[Gojo stood motionless. A breeze scattered the smoke ring you’d exhaled into nothing.]

[Behind those sunglasses, the Six Eyes, celebrated for piercing every flow of cursed energy in existence, fixed on the weariness etched into your profile.]

[By every measure of his talent and logic, what he’d said was irrefutable fact.

The impossibly advanced Reverse Cursed Technique, the theoretically conceptual Hollow Technique "Purple," you had mastered both first.

You’d turned around and guided him through them as if it were nothing, punching through his final walls with an offhanded ease. For you to claim envy of his gifts should have been absurd.]

[Yet when that laugh left your throat, ancient and hollow, when you looked at him with eyes tangled in longing and resignation, something inside Gojo’s perpetually arrogant chest stuttered.]

[He recognized it. You weren’t mocking him.]

[The weight pressing down on you, as though infinite chains of cause and consequence hung from your shoulders, was real.]

[His mind raced. What if I’m wrong? What if the power this guy wields cost him something the Six Eyes can’t see?]

[Gojo didn’t argue further. The habitual swagger drained from his posture, and your words, equal parts warning and advice, lodged themselves deep.]

[Silently, he resolved to shelve the games. Domain Expansion. He’d study it in earnest the moment he got back.]

[On another front, the cleanup following Riko Amanai’s staged death had gone smoother than you’d dared hope, thanks to Geto and Gojo working in tandem behind the scenes. Forging her new identity, burying every trace, the process had been far less grueling than your initial projections.]

[Those two caused more than their share of chaos on any given day, but when lives were on the line, their execution was flawless.]

[With the Star Plasma Vessel affair settled, you funneled every ounce of energy into hunting the puppeteer in the shadows.]

[Through covert channels, you reached out to the woman who loved money more than breathing but commanded the most extensive intelligence network in Japan: Mei Mei.]

[In a tastefully furnished underground cafe, privacy guaranteed by design, you sat across from her beneath dim, amber light.]

[You slid an anonymous bank card loaded with a staggering deposit across the table and laid out your commission: trace the Star Religious Group’s financial flows, identify its core personnel.]

[Mei Mei’s slender fingers, nails lacquered a deep crimson, settled on the card. A smile curved across her face, sharp and alluring in equal measure.]

[Before accepting what she clearly recognized as a scalding-hot assignment, the intelligence broker’s instincts compelled one probing question. Her voice came out languid, unhurried.]

["Mr. Hayase... the Star Religious Group is the eye of the storm right now, under heavy scrutiny from the higher-ups and the entire jujutsu world. I’m happy to oblige, but as your partner in this, I need to know... why risk wading into water this deep?"]

[A blade of killing intent surfaced on your otherwise placid face. You met her gaze without flinching.]

["Because I need to know which faction had access to Jujutsu High’s classified intelligence, and which one had the nerve to make arrangements this reckless, provoking the entire jujutsu world without a second thought. Riko is dead, but I won’t let the rats hiding in the gutters escape the judgment they’re owed."]

[You’d chosen those words with precision, banking on a certainty: Mei Mei didn’t know the Star Plasma Vessel was still alive.]

["Vengeance for a slain charge" was airtight as motives went, and when paired with reports of your cold-blooded annihilation of low-ranking Curse Users during the Okinawa escort mission, it painted a portrait so internally consistent that no further justification was needed.]

[Exactly as predicted, Mei Mei ran through your recent exploits in her mind, the corridor massacre, the ruthless efficiency, and understanding flickered behind her eyes.]

[Coming from the man who’d carved a path of corpses through that hotel, a desire to rip the Star Religious Group out by its roots was the most natural thing in the world.]

["A reasonable motive, backed by generous compensation. Consider this contract accepted."]

[She pocketed the card with a smile.]

[After handing off the Star Religious Group investigation, you didn’t rest.]

[Armed with your old flip phone and voice-mimicking technique, you continued wearing Toji Fushiguro’s identity, monitoring the black-market intelligence networks for any threads worth pulling.]

[And because you’d intercepted and replaced Toji in Okinawa, altering the fate that should have killed him, you’d also inherited the responsibility of caring for Megumi Fushiguro and Tsumiki Fushiguro.]

[In this reality, "Toji Fushiguro" was technically still alive. But to Tsumiki’s profoundly irresponsible mother, the perpetually absent gambling addict of a husband might as well not have existed at all.]

[That woman’s treatment of her children remained exactly as your memories dictated: selfish, cold, and ultimately absent. She’d vanished without a word.]

[Which suited your purposes. Rather than leaving the young Megumi to rot in despair, waiting for a father who’d never return, you’d stepped into their lives early.]

[Posing as a friend and creditor of Toji’s, you delivered generous living expenses on a regular schedule and visited the cramped, run-down apartment whenever you could.]

[For now, at least, Megumi and Tsumiki had enough food and warm clothes. Their lives were incomparably better than the misery you’d witnessed in previous simulations.]

