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The crisp air around Jujutsu High turned stifling all at once.
Suguru Geto, Satoru Gojo, and Toji Fushiguro, three men of wildly clashing aesthetics, walked back along the stone-paved path, forming a picture that had no business being coherent.
Shoko Ieiri was leaning against the doorway, a slim cigarette pinched between two fingers, lazily blowing smoke rings at nothing in particular.
She spotted the three figures approaching and raised an eyebrow.
The strongest duo was back.
Mission report: Failure.
She was already lining up something cutting to say, then her gaze locked onto the green silhouette trailing behind Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, and her brain stalled completely.
What was that?
A mobile, disaster-class pollution source radiating pure, concentrated pheromones?
“Hey.” Shoko stubbed out her cigarette, pointing at the muscle-swollen green monstrosity with an expression of pure bewilderment.
“Since when did Jujutsu High start importing this kind of Cursed Corpse?
Or is this some new bioweapon the Time Vessel Association cooked up?”
Satoru Gojo shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, unbothered.
“Who knows.
Some random muscle-brained idiot.
Doesn’t matter — mission’s done, he can get lost.”
Suguru Geto exhaled.
Yes.
The mission was over.
The process had been a disaster, the outcome was far from satisfying, but at least this social catastrophe in green spandex was about to disappear from his life forever.
Except when the principal’s office door swung open for them, Masamichi Yaga’s face, stern as carved granite, held not a trace of anger.
What it held instead was something complicated.
That wasn’t normal.
The atmosphere inside the office was suffocating.
Masamichi Yaga sat calmly behind his desk, studying the three of them.
“Regarding Riko Amanai,” he said, unhurried, “the higher-ups will not be pursuing the matter further.”
Satoru Gojo clicked his tongue.
“A failed mission is a failed mission.
Kill me or flay me, whatever those rotten tangerines feel like.”
“No.” Masamichi Yaga reached into his drawer, pulled out a document, and slid it across the desk toward them.
“The mission didn’t fail.
Or rather, the assimilation of Riko Amanai was never the only option to begin with.”
The document was unambiguous.
At the exact same time they had been escorting Riko, a separate squad, in a separate location, had quietly completed the process with an alternate Star Plasma Vessel candidate.
Tengen was safe.
The entire escort mission, from start to finish, had been nothing but a decoy, designed to draw the attention of the Time Vessel Association and every other potential threat, buying time for the real assimilation to go through.
Riko Amanai, from the very beginning, had been a disposable piece.
A smile pulled at the corner of Satoru Gojo’s mouth.
Cold.
Precise.
He understood exactly what those higher-up old men had done.
He just found it disgusting.
Suguru Geto’s body swayed.
He clenched his fists.
His nails bit deep into his palms.
The righteous conviction he had nearly cracked over.
The darkness he had almost let swallow him whole.
All of it, every single moment, was nothing but a disposable sideshow to the people in charge.
A farce they could have swapped out at any time without a second thought.
So this was what a “greater cause” looked like.
This cold.
This cruel.
This contemptuous of human life.
A bone-deep chill moved through him.
“AHAHAHA!”
The roar detonated in the dead silence of the principal’s office like a bomb.
“This is incredible!
This is so moving!
Doesn’t this mean young Riko is completely free now?!
She can go eat crêpes!
She can play volleyball on the beach!
She can go out there and grab the youth that belongs to her!”
He came in like a charging bull, slamming up to the desk.
“This is the victory of youth, Principal!” Toji seized Masamichi Yaga by both shoulders and shook him like a snow globe.
Masamichi Yaga froze solid.
Satoru Gojo and the others froze solid.
Nobody even got the chance to say anything.
Toji straightened up.
His expression flipped to dead serious in an instant.
“No.
The mission isn’t perfectly finished yet.”
He swept his gaze around the room and made his declaration like he was announcing war.
“Those sewer rats — what are they called — the Time Vessel Association!
They had the nerve to threaten the youth of a blossoming young girl!
They had the nerve to threaten the peaceful lives of my son and daughter!”
“That kind of rotten, festering garbage has no right to exist under the sun!”
Flames blazed in Toji’s eyes.
“To protect young Riko’s hard-won freedom!
To strangle every danger that could threaten my family before it even draws breath!”
He spun around.
One hand shot out to each side.
His fingers closed around the back collars of Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto with surgical precision, hoisting them like two cats who’d knocked something off a shelf.
“Move it!
You two greenhouse brats!”
“We’re leaving right now!”
“Let’s use the iron fists of youth to conduct a thorough, top-to-bottom cleanup!”
Neither of them had time to react.
Toji was already hauling both of the era’s so-called “strongest” out through the door in long, thundering strides.
Masamichi Yaga slowly lowered his head.
Then at his suit, soaked through with tears and sweat that were not his own.
His fists clenched.
Hard.
…
Half an hour later.
An abandoned warehouse somewhere in Tokyo.
Kong Shiyu had 2 massive dumbbells hanging off his body.
They creaked with a rusty groan every time he swayed.
In front of him, a devil in a green spandex suit was running through a demonstration with the energy of a stadium concert.
“Let’s go, let the sweaty youth begin!
Follow me, left hand, right hand, slow it down~”
Sweat flew off his chiseled muscles like water off a sprinkler, and several drops landed on Kong Shiyu’s face with sniper accuracy.
“Kong Shiyu!” Toji snapped to a halt, hands on hips, voice filling the entire warehouse.
“You tell me where the Time Vessel Association’s hideout is, and I’ll let you skip the next 10,000 jumping jacks.
You can feel the embrace of youth ahead of schedule!”
Kong Shiyu cried.
He genuinely, actually cried.
He was a middleman.
He moved through both the legitimate and underworld circles of the jujutsu world without breaking a sweat.
He had seen everything.
He thought.
After being dragged here, the green lunatic hadn’t hit him.
Hadn’t cursed at him.
He’d just forced Kong Shiyu to watch him work out.
That wall of male pheromones, sweat stench and cheap protein powder fused into something weaponized, was more terrifying than any lethal Cursed Spirit Kong Shiyu had ever encountered.
He could feel the irreversible contamination spreading through his eyes, his nose, and somewhere deeper.
His soul, maybe.
“I’ll talk!
I’ll tell you everything!” Kong Shiyu’s psychological defenses caved completely.
“Please!
Stop working out!
And stop making me listen to that cursed ‘Manual of Youth’ track!”
Outside the warehouse.
Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto sat in the car.
Their expressions were a competition in subtle misery.
“Geto,” Satoru Gojo mumbled around his lollipop, “you think if we just ran him over right now, the higher-ups would give us a bonus?”
Suguru Geto pressed two fingers against his throbbing temple and answered with what little energy he had left.
“I don’t know.
But I know that if we let him keep ‘enlightening’ people like this, Kong Shiyu might go down as the first ordinary person in jujutsu history to die of a Youth Energy overdose.”
The door swung open.
Toji dropped into the seat, thoroughly satisfied, address in hand.
“Target confirmed!
Time Vessel Association Headquarters!”
“Full speed ahead!
Let our iron fists strike up the youth symphony and sweep out the garbage!”
➤ Next: Time’s About Up
Jujutsu Kaisen