Worse, after seeing that video, some people quickly started copying it. They filmed a lot of similar videos of themselves abusing cursed children and posted them on social media to vent their hatred and get attention.
In no time, social media was full of videos like that. Every one of them was cruel, and every one made people feel angry and sick. The whole internet was covered in that kind of hatred.
"Looks like changing all this and protecting these kids isn't going to be easy."
Betty leaned over too, holding her phone and looking at the brutal videos. Her usual haughty, dismissive look was gone, replaced by something serious and resigned. She shook her head slightly and spoke to Gojo with a sigh.
She'd always known human nature was complicated and ugly. But she hadn't expected people's malice to go this far, to the point of doing something like that to a small child.
Gojo looked at the video on his phone screen, at the brutal footage and the vicious comments. Behind his sunglasses, his brows drew together slightly, and the relaxed smile disappeared completely from his face.
The lazy air around him slowly turned cold. An invisible pressure quietly spread out, and the air around him seemed to freeze.
He'd still underestimated the evil in people. He'd underestimated the prejudice and disgust in their hearts.
He'd thought that as long as he held the front line, protected Tokyo, and gave people hope, they'd be able to let go of their prejudice and treat those innocent cursed children kindly.
But he was wrong. Way wrong.
For some people, that malice was carved into their bones and couldn't be changed easily. Their ugliness and cruelty were even worse and more shameful than cursed spirits, which had no reason and only knew how to kill.
And in the current situation, with the Gastrea threat still not fully gone, these videos, which would normally look horribly cruel, were instead getting tons of support and praise. They'd become a tool for people to vent their hatred.
Gojo slowly tightened his grip on his phone until his knuckles went white. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes turned cold and sharp, full of suppressed anger and a hint of helplessness that was hard to notice.
He knew he couldn't just stand by anymore. He had to step in and stop this hatred from spreading. He had to protect those innocent cursed children and make the abusers pay for what they'd done.
Otherwise, everything he'd done and everything he'd protected would be meaningless.
If he didn't intervene, things would definitely get worse.
Gojo stood on the open ground at the front line, the stinking remains of Gastrea still at his feet. He raised his eyes slightly and looked toward the city. His gaze behind the sunglasses was calm, but there was a faint coldness hidden in it.
But Gojo also understood something very clearly.
He knew better than anyone that the situation was no longer something Seitenshi could handle.
Seitenshi had become the real ruler. She wanted to protect everyone, and she could act decisively. But in the end, she was still bound by the rules of this world and by the will of the people. Her power couldn't force a change in the prejudice and hatred deep in people's hearts.
This wasn't something a law could fix, and it wasn't a conflict that orders or crackdowns could settle.
Laws could restrict people's behavior, but they couldn't change how people thought. The army could put down chaos, but it couldn't erase the fear and disgust deep in people's hearts.
"So what are you going to do?"
Betty leaned against a big rock nearby with her arms crossed and her head tilted, turning to look at Gojo. She asked quietly, sounding curious, with a bit of worry hidden in it.
She'd been with Gojo long enough to know exactly what he was like. He looked carefree and did whatever he wanted, but he was actually very careful, and he never really let things slide toward the worst outcome.
"That little student of yours can't handle something like this."
Betty added it with a teasing tone. By "little student," she meant Seitenshi. Seitenshi might be capable, but there was no way she could deal with a complicated situation that involved every person in Tokyo.
"Yeah."
Gojo answered lightly, without any particular emotion, as if he were just responding to something unimportant.
"If there were a way, things wouldn't have ended up like this."
He said it casually and flatly, like this tricky problem wasn't weighing on him at all. He raised a hand and lazily brushed the dust off his coat.
But Betty knew that the less he acted like he cared, the more it meant he'd already made up his mind about something.
"Sounds like you've already got an idea?"
Betty leaned in closer, even more curious. She stared hard at the side of Gojo's face, trying to read something from his expression.
"Don't tell me you're going to use force on all of Tokyo?"
She looked at him curiously, guessing at how he'd solve this, her tone curious but also probing.
This wasn't as simple as dealing with the Jujutsu Higher-ups back then.
The Higher-ups had been few in number, and every one of them had their own schemes. As long as he picked the right moment and wiped them all out, the problem was solved for good without causing much fallout.
But now? What Gojo was up against was practically all of Tokyo, thousands and thousands of ordinary people.
Aside from a very small number of kind people who were willing to accept the cursed children, almost everyone else opposed the Gastrea Protection Act. They didn't like the cursed children, and many were even full of fear and disgust toward them.
It was exactly because there was so much public support, and so many people genuinely against it, that the protests kept escalating.
There were countless marches, each bigger and angrier than the last. With so many people involved, they'd even started affecting Seitenshi's decisions, putting her in a tough spot.
