[The days that follow reduce you to a full-time babysitter for the "strongest."]
[For Satoru Gojo, the barrier technique known as a Curtain seems to exist purely as set dressing to appease Principal Masamichi Yaga.]
[Good mood? He'll put one up. Bad mood, or too deep in the thrill of a fight? Gone from his mind entirely.]
[Your workload becomes relentless.]
[Gojo "accidentally" shears half a building off while exorcising a Cursed Spirit on the streets of Shibuya?]
[You're the one scrambling to contact the police, fabricating evidence of an aging gas line explosion, and spending hours arguing with insurance adjusters.]
[Geto leaves a mess behind after collecting another Cursed Spirit like some kind of Pokémon?]
[Also you. Scrubbing away every last trace, inch by inch.]
[But it isn't all thankless grunt work.]
[Through countless rounds of cleaning up after Gojo, you master the Curtain technique with startling speed.]
[Your total Cursed Energy remains low, but the precision of your control, forged under the relentless demands of those two monsters, reaches a level that borders on absurd.]
[The annual card draw, however, yields nothing worth mentioning. Just a throwaway N-grade.]
[Time rolls into the second year.]
[As Gojo and his classmates advance to second-years, Tokyo Jujutsu High welcomes a pair of new first-years: Kento Nanami and Yu Haibara.]
[Compared to their two freak upperclassmen, these juniors feel blessedly normal.]
[Accompanying them on missions drives the gap home harder than ever.]
[Nanami is steady and sharp. Haibara radiates an infectious warmth. They're what jujutsu sorcerers are supposed to look like.]
[This particular summer stretches longer than it should.]
[Heat shimmers off every surface. Cicadas drill into the air like dentist equipment that won't shut off.]
[Something strange catches your attention. You've always handled mission assignments for Gojo's trio, but they're suddenly pulled onto a job you know nothing about.]
[A trainee Assistant Manager at the bottom of the ladder, and you've been cut out of the loop entirely.]
[Curiosity gnaws at you. What kind of mission warrants that level of secrecy?]
[Three days later, you're called in for emergency cleanup at a Star Religious Group stronghold.]
[That's where you see the two of them returning.]
[You see Gojo.]
[Drenched head to toe in blood, yet not a scratch on him.]
[Those pale blue Six Eyes blaze under the sun, and the aura pouring off him is something close to divine madness.]
[He hovers in midair, terrible Cursed Energy dancing at his fingertips, like a god freshly crawled out of hell.]
[Later, you learn the truth. He unlocked the Reverse Cursed Technique. Became the real, undisputed strongest, heaven above and earth below.]
[And from that day forward, you notice the change in Geto.]
[The honor student who always smiled and thanked you, who wore "the strong must protect the weak" like a badge, grows quieter by the week.]
[After missions, he stops making small talk. Instead, he disappears into the bathhouse with increasing frequency.]
[Water splashes and splashes behind the door. He seems to be scrubbing at a stench that doesn't exist, something that belongs to Cursed Spirits and the people he calls monkeys.]
[While organizing his mission reports, you spot the word "monkeys" scratched into the margins more than once. The pen strokes gouge clean through the paper.]
[Disgust aimed at non-sorcerers. A man wrestling with a faith that's crumbling under his feet.]
[Holding it in. Barely.]
[You stand in the shadow of the hallway, watching Geto swallow another Cursed Spirit orb alone under the blazing sun. No sympathy in your eyes. Only the cold, mechanical act of noting it down.]
["Bitter summer..."]
[Weeks pass. Using the intelligence network of the Windows, you piece together the truth of that summer, fragment by fragment.]
[Master Tengen's assimilation failed.]
[A girl named Riko Amanai is dead.]
[The man who killed her carried zero Cursed Energy, a Heavenly Restriction made flesh. His name: Toji Fushiguro.]
[The same man who nearly killed Gojo. Who came within a hair's breadth of ending the strongest sorcerer alive.]
["Toji Fushiguro..."]
[The name sends a jolt through your chest.]
[In the Zenin Clan memories from your previous simulation, the man they called "the disgrace of the family" went by his birth name: Toji Zenin.]
["If it's that man, then yeah. He could pull it off."]
[The thought settles alongside a deeper understanding of how brutal this world truly is. Even the strongest nearly died. What chance do you have?]
[The simulation reaches year three.]
[The annual card draw comes around again.]
[This time, Lady Luck seems to smile on you. Or maybe she's trying to tell you something.]
[You draw Parting Gift [SR].]
[Parting Gift [SR]: Once equipped, cannot be swapped out. Consumed upon death. Upon activation, you receive a card of higher quality than this one. The longer the card is equipped before death, the higher the tier of the reward.]
Touma didn't hesitate. He pulled Life is Like a Play and slotted Parting Gift into its place immediately.
His first instinct said it was a companion piece to the Simulator, built to synergize with repeated deaths. But the more he turned it over in his mind, the less certain he became.
Does this world have a way to bring the dead back?
[That autumn, Tokyo Jujutsu High suffers a casualty.]
[Yu Haibara, now a second-year, is dispatched alongside Nanami to exorcise what's classified as a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit. In reality, the target is a land deity, and the mission should have been ranked Grade 1.]
[By the time you reach the morgue, a white sheet covers the body. Nanami sits crumpled on the floor beside it, hollowed out, as though someone reached inside him and scooped out everything that mattered.]
[Once again, the same grim truth. In this rotten world, jujutsu sorcerers are expendable.]
["If people are going to die no matter how hard we try..."]
["Then why not just leave everything to him?"]
[You know who Nanami means. The one who's left the realm of ordinary people behind. Gojo.]
[You say nothing. Just stand in your corner, silent.]
[The morgue door opens. Geto walks in.]
[No tears. No words. He simply looks at Haibara's body, then shifts his gaze to Nanami, who is falling apart at the seams.]
[In that moment, you feel it clearly. Something inside Geto fractures. Completely.]
[A darkness deeper and more hopeless than any Cursed Spirit takes root in the marrow of his soul.]
[A few days later, a priority mission file lands on your desk.]
[Location: a remote, abandoned village.]
[Objective: investigate multiple disappearances and unexplained deaths among villagers. Suspected Grade 1 Cursed Spirit involvement.]
[Assigned sorcerer: Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer, Suguru Geto.]
[Assigned Assistant Manager: Touma Hayase.]
[You stare at the file. You don't know this is a turning point in history. You simply do what you always do: straighten your suit, adjust your glasses, and head out.]