Crisis of Trust
Gojo Satoru had never experienced his own [Infinite Void], so he had no idea what it felt like when [Infinite Void] was used on someone else, or whether different people experienced it differently.
He was a little worried.
The boy’s body was already floating in the air, his figure swallowed by the dark, heavy domain. His damp hair had been brushed aside, revealing gray-green eyes that stared blankly and without focus at some point in the distance.
The domain clearly had an effect on him, but Gojo Satoru was still worried. It was like adding another reagent to a test tube filled with some strange, chaotic potion. He knew what the reagent in his own hand was supposed to do, but the liquid already in the test tube was far too chaotic and Schrödinger-like. Gojo Satoru had no idea what effect his [Infinite Void] would ultimately have on the boy…
He also had no idea what this fellow’s bizarre, malformed, miraculous brain had received while all that information poured into it…
Gojo Satoru didn’t know, and he couldn’t have guessed.
The boy’s brain had received information that was more terrifying, more horrifying, and of a higher dimension…
One second after [Infinite Void] expanded, inside the boy’s brain.
[If there are 256 main roads in front of you that you can use to escape, and each main road has 19, 37… branch roads respectively, and if the roads listed above are numbered from 1 to 250, with the escape times consumed by each road being 3.7s, 47.3s, 4.6s… respectively, calculate the fastest escape route.]
Operations research.
[If there are 999 escape routes in front of you, and after successfully escaping during the first stage you can proceed with a second-stage escape, with the escape routes in the first stage numbered from 1 to 999 and their respective probabilities of successful escape being 0.78, 0.92, 0.87……. The escape routes in the second stage are numbered from 1 to 1000, with their respective probabilities of successful escape being 0.34, 0.89, 0.63……. Calculate the route with the greatest probability of successful survival.]
Probability theory.
[If you are about to encounter a group of cursed spirits, and the number of them that will reach you within 24 hours follows a normal distribution, calculate…]
Calculus.
[If you and a cursed spirit are locked in the same room, you will each decide whether to open the door based on incomplete information. Your payoff matrix is… Note that you must make this decision 999 times, constituting a finitely repeated game. Calculate your optimal solution…]
Game theory.
The excessive information flooding the boy’s mind was broken down by his brain into points he could understand, just as decimal information entering his brain was automatically converted into binary.
Buildings were hiding spots. Roads were escape routes. People and objects were all obstacles to put between himself and danger while escaping.
However, when Gojo Satoru expanded his domain, Toyama Akira really was startled. His teacher had suddenly made a strange gesture and recited some strange words, and the sky had gone dark. He had been so frightened that his fear level shot up, and he prepared to escape…
But before he could escape, an enormous volume of information had surged into his brain, overloading it.
His fear and cursed technique, however, had already been activated.
So the boy’s cursed technique began skillfully processing the information and planning out methods of escape.
So…
The boy was facing the most terrifying, most horrifying, most dreadful information in the world…
[Mathematics].
It was said that mathematics did not lie. If you didn’t know something, you really didn’t know it. But for the boy, who had become omniscient because of [Infinite Void], not knowing how to do something meant he had to learn how.
He sensed three dead cockroaches beneath locker 204 in the changing room, four cursed spirits 2.4 kilometers away, and hundreds of millions of microorganisms in the bathwater. Thank goodness for [Infinite Void]. The boy had originally been afraid of everything he saw. Now that he could [see] everything, he was afraid of everything.
So…
Maybe it was just Gojo Satoru’s imagination, but he felt as if white smoke was coming from the boy’s head. Gojo Satoru: …… Was the cooling system not working properly? No, wait, this was a human brain, not a computer!
Gojo Satoru cautiously snapped his fingers. The domain vanished, and the boy’s body immediately went limp, though his eyes were still unfocused. Smoke was still coming from his head…?
Gojo Satoru cautiously approached and cautiously picked the boy up by the collar.
