Jujutsu Kaisen: Tragedy Life Simulator-Chapter 101 - The Root of All Distortion

[The instant Suguru Geto’s life finally winked out, the contract holding his Cursed Spirit Manipulation together broke with him.]

[Thousands of Cursed Spirits lost their leash at once. They poured into Tokyo and Kyoto like a busted dam, shrieking, rampaging, drunk on the sudden freedom.]

[It didn’t last that long.]

[Jujutsu High had already committed heavy forces for the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, and a mob without a leader was still just a mob. Once the spirits lost Geto’s command, the sorcerers started cutting them down in batches.]

[Even so, more than a hundred civilians died.]

[And through all of it, you vanished.]

[You didn’t help with cleanup. You didn’t hunt a single stray spirit.]

[You were busy killing Geto’s so-called family. Every last one of them.]

[On that rooftop, blood ran down Asakirimaru’s edge. One body dropped after another, splashing into its own red, and you felt absolutely nothing. No relief. No satisfaction. Not even the ugly comfort of revenge.]

[You knew Geto too well for that.]

[Under all the ruin and madness, he had always been too soft in the worst possible way. He would never have gathered those people around him with something that cheap, some slogan about killing all ordinary humans. The truth was uglier than that. Every one of them had been crushed by the world first, tossed aside, ground down, and Geto had been the one person who reached back. They followed him because he was the only person who’d ever bothered to look at them.]

[But being wronged didn’t give anyone the right to become the next monster. Suffering wasn’t a free pass. It didn’t make it acceptable to turn around and carve into other innocents while calling yourself justified.]

[You looked down at the twin sisters lying cold at your feet, and your thoughts slid back to that village from years ago.]

[The villagers had tortured Nanako and Mimiko for one reason only. Those girls had powers they couldn’t understand.]

[Fear did the rest.]

[People who couldn’t see curses, couldn’t fight them, couldn’t control any of it, started blaming every disappearance and every strange death on the two little freaks in their midst.]

[From a sorcerer’s point of view, the whole thing was disgusting.]

[But take that arrogance away for a second.]

[If an ordinary person went their whole life without ever seeing a curse, if their world had no room for that truth at all, then what did those unexplained deaths look like from where they stood? In their tiny, broken understanding of reality, was that fear really just malice?]

[And Geto, at the moment everything in him started to rot, had chosen to see that entire tragedy from one side only. Sorcerers as victims. Full stop.]

[That narrow view had carried him straight into slaughtering an entire village.]

[The villagers and the sorcerers had both been trapped on their own miserable little patch of understanding, each making the only choice their limited view allowed. Neither side saw the full picture. Neither side had the room to. They should never have ended up as enemies doomed to kill each other.]

[The real cause had always been cursed energy. Curses. That whole rotten system.]

[Without Cursed Spirits, there would have been no disappearances in that village. No reason to suspect two little girls. Without cursed energy in their veins, Nanako and Mimiko would have lived and died as ordinary children instead of being marked as different. Without any of this, you and Geto never would have been sent there that summer in the first place.]

[And if you kept following that line of thought, the answer only got uglier.]

[If cursed energy and curses had never existed at all, then Jujutsu Sorcerers wouldn’t need to exist either. The filth at the top of jujutsu society, the corruption in the leadership, the smug rot of the Big Three Families, every privilege, every distortion, every pile of human garbage built on top of that foundation, all of it would collapse with the base ripped out.]

[The source of all evil was cursed energy itself. Curses themselves.]

[Keeping order at Jujutsu High, exorcising one spirit after another, it was just pruning branches. Busywork. You could keep trimming forever and the swamp would still spit out more monsters. If the root stayed buried, this world would keep repeating the same tragedy until the end of time.]

[But tearing out the root wasn’t something you could do today.]

[You needed time. Time to find the real answer. Time to stack enough power in your hands that even the laws of the world could be overturned if necessary.]

[The road ahead was going to be long. Mean. Lonely.]

[What happened to Geto, to those girls, to everyone tonight, it would not be the last time. And the choices you made with your own hands tonight, those wouldn’t be the last either.]

[Far away, cheers rose from the streets. Sorcerers celebrating the final cleanup. Spirits dead, danger over, another bloody night closed out and filed away.]

[None of it belonged to you.]

[You stood in the dark and looked down at your blood-soaked hands. You didn’t bother wiping them clean. Instead, you forced yourself to remember every face. The anger. The desperation. The hate in their eyes right before they died. You burned all of it into your memory on purpose.]

[If you were going to keep walking, then you would carry this with you.]

[And somewhere in that cold silence, you made yourself a promise.]

[Next time, you would change the ending with your own hands.]

---

[That night, with Ultimate Energy-Saving Mode still active, your brain should not have been dreaming at all.]

[It did anyway.]

[The same nightmare dragged you under again.]