[On a sun-drenched weekend afternoon, cursed energy crackled through the air of a hidden, derelict training ground.]

[Under your guidance, years ahead of its time and merciless in its demands, Megumi Fushiguro, still elementary-school age, was displaying talent that defied belief.]

[His hands formed the seal. Those young eyes held a composure and steel that had no business belonging to a child.]

[At his flank, a massive black wolf bared its fangs, radiating a pressure that made the air tremble: Divine Dog, successfully evolved to its merged form.]

[Across the field, summoned in sequence as his cursed energy pulsed: Nue circled overhead, lightning crackling along its wings. Great Serpent coiled in the shadows, poised to strike. Toad waited on standby. Well’s Unknown Abyss hovered at the ready. Rabbit Escape swarmed in chaotic patterns to confuse the eye. And Round Deer stood apart, its body humming with the healing glow of Reverse Cursed Technique.]

[Under your tireless instruction and protection, this young wielder of the Ten Shadows Technique had conquered seven shikigami through his own strength.]

[The remaining three, Max Elephant, Piercing Ox, and the extraordinarily dangerous Tiger Funeral, were well within reach at his current rate of progress. A few more months, by your estimate, and he’d have them all.]

[Of course, taming the shikigami was only step one. Learning to wield them against enemies with unreasonable abilities was what truly mattered.]

["Faster, Megumi! If your eyes can’t keep up, use your shikigami’s instincts to read the movement!"]

[Your voice cracked across the field as Phantom Night Parade replicated Projection Sorcery in an instant.]

[Your body split into twenty-four frames per second, afterimages bleeding through space at a speed that broke physics, weaving between the shikigami like a wraith and launching attacks designed to overwhelm.]

[You were pressure-testing him and his shikigami under near-combat conditions, drilling them to counter an opponent with extreme speed.]

[Months of shared time and the steady security you’d provided had thawed Megumi’s guarded heart completely. He trusted you without reservation now. In the deepest chamber of his chest, you occupied a space that eclipsed "father," something closer to teacher, to family.]

[But as he wiped the sweat from his forehead and surveyed the training ground, torn apart and cratered in every direction, a question surfaced that the boy couldn’t suppress.]

[Megumi caught his breath in short, ragged pulls. He reached back and patted the haunch of Divine Dog, who’d taken a blow meant for him, then tilted his pale face upward to watch you slow to a stop, your technique dissolving.]

["Touma... is learning how to fight really that important? Does it... have to go this far?"]

[From where he stood, still a child’s mind in a child’s world, fighting felt like something far removed from his daily life.]

[If the goal was handling the bad things that occasionally crept close to him and Tsumiki, the low-level Cursed Spirits, Divine Dog or Nue could dispatch them without breaking a sweat.]

[He couldn’t fathom why you trained him like a soldier being prepared for a war he didn’t know was coming.]

[You stopped mid-stride. The boy’s hands were trembling from exhaustion, but he stood straight, jaw set, refusing to fold. Something complicated passed through your eyes.]

[You walked over and reached out, resting your palm on Divine Dog’s enormous, fur-covered head. The beast nuzzled into your hand.]

[Then you dropped to one knee. Brought your gaze level with his.]

[Your expression turned more serious than he’d ever seen it.]

["Megumi... I was planning to wait. To tell you when you were older. But since you’re asking now, I think maybe I’ve waited long enough."]

[A slow, steady breath.]

["Brace yourself."]

[The boy read the gravity in your face. Something in the air had shifted, and even he could feel it.]

[He pressed his lips together. The nod he gave was small, not quite understanding, but resolute.] 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

[Only then did you speak, your voice even and unhurried, threaded with a cold that seeped in gradually.]

["The truth is... your biological father sold you to the Zenin Clan. One of the Big Three Sorcerer Families."]

[You held his eyes and continued peeling back the cruelty.]

["The Innate Technique you awakened, the Ten Shadows Technique you’re using now, is the most prized inherited ability in the Zenin Clan’s history, with potential they consider beyond measure. They promised your father a fortune for you. By the terms of that deal, within the next year or two, the Zenin Clan will send people to collect on the transaction. To take you away."]

[The air around them seemed to solidify.]

[You watched his reaction, heart aching in anticipation of the breakdown any child might have, the disbelief, the shattering.]

[But Megumi’s face didn’t register a flicker of surprise. If anything, hearing what that man had done made his expression colder, more distant. Deep in those young eyes, something flashed that looked like contempt calcified into silence.]

[As though a father who’d never once shown him love, a gambling addict who’d given him nothing worth expecting, doing something as shameless as selling his own son was exactly the sort of thing that required no surprise at all.]

[It was the kind of numbness that hurt to witness. A maturity no child should possess.]

["I’m sorry, Megumi. Given my current position, it’s not something I can openly intervene in or tear up on your behalf."]

["But before those people come knocking, I intend to make you strong enough. Strong enough to stand in front of them, look them in the eye, say ’no’ with your own voice, and choose your own life."]

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