“C(256, 999) = 256! /……P(a1/b1) = P….. A penalty coefficient needs to be established…… It can be converted into a standard normal distribution….. The escape route should be……”
Gojo Satoru: ……
Gojo Satoru shook the boy by the collar and watched the smoke continue to rise. He wanted to dunk him in the bath to cool him down, but he was afraid water would ruin him. After thinking it over for a long time, he took out his phone and searched to see whether there was anywhere near Jujutsu High that repaired computers.
“Hey, Shoko, do you know if there’s somewhere next to Jujutsu High that repairs computer towers?”
“What? No, my computer isn’t broken. If I were broken, why would I get repaired? I’d just buy a new one.”
“……I’m not flaunting my wealth. It’s Toyama, no, not Toyama’s computer. Toyama’s brain.”
“……I’m not out of my mind either. I just want to repair his brain. He seems to have been…”
“……”
“……Why would I need repairs? My brain hasn’t gotten wet.”
While desperately trying to explain himself to Shoko, Gojo Satoru patted the boy’s head, giving it a couple of heavy smacks. Then…
“I finally calculated it. The route is complete. Escape…”
Gojo Satoru’s hand shot out and caught the boy by the collar.
He couldn’t help laughing.
“Fixed.”
“See? No matter what kind of brain it is, a few good smacks will fix it.·”
Toyama Akira had never felt this tired before. Even when he had snuck onto someone else’s research vessel and nearly gone on an expedition to the polar regions, he had never felt this… tired.
Toyama Akira had no idea what had happened while Gojo Satoru’s domain covered him. But it must have been something terrifying, which was why he was now so exhausted that he felt like falling asleep on the spot.
He hung limply from Gojo Satoru’s hand. His hair was still wet, and his bangs remained swept back as before, exposing his forehead and brows. His gray-green eyes were wide, and his brows were furrowed in mild confusion and thought. His eyes were clear and guileless, swaying through the air with Gojo Satoru’s steps. The boy himself swayed as he looked around Gojo Satoru.
That expression would have been perfectly understandable on a husky.
[No way, this human really is amazing.]
Gojo Satoru noticed his gaze and pretended not to see it. Unfortunately, even if he pretended not to see it, the [Six Eyes] still could. Take back that rude look!
Knowing that you don’t think I’m strong and actually seeing it for myself are two completely different feelings!
“……You little brat.”
“Hm? What?”
Toyama Akira came back to himself a little and blinked. “What was that move, sensei? It was amazing. Suddenly I couldn’t see anything, and then I lost consciousness…”
Gojo Satoru: ……
Forget losing consciousness. Your head was smoking.
“Which is why…” Gojo Satoru swung the boy by his collar with an irritated look. “You still have a lot to learn.”
“You’re still a long way from being [the strongest]…”
“I never wanted to be [the strongest]…” the boy muttered under his breath.
Gojo Satoru: ……
“I said you’re still a long way from being as strong as me.”
“So get ready. If you lose in a month, sensei is taking you to fight a special grade, okay?”
Toyama Akira already felt like giving up. When trouble appeared, the best thing to do was lie down. But when he heard that he would have to fight a cursed spirit, he still wanted to struggle feebly across the floor.
“……Before I lost consciousness, I think I heard sensei saying something about a [domain].”
Gojo Satoru: ……
Your ability to identify the important points really is important.
“That’s right. I expanded my own domain.”
“Really? Can I learn to expand my own domain too?”
Gojo Satoru stopped in his tracks. He looked at the boy dangling from his hand, paused for a moment, then lifted him a little higher until they were face-to-face. He was silent for a while before speaking.
“To be honest…”
Toyama Akira’s heart rose high in his chest with the young man’s drawn-out voice. He swallowed nervously and pressed his lips together.
“To be honest…”
“I can’t imagine what kind of domain you’d have, hahahaha. Would it be a hamster running on a wheel, hahaha? Or maybe a domain expansion called ‘Speedrunning Antarctica: Primitive Man’s Adventure’…”
Toyama Akira, dangling from his hand: ……
Toyama Akira was silent, naturally incapable of smiling.jpg
However, the shameless teacher quickly calmed down and looked seriously into Toyama Akira’s eyes. “But based on what you told me about your fight with Megumi, you already have a way to use your cursed technique in an extreme state, don’t you? Even if it activates passively. From that perspective, whether you have a domain probably won’t affect you much.”
