Gojo Satoru shuffled in line like a caged tiger, the magnificent sunset doing nothing to soothe him. When he finally reached the front, his grin was all teeth and pent-up energy.
"Master Geto! Took forever to find you," he said, the cheer in his voice strained.
Geto looked up from the weary believer before him, his brow furrowing. "Satoru? What are you doing here?"
"I've been right here, standing in your human traffic jam for an hour!"
"And your point is?"
"I need you to get Kamo Itsuki to meet me."
Geto's eyes narrowed. The request, coming from a fidgety, queue-hating Gojo, reeked of trouble. "Ask him yourself."
"He hung up on me!" Gojo whined, then quickly schooled his expression into something resembling solemnity. "Please? As a friend?"
Geto glanced at the snaking line of anxious people behind Gojo, their patience wearing thin. He saw an opportunity. "I'm a bit swamped, as you can see. Help me clear this backlog, and I'll see what I can do about Itsuki."
Gojo's face fell as he followed Geto's gaze. The line seemed to have regenerated. "Why are there so many? Did a curse factory explode?"
"Earthquake. A bad one. Shoddy construction, lots of deaths." Geto's voice was low, heavy with a resigned anger. "The grief, the fear… it's a breeding ground. These are just the weak ones now. If we don't clear them, they'll fester."
Before Gojo could process the grim reality, impatient shouts rose from the queue. "Hey! We're waiting!"
Trapped, Gojo capitulated with a groan. He was soon outfitted in a stiff, formal steward's robe and stationed at a small table in a sun-drenched corner of the hall, feeling profoundly ridiculous.
His first "client" was a nervous, bearish man who eyed Gojo's blindfold and youthful face with deep skepticism. "I was hoping for the bishop…" he muttered.
"He's busy. Talk," Gojo said, his tone not inviting small talk.
The man swallowed. "When I sleep… I hear this… heavy breathing right next to my ear. It's like something is…"
Gojo didn't let him finish. His Six Eyes had already pinpointed the problem: a faint, bulldog-shaped curse spirit was draped over the man's shoulder like a vile shawl, its flabby jowls puffing rhythmically near his ear.
Without a word, Gojo reached out—not with a hand, but with a casual, imperceptible flick of his will. A pinpoint application of *Blue*, an attractive force so minuscule and precise it was like a cosmic tweezer.
**Fwip.**
The curse spirit was plucked from the man's shoulder, compressed into a tiny, silent dot of darkness, and vanished. The entire process took less than a second, no incantation, no dramatic gesture.
The man stopped mid-sentence, blinked, and brought a hand to his ear. The constant, oppressive weight and the sound of breath were just… gone. A look of profound, bewildered relief washed over his face.
Gojo gave a curt nod. "Next."
He had found, to his immense annoyance, a temporary outlet for his restless power: assembly-line exorcisms. It was beneath him, tedious, and a far cry from the world-shattering duel he craved, but it was the price of the ticket to find Kamo Itsuki. For now, the strongest sorcerer was reduced to a glorified pest controller.
Gojo Satoru's "exorcism" was less a ritual and more a gesture of supreme dismissal—a flick of the wrist, and the bulldog curse was erased from existence. "Next," he barked, the words a sharp contrast to Geto's methodical care. His mind was a million miles away, already plotting the clash he craved.
With the combined, if uneven, efforts of the compassionate bishop and the impatient god, the last believer was seen off just as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the cult's grounds in hues of fire and blood.
Gojo slumped dramatically in a chair in the now-quiet hall. "I'm spent," he groaned, the prospect of an epic fight feeling suddenly distant. "Where's Shoko, anyway? Shouldn't she be here bossing you around?"
Geto rubbed his temples. "The hospitals are overrun after the quake. She took Nanako and Mimiko to help as the cult's representatives."
"Those two? They're helping?" Gojo raised an eyebrow, recalling the two girls who usually scurried away at the sight of him.
"They insisted. Shoko says at least they can see the curses. It's something."
Geto led a weary Gojo to a quiet reception room in the back, a space of polished wood and calming incense. "A hospital's no place for kids right now," Gojo remarked, the casual observation carrying the weight of his knowledge. Such places were cauldrons of fresh misery, ripe for spiritual infestation.
"They're tougher than they look. And Shoko is with them," Geto replied, pouring tea with steady hands. The fragrant steam rose between them. "Now. The main event. Why do you need to see Itsuki so urgently that you'd actually wait in a line?"
Gojo Satoru, the untouchable strongest, suddenly found the grain of the wooden table fascinating. He took a gulp of tea, avoiding Geto's eyes. "It's… nothing serious. Just got annoyed by the old fossils in my clan. Wanted to blow off some steam. Find someone to… spar with."
The admission was uncharacteristically sheepish. A faint, telltale pink tinged his ears, and his fingers drummed a restless, silent rhythm on the lacquered wood. It wasn't just about blowing off steam. It was a primal need for validation, for a challenge that could make him feel the edges of his own existence again—and the only person who could possibly provide that was Kamo Itsuki. The pride that usually armored him was, for a moment, laid embarrassingly bare.
Patreon Seasay