[Once you’d confirmed the small fry on the perimeter had been dealt with, you followed the trails of Residual Cursed Energy and linked up with the others without issue.]

[On the walk back, you were already pulling out your phone with an expression of perfect calm, giving the Assistant Managers a heads-up. Your tone was flat, almost bored, as you informed them that Renchoku Girls’ Junior High would need the same large-scale cleanup and body disposal as the hotel. Bring extra body bags.]

[When you rounded the corner of the corridor and stepped into view, the oppressive atmosphere hit you immediately.]

[A quick scan of the group told the story: Geto with his brow knotted tight, Gojo looking none too pleased, Riko Amanai drowning in guilt and panic. Misato Kuroi was nowhere to be seen.]

[Deep behind your eyes, a flicker of cold satisfaction passed unnoticed.]

[You knew exactly what this meant. Shiu Kong’s black market operatives had delivered. Everything was tracking to your script.]

[On the surface, though, your performance remained flawless. Life is Like a Play earned its keep. The warmth and composure drained from your face on cue, replaced by just the right shade of surprise and confusion as you asked a question you already knew the answer to.]

["What’s with those faces? What happened? Where’s Miss Kuroi... isn’t she with you?"]

[Geto’s tall frame shuddered. His head dropped low, fists clenched so hard his nails threatened to break skin. Through gritted teeth, his voice came out raw with frustration and self-blame.]

["...I was careless. All my attention was on guarding against Jujutsu Sorcerers. It never occurred to me that their real target would be Miss Kuroi, someone with no combat ability at all. In the chaos, they found an opening and took her by force."]

[Seeing the normally composed and confident Geto looking so gutted, you stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder with a steady, reassuring weight. Your gaze was warm, your words measured and logical.]

["So that’s what happened. Suguru, don’t beat yourself up. Think it through. Miss Kuroi is safe right now, I’m certain of it. The people who took her have the same goal as the Curse Users who ambushed us at the hotel. Their only real target has always been Riko. They took a living hostage because they want to use underhanded, non-combat leverage to force us into handing over the Star Plasma Vessel."]

[The clear logic eased some of the tension from Geto’s brow. Rationally, he understood every word.]

[But those reassuring sentences cut at him like a dull blade dragged across his pride.]

[He couldn’t stop himself from comparing his own performance on this escort mission against yours. By all conventional measures of strength and rank, he, the wielder of Cursed Spirit Manipulation, should have been the one shouldering the bulk of reconnaissance and defense.]

[And the results? You’d carved through wave after wave of threats like it was nothing. Even the Panda you’d left behind had held the line single-handedly. Meanwhile, he’d failed to read the enemy’s intentions, let an unarmed woman get snatched from right under his nose. The honor student who’d accomplished nothing, dumping every problem and mess into your lap to fix.]

[After settling Geto, you turned your attention to Gojo, who stood off to the side with his hands jammed in his pockets, clicking his tongue in irritation.]

["Still... if even Satoru and his Six Eyes couldn’t track where they went, then whoever grabbed Miss Kuroi in the confusion must be ordinary people without any Cursed Energy. Hard to believe that kind of bounty money could lure non-sorcerers into throwing themselves at this."]

[Gojo’s lip curled in displeasure.]

[He shoved his sunglasses up his nose and jerked his chin toward the corner, where a man and a woman sat trussed up with heavy rope binding their wrists and ankles, his tone defensive.]

["I was busy dealing with these two sneaking around! If it weren’t for them, nobody would’ve gotten Miss Kuroi past me, Cursed Energy or not!"]

[You followed his gesture.]

[The moment your eyes landed on those two faces, bound up tight as rice dumplings, something shifted behind your gaze.]

[You knew those faces far too well. In previous simulations, these two were the very Curse Users that Geto would recruit into the Star Religious Group after his fall: Toshihisa Negi and Manami Suda.]

[You looked down at them. Every trace of warmth vanished from your face.]

["Of course... irredeemable garbage, right from the start."]

[Your head snapped toward Gojo, voice cutting like a blade.]

["If you’d crushed them the second they showed up, would you have wasted precious time on this trash?"]

[At this point in time, Toshihisa Negi and Manami Suda were nothing more than two lone Curse Users who’d independently converged on the same bounty. They didn’t even know each other.]

[Forced to their knees, they stared up at you in terrified bewilderment.

They couldn’t begin to comprehend the look on your face, that expression of someone who had already witnessed every sin they would ever commit, or the killing intent that reached down to the marrow of their bones.]

[It was as though you’d known them for a long, long time. But they knew nothing at all about the terrifying boy standing over them.]

[You understood perfectly. With Gojo’s current power, if he’d been willing to kill, snuffing out these two wouldn’t have taken a full minute.]

