The one who returned from the dead

The rain kept falling.

Holding a black umbrella, heavy dark circles beneath her eyes, Shoko Ieiri headed straight for the hills behind Jujutsu High after finishing her treatment of Kento Nanami and Yuji Itadori.

Before that mound of earth, before that unmarked gravestone bearing neither name nor inscription, the strongest sorcerer of the age stood silently in the rain, his head bowed...

"You don't look so good. What happened?"

Shoko crossed the muddy ground to Satoru Gojo's side. He usually kept Limitless running automatically, but now, in a rare departure, he had deactivated it.

Cold rain slid down his cheeks. In his luminous azure eyes, there was only desolation and loneliness...

"Geto isn't dead."

Satoru Gojo's voice was quiet, but those few words made Shoko's heart tighten.

The rain washed away the lingering smell of alcohol and medicine in the air.

Yet that cold rain could not wash from their minds the image of that slender, upright, handsome boy, a smile always playing around his lips and eyes...

Once one of the Special Grade sorcerers, Suguru Geto had become a curse user and died in the rebellion he himself had sparked. It had always been a knot in both their hearts.

They had accepted that he had paid for his actions with his life, but they could neither understand nor accept why someone who had died would come back to life...

"Is the information reliable? This isn't something you can joke about..."

Shoko's fingers tightened slightly around her umbrella handle. She tried to reach into her pocket for a cigarette to ease the sudden surge of stress, but for some reason, the cigarettes she could usually retrieve without a thought seemed to have vanished from her white coat.

"I can't confirm the specifics, but what we do know is that Geto's [body] has indeed come back to life. And he's gathered quite a few intelligent Special Grade cursed spirits..."

"He hasn't used Cursed Spirit Manipulation. His relationship with those cursed spirits seems more like an alliance..."

"Or, more accurately, he's using them."

After saying all that, Satoru Gojo could barely stop himself from drawing a deep breath of cold air.

It was too similar. Far too similar.

Even though he did not want to admit it, based on the information they currently had, he would instinctively believe that Geto had returned from the dead-even if Hajime Kashimo told him that someone else might have "possessed" Suguru Geto's body.

After all, a cursed technique that could seize someone's body and suppress their soul...

He had never heard of such a thing...

"But if it really is you... why... why didn't you..."

His azure eyes remained fixed on the unmarked grave-

Expelled from Jujutsu High and sentenced to death, Suguru Geto had no right to be buried on these grounds.

Yet as his closest friend, Satoru Gojo had still erected an unmarked grave in the hills behind the school for the brother who had gone astray...

He could not understand.

If Suguru Geto really had returned from the dead...

Why had he not come to him first?

Could another sorcerer truly have possessed him using a cursed technique?

"I don't think a cursed technique that transfers souls exists."

The click and flare of a lighter interrupted Satoru Gojo's thoughts.

As though she had seen what was troubling him, Shoko Ieiri brought a cigarette to her lips while holding her umbrella over him.

As Jujutsu High's only doctor capable of efficiently applying Reverse Cursed Technique to others, Shoko Ieiri's knowledge of both souls and bodies ranked among the best in all of Jujutsu Society.

She could therefore say with near certainty that a cursed technique capable of stealing another person's body and forcibly possessing them most likely did not exist...

After all, a human's innate cursed technique generally could not be warped to that extent...

Unless whoever was responsible was not human...

"But if it's a cursed spirit, that doesn't make sense either."

Shoko's words made Satoru Gojo's mouth twitch. They both knew that becoming a cursed spirit required intense obsession and resentment, as well as being killed by the power of jujutsu.

And after his defeat, Suguru Geto had met none of the conditions for becoming a cursed spirit...

"Among the newly emerged cursed spirits, there's a Special Grade cursed spirit with the power to alter the shape of souls."

"Could it be that one's cursed technique...?"

But Satoru Gojo shook his head, rejecting Shoko's theory.

Even now, they had far too little information.

To truly uncover Suguru Geto's circumstances, Satoru Gojo would have to see him in person.

Yet Shoko's theory had inadvertently reminded him of another piece of information Hajime Kashimo had given him...

"Shoko, if a cursed technique could change the shape of someone's soul, could it allow an ordinary person whose jujutsu hasn't awakened to awaken their own cursed technique?"

"Hmm..."

Satoru Gojo's question stirred Shoko's memories and set her thinking.

After reviewing all her medical experience to date and her own accumulated knowledge, Shoko gave him the answer: [theoretically possible].

In principle, every person actually possessed an [innate cursed technique] unique to them.

Usually, however, the shape of a person's soul was fixed at birth. Even if everyone had their own cursed technique, without an outside influence to awaken their potential and alter the shape of their soul, it was virtually impossible for an ordinary person to become a jujutsu sorcerer through effort alone...

But now, the cursed technique [Idle Transfiguration] had completely broken the shackles preventing ordinary people from becoming jujutsu sorcerers.

The Special Grade cursed spirit with stitches on his face could alter other people's souls through touch, allowing those with exceptional talent who were held back by the shape of their souls to discover their own cursed techniques.

Junpei Yoshino, the ordinary high school student Hajime Kashimo had brought back, was an excellent example.

From becoming a curse user to discovering and mastering his own cursed technique, this high school student had taken less than half a month to accomplish what other Grade 4 sorcerers had failed to achieve in two or three months.

That alone undoubtedly showed that Junpei Yoshino had the potential and talent to become a higher-grade jujutsu sorcerer.

And what worried Satoru Gojo was the possibility of people like Junpei appearing in large numbers.

"If curse users like that kid start appearing in large numbers, it won't just put more pressure on Jujutsu High. Explaining things to society and the government won't be easy either..."

"Even if he's a Special Grade cursed spirit who hates humans from the bottom of his heart, a being with that level of intelligence probably won't play by the usual rules..."

"Especially when the strategist behind him is..."

Shoko trailed off, but Satoru Gojo did not need to hear the rest to understand what she meant.

If Suguru Geto truly had returned to life, then Mahito's cursed technique would be the ideal means of fulfilling his "righteous cause"...

That bastard had to be exorcised as soon as possible!!!

"Sorry for the trouble, but I may have to ask a lot of you for a while."

"The Goodwill Event is almost here. Unless something unexpected happens, those Special Grade cursed spirits will probably seize the opportunity to launch a surprise attack."

"Whether they target Jujutsu High itself or the streets of Tokyo, you may have to work overtime in the days ahead."

There was a trace of guilt and shame in Satoru Gojo's voice. He did not want to see the burden on Shoko's shoulders grow any heavier either.

But Jujutsu High's rotten leadership and the recent sharp increase in cursed spirits had left him feeling stretched too thin...

His three hours of sleep had already been cut down to less than two.

What else awaited him, the "strongest," in the days ahead?