Chapter 39

The more thoroughly Takizawa Sei's vessel changed, the more keenly he could feel the chasm-like gap in strength between Gojo Satoru and themselves.

"After I came back, Satoru and I sparred in taijutsu—just pure hand-to-hand combat, no cursed techniques involved. But his mastery of cursed energy is simply on a completely different level than before," Takizawa Sei muttered, sitting cross-legged on the back of the transit cursed spirit as he complained to Suguru Geto. "A body reinforced by cursed energy is truly terrifying. When fighting him, I actually had the feeling that my time was running out. The two of us ended up destroying the entire athletic field, and Yaga scolded me for ages. And guess what Satoru said?"

Geto played along with a supportive smile, "What?"

Takizawa Sei raised his index finger and mimicked Gojo's tone. "He said: 'Sei, you've gotten so strong—huh? Eh! He actually sounded amazed! Was he seriously not being sarcastic with me—?'"

Although Gojo probably meant it quite sincerely, his delivery always made one feel as though they were being subjected to passive-aggressive mockery. Iori Utahime must have blown a fuse every single time for that exact reason.

Takizawa Sei leaned against Geto's shoulder. "Yet... I, who have been certified as strong by the strongest, am his greatest weakness."

On this point, Geto could not disagree. "Whether from an external or psychological perspective, Sei, you are Satoru's weakness."

The moment he touched Gojo, it shattered the infinity technique; merely by stepping onto a battlefield, he would inevitably divide Gojo's focus.

"How depressing..." Takizawa Sei slumped into gloom. "Geto, once you drop me back at Jujutsu High, go back and help Satoru."

"We'll talk about that after you've been dropped off..."

Takizawa Sei looked down from the transit cursed spirit.

"It's been so long since I looked at the ground from this perspective."

"Cold?"

"As if. By the way, have you ever ridden a cursed spirit to go see the ocean?"

"I have."

Geto smiled softly. "Have you forgotten? You were the one who dragged me along. You said when you were in a bad mood, you wanted to go somewhere with no people. We ended up flying for hours without realizing it, with no cell service and terrible weather, and nearly couldn't find our way back."

"—Oh right, how did we manage to return that time, anyway?"

Geto stated flatly, "We got lost all the way from Tokyo to Hokkaido."

Takizawa Sei: "..."

He laughed. "That must have been an unforgettable experience! We definitely took the opportunity to tour Hokkaido around, right?"

The raven-haired young man smiled at him. "Spot on. But the fact that you forgot all about it makes me rather sad."

"Sorry, sorry, that feels like ages ago to me."

"Yet you remember everything about Satoru so clearly."

Takizawa Sei easily detected a hint of jealousy in his tone and meaning, and looped an arm around the raven-haired youth's shoulder. "Why obsess over such minor details? People's hearts are naturally inclined to lean toward one side."

This brutally honest green-eyed youth made no attempt to conceal his partiality. "I have too many things I need to store in my brain, so I'm bound to forget some things occasionally. As for Satoru, he's already melted into my life, becoming as ingrained as part of my DNA. Even if I wanted to forget, my very body wouldn't allow it."

Geto said with a defeated sigh, "I know. Please, spare me the details; I don't want to hear things so mushy they'd sound overly cheesy even written in a love letter."

Takizawa Sei remained entirely oblivious. "Cheesy? What's cheesy about it?"

He tapped Geto's chest. "It's far stranger that you people keep everything bottled up inside."

There had indeed been a period when Takizawa Sei had forgotten about Gojo Satoru.

Not the memories, but the emotions.

His first mission was rated A-rank, likely because he died too early—he didn't live to see the day Gojo truly became the head of the family, didn't wait for Gojo's mindset to fully mature, didn't make him unbreakable, and failed to eradicate all threats around him. Or perhaps it was because his departure wasn't swift, but rather a slow, protracted withering over time, which for Gojo had been a prolonged torture. The handler, carefully weighing the mission subject's mental state alongside Takizawa's actions after his departure, delivered this verdict: After your death, his behavior exceeded our predictions and deviated from our desired outcome. Fortunately, he possesses a strong mindset and ultimately stabilized himself, otherwise your mission could have ended in utter failure.

His behavior exceeded our predictions? What kind of predictions? In what way did it exceed them?

Takizawa Sei had asked this in the waiting room.

Having just extracted himself from the mission world, the Transmigration Bureau had granted him a week's leave to adjust his mental state. Yet Takizawa tried every method imaginable to shake off mission syndrome, at one point retreating so deeply into himself he considered resigning—but his contract was already signed; if he didn't go to the next world, where else could he possibly go? Almost out of a sense of retaliation, Takizawa cut his vacation short on the third day and told the handler: Assign me the next mission.

Noticing his poor mental state, the handler offered a complimentary emotional temporary-detachment service for rookies, valid only during the execution of missions.

Working for the very first time, Takizawa had no idea what experiencing emotional detachment felt like. He was still a naive newcomer who simply followed the Bureau's arrangements, trusting that every step prescribed by the Bureau was built on the collective experience of his predecessors. Thus, he calmly accepted the option—sealing away every trace of emotion toward everyone in the first mission world, and particularly toward Gojo Satoru, leaving a clean blank slate.

However, memories were his own accumulated experience; the Transmigration Bureau would not tamper with those.

And so, within those lingering memories, as he replayed that period of his life entirely on his own—

Takizawa Sei fell in love with Gojo Satoru all over again.

