Sleepytime Has Arrived
When Toyama Akira was ambushed the moment he left Jujutsu High that day, there was no way he could not have been angry, especially since he had clearly realized that the stitched-head man had been coming for him, coming to kill him.
If that stitched-head man had possessed a completely inhuman, grotesquely ugly, abstract appearance, Toyama Akira might have felt nothing but fear. Although he could sense the inhuman nature of the person before him, the man’s skin still looked fairly normal, so Toyama Akira had been… still afraid, but with enough room left in that fear to spare some thought for anger.
He had the nerve to provoke him while looking like a perfectly ordinary person. If he had only removed the stitches from his head and shown up with the long-mouthed Brain instead, Toyama Akira would have immediately knelt before him.
So after getting angry, Toyama Akira secretly looked into him anyway. He could not find much, especially because he had made a binding vow that prevented him from revealing that man’s existence or information about him to anyone else. In fact, after the incident, Gojo Satoru had also asked him about the stitched-head man, but Toyama Akira had evaded the questions with vague answers.
On one hand, the binding vow prevented him from telling Gojo Satoru anything. On the other, Toyama Akira did not want to give up the chance of achieving [soul and spirit annihilation] within the vow. If Gojo Satoru found out, he would definitely stop him.
That left Toyama Akira with no choice but to investigate on his own, without asking anyone else. The only information he had was that single line of stitches.
And, if his guess was correct, the man should have obtained information about his cursed technique from the Kyoto school. He understood the jujutsu world, knew about the barrier around Jujutsu High, and was clearly very familiar with Gojo Satoru. That made it highly likely that he was someone from the jujutsu world. Gojo Satoru had not found him when he later investigated the suspects, which meant that this person had been hiding himself deeply and for a very long time. After Toyama Akira returned from Antarctica, he heard that Gojo Satoru had gone and beaten up people from the higher-ups over it. In other words, for some reason, Gojo Satoru believed the suspect might have connections to the higher-ups.
Based on all this information, Toyama Akira first narrowed his search down to the three great families, ancient families that kept their information tightly concealed. In particular, he focused on the people within the three great families who overlapped most with the conservative faction among the higher-ups. Since the conservative faction of jujutsu headquarters was more deeply involved in Jujutsu High’s affairs, they were more likely to have obtained information about him from the Kyoto school.
Toyama Akira first searched through the records at Jujutsu High and the library Gojo Satoru had opened to him. After scanning them into a computer and searching the keyword [stitches], he did indeed find a few records. They were simply far older than he had expected.
According to the records, the man with stitches across his head had clearly existed a thousand years ago. Oh, and there was also Kamo Noritoshi from the last century.
He was not entirely sure.
After the amusement park incident, Toyama Akira became involved in the affairs of the jujutsu world for the first time. When he went to kill those old oranges, one of them happened to be from the Kamo clan, so he took the opportunity to go inside and investigate further.
Using other people’s bodies, stitches across his forehead, reincarnation, experimenting on cursed spirits and humans, the extremely evil curse user Kamo Noritoshi.
It was very similar to the descriptions of that stitched-head man from a thousand years ago.
“Amazing…”
Later, when Toyama Akira went after the homes of those twenty-six old oranges, he dealt with them while searching through the extensive records of those ancient families, verifying his theory once again.
There were not twenty-seven old oranges responsible for issuing missions. Toyama Akira simply wanted to make the number twenty-seven. So he dug up all their old debts as well.
The ones who had issued an execution order for Okkotsu, who had secretly tried to take Rika away, who had forced Hakari Kinji to leave, who had wanted to take the principal’s cursed corpses away, although he also thought those cursed corpses were quite frightening.
It was easy enough to find twenty-seven once he started digging.
Besides.
“Isn’t dying a wonderful thing…?”
Toyama Akira closed the book. His fingers were separated from it by a spatial membrane, so they left no fingerprints. He handled the bodies just as cleanly. Since he had let them die inside his own space, it looked as though they had died in the old orange’s own room, but there were no bloodstains, not even the slightest trace of blood in the air.
His space swallowed everything.
Blood, screams, scents, and… cursed energy residue.
Everything disappeared, disappeared again, then fell silently. In the end, it became one segment of the ceaseless, wave-like buzzing that continued inside his mind.
No matter how bright the blood that splashed into his eyes had been, it turned dark, like drops of ink. The unfocused eyes of the young man stared calmly at the scene before him. After a moment of silence, he sighed with genuine feeling.
“How nice.”
They could die just like this.
Just like useless strokes of ink, they could disappear from this horror manga with ease.
Meanwhile, he still had to remain here, startled, suffering, and enduring one disaster after another. And then there was…
The name quietly flashed through Toyama Akira’s mind.
“Kenjaku.”
The identity Toyama Akira had finally uncovered. He had appeared a thousand years ago and then reappeared several decades ago. He was an exceptionally powerful…
“Someone who actually dares to stay alive for that long…”
Kenjaku. Why was he not afraid of being alive?
