The meteor's hum faded, and with it, the echo of Subaru's voice across Priestella.
Silence washed over the square like the aftershock of thunder.
"Haahh…"
A long breath left his lips, somewhere between a sigh of relief and the groan of a man who'd just barely survived his own courage.
"Well… at least they got the message. Whether the delivery was any good, that's… probably debatable."
He turned—and froze.
Every face that met his was smiling.
Garfiel's teeth bared wide and feral, Julius' lips curved in quiet pride, Anastasia's foxlike grin faint but present. Ricardo too, gave a hearty approving nod.
"Uh…"
"A splendid speech, Subaru."
Julius spoke first, voice even and gentle. There was no mockery in it. None of them refuted him—something rarer than any miracle Subaru could name. Especially considering how he never even thought he did all that good of a job with the speech.
He opened his mouth, then shut it again, because… what could he even say to that?
His eyes shifted to the armored man standing a step behind the group—one-armed, helmeted, and very much out of place.
"…When did you even get here, Al? Weren't you supposed to be looking for your princess?"
"Ahh, well, I didn't exactly plan on it, brother."
Al's tone was casual as ever, though the lazy shrug didn't hide the faint warmth in his voice.
"But while you were chattin' to the whole city, even I couldn't help but feel a little fired up your words, y'know?"
"…So it really worked then."
Subaru exhaled again, a small smile flickering onto his tired face.
"If it got through to even you, maybe it'll help calm the rest of them down, at least a little."
Al scratched the side of his helmet.
"Y'didn't have to be the one to do it though. Sure, y'might be strong now—but no one said y'gotta carry everything alone. Ain't like you're the only one here, brother."
His words drifted, gaze flicking to Julius, Ricardo—who weren't quite sure how to respond to that.
"He's the only one outta us lot who's taken down a Sin Archbishop, if anyone deserved t'do that speech, it'd be the boss.."
Garfiel said swiftly, a rather quick response that couldn't exactly be refuted.
Subaru shook his head.
"…Well. It was something I had to do anyway. I appreciate it, really Al—but if I didn't say it myself, I feel like I'd probably regret it afterwards...."
Al's sigh came through the helmet's filter, half-exasperated, half-resigned.
"Well, whatever you say then. Anyway, I come bearing news~!"
Immediately, the air shifted.
Everyone's expressions hardened; even Anastasia straightened her posture. Subaru's pulse quickened.
If Al had news, it probably meant only one thing—
"First off, your princess is waitin' for you to come rescue her from that little cultist wedding nonsense. Real jealous of that, y'know."
Subaru blinked. Then his brows furrowed.
"…Emilia—? You mean she's safe?"
Al nodded once, solemnly.
"Yeah. Managed to link up through one of the meteors the cultists were carryin'. Lucky, huh? She is both unharmed and surprisingly calm given the circumstances. Gave me the rundown herself."
Relief hit Subaru like a flood. His shoulders slumped, a shaky smile finding its way onto his lips.
"...Thank god…"
But he couldn't relax. Not yet.
"That's not all, is it?"
Al shook his head.
"Nope. Not even close. Had a run-in with that scary blue-eyed bastard while on the hunt for cultists—you already know who I mean. 'N I assume ya'll already realized this but, he's lost his memories, mostly. Not all of 'em, since he's still up and about, but I'd wager everything from his time in Lugunica's gone, if y'catch my drift brother."
The words struck Subaru harder than any blow.
His fists clenched. His jaw trembled.
"…Gojo-sensei…"
He'd been told. Otto and Rom had already explained what happened against Gluttony, but hearing it again—from someone who'd seen him afterwards—it still didn't feel real.
"Gotta say...." Al continued, oblivious or maybe just pretending to be.
"No one warned me he was such a pain in the ass. Up there with the most arrogant people I've met—and you all know my princess, so that's sayin' something."
He cupped a hand to the side of his helmet, lowering his voice in a mock whisper.
"....Not that you heard that from me, obviously. She'd likely kill me if she heard."
Anastasia clicked her tongue, eyes narrowing.
"Yer makin' this sound like some kinda joke, but we've got one real dangerous wild card walkin' 'round the city now. Even before he was a bit hard to read, n' now we don't even know whether he's friend or foe without his memories. Natsuki—yer thoughts, considerin' y'actually knew the guy?"
Subaru rubbed at his temple, exhaling slowly.
"…If he's still arrogant, then yeah. That tracks. He's got every right to be—he's a damn powerhouse. As for how he'll act…"
He frowned deeper, gaze turning grim.
