Jujutsu Kaisen: Tragedy Life Simulator-Chapter 95

[December 24th. Sunset was almost gone.]

[The last light smeared Shinjuku’s skyline red, turning glass and concrete the color of fresh blood.]

[You stood with the rest of Jujutsu High in the middle of a city that had already been cleared of civilians, waiting in silence for the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons Suguru Geto had promised.]

[With both you and Satoru Gojo staying in Tokyo, two walls no sane enemy would want to crash into, you’d pushed hard for one specific deployment. Yaga eventually signed off on it. Kinji Hakari and Kirara Hoshi, along with Grade 1 sorcerer Atsuya Kusakabe, had gone to reinforce Kyoto.]

[They weren’t the only ones out tonight. Low-grade freelance sorcerers, dragged in on short notice, were tucked into alleys and under overpasses all across the district.]

[Assistant Managers had already spread through Shinjuku’s key positions, faces tight, hands ready to throw up massive Curtains the second things got ugly.]

[Even with the civilians evacuated, a full-scale fight against cursed spirits in the middle of a dense city could wipe whole blocks off the map if the cursed energy ran wild. The Curtains were there to keep the damage contained.]

[Your own read was simple. Geto’s real target was probably Tokyo. But "probably" wasn’t good enough when civilian lives were on the line.]

[Kyoto could handle itself. The school there had deep ties to the Kamo Clan, and the Zenin stronghold wasn’t far either. If all Geto sent was a straight cursed spirit wave, they had more than enough Grade 1 firepower to crush it.]

[The reason you’d insisted on Hakari was the worst-case scenario. If Geto used Tokyo as a feint and showed up in Kyoto himself, Hakari was the only person you trusted to hold him in place long enough for backup to arrive. His cursed energy was just that nasty.]

[Kusakabe had grumbled the whole time, cigarette hanging from his mouth, muttering, "Why the hell am I suddenly getting shipped across the country to die?" Still, his feet kept moving toward transport, so that was that.]

[Hakari had walked up to you with his usual delinquent grin.]

["Mr. Hayase, how about this? I kill that Geto guy, save everybody the trouble, and in return you help me sell the higher-ups on an underground cursed-energy casino. Fair deal, right?"]

[One look at your face killed that conversation dead. You were smiling, technically. Your eyes weren’t.]

[Hakari clicked his tongue, shoved both hands into his pockets, and turned away.]

[A few steps later, he stopped and half looked back. When he spoke again, the joking edge was gone.]

["Mr. Hayase... you’re the one who said it, yeah? Don’t push yourself too hard. Dead men don’t have any chips left to bet."]

[Night swallowed the last strip of sunlight.]

[Right after that came the surge of cursed energy, huge and sickening, rising all at once like something rotten being forced back up a throat. Cursed spirits started appearing everywhere, crawling out of walls, dragging themselves from storm drains, taking shape on rooftops and at street corners. Big ones. Small ones. All of them ugly.]

[The city had been tomb-quiet a minute ago.]

[Now the streets were packed like rush hour, except every body in sight was a monster. Shinjuku stopped looking like a business district and started looking like hell.]

[Your attack on Geto during the declaration had changed things. Most of the surviving core members of his little family had been assigned to Tokyo.]

[Keeping Satoru Gojo busy wasn’t enough anymore.]

[You, Touma Hayase, had become the other piece they couldn’t afford to ignore.]

[Wind tugged at Gojo’s white hair. Hands in his pockets, he tipped his head back beneath the white bandages and looked toward a distant high-rise. A small, interested smile tugged at his mouth.]

["Oh? There’s somebody up there who might actually be fun."]

[The man he’d spotted was Miguel, a dark-skinned sorcerer in a plain white T-shirt and sunglasses. Definitely not Japanese.]

[From the rooftop, Miguel looked down at Gojo in the street and spoke to Manami Suda beside him in smooth Japanese.]

["So that’s him? The white-haired guy with the bandages?"]