Toyama Akira was still thinking about that question as he walked toward the residence of the twenty-seventh old orange.
Was it because he was the villain? Because he was horror itself, someone who only brought terror to others, and therefore had no reason to fear anything himself?
When Toyama Akira fell into a daze, he thought of himself.
If he also…
“Tap.”
A raindrop falling from a cluster of leaves struck Toyama Akira’s nose with an icy chill. His whole body shuddered. He immediately shook his head dry, and his gaze cleared in an instant.
Under the gradually brightening sunlight, his eyes regained their pale gray-green color. They were clear, and then…
He walked straight into the doorpost.
From inside the room came an instantly wary, “Who is it?!”
Toyama Akira thought with satisfaction that this person could live. He had finally found someone who woke up before eight.
His voice was consequently lighthearted as well. He imitated Kenjaku’s tone.
“Nice to meet you, Kenjaku.”
Then he pushed the door open.
Gojo Satoru was still not fully awake. He scratched at his white hair, and the phone beside him suddenly vibrated. He was just reaching for it when the door was abruptly pushed open. His hand stopped, and he looked up in a daze toward the doorway.
The bright, clear morning light poured in together with the swaying young man, and then…
“Akira, why are you…”
“Thud.”
Toyama Akira promptly fell to the floor.
The young man’s face was pressed against the ground, but his voice remained calm. “…”
“Who took apart twenty-seven lightbulbs at the door last night?”
Gojo Satoru: …
Gojo Satoru had no idea what the dismantled lightbulbs at the door were about. Everything he remembered from before bed last night was hazy, like a hangover. This was only a metaphor. He did not drink either, so he had no idea what a hangover actually felt like.
Still…
Gojo Satoru stared for a long while at the energy-saving bulbs Toyama Akira had stepped on and shattered, as well as the young man’s ankle, which had instantly swollen. When Toyama Akira saw Gojo Satoru slowly approaching, he instinctively propped himself up on his elbows and waited for Gojo Satoru to help him up. Then he heard the young man above him suddenly speak in realization.
“Why does the number twenty-seven feel so familiar to me?”
Toyama Akira: …
Shouldn’t you be paying attention to the lightbulbs, or, no, to him lying here on the floor?
Gojo Satoru still wanted to dwell on the question of twenty-seven, but Toyama Akira’s mind was a little clearer than his. He quickly remembered that the warm indoor temperature had been set to twenty-seven degrees, and that the twenty-seven lightbulbs arranged at the entrance to form the character for death had been the clear-minded actions of an exceptionally clear-minded self. Therefore, to avoid having the now truly clear-headed Gojo Satoru settle accounts with him later, he consciously changed the subject.
“I handled all of Gojo-sensei’s missions.”
Gojo Satoru immediately turned to look at him. To be honest, the astonishment in his eyes made Toyama Akira very uncomfortable. It was like seeing a husky from one’s own household wearing an apron and doing a thorough cleaning of the house.
Fortunately, Gojo Satoru had spent so many days without sleep that even after one long sleep, his brain had not completely rebooted. He only stared blankly at Toyama Akira for a while before suddenly remembering something and grabbing the phone beside the bed. “Speaking of missions, I think I got a message today.”
“Oh? Did you? What was it? I’m very curious.”
The young man’s voice was flat. Even if Gojo Satoru was not fully awake, he could tell that something was wrong. He turned to look at Toyama Akira, who blinked at him with a calm, clear expression. Gojo Satoru stared for a while without finding anything amiss, then turned back.
Pressing his aching temples, Gojo Satoru watched the black words on the phone screen jump one by one into his eyes. “There are more deaths at jujutsu headquarters.”
“A blissful eternal sleep.”
Gojo Satoru twisted his head around. Toyama Akira said expressionlessly, “A sorrowful tragedy.”
“Just like last time, those old oranges still haven’t found a single clue. This time, the victims don’t even have any obvious connection to one another.”
“A clean work of design.”
Gojo Satoru’s hand stopped around the phone. Toyama Akira corrected himself. “A chilling evil scheme.”
Gojo Satoru was silent for a moment.
“You did this, didn’t you?”
“Don’t wrong any villain. No, don’t let any good person off the hook. No…”
Toyama Akira twisted his fingers behind his back. His face remained impassive, but his words contradicted his true feelings.
Afraid that he would become so nervous that he said something wrong, Toyama Akira pointed at the phone screen. “Read the message before you accuse me.”
Gojo Satoru: …
Gojo Satoru turned back and took another look.
“Hm, the murderer has already been identified. Kenjaku? Who’s that?”
“Hm… The new mission is to carry out this [Kenjaku]’s death sentence.” Gojo Satoru rubbed his chin. “The other missions don’t need to be done anymore. What does that mean?”
“It means we can take twenty-seven days off.” Toyama Akira answered instantly, then immediately slapped himself in the face.
Gojo Satoru, as expected, turned back around. “So what did you mean by mentioning twenty-seven all day?”