[But he carried that damned arrogance of the privileged class. Toward Curse Users, those who at least possessed jujutsu, he always extended a grotesque, childish leniency that he’d never grant to ordinary people.]

[Your unsparing rebuke stung Gojo’s pride. He frowned and fired back, voice rising.]

["Hey, hey! They hadn’t even done anything to Riko yet! I captured them alive, didn’t I? Touma, why are you being so..."]

["Stop."]

["I have zero interest in standing here debating ’how to define a Curse User’s crimes’ with you. Surely you’re not naive enough to think these two, skulking around the perimeter, just happened to be out for a stroll and just happened to stumble across the bounty on the Star Plasma Vessel?"]

[You paused. Your gaze swept over the two trembling figures on the ground like a knife’s edge, and your voice dropped to a temperature that could freeze air solid.]

["Jujutsu Sorcerer, non-sorcerer, it doesn’t matter. Garbage is garbage. Society has different disposal methods for different categories of waste. But for Curse Users who trample on human lives without a second thought, there’s only ever been one appropriate method of disposal."]

["Death."]

[Gojo’s and Geto’s pupils contracted simultaneously. In that moment they felt it with visceral clarity: your Cursed Energy surging at full force, churning inside you like a volcano on the verge of eruption.]

[You raised your right hand slowly, palm aimed at Toshihisa Negi and Manami Suda where they huddled on the ground.]

["Phase. Twilight. Eye of Wisdom."]

[Your incantation rolled through the corridor, low and lethal, stripped of every shred of human emotion, each syllable precise and rapid.]

[Geto’s eyes flew wide. He couldn’t tell what you intended, couldn’t decipher what destructive force those archaic, cryptic words heralded.]

[But Gojo, who possessed the Six Eyes, went rigid for a split second before realization struck him like a bolt of lightning. Those pale blue eyes locked through his sunglasses onto the terrifying energy coalescing at your fingertips, and his heart seized.]

[This is... a full incantation?! He’s unleashing an incantation-amplified Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue?!]

[Gojo couldn’t fathom your thought process. He couldn’t understand why you’d go to such insane lengths for two bottom-tier Curse Users who hadn’t even managed to cause real harm, why you’d resort to a fully chanted strike of annihilation.]

[But your focus had already locked on. The incantation-amplified Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue, pushed to its absolute limit, zeroed in with surgical precision on the exact point between Negi’s and Suda’s terror-pressed skulls. That point would become the singularity of absolute attraction, crushing both tumors to nothing in a single pulse.]

["Stop! Touma!"]

[Gojo reacted instantly, right hand snapping up, fingers blazing with piercing blue light.]

[He meant to fire his own Blue to collide with yours, disrupt the gravitational core. Using Red and its repulsive force in this narrow corridor could trigger an uncontrollable chain reaction, possibly catching Riko in the blast.]

[But your black eyes held nothing. Not a ripple. Because all of this had been factored into your calculations from the start.]

[The instant Cursed Energy began to take shape at Gojo’s fingertips, you activated it without hesitation.]

["BWOMMM...!"]

[An invisible, imperious ripple of power swept through Gojo’s body. He watched in disbelief as the Blue already forming at his fingertips, a bomb with its fuse already lit, was forcibly snuffed out and scattered into nothing in a single irrational instant.]

[At the same time.]

[Your fully chanted Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue detonated between those two despairing heads, unleashing pure gravitational annihilation.]

["SQUELCH...!!!"]

[No earth-shattering explosion. Only the gut-churning, muffled crunch of bone and flesh compressed beyond their limits and bursting apart.]

[Negi’s and Suda’s skulls, caught in that absolute gravitational pull, slammed together like two fragile tomatoes and ruptured at the point of spatial collapse. A viscous spray of red and white splattered outward in a radial pattern before the residual wake of Blue shredded it into a fine crimson mist.]

[Two headless bodies slumped into the pooling blood.]

[Silence. A silence like death itself draped over the corridor.]

[You lowered your right hand as though you’d swatted an irritating mosquito. Turning, you fixed Gojo with an expression so cold it bordered on obscene, regarding him where he stood frozen mid-cast, shock and disbelief written across every feature.]

[You tilted your head, the curve of your lips carrying undisguised mockery.]

["See? If you’d been that decisive from the start, Miss Kuroi would never have been taken. We wouldn’t be standing in this mess right now."]

[A beat of silence. Something sharp and cold glinted in your eyes as you added, voice dripping with contempt.]

["Oh, and if it had been you? You’d have done it better than me. Faster, too. Unlike some mediocre hack who has to bother with a full incantation just to make sure he doesn’t miss two tied-up, stationary targets..."]

["After all, in this world of jujutsu, you’re the one everyone’s placed on a pedestal as ’the strongest.’"]