His sixth sense was sounding the alarm.
In a world that operated without reason, a jujutsu sorcerer ought to trust their instincts.
"I'll come pick up the letter right away, thank you for letting me know."
After hanging up, Asou Akiya cast an uneasy glance at the sleeping Gojo Satoru beside him. Then he forcibly looked away. He couldn't risk waking him up, he still wasn't certain how serious this matter was.
Early in the morning, Asou Akiya grabbed his jacket and hurried out of Gojo Satoru's dorm room, running straight for the school's mail office.
At the far end of the corridor, Zen'in Naoya had just come out for his morning exercise when he witnessed the scene.
His pupils shook.
Kamo was coming out of Satoru-kun's dorm looking disheveled?
The two of them had spent the night together?!
Who was Satoru-kun?
He's the pride of the Gojo Clan! Famous throughout all three great families; arrogant, temperamental, and so lofty that few people could even enter his sight.
Unlike himself, Satoru-kun had been designated heir to the Gojo Clan from the moment he was born. His father had benefited from that status and inherited the position of clan head. The Gojo Clan's protection of Satoru-kun was so strict that ordinary people could hardly catch a glimpse of him, much less approach him. He was practically like a noble princess hidden away in ancient times.
From birth until now, the only time Satoru-kun had ever been outside the Gojo Clan's protection was when he left home to attend school.
In other words...
Right now was the easiest period in his life for outsiders to get close to him.
A coincidence? Zen'in Naoya didn't believe in coincidences, especially not the kind that happened around that Kamo.
He would rather assume the worst.
That bastard who manipulated everyone around him had probably enrolled at Tokyo Jujutsu High specifically because of Satoru-kun. The reason he had never killed him was simply because he wanted a better opportunity in the future to get his hands on the Gojo Clan's Six Eyes.
Other than the meticulous and calculating Kamo, who would dare harbor ulterior motives toward Satoru-kun?
And who could possibly deceive the Six Eyes?
Yet the reality unfolding before him suggested only one thing— Had Kamo already succeeded?!
"The Gojo Clan is going to lose their minds over this." Zen'in Naoya felt as though he had just stumbled onto the juiciest gossip imaginable.
His eyes gleamed with excitement. There was no way he could keep his thoughts from wandering. The Three Great Clans were, after all, breeding grounds for every kind of hidden scandal.
Although he wasn't the one plotting against Satoru-kun, as an accomplice who knew the truth and chose not to report it, he couldn't help feeling both fear and exhilaration.
The only thing left was for the illegitimate heir of the Kamo Clan to complete the set.
At this rate, wasn't he frighteningly close to sweeping all three great clans into a single pot?
"Ah, no, no, I can't keep thinking about this. Time to train."
Zen'in Naoya slapped his cheeks, yet the corners of his mouth curled upward in a bizarre grin.
Akiya-kun, I admit defeat. You're the true rebel among the Three Great Clans.
At most, I fool around with the women in my family. You went after Satoru-kun?
The three of us have finally become allies.
Satoru-kun, don't worry. I won't reveal your private affairs. You wouldn't want the Gojo Clan finding out you've started dating a boyfriend, would you?
If it had been anyone else spending the night in Gojo Satoru's dorm room, Zen'in Naoya would have assumed that person was merely being toyed with. Calling it "love" would have been giving them far too much credit compared to Satoru-kun.
As a heir of the Three Great Clans, they didn't need to put any effort into finding either men or women.
Only Akiya-kun was different...
A chill ran across Zen'in Naoya's scalp. Without realizing it, he changed the way he referred to the man in his thoughts, no longer calling him simply "Kamo."
He had witnessed firsthand the kind of schemes that transcended raw strength. Just remembering them made his heart ache.
Someone as straightforward as Satoru-kun couldn't possibly outplay him.
Wasn't he himself proof of that?
Hadn't he been maneuvered into selling five years of his life already?
In the span of a few short minutes, Zen'in Naoya constructed an entire fantasy of a romantically invincible "Kamo Akiya." Given the Kamo Clan's reputation, he imagined a household where men and women alike were fair game and private lives were hopelessly chaotic. That gentle, considerate demeanor of Akiya's was probably just an act. For all he knew, there were already several women in the Kamo estate waiting on him every night.
Suddenly, Zen'in Naoya shivered.
He recalled the last time someone had said he looked like a woman, and unease immediately crept into his heart.
