Reverse Cursed Technique

Once Satoru Gojo spelled it out, Suguru Geto followed his train of thought and understood what he meant. Delight instantly spread across his face.

"You mean the fallback Asahi left behind?"

Satoru Gojo nodded, but his eyes never left the sky. He stared straight at the dazzling sun.

"Don't forget his special constitution. He has the exact same heavenly restriction as that monster."

"Riko Amanai's blood already carries his soul, and there's a trace of cursed energy flowing through it too. All of that belongs to Asahi."

So that was it!

Then all they needed was to transfuse some of Riko Amanai's blood into Kamo Xu's corpse and use Shoko Ieiri's Reverse Cursed Technique to reconstruct his circulatory system!

After that, they just had to...

But that excitement soon cooled.

Kamo Xu's brain was already completely dead. Even if his circulation was restored, his shattered heart couldn't pump blood through his body again.

Supposing they reconstructed his circulation, Shoko Ieiri could heal his damaged heart. But what about his brain?

Were they supposed to bring Kamo Xu back as a vegetable?!

"We have to try. Whether it works or not, we have to try."

Satoru Gojo spoke up. This was no longer about fretting over what would happen to Kamo Xu afterward. Right now, they absolutely couldn't let him die like this.

With a plan in mind, the two rushed back into Jujutsu High with Riko Amanai.

In the dim operating room, Shoko Ieiri crouched in a corner with a lit cigarette between her lips.

Her breath stirred the white smoke rising from it, but the ember at its tip never flared or dimmed.

It looked more like a burning stick of incense. She wasn't smoking it, merely letting it burn.

An overlong column of ash fell and broke apart on her skirt and stockings, where quite a bit of similar ash had already accumulated.

Shoko Ieiri looked at the person lying quietly nearby. Not long ago, he had been joking with her about relying on her to save him if he was ever close to death.

"You could've at least given me time to save you..."

She buried her face in her arms and curled in on herself. With that movement, the ash on her skirt rubbed deep into the fabric...

That looked like it would be hard to wash out.

Bang!

The operating room door burst open. The crash startled Shoko Ieiri, and the cigarette dropped straight from her mouth, burning a hole in her uniform.

"Shoko!" Satoru Gojo shouted. "Quick, quick, quick! Use Reverse Cursed Technique on this girl's blood!"

"Huh?"

"Hurry!" Suguru Geto urged. "Before her wound heals, get some blood out and pour it into Asahi!"

Shoko Ieiri looked at Riko Amanai, who wore an innocent expression and stared back with big, round eyes, then turned a shocked gaze on the two apparently brain-damaged idiots.

Had these two taken hard hits to the head and never recovered...?

Are you two insane? Don't you know kidnapping is illegal?

Skipping over the explanation, Shoko Ieiri used Reverse Cursed Technique on a drop of blood Satoru Gojo had drawn from Riko Amanai's body with cursed energy...

The rounded drop of blood suddenly shook violently!

Then it split...

Two drops, four drops-the number doubled again and again!

Soon, the blood gathered back into a sphere, but its volume now equaled all the blood in a human body!

Satoru Gojo had intended to use cursed energy to push the blood into Kamo Xu himself. Before he could act, however, it broke free of his cursed energy's restraint and flew toward Kamo Xu's pale corpse on its own!

It entered his body through his eyes, nose, mouth, and the two open wounds.

His circulatory system began reconstructing itself!

"Holy... is this guy even human?" Satoru Gojo couldn't help marveling. Shoko Ieiri paid that no mind. As soon as all the blood had flowed into his body, she immediately released pure positive energy into his injured flesh again.

New flesh began sprouting in his heart, pushing the torn fragments out of his body. Then his two open wounds and his lungs began repairing themselves at the same time.

After a long while, a heartbeat thundered out, strong and powerful!

Satoru Gojo's theory had worked. Kamo Xu had truly come back to life under these unbelievable circumstances!

His heartbeat accelerated, sounding like a war drum pounding on an ancient battlefield. It beat incredibly fast, and its volume was nothing to scoff at either.

But soon, the sound gradually softened, and its rhythm returned to normal.

"Is... is he okay now?" Riko Amanai asked Satoru Gojo as she watched Kamo Xu lying on the operating table.

Satoru Gojo didn't answer immediately. He was completely focused on examining Kamo Xu's condition with the Six Eyes.

His organs gradually recovered. His heartbeat was steady and strong, and his pulse and breathing slowly resumed...

Even his formerly faint cursed energy surged higher and higher, like a fire meeting dry wood!

"He's alive!"

Everyone's hearts eased at once, and exhaustion followed...

They had been through far too much that day. Anyone would have been half-dead with exhaustion after dealing with all this crap!

Yet while everyone else breathed a sigh of relief, Satoru Gojo's brow furrowed instead. He looked at Kamo Xu's head with concern.

There, the cursed energy in Kamo Xu's blood kept gathering, but it still couldn't enter...

He looked at Shoko Ieiri. She only shook her head, indicating that she didn't know either and was equally helpless.

"The damage to his brain's nerves is too severe, and he was dead far longer than a normal person could recover from. I don't know whether he'll wake up..."

"He will, sooner or later..."

Satoru Gojo was certain Kamo Xu wouldn't die so easily. This sun that shone upon the world had only set for the moment. Once the night passed, it would naturally appear again!

In pitch darkness, Kamo Xu's body drifted up and down, surrounded by warmth.

