This Is Slander!
Gojo Satoru received a new assignment.
Investigate [Kenjaku], the perpetrator behind the serial murder of twenty-six jujutsu headquarters members, and sentence him to death.
The shocking number of victims and the audacity of the crimes instantly turned the case into a major, heinous incident that spread throughout the jujutsu world.
No one knew how [Kenjaku] had infiltrated the residences of those twenty-six sorcerers. Their barriers, guards, and surveillance had detected not the slightest trace of an intrusion.
And yet, those twenty-six sorcerers had vanished into thin air.
During the same period, sorcerers who had little in common beyond their employment at jujutsu headquarters all disappeared from their own homes, or from the homes of their lovers. When they vanished, neither the household retainers guarding the doors nor the lovers sleeping in their beds noticed anything amiss. There was not even a trace of cursed energy residue, blood, or fingerprints at the scenes. All that remained were the impressions of bodies and the lingering warmth on the beds.
Then…
The spirit-medium technique revealed that all twenty-six of them were dead.
Dead at the hands of…
“[Kenjaku].”
The sorcerer who named the culprit was the last one [Kenjaku] had visited.
That [Kenjaku] had acted so boldly that, in the end, he had come to see the man simply to publicize his own infamy. He did not want his [masterpiece] to pass unnoticed by the world.
According to the man, [Kenjaku] was a young man who looked to be in his twenties: youthful, tall, with long black hair, dressed in priestly robes, and bearing a stitched scar across his forehead. He always wore a faint smile…
“How old do I look?”
That morning, after using the twenty-six corpses in his spatial storage, which he hadn’t yet gotten around to dumping in international waters, to frighten the twenty-seventh old orange into submission, Toyama Akira crouched in front of the limp man and pointed at himself.
“Y-You look, at most, sixteen or seventeen.”
Toyama Akira did not know how old he was either, so he merely shook his head. His dark eyes were fully exposed as he stared steadily into the face of the man before him, who kept wiping away cold sweat. “I’m around twenty-six or twenty-seven.”
“What color is my hair?”
“…B-Black.” The sorcerer did not understand. The boy in front of him clearly looked underage, so how could he already be twenty-six or twenty-seven? Just as he did not understand why the boy was pointing strangely at himself and asking questions about features anyone with eyes could plainly see.
“Correct. Next question. Do I have long hair or short hair?”
“Short hair…?”
“Nope. My long hair reaches about…” Toyama Akira raised his eyes and thought for a moment. Then he looked at the bewildered man before him and said with certainty, “A little below my shoulders. You saw it wrong.”
The man across from him stared at the boy’s short hair, which reached no farther than the edge of his collar, and fell silent for a moment.
Could this be an illusion of his true appearance…?
How terrifying!
But Toyama Akira’s questions continued.
“Do I have a stitched scar on my head?”
“No, wait, yes.”
“Correct. Am I wearing priestly robes?”
“…Yes.”
“Am I over one hundred eighty centimeters tall?”
“…”
The man was silent for a long while. He thought about the boy’s height when he had grabbed him by the collar to make a dramatic entrance, only to realize he was not tall enough and drop him onto the floor instead.
Man: …
He had always felt that he had been spared and made the sole survivor because he had lied through his teeth so many times that this strange fellow had finally taken pity on him.
“Yes. You’re close to one hundred ninety centimeters.”
Toyama Akira thought it over, then nodded in satisfaction.
Because of the binding vow, he could not directly convey Kenjaku’s distinguishing features. But he could communicate them this way. After all, he was describing his own appearance, not Kenjaku’s. How could that count as breaking the vow?
Thus, after making a binding vow with the kneeling man and ordering him to spread word of what had happened, Toyama Akira nodded in satisfaction and patted the other man’s lowered head. “You may not be very bright, but your eyesight is pretty good.”
Man: …
The man slowly raised his head. His vision filled with the figure of a boy who looked sixteen or seventeen, was under one hundred eighty centimeters tall, had short hair, and was not wearing priestly robes. He mentally went over all his answers again.