"With Satoru-kun around, he shouldn't be interested in me. After we established the Binding Vow, he never did anything excessive to me— No, wait! What do you mean he wouldn't be interested in me? Just because I don't have the Ten Shadows Technique doesn't mean I'm lacking! My cursed energy reserves aren't inferior, and in every other respect I'm practically benchmarked against Satoru-kun himself. Damn you, Akiya-kun—have you been treating me like a dog because I'm just Satoru-kun's substitute?!"
Meanwhile, hurrying toward the mail office, Asou Akiya had no idea that he had somehow become a womanizing playboy in someone else's imagination.
A chill repeatedly crawled down his spine.
"I'm Asou Akiya, I received a call earlier asking me to come collect a letter."
To maintain his composed image, he did not search through the mail himself. Instead, he approached a staff member and politely explained his purpose.
The staff worked efficiently and soon handed him the letter, completely intact.
Asou Akiya's gaze locked onto the envelope.
Nothing appeared unusual about its exterior.
But if the letter had arrived last month, why had someone only called to notify him this month?
He wanted to find fault with the staff, but the reality was that Tokyo Jujutsu High had very few internal employees. They did not hire externally, and with the jujutsu world entering its hellish summer season, the volume of deliveries and mail only increased. Many sorcerers who had already graduated might not return to Tokyo Jujutsu High for an entire year, yet they still liked using their alma mater as their mailing address.
Asou Akiya casually asked, "Can you confirm that the letter hasn't been opened?"
"We are internal personnel bound by contract. We would never pry into a sorcerer's private affairs. We're not like those postal workers outside who might do something improper." The staff member answered with confidence.
With Binding Vows in place, even if an internal employee wanted to become a traitor, they would have no opportunity to do so.
Holding the letter sent through the Tokyo Postal Bureau, Asou Akiya kept his expression calm as he walked away.
He pressed the envelope lightly between his fingers, gauging its thickness.
The thickness is about the same.
He brought the envelope closer and gave it a cautious sniff. There was no unusual odor, only the faint scent of ink and paper.
It doesn't feel like a letter written last year. Was it written this year?
Next, Asou Akiya gathered cursed energy into his eyes and examined the envelope more carefully. A faint trace of cursed energy lingered on it.
The residual aura is extremely weak. It's harmless and wouldn't be enough to trigger the barrier's alarms.
Asou Akiya clenched his teeth inwardly.
What should I do?
For once, he found himself unable to decide.
Should I destroy it immediately, or read it first and then destroy it?
He readily admitted that he was a coward.
He did not dare open this letter under Tengen's watchful gaze.
The recipient was clearly specified. There was no possibility that it had been delivered to the wrong person.
At present, three possibilities lay before him.
The first: It was all a coincidence.
Someone outside the school had sent him a letter, filled it with enough writing to give the envelope some thickness, and that was all.
The second: It was not a coincidence.
Back in March 2004, he had fabricated a letter and mailed it to himself. Its sole purpose had been to force himself into a state of mortal crisis. On May 1, 2005, he had destroyed it the moment he got his hands on it.
The contents had been unbearably melodramatic. Through veiled references and insinuations, it described a future involving Gojo Satoru, Getou Suguru, and Kenjaku.
Under no circumstances could a second person connected to the jujutsu world be allowed to read it.
Now, a similar letter had appeared at a similar time.
Which meant there was a possibility that the contents of that letter had been exposed.
The sender had contacted him through the letter and was deliberately trying to manipulate him.
The most likely possibility was that this person was a jujutsu sorcerer familiar with Tokyo Jujutsu High. Less likely, they were a curse user. Even less likely, it was one of Kenjaku's disguises.
The third possibility—
His curse upon his own death... had actually given birth to a genuine cursed spirit.
His cursed energy was weak, incapable of producing a high-grade cursed spirit. Even so, low-grade cursed spirits could still possess innate techniques.
The inventory curse was a perfect example—a low-grade cursed spirit that possessed a spatial technique.
This cursed spirit, connected to "death," had fixed its gaze upon him and its technique is somehow related to sending letters. Acting on instinct, it wanted the human who had created it to die.
Ideally, it wanted him to die according to the original plan.
There were two versions of that predetermined script.
The first death:
His letter would be exposed to the public, resulting in social death and, worse, bringing him to Kenjaku's attention.
The second death:
He would die exactly as he had in that ridiculous love-triangle novel.
