Countdown

In the first week of September, Suguru Geto began preparing.

He told no one his real plan. Around Satoru Gojo and Shoko, he acted as he always had: attending classes, training, occasionally taking on simple missions. His smile was as gentle as before, his voice as calm, his gaze as steady.

But Shoko noticed.

She noticed that Suguru Geto had started writing and sketching in a notebook, that he was making frequent trips to the records room, that he would suddenly stop eating in the cafeteria and stare out the window, lost in thought.

She said nothing. She merely took the cigarette out of her mouth, tapped it lightly against the table twice, and continued eating.

Satoru Gojo noticed too.

But he noticed something else: the flow of cursed energy within Suguru Geto was changing by the day. It wasn't growing stronger or weaker, but becoming more "dense." It was like a net being woven beneath the water. Nothing showed on the surface, but underneath, currents were already stirring.

Satoru Gojo still wore his sunglasses, still joked around, still slept through class. But his Six Eyes never left Suguru Geto.

Never.

On September fifth, Suguru Geto found Yu Haibara at the training grounds.

Haibara had just finished a set of hand-to-hand drills. Drenched in sweat, he was bent over drinking water. When he saw Suguru Geto approach, he straightened and flashed his signature smile.

"Geto!"

"Haibara." Suguru Geto sat on the bench beside him. "Stay close to me on the day of the mission."

"Yes!"

Haibara's answer was crisp and decisive, like a pebble dropped into a still lake, its ripples spreading outward, circle after circle.

Suguru Geto stood and brushed the dust off his trousers. He turned to leave, then heard Haibara speak behind him.

"Geto."

He stopped and looked back.

Yu Haibara stood there, sunlight falling across his young face and making his smile shine. But his eyes were different from usual. Rather than their carefree brightness, they held a deeper, more earnest light.

"Are you worried about something?" Haibara asked.

Suguru Geto was silent for a second.

"No," he said.

"That's good." Haibara smiled, and it was his usual smile again: bright, warm, unclouded. "Because with you around, I'm not afraid of anything."

Suguru Geto looked at him without speaking.

He turned and left.

He walked steadily, his stride exactly as it always was. But his throat tightened, as though something had lodged there that he could neither swallow nor spit out.

On September tenth, Suguru Geto found Shoko in the infirmary.

Shoko was sorting medical supplies. A few drops of some unidentified liquid stained her white coat, her hair was tied loosely behind her head, and a cigarette hung from her lips. This time it was lit, because no one else was there.

"Shoko," Suguru Geto said, leaning against the doorframe. "Do you have a moment?"

Shoko didn't look up. "No."

"I need a few things."

"What things?"

"Something to stop bleeding. Anti-inflammatories. And-" He paused. "A support reagent for Reverse Cursed Technique."

Shoko's hands paused. She raised her head and looked at Suguru Geto. There was no surprise in her eyes, no question, only a quiet composure, as though she had expected this all along.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Zama. Haibara's mission."

"I know that mission. Grade 2."

"It might be more than Grade 2."

Shoko stared at him for a few seconds, then lowered her head and continued sorting the supplies. She took a small bag from a drawer and began filling it: bandages, disinfectant, a hemostatic agent, a small vial of pale blue liquid.

"I don't have much of the support reagent for Reverse Cursed Technique," she said, sounding as though she were discussing today's cafeteria menu. "I can only give you this one vial. Use it sparingly."

"Thank you."

"No need." Shoko zipped the bag shut and handed it to him. "Just replace whatever you use when you bring it back."

Suguru Geto took the bag and hefted it. It was neither too heavy nor too light, and small enough to slip into the inner pocket of his uniform.

He turned to leave, but Shoko suddenly called him back.

"Geto."

He stopped without turning around.

"You never used to come asking for these things in advance." Shoko's voice came from behind him, soft and level, but every word seemed carefully considered. "You used to come to me only after you got hurt."

Suguru Geto didn't answer.

"So," Shoko said, "whatever you're going to do, come back alive."

Suguru Geto closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

"I will," he said.

As he left the infirmary, he heard the click of a lighter behind him. Shoko had lit another cigarette.

There were four days left until the mission.

Suguru Geto sat on his dormitory bed, a map of Zama City spread out before him. He had marked several places where the special grade cursed spirit might be hiding, based on the scattered reports and his own memories. Those memories were hazy, because he hadn't personally taken part in Haibara's mission back then. He had only heard the outcome.

But he knew one thing: that cursed spirit's cursed technique involved "suppression." It could conceal its cursed energy, disguising itself as something harmless-or even something that didn't exist.

That made conventional detection methods useless.

But Suguru Geto had Cursed Spirit Manipulation.

He could release large numbers of low-grade cursed spirits from his sleeves and use sheer numbers to cover every area. That special grade cursed spirit could hide its cursed energy, but it couldn't hide its "existence." When hundreds of cursed spirits scanned an area at once, any "blank spot" would become a suspicious signal.

This was the plan he had spent three weeks preparing.

But it still wasn't enough.

A special grade was a special grade. Even with him and Haibara together, even with Satoru Gojo joining them, any lapse against an intelligent special grade cursed spirit could mean death.

He needed more preparation.

Suguru Geto took a small notebook from beneath his pillow. It contained his own notes, recording all the knowledge of cursed spirits he had gathered over the next ten years. Not all of it, because he didn't dare write too much. If someone saw it, he would have no way to explain. But it was enough.