[A black sea with no bottom. Geto drifting in front of you, close enough to touch, chest blown open, body ruined. He fell backward into the dark before you could even reach for him.]

[The filth in the deep wrapped around your arms and legs, dragging you down, their laughter thin and ugly against your ears.]

[The abyss itself felt like it was sneering.]

[The crushing pressure. The freezing bubbles clawing past your face. The silent mockery.]

[It laughed at your principles. At the lines you drew and refused to cross. Like it was asking whether everything would have turned out differently if you’d dirtied your hands sooner, faster, without hesitating.]

[You didn’t fully crawl out of that mental fog until the next day, and even then it was because of something no one had expected.]

[Kinji Hakari, the one you’d personally recommended for Kyoto’s defensive line, had thrown hands with the conservative old guard over there. Violently. One senior official got beaten bloody, and Hakari was now staring at suspension.]

[You hadn’t predicted that mess, but Hakari himself didn’t blame you at all. Over the phone, he laughed it off in that reckless way of his and said your recommendation had been the right call. If anything, those old fossils had it coming.]

[Besides, his class advisor was Kusakabe.]

[Kusakabe had been standing right there when the whole thing happened and hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it. With that kind of witness on site, the higher-ups could bark all they wanted, but the responsibility was never going to stick to an outsider like you.]

[That annoyance barely lasted before something much bigger shoved it aside.]

[Ijichi sent over the results of a bloodline investigation.]

[Yuta Okkotsu was a direct descendant of Sugawara no Michizane, one of Japan’s three great vengeful spirits. The connection was distant, but on paper it was real. Yuta was technically related to the Gojo Clan.]

[He shared blood with Satoru Gojo.]

[The moment you heard that, your face went cold. Frost spread over the nearby surfaces as your cursed energy slipped its restraints.]

[Because this changed everything.]

[The story had never been "a dead childhood friend cursed an innocent boy and accidentally made him Special Grade."]

[It was the other way around.]

[Yuta Okkotsu, a child born with monstrous cursed energy, had refused to accept Rika’s death. In that selfish, desperate instant, he had cursed her. He had twisted her soul into that grotesque Special Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit with his own hands.]

[Ijichi saw your expression turn frightening and started to say something, but you were already moving. A gust of wind, killing intent, footsteps heading straight for the first-year classroom.]

[Because a Special Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit had been born from this boy’s subconscious selfishness.]

[And after all that, he’d still gotten to stand there as the victim.]

[He enjoyed the privilege of being Special Grade.]

[He carried none of the weight for the bodies left behind.]

[Because Rika had existed, Geto launched the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.]

[Because the Night Parade happened, all those people died, and in the end you hadn’t even been allowed to shoulder Geto’s final moment yourself.]

[Gojo had killed him instead.]

[When you kicked open the first-year classroom door, Gojo was at the front, calmly explaining everything to Yuta in that maddeningly gentle voice.]

["...So you were right, Yuta. It was never Rika who cursed you. You cursed Rika. Now all you have to do, as the one who cast the curse, is release it. If Rika, the one who was cursed, chooses not to punish you, then the binding will come undone..."]

[Yuta looked hollowed out. Like the bones had been pulled out of him. He clutched his head, tears hitting the floor, voice shaking apart under the weight of it.]

["...It was all my fault. I made Rika into that thing. I hurt so many innocent people. Because of me, Geto came, and everyone almost died protecting me. All of it... all of it was because of me...!!"]

[You walked in without expression.]

[You stopped in front of him and looked down.]

[There was no pity in your eyes. None of the softness Gojo was giving him. Only contempt, and something even colder sitting underneath it.]

[When you spoke, your voice was so controlled it sounded worse than shouting.]

["Disgusting."]

[You looked at the point where all of this started and let your mouth pull into something sharp and ugly.]

["After everything, you’re still doing this? Crying like the victim? Who exactly are you hoping will feel sorry for you? Spe... cial... Grade... Jujutsu... Sor... cer... er."]

[The room went dead.]

[Pressure spilled out from you and filled the classroom, heavy enough to crush the air itself.]

[Yuta shook, but he didn’t get angry. He knew exactly why you were furious.]

[Only hours ago, to stop the Night Parade he’d helped create, you had walked through the slaughterhouse in Shinjuku and killed whoever needed killing. Hundreds dead. Hundreds more ruined. Your hands still carried the blood of people who had chosen the wrong side, and the root of all of it sat here in front of you, a boy too selfish and too weak to let go.]

["Hayase sensei... I..."]

[Yuta bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. With clumsy hands he wiped at his face, forced himself to look up at you, and spoke through a voice gone raw.]

["I understand why you’re angry! I know what I did can’t be forgiven... but I’ll take responsibility! No matter what it costs, I’ll break Rika’s curse..."]

[He never got to finish.]