"…Depends if he thinks we're worth his time. If he does, he'll probably fight us if we do run into him. Simple as that."
The silence that followed was heavy. Subaru suddenly turned toward Al again, desperation flickering in his eyes.
"Al, there's gotta be something—some way to get his memories back! The only ones that actually know of Gluttony's power are you and me, 'cause Gojo's got his memories swiped from him!"
For the first time, the man behind the helmet went quiet.
The lazy air vanished.
His voice, when it came, was low.
"… You'd have to bring that up with the Archbishop themself, brother. 'Cause I seriously got no idea if it's even possible...."
Subaru's teeth ground together until his jaw ached. His body slumped forward, fists trembling at his sides before slowly going slack.
"—He was the only one that… damn it. Damn it, damn it!!"
The words burst out raw, shredded at the edges. The sound of his own voice made his stomach twist.
Return by Death—
The thought clawed at the back of his mind again, familiar, poisonous, sweet.
He could go back. He could fix it.
If he died here, he'd wake up before everything went wrong. Gojo would be saved, Emilia wouldn't be in danger, the city wouldn't be teetering on the edge of collapse.
It would all—be fine.
His fingers twitched. Darkness welled at his palm, the miasma of the Witch writhing like smoke caught between heartbeats.
But then came the logic, the cruel arithmetic of the situation—
How much time had already passed? Would the checkpoint even bring him far enough back to matter? If not, he'd wake up too late and he would've just wasted his own time.
And if by some miracle it did… what then?
Would he abandon Crusch to face the Archbishop of Lust alone?
Would he really call that a victory?
Would he call that saving someone?
The thoughts tangled and strangled. Every option ended in blood.
"…Sucks."
His voice cracked. Both hands rose, clutching the sides of his head until his nails bit into his scalp.
"This sucks… this sucks, this sucks, this SUCKS!!"
The words tore through the silence like shards of glass. They echoed, bounced, died.
"…Subaru…"
Julius' voice came quiet, hesitant. He knew there was nothing he could say to help Subaru. How could he?
How could anyone help the boy who'd been asked to choose between two worlds?
Emilia.
Gojo.
Two names, two lights—both out of reach.
The ache in his chest deepened until it felt like something was trying to crush his lungs from the inside.
Then—
a breath.
Just one, steady and deliberate. The sound of air dragging through grit.
When Subaru raised his head, the storm in his expression was gone. What replaced it was something harder. Clearer.
His eyes locked onto Aldebaran's visor, the reflection of his own determination staring back.
"…How much time until this 'wedding' starts?"
The question was low, flat, but the resolve behind it burned.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Al tilted his head, the faint hum of his voice echoing off the steel filling the silence.
"I'd guess about a quarter of a day, maybe less, based off what Emilia said. Once the sun falls completely beyond those walls, they'll start the ceremony."
Subaru's gaze hardened. A quarter of a day at most. That was all.
"…Then, any clues on the current location of Gluttony?"
—————————————————————
Time slipped through his fingers, grain by grain, second by second.
Every breath felt heavier than the last. Every heartbeat louder.
He couldn't prolong this anymore.
It was all or nothing.
The sun sank into the edge of the world. The horizon bled orange into crimson, then bled again into black. The city of Priestella—once vibrant, once loud—was now swallowed by a silence so absolute it felt sacred.
Natsuki Subaru walked onward.
Alone.
There was no one left to follow him this far. No one else who could.
The streets that had once echoed with laughter and voices were nothing but hollow corridors of ruin now. Cracked stone. Splintered beams. The scent of stagnant water clinging to the air like rot. Each footprint left a soft echo against the hollow bones of a city half-drowned.
But still, he walked.
And walked.
Until he didn't.
He stopped in the center of what had once been a plaza—a space now stripped bare by destruction. The surrounding buildings had collapsed inward, leaving only broken ribs of masonry and moonlight.
For a moment, the world held its breath.
Then Subaru inhaled, his chest swelling with the weight of what came next—
and screamed.
"GLUTTONY—!!"
His voice tore through the silence like lightning splitting the sky.
"YOU WANT MY MEMORIES TOO, RIGHT?! JUST HIS WEREN'T ENOUGH, WERE THEY?!"
His throat burned, but he didn't care. His fury was a furnace, and it demanded to be heard.
"I'M RIGHT HERE YOU BASTARD—COME AND GET THEM!!!"
The declaration rang out across the ruins like a curse, like an invocation.
And then—
silence again.
Subaru's teeth clenched. Every muscle in his body thrummed with tension. His pulse thudded like war drums against his eardrums.
A sound followed.
Soft. Wet. Rhythmic.
