The end of summer felt like holding one's breath. The air at Jujutsu High grew heavy, not just with the humidity of late August, but with a silent, collective anxiety. A sense of waiting. For me, it was a special kind of torture. Knowing the future was not a gift; it was a curse that forced me to be a spectator to a slow-motion car crash, able to see every turn and impact before it happened, but unable to grab the wheel.
My days were spent in a state of agitated distraction. I would be in the training yard, trying to practice the delicate art of my Cursed Technique Reversal, Gray. Satoru had been trying to get me to create a solid shield with it, but the technique always resisted. It didn't want to form stable matter. It was recalcitrant and slippery, only responding when I focused on manifesting a momentary event—a sudden gust of wind, a patch of frictionless ground, the phantom sensation of a touch. It was a power I was only just beginning to understand, and my focus was constantly shattered by the image of Yu Haibara's cheerful, smiling face.
I kept looking at the calendar in the infirmary, the red circles Shoko used to mark medical supply deliveries seeming like a countdown to doom. September was approaching.
Geto was a ghost. He took on missions with a grim fervor, often alone, and returned even more hollowed out than when he left. The rift between him and Satoru was now a silent, accepted fact. They were two poles of the same world, their power and ideology pushing them further apart with each passing day. My attempts to bridge the gap had failed. All I could do was offer Geto a quiet presence when he returned, sitting with him on the engawa while he stared at nothing, the taste of the curses he'd consumed a permanent, bitter line on his lips.
The news came on a Tuesday.
It wasn't a formal announcement. It was the sight of Nanami Kento returning. Alone.
He stumbled through the main gates, his uniform in tatters, his face ashen. The usual stoic mask he wore was gone, replaced by an expression of raw, visceral trauma. He was sixteen years old, but in that moment, he looked ancient. Shoko saw him first and rushed out, her medical kit already in hand. Geto and I were not far behind.
"Nanami, what happened? Where's Haibara?" Shoko asked, her voice sharp with clinical urgency.
Nanami looked at us, his gaze unfocused. He seemed to look right through me. "The mission report… was wrong," he said, his voice a dead, flat monotone. It was the voice of someone who had seen something so horrific it had scooped out his soul. "The Land God… it wasn't a Grade 2. It was a Special Grade. I… I couldn't…" He trailed off, his body trembling with a mixture of rage and shock. "Haibara is dead."
The words, though expected, hit me with the force of a physical blow. A wave of nausea washed over me. It was real. The cheerful, kind boy was gone. Dead because of the incompetence and indifference of the very system he had so eagerly served.
I didn't look at Nanami. I looked at Geto.
His face, which had been a mask of weary cynicism for a year, went utterly blank. There was no theatrical grief, no outburst of rage. It was something far worse. It was a quiet, final snap. The last, flickering ember of his faith in the Jujutsu world was extinguished in that moment, leaving behind nothing but cold, hard ash.
"Of course it was," Geto said, his voice so quiet and devoid of emotion it was terrifying. "This is what this world does. It takes the good ones, the bright ones, and it feeds them into the grinder to protect a world that will never even know their names."
He didn't offer a word of comfort to Nanami. He didn't ask for details. He simply turned and walked away, his posture unnaturally straight, his stride filled with a new, chilling purpose. He wasn't walking like a grieving friend. He was walking like a man who had finally, irrevocably, chosen a side.
The two weeks that followed were the quietest, most dreadful period of my life. Geto barely spoke to anyone. He took on missions with a cold, ruthless efficiency that scared even the higher-ups. He was a machine for exorcising curses, his only comment upon returning being a quiet, disgusted clicking of his tongue. He was no longer just consuming curses; he was consuming his own soul.
Satoru was away on an extended mission overseas, blissfully unaware of the final act that was about to unfold. It was for the best. His presence, his new god-like detachment, would have only accelerated the inevitable.
Then came the final mission. I overheard Yaga-sensei discussing it with another teacher. A small, remote village. Reports of mysterious deaths. Two young, twin girls with Cursed Techniques being blamed, locked in a cage by the terrified and hateful villagers. The mission was assigned to the only available, capable sorcerer. Geto Suguru.
My System screamed at me, a silent, frantic alarm in my mind.
[CRITICAL DIVERGENCE POINT DETECTED: 'GETO SUGURU'S DEFECTION'.]
[LOCATION: XX Village.]
[PROBABILITY OF CANONICAL OUTCOME: 99.8%]
This was it. The point of no return. The moment Geto would look upon the ugliest face of humanity, the non-sorcerers he had come to despise, and make his final choice.
I had to do something. I couldn't tell Yaga; he wouldn't send a child. I couldn't call Satoru; he was on the other side of the world and might handle the situation with the subtlety of a tactical nuke. I was alone. My foreknowledge, my power… it was all useless if I just stood here and let it happen.
For the first time since I arrived in this world, I made a choice that wasn't about survival or training. It was a choice to intervene.
That night, after ensuring Shoko was asleep in her room, I snuck out of the dorms. It was pathetically easy. I used my nascent control over White to phase a small part of the lock mechanism on the door, making it click open silently. I moved through the school grounds like a ghost, my small size and the shadows of the night my only allies. Getting out of Jujutsu High was one thing; getting to a remote village hours away was another. But Geto had taught me well. I knew the networks, the auxiliary managers, the transport systems that sorcerers used. A few well-placed lies, a flash of my crimson eyes, and a feigned story about a secret solo mission for a "special prodigy," and a terrified assistant manager had arranged a car for me.
I arrived at the village as dusk was bleeding into night. The air was thick with fear and a hateful, stagnant Cursed Energy. I dismissed the car and crept through the woods at the edge of the village, my senses on high alert. I found the clearing easily.
The scene was even worse than I had imagined. The entire village was gathered, their faces twisted with a self-righteous, fearful rage. They were holding torches and farm tools. In the center of the clearing was a small, crude wooden cage. And inside, huddled together, were two small, terrified girls with matching black hair. Mimiko and Nanako.
And standing before them all was Geto Suguru.
He was speaking to the villagers, his voice dangerously calm. I heard their justifications, their hateful words. "They're monsters! They brought the curse upon us! They deserve to die!"
I watched Geto's face. I saw the last vestiges of his old self crumble away. I saw the weariness be replaced by a cold, hard certainty. This was the true face of the monkeys he was supposed to protect. This was their worth.
He turned his back on the villagers and looked at the two girls in the cage. He offered them a gentle, reassuring smile that was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. The decision had been made.
He raised a hand, and from his shadow, a dozen grotesque, powerful Cursed Spirits began to emerge, their forms writhing, eager to be unleashed. The villagers screamed in terror. This was the moment. He was going to slaughter them all.
I couldn't let it happen. Not like this. Not with him crossing that line alone.
I stepped out from behind the trees, my small body trembling but my voice clear and steady in the sudden, horrified silence.
"Stop, Suguru-nii!"
Geto froze, his hand still raised. Every head, villager and curse alike, swiveled to look at me. He turned slowly, his eyes wide with utter disbelief to see me standing there, a seven-year-old girl in a simple dress, standing at the precipice of his damnation. He looked at me, the only person in the world who had come for him, right at his point of no return. And for a single, agonizing moment, the future was a blank, unwritten page.