Sensui—full name Sensui Shinobu.
He was born into an ordinary, unremarkable family. From childhood, he possessed spiritual power, which drew the attacks of yōkai. Because his heart was pure and his spiritual energy exceptionally strong, he was discovered by Spirit World and appointed as the next Spirit Detective.
He should have been a guardian of humanity, the first line of defense of the Human World against incursions from the Demon World.
But he broke.
During one mission meant to protect humans and exterminate yōkai, Sensui came face to face with the yōkai's suffering. Amid their piercing screams, he witnessed the ugliness of humanity, and realized that the positions of humans and yōkai had been grotesquely reversed.
Wicked humans. Weak yōkai.
His entire worldview was overturned.
Even then, he did not immediately descend into extremism. After hearing rumors from the yōkai about something called the "Chapter of Black," he stole it from Spirit World, determined to see for himself what kinds of atrocities humans had committed against yōkai throughout history.
That single act of reading shattered him completely.
Sensui went mad, defected from Spirit World, and his mind fractured into seven distinct personalities.
The primary personality became utterly disillusioned with humanity.
Secondary personalities emerged in succession—some to kill, some to manage daily life, some to seek entertainment—each existing to shield the despairing core from total collapse.
The most dominant among them was a lecturing personality, arrogant to the extreme. The most fragile was a female personality, prone to tears, who appeared only before a kind-hearted yōkai named Itsuki.
The first half of Sensui's life was devoted to protecting humanity; the latter half was spent opening a passage to the Demon World in order to destroy it.
In the end, gravely wounded, Sensui died on Demon World soil, far removed from the Human World.
—He was finally freed.
Even then, Sensui continued to hate humanity. He refused to enter the cycle of reincarnation, refused to meet old acquaintances from Spirit World after death. In his extreme obsession, he asked his yōkai companions to leave him sealed within a dimensional space, to remain forever outside reincarnation, rejecting any rebirth as a human.
A person of such absolute purity can only go to extremes: to love to the very end, or to hate to the very end.
When Yu Yu Hakusho reached the part that revealed Sensui Shinobu's past, Gojo Satoru froze, his gaze fixed on Sensui's bangs.
Hmm. Just a small lock of hair—nothing like Geto's outrageous fringe.
Gojo silently turned to Geto Suguru. "Geto, this guy is seriously unhinged."
Geto's lips trembled as he forced out a dry laugh. "Haha… yeah. Completely insane. To actually want to wipe out humanity." Then, with an oddly stubborn insistence, he added, "Gojo, I'm like Kuwabara Kazuma, right? I'll go learn the Dimension Sword someday, slash through space, then get into university! I'll become an outstanding college student, just like him!"
Gojo Satoru: "..."
Gojo Satoru: "Hey. Hey. Are you okay?"
Geto didn't answer. He replayed Sensui Shinobu's past again and again, repeatedly looping the scenes that showed Sensui's collapse.
Are humans really this vile?
Can a famous Japanese anime reflect reality so precisely?
For the first time, Geto watched Yu Yu Hakusho with unprecedented focus. In particular, when he saw the young Sensui Shinobu exterminating yōkai alone, he was reminded of his own past—exorcising cursed spirits by himself.
In the anime, Sensui Shinobu's strength surpassed even Gojo Satoru's; cleaving mountains and splitting seas were effortless feats for him. Even Urameshi Yusuke at the end of the story could not secure a guaranteed victory against Sensui. In the battle in Demon World, it appeared on the surface that Yusuke killed Sensui, but in truth, Yusuke's ancestor Raizen sensed his descendant's bloodline and forcibly possessed him from afar, overturning the outcome of the fight.
The one who truly killed Sensui Shinobu was Raizen, a being who had lived for over a thousand years—the strongest existence in Demon World.
Sensui accepted his defeat without resentment. Already suffering from a terminal illness, dying by the hand of the white-haired " Urameshi Yusuke" was more than enough for him.
This battle was fought in pursuit of death, in search of a final resting place.