Footsteps.
A voice, high and lilting, sweet enough to make his skin crawl, floated through the haze.
"—Ahhh, big brother, big brother finally went and showed himelf, ahhh~ tsu~ such delight~"
He turned toward the sound.
From the darkness of the street emerged a figure no larger than a child, golden hair rippling like liquid sunlight in the faint twilight. Her blue eyes gleamed with animal hunger; her sharp teeth glinted under the dying light.
That smile—those teeth—those eyes—
the monster that had devoured lives, devoured identity's, devoured a piece of him, in the past.
"—A Sin Archbishop of the Witch's Cult, representing Gluttony~…"
His vision tinged red. The veins across his temples throbbed. His breath came ragged, shallow, then sharp. All the restraint he'd built up cracked, splintered, and bled out of him in an instant.
His throat opened, and from somewhere deep—deeper than rage, deeper than reason—he roared.
"—RUI ARNEB!!!"
The blood-curdling roar was less a voice and more a detonation of Subaru's wrath, which, unable to be restrained any longer, now found itself bared on the cause of it all.
—————————————————————
Elsewhere—not far from the storm that was Subaru and Gluttony—
a man wearing tinted sunglasses walked through the wreckage.
His usual ease was gone.
The carefree tone, the faint grin, the mockery of divinity—all vanished, replaced by something unrecognizable.
Despair?
Sadness?
Anger?
He didn't know.
He only knew he hated the feeling of it.
"Haaahh…"
The sigh drifted through the still air, swallowed by the ruins.
Then, Gojo stopped.
His hands stayed in his pockets. His head tilted slightly, as if he were listening to something only he could hear.
"How long are you going to keep following me?"
The question hung. No answer.
He blinked, irritation flickering across his expression like a spark.
"—Brat?"
Silence again.
Until the sound of light footsteps spilled from an alleyway.
Out stepped a child.
A girl—yellow-green eyes, dark blue hair braided thrice and adorned with a small flower. The kind of detail no one would notice under this sky of ruin.
Gojo's gaze dropped slightly behind his glasses. The Six Eyes glimmered faintly.
With one glance, he could read her surface emotions as clearly as a map.
Anger.
Fear.
Sorrow.
He raised a brow, lips quirking.
"What's with that face? What's so scary about little old me~? I don't bite, you know~"
The girl's frown deepened. Sweat beaded down her temple.
"…You're a monster."
The words quivered—not with courage, but conviction.
Gojo only shrugged, mock-offended.
"Wow, that's rude! Didn't your parents ever tell you not to insult your elders~?"
Her teeth gnashed audibly. Rage coiled through every line of her small body, so tense it might snap.
"—You killed the o~nly one I could've called family! And you try lecture me!?"
Gojo blinked. A genuine flicker of confusion broke through the usual indifference.
"…Huh?"
The air shifted. A low rumble of claws against stone.
He turned his head a fraction of a second before the beast lunged—fangs bared, claws extended.
It never reached him.
Frozen mid-air, the monster hung in place, every cell screaming as Gojo's cursed technique seized the world itself.
"Ahh~ so that's what this is huh..." he mused, middle and index finger overlapping.
"You're the one who's been siccing these things on me? That power inside you… the one that lets you do this?"
A soft chuckle.
"—Lame~ really. Well, it might've been cool if these things were actually strong but well..."
The beast imploded.
"—They aren't~"
The sound wasn't an explosion—it was the opposite of one. A suction, a collapse, a tearing of space. Blood and flesh were crushed into a single point before vanishing altogether, leaving only silence and blood.
Gojo exhaled, voice calm as ever.
"Also, I didn't kill anyone you knew. Hell, I don't even know who you are. Kinda hurts, hearing something like that from a brat so little, y'know?"
The girl stared at the space where the mabeast had been. Her breath hitched, not from fear of the gore, but fury.
"My name's Me~ili Portroute…" she spat, voice trembling with rage.
"And you—! You're the one who killed Elsa! Satoru Gojo!"
Gojo's brows furrowed faintly behind his glasses.
"…You.. Elsa? Doesn't really ring a bell you know kid..."
The moment he spoke, her small frame quivered—and then she screamed.
"Please die—die, die!!"
From every alleyway, the chorus began.
Dozens of Mabeasts poured out of the shadows—wolves, bats, beasts were what seemed to be their closest resemblance, just more menacing looking as they swarmed toward the white-haired man.
Gojo sighed, his foot grinding into the broken stone beneath before the ground shattered as a perfect circle beneath his feet.
