Gojo Satoru swore, as on any other workday morning, he was just normally walking along the road.

The morning light was splendid, the air fresh, and the road clean.

It reminded him of the day he encountered Yuan Shanxiao—

The youth who suddenly appeared in front of him, the sudden embrace around his legs, the sudden trail of deep bloodstains—

…

Hmm? What bloodstains?

Gojo Satoru looked down, and the youth, his face and even his hair matted with blood, looked up.

When did—

Gojo Satoru: …

Like the day he met Yuan Shanxiao, Gojo clenched his fist, reached out, and with trembling hands, pushed the youth’s bangs aside to see those familiar eyes, then silently lowered his hand again.

“Teacher Gojo, I have to tell you—hmm? Why are you leaving—”

“I went to sleep at 5:20 today, looks like I’m still not awake.”

Yuan Shanxiao: …

It was already 13:14—no, it was already one in the afternoon.

————

“…What happened.”

Yuan Shanxiao hadn’t fully regained his senses. His pupils still fluctuated between deeper and lighter shades. Gojo Satoru, holding him by the collar, clung to Gojo’s pant leg.

Gojo Satoru: …

Yuan Shanxiao’s mind was still chaotic, his subconscious and reason constantly tightening and tearing at each other, but one thought always echoed in his mind.

[Find Gojo Satoru]

[Stay by Gojo Satoru’s side]

Why?

The process halted there.

Why?

Like lines of code flickering off, appearing on a black screen.

[He is the strongest—]

Question mark.

[He can protect you—]

Question mark.

Or—

[He can protect—]

[Those ordinary people who will face you losing your mind?]

Yuan Shanxiao had thought that returning to Gojo Satoru would lower his fear value, which was as high as 49%.

In his last moment of sanity, seeing his fear value about to reach 50%, his last bit of reason immediately compelled him to make a decision—to pierce that man, and as blood drenched him—activating his technique at the same time, the pointer that was about to hit 50% suddenly lost the grinding pressure and rebounded to 49%.

Thus, Yuan Shanxiao had an idea that only by using his technique could his fear value decrease.

He still retained 1% of his rationality. He quickly found Gojo Satoru, thinking that coming to him might calm him down, and perhaps even reset his persistently high fear value.

If not, Gojo Satoru was the only person he knew who could potentially stop him from losing his mind.

But—

Gojo Satoru stared at the blood-soaked red fabric of the youth’s collar for a while, his mouth corners heavy, his expression unreadable, just running his blood-stained fingers over it, then, after what seemed like numerous thoughts, he solemnly tried to lift the youth—

“Turns out, you’re not who I was looking for…”

Yuan Shanxiao knew that clinging to Gojo Satoru’s legs wouldn’t alleviate his fear.

It seems he could only—

The blood-stained youth didn’t reveal what he was thinking, just bowed his head, the wet blood from his hair sticking to his cheek, hanging loose, and finally dripping from his jaw abruptly.

The moment the blood drop shattered, it seemed like some images overlapped in Gojo Satoru’s six eyes—

His pupils constricted, reaching out instinctively for the youth—

But grabbed empty air.

Only the youth’s broken sigh echoed in the air.

“You were never it after all.”

Gojo Satoru watched his own hand stretch out, grab nothing, and stay suspended in the air.

His brain was slow to process the youth’s words. Only then did he notice the youth’s disheartening tone behind the pronoun. [It].

“…”

Gojo Satoru’s mouth, which had just opened in shock, snapped shut, his lips pressing into a line.

“One day, I’ll tie you up with Antarctica and throw you into a Cursed Spirit’s mouth.”

————

Only using his technique could dissipate the fear…

This principle was like only doing homework at night could deplete one’s energy, while playing games or reading novels might increase it.

Yuan Shanxiao knew the mechanism of this [Fear Value] might not be that simple; was it really a safe exchange just to use techniques? However, when his fear spiked, his rationality would also vanish, and the use of his technique could become chaotic, likely—very likely leading to chaotic destruction. He might even become a terrifying being.

Perhaps in nightmares where Yuan Shanxiao was terrified beyond measure, he might wish he could turn into a ghost, so he wouldn’t be the one getting scared anymore. But such choices were always the worst, like when a monster chases someone to their doorstep, the first human instinct is to run, not to reach out and say, “Brother, I don’t want to be human anymore, can I join you?”

Surviving as a [human] was Yuan Shanxiao’s instinct.

To expend a fear value as high as 49%, it seemed only a long journey to Antarctica could achieve that—

The youth thought calmly, desperately suppressing a smile.

————

When Gojo Satoru returned to Tokyo Jujutsu High, he saw the traces of Yuan Shanxiao’s previous battle right at the foot of the mountain.

The familiar residue of the youth’s cursed energy, and then—

Countless mixed Cursed Spirit auras.

One could almost imagine how the youth was ambushed right after leaving the high school.

The vicinity of Tokyo Jujutsu High was always a vacuum for Cursed Spirits; it was impossible for so many diverse and varied levels of Cursed Spirits to gather at the foot of the mountain all at once.