Geto Suguru could understand every choice Sensui Shinobu made at each turning point of his fate—his kindness in youth, the despair of losing his ideals in early adulthood, and the self-destructive resolve of standing alone at the boundary between the Human World and the Demon World at the age of twenty-six.
[If I am to die, then I will die in the cleanest place, by the hand of the strongest.]
[Anything else is not what I desire.]
And so Geto grew ever more resistant, ever more terrified. How could an ordinary person possibly comprehend the "madman" Gojo Satoru spoke of?
"Geto, we've finished the entire series. So who do you think is most like Chrollo Lucilfer?"
Gojo Satoru ignored Geto's silence; being quiet while watching anime was perfectly normal.
"…Who?"
Geto, bleary-eyed from staying up all night, answered sluggishly. For a moment, he hallucinated that it wasn't Gojo Satoru asking the question, but Asou Akiya.
["Geto, who do you think is most like you?"]
The black-haired boy and the white-haired boy overlapped in his vision, their gazes sharing the same chilling intensity.
There was no bandit king named Chrollo Lucilfer in Yu Yu Hakusho at all. Sensui Shinobu's life story was clearly that of another "Geto Suguru"—stronger, more extreme, and utterly unrestrained in annihilating every enemy before him.
Geto pressed a hand to his forehead. His head was spinning, as though his dizziness itself had given him an excuse to flee from the question.
"Gojo, I'm going back to rest."
He fled toward the door, his steps slowing against his will, cold sweat soaking his body, and then—outside the doorway—he saw Asou Akiya.
At dawn, Asou Akiya smiled at him, his brows curved, his features refined, the corners of his lips lifted. Yet the black hair and black eyes draped him in a layer of obscure, somber gloom, making him resemble the final boss who appears at the very end of a horror film.
Asou Akiya stood less than twenty centimeters away from him.
His breath was cold.
In that instant, Geto Suguru's heart seemed to stop. His eyes went blank, his entire body frozen where he stood.
Behind him, Gojo Satoru waved his phone lazily, casually revealing the reason for Asou Akiya's sudden appearance. "Geto, Akiya told me to contact him once I finished Yu Yu Hakusho. He said he wanted to give you a surprise."
Geto Suguru: "..."
Thanks. This is a surprise he would never forget for the rest of his life.
Asou Akiya grasped the doorknob and, with firm resolve that left no room for refusal, pushed Geto Suguru inside.
Geto staggered back a full step.
He collided with Gojo Satoru. Gojo didn't budge in the slightest; the rebound sent a sharp ache through Geto's back.
Unhurried and unflustered, Asou Akiya asked, "Why are you in such a hurry to leave?"
Geto pressed his lips together. "I'm tired."
He had no desire to face Asou Akiya while still shaken. "Can we talk during the day?"
Asou Akiya had waited for him for so long—how could he possibly let a foggy-headed Geto go so easily? "Geto," he said, "don't you want to know about the 'Black Chapter' of the jujutsu world?"
"There's no such thing in reality, is there?!" Geto blurted out. His gaze drifted involuntarily toward Gojo Satoru—there shouldn't be, right?
Gojo Satoru looked surprised. "Is there? I've never heard of it."
Asou Akiya continued, "If I were the one to compile the jujutsu world's 'Black Chapter,' then the scandal involving the Kamo family from a hundred and forty years ago would be more than enough to merit an entire entry of its own in the table of contents."
Gojo Satoru thought for a moment. "That incident from the Meiji era?"
Asou Akiya nodded and continued, "Yes. A jujutsu sorcerer from the Kamo family used women as experimental subjects, forcing one of them to merge with cursed spirits and endure nine pregnancies, all for the sake of producing hybrids—children born of both human and curse."
Gojo Satoru replied evenly, "I remember. The 'mother' met her end in death, and the 'nine children' were sealed away by the jujutsu world and fashioned into the special-grade cursed objects known as the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings."
