The Most Crucial First Step of the Plan Was That Man!

Elsewhere, Panda ran outside with his guard up, swiftly pulling out his phone.

If calling for help right in front of the enemy hadn't been so blatantly provocative, Panda wouldn't even have wanted to waste those few seconds.

Only after he had run beyond the other man's hearing range and confirmed there were no ambushes nearby did he start calling Satoru Gojo.

"Ring, ring, ring-"

"Damn it! Pick up already! Not at a time like this!"

Panda ran out of the corridor and rushed to the reception desk. The only thing worth being thankful for was that the restaurant's owner was in the know and wouldn't dismiss his words as a joke.

"Hurry and tell your boss to evacuate the customers! It's dangerous here!"

"Huh?!"

The receptionist froze. She was just about to say something when she heard another man's voice.

"All right, all right. Calm down, Panda. Things aren't that bad yet."

"How could I possibly calm down when-Gojo Sensei?!"

Panda thought the call had connected and was about to ask for help, only to suddenly realize the voice wasn't coming from his phone. It was coming from behind him.

"Relax, relax. Everything's fine." Satoru Gojo smiled and waved at the bewildered receptionist. "Sorry, we were playing a game of truth or dare. Sorry for the trouble! We're leaving now."

"Oh, I see. Please be considerate in public. Don't let it happen again."

Since the white-haired hunk in front of her really was handsome, the young receptionist let it slide. Only after watching him pull the costumed panda away did something occur to her.

"Huh? Wasn't that Panda-kun, our Amusement Park's mascot? Is the Amusement Park holding some kind of game event?"

"Gojo Sensei! Kaze, he..."

"I know."

Satoru Gojo brought Panda onto the restaurant's roof, revealing his beautiful azure eyes.

There was a wall behind the restaurant and a tall tree beside it that screened them from view. Unless someone looked closely, no one would notice the two figures standing on the roof.

Panda belatedly realized how cleverly their position had been chosen. If anything happened, they only needed to stomp their feet to drop through the ceiling into the private dining room below.

Satoru Gojo had everything under control!

Realizing this put Panda much more at ease. That relief even left him with a second to sympathize with poor Maki-with Gojo Sensei here, she was probably stuck finishing the job all by herself.

Once he recovered his composure, Panda finally noticed something was wrong.

"Gojo Sensei, that Suguru Geto said he'd received some information. Could it be..."

Panda didn't finish.

If Suguru Geto's appearance had been within Satoru Gojo's expectations, why had he done this?

Gojo Sensei was often unreliable and flippant, but he never messed around when it mattered, and he cared deeply about his students. Why had he let things develop this far?

"Geto wouldn't lay a hand on an underage sorcerer."

Satoru Gojo first offered a reassurance to put Panda at ease. After all, Suguru Geto wanted to create a wonderful world for jujutsu sorcerers. He was much more likely to protect Aikawa Kaze and try to recruit him.

If it had been Yuta Okkotsu inside, Satoru Gojo might have worried about what Suguru Geto would do to steal him away, but since it was Aikawa Kaze, there was no need to worry.

"But he's dangerous!" Panda was still worried. "And he looks like a cult leader. What if Kaze gets tricked?"

"That's a fair point. I'm curious too."

Satoru Gojo rested his chin in his hand and sat down on the roof. Instead of immediately going to rescue him, however, he asked another question.

"Panda, now that you've spent some time alone with Kaze, what kind of person do you think he is?"

"Huh? Why are you asking?"

Panda paused, not answering immediately.

Personally, he quite liked Aikawa Kaze. After all, most people in the Jujutsu Society saw him only as a cursed corpse, an outsider, a tool-not a "person" on equal footing with them.

More often than not, he could keenly sense the rejection, and even malice, that sorcerers and the higher-ups directed toward him.

Kaze, however, treated him sincerely and as an equal. He genuinely regarded him as a "friend" and truly loved "pandas."

Still, he trusted that Satoru Gojo wouldn't ask this question for no reason.

Panda scratched his head and asked cautiously, "Um, do you think there's something wrong with Kaze? Could there be some misunderstanding?"

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with Kaze. I just want to see what certain restless things are trying to do."

Satoru Gojo scanned their surroundings but found nothing unusual, making him frown slightly.

He had indeed felt a little off lately. Although he really did like Aikawa Kaze, saw similarities between him and Geto, and believed he had a promising future...