And the person who arranged this must have known Yuan Shanxiao well. If it were curse users like Jujutsu Sorcerers coming to kill the youth, he might easily counter-kill them, but if it were Cursed Spirits—

Gojo Satoru thought of the youth who fainted in the training room just from killing a few cockroach Cursed Spirits, and how he had to coax him into an exorcism task, circling around for a month waiting for the timid youth to step out the door,

A bit like carefully enticing a rabbit out of its hole at the doorstep, placing carrots bit by bit, waiting for the timid rabbit to slowly come out.

Then suddenly someone came, reached into the rabbit hole, pulled out the rabbit, and got thoroughly beaten by the rabbit.

Gojo Satoru: …

“That’s my student, though.”

Gojo Satoru tucked his clenched, vein-popping hand back into his pocket, kicked open the door to Principal Yaga’s office.

“Even if he’s beaten, it can only be me—no, I should be the one to scold him.”

————

The person who ambushed Yuan Shanxiao was very covert. That day, [coincidentally], the nearby surveillance was broken. And their battlefield was outside the high school’s [curtain], the [curtain] couldn’t capture that person’s cursed energy. With the scene cluttered with Cursed Spirit auras, it was completely impossible to find any results.

They could only speculate a bit, the person who came to kill Yuan Shanxiao must have targeted him because of Gojo Satoru—obviously, the youth hadn’t offended anyone else. Then the person who came to kill Yuan Shanxiao must have been very familiar with the youth’s techniques and habits, somehow knowing the time Yuan Shanxiao planned to go down the mountain for training. Gojo Satoru knew the youth’s social circle was small, and only people from Tokyo Jujutsu High knew he was heading down the mountain—then—

Gojo Satoru remembered the photos his student had been sharing with him during that time, though he didn’t want to look at them a second time, but still pulled them out to ask his student if those details had been shared with anyone else during those days—indeed, Zen’in Maki and others also admitted to having shown them to friends from Kyoto High. So the information leak was pretty much traced.

To be able to command so many Cursed Spirits. To hide so many Cursed Spirits in Tokyo.

Except for…

It had to be those old geezers, right? The Zen’in clan from the big three families had no shortage of various Cursed Spirits.

Even if it wasn’t the old geezers who did it—

Gojo Satoru cracked his knuckles.

It’s always right to hit them first.

————

The atmosphere at Tokyo Jujutsu High was a bit gloomy these days; everyone knew about Yuan Shanxiao’s failed outing and how Gojo Satoru made a scene at the higher-ups, causing Kiyotaka Ijichi to work overtime for several days. Students from both Tokyo and Kyoto Jujutsu High were getting spammed with frame-by-frame shots of Gojo Satoru beating people.

Seeing the indifferent Gojo Satoru on the screen, who hadn’t moved but simply flicked his fingers to blow off the roof, everyone at Tokyo Jujutsu High felt a chill over their heads.

The youth was ambushed just after descending the mountain. Although the scene showed all the Cursed Spirits were dealt with by the youth, and the ambusher seemed to have been seriously injured from the blood at the scene, the one more severely hurt was probably the already fragile mental state of the youth.

The youth had been scared off and disappeared to—

“Where else but Antarctica, what else do you need to say!!!”

Whenever everyone asked about Yuan Shanxiao’s whereabouts, Gojo Satoru would bang the table angrily. Thus, everyone kind of knew this was Gojo Satoru’s no-go zone, not to touch Gojo’s raw nerve, especially not to mention in front of him—

“Eh, Teacher guessed right, how did you know Yuan-kun went to—mmmph,”

Several peers quickly covered the mouth of the clueless Yuta Okkotsu.

But it was too late. The name [Yuan] alone was enough to fill in the blanks for Gojo Satoru.

[Antarctica].

Thus, the white-haired man stood up suddenly, his towering height casting an oppressive shadow on the floor, the dark fabric of his uniform stretched taut as he walked toward Yuta Okkotsu, held on either side by his classmates.

The black-haired youth, still holding his phone as if to show something, was embraced by his peers.

Gojo Satoru didn’t need to remove his blindfold, nor did he need to get closer to see.

He could clearly see the content on the screen.

A social media post, a photo of a snowy, desolate landscape with no trace of human life. A caption in a familiar tone.

[Large snow falling, what does it resemble, but ascension to immortality—]

Gojo Satoru watched and suddenly laughed as he read the words, while the phone case cracked.

“Ascension to immortality, huh,”

“Teacher will come and grant you your ascension to immortality.”

“Crack—”

Yuta Okkotsu watched his phone screen crack. As Gojo Satoru vanished in an instant, he swiftly caught the phone—there were many photos of him and Rika on it.

He stared at the spider-webbed phone screen for a long while.

Panda and the others thought he was regretting the broken phone case.

“Ah, we said not to mention Yuan and Antarctica in front of Satoru recently.”

“Pollock roe.”

“But don’t worry too much.” Maki patted Yuta’s shoulder. “The memory card should be fine, when Gojo returns, make sure to extort a better phone from him.”

Yet, Yuta was still silently staring at his phone screen.

After a while, a dark shadow appeared instantaneously, squeezing through the crowd at Tokyo Jujutsu High and climbing onto Yuta’s shoulder. The huge, non-human lips opened and closed, emitting a buzzing sound that would cause a human brain to ache.

“…”

“Rika…”

“So this isn’t a scenario where the moonlight substitute is discovered and he chases and she flees to a crematorium—although it might indeed end up being a crematorium.”