Chapter 28

My memory is confused, not lost.

The moment Gojo Satoru appeared in his characteristically absurd, superhero-like fashion, Takizawa Sei suddenly understood exactly where he was. He hadn't fallen into an enemy's trap, nor had he been abandoned by the system. He was living every second in comfort simply because someone wanted to show these things to him.

Who could perfectly recreate such a vast world? Only the Six Eyes, which had been receiving an infinite amount of information since birth.

Perhaps because this realization broke the control of the illusion, Takizawa Sei suddenly woke up from the long, sweet dream.

His entire body was covered in blood—the way he had looked in his memories at that exact moment. Pain was spreading densely across his nerve endings, and his strength was rapidly fading, yet he couldn't feel a shred of fear.

"How could you..."

Gojo Satoru’s arms trembled slightly as he reached out, hovering on either side of Takizawa, wanting to hold him but not knowing where to touch.

"Where did it go wrong? You weren't supposed to remember."

"So you admit it was your doing." Takizawa Sei was almost amused to the point of laughter. "Why didn't you talk to me about it? You just suddenly decided to bring me back to relive the past? Well, congratulations, you succeeded."

He wiped the blood spilling from the corner of his mouth, still unaccustomed to his own disheveled state. "Actually, I quite like it here. Satoru, this version of you is the one I feel closest to in my memory."

How sweet Gojo Satoru was at this age!

Since returning, Takizawa Sei had been reminiscing about this period when Gojo was excessively clingy. With his flamboyant white hair and brilliant blue eyes, he was blooming in the recklessness of youth. He hadn't yet endured heartbreaking losses or the growth that comes from painful kisses. He was spreading his wings in an environment of companionship and love, and the shackles he wore were merely there to keep him from flying too high or too far in his arrogance. His future was already unfolding with magnificent brilliance—it was exactly the way Takizawa Sei had wanted to see him.

Having experienced the feeling of being surrounded by the seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Gojo Satoru once again, Takizawa Sei was actually quite happy, which was why he had been wavering between wariness and indulgence for a while.

But this bit of surprise became negligible once he understood what Gojo Satoru was trying to do, especially when he saw the shattered, helpless light in Gojo’s eyes.

...Why would he have that look on his face?

Takizawa Sei was both confused and shocked. He said, "Are you blaming yourself for not arriving in time back then? It’s okay, you know. I didn't die in that ambush. I held on until you arrived."

He took hold of Gojo Satoru’s cold fingertips. "I promised you long ago that I would never give up on the possibility of living, no matter what."

"Liar."

Gojo Satoru’s voice suddenly cut him off, strained and harsh. "It was precisely because I trusted you too much that I let you slip away."

The world seemed to press the pause button at that moment.

Takizawa Sei froze. He suddenly noticed that all the injuries on his body had vanished. The surrounding scene shattered and reassembled like a scrambled puzzle. Even more significant was the shift in his own senses—if this had been a crystal-clear dream, he had now shifted from the first-person perspective to the third-person, becoming a sober bystander.

Turning his head, he saw that the Gojo Satoru who had been standing in front of him was gone.

—If the target of the technique breaks the spell, there will be uncontrollable consequences.

The environment Takizawa Sei was in shifted to the Jujutsu High infirmary. The glass was suddenly shattered from the outside, and the flying shards passed through his body without resistance, scattering onto the floor. Takizawa Sei watched—he watched as Gojo Satoru rushed in, clutching his wounded self, heedless of everything else.

He had likely used teleportation, ascending into the high sky and then abruptly shrinking the distance between two points, bringing him back with the fastest speed possible.

Takizawa Sei stared with curiosity at his own face, and at this Gojo Satoru who was clearly only eighteen. His memory was good, but he could never reproduce such fine details; the cursed technique truly was an extraordinary thing.

The green-eyed youth held in Gojo Satoru’s arms coughed violently, one hand pressing desperately against the wound on his abdomen, his face twisted in pain. "Damn you... slow down, it hurts like hell."

He looked quite spirited, still having the energy to curse.

Gojo Satoru laid him down as gently and steadily as he could, swiftly digging out a first-aid kit to treat his wounds. His brows were knit tight, his beautiful eyes alarmingly bright. "Damn it, who did this? I’m going to wipe them off the face of the earth!"

The twenty-year-old Takizawa Sei grimaced under his hands; if it weren't for his utter exhaustion, he would be thrashing like a dying fish. "We’ll talk about that later. Your bandaging skills are terrible... cough, cough... you’re hurting me so much I could cry!"

To be honest, Gojo Satoru’s first-aid technique wasn't wrong; it was just that Takizawa Sei was so fragile that even breathing was torture.

Upon hearing Takizawa’s words, Gojo Satoru visibly stiffened for a moment. Finally, he bit his lip and continued to stop the bleeding and bandage him, looking even more wronged and distressed than Takizawa himself. "Hold on, Sei. Suguru has gone to get Shoko. Once Shoko gets here... you won't hurt anymore."

Large amounts of blood stained the white sheets, and Gojo Satoru’s hands were sticky with it. The youth, having just emerged from a vicious battle, had countless wounds—burns, cuts, stabs—a mangled, bloody sight more terrifying than any time before. He was broken and miserable, utterly ruined, reflected vividly in those trembling Eyes of Heaven—yet, at the same time, the rise and fall of his chest held a flickering, precarious vitality that ignited a rage in Gojo Satoru’s brain that was on the verge of burning away his sanity.