If Gojo actually used force on these people, no matter how strong he was, and even if he could easily suppress all of them, it would only cause bigger conflict. People would hate him even more and push the cursed children away even harder. Things would only get worse.
"No, no, no, what are you talking about? I'm not the kind of guy who loves violence."
Gojo laughed when he heard Betty's guess. He blinked and grinned at her, sounding a little sly and a little innocent, like he'd been wrongly accused.
"You could fool a little kid with that, maybe. You think I'd believe it?"
Betty pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, calling him out without holding back. Her face said "no way" all over it. She knew Gojo way too well. He'd never been the type to play nice or solve problems gently.
"I'm serious."
Gojo put away his smile and sounded a bit more serious, though still a little lazy. He looked at Betty and spoke clearly.
"About what you said, I'm not planning to solve it with force. There's no need, and I'm not interested."
Using force was too much trouble and too boring, and it would leave a pile of problems behind. That wasn't the result he wanted.
"Then what's your plan?"
Betty was even more curious now. She frowned and stared at him, pressing him with some urgency. She really couldn't figure out any way to break this deadlock other than force.
"I don't think you'd have some gentler, softer approach."
In Betty's mind, Gojo had always solved problems in a simple, direct way. He either crushed things or intimidated them. "Gentle" and "soft" had never had anything to do with him.
"I won't deny that."
Gojo nodded and openly admitted it, not hiding anything. He'd never been one to beat around the bush.
"I'm planning to do nothing."
He said it lightly and calmly, like it was the most normal thing in the world. But it left Betty completely stunned.
"Nothing?"
Betty's big eyes filled with confusion. She stared at him in disbelief, as if she hadn't heard him right.
"What are you talking about? If you do nothing, then everything you did before goes to waste, doesn't it?"
She sounded anxious and confused. Without meaning to, she raised her voice and started talking faster.
"We're already at the last step! Even if it means using force, you could still protect those cursed children just fine, keep them from getting hurt, and completely stop all these awful things. How can you say you're going to do nothing?"
Betty didn't understand his choice or what he was doing. The words came out on their own, full of urgency and confusion. She just couldn't accept that Gojo would choose to give up.
Those cursed children were innocent kids. They'd never hurt anyone, but they had to put up with people's prejudice and hatred, and the risk of being abused or killed. Gojo was their only hope.
But.
Halfway through, she suddenly stopped and swallowed the rest of what she was going to say. Her cute little face scrunched into a tight frown, and the urgency in her eyes slowly turned into confusion and thought.
She looked at Gojo in front of her, at how confident and calm he was. Then she looked at the Gastrea still pouring in from the distance, held back outside the defensive line by the shikigami. She seemed to connect something, and her eyes gradually cleared.
After a moment of silence, Betty frowned even harder. She looked at Gojo and asked hesitantly, testing him.
"When you say nothing, does that include these?"
She pointed at the Gastrea in the distance, sounding unsure. She had a guess, but she didn't dare confirm it easily, because it was just too bold and too crazy.
Gojo shrugged. He didn't answer, but he didn't deny it either. He just smiled faintly, and behind his sunglasses, his eyes looked amused, as if to say, "You got it."
Seeing that, Betty understood his choice right away. Her eyes went even wider. She sounded shocked and a little resigned as she said quietly, "You want to use the Gastrea to force them to accept the cursed children?"
Other than that, she really couldn't think of anything else his "do nothing" could mean.
"I wouldn't call it forcing. There are just some things I'm not happy about."
Gojo spoke softly, still sounding calm. But Betty could hear a coldness in his voice, the kind that only came out when someone crossed his line.
He'd always been worried about the cursed children and felt bad for them.
That was why he'd stepped in to protect Tokyo, pushed for the Gastrea Protection Act, and had Seitenshi build a special school to take in the homeless, rejected cursed children. He'd done all of that just to give those innocent kids a stable place to live.
Originally, if there hadn't been so much opposition, so many protests, and so much cruelty, everyone would've been happy. Once they got through this crisis, everyone could've just gone on with their lives.
Gojo believed that before long, with Sumire's ability and talent, she'd crack the Gastrea Virus and develop a serum to lock the cursed children's corrosion rate in place for good.
When that happened, the cursed children would never turn into Gastrea from a high corrosion rate again. They'd have normal lives like everyone else and futures of their own. They'd be basically no different from ordinary people.
None of that was bad for ordinary people. If anything, it was a good thing.
Even the school now, gathering all the cursed children in one place to manage and protect them, mostly benefited ordinary people.
With all the cursed children kept in one place, nobody else had to worry about someone suddenly turning into a Gastrea because of a high corrosion rate and putting them in danger. Ordinary people could live in peace without being on edge all the time.
But.
These ordinary people acted like they couldn't see any of it. They couldn't see what he'd done, couldn't see how innocent the cursed children were, and couldn't see the good this was doing them.