Perhaps because he had done something unforgivable, Asou Akiya (who had not had a single nightmare all year) now fell into an abyss of torment the moment sleep claimed him.
In the dream he was still crouched in his desperate vigil, watching for the mail delivery.
His abnormal behavior over the past two days had finally been noticed by the two boys. Curiosity blazed like wildfire in high-school hearts, and action followed faster than thought; a temporary truce was declared between the strongest duo, and together Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru set out to unearth whatever secret Akiya was hiding somewhere on campus grounds.
The second battalion of Gojo-clan deliveries arrived in full pomp. Akiya was dragged away from the gate and buried alive beneath an avalanche of parcels that all needed his signature.
When he finally wiped the sweat from his face and turned around, his heart contracted so violently he nearly screamed.
Because right there, in the middle of the field, Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru were wrestling over his mail.
Satoru wanted to see the contents.
Suguru refused to let him open Akiya's private letter.
The struggle exploded into a full-blown fight.
In the end the envelope was torn apart.
Paper fragments fluttered through the air like dying butterflies; cursed energy detonated in every direction. [Blue] clashed with cursed spirits, carving a smoking crater straight through the sports ground.
The deafening roar brought every teacher and staff member running. They arrived to find Akiya petrified on the spot while Satoru (having snatched the largest piece still floating in the chaos) began reading aloud at the top of his lungs, voice bright with triumphant malice.
["I love you!"]
The white-haired boy danced away from Suguru's frantic grabs, his lively shout ringing across the entire campus.
He believed he had seized a love letter sent to Akiya from the outside world.
["Satoru! I know you'll still be single when you're thirty. I know Geto is gone, and every Christmas Eve you drag me to his grave. I feel the same grief.
I don't want you to be alone anymore, so on Christmas Day I'm proposing to you. Let's forget the pain and walk out of those three years of youth and bitter summer together."]
["Even now… I admit the one I love most is still you. Not Geto, not the thousand-year-old bastard wearing Geto's corpse. Those were only performances for the enemy. I came to the jujutsu world for your youth alone."]
["I love you the way I love white snow, the way I love the sky, the way I love that spring day when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom."]
["Let's be together."]
["Geto's spirit in heaven will surely bless us."]
When the reading ended, the white-haired boy's face contorted as though the letter had physically struck him.
["Hah? He can still bless us?!"]
Dead silence swallowed the field.
Suguru staggered back two steps, voice shredded with anguish. ["Satoru—you shut your mouth right now!"]
Yaga Masamichi had no attention to spare for whatever was happening inside Satoru's skull. He whirled toward the boy crumbling in despair and asked in a trembling voice, ["Akiya… who on earth wrote this?"]
Ieri Shoko listened to the entire thing and remained the calmest soul in the wreckage.
It was as if she had just been granted a front-row seat to the daily circus of these three boys and emerged profoundly impressed.
She swept her gaze across Asou Akiya, Gojo Satoru, and Geto Suguru (a look none of them could have withstood without flinching) and spoke in the mildest, most devastating tone imaginable:
["As expected of you boys. You really know how to play. Akiya, you and Suguru and Satoru… truly a match made in heaven."]
Then, with the finality of a judge's gavel, she added:
["May you have a hundred years of happiness together. And please, for the love of everything holy, stop dragging the rest of us into your mess."]
Before the dream could shatter completely, Satoru was already lunging at him, claws out and teeth bared.
["Asou Akiya!!"]
Shame detonated inside Akiya like a bomb. Terror swallowed him whole; he had nowhere to hide, no hole deep enough to crawl into. His body jerked in an uncontrollable shudder. The roar of the Six-Eyed Divine Child still rang in his ears when (mercifully) he woke one heartbeat before the fist landed.
He sat bolt upright in bed, staring into the darkness, a broken laugh spilling from his lips.
"Heh… heh heh heh…"
Was this an omen?
The price for trying to push Geto Suguru away and ignore Gojo Satoru?
Akiya drifted out of bed like a ghost, feet carrying him to the mirror. He stared at his own bloodless face.
"That's terrifying," whispered the trembling black-haired boy in the glass.
He stood frozen for three full seconds.
Sunday had arrived. The clock on his nightstand glowed 3:00 a.m., but time meant nothing. He bolted from the room without another thought.
While Satoru was still lost in dreams and the Six Eyes slumbered, Akiya had to eliminate every last chance of social suicide.
The nightmare had shown him the truth: Suguru would help him, and Suguru would never peek at the letter.
In this ridiculous love-triangle farce he had written into existence, the most innocent victim (the one who had been cuckolded more times than anyone) was Geto Suguru.
You could doubt Suguru's ideals if you wished.
But his friendship? That was something you could trust with one hundred percent certainty!
Akiya did not dare knock. The very thought of rousing Gojo Satoru in the neighbouring room made him flinch like a deer scenting a tiger. A fresh psychological wound throbbed at the memory of that dream-roar. Instead he hammered the call button on his phone until his saviour appeared, forcibly dragged from sleep.
"Akiya?" Suguru stepped into the hallway, hair a wild black halo, dressed in loose black pyjamas that carried the clean, uncomplicated scent of a high-school boy. Sleepy violet eyes met a pair of black ones quivering with alarm.
"Lower your voice," Akiya whispered, pleading. "Let me in first."
The black-haired boy who had appeared at his door in the dead of night looked utterly pitiful: small-framed, fragile, pyjamas soaked with cold sweat, face drained of blood as though Satoru had spent the last hour tormenting him.
Half of Suguru's drowsiness evaporated in an instant. He glanced cautiously up and down the corridor. Good—no sign of Satoru.
The two conspirators slipped inside like thieves.
In the dorm room, Suguru stifled a yawn and motioned Akiya toward the sofa. He padded to the kitchenette, brewed a cup of instant coffee, and set it on the low table. "How many sugars, Akiya?"
"Two."
Suguru dropped in two cubes, stirred until the dark liquid swirled, and the warm, slightly bitter aroma filled the small space.
Akiya's breathing began to steady. He took a careful sip.
Certainty settled over him like armour.
No time to waste—strike fast, strike clean.
He came straight to the point. "Suguru, I need to ask a favour. On Sunday, please take Satoru out somewhere—anywhere—and keep him occupied the entire day. In return, I will grant you one unconditional wish."
The request did not sound difficult; at most it would cost a Sunday and some patience. Suguru tilted his head. "Why are you hiding from him?"
Akiya met his gaze with eyes that had calmed into quiet melancholy. "The answer touches on my privacy. If you truly want to know, I'll tell you part of it—I have a secret I cannot let him discover."
Everyone carried secrets. Suguru was no exception.
For instance, Suguru never breathed a word about his family at school; he acted more orphaned than an actual orphan.
"One unconditional wish, hm?" Suguru sat beside him, fingertips tracing idle circles on the sofa cushion. He considered the offer. Sacrificing a single Sunday in exchange for something interesting was tempting. "It's not that I doubt your word, Akiya, but I have quite a few wishes. Which one are you planning to fulfil?"
Akiya enunciated every syllable. "I am completely serious. This is not a joke."
Suguru blinked. "?"
Colour had returned to Akiya's cheeks. A soft laugh escaped him—innocent and complicated at once, forging a strange, compelling core.
"By the principle of equivalent exchange, I will take no advantage of you. I am willing to bind myself with a vow right here and now: any wish you make before the end of this year, I will do everything in my power to make it come true in the future."
That email weighed on Akiya's soul like a mountain too heavy for any life to bear.
It was nothing less than his death sentence in envelope form.
For that reason, he was prepared to offer a price of equal magnitude.
Suguru realised, with a chill, that Akiya was far more serious than he had ever imagined. The words spilling from his mouth were terrifying in their gravity.
Both boys weighed the other in silence.
Both had already decided the other was worthy of trust.
Geto Suguru made his choice quickly. He would not demand too heavy a price for Akiya's vow. "So long as it does not cost you your life, answer me three questions: what exactly is your connection to the Three Great Families? Why do you keep looking after Gojo Satoru? And all that knowledge you have about the jujutsu world… who taught it to you?"
Three vital questions in exchange for one day of his time.
When he finished speaking, a flicker of shame passed over Suguru's face; babysitting Satoru suddenly seemed far too small a burden for such answers.
Akiya exhaled, relief softening his shoulders. "Very well. I'll tell you."
"I, Asou Akiya, hereby bind myself before Geto Suguru. Every word I speak next is the unvarnished truth." He reached out and clasped Suguru's right hand (the hand Suguru favoured most). An invisible Binding Vow coiled around their joined fingers like silken chains.
