change that!" Gojo's Infinity expanded, pushing back against Kage's darkness. "I get it! You're angry! I'm angry! But uncontrolled domain manifestation will destroy your cursed energy pathways permanently!"
The darkness flickered. Kage's conscious mind wrestled with instinct, trying to pull back the void that wanted to consume everything. It was like trying to cap a volcano—the pressure kept building, kept demanding release.
"Breathe," Suguru's voice, calm despite everything. "Kage, listen to me. Breathe. You're not in the Zen'in estate. You're not in the training pits. You're here. With us. Safe."
"Riko isn't safe—"
"Riko's gone. And raging won't bring her back." Suguru's cursed energy wrapped around Kage's like a lifeline. "But we're still here. And we need you functional, not dead from technique overload."
Slowly—agonizingly—Kage pulled his cursed energy back. The proto-domain collapsed inward, darkness receding until only his normal shadow remained. He collapsed to his knees, gasping, feeling like he'd just run a marathon through hell.
"That," Shoko said shakily, "was the most terrifying thing I've seen this week. And I watched Toji cut through our strongest like they were made of paper."
"Sorry," Kage managed.
"Don't apologize. Just don't do it again without warning." She was already scanning him with RCT. "Your cursed energy pathways are stressed but intact. You got lucky."
"Lucky," Kage repeated bitterly. "Right. That's what I am. Lucky."
Gojo sat beside him, his cursed energy still different but now carrying something like understanding. "You almost manifested your domain. That's... actually impressive. Most sorcerers train for decades before they can even attempt it."
"It was incomplete. Unstable. Would've killed me if you hadn't stopped it."
"But it existed. For about thirty seconds, you created a space where your cursed energy was absolute." Gojo's voice carried something like respect. "When you perfect it, that domain will be terrifying."
"If I perfect it."
"When." Gojo stood, offered a hand. "Because we're not done evolving. Today broke us. But breaking is just the first step toward becoming something stronger."
Kage took the hand, let Gojo pull him up. They stood facing each other—two prodigies who'd touched death and come back different.
"We find Toji," Gojo said. "We end this. Together."
"Together," Kage agreed.
"And then?" Suguru asked quietly. "After Toji's dead? After we've proven we can do what's necessary? What happens to us?"
The question hung heavy.
Because they'd crossed a threshold today. Gojo had died and been reborn as something more. Kage had nearly manifested a domain born from rage. And Suguru—
Suguru looked at them with something like fear in his eyes. Not fear of external threats. Fear of what his friends were becoming.
"We become stronger," Gojo said simply. "Strong enough that this never happens again. Strong enough that no one else dies because we weren't good enough."
"And if becoming that strong means losing ourselves?"
"Then we lose ourselves." Gojo's voice was absolute. "Better that than losing more people we care about."
Shoko stepped between them, her cursed energy signature carrying exhaustion and warning. "Listen to yourselves. You sound like curse users. Like people who've decided the ends justify any means."
"Maybe they do," Gojo said.
"Maybe you're both traumatized teenagers who just experienced catastrophic failure and are making dangerous decisions based on grief rather than reason," Shoko countered sharply. "I'm not saying don't pursue Toji. I'm saying do it with clear heads, not blind rage."
"My head is perfectly clear," Gojo said. "Clearest it's ever been. I understand exactly what needs to happen."
"That's what scares me." Shoko turned to Kage. "And you? Are you thinking clearly? Or are you just following Gojo because rage feels better than grief?"
Kage wanted to argue. Wanted to insist his motivations were pure, justified, righteous.
But Shoko was right. He was angry—at Toji, at himself, at jujutsu society, at the universe for making this situation possible. And that anger was demanding blood.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But Riko trusted us. And we failed her. So whether it's revenge or justice or just rage dressed up in noble language—I need to face Toji. Need to prove I can do what's necessary when it matters."
"Even if it changes you?"
"I'm already changed. We all are." Kage looked at Gojo, then Suguru. "Today showed us what we really are. Not the strongest. Just kids who thought strength was enough until reality proved otherwise."
"So we get stronger," Gojo said. "Until strength is enough."
"At what cost?"
"Whatever it takes."
The hunt begins.
They left the infirmary against Shoko's protests, her warnings about unstable cursed energy and incomplete healing falling on deaf ears. Riko was dead, Toji was still out there, and sitting idle felt like betrayal.
Gojo led with his newly evolved Six Eyes, tracking Toji's absence-that-was-presence through Tokyo with supernatural precision. Kage followed, his shadow expanding to map their surroundings. And Suguru brought up the rear, his cursed energy signature troubled but determined.
"He's at the Tombs," Gojo reported. "Probably confirming Riko's death before collecting payment. We'll intercept him there."
"And then?" Suguru asked.
"Then I kill him." Gojo's voice was cold. "Quickly. Efficiently. Permanently."
"Just like that? No trial, no investigation, no—"
"No hesitation." Gojo's Six Eyes glowed. "Toji made his choice. Now he faces the consequences."
They moved through Tokyo's streets, three teenagers carrying weapons they'd been handed too young, making decisions no children should make. Civilians passed them, oblivious to the violence brewing, to the fact that two of the strongest sorcerers in generations were hunting the Sorcerer Killer through their city.
Kage's shadow rippled with barely contained rage. His cursed energy was still unstable from the near-domain manifestation, but he channeled it into Abyss, letting darkness pool around his feet like living tar.
"You okay?" Suguru asked quietly, matching his pace.
"No. But functional."
"That's not the same thing."
"It's enough." Kage's voice was flat. "Today taught me that being okay is a luxury. Functional is all that matters."
"That's a terrible philosophy."
"That's survival."
Suguru was quiet for a moment. Then: "Do you think we can come back from this? After we kill Toji? After we cross that line?"
"I don't know. Ask me when it's done."
They reached the Tombs of the Star Corridor, where Riko should've merged with Tengen, where her consciousness should've become part of something greater. Instead, they found—
Nothing.
No Toji. No Riko's body. Just empty corridors and the residual cursed energy of violence done and departed.
"He's gone," Gojo said, his Six Eyes scanning. "Left about ten minutes ago. Moving fast."
"Where?"
"South. Toward—" Gojo paused. "Toward the religious building where the Time Vessel Association operates. He's collecting payment."
"Then we follow," Kage said.
They pursued through Tokyo, three shadows chasing a ghost, rage and justice and trauma driving them forward. And at the edge of Kage's perception, he felt it—Toji's absence, the void-that-walked, the man who'd taught him strength meant isolation.
The teacher he was about to kill.
If they could.
If they were strong enough.
If hesitation didn't steal his hand again at the critical moment.
I won't hesitate, Kage promised himself, promised Riko's memory, promised the darkness that had almost consumed him. Not this time. Not ever again.
The void child had learned to shine.
Now he would learn to kill.
And pray that the cost wasn't his humanity.