His consciousness sank into it, enjoying this brief tenderness.

Did I die again? Yeah, I died. After Toji Fushiguro beat me, I fired every last drop of blood out of my body.

No doubt about it. I was definitely dead.

So you could still think after dying...

A ripple stirred in the darkness, stretching out Kamo Xu's thoughts and smoothing them away.

Why think so much? Dead people should sleep...

[Dying without protecting anyone. How pathetic.]

This life went by so quickly. There wasn't even anything important worth remembering...

[You didn't even leave behind a decent story. How pitiful.]

He really was strong, that Heavenly Tyrant. His moves were way more outrageous than in the manga...

[He murdered your friend. How hateful...]

Ripples stirred again, pressing down the thoughts that had been smoothed away.

Was I really willing to let it end like this?

To sink into gentle death and end my story forever...

Fuck that...

The ripples turned into waves. The pitch-black shadows churned, and wave after overlapping wave was forced through the murky surroundings.

I came here to rewrite those tragic fates, to let unfortunate people smile!

How much had I given for that? Why should I die before getting anything in return?

[Whatever you lose, you gain in equal measure.] That was this world's binding vow, the basic framework governing the entire system.

Why should I die in such a pathetic way?

The warm darkness began to shatter. Bone-chilling cold blew through the cracks, and light forced its way into this world alongside it-light that hurt to the core!

[Reverse Cursed Technique]

It involved applying negative emotion to negative emotion, multiplying two negatives to produce positive energy. It sounded simple, but the person around him who could do it had absolutely no idea how to teach anyone else.

Shoko Ieiri would just stare with her beady eyes and say things like, "You go whoosh, then hah, and whoosh-hah does it."

Then she would look at Satoru Gojo, with veins bulging on his forehead, and Suguru Geto, whose brain had short-circuited, and mock them. "Don't get it? No talent~"

Now... Kamo Xu finally understood what she meant by going whoosh, then hah, then whoosh-hah.

Release cursed energy while releasing resentment or curses at the same time. Make one the core and the other the shell, then stack them alternately before releasing them all at once with a "whoosh-hah."

It had to be cursed energy as the shell and a curse as the core, then a curse as the shell and cursed energy as the core, alternating back and forth.

They had to link together like the links of a chain, or the output connection would break. No wonder it had given Satoru Gojo such a headache.

But wasn't that way too abstract...?

So that was what whoosh-hah meant?

Satoru Gojo had become the strongest. After he grasped Reverse Cursed Technique, both his cursed technique and his Limitless defense improved by far more than a little.

Under the sunlight, an eraser and a pencil were thrown at him simultaneously. The eraser passed through that thin layer of cursed energy defense and struck Satoru Gojo squarely on the head, while the pencil was stopped, suspended in midair.

Satoru Gojo raised a hand to catch the eraser, then grabbed the pencil as well.

"Yep, a complete success. My Limitless can distinguish between different dangerous objects now."

"Also... Riko! Couldn't you throw a little more gently?!"

Nearby, Amanai, who had adopted a baseball pitching stance to throw the eraser, curled her lips into a smile. She straightened up, planted her hands on her hips, and laughed proudly. "You should be praising my flawless aim! Don't sweat the details!"

This was everyday life at Jujutsu High. After the Time Vessel Association incident, they continued their usual days of exorcising cursed spirits.

Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, Shoko Ieiri, and a newly enrolled girl-Riko Amanai.

After the Time Vessel Association was wiped out, Tengen had indeed sent people to take Riko Amanai away. But they noticed something unusual as soon as they approached her.

The blood in Riko Amanai's body was filled with cursed energy!

It wasn't something she had awakened herself. It belonged to Kamo Xu.

At this point, she could no longer be considered a pure star plasma vessel. It wasn't just the cursed energy; there was an additional soul too...

That also came from Kamo Xu. The Jujutsu Higher-Ups didn't know whether assimilating such a star plasma vessel with Tengen would cause a collapse of cursed energy, or whether a clash of souls would lead to an early loss of control. They therefore abandoned the assimilation.

Once again, the sleeping Kamo Xu had saved Riko Amanai.

But because of the cursed energy and her special identity, she couldn't return to an ordinary life for the time being. So, after Satoru Gojo's vehement recommendation-dragging her along by force-she reluctantly agreed to transfer schools.

Miss Misato Kuroi had originally wanted to stay at Jujutsu High too, to continue caring for her young mistress. But Riko Amanai shook her head, saying that she was no longer the star plasma vessel and hoped Misato could live a life of her own.

Over the following months, the lively, cheerful girl naturally settled into the school.

"Nice throw, Riko~"

"Thanks for the compliment, Shoko~"

Experienced and knowledgeable, Suguru Geto spotted the trick at a glance after observing Satoru Gojo's cursed technique. He smiled and offered his guess. "Automatic selection of your technique's targets?"

"Smart. That's Geto for you. Though, to be precise, I'm the technique's target." Satoru Gojo pointed at Suguru Geto and struck an outrageously showy pose. "It used to be manual. Now it's fully evolved into automatic!"

Blah, blah, blah...

In short, he was even more badass.

"Speaking of which, Geto, have you put on weight?"

"Piss off. There are so many cursed spirit incidents to handle. You might not be tired, but I'm exhausted. Do you know how awful those cursed spirits taste?"

Arguments, too, were scenes worth painting in vivid strokes on the pages of youth.