Asou Akiya added, "Tokyo Jujutsu High's restricted vault currently preserves Numbers One through Three of the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings."
One mother, who died a gruesome death.
Nine children, all lost before they ever truly lived.
A chill seeped through Geto Suguru's entire body as he listened. Tokyo Jujutsu High would never formally record the Kamo family's disgrace, and even though the exchange between the two men was smooth and unguarded, with no one attempting to obscure the truth, it did nothing to lessen the cruelty of what had occurred.
The Black Chapter… Geto Suguru felt a shadow creep over his view of the Three Great Sorcerer Clans.
Gojo Satoru's voice cut through the darkness like the first hint of dawn. "Because of that scandal, the Kamo family expelled Kamo Noritoshi and branded him with the title of 'the most evil curse user.' That's the most famous of his deeds, isn't it?"
Sweat bloomed in Geto Suguru's palms. As the conversation continued, his heart seemed to resume beating, one heavy thud at a time.
Asou Akiya smiled faintly. "What if I told you that this is merely the one incident that surfaced into the light?"
Gojo Satoru narrowed his eyes. "You're sure?"
Asou Akiya inclined his head in affirmation.
Gojo Satoru snorted. "Tsk. Those rotten tangerines—rotten to the core, the lot of them."
Geto Suguru: "..."
Geto Suguru felt himself on the verge of collapse. "Gojo! You're just going to believe this without even verifying the details of what actually happened?!"
Gojo Satoru treated the sordid history of the Three Great Clans as nothing more than spectacle. "Akiya wouldn't lie to me. Besides, what reason would there be to fabricate something like this?" History was, in the end, still history, and he had no interest in digging up old accounts. "I trust Akiya's judgment. If Akiya says it exists, then it exists. I'm not interested in evidence. Akiya, do you have anything else to add?"
Asou Akiya spoke evenly. "The experiments involving the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings never truly stopped. Recently, it seems a new hybrid has appeared—a child about two years old, carrying within them the bloodline of Kamo Noritoshi from back then."
The careless smile on Gojo Satoru's face froze.
He could afford not to care about history. What the Three Great Families had been like in the past was none of his business—what family didn't have a few skeletons buried somewhere?
But the Three Great Families of the present day—this was his era. Who dared stain his sight now?
Gojo Satoru began to consider going out to personally eliminate the source of the trouble. His voice dropped into icy calm. "Where is it? Who did it? Which family?"
Asou Akiya answered with an apologetic expression. "I can't say."
Gojo Satoru shot a glance at Geto Suguru, then asked, "Not even to me? Was the Gojo family involved in this?"
Asou Akiya shook his head. "This is a secret I uncovered by accident, entirely on my own. It has nothing to do with the Gojo family. I didn't dare get too close. If you go poking around and it's traced back to me as the one who leaked it, I will die—without question."
Asou Akiya enunciated every word clearly. "The kind of death where my brain is dug out, and not even a whole corpse is left behind."
Gojo Satoru stared at him for a long moment, then turned his head away with an expression of utter indifference. "Oh. Then forget it."
Geto Suguru burst out abruptly, "How can you just forget it?! Such inhumane experiments—and you dismiss them so lightly? On what grounds?!"
Gojo Satoru replied bluntly, without a hint of ornamentation. "Do you want Akiya to die?"
The sense of justice within Geto Suguru had never vanished. The deeper and more suffocating the darkness became, the more stubbornly he refused to let go of it. He answered with forced calm, "We can join forces to protect Akiya, make sure he isn't harmed, and quietly wipe out the criminals responsible."
Gojo Satoru's eyes widened slightly at Geto Suguru's wildly idealistic proposal.
"Geto…"
That ridiculous bangs of yours—do you even know who the enemy is?
"Geto."
Asou Akiya smiled. In the Hidden Inventory arc of Jujutsu Kaisen, the so-called "strongest duo" had dared to declare war on Master Tengen in order to protect Amanai Riko, but that did not mean Gojo Satoru would be willing to declare war on the Three Great Sorcerer Clans for the sake of a stranger.