"There's this constant buzzing in my head, like it's trying to suggest something. It's really annoying."

"Huh?"

Satoru Gojo didn't explain further. Even he found his own suspicions unbelievable.

Generally speaking, everyone had moments when they experienced a strong intuition or premonition. Plenty of powerful sorcerers made judgments based on their talent, experience, or instincts.

Satoru Gojo had experienced strong premonitions before as well, but this time was different.

He was indeed willing to trust Aikawa Kaze based on his own feelings. This time, however, one side of his "intuition" seemed to be guiding him like some sort of "psychological suggestion."

Worse still, another side of his "intuition" was warning him that something was interfering with his judgment.

If he told anyone that his own instincts were contradicting each other, they would probably only think...

"Has Satoru Gojo done so many missions lately that he's developed a split personality?" or "Did Satoru Gojo's brain burn out because he hasn't had enough sweets?"

Yet Satoru Gojo genuinely felt that something was wrong.

The contradiction made him deeply uncomfortable. After agonizing over it for a few brief seconds, the invincible, powerful Satoru Gojo decided to go with the flow, let himself act on his feelings for a while, and see who was behind it.

A certain world consciousness: I daren't move. I really daren't move...

Behaving myself.JPG

Heaven knew how unfairly accused the Jujutsu Kaisen World Consciousness was!

It had only wanted to make this little world's timeline less grim and fill it with "positive energy," which was why it had been forced to pick up the pace.

Suguru Geto, whose fate was especially hard to accept, had brought readers a flood of negative energy. But his death was fast approaching, leaving the world consciousness no choice but to use Satoru Gojo as a mouthpiece to hurry someone along.

After all, a certain fellow barely paid the system any attention anymore, using it when it was useful and blocking it when it wasn't.

Who could have known Satoru Gojo would be so perceptive?

Now its efforts had rather backfired.

The world consciousness covered its face. It realized that its kind seemed universally ill-suited to this sort of thing. It had no idea whether the little surprise it had arranged earlier to help Aikawa Kaze would go wrong too.

But what was done was done. Unable to turn back time, the world consciousness chose to play dead and quietly watch events unfold.

At least Aikawa Kaze had now made contact with Suguru Geto, hadn't he?

Whatever happened in the future, surely it would be easier to bear than the original course of fate?

Inside the private dining room, Suguru Geto briefly froze at Aikawa Kaze's words before catching his underlying meaning.

Even as he found it inexplicably amusing, Suguru Geto straightened his expression and grew serious.

He wanted to hear what brilliant insights Aikawa Kaze had to offer after rejecting and mocking his views.

"I'm all ears."

"Please relax. I mean you no harm. After all, I'm someone who loves everyone."

"???"

Suguru Geto stared at Aikawa Kaze, speechless and full of questions. Why did that sound as though Aikawa Kaze was the one with the upper hand, capable of taking his life at any moment?

But on second thought, if Aikawa Kaze really used that move... perhaps he truly wouldn't be able to block it?

At that thought, Suguru Geto, who had only intended to listen seriously to the other's argument, stiffened and grew even more tense.

Entirely oblivious to the problem, Aikawa Kaze picked up a chopstick, dipped it in tea, and began drawing on the table.

"I've heard a little about your views. Something about killing all ordinary people to create a happy world for jujutsu sorcerers? Have I got that right?"

"Correct. That is my cause."

"Right, then it looks like this..."

Suguru Geto watched Aikawa Kaze draw two overlapping circles on the table, simply labeling them A and B.

The diagram looked somewhat familiar.

"This is..."

"You must have learned this before, right? The mathematical concept of [sets]-what I want to discuss is our [intersection]. Let's say you're circle A and I'm circle B, and the shaded area C is where we overlap."

Aikawa Kaze tapped the overlapping portion of the two circles.

"This is our [common ground]."

"Ultimately, human progress requires seeking common ground while accepting differences. Our shared goal is the same: [making jujutsu sorcerers happy]. There's no question about that, and it's the foundation for our discussion and cooperation."

Aikawa Kaze tapped the unshaded portions of circles A and B outside the overlap. "These blank areas represent what you want but I don't agree with-[killing all ordinary people]-and what I want but you currently don't care about-[overturning the Jujutsu Society's order and views]."

Suguru Geto stared at the two circles, deep in thought. He was beginning to understand what Aikawa Kaze meant.

