[Gojo snapped back around so fast his neck cracked.]
[Shoko nearly tripped over herself stopping.]
[You were still standing exactly where you'd been before. No foam at the mouth. No glazed eyes. No twitching. Your body hadn't even swayed.]
[You just lifted a hand and casually adjusted your glasses, which had shifted a little from the cursed energy burst when the Domain opened.]
[Your eyes were clear. Alert.]
[You looked like a college student who'd just been woken from a decent nap in the library.]
["...Hah?"]
[For maybe the first time in recorded history, Satoru Gojo made a face that could only be described as pure, unfiltered what-the-hell.]
[The Six Eyes were practically bulging out of his skull.]
[He flashed to your side in an instant and waved a hand in front of your face like he was checking whether some expensive gadget had shorted out.]
["You're fine? You're actually fine? What did you see in there? What did it feel like?"]
[The questions came out in a rush, his voice climbing higher with each one.]
["Other than not being able to move, it was pretty nice," you said honestly.]
["I saw the cosmos, light ribbons, and then a huge mass of chaotic information got shoved into my brain. The rule layer forcefully took away my ability to act. It felt kind of like having the entire internet dumped into your skull in one second, like it was trying to format your brain from the inside. The construction was elegant, though. Even Reverse Cursed Technique couldn't start up before the forced shutdown hit. As a kill move, it's basically perfect."]
[You delivered the review with a straight face, passing the whole thing off as your brain simply being weirdly durable.]
[Gojo listened to your calm, detailed breakdown, right down to the structural analysis, and went completely silent.]
[The Six Eyes weren't wrong. His technique had connected perfectly. The effect had been exactly as brutal as intended.]
[So why the hell was this guy still standing here giving feedback like he'd just finished a product demo?]
[Gojo stared at you for a full thirty seconds, expression dark with thought, like he was seriously considering opening your skull just to see what was inside. Then he rubbed his chin, frowned, and said in the solemn tone of a doctor delivering awful news:]
["Hey, Hayase... is it possible your brain's been broken since birth?"]
["If you want to fight, just say that."]
[The sole holder of the title of strongest was, for obvious reasons, completely unwilling to accept the result of this experiment.]
[His ego needed an answer.]
[The one he came up with was that he'd probably slept badly the night before, which meant there had to be some kind of tiny bug in Unlimited Void.]
[So the next day, Gojo physically hauled a half-asleep Shoko down to the training hall.]
["Me too? Are you insane?"]
[Shoko stood there with bedhead in every direction, looking at him like he needed to be put down for public safety.]
["Yes, you too. This is a rigorous scientific experiment for the future of the jujutsu world."]
[Gojo planted his hands on his hips and said it with the full authority of a man abusing his status for nonsense.]
["What about my shift in the infirmary?"]
[Shoko made one last attempt to resist.]
["That doesn't matter."]
[Gojo reached out, grabbed you by the collar as you happened to be walking past on the way to buy a soda, and shoved you toward the spot Shoko had been standing in. Then he pointed at you with absolutely no shame.]
["Using Reverse Cursed Technique output isn't your exclusive patent. Look, we've got a perfectly functional backup right here. If anyone breaks an arm or leg in the infirmary today, Hayase can handle it."]
["...?"]
[Shoko lost the argument completely.]
[She ended up taking a carefully controlled, tiny taste of Unlimited Void, just long enough for Gojo to call it a valid test.]
[The result was disastrous.]
[Even with the exposure cut down to a sliver, and even though she'd triggered maximum-output Reverse Cursed Technique on her brain the instant the Domain came down, the nausea stayed with her for hours. So did the dizzy, twisting sense that her sense of space had been picked up, shaken violently, and dropped wrong.]
[For the rest of the day, the entire Jujutsu High infirmary sat under a thick layer of low pressure.]
[Every time Shoko looked at Gojo, she had the expression of a coroner deciding where to place the first cut.]
[But even that wasn't enough for him.]
[On the third day, getting more stubborn by the hour and still refusing to admit reality, Gojo somehow convinced Masamichi Yaga, through some cursed mix of threats and bribery no sensible person should have fallen for, to participate in what he called an evaluation exercise.]
[When the Domain ended, Yaga, a man built like a bear and sturdy enough to make most people feel small just by standing near them, was slumped against a support wall retching. His face had gone completely white. He didn't even have the strength to bend down and pick his precious Cursed Corpse.]
[That was when Gojo finally stopped.]
[After that, he reached one firm and unshakable conclusion.]
[There was absolutely nothing wrong with his perfect Unlimited Void.]
[Later, while watching your back across the school grounds as you carried medical supplies to the infirmary, the prodigy blessed with the Six Eyes rubbed his temples and muttered under his breath in exhausted defeat:]
["Damn it... who's the real monster here...?"]
---
[You had stepped into Satoru Gojo's perfected Domain, Unlimited Void, and come back out sane enough to give him feedback afterward. Even so, you knew better than anyone how far you still were from pulling off a Domain Expansion yourself.]
[Take away the advantages. Strip off the Simulator's deaths and resets, the absurd pile of experience burned into your soul, the Tryhard passive quietly multiplying every stolen hour of practice. Underneath all that, at the core, you were still just an ordinary sorcerer.]
[No freakish talent. No once-in-a-generation gift. Nothing like that.]
[Instead, with Divided Attention now sharpening every parallel thought in your head into something almost unfair, you focused on deepening what you already had.]
[You kept pushing Projection Sorcery closer and closer to its limit. You refined Limitless into a brutally precise tool for defense and microscopic adjustments. And every miscellaneous technique you'd picked up over the years, you kept folding them together, testing new combinations and offshoots, because Phantom Night Parade was at its best when it adapted.]
[That year of quiet grinding also produced an incident at Jujutsu High that absolutely deserved its own place in the history books.]
[One afternoon, rare and mercifully free, you went looking for Masamichi Yaga to ask about something that had been bothering you.]
[You had a new theory. Could a Cursed Corpse and a Shikigami be hybridized? Use a Cursed Corpse's physical shell to extend a Shikigami's operating time and range in the real world. Or go the other way and use a Shikigami's special traits to improve a Cursed Corpse's performance. Maybe, if you really got weird with it, you could even use a Shikigami as the core.]
[That question had been chewing on your brain all day, so you headed down to Yaga's workshop.]
[The door was open.]
[You stepped inside and found Yaga hunched over a workbench, staring at something with the kind of expression people usually wore at funerals. His face was already intimidating on a good day. Right now it looked carved out of frustration and helplessness.]
[Not wanting to break his concentration, you softened your steps and crept up beside him, ready to greet him quietly.]
["Yaga-sen...!?"]