["Don’t... hurt... Yuta!"]

[A shriek ripped through the room, sharp enough to make eardrums ring.]

[Rika, the Special Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit born from Yuta’s twisted love and possessiveness, was insanely sensitive to his emotions. She felt the killing intent rolling off you and locked onto the threat to her Yuta instantly.]

[No hesitation.]

[To protect him, she manifested in full. Huge, distorted and monstrous. One pale claw, big enough to smash reinforced concrete flat, tore through the air with a scream and came down at your head.]

[There was no restraint in it. No warning. Just pure Special Grade violence meant to crush you into paste.]

[Gojo, who up until then had been content to watch the two of you deal with it, went cold.]

[Even he hadn’t expected Rika to lash out that fast, or that hard.]

[If that hit landed cleanly, even your body would take catastrophic damage. Cursed energy rose around him at once. His hand came up, ready to force himself between you.]

[And then he stopped.]

[Behind the blindfold, those blue eyes widened.]

[You had not moved.]

[You had not blinked.]

[You hadn’t even touched Asakirimaru.]

[BOOM!]

[Rika’s claw stopped dead a few centimeters from your forehead. It slammed into something that might as well have been infinite distance, an invisible denial that would never let her through. The impact hit the room like muffled thunder.]

[Cursed energy shockwaves blasted outward and shredded desks and chairs into splinters. At the very center of it, not a single strand of your hair moved.]

["Infinity..."]

[Gojo slowly lowered his hand, but his expression stayed hard.]

[He stared at the barrier in front of you, one he knew all too well. If the Six Eyes hadn’t confirmed in that instant that you had reproduced Limitless through Phantom Night Parade, he might have stepped in by force anyway.]

[Yuta’s eyes went huge with horror. He spun around, spread his arms, and threw himself between you and the spirit, shouting until his voice cracked.]

["Stop! Rika, stand down!! You can’t hurt Hayase sensei!!!"]

[At his command, Rika froze.]

[Her claw still trembled against the invisible wall. A deep growl rolled out of her, furious and unwilling, but under Yuta’s desperate order she slowly pulled back and sank into shadow again.]

[Silence hit the room.]

[Only the soft clatter of broken furniture settling, and Yuta’s rough breathing.]

[You didn’t spare Rika a glance as she retreated. Instead, you let Limitless fade and fixed that same freezing stare on Yuta’s face.]

[When you spoke again, every word landed like a blade.]

["Responsibility? Is this what you call responsibility?"]

[You stepped forward.]

[Every instinct in Yuta’s body screamed at him to back away.]

["So what, exactly, am I supposed to make of what just happened? Was that just the protective instinct of a monster? Or was it your subconscious again? The same coward’s reflex?"]

["You keep talking about guilt. You keep talking about breaking the curse. But the second you felt threatened, your ’curse’ showed its fangs at me without even a moment of hesitation."]

[Your gaze stripped him down to the bone.]

["Maybe that remorse of yours, those pretty speeches about taking responsibility, are just lies you tell yourself so you don’t have to look at what you really are. The second someone corners you, your real instinct shows up. Hide behind the monster. Let her kill whatever scares you."]

["No! That’s not it! I never thought that!"]

[Yuta shook his head so hard it looked painful. Tears spilled out again. He sounded desperate now, almost frantic, clawing for some way to prove himself.]

[You had heard enough from a sheltered child with blood on his hands.]

[You turned away from him and looked at Gojo instead, standing off to the side in dark silence.]

[Your eyes met.]

[In that brief glance sat the kind of weight only two people could understand. Two men who had walked through Shinjuku’s hell together. Two men carrying Suguru Geto’s death between them whether they wanted to or not.]

[When you spoke, nothing casual remained in your voice.]

["He’s your handpicked student. You forced him in over every objection, so teach him properly. Teach him what resolve actually looks like. Teach him what it means to carry the weight of the hundreds who died because of him."]

[Your hand settled against the hilt at your waist. You didn’t draw the blade, but the cold leaking off that one motion made the classroom drop several more degrees.]

["This time, for a lot of reasons, I wasn’t the one who put down the Special Grade at the center of all this..."]

[You stared straight at Gojo’s blindfold and made the warning painfully clear.]

["That does not mean I’m unwilling to cut down a rogue Special Grade whenever I have to. If next time he’s still this weak, still this close to losing control..."

"Whether you act or not, I’ll correct that mistake myself."]

[You left the words hanging in the wrecked classroom and walked out without looking back.]

[Behind you, Gojo watched your retreating figure with something unreadable hidden behind the blindfold.]

[And Yuta Okkotsu stayed on the floor amid the splintered wreckage, fists clenched so hard his knuckles went white, teeth grinding hard enough to crack, swearing some silent oath to himself in the ruins.]

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rest of the Chapters will be uploaded by tomorrow...