He grabbed the skull of a batlike creature and crushed it like paper the moment it came close. Another lunged straight away before his heel caught it midair, with enough force to send it's jaw spinning into the cracked concrete with a sickening crack.
Annoying...
His mind flicked briefly to Aldebaran—the man behind the helmet, the odd familiarity in his tone.
Something about that mannerism toward him, this world, was wrong. Completely wrong.
And he hated it.
"Let's clean this up shall we?"
Blue light erupted in his raised palm.
The cursed energy condensed—pure, dense, gravitational.
The orb pulsed in the air.
Then it devoured.
Every Mabeast, every shard of debris, every fragment of broken street was torn into the azure singularity. The sound was an orchestra of power and grinding stone until nothing remained but flat ground and the echo of wind.
When the dust cleared, the girl was alone.
Meili's pupils contracted as the wind tore through her hair.
The mabeasts she'd gathered, the companions of her vengeance, were gone—every last one, devoured by that man's impossible power.
No defenses.
No escape.
Nothing left.
All she could do was watch as Gojo Satoru stepped forward—
—and then disappeared in an impossibly fast flicker of movement too swift for her to perceive.
Her breath caught.
And then, death.
That's what was about to follow.
All she'd wanted was revenge.
To kill the one who'd killed Elsa.
That was all, nothing more.
And this world hated her to such a point she wasn't even allowed that?
She'd always trusted her instincts, that's how she got so far despite the constant danger. She always obeyed the voice that whispered danger.
But this time—
Just this once—
She ignored it.
The moment she met his eyes, she already knew.
That man wasn't someone you fought.
He was something you survived, if you were lucky.
One of the lucky, blessed few, chosen by the world with unstoppable power.
Everything she was not.
She shut her eyes.
There were worse fates than death, she reminded herself.
Her mind flickered back to the woman with the golden hair and that cold, revolting smile. The one whose voice could turn tenderness into terror. Her mother.
If she found out Meili had done this without her telling her to—had failed this miserably—
Then death would be mercy to what that monster would do to her in comparison.
So yes, this was fine.
Dying here, by his hand—
That was fine, even if she never quite was able to avenge Elsa...
...But death never came.
Instead, she felt a palm rest gently against her forehead.
Her eyes fluttered open.
Gojo was smiling. Not cruelly, not mockingly—but almost softly.
"What? You think I'm evil enough to kill a kid?"
"C'mon now~, Suguru would never let me hear the end of it if I did something that heartless."
Meili's eyes shot open.
For a heartbeat, her mind went blank.
The question escaped before she even knew what she was saying—
"—Why?!"
Gojo only tilted his head, eyes hidden behind tinted glass, voice light and unhurried.
"Well… I'm not really keen on making my debut in this world by killing a little girl. Feels kinda scummy, don't you think? Though, I'll admit—half of what you've been saying? Even I'm lost."
"Wh… what…?"
For an instant, her rage faltered.
Only for an instant. Then it came clawing back.
"Most people I've met so far act like they already know me..." Gojo went on, his tone still maddeningly casual.
"Real creepy stuff. And apparently this time around, I've done something I know I wouldn't do."
He grinned.
"Unless well... I had a reason, of course~"
Meili said nothing. The words didn't fit inside her head—too many of them contradicted the world she'd already decided was true.
Then Gojo bent down, looping an arm over her narrow shoulders as though they were old friends.
"Tell you what 'Meili'. Stick with me for a little bit. You're scared of something right?—something that that fear of yours finds eve worse than me. I can tell. Besides, I'm bored. Oh, and we can patch up whatever beef you think we've got going on!"
Meili blinked up at him, speechless. She couldn't attack even if she wanted to, right now she was nothing more than a regular little girl, and that annoyed her massively, especially when this was the man she was so ready to kill in a heartbeat.
"That's not—"
Gojo's expression shifted. A flicker of something sharp slid behind the grin.
His eyes turned eastward.
He felt it—
A pulse of cursed energy that didn't belong to him, thick and violent, blooming across a small portion of the city in the distance.
He could tell what it was in an instant, a curtain, something exclusive to Jujutsu Sorcerers.
His lips curved higher, the grin transforming into something almost feral.
"Well, I'll be damned… another sorcerer huh..."
Before Meili could react, he scooped her up onto his back with one hand as if she weighed as much as a feather.
"Wha—!?"
"Hang tight! Don't try slitting my throat from back there, okay? Not that it'll work but it's surely considered rude~"
"You—!"
Her protest vanished as the world blurred around them, the air shattering in their wake. Gojo's laughter trailed behind like a ripple through the ruins, half-delight, half-madness.
Suguru, could it be...? You?