“Makoto-kun, you seem distracted.” Suguru Geto’s voice was soft, but there was something cold and venomous in it that seemed to cling to the skin.
His narrow, foxlike eyes had caught the flicker of anxiety in Makoto Mizuki’s gaze—the unmistakable look of someone who couldn’t hold out much longer.
“Distracted?” Makoto’s mouth twitched before he forced his expression back into the sort of mocking smile guaranteed to send a villain’s blood pressure through the roof.
He even managed a leisurely yawn, his eyes half-lidded.
“I was just wondering whether I should congratulate Gojo-sensei on getting back so quickly or complain about him interrupting my live-action Dynasty Warriors experience.
You don’t get many chances to mow down enemies of this quality.” “…Heh.” A vein throbbed at Geto’s temple, putting a crack in his cultivated air of serene authority.
“Well, if you enjoy games so much, you won’t mind me adding another two elite enemies, will you, Makoto-kun?” He raised his hand again.
Although he still didn’t dare rush in for close combat—’Thank you for being cautious,’ Makoto thought—two more special-grade imaginary vengeful cursed spirits emerged from the shadows behind him as if by magic, each as large as a small hill.
‘Fuck!
Geto, how many of these things have you got stashed away?!
That makes five already, doesn’t it?’ ‘Have you been that pent-up all these years without the white-haired geezer?!
Did you fill out the entire fucking cursed-spirit Pokédex?!’ Makoto was screaming inside, but he still had to keep wearing that infuriating little smile that said, “Is that all?” He was wringing everything he could out of Thin Ice Breaker, a defense that displaced space and was relatively economical in terms of cursed energy, even if the strain on his brain was practically suicidal.
It was like trying to run Assassin’s Creed Origins on maximum settings with a bargain-bin PC cobbled together from spare parts that could barely power its own fan.
The graphics card was glowing red and about to burst into flames, yet he still had to crank the monitor’s brightness all the way up and thump his chest as he bragged to the neighbors: “Look at these fucking graphics!
Smooth as Dove chocolate!” [Elapsed time: 08:33.
Objective: Hold out for another 11 minutes, 27 seconds.] “Makoto!
Are you ready yet?!” Maki’s voice came through his earpiece, tight with barely suppressed strain.
“Almost…
almost…” he muttered through gritted teeth, too quietly for anyone else to hear.
‘Miguel, buddy, I take back what I said earlier.
You’re a real man!
Now I’m begging you, stop trying so hard!’ ‘And Gojo-sensei, please hurry up and kick that Black guy with the whip into next week!
He’s got the historical roles backward anyway!
Then teleport straight back here and take this goddamn mess off my hands!’ Holding his overloaded defenses for so long was taking its toll: broad red blotches were spreading across his vision.
Even Geto’s distinctive bun had started multiplying before his eyes—first three, then five, until there were fucking black hair buns everywhere he looked.
“Seriously, Geto-san.” Makoto wiped the blood seeping from the corner of his eye and gave him a smile that was beginning to look distinctly unhinged.
“If you don’t show me something a little more impressive, I’m going to start storyboarding a comic about you called Ape Wars.” The atmosphere around Geto turned instantly glacial, while Makoto continued screaming inside.
‘Satoru Gojo!
If you don’t get here soon, this time next year you’ll be leaving the final chapter of Mai Gojo: Household Affairs on my grave!
Except it’ll be an abandoned series!
There won’t even be a fucking ending!!!’ His brain felt hot enough to melt, and the ringing in his ears sounded like a thousand cicadas holding a rave inside his skull.
‘I know, I know!
Shut the fuck up, brain!’ Thin Ice Breaker’s passive defense was at its limit.
If he wanted to make this meticulous bastard back off completely, there was only one option: hit him with something even more overwhelming, the kind of absurdly one-sided display that practically screamed Satoru Gojo.
‘Aoi Todo, my brother from another mother—and father—whom I’ve never actually met, forgive me!
I need to borrow the brutal style of that older bombshell who steamrolled you!’ [Technique Switch: Echo Mimicry—Equipped target changed to Yuki Tsukumo’s Star Rage.] With a thunderous surge, the cursed energy flowing through Makoto changed from delicate threads into something as violent as a raging black hole.
His imitation barely scratched the surface of Star Rage’s virtual mass, but it was enough to raise the stakes of his bluff.
He took a forceful step forward, and the concrete beneath his foot split into radiating cracks, unable to withstand that crushing virtual weight.
“Here’s a cheat code Gojo-sensei taught me personally—Phase, Twilight, Eyes of Wisdom!” He extended his right hand, fingers loosely curled around empty air.