No matter how rotten the Three Great Clans might be, they still included the Gojo clan—the home of an entire lineage that had risked their lives to raise and protect Gojo Satoru.
What was more, within the Three Great Clans there absolutely existed unspoken ceasefire agreements.
"You can't do it."
Once again, Asou Akiya placed reality squarely in front of them, revealing only the tip of the iceberg.
"Even special-grade sorcerers can die."
"Don't believe me?"
"Then ask Gojo."
Asou Akiya knew full well that his own strength was insufficient, and that Geto Suguru was far more inclined to trust Gojo Satoru's judgment when it came to the analysis of power.
That single statement forced the two of them into a terrifying standoff.
It tore open the contradictions of class, the clashes of values and worldviews, and the conflicts born of fundamentally different social ideologies.
Asou Akiya had personally experienced just how frightening Gojo Satoru could be. The rationality of the "Six Eyes" prodigy surpassed that of ordinary people by far, while Geto Suguru did not possess such detachment. Geto Suguru saw Gojo Satoru as far too simple, and this misunderstanding was one of the roots of their eventual falling-out in the original story. The things Geto Suguru believed Gojo Satoru could never understand were, in fact, things Gojo Satoru had already understood long ago. What they lacked was a conversation brutal enough to tear away their masks and lay the truth bare.
Gojo Satoru stared at Geto Suguru without blinking, either coolly evaluating his combat strength or scrutinizing him as one would an "enemy."
"Gojo, tell me—are you willing to help me?" Geto Suguru felt utterly isolated as he waited for Gojo Satoru's answer. This was the only peer who stood on equal footing with him, a future special-grade sorcerer, and one of his own companions.
The upheaval that unfolded over the course of this night was a terror far beyond anything Geto Suguru could have foreseen.
Gojo Satoru spoke. "Geto, no."
He offered not the slightest justification, stating it flatly and without adornment. "If you expose this matter, I will kill you."
He no longer referred to himself with the brash "I (Ore)" of swaggering bravado, but with a plain, unembellished "I (Watashi)".
Divinity took the reins.
In Gojo Satoru's view, Asou Akiya could not be allowed to die, and Geto Suguru could not be permitted to act against the Three Great Clans—nothing more, nothing less.
"One line is still missing," Asou Akiya said, nudging the white-haired youth with his elbow while sending him a message directly, right in front of them.
Gojo Satoru lowered his head to glance at his phone, his expression loosening as a trace of humanity climbed back onto his icy face.
Gojo Satoru let out a single word. "Sorry."
His very first apology to Geto Suguru was spent on this matter.
Geto Suguru's emotions were like a canvas splashed with overturned paint. He did not blame Gojo Satoru, yet anger, helplessness, melancholy, and reluctant compromise tangled together in his heart.
Without Gojo Satoru's support, Geto Suguru could not guarantee that Asou Akiya would survive safely. This was reality, and no one could be blamed for it. Even Geto Suguru himself could not abandon his identity within the jujutsu world for a complete stranger, openly expose the crimes of the Three Great Clans, turn Gojo Satoru into an enemy, and in the end even implicate Asou Akiya and cause his death.
Asou Akiya sent another message.
The Gojo Satoru–brand repeater recited it aloud. "I promise, there won't be a next time."
Asou Akiya continued editing the private chat.
Gojo Satoru read again. "Accept reality, or you'll become the next Sensui Shinobu who shatters."
"Asou Akiya! If you have something to say, just say it!" Geto Suguru finally snapped, driven to madness by Gojo Satoru's emotionless recitation. "Gojo Satoru! You have a mouth of your own—stop being Asou Akiya's parrot!"
Gojo Satoru wore an aggrieved, innocently offended expression as he was scolded.
Asou Akiya put away his phone, pressed his palms together, and stopped playing this little game of emotional regulation.
"Then I'll say it plainly."
"Geto, go to sleep already. We'll talk during the day."
…
Geto Suguru could not sleep.