Man: …
“You’re right. I’m not very bright.”
Was this an illusion? Had his brain really still not caught up?
After such a vicious massacre of jujutsu sorcerers, the case was naturally given priority over everything else. And it could only be entrusted to the sole special grade sorcerer currently in the country, Gojo Satoru.
All of Gojo Satoru’s previous assignments were therefore suspended. His sole responsibility was to capture [Kenjaku] and bring him to justice, then sentence him to death.
Gojo Satoru had picked up on Toyama Akira’s hint. He more or less understood that his student had given the situation a little push from behind, all to get rid of those tedious assignments and give him a stretch of vacation.
What Gojo Satoru did not know was that this period was not merely a grace period for him. More importantly, it was a grace period for jujutsu headquarters.
Before leaving, Toyama Akira crouched in front of the last survivor, who was also the first mole-sorcerer he had planted in jujutsu headquarters. When his eyes were fully open, their naturally downturned corners gave his expression an almost perfectly clear and innocent look, while his dark eyes clearly reflected the man’s nervous act of swallowing.
“I know you have the most authority among the twenty-seven of them. Don’t disappoint me.”
The boy awkwardly reached out and patted the man’s head, as though he were petting some kind of animal. Then he said seriously, “Finding another person as suitable as you would be a hassle. You’ve already caused me plenty of trouble. Don’t cause me any more, all right?”
“You heard the recording too. You understand what I want, right? Whether you can do it is your problem. How you do it is also your problem.”
“I only have two things to do. If you can [reasonably] arrange Gojo Satoru’s workload, I’ll reward you. If you can’t, I’ll find another twenty-seven people to screw in light bulbs.”
“If every one of you is useless, if all of you are gone…” The dark depths of the boy’s eyes briefly lost focus as his own words conjured up an image. Then he slumped and said, “Well, if you’re gone, you’re gone. This world only has meaning because someone like [Gojo Satoru], the strongest, exists in it.”
“And you…”
Toyama Akira looked the trembling man up and down. Coming back to himself, he wrinkled his nose in distaste.
He would not even choose him as a window, much less a door. His standards were not so low that he would take just anyone.
So…
He was going to have a wonderful vacation now, right?
Toyama Akira folded his hands over his chest in a cross and smiled as Gojo Satoru laid him down on the bed, awaiting the arrival of the god of dreams.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, with a blissful dream about to envelop his consciousness, Toyama Akira ceremoniously said to his hard-working self, “Good work today.” Then he…
Fell right asle…
“Wake up already!”
He was shouted awake.
When Gojo Satoru woke him, Toyama Akira actually felt a little irritated. But he had fallen into the same situation Gojo Satoru had before. He had stayed awake for too long, then slept for too long, and upon waking, his brain felt as though it had just been sent back to the factory for repairs. Every program was still stuck on loading. Before Toyama Akira had finished booting up, a phone was shoved right in front of his face, displaying the time.
Oh. He had slept for an entire day and night. Gojo Satoru had only woken him because he was genuinely afraid he had slept himself to death.
It really was jealousy, wasn’t it? Being able to sleep to death was such an enviable way to die.
But before Toyama Akira’s commentary could finish loading, he had only just moved his lips when a forkful of food was already being delivered to his mouth.
Fine, he knew his brain was loading a little slowly at the moment, but he still wanted to ask when his face and paws had been washed, when he had been placed at the dining table, and when Gojo Satoru had speared some kind of food and brought it to his mouth. “I don’t…”
“Oh, don’t be shy. There’s no need to say whether you do or don’t. Your teacher personally took off your socks yesterday.”
“…Do you really have to say something so disgusting at the dinner table? Wait, I don’t…”
“It’s fine. I’m only feeding you. There’s no need to say whether you do or don’t…”
Toyama Akira’s face turned the color of vegetables as his mouth was stuffed full of food.
At last, after chewing with all the enthusiasm of a corpse, he managed to finish what he had been trying to say.
“I don’t eat broccoli.”