Yes.
In the novel, he had killed himself off.
He had ended the tens of thousands of words of absurd, melodramatic nonsense with a bad ending.
The core of comedy was tragedy.
And the finest ending was death.
The novel's premise was simple.
A protagonist named "Asou Akiya" enrolled at Tokyo Jujutsu High and became the unforgettable mark left in Gojo Satoru's heart. This version of Asou Akiya also became friends with Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru.
Unlike the real Asou Akiya, however, "Asou Akiya" excelled at protecting himself.
"He" saw through everything, yet coldly stood by as Amanai Riko died, as Getou Suguru endured his agonizing summer, and as Haibara Yu lost his life. "He" achieved the level of rationality and ruthlessness that the real Asou Akiya never could.
"Asou Akiya" reaped every advantage the story had to offer.
To survive and become stronger, "he" even cooperated with Kenjaku.
Under the pretense of being in love with Getou Suguru, "he" approached him while pretending not to know that Kenjaku had already taken over his body.
Through laughter, mockery, and casual banter, "he" embodied the indifference and obsession of a transmigrator.
"He" wanted power.
And "he" wanted Gojo Satoru.
Through Kenjaku, "he" met Mahito.
Through Mahito, "he" obtained a cursed technique.
Though, the technique that "he" awakened was a weak one.
It possessed little offensive power.
Yet even the weakest cursed technique was a hope that transcended the ordinary, and it gave him the confidence to believe he could alter the outcome of the Shibuya Incident.
When Gojo Satoru reached the age of thirty, "Asou Akiya" proposed to him.
Gojo Satoru had always been under the impression that "Asou Akiya" was firmly opposed to marriage. Being proposed to caught him completely off guard.
The two of them had only ever been together in a playful, casual sort of way. After all these years, "Asou Akiya" had never seemed like someone who placed love above everything else.
["No way am I getting married."]
In an even more frivolous tone, Gojo Satoru rejected him.
["The incredibly handsome and unrivaled Gojo-sensei has no intention of becoming a boring married old man. Even though Suguru is gone, I can't betray the promise between us. Whoever gets married first is the Thieving cat."]
"Asou Akiya" did not get angry.
Getou Suguru deserved to hold that much weight in Gojo Satoru's heart.
No one could easily surpass him.
The white moonlight and the cinnabar mole—only the dead were truly invincible.
The "Asou Akiya" of the novel understood this. He merely smiled as if it did not matter and continued the conversation in the same carefree manner that matched Gojo Satoru's dismissive attitude.
["Satoru, let's make a bet. Think of it as motivation for me to become stronger."
"What kind of bet?"
"If I become a Special Grade sorcerer, you'll accept my proposal."
"You? A Special Grade? Hahaha, Akiya, your ideas are as entertaining as ever. Sure, why not?"
"Then let's make it a Binding Vow."]
After the Star Plasma Vessel mission, Tengen had withdrawn from public view.
Only "Asou Akiya" knew that Tengen had undergone a transformation and could now assimilate with people other than a Star Plasma Vessel.
In order to fulfill his wish, "Asou Akiya" sought out Tengen and voluntarily offered himself for assimilation.
He surrendered his body, believing it was the only path by which he could become a Special Grade sorcerer.
Tengen, for reasons of its own, took an interest in the cursed technique he possessed and agreed.
The two assimilated.
"Asou Akiya's" consciousness shattered apart. Control of his body was lost to Tengen, a being that had lived for over a thousand years.
In return, Tengen gained every memory from the transmigrator's past and present lives.
Influenced by "Asou Akiya," Tengen found itself helplessly falling in love with Gojo Satoru.
Taking the form of a black-haired young man, Tengen fulfilled "Asou Akiya's" dying wish and proposed to Gojo Satoru.
Bound by their Binding Vow, Gojo Satoru was forced to accept.
The ending was that Gojo Satoru...
Completely broke.
For the rest of his life, Gojo Satoru could never forget his two insane best friends.
The strongest sorcerer in the jujutsu world got married in the morning and divorced that very afternoon, setting a historic record for the collapse of an arranged marriage within the old clan system.
...
After recalling the melodramatic plot he had gleefully written years ago, Asou Akiya broke out in a cold sweat.
He wanted to travel back in time and beat his past self to death.
Seriously—
Whether friend or foe, anyone who read that short story would laugh themselves to death!