Target: Yuta Okkotsu

Akasaka Palace, rooftop.

Suguru Geto was not wearing the Gojo-style robe he used as a stand-in for his best friend Satoru Gojo. Instead, he wore a casual black outfit, his tied-up long hair let down for his two adopted daughters, Nanako Hasaba and Mimiko Hasaba, to tend to.

He held a book in his hands, basking in the morning sunlight, looking so quiet and peaceful.

"Lord Geto, what exactly is Satoru Gojo to you?" Mimiko Hasaba, with her long straight black hair and black sailor uniform, asked curiously.

Over the ten years since Suguru Geto had adopted and raised them, they had often heard him talk about his student days and Satoru Gojo, the strongest sorcerer of the modern era from those stories. Yet they had always wondered about Geto's relationship with Gojo.

It was only recently, when Lin Yi helped Suguru Geto subdue a Special-Grade Cursed Spirit, that the two of them took advantage of the time they spent fixing Geto's hair to ask the question in their hearts.

Nanako Hasaba was also lying across Suguru Geto's lap, waiting for his answer.

"Best friends. The kind of best friends who can entrust the people they cherish to each other. If one day your Lord Geto or Satoru Gojo met with an accident, Satoru Gojo or your Lord Geto would entrust his students and family, including you two, to the other."

Lin Yi had come by to pick up the cursed tool he had asked Suguru Geto to customize for him. The moment he stepped onto the rooftop, he heard the Hasaba sisters' question for their adoptive father and could not help answering it.

"My, Ichiro, you really understand the relationship between Gojo and me. Mimiko, Nanako, my relationship with Gojo is just as Ichiro said. We merely had an argument, and after that, we did not see each other for a very long time."

Seeing Lin Yi, Suguru Geto smiled warmly and took over the conversation.

He was quite pleased with how Lin Yi had summed up his relationship with Satoru Gojo.

Lin Yi neither confirmed nor denied it. As for the ill-fated pair that were Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, all Lin Yi could say was that if even one of them had been a woman, there would not have been any of this falling to darkness.

To Lin Yi, Gojo and Geto were the Japanese version of Magneto and Professor X. They had fought for most of their lives, but if either of them truly got into trouble, the other would be the first to come help.

"You do not need to explain the history between you and Satoru Gojo to me here. Where is the thing I asked you to make?"

"Right here."

Suguru Geto raised a hand, and a mass of shadow emerged behind him. Cursed Womb: Death Painting? crawled out of it, opened its mouth, and spat out a white Colt Python revolver that flew toward Lin Yi. He caught it with one hand.

"Just as Ichiro requested, it can draw cursed energy from the air and infuse it into the bullets. But with the effects of your technique, Ichiro, I do not think you will need to replenish ammunition anyway. There is no need to pay me. After all, Ichiro, you did me a huge favor before and gave me another Special-Grade Cursed Spirit."

"Even if you had ten more Special-Grade Cursed Spirits of this caliber, they would not take Satoru Gojo much time to deal with."

Lin Yi inspected the gun in his hand, then placed it in the holster on the left side of his inner lining. It made a perfect pair with the black M1911 cursed-tool pistol he had swiped from Jujutsu High, holstered on the right side.

Looking at the black and white pistols inside his coat, Lin Yi felt he could name them Ebony and Ivory. If he dyed his hair silver, changed into a bright red trench coat, used the Construction Technique to make a greatsword and strapped it to his back, even the Ichiro Trading Detective Agency could change its sign to Devil May Cry.

The profession was a perfect match, anyway.

"I know. The cursed spirits I have alone cannot make Gojo acknowledge my views. So, Ichiro, I will have to trouble you again. I heard you became an assistant supervisor at Jujutsu High. Congratulations."

"I knew you would not be fooled. So what are you planning?"

Lin Yi did not panic when Suguru Geto revealed his recent contact with Jujutsu High. He knew Geto had informants within Jujutsu High and the Jujutsu Society itself. Otherwise, he would not have learned immediately that Yuta Okkotsu, a transfer student with a Special-Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit, had enrolled.

So Lin Yi knowingly asked anyway.

"Rika Orimoto, a Special-Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit, is the shikigami of Yuta Okkotsu, this year's transfer student in the first year at Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu High. I would like to learn more about him. Ichiro, can you help me?"

"And after you learn about him? The cursed spirits your Cursed Spirit Manipulation can subdue are those without master-servant relationships. Shikigami are essentially cursed spirits too. If you want to subdue that Special-Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit attached to the student named Yuta Okkotsu, there are only two methods. First, sever his connection with that Special-Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit. Second, kill him, then use your Cursed Spirit Manipulation to subdue it."

"Ha, Ichiro, you really do understand my technique well. But there is a third method: Yuta Okkotsu becomes part of our family as well. Then I will not need to do anything unnecessary. Am I right, Ichiro?"

Lin Yi kept both hands in his pockets and looked at Suguru Geto, who wore a peaceful smile and was completely unguarded before him.

At this distance, if he attacked instantly in his Heavenly Tyrant: Kamen Rider form, Suguru Geto would suffer greatly even if he managed to defend himself.

Yet seeing Suguru Geto's sincere smile, Lin Yi truly could not bring himself to strike. Fairly speaking, Geto's original intention was not bad. To stop sorcerers from continuing to die in the daily work of exorcising cursed spirits, and to keep them from being treated unfairly, there were only two methods.

First, make everyone in the world have no cursed energy, so cursed spirits would never be born.

Second, make everyone in the world a sorcerer, even the weakest kind. By controlling the cursed energy generated by their negative emotions, they would not leak cursed energy, likewise eliminating the conditions for cursed spirits to be born.

It was only because of that crushing defeat during Suguru Geto's student days, coupled with witnessing too much darkness in human hearts after becoming a Special-Grade Sorcerer and exorcising cursed spirits, that he had gone to such extremes.

But when it came to sorcerers, Suguru Geto still retained his kindness.

Thinking of this, Lin Yi could not help sighing.

"You, have you never considered that you might fail? Whether you persuade Yuta Okkotsu to join you, kill Yuta Okkotsu, or help him sever the curse between himself and his Special-Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit shikigami, you may not succeed. You could even lose your own life."

"That would still be better than living in this world full of monkeys."

"You bastard, we only just started to think better of you. How can you curse Lord Geto like that?"

"Shut up! Children should not interrupt when adults are speaking."

Lin Yi shot the Hasaba sisters beside Suguru Geto a look, then turned back to Geto and fell silent for a long while.

"I will lend a hand in letting you learn about Yuta Okkotsu. But I also have the right to intervene. Do not forget, this is the Binding Vow between us."

"Of course. I knew Ichiro was a very kind person."

"Kind has nothing to do with it, Suguru Geto. There is a price to pay for what you do. I only want you to pay that price properly. That is all."

Lin Yi waved a hand and turned to leave.

Suguru Geto watched Lin Yi's departing back in silence for a long time. At last, he said, "If my life can bring about an era where no sorcerer is oppressed, then take it."

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