"You're saying we can work toward the shared happiness of sorcerers, and you'll lend me your strength for that, but you won't help me kill ordinary people?"

"Full marks, Mr. Geto!" Aikawa Kaze clapped. "Just what I'd expect from a top student. You've got excellent comprehension!"

"But you've forgotten one premise." Suguru Geto shook his head and said coldly, "Sorcerers suffer all these misfortunes precisely because ordinary people do nothing but produce cursed spirits. Unless we kill them all, sorcerers will never be happy!"

"Question! Is it true that jujutsu sorcerers and cursed spirits balance each other out, and the birth of the Six Eyes caused cursed spirits to increase in number and grow stronger?"

"...It's true."

"Then, Mr. Geto, do you think it's Gojo Sensei's fault that there are so many powerful cursed spirits now?"

"..."

"Question! In an extreme scenario where all ordinary people died and there were no cursed spirits left anywhere, would jujutsu sorcerers still be jujutsu sorcerers? Would those old conservatives in the Three Great Families make everyone happy?"

"..."

Of course Suguru Geto knew how the Six Eyes affected the entire Jujutsu Society. Satoru Gojo alone probably had a greater influence on cursed spirits than all the ordinary people in the world combined.

But he could never blame Satoru Gojo for that.

Likewise, he wanted to say that even without cursed spirits, sorcerers would remain sorcerers and the world would become better. Yet... he was all too familiar with how disgusting the Jujutsu Society's higher-ups were.

Even though Suguru Geto believed that "non-sorcerers aren't human, and ordinary people are monkeys," he couldn't in good conscience claim that letting those higher-ups govern would be a good thing.

"That would be an internal matter for sorcerers to deal with afterward..."

Suguru Geto forced out a rebuttal, but even to his own ears, it sounded weak and unconvincing.

"Being sentenced to death for absurd reasons; having young people suppressed and robbed of their youth because of the personal preferences of certain higher-ups; being casually assigned missions beyond their capabilities because the higher-ups don't care whether ordinary sorcerers live or die, then being brushed off afterward with 'an observation error'... are these really things we should tolerate?"

Suguru Geto's mind drifted to the death of Yu Haibara, that bright, cheerful junior who had admired him so much.

It had all been glossed over with a few casual remarks from the higher-ups about an observation error by the Window and sorcery being dangerous to begin with.

Suguru Geto's gaze fell on the two circles. Recalling what Aikawa Kaze had just said, his eyes flickered.

"It seems you're already tempted, Mr. Geto-as the old saying goes, ruling a realm is harder than conquering it. We can start thinking now about how to overturn the Jujutsu Society's order and worldview to make sorcerers happier."

Aikawa Kaze clapped his hands, smiling.

"Looking at it that way, although I can't fully help with your cause, Mr. Geto, you can give my ideal your wholehearted support, can't you?"

"Anyone can make pretty speeches." Suguru Geto remained noncommittal and said flatly, "What matters most is how you do it. So far, all you've offered is empty talk."

"Well, we have to establish our goals before we can keep talking! Taking the wrong path isn't the scariest thing. Stubbornly following it to the bitter end when you know you have a chance to turn-that's what makes someone a fool!"

Aikawa Kaze smiled unconcernedly, his words pointed.

"Are you really that inflexible, Mr. Geto?"

"That depends on how you convince me."

Suguru Geto pressed his lips together.

When he had made his decision, he had not only abandoned his bonds with his friends and the "righteous principles" he had once upheld, but even killed his own parents, who were ordinary people.

From that moment on, he had known there was no turning back. He could only follow this path to its bitter end.

If he gave up now, what would all those things he had "abandoned" and "sacrificed" amount to?

Although Suguru Geto had indeed been swayed, perhaps it wasn't that he didn't understand these arguments. He had long harbored vague answers in his heart and simply chosen to ignore them.

Still, none of that stopped Suguru Geto from wanting to hear how this interesting junior would "persuade" him.

Awkward as it felt, Suguru Geto had to admit that this junior had a broad perspective and clear logic. At the very least, he had considered things far more thoroughly than Geto himself had.

"Right, then let me explain our most important first step!"

Seeing the seriousness in Aikawa Kaze's eyes, Suguru Geto couldn't help sitting up straight as well.

"Our first step is to bring Gojo Sensei into our plan!"

Aikawa Kaze: Smile.JPG ✪ω✪

Suguru Geto: "!!!" Σ( ° △ °|||)︴