The light at his fingertips was no longer pure azure; a dark red had bled into it, carrying a suffocating sense of weight.
[Imperfect Star Rage] + [Imperfect Blue].
Forcibly compressed together through Limitless, the two savage powers underwent a transformation almost like a chemical reaction, and [Blue Rage] erupted with a deafening blast.
Space within a thirty-meter radius seemed to crumple in the grip of an invisible hand.
Before the two special-grade cursed spirits could even scream, the irresistible pull stretched their bodies into grotesque strips, then the crushing pressure bursting from the center ground them into ash that scattered through the air.
When the dust finally cleared, Makoto stood alone at the bottom of an enormous crater.
White vapor rose from his partially bare shoulders, and a crimson light flickered at his fingertips.
He looked impossibly cool.
Geto stared at him, his air of absolute control utterly shattered.
This mere Grade 2 sorcerer not only possessed the precision to manipulate Limitless, but had also been concealing enough brute force to wipe out special-grade cursed spirits in an instant?
The words “Grade 2 sorcerer” drove themselves into his memories like a rusty nail.
In the summer of 2006, he and Satoru Gojo had worn that same rank like a badge of honor, brimming with confidence as they declared, “We’re the strongest.” He recognized that unmistakable feeling of someone treating space like a toy, bending the laws of physics to his whims.
“Satoru…
That’s impossible…” he murmured.
He knew Satoru Gojo too well, understood him too deeply, and trusted his strength too completely to mistake it.
The attraction that had annihilated those special grades was unquestionably Blue, genuine in every respect.
Geto no longer saw an imitator standing before him, but a second monster rapidly taking shape, one who had inherited every last trace of Satoru Gojo’s madness.
“Satoru…
What kind of monster have you been hiding at Jujutsu High?” His grip tightened around Playful Cloud until his knuckles turned white.
‘Satoru, is this what it means to be the strongest?
Even after I leave, you can just make another me?
Even another you?!’ ‘Yes, that’s it, Suguru!
Keep filling in the blanks!
Scare the shit out of yourself!’ Makoto was mentally applauding the cult leader’s wonderfully active imagination.
For someone like Geto, who had once stood so close to being the strongest, that very familiarity had become his greatest weakness.
If power like this could be passed on, if Satoru Gojo had truly discovered a way to mass-produce these little monsters, then Geto’s ten years of struggle amounted to nothing more than a colossal joke.
Behind all the spectacular dust and smoke, however, Makoto was on the verge of falling apart.
Only he knew that the Blue Rage he had forced into existence was no effortless miracle; it had been an all-or-nothing gamble that had nearly cleaned him out.
Reproducing enough virtual mass to fool a special-grade sorcerer had sent his previously comfortable cursed energy reserves plummeting into the danger zone.
The strain on his brain was worse still: his neurons felt as though someone had drenched them in concentrated sulfuric acid.
His vision was so blurred that Geto had become a twisted black smudge of overlapping images.
The only thing keeping Makoto in that arrogant pose, hands in his pockets and chin held high, was the sheer, furious determination that he was going to fucking survive.
‘This is a mind game worthy of Zhongli faking his own death!
As long as I stay on my feet, all you’ll ever see when you look at me is that bottomless gulf called “the strongest”!’ Makoto forced down the sweet, metallic taste rising in his throat and kept that deeply punchable smirk fixed on his face.
A light breeze could probably have knocked him flat at this point, but until Geto figured out how much of this was real, he would never risk his life finding out.
“Well, well.
What’s with that face all of a sudden, old man?” Makoto tilted his head, the dark red glow of his imitation Blue Rage still flickering at his fingertips amid the ruins.
In reality, that was because he could barely control his cursed energy output anymore; to Geto, it probably looked like a warning that a second attack could come at any moment.
Wiping his forehead, slick with blood and sweat, Makoto gave him a wild, vicious grin.
“Hah…
Wondering what that move’s called?
Sensei said it was a little extracurricular teaching aid, something to demonstrate what the new generation can do.
As for the name…
How does ‘Goodbye to the Past’ sound?” He chose the barb deliberately, driving it straight into the place he knew would hurt most.
“If that’s the best you can manage for a pop quiz, I really did give you too much credit as one of the former strongest.
“Why don’t you start drafting your apology in your head before Sensei teleports back and drags you off to write it properly?
“When he gets here and sees his mass-produced student beating you flat, how are you planning to bow out with a little dignity?
Personally, I’d recommend getting on your knees and putting your forehead to the ground.” [Elapsed time: 11:53.
Objective: Hold out for another 8 minutes, 7 seconds.]