He turned to a page that read:

"Suppression-type cursed spirit. Characteristics: extremely unstable cursed energy fluctuations, alternating between strong and weak, capable of dropping to almost zero. Weakness: at the instant it activates its cursed technique, its cursed energy briefly surges, revealing its true location. Attack at that exact instant."

This was a lesson he had drawn from a mission in the future. He hadn't subjugated that particular cursed spirit-by then, he no longer took missions-but he had studied similar cursed spirits.

The key was patience.

He had to wait for it to strike.

Only when it struck would it reveal itself.

Suguru Geto closed the notebook and tucked it beneath his pillow again. He lay down and looked at the ceiling.

A thin crack ran across the ceiling, stretching from the light fixture to the corner. He had never noticed it before. But now he looked at it every day. It grew longer little by little, like marks on a measure of time, silently recording each passing day.

The day before the mission.

Suguru Geto sat on his dormitory bed and inspected his cursed tools one by one. Three cursed swords, a short dagger, and the small cursed spirit he carried with him-a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit capable of producing a protective barrier. He had deliberately drawn on information from his memories to subjugate it ahead of time.

Someone knocked.

It wasn't Satoru Gojo's usual careless knocking, but three measured knocks, neither soft nor loud.

Suguru Geto opened the door.

Kento Nanami stood outside.

He wore a dark shirt, his uniform jacket draped over one arm, and held a folder in his hand. His expression was as serious as ever, but Suguru Geto noticed how tightly his lips were pressed together, how taut the line of his jaw was.

"Nanami?" Suguru Geto stepped aside to let him in. "What's wrong?"

Kento Nanami entered the room and stood by the window with his back to Suguru Geto. He looked outside and remained silent for a long time.

Suguru Geto didn't hurry him.

He knew Kento Nanami wasn't someone who spoke easily. If he had something to say, it had to be something he had considered for a long time and felt he couldn't leave unsaid.

"Geto," Kento Nanami finally began, his voice low. "Haibara..."

He stopped.

Suguru Geto waited.

"Haibara trusts people too much," Kento Nanami said, an emotion in his voice that Suguru Geto had never heard before. It wasn't anger or sadness, but something more complicated, like worry tangled with helplessness. "He believes everyone is good. He believes every mission will go smoothly. He believes-he believes he won't die."

Suguru Geto's heart clenched.

"He won't die," Suguru Geto said.

Kento Nanami turned to look at Suguru Geto. His pale eyes seemed especially bright in the dim light.

"How do you know?" Kento Nanami asked.

Looking into his eyes, Suguru Geto said, each word deliberate, "Because I won't let him die."

The room fell silent for a few seconds.

Kento Nanami stared at Suguru Geto for a long time, as though weighing those words. Then he lowered his head slightly.

"Geto," he said, "I... I don't know how to put this. But I feel like you've been different lately."

"Different how?"

"You used to..." Kento Nanami chose his words carefully. "You used to be very steady. Like a rock. No matter what happened, you wouldn't budge. You're still steady now, but it's a different kind of steadiness." He paused. "As though you know what's going to happen."

Suguru Geto's heart skipped a beat.

But his expression didn't change.

"You're overthinking it, Nanami," he said calmly. "I'm only doing what I should."

Kento Nanami looked into his eyes, then nodded.

"I'm counting on you," he said.

His voice was quiet, but the words carried weight.

After Kento Nanami left, Suguru Geto sat alone in his room, gazing into the night outside the window.

September's nights had begun to lengthen. Darkness came earlier, and dawn arrived later. He sat there without moving, like a statue.

He was thinking about one thing.

If-just if-I manage to save Yu Haibara, what then?

Haibara survives. Then what?

Suguru Geto would still be Suguru Geto. He would still see the stupidity and ugliness of non-sorcerers, still feel that disgust rising from deep within his bones, still make the same choice he had last time, one day. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but someday.

Saving Yu Haibara wouldn't save Suguru Geto himself.

He knew that.

But he still wanted to save him.

Not because saving Yu Haibara would change anything, but because Yu Haibara shouldn't have died. No one should have died. Riko Amanai shouldn't have died. Yu Haibara shouldn't have died. Of the people he had later killed, perhaps some had deserved death, but most hadn't.

Suguru Geto closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall.

He remembered a scene-not from the future, but from the past. Back at Jujutsu High, when Yu Haibara first met him, he had smiled and bowed a full ninety degrees, saying, "Geto, I look forward to learning from you." The sunshine had been lovely that day, and Haibara's smile had been bright. So bright that Suguru Geto still remembered it now.

He would remember that smile.

Even if he ultimately became a curse user again, even if he ultimately died at Satoru Gojo's hands again, he would remember that smile.

Late at night, September fifteenth.

Suguru Geto lay in bed, awake.

He was waiting for a particular time: four in the morning. He planned to get up then, leave at five, and reach Zama at six. The cursed spirit's activity patterns showed that it was most active in the early morning. If they were going to fight it, they had to do so when it was most active.

The door opened without a knock.

Satoru Gojo walked in wearing pajamas, his hair a mess, without his sunglasses. His azure eyes glimmered in the darkness-not truly glowing, but with the peculiar visual effect of the Six Eyes that made them look like two stars.

"Satoru?" Suguru Geto sat up. "What are you-"

"Can't sleep." Satoru Gojo plopped onto his bed and crossed his legