On September 14th, the Headquarters issued a notice to Getou Suguru.
The terms were clear: in exchange for the opportunity to learn Simple Domain, he was to kill a curse user whose crimes were heinous beyond redemption.
Getou Suguru accepted.
He told no one, sealing the matter perfectly within himself.
He wanted to master Simple Domain, to subdue the cursed spirit that would appear in the exchange event, to live up to Asou's expectations—and to his own promise as well.
[Before this year ends, I will become a special-grade jujutsu sorcerer before him.]
That night, Getou Suguru received location data from the Headquarters on his phone. After reading it, he deleted the message. Turning to Asou Akiya, who was absorbed in his reading, he said, "Asou, I'm thinking of going out to buy a few things. Is there anything you want for a late-night snack?"
Before Asou Akiya could answer, Gojo Satoru's eyes were already shouting, I want to go out too.
Getou Suguru said flatly, "Gojo, you really screwed me over today."
Gojo Satoru: "?"
Getou Suguru let out a cold laugh. "Thanks to you, Kyoto Jujutsu High is now circulating news about the 'Six Eyes' and the 'Curse Manipulation Technique' wreaking havoc everywhere. I wasn't even there, and yet I've somehow gained such a huge reputation. Truly impressive."
Gojo Satoru said deliberately, "Isn't that just helping you make a name for yourself? No need to thank me, Jet."
Asou Akiya apologized, sounding genuinely remorseful. "He dragged me along. Yaga-sensei already scolded us."
"It's fine. I don't blame Asou," Getou Suguru said. "If there's anything you want to eat, just message me."
Unilaterally creating a sense of discord, he put on the air of someone stepping out to clear his head. Without waiting for further response, he changed his shoes and prepared to leave on his own.
"Wait."
Asou Akiya's voice stopped him.
"..."
Getou Suguru felt an ominous premonition rise within him and silently prayed that someone as regular and disciplined as Asou would not decide to go out as well.
"Getou, if anything comes up, you can call me. No matter what it is—I'd really like to receive a call from you."
Asou Akiya said this while lowering his head back to his book, as though he had no idea how profoundly un-Japanese* those words were.
*{Note: In Japanese social norms, people tend to avoid direct emotional expressions or explicit invitations to rely on someone, especially between peers. Asou Akiya's line is unusually straightforward and intimate—openly stating his desire to be contacted.}
"I will," Getou Suguru replied. He felt a quiet joy at the further closing of the social distance between them. Time was short; he could only leave now, settle the matter of the curse user as quickly as possible, and then return to see his classmates again.
Along the way, Getou Suguru was buffeted by the cold wind at high altitude, turning over in his mind what it would feel like to kill someone.
Gojo had once said that curse users were nothing but scum, not worth mourning in death.
Yet from Asou Akiya, Getou Suguru had heard a very different perspective: that curse users were people who simply refused to spend their entire lives exorcising cursed spirits. Though cowardly and afraid of death, they were not entirely incomprehensible—after all, no one wanted to fight cursed spirits for their whole life.
"I probably won't be afraid to kill," Getou Suguru murmured to himself. "After all, the one I'm killing is a curse user guilty of unforgivable crimes."
He braced himself with the logic of justice.
This was a mission from the Headquarters, and he had to complete it. He could not lose to Gojo Satoru, who had already killed curse users before him.
In some strange, competitive corner of his heart, a fire flared to life once more.
,,,
In the dormitory of Kyoto Jujutsu High, Ieiri Shoko was utterly exhausted from cleaning up her classmates' messes and went to bed early. Gojo Satoru didn't dare speak loudly; he sat cross-legged in the living room, rubbing at the muscles of his calves.
Asou Akiya noticed something amiss and asked in a low voice, "Did you strain a muscle?"
Gojo Satoru shook his head.
"Growing pains?" Asou Akiya asked.
Receiving Gojo Satoru's nod, Asou Akiya set his book aside and helped straighten out Gojo's legs.
"Don't keep them bent—it'll hurt even more."
Having gone through the same thing himself, Asou Akiya understood all too well the sensations that came with adolescence: leg cramps, the feeling of stepping into nothingness in one's dreams.
It meant that Gojo Satoru was about to grow taller again.
It had been a long time since Asou Akiya had last practiced his massage techniques, but now they came in handy.
Gojo Satoru clenched his jaw, refusing to make a sound. His knees tingled and went numb; his legs were stretched taut, even his toes spasming. Asou Akiya slipped off his thin socks, massaging pressure points with his fingers to ease the pain, holding down his toes—but what Gojo Satoru wanted was pain that resolved cleanly, not this awkward, half-measure discomfort, neither light nor heavy, swelling into an unbearable mix of soreness, numbness, and itch.
"Uncomfortable," Gojo Satoru said, pushing Asou Akiya's hand away, sending another wave of uncertainty through him.
Not knowing what else to do, Asou Akiya tried to persuade him. "Then go soak in a hot bath."
Gojo Satoru stood up and kicked his legs out a few times, his expression twisting slightly, his youthful face scrunching up with a trace of absurd, playful exaggeration.
Asou Akiya went into the bathroom and turned on the tap, letting hot water run into the tub to warm it up.
When he came back out, he found Gojo Satoru clutching one leg and hopping on the other, using the Limitless technique to isolate all sound so as not to wake Ieiri Shoko, who was sleeping soundly. Asou couldn't help but feel both amused and exasperated as he reached out to steady him. The white-haired boy, taller than Asou by a full head and usually radiating an overwhelming presence, looked unusually pitiful tonight.
Gojo shrugged off his school uniform jacket and, out of sheer habit, tossed it to Asou Akiya the way he would with family.
Asou caught it.
Gojo then unfastened the buttons of his shirt, revealing that he was wearing a fitted undershirt beneath it.
Asou Akiya felt oddly numb.
Gojo refused to take off anything more. Clad only in a sleeveless, close-fitting top, his posture was straight and proud, the faint outline of his abdominal muscles visible. In an almost prudish tone that did not match his appearance at all, he urged impatiently, "What, are you jealous? Stop staring at my perfect body and get out already!"
Asou fell silent, involuntarily comparing him to a certain delinquent DK from the original story who would, boldly wear beach shorts and bare his chest and abs without hesitation.
What are you even pretending for? You're not sexy at all.
"Not as well-built as Geto," Asou remarked flatly.
After tossing out that jab, he turned around and left without hesitation—lingering even a second longer would only inflate Gojo Satoru's ego further.
"Bastard!"
Gojo grabbed a towel, bunched it up, and hurled it at him.
"Throwing things around—how childish," Asou said, catching it without even turning his head. He walked out, closed the door behind him, and made sure the steam stayed inside.
Left shut inside the bathroom, Gojo Satoru burned with embarrassment and indignation.
"What's wrong with me, huh?!" Gojo could swear on his Six Eyes that Geto Suguru's physique was the result of excessive growth, while his own body was the most reasonable, most standard, and most healthy build a fifteen-year-old boy could possibly have.
Gojo showered briefly, then slid into the bathtub, grumbling the whole time that it was too small, that the tiles were old, and that it wasn't clean enough.
He had fought hard today; his muscles had been thoroughly worked, and he'd even received a massage that night. All in all, the bath was barely acceptable.
Gojo frowned in disappointment. "There's no rubber duck…"
He slapped the surface of the water, his Six Eyes drifting outward through the room—and then suddenly widening.
Asou Akiya had dug a little yellow rubber duck out of his suitcase and was squeezing it repeatedly, with absolutely no intention of handing it over to Gojo.
The duck let out soft, squeaking chirps with each squeeze.
Like a piece of bait.
Click. The bathroom door cracked open just enough for a slender, pale arm to slip through.
The person hiding behind the door aimed straight for the rubber duck, fingers splayed wide, and activated the technique—Cang.
—The rubber duck was sucked away!
Asou Akiya: "…Impressive."
Once he'd had his fun, Asou Akiya took out his phone and stared at it absentmindedly for a while, then went back to his book.
