The end

The next day, Suguru Geto took Tokieda to the hospital. Tokieda also told him where the missing jujutsu sorcerers were, and Geto sent people to bring them back.

Afterward, he drove to Kumano with Satoru Gojo.

Suguru Geto leaned back in the passenger seat, looking out the window.

Before long, they arrived.

Satoru Gojo parked at the entrance to the ancient trail. The car could go no farther. The source of the echo lay deep along the trail.

Suguru Geto got out and stood at the entrance. He drew a deep breath and felt the echo pulse inside him.

"It's waiting for you," Satoru Gojo said, coming to stand beside him.

Suguru Geto nodded and took his first step.

The stone steps were steep and covered in moss, slippery underfoot. The two walked single file, neither saying a word.

After about twenty minutes, the steps leveled out, and the cedars on either side grew sparser. A small clearing appeared ahead, with a stone marker standing in it. Engraved on the marker were the words "Do Not Enter."

Behind the marker, an even narrower path led deeper into the woods. Faded shimenawa ropes hung along both sides, strung with white paper streamers that swayed gently in the wind like wingless butterflies.

Suguru Geto stopped in front of the stone marker and went no farther.

The echo began pulsing violently in his chest. It wanted out. It wanted to return to where it had come from.

"It's right here," Suguru Geto said.

"I can't see inside," Satoru Gojo said, a rare note of caution in his voice.

"Wait for me out here," Suguru Geto said.

Then he turned, went around the marker, and stepped onto the path hung with shimenawa ropes.

The path was barely wide enough for one person. The trees on either side grew denser, and the air became damper, colder, quieter. Only the pulsing of the echo remained.

It had become entirely separate from his heartbeat, pounding in his chest at a completely different rhythm, faster and harder.

Suguru Geto pressed a hand to his chest and kept walking.

At the end of the path was a tiny clearing. In its center stood a black stone, not very large, reaching roughly to his knees.

Then he crouched and placed his hand on the stone. He felt a faint pulse, exactly like that of the echo.

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

The echo flowed from his chest into his arm, from his arm into his palm, and from his palm into the stone.

Then the last strand of light vanished.

Suguru Geto could no longer feel the echo inside him. His emotions were complicated.

That thing had lived in symbiosis with him for months. It had been inside him, but it had never belonged to him. He had merely been its vessel, its host. It had spent months inside him, feeding on the fragments he swallowed, growing until it was whole.

Meanwhile, several uninvited visitors arrived at the clearing with the stone marker outside.

When Suguru Geto emerged, the first thing he saw was not Satoru Gojo, but several people lying unconscious on the ground. One looked somewhat familiar. She seemed to be Hazuki.

Satoru Gojo was poking their heads with a finger as he said, "Geto, you took forever. These people showed up not long after you went in, and they wanted to go in too. They were so weak. How boring."

"I'm done here. Let's head back."

Satoru Gojo looked at him and nodded.

"Let's go, then."

With that, Satoru Gojo made a call, asking the Association to send someone to take Hazuki and the others away. Then they headed down the mountain.

Suguru Geto followed behind him. The two walked single file, and Satoru Gojo never asked what had happened after Geto went inside.

Suguru Geto reached the car, opened the door, and settled into the passenger seat. Satoru Gojo had already started the engine. The stereo was off, and the engine sounded particularly loud in the silent mountain woods.

The car left the dirt road, joined the highway, and headed north.

Suguru Geto leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed.

He thought of Satoru Gojo, of how he had always been beside him, from the special grade cursed spirit in Zama City to every fragment in Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa, right up to this moment.

Suguru Geto suddenly wanted very much to see the expression on Satoru Gojo's face. But he did not look, suppressing the thought.

The car sped through the night. Outside the window, the mountains had blurred into black silhouettes, and stars lit up in the sky one by one. Satoru Gojo remained silent, but his right hand left the steering wheel and came to rest on the gearshift. It was less than ten centimeters from Suguru Geto's left hand.

Suguru Geto did not open his eyes.

But his left hand, resting on the seat, moved one centimeter in that direction.

Just one centimeter.

Then it stopped there.

Satoru Gojo's hand stayed still. The gearshift was cool, its leather covering stiffening slightly in the night breeze. But at the knuckle of his little finger, his hand, too, shifted one centimeter toward Suguru Geto.

A gap less than a finger's width lay between their hands.

Neither moved again.

The car was quiet.

The car kept heading north.