Debating Principles and Inner Demons

"Is protecting non-sorcerers really something jujutsu sorcerers are obligated to do?"

When Suguru Geto asked that question, he was also asking himself. In the past, he would have answered "yes" without hesitation, but now he was no longer so sure.

During the Star Plasma Vessel Incident, they had diligently protected Riko Amanai under orders from the higher-ups, only to end up doing another schemer's work for him. On a routine mission, his junior, Yu Haibara, had been ordered to exorcise a cursed spirit, but Window had misjudged its grade, resulting in Haibara's death. In the end, the whole matter had simply been swept under the rug...

Before receiving the mission to "retrieve a specific cursed tool that had ended up overseas" and heading to Hulunbuir, he had visited a village to exorcise an imaginary cursed spirit born from the villagers' cult worship. But the villagers had shown him no gratitude. They believed he had destroyed their village's faith and desecrated their deity. They had even pelted him with rotten vegetable leaves, spoiled tomatoes, and the like, driving him out of the village.

As incident after incident piled up, Suguru Geto had truly lost his way.

Besides, he had once had a best friend who could walk beside him: Satoru Gojo. But after Gojo mastered Reverse Cursed Technique and truly became "the strongest," the distance between them had only grown. Gojo was often sent on difficult missions that even Geto could barely comprehend, as though he had become nothing but Jujutsu High's ultimate fighting force. Meanwhile, Geto was still doing the same middling odd jobs.

He still remembered the day Mr. Yaga first took them to Jujutsu Headquarters to meet those bigwigs. He and Shoko had worn their Jujutsu High uniforms, standing there like lackeys.

"Suguru Geto, Shoko Ieiri," the bigwigs said. Only a single screen separated them, but the two could hear their voices without seeing their faces. "You are hereby instructed to travel to Inner Mongolia, China, and retrieve a specific special grade cursed tool currently abroad."

"We have already completed the necessary diplomatic arrangements with China. You need only enter the country through the normal procedures for tourists."

Suguru Geto instinctively shook his head, casting those ghostly memories out of his mind.

The sound of Shoichi Kano relieving himself happened to stop at that moment.

"Are you asking me?" he asked as he pulled up his pants.

"What do you think about it?" Suguru Geto did not deny it.

In fact, he had already asked Mr. Yaga, who had given him an utterly righteous answer. He had also asked his senior, Yuki Tsukumo, but she had offered a grand plan to "eliminate cursed energy," leaving him at a loss.

That was why he wanted to hear... how an unconventional, unorthodox sorcerer would understand the issue.

"Isn't that just the same old 'with great power comes great responsibility' logic...?" Shoichi Kano curled his lip, turning to face Suguru Geto with his arms folded across his chest.

Just as I thought...

A bitter smile tugged at Suguru Geto's lips. He had not expected the same pile of useless platitudes from this man, too.

"But if you think that's what I'm going to say, you couldn't be more wrong." Kano smiled.

The bitter smile froze on Geto's face.

By then, Kano had more or less remembered that the bitter summer in the original story was precisely the turning point in Suguru Geto's descent into darkness. If he could offer a little guidance and steer Geto toward a less extreme path, that might count as a major achievement.

Perhaps, with this interference, Kenjaku would have no Cursed Spirit Manipulation to use and thus would be unable to subdue Mahito. He might not even be able to launch the Culling Game. Wouldn't that render the binding vow Kano and the Slit-Mouthed Woman had made with Kenjaku null and void?

That would be a good thing!

So Kano began laying out his views. "Geto, first tell me why jujutsu sorcerers have to protect non-sorcerers. Isn't it largely because of cursed spirits? Non-sorcerers can't see them, right?"

Suguru Geto nodded. "Isn't that common knowledge?"

"Then where do cursed spirits come from? Isn't it largely because non-sorcerers have no cursed techniques and can't control the faint cursed energy they unconsciously release?"

Suguru Geto paused. Was this heading toward Yuki Tsukumo's plan to eliminate cursed energy?

"What exactly are you trying to say? Do you think eliminating cursed energy from all of humanity would resolve this conflict for good?"

"Unfortunately," Shoichi Kano said as he walked to the sink and began washing his hands, with Suguru Geto instinctively following him, "I think that would be very difficult to accomplish, too."

Of course, he could not mention anything about aliens, Maru, Chaos and Harmony, or the like. If Geto decided he was insane, this conversation would lose all value.