“But now that I think about it, there’s something I’m very curious about.”
Gojo Satoru reached out and brushed aside the boy’s bangs, which had fallen messily over his damp face again. When the wet strands slapped the boy in the eyes and he clumsily covered them, Gojo hooked the lock behind his ear, then leaned closer. “Is your [heterogeneous space] accessible only to you?”
Gojo Satoru had leaned close enough to see that the boy’s eyes were still wide behind his fingers. His pupils contracted sharply.
……
“No.”
He heard the boy deny it.
Then, immediately afterward:
“But I don’t think I’d want anyone else to go inside.”
The topic was over.
It sounded a little like a terrible flag. If someone said [I’ll absolutely never let anyone in], then according to the plot, they would probably end up letting someone in later. If someone firmly declared [We’re definitely going to win], then the story would probably reverse itself, reverse again, and then reverse one more time. Movies loved doing that.
So Toyama Akira had not made any definite or emphatic declaration. He was also a little worried that Gojo Satoru might ask, [Really? Why not?] or [Then can I go in, sensei?]
However, Gojo Satoru’s Six Eyes seemed to have already seen part of the reason he refused to let others enter that space. So, for once, this teacher acted like a good teacher and tactfully let the subject pass.
The reason Toyama Akira refused to let others enter that space was simple enough: fear. His space was like his bedroom, and the [door] into it granted access only to him through facial recognition. If he brought someone else inside, that [door] would remember that person’s face too.
The next time Toyama Akira tried to flee through the door, if he were a step too slow and someone else with facial-recognition access rushed in after him, then his one and only safe [heterogeneous space] might no longer be the only safe place.
Ultimately, it was a question of whether he should give someone else the key to his home. He still owned the home, and he alone could use and alter the state of the space, but he couldn’t just hand out the key.
“However…”
Gojo Satoru moved on from the previous subject and continued quietly carrying the boy back to the dormitory.
“Hm?”
“I’ll probably let Gojo-sensei into my space eventually…”
“Wait, don’t let go! I’m falling! I’m so scared!”
Gojo Satoru covered his mouth with his free hand and coughed twice, turning his head away. He quickly grabbed the back of the boy’s collar when he accidentally froze, loosened his grip, and the boy began to fall.
“Hm… cough, cough…”
“Cough… uh…”
“Hm…”
Toyama Akira: ……
“If you want to ask why, just ask, Gojo-sensei. How did you end up being even more cowardly than me?”
Gojo Satoru, who had actually been accused of cowardice: ……
“Fine. So why? Isn’t your spatial technique equipped with that kind of… authentication feature?”
So this guy really did know!
Toyama Akira pouted. “Because Gojo-sensei is the strongest. I trust Gojo-sensei…”
Gojo Satoru immediately relaxed. For an instant, his face showed relief and gratification, as if a bitter fruit had finally ripened into something sweet.
“You thought I was going to say that, didn’t you?”
“Of course it’s because I just set a flag when I talked to Gojo-sensei. According to the rules of horror movies, I’m definitely going to break that flag in the future and let Gojo-sensei into my space. Horror movies always do that.”
Gojo Satoru: ……
The veins on the back of Gojo Satoru’s hand stood out. His back teeth clenched one after another, yet he maintained the relieved expression from before while his smile grew even broader.
“So, forget your character setting as the pro,tag,on,ist of a horror movie!”
“I’m the doomed cannon fodder.”
“Same thing.”
“No, wait, wait, wait! Don’t let go, sensei! I’m going to fall!”
“Sensei, I was just kidding. It’s because you’re strong and responsible, so I trust you a lot, so…”
“Thud.”
Toyama Akira, face-first on the ground: ……
“So I hate you.”