[Suda’s fists were clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone pale. She nodded.]

["That’s right. Leave everyone else to us. Your only target is him..."]

[Miguel’s eyes shifted a little and found you standing just behind Gojo, already looking up at the rooftop with the kind of flat, cold stare people usually reserved for corpses.]

["And him? That’s the one who did that to Geto?"]

[One of Miguel’s brows lifted.]

[Suda nodded again, harder this time, and fear flashed plain across her face.]

["Yes. That’s Touma Hayase. Lord Geto was very clear. Under no circumstances do you fight him alone. Anyone below Special Grade is dead if they try."]

[Miguel rubbed his chin and muttered under his breath, quiet enough that only he could hear it.]

["I see. So that’s how a hard case like Larue ended up dead. And why Geto came back looking like that..."]

[Suda took a breath, obviously trying to shove down the panic climbing up her throat.]

["Anyway, we’ll keep Hayase tied down. Miguel, let me say this one more time..."]

["I know."]

[He cut her off, already tired of hearing it.]

["My job is to stall the white-haired Special Grade. Buy Geto enough time. Got it."]

[Down on the street, Gojo ran a hand over his chin while the Six Eyes swept the battlefield in every direction. Cursed energy signatures slammed into his brain in a constant flood. He sifted through all of it with absurd precision, looking for one specific trace.]

[Nothing.]

[There wasn’t even a hint of Suguru Geto’s cursed spirit manipulation residuals anywhere in Shinjuku. Every cursed spirit in the area had been dropped off ahead of time and left to rampage on its own.]

[The guy lives for an audience, and he’s not even here?]

[Gojo’s thoughts sped up.]

[If he’d gone to Kyoto, somebody would’ve spotted him immediately. No way that place stays quiet.]

[So he really did go straight for the school. Straight for Yuta...]

[Before he could finish the thought, Kiyotaka Ijichi came scrambling out from behind a barricade, drenched in sweat and clutching a stack of papers to his chest. He nearly tripped stopping in front of Gojo.]

["Mr. Gojo! There’s something I need to report right away..."]

[Then he caught the look on Gojo’s face, that deep crease between his brows, and faltered.]

["Is... is something wrong?"]

[Gojo shook his head once and pulled himself back into the moment.]

["No. Nothing. What is it...?"]

[He barely got the question out before he felt it.]

[Behind him, a burst of cursed energy exploded into existence. Violent and dense. Refined down so hard it felt like a volcano being compressed into a needlepoint.]

[You had moved.]

[No signal. No waiting for the enemy to make the first move.]

[In your mind, everyone on the other side tonight, every curse user tied to this Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, every person ready to drown civilians in blood, had already been marked for death.]

[There was nothing to discuss.]

[Phantom Night Parade activated.]

[The Zenin Clan’s prized Projection Sorcery, copied in an instant and forced into motion.]

[Your muscles tore with a wet, ugly sound.]

[You released Extreme Overload Control in both legs without hesitation.]

[The acceleration shredded the blood vessels in your calves. In return, you got speed that had no business existing.]

[The asphalt beneath your feet exploded into a crater. Chunks of debris kicked out like shrapnel.]

[You became a blur no normal eye could track, a sonic boom ripping through the air behind you as you shot straight up the side of the building where Miguel and Suda were waiting.]

[The shockwave knocked Ijichi flat on his back. Papers flew everywhere. A strangled yelp tore out of him.]

["Wha...?!"]

[Gojo watched you disappear over the lip of the rooftop, frowned for half a second, then looked back down at Ijichi lying in the street.]

["What were you going to say?"]

[Ijichi stared at the spot where you’d vanished, cold sweat pouring down his face. He scrambled after the loose papers with shaking hands and answered as fast as his tongue would let him.]

["Th-the timing may be terrible, but I thought you needed to know as soon as possible. It’s the result of the investigation you asked for... into Yuta Okkotsu’s family line..."]