Chapter 8: The Reason I Left Without a Word
"Move aside. You should know what this fight means, right?"
Toji frowned at Zenin Jinsuke's back and shouted.
"So what?"
Zenin Jinsuke turned around and looked at him calmly.
For so-called pride? Or to make those people regret it?
Of course he understood what Toji was thinking, but… even if he beat Gojo Satoru, so what?
If it was only to make those people regret it, what Jinsuke did back then was already enough to make the Zenin Clan regret it for a lifetime.
Staring at Zenin Jinsuke's calm expression, Toji froze. The Inverted Spear of Heaven spinning rapidly in his hand slowly came to a stop.
Thinking about what he'd been doing, the fighting spirit he'd just ignited vanished without a trace.
The moment he wanted to use defeating Gojo Satoru as a way to answer the Zenin Clan and the jujutsu world for denying the two brothers, he had already lost.
Without realizing it, he was trying to pick up the pride he'd abandoned long ago.
"Tch. Meddlesome."
Putting away his cursed tools, Toji left directly. Even though he understood why Jinsuke stopped him, he still felt annoyed. Jinsuke was only a year older, yet always acted like a senior no matter what.
Seeing that, Zenin Jinsuke let out a breath of relief. Denying the jujutsu world wasn't something you could prove just by beating one Gojo Satoru.
"Hey, hey, hey. You're just leaving like that? That's kind of rude, isn't it?"
Gojo Satoru floated in the sky, blocking the two of them.
Even though he wanted to keep savoring that "throughout heaven and earth, I alone am supreme" feeling, the fact that they were walking away right in front of him was a little too disrespectful, wasn't it?
…
Looking at Gojo Satoru, bloodstained and slightly unhinged, Zenin Jinsuke paused—he'd almost forgotten about this guy.
"Gojo… Satoru, right?"
"Amanai Riko didn't die. You and I don't have any grudge. If you're not leaving, are you inviting us to dinner?"
Zenin Jinsuke shot back. Their conflict came from Amanai Riko, and since she was alive and well, he felt there was no need for them to fight at all.
It wasn't like sorcerers running into cursed spirits, where it had to end in mutual killing.
"Hmm…"
Gojo Satoru thought for a moment, then reacted. "Riko didn't die? But… he almost killed me just now. Doesn't that count as a grudge?"
So he wasn't allowed to take revenge for himself?
Zenin Jinsuke suddenly laughed.
"So did you die? Not only did you not die—you awakened Reverse Cursed Technique because of it, and… your gains aren't just that, are they?"
"Remember this favor properly. You'll have to pay it back someday."
Zenin Jinsuke waved and walked off, leaving a bewildered Gojo Satoru standing there, stunned.
"What do you mean?"
Gojo Satoru watched the two of them leave. He raised a hand into a starting stance, but didn't follow through, until they vanished from his sight.
"What the hell… so now I'm supposed to thank you guys?"
Gojo Satoru finally returned to normal from that strange state. He descended slowly to the ground, rubbing his chin in suspicion.
"Seriously… who were those two?"
After all that, he still couldn't figure out who the brothers were. He felt like he'd seen them somewhere before.
He didn't know that when he was a child, he really had crossed paths with Zenin Jinsuke and Toji once—though that was more than ten years ago.
Not long after, Geto Suguru and Amanai Riko found Gojo Satoru.
"Gojo, nothing happened on your side, right?"
Seeing the blood on Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru looked deeply worried.
Amanai Riko saw Gojo Satoru's calm eyes and suddenly felt he was a bit unfamiliar. "Did something happen over here?"
"Nothing much. I just ran into someone interesting."
Gojo Satoru looked at Amanai Riko, wearing an expression that felt familiar again. "Since you're here, I guess you chose to leave. Sigh… kids really are a pain."
Amanai Riko instantly puffed up angrily. They were the ones who gave her the choice, and now he was teasing her.
She looked mad on the outside, but warm inside—at least from today on, she had plenty of time to enjoy her youth.
"Gojo, things are about to get troublesome."
Because of Amanai Riko, Lord Tengen—or even the entire jujutsu world—would probably come after the two of them.
"Geto, you're not scared, are you?"
"Don't be ridiculous. We're the strongest."
The three walked forward beneath the afterglow, their shadows cast on the ground—two long, one short—looking strangely gentle.
...
"So you've been living off women all these years?"
Zenin Jinsuke stared at Toji with a serious face. "A real man has hands and feet. How can you live off others? Toji, you've fallen too far."
"I told you that was in the past. Now I married into the Fushiguro family."
Toji looked speechless. Why did Jinsuke keep harping on him living off others? It wasn't like he didn't make money.
"Married in, huh. That's fine. I heard from the old man you've got a son. One day, take me to see him."
Thinking that his little brother had a family now, Zenin Jinsuke temporarily forgave those years of freeloading.
"Megumi? Haven't seen him in years."
Clearly, Toji wasn't a qualified father.
He felt guilty toward Megumi, but didn't know how to make it up to him, so he simply sold him to the Zenin Clan.
"But now it's your turn to explain."
Toji stared at Jinsuke. The resentment in his heart had mostly faded, but if he didn't understand the truth, he still felt unsettled.
Toji didn't know much about what happened back then. He only knew that the two brothers weren't welcome in the Zenin Clan and suffered endless cold stares and ridicule.
And his brother Jinsuke always acted like he didn't care at all, like none of it mattered.
But then one day, it was like he became a different person and began killing within the Zenin Clan.
Toji didn't know the details, but he knew that after that incident, the Zenin Clan lost a full third of its members.
And from that point on, his brother vanished from the jujutsu world. When Zenin clan members saw him again, their eyes held not only mockery, but also fear.
Toji's voice was low.
"Back then… why did you leave without saying anything?"
Zenin Jinsuke fell silent for a moment.
"Didn't the old man tell you?"
Then he spoke, recounting what happened back then in simple terms.
In short: even though everyone in the Zenin Clan looked down on him and mocked him, he didn't give a damn. It wasn't like he'd lose a piece of flesh.
Besides, he knew how powerful Heavenly Restriction was. He spent every day developing it—who had time to care about the jeers of those cursed-energy monkeys?
But because the two brothers had no cursed energy, some people in the Zenin Clan hurt his mother—the only person in the entire clan who ever made him feel warmth.
When his mother was harmed, he couldn't endure it anymore. In a rage, he killed many people.
If his mother hadn't come out crying to stop him, and if Zenin Naobito hadn't intervened, the Zenin Clan would have even fewer people now.
Still, back then, young and reckless, he couldn't understand why his mother would plead for the Zenin Clan. After a fierce argument with her, he left the Zenin Clan and began his fallen life overseas.
During that time, he thought about many things, and he came to accept many of them—but he didn't know how to face his mother.
Until Naobito used connections to find him and told him the news of his mother's death.
After that, he sank into a depressed period, and it was during that time he met Tsukumo Yuki.
Time gradually washed away his confusion. He lived more and more freely, until Toji's situation brought him back here again.
His only regret was that he never got to see his mother one last time in this world.