Chapter 141: Chapter 141 - You Wouldn’t Mind Giving Me a Chance to Show Off, Would You?

[Your phone rang, cutting through the quiet room like it had a personal grudge against silence.]

[Masamichi Yaga’s name lit up the screen.]

[You answered. His voice came through as stiff and severe as always, but there was something else under it this time. Something heavier.]

["Report to the classroom. Now."]

[That was all.]

[You hung up and stared at the dark screen for half a second. Your eyes lowered.]

[So it had started.]

[The classroom at Jujutsu High looked exactly how you thought it would. Everyone was already there except Shoko Ieiri, who, as usual, was too valuable as a Reverse Cursed Technique user to be thrown into front-line nonsense if it could be avoided.]

[The full lineup of first-year problem children had been gathered.]

[Yaga gave you a short nod when you pushed the door open. His face was unreadable behind his sunglasses.]

["You’re here. Sit."]

[A chair scraped across the floor as you took your place.]

[Only after you sat down did Yaga turn his attention to Gojo, who had both legs shamelessly propped on his desk, and Geto, who sat beside him with his chin resting lazily in one hand.]

["I called the three of you here because a highly classified directive just came down from above."]

[The room went quiet.]

["This assignment specifically names Satoru and Suguru for joint execution."]

[Neither of them reacted much.]

[If anything, they looked more annoyed than alarmed, like someone had interrupted a perfectly good day with paperwork.]

[Especially Gojo.]

[He had only just finished mastering every card in his hand, and his ego had inflated to the point where calling him arrogant felt like being polite. In his own head, he had already crowned himself the strongest creature under heaven.]

[So when the higher-ups went out of their way to request both him and Geto for one mission?]

[To Gojo, that wasn’t caution. That was an insult.]

[You tapped one knuckle against your desk, light but clear enough to cut through the silence.]

["If the higher-ups skipped normal procedure to request Jujutsu High’s two strongest assets at the same time, we should assume the mission is dangerous. Probably more dangerous than they’re saying."]

[Yaga’s eyes shifted toward you. Approval flickered there for a second before he let out a breath.]

["Dangerous doesn’t cover it. This concerns the future foundation of the jujutsu world itself." He paused, then looked at you more directly. "But Touma, you’re sharp. I’m sure you’re already wondering something. If the directive only named those two, why did I call you in too?"]

[You shook your head.]

["Not hard to guess. The target is probably important, fragile, or both. And Jujutsu High happens to have a certain self-declared strongest sorcerer whose fieldwork style can be summed up as ’hit it until there is no more it.’" You glanced at Gojo. "You’re worried they’ll lose control of the situation. So you want me there as a failsafe. Phantom Night Parade can suppress Cursed Techniques, which makes me a fuse box. A limiter."]

[You leaned back a little.]

["Am I wrong?"]

[Yaga did not even bother hiding his satisfaction this time.]

["Spot on. You’re the last layer of insurance I’m adding to this mission."]

["Hey, hey, hey! Yaga, objection!"]

[A vein twitched on Yaga’s forehead.]

["What are you objecting to now?"]

[Gojo jabbed a thumb at his own chest, chin raised at an angle so irritating it almost counted as a talent.]

["They gave this mission to me because of my unprecedented, unmatched, one-of-a-kind overwhelming power. And now you’re adding a limiter? Doesn’t that defeat the entire point of sending the strongest? I can turn every enemy into dust by myself."]

[SLAM.]

[Yaga’s fist hit the lectern before Gojo could keep going.]

["Objection denied! Satoru Gojo, drop that reckless attitude right now!" His voice hardened. "You have no idea what this mission weighs. The directive came from Master Tengen personally, from the deepest level of the Tombs of the Star. The target is the Star Plasma Vessel, Master Tengen’s compatible host. Your mission is to guarantee this girl’s safety until the day of assimilation arrives, and then... see her erased. That is exactly why I don’t trust you without someone holding your leash."]

[The name Master Tengen landed hard.]

[For most students, it was the kind of name that lived in textbooks, old lessons, and half-mythic explanations about why the jujutsu world functioned at all. Even Gojo’s smug expression faltered. Geto went still beside him.]

[Neither of them had expected a few high school students to be dragged into business involving the ancient being who maintained Japan’s jujutsu barriers.]

[The shock lasted maybe two seconds.]

[Then Gojo’s brain snagged on the obvious contradiction. He ripped off his sunglasses, pale blue eyes bright with irritation.]

["Hah? What kind of nonsense is that? Protect a girl and then erase her? Guard her and kill her at the same time?"]

[You sighed.]

[Yaga’s face had gone tight, and rather than make him force the words out, you answered for him.]

["Satoru, in plain terms, the girl designated as the Star Plasma Vessel has one fate waiting for her once she’s escorted to the bottom of Jujutsu High. Assimilation with Master Tengen. After that, everything she is as an individual disappears. For all practical human purposes, it’s death."]

[You let that sit for a moment.]

[Then your gaze moved back to Yaga.]