"I know the Three Great Families one-sidedly. They do not know me. I have no dealings or interests tied to them."
"I look after Gojo Satoru because I admire him. I want to witness the youth of the man who will become the strongest sorcerer the jujutsu world has ever seen. Long ago I swore an oath to keep my heart true and to help him spend his boyhood happily."
"The knowledge I possess about the jujutsu world comes from books and from the internet."
"Behind me stand only you, Ieri, and Yaga-sensei."
"Gojo counts for half, perhaps."
"This past month and more, I have been deeply grateful for your selfless help."
The common-born sorcerer laid his truths bare at last, stripping away every layer of mist he had wrapped himself in.
Suguru felt two things at once: joy at Akiya's openness, and stunned disbelief at the oath sworn to Satoru. Why did that idiot deserve so much devotion?
He struggled to reconcile it. "The strongest in the future? Him?"
He pictured their white-haired classmate's usual antics and shook his head. "Did your eyes go blind for a day? No matter how you look at him, he's nothing but a childish brat."
Akiya no longer dodged or deflected. His brows relaxed; his smile carried the quiet obsession of an ordinary man who had clawed his way into the den of monsters.
"Yes."
"Him."
"He is the Divine Child of the Gojo clan, bearer of the strongest Six Eyes in a thousand years."
"I have seen the essence beneath the mask, more resilient than any of us."
"His soul burns with blinding light."
"I came for the smile he wears when no chains hold him back."
Unwittingly, the words echoed the nightmare confession (utterly certain, beyond argument). They were the verdict of a spectator who had watched from the shadows, and no amount of denial from Suguru could change them.
Their hands remained clasped.
Suguru glanced down at the unbroken grip. That alone proved every subsequent word was equally true.
"Suguru… I don't want to apologise to you." Akiya still refused to let go, fingers tightening as though he could read Suguru's heart through the contact. "You are exceptional. Kind. Cursed Spirit Manipulation appears once in a millennium. You were born with the potential to stand at the very pinnacle of Special Grade. Do you remember the marathon analogy I mentioned before?
But marathons are for ordinary sorcerers.
There was a second half to that speech I intended to save for two years from now."
"Actually, it's not a marathon."
"It's a battle royale."
"If the entire world were one vast battle royale, the only ones still breathing in the final circle would inevitably be Special Grades."
"If the last person standing could have any single wish granted…"
"Then the one who would truly stake everything, absolutely everything on that fight…"
"Between the two of you, only Gojo Satoru can do it."
The phrase "battle royale" was hardly foreign in Japan; it came from a novel by a Japanese author that had once shaken the nation. The moment those ruthless words hit Suguru's ears, heat rushed to his head and competitive fire exploded in his chest. "I would stake everything too!" he shot back without hesitation.
Akiya gave a quiet, knowing smile and guided Suguru's still-clasped hand upward until Suguru's own fingers rested against Akiya's throat.
"Then kill me, Suguru. Kill your classmate."
"…"
"Doesn't it feel horrifying? Doesn't it feel utterly unfair? That's exactly how unfair the world is."
"You…"
"I shouldn't have said it this early. And I shouldn't have waited too late to warn you."
Akiya abandoned the provocation. The boy before him was still only fifteen. He reached out and gently stroked Suguru's hair something he could only do while they sat level, something he would never be able to do again once this future Special Grade stood at his full height.
"What I needed you to understand is this: if it would save the world, Gojo Satoru would kill anyone."
That is the resolve a true saviour must carry.
When the order of the world collapses and humanity drowns in slaughter, the one who steps forward to shoulder the burden must be ready to bear the heaviest sin.
The conversation ended, once again, with an 8-magnitude earthquake inside Geto Suguru's heart.
Every time Suguru thought he had finally grasped the measure of his two male classmates, they took turns shattering his worldview all over again. It was starting to feel like he and Ieri Shoko were the only normal people in the entire class.
—
[If it would save the world, Gojo Satoru would kill anyone.]
This sentence could only be understood in its proper context: when the battle royale had winnowed the planet down to a handful of final survivors, when every remaining soul was a monster among monsters, Gojo Satoru would still cut them all down without blinking.
Not for his own sake.
He would do it to seize the final wish (to save every single person this broken world had already lost).