Sensing that something was wrong with Gojo’s mood from his tone, the delirious Takizawa Sei barely focused his gaze and comforted him, panting, "I'm fine... go on."

...

Ah...

The reborn version of Takizawa Sei, watching from the sidelines, poked Gojo Satoru’s face. He had been too severely injured at the time to pay attention to Gojo’s expression, but now, looking back... it was truly wretched.

To think that he had made him feel so lost and uneasy... he was also truly wretched.

Takizawa Sei felt a surge of restless repression. He didn't understand why Gojo Satoru wanted him to see all of this, but he vaguely guessed the answer—it certainly wasn't anything good.

From the perspective of an observer, their story continued. The news of Takizawa Sei’s large-scale ambush became known throughout the jujutsu world. Friends he had made all came to visit him, and his two underclassmen watched him with trepidation for a long time, deeply worried that even the school would be attacked by unknown forces. Over the next few days, Takizawa Sei was incredibly busy, getting a preview of the social obligations of a corporate slave. He couldn't risk going out, so he became an idler at the school. Fortunately, the weather was cooling, and as people went out less, cursed spirits seemed to go into hibernation, no longer active, so Suguru Geto could handle things on his own without being overwhelmed.

During that time, Takizawa Sei spent more time with him.

Because Gojo Satoru had returned to his main family, he quickly took charge of a series of troublesome matters he had previously ignored and aggressively clashed with the old guard of the clan. To put it simply, he was seizing power. Beyond that, he tracked down the person who had originally brought Takizawa Sei to the Gojo family.

Even though Takizawa Sei hadn't said it, Gojo Satoru knew—that person must have made some kind of binding agreement with the higher-ups.

He wanted Takizawa Sei to be free.

For those few days, Takizawa Sei didn't receive any harassing texts from the young master Gojo, and there were hardly any phone calls. This time, it wasn't Gojo Satoru who was going through a period of withdrawal; it was him.

"Suguru, Satoru hasn't replied to my messages in two days. Two days... is his phone out of battery? Do you have any cursed spirits that can contact him?"

Suguru Geto felt helpless at his absurd request. "There is no such thing."

"Days without Satoru are so boring..." Takizawa Sei wailed at the sky. "I’m going to die of loneliness without Satoru—it’s a good thing I have you, Suguru."

Suguru Geto: "Want some noodles?"

Takizawa Sei: "Yes."

In the common room of the school, Takizawa Sei curled up on the sofa, hugging a buckwheat pillow as a stand-in for Gojo Satoru, and started complaining to Suguru. "Is Satoru worried about me? I haven't even explained to him that I only fell into that trap because I was careless. It won't happen again."

"Sei, even if you explained it, it wouldn't make much difference... This time was different. Never mind Satoru, even I could have nightmares for days just from the shadow of this event."

Takizawa Sei turned his eyes to look at Suguru Geto.

There were faint dark circles under the black-haired boy’s eyes, and his mental state looked quite poor.

"Is it that disgusting?"

"Yeah." Suguru Geto’s gaze rested softly on Takizawa Sei’s face. "You weren't injured by a cursed spirit, but by... human hands."

Takizawa Sei said in a casual tone, "Don't worry about things like that~" His arched brows looked exceptionally gentle in the soft light. "Those who hurt me are essentially hurting Satoru. Feeling frustrated is just a result of having different expectations because of their status. If we just treat them as cursed spirits that need to be exorcised, wouldn't that be fine?"

"..."

Suguru Geto said numbly, "Have you really become so accustomed to their malice?"

"Suguru, you only feel pressure because your mind is too delicate." Takizawa Sei said, "I feel like you’re in a very subtle, tense stage. Are you about to bloom?"

Suguru Geto chuckled. "What kind of talk is that?"

"Anyway... Satoru and I are very experienced now. Our original faction is already at odds with the curse users. Satoru has also evolved into the strongest at a level all his own. Once he becomes the clan head, I’ll be his right-hand man, and you’ll be part of our faction, too. Slowly, this world... will be changed into the way we want it to be."

As if he had let go of his inner knot, Suguru Geto squinted and smiled at him. "...Yeah."

And then—

Blood began to seep from the corners of Takizawa Sei’s eyes.

Not just his eyes, but his ears, nose, and even the uninjured skin of his body began to ooze blood strangely.

Takizawa Sei raised his hand to his nose in a daze, and the moist liquid stained his fingertips. In his blurred, red-drenched vision, Suguru Geto’s wide eyes held a vortex of something collapsing. He lunged up and walked over, frantically grabbing his shoulders.

"Sei, what’s wrong with you—?!"

***

Takizawa Sei was cursed.

It was an exceptionally insidious and vicious technique, one that even the Six Eyes hadn't detected, a curse that had been buried deep within his body for years.

The malice turned into a tangible black substance that crawled over his skin, and the youth’s healthy body began to necrotic at an alarming rate. Shoko tried to heal him several times, but it was like a drop in the bucket, like trying to save a massive, sinking ship with a single bucket.

Takizawa Sei’s memories of this period were blurry.

Because he was under the curse, he was delirious for most of the day. The few times he was awake were so brief that he couldn't remember what he saw or heard. In the end, all that remained... was the sound of Gojo Satoru calling his name.