No matter what might happen, the best response was to remain unchanged and meet all changes with calm—to respond to ten thousand shifts with a single constant.*
*{Note: The phrase "以不变应万变" is a classical Chinese idiom. Literally, it means "use the unchanging to respond to the ever-changing."}
Late at night, a phone call rang twice and cut off. Asou Akiya crawled out from under his blankets and immediately dialed back—leaving Getou no chance to hang up—clearly signaling that he was willing to offer whatever help lay within his power.
"Asou… I ran into a curse user who attacked me…"
"Knock him out and restrain him. If you're still uneasy, stab through his abdomen at the navel—his cursed energy core is there—but be careful not to let him bleed out. Then hand him over to an assistant supervisor to deal with."
"He's done a lot of terrible things…"
"Getou, don't let him stain your hands. Matters of killing can wait until after you've come of age."
"…Is that so? But Gojo doesn't care at all."
"Yes, exactly like this. We're minors—don't learn from Gojo. He only has a juvenile phase, a growth phase, and a peak phase; his life was never under the protection of Japanese law from the very beginning."
"..."
Getou Suguru felt a little dazed. Was that being stripped of nationality, or expelled from the category of being human altogether?
"Oi, I didn't—mmph—" Getou vaguely heard Gojo Satoru being woken up, followed by the sound of Asou Akiya clapping a hand over his mouth. The weight in Getou's heart loosened considerably after his classmates' interruption. He no longer hesitated.
He bound the severely injured curse user, stabbed through the abdomen with a fruit knife, contacted the assistant supervisor number Asou had given him, and notified the professionals to handle the aftermath.
Getou thought to himself: I'm not showing mercy. Death awaits you—but it should not be by my hand.
Into the phone, he said, "Thank you, Asou."
An hour later, Getou Suguru returned quietly to the dormitory, took a shower, and lay down wordlessly in his own bedding.
Because he bore no psychological burden of having killed someone, exhaustion soon overtook him, and he fell asleep.
Asou Akiya watched him quietly for a while.
Suddenly, he noticed that Getou, sleeping beside him, seemed to have grown a little taller as well, his hair having lengthened by a noticeable margin.
Truly carefree days like these would only last for this single year.
The next morning, Gojo Satoru lounged lazily with his eyes closed, feigning rest, when his ears caught fragments of a conversation that sounded distinctly illegal.
Getou sighed gloomily. "If it's like this, then I won't be able to learn Simple Domain at all."
Asou Akiya calmly analyzed the incident of the attempted killing for him. "You can tell them that you believed you had killed him, but that he was absurdly lucky and somehow didn't die."
Getou hesitated. "Would anyone actually believe that?"
Asou Akiya guided him gently. "Is anyone going to force you to kill him a second time just to be sure?"
Getou froze, then suddenly saw the light, earnestly drawing lessons from this. "So all I need to do is clearly express my stance?"
Asou Akiya praised him. "Exactly. Give them a way out, a step to climb down, and they'll be happy to save face by granting you some leeway."
Gojo Satoru: "???"
This early in the morning, and you're having such a thrilling conversation—talking about killing people behind my back?
From the other side of the room, Ieiri Shoko, who had been pretending to sleep, finally spoke up. "If a curse user gets sent to Kyoto School, once he dies, I'll be the one handling the body today. When the time comes, I can add an extra line to the death report: 'Suffered a fatal wound but survived by sheer luck.'"
Getou was instantly overwhelmed with gratitude toward Ieiri Shoko, grateful to the point of wanting to prostrate himself in thanks; the sense of security that came with having a doctor on their side was pushed to the absolute maximum.
"Shoko, I'll buy you a gift—what do you want?"
"No bribes."
Ieiri Shoko flatly refused the attempt at currying favor.
Asou Akiya came up with an idea for Getou. "Next time, just go drinking with Shoko. She's a heavyweight, and we'll be her underlings."
At the promise of such a mischievous future plan, Ieiri Shoko secretly laughed under the covers.