Toyama Akira felt that things had diverged somewhat from what he had expected.
For example, at first he had thought that he and Gojo Satoru were bound by fate. If Gojo Satoru worked overtime, he would not get enough rest either. But now he realized that he and Gojo Satoru were the two ends of a seesaw. Whenever Gojo Satoru rested well and dropped back down, he was launched into the sky by a fully rested, energetic Gojo Satoru.
“…Sensei, it’s only nine-thirty… I’m still growing. I need to sleep.”
“It’s already nine-thirty, and Akira has already missed breakfast. If you don’t get up now, you’ll miss lunch too, you know?”
Toyama Akira, bleary-eyed and miserable in bed, suddenly pulled the covers over his head and rolled onto his side. His voice came out muffled through the blanket. “Then I just won’t eat…”
Gojo Satoru flashed to Toyama Akira’s other side and leaned down to meet the half of the boy’s face exposed outside the blanket. “[Still growing], huh?”
Gojo Satoru threw the boy’s own words back at him.
Toyama Akira grabbed one side of the blanket and rolled over again. “Then I just won’t grow…”
Gojo Satoru instantly flashed over and caught the blanket just as the boy was about to pull it over his head. “That’s terrible for your health, you know?”
With his blanket of destiny caught, Toyama Akira finally opened his eyes and lay flat on his back. “Then I just won’t live…”
As long as it was only his sleep schedule, Toyama Akira could barely tolerate it.
But then…
“I don’t eat broccoli, sensei.”
Watching Gojo Satoru cut vegetables in the kitchen, the boy, who had recently been forbidden from ordering takeout or buying snacks, silently poked his head out from behind him.
Gojo Satoru gave the knife a graceful flick. The broccoli became leafy greens, and the blade was just about to come down.
The boy’s voice drifted from behind him.
“I don’t eat leafy greens either.”
“…I don’t eat radishes either.”
“I don’t eat sashimi.”
“I don’t eat eggs.”
At last, when Gojo Satoru’s mouth drew into a straight line and he lifted him by the back of his shirt, pressing the kitchen knife against his neck, Toyama Akira calmly stared at the kitchen ceiling light.
“Thanks, but I don’t eat human flesh either.”
Gojo Satoru: …
As long as it was just food, Toyama Akira could still tolerate it.
But then…
“Akira, let’s go for a morning run.”
“The moonlight is beautiful tonight. I mean, let’s go for a night run.”
“Hmm… Akira, want to run a thousand meters? Or maybe twenty-four hundred?”
Toyama Akira: …
“Sensei doesn’t have any assignments right now, does he?”
Gojo Satoru blinked. “Oh, right. I don’t. What’s up?”
“Then I’ll show sensei how fast I can run.”
“Huh? Aren’t we going to the track?”
Toyama Akira curved his lips into a smile and silently opened the step counter on his phone. “As long as there’s a track in your heart, you can train anywhere.”
At those words, Gojo Satoru lowered his head and began pondering the boy’s seemingly philosophical statement. Then he heard the boy’s short, firm, urgent voice.
“Antarctica, activate…”
Gojo Satoru: …
Meanwhile, after emerging from Dagon’s domain, Kenjaku discovered that wanted posters bearing his face were plastered all over the jujutsu world and fell silent.
The drawing was somewhat abstract, but when combined with the name beneath it, the key features could still be recognized by looking back and forth between the poster and the picture. More importantly, those features had all been repeated in the description, with particular emphasis placed on being over one hundred eighty centimeters tall.
Age: twenty-six or twenty-seven (over 180 cm)
Shoulder-length hair (over 180 cm)
Stitched scar on forehead (over 180 cm)
Wearing priestly robes (over…
Kenjaku: …
Was he really that obsessed with his height?
No, wait. Who had killed those twenty-six jujutsu headquarters sorcerers?
Kenjaku tried to think calmly.
He began analyzing the wanted poster.
The person framing him clearly knew his physical features very well. For example,
[Over 180 cm…]
Kenjaku: …