“Rather than calling it a crisis sixty-eight years from now, it’s more accurate to say a massive incident occurs sixty-eight years from now, which lays the groundwork for the real crisis.”
The variety show on the TV continued its ridiculous antics and canned laughter.
Inside the completely isolated secret room, Kaito began detailing the ‘Alien Incident’ of the future.
When he had explained the current crisis earlier, Kaito had to be careful with his words, phrasing things as if he had heard them from a primary source.
But for the story taking place sixty-eight years later, he had to play the role of an actual eyewitness to that era.
“Sixty-eight years from now, in the year 2086. I was six years old. Aliens showed up in spaceships.”
Gojo: “?”
‘A universe-level threat?!’
Kaito shot him a glance, took another sip of beer, and continued.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. They were just a bunch of refugees…”
He proceeded to lay out the plot of the “Jujutsu Kaisen Sequel.”
Gojo’s face changed with every twist in the story.
Alien refugees treating cursed spirits like holy beasts.
Yuta Okkotsu and Maki Zen’in getting married and having grandkids.
The Yuji Itadori he’d met tonight becoming ‘Emperor Itadori.’ Megumi Fushiguro, whom he had raised from childhood, completely missing from the records.
“…And in the single second before the slash activated, Yuji Itadori’s voice echoed across Tokyo: ‘Dismantle.'”
“A massive slash erupted over Tokyo like a solar flare, releasing a pillar of pure energy! Countless cursed spirits were completely vaporized in the attack!”
“A ten-kilometer Dismantle wiped out an entire sea of cursed spirits in an instant. Millions of curses died at once, throwing up massive clouds of dust until even the skyscrapers of human civilization looked no bigger than grains of rice.”
“So, that’s right! Emperor Itadori was the absolute winner!!”
Kaito smacked his lips, clearly pleased with his dramatic storytelling.
It was the same formula as always, using the familiar ‘skyscrapers symbolizing human civilization’ metaphor.
“Firing off Black Flashes on a whim, throwing slashes measured in kilometers, and he didn’t even use a full incantation…” Gojo didn’t even know how to react to that level of absurdity.
Kaito nodded deeply in agreement.
“And that was just his basic attack!”
“I was only six at the time, so I couldn’t be there on the front lines. But because of my unique cursed technique, the Jujutsu world kept a close eye on me and took care of me, so I got the full, uncensored scoop.”
Gojo quietly sipped his beer.
“The future doesn’t sound too bad,” Gojo chuckled softly.
“So? What kind of crisis could possibly happen after that? With a powerhouse on Itadori’s level guarding the world, even if I resurrected, turned evil, and tried to destroy the world, I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.”
Gojo honestly couldn’t imagine a threat bigger than that.
Kaito shook his head.
“That was just the prologue. Remember what I said about that alien with the ‘Chaos and Harmony’ technique?”
“Maru, right? An insanely powerful technique.”
“After the battle, Itadori and Maru came up with a plan. They wanted to eradicate cursed spirits from the world completely.”
Gojo frowned slightly.
His mind instantly drifted to Suguru Geto.
Geto’s ideals had been extreme.
He viewed non-sorcerers as unevolved monkeys and wanted to use absolute power to slaughter them all, forcing the survivors to evolve into sorcerers to create a pure Jujutsu society.
Sorcerers could control their cursed energy—they didn’t leak it from negative emotions and birth cursed spirits like normal humans did.
Geto had just been defeated before he could attain the ‘absolute power’ necessary to overturn society.
But the Itadori of sixty-eight years later had that absolute power.
From what Kaito had said earlier, Gojo trusted that Yuji was a reliable student and ally right now.
But sixty-eight years was a long time.
Could so many years change someone completely?
Gojo wasn’t sure.
Gojo voiced his concern: “Don’t tell me Itadori becomes the final boss of the future?”
“What are you talking about?” Kaito stared at Gojo.
“They just planned to alter the reincarnation cycle of souls.”
“The massive reservoir of cursed energy in Yuta Okkotsu’s ring. The research notes of Yuki Tsukumo, safeguarded by Itadori. Mahito, who spent decades waiting in the soul passage for Itadori to die only to get instantly counter-killed. And Maru’s technique.”
“They gathered all these conditions together, and they succeeded.”
“From that point on, whenever a new human was born, their soul would be ‘harmonized’ during reincarnation. Its shape would be fundamentally altered so it would never produce cursed energy again.”
Gojo didn’t feel awkward about guessing wrong.
Instead, he nodded in approval.
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
He reached for a new can of beer.
Using a small Dismantle, he popped the tab, took a long drink, and then started to explain his side.
“With barrier techniques and mainstream media control, cursed spirits would only ever appear in the long-abandoned ruins of Tokyo anyway. They wouldn’t affect normal civilians at all.”
“And once the Jujutsu world was exposed to the public, it would be forced to adapt, becoming far more regulated and standardized. Sorcerers could use modern technology and government backing to form regular extermination squads, safely purging the excess curses inside Tokyo.”
“More importantly, cursed energy is a completely broken, miraculous energy resource!”
Kaito extended a tentacle and pointed it straight at Gojo.
“Just look at your own technique! The Limitless is literally built on Zeno’s Paradox!”
“That paradox is physically impossible in reality—it was debunked and proven false ages ago. The ‘tortoise that can never be caught’ is a concept that only exists in philosophy.”
“But your technique takes a purely philosophical concept and manifests it in physical reality?! Do you have any idea how insane that is?!”
“Yuki Tsukumo’s Star Rage can literally create a black hole capable of swallowing the Earth if she ignores the consequences.”
“And Construction techniques can generate actual, physical matter out of cursed energy. Do you realize that converting a single peanut into pure energy is equivalent to a nuclear explosion?!”
“Cursed techniques are absurd, and cursed energy as a fuel source is even crazier!”
Kaito stretched out two tentacles and tapped the sides of his head where his temples would be.
“THINK, GOJO-SENSEI, THINK!”
“If humanity spent the next five hundred years researching and utilizing cursed energy, imagine how far our civilization and productivity could advance!”
Holding his beer can, Gojo fell silent.
If you looked beyond just the Jujutsu world and thought about all of human progress, the plan had some serious flaws.
But…!
Just as Gojo was about to speak, Kaito cut him off.
“And right after that, the countdown to humanity’s ultimate crisis began.”
Gojo was snapped back to the main point of their discussion.
Kaito stared intensely at him with his single eye, enunciating every word clearly.
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed from one form to another, or transferred from one object to another.”
“If the energy generated by humanity’s negative emotions is no longer converted into cursed energy, and it no longer accumulates to form individual cursed spirits…”
“Where did all that energy go?”