***

Suddenly, flying high in the air, Takizawa Sei sensed a familiar burst of cursed energy.

It was Yuta Okkotsu.

A look of surprise washing over his face, Takizawa grabbed the neck of the transit cursed spirit and looked down. Below lay a vast expanse of grassland, while a long-distance train traveled methodically along an elevated rail track.

"What's going on?"

Aside from Yuta's cursed energy, Takizawa also sensed that irritating aura of his "own kind."

And when the aura of a cursed spirit was no longer concealed, it usually portended—

"Boom!"

Blinding flames erupted. The moving train was blown cleanly in half; one section plunged off the elevated bridge, while the other hung precariously on the edge of the overpass, its jagged fracture point engulfed in raging fires that aggressively swallowed everything inside the carriage.

"Geto!"

Takizawa Sei cried out in alarm. A giant curse swept past his flank with a chilling gust of wind, catching the falling train mid-air in the nick of time. It adjusted the trajectory of the crash to ensure the carriage landed as smoothly as possible amidst the wild grass. The terrified screams of the passengers inside echoed from afar, while the explosions evidently had not stopped.

Takizawa leaped directly from the heights.

"Wait, Sei!"

Suguru Geto froze for a fraction of a second before immediately giving chase.

At this point, even if they thought to set up a curtain, it was practically useless, and besides, they had no leisure to conceal anything now.

Inside the carriage, passengers who had nearly been dashed to pieces clutched their bruised injuries. Finding themselves safely grounded, they remained frantic and agitated. "What happened?"

"Is it a terrorist attack? The train was blown apart—"

"Lunatics, absolute lunatics! We shouldn't have gone out today!"

Those sitting close to the fracture point stared in absolute terror at the unfortunate souls who had been ignited. Their screams were abruptly cut short, while the hands they thrust out pleadingly met with no response.

"Ahhhhhhh—!!"

The piercing shriek reached Takizawa Sei's ears.

He clenched his jaw, his body landing with a heavy thud atop the half-section of the train still resting on the elevated structure. The people inside heard the commotion on the roof, and a passenger near the window tremblingly poked their head out to inspect.

"Whoosh!"

Their entire body burst into flames instantly.

Without the slightest warning, they spontaneously combusted out of thin air.

"Ah—!"

Panic erupted instantly inside the carriage. The passengers scrambled frantically toward the other end, yet feared moving too far due to the train's precarious, teetering posture across the elevated tracks—once balance was lost, they would all plummet together.

Not far away, Yuta Okkotsu was locked in a fierce struggle with a lone figure.

That individual possessed abnormal agility, moving at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye. The moment Takizawa Sei caught sight of him, his heart leaped into his throat.

"Teacher Takizawa!"

Someone spotted him and cried out in joyous surprise.

Takizawa instinctively wanted to pull off a reassuring smile for his students, but the expression froze mid-form.

A short blade had pierced clean through the speech-communication curse user's chest.

Silently and swiftly.

Takizawa arrived behind the student a step ahead of Geto's cursed spirit. His long sword flashed out of its scabbard, striking another cold weapon with a sharp, ringing clang. Yet, fast as he was, he was still a fraction of a second too late, able only to deflect the fatal blow off its original trajectory. As a result, the short blade grazed the arm Takizawa threw up in desperation, piercing straight through the young girl's shoulder instead.

Staggering back slightly from the impact, Takizawa shoved Zenin Maki behind him with force, freeing her body from the blade.

Two rounds of combat experience told Takizawa that the weapon was likely to follow through and slice a person cleanly in half!

He shouted to the students, who had already assumed battle stances, "Get out of here! This is not an opponent you can handle!"

"Teacher Takizawa!" Yuta, unable to pin down the enemy, shouted from further down the elevated track.

The man's speed was simply too fast; Yuta couldn't catch up in time.

"What kind of monstrosity is this—" Takizawa glared at the man before him. "Why on earth is he running around loose—?!"

Toji Fushiguro!!

No—it was a curse user who possessed a body attuned to Heavenly Restriction yet retained independent consciousness.

"There's definitely a traitor among the higher-ups... Wasn't he sent to the Satoru Headquarters?! Why wasn't he disposed of?! Instead, he's left safe and sound to launch another attack?!" The fury in Takizawa's eyes flared to the surface. "Geto, protect the students!"

The long sword swept a blinding white arc from beneath his hands. In a mere three seconds, Takizawa exchanged over a dozen blows with the user of Heavenly Restriction. Their figures rapidly crossed and separated, the ground cracking beneath their boots as dust billowed up, forming a smoke screen that obstructed vision.

The two fighters whose only outstanding asset was physical combat were now waging a fierce, earth-shaking battle of raw melee skills.

Taking advantage of a brief opening, Takizawa yanked Toge Inumaki—who was clutching his chest—toward himself. The boy stumbled into his embrace, massive blood loss turning his vision black, while his compromised heart struggled to maintain normal function.

The white-haired boy slumped in his arms, choking as a surge of blood rose up his esophagus into his trachea, struggling desperately to suppress the reflex to cough.

Takizawa gently pushed Toge toward Yuta's arms. "Take Toge to get treated! He was hit in a vital spot!"

Veins bulged around Yuta's eyes, and his aura seemed to have undergone a metamorphosis while Takizawa was away. The rage surging within him startled Rika, whose special-grade cursed form appeared even more massive than before. She roared in a distorted, frenzied tone, "—Yuta!!"