"You can never exorcise every cursed spirit. As long as humans keep producing fear and other negative emotions, cursed spirits and the phenomena associated with them will continue to exist. That's my view." Shoichi Kano casually shook the water off his hands and continued meeting Suguru Geto's gaze.

"What if we killed all the non-sorcerers and left only jujutsu sorcerers?" Suguru Geto voiced his shocking idea. In the original story, he had said this to Yuki Tsukumo, but here, he said it to Kano instead.

Kano's mouth twitched. "First, even as a curse user from the Q Organization, I think that view is a little extreme. Second, I don't think you could pull it off. Third, even if you did, could you and that handful of jujutsu sorcerers build a functional civilization on the postwar ruins you'd reduced to scorched earth?"

"Jujutsu sorcerers will always be a tiny fraction of the population, right? Without large numbers of ordinary people, even getting through daily life would be a problem. Your clothes, your food, your drinks, everything you use-which of those wasn't produced by non-sorcerers?"

Suguru Geto was so irritated by Kano that he laughed. "All you're doing is arguing against my ideas. You haven't offered anything constructive yourself, have you?"

Shoichi Kano turned the faucet back on, his intentions unclear.

He cupped some water in his hands and played with it, letting droplets trickle between his fingers and fall to the floor. "Still, I think talking someone capable of wreaking enormous destruction on the world back from the brink is a pretty great deed in itself."

"Back to our earlier question." Suguru Geto braced one hand against the restroom wall and looked at Kano from a rather aggressive angle. "Do you think jujutsu sorcerers are obligated to protect non-sorcerers?"

"I-don't-know!" Shoichi Kano deliberately drew out each word, as though making sure Suguru Geto could hear him clearly. "You know, I think you're all tangled up inside. All these questions you're asking are really just you looking for 'validation,' something to make you feel that what you're doing is 'meaningful.'"

"But there's no need to agonize over it this much. If you want to protect non-sorcerers, protect them. If you want to kill them all and build your ideal world, go ahead and try. Either way, though, your actions will affect a lot of people, so you'll have to take responsibility commensurate with your choices."

"As long as you can take responsibility, go do it. It's like drinking water when you're thirsty. Do you stop to contemplate the meaning of drinking water? Would you say, 'Ah, I'm going to kill all the mineral water in the world and create a world with nothing but purified water'?"

"Of course, drinking water has a price, too. Drink too much, and you'll have to use the restroom. Isn't that the same thing we were just talking about?" Kano pointed toward the men's restroom.

"Your problem is that you can't let go of the 'righteous principles' Masamichi Yaga imposed on you, but you can't build anything of your own, either!"

Shoichi Kano dipped his fingers in the water in the sink and drew two opposing arrows on the restroom mirror, with a circle trapped between them. "You can't move up or down. You're stuck right here, understand?"

At first, Suguru Geto only chuckled. Then his laughter gradually grew louder, until tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

Once Suguru Geto had more or less recovered, Shoichi Kano asked, "By the way, why don't you ask Satoru Gojo about this sort of thing?"

"Satoru wouldn't understand." For some reason, Suguru Geto's voice took on a heavy note, with the gloomy resentment of a wife left alone in an empty bedroom. "Besides, he's gotten so busy that we hardly see each other anymore."

"You know," Shoichi Kano said with a smile, "there's a Chinese writer and translator named Yang Jiang. She had a famous saying that I think she once said to a student."

"Ms. Yang said, 'Your problem is that you read too little and think too much.' I think you could take that to heart, Geto."

"I read too little?" Suguru Geto repeated thoughtfully. "You have a point. Perhaps it's time I settled down and read a few books."

Unfortunately, Shoichi Kano would later regret it-why had he ever said those words to Suguru Geto?

By the time the two of them left the restroom, Shoko Ieiri and the Slit-Mouthed Woman were already getting impatient. The girl with dark brown, ear-length hair stood with her hands on her hips, almost biting through the lollipop in her mouth. "Do boys need that long in the restroom, too?"

The Slit-Mouthed Woman sat with her legs crossed, her gaze moving between Kano and Geto. She seemed a little surprised by the change in their relationship. Although they still kept a certain distance from each other, the hostility between them had indeed disappeared.

Just as she was about to project the air of a "reliable, levelheaded adult" and get up to leave the Post Station-

Almost simultaneously, all four of them saw a black-and-red pillar of light, so dense it seemed tangible, descend from the sky and strike a corner of the Grassland!

Yet the tourists around them continued chatting, laughing, and taking photos. Clearly, none of them had seen that pillar of light!