Toyama Akira turned back as well. He had prepared himself mentally. This time, his tongue would definitely cooperate. He would hurry up, finish lying, and go back to his vacation, no, go back to sleep. He had been running for dozens of hours and was practically running a fever.
Toyama Akira moved his tongue, confirming that it was not tied in a knot. He moved his head, confirming that he was perfectly clear-headed. Only then did he speak with relief.
“You didn’t mean to accuse me…”
Toyama Akira: …
“No, I mean, the air conditioner wasn’t set to twenty-seven degrees yesterday.”
Gojo Satoru’s fingers suddenly tightened, and the phone screen went dark.
Toyama Akira: …
Toyama Akira hurried to explain. “And it wasn’t me who plugged the air-conditioner remote into the card slot, twisted twenty-seven lightbulbs loose, and put them at the door…”
Toyama Akira: …
Toyama Akira’s brain, which had been running for twenty-seven hours, was practically sparking. In his panic, a flash of inspiration struck him, only to make him even more panicked afterward. At last, he spotted the key point.
“I mean that I worked for twenty-seven hours straight yesterday to handle Gojo-sensei’s follow-up missions without taking a break! Yes, that’s what I was hinting at!”
Gojo Satoru’s hand relaxed. He looked over in a daze, his gaze trembling.
With the noise in his mind finally quiet, the young man relaxed. His eyelids were heavy as he murmured, “So it definitely wasn’t referring to the twenty at headquarters…”
While Gojo Satoru lowered his eyes, moved by something Toyama Akira did not know, Toyama Akira quickly slapped himself in the face. “Twenty… I mean, it was referring to the fact that I really ought to shut up and go to sleep.”
Toyama Akira watched Gojo Satoru for a while as he lowered his eyes, apparently lost in thought for some inexplicable reason. Toyama Akira also felt somewhat bewildered. While he had been outside, he had done so much work: cleaning up, shifting blame, killing people, setting fires, cosplaying for commissions. His emotions had repeatedly surged to the peak of fear, then to the peak of anger, as though he possessed infinite things to do and infinite energy.
But the moment he returned and saw Gojo Satoru, all he felt was exhaustion. His mind, tongue, and every other part of his body began peacefully returning to their normal state, a state where they could barely move after being overworked. The moment he saw Gojo Satoru, there was only one thing in his mind: sleep.
Sleep was a wonderful thing. For someone who longed to live yet feared living, it was the only acceptable substitute for death.
It was the rare peace and stability within horror.
It should not be taken away.
Gojo Satoru sighed. Just as he recovered from his complicated emotions, he saw that Toyama Akira’s eyes had already closed. His pale eyelashes trembled with every breath.
Gojo Satoru: …
Gojo Satoru smiled softly. His voice was soft as well.
“Good morning? Or good night?”
He slowly pressed down on the shoulder of Toyama Akira, who had fallen asleep sitting up, guiding the young man onto the bed. Then he heard Toyama Akira’s hazy voice.
“Aren’t you going to sleep, sensei…?”
“I just woke up. I still have a whole mountain of reports to…”
“It’s time to go to bed.”
Gojo Satoru: …
So you only asked me that to set up a joke?
Even when you’re this exhausted, you still have to make a joke…!
Gojo Satoru released his grip at once. When the young man fell onto the bed with his eyes still closed, he did not open them. His brows only drew together for an instant from the sudden impact before relaxing again. Once his body settled into the mattress, his breathing quickly became completely even. It looked as though he had already fallen deeply asleep.
Gojo Satoru understood that kind of exhaustion. The first time he had gone more than twenty hours without sleep, he had not yet learned reverse cursed technique either, and he had lost consciousness the moment he touched the bed, just like Toyama Akira now. At the time, however, he had only stayed up because he and his best friend had spent the night playing video games at Jujutsu High.
But why had Toyama Akira stayed awake?
Why had someone so lazy and listless, so timid and afraid of trouble, someone who treasured sleep as much as he treasured the death he cared about more than anything, gone without sleep for so long?
Gojo Satoru did not think of himself, because he felt there was no comparison to be made. He had long since grown accustomed to a lack of sleep. Besides, his reverse cursed technique could practically allow him to evolve beyond the need for sleep.
Gojo Satoru remembered the way the young man had poked his head out from behind the sofa yesterday, meeting Gojo’s upturned face.
[Sensei, can I go on a mission with you today?]
…
Gojo Satoru pressed his lips together and scratched at his unruly hair again. Finally, his eyes fell on the cut on Toyama Akira’s ankle, caused by the broken lightbulbs, and he stood with a frown. As he moved farther away from the young man, the stuffy feeling in his chest seemed to ease, allowing him to speak lightly. He lowered his eyes and let out a sigh.
“You did a great job completing the missions.”
They should have been his responsibility.
They should have…
“Good work…”
Gojo Satoru’s pupils contracted. The medicinal spray in his hand nearly fell. His back, all the way up to his cervical spine, seemed to stiffen instantly, but he still turned around with difficulty, as though unable to bear not knowing.
The young man on the bed had not woken up.
It had only been something he said in his sleep.