["That’s why Yaga-sensei said ’erased.’ Cold word, isn’t it? I think it means some part of him can’t fully accept the idea that sacrificing an innocent girl is justified."]

[Your eyes stayed on him.]

["Am I wrong?"]

[Geto caught on instantly.]

[Of course he did. Suguru Geto was sharp in a dangerous way, the kind of sharp that could cut through a conversation before most people realized there was anything hidden inside it.]

[He straightened slightly. One hand drifted to his chin, and a faint smile touched his mouth.]

["I see. So Yaga-sensei isn’t getting worked up because he’s drunk on future-principal authority after all." His tone was mild, almost amused. "There’s another layer here. The question is whether ’erased’ means what the higher-ups want it to mean... or whether it comes with quotation marks."]

[The first meaning was simple. Follow orders. Escort the girl to her death.]

[The second meaning was much more troublesome.]

[It meant the people carrying out the mission could decide for themselves what erased looked like. And if they had to, they could make the Star Plasma Vessel disappear from the higher-ups’ view while letting the girl live.]

[Yaga stood at the lectern with both hands gripping the edges.]

[He clearly had not expected you and Geto to decode him this fast.]

[His position did not allow him to say it outright. A teacher at Jujutsu High could not openly tell his students to defy Master Tengen and the higher-ups.]

[But the sigh he let out was long, deep, and tired.]

[That was answer enough.]

[Yaga was barely past thirty. Still in his prime. The grand words the higher-ups liked to throw around, "assimilation once every five hundred years," "maintaining the balance of the world," all sounded too clean to him. Too abstract. Even the threat that Tengen might evolve and turn against humanity if assimilation failed was vague enough to feel deliberate.]

[What he did understand was much simpler.]

[An innocent girl was going to die.]

[A girl who laughed, cried, got angry, and had probably spent most of her life being told what her death was worth.]

[That was the part Yaga could not file away under duty and forget.]

[So he had taken a risk. He had shaped his orders with just enough ambiguity to leave a crack in the wall. Not much of one, but enough for a student smart enough, bold enough, or foolish enough to slip through.]

[He had worried his students might be too young or too hot-blooded to catch it.]

[Apparently, that worry had been pointless.]

[Well. Mostly pointless.]

[The classroom now had one very strange problem.]

[Gojo sat there looking from you to Geto to Yaga and back again, thoroughly lost.]

[The legendary Six Eyes could read every ripple of Cursed Energy in existence, but they were completely useless against three people having an entire conversation through subtext.]

[For once, Satoru Gojo was the one locked out.]

["Hey. Hey, hey!"]

[He slapped both palms onto his desk.]

["What are you people saying to each other? Star Plasma Vessel, assimilation, ’erased’ with quotation marks. I don’t understand any of this! Someone explain it like I’m here!"]

[All three of you ignored him with perfect, unplanned teamwork.]

[You stood and faced Yaga.]

["If someone is already targeting the Star Plasma Vessel and it’s this urgent, we should move now. Waiting just gives the situation more time to go bad."]

[Yaga nodded, but his tone stayed heavy.]

["The Assistant Manager has a car waiting outside. Listen carefully. The enemies this time are not small fry. There are two main factions."]

[He raised one finger.]

["First, Q. A radical Curse User group. They want the assimilation to fail so Master Tengen loses control and the jujutsu order collapses into chaos."]

[Another finger.]

["Second, the Time Vessel Association, an offshoot of the Star Religious Group. They worship Master Tengen as a pure deity. To them, the Star Plasma Vessel is an impurity that must never merge with their god."]

[Gojo shot up from his chair.]

["Who cares about Q or the Star Religious Group? Never heard of these nobodies. I’ll teleport us there, wipe them out in thirty seconds, and we can all go home. Why are we bothering with a car?"]

[You looked at Geto.]

[Geto looked at you.]

[No words needed.]

[The two of you moved at the same time, each catching one of Gojo’s arms, and dragged him toward the parking lot while he complained loud enough to annoy half the campus.]

[Halfway down the corridor, still hauling him along, you explained with the patience of a man teaching basic arithmetic to someone who insisted numbers were optional.]

["Satoru, think for half a second. Our core mission is protecting the Star Plasma Vessel. She’s an ordinary person with no Cursed Energy defense. Her body can’t survive the forces from your attacks. Do you want to teleport with her and arrive with a puddle instead of a person?"]

[Gojo yanked himself free, still scowling.]

["Fine. No teleporting. Then I’ll fly over, throw her over my shoulder, and haul her back. Drop her in the Tombs of the Star, done. Why does this have to be some fancy VIP escort?"]

[You stopped walking and were about to answer when Yaga’s voice came from the classroom.]

["Because... we are to fulfill every reasonable request Riko Amanai makes, within acceptable limits. Those are Master Tengen’s own orders."]

[Gojo turned back.]

[Yaga stood alone in the doorway, shoulders weighed down by something no one could see.]

[For once, Gojo’s face did not look arrogant. It looked confused, like he had just heard a joke and missed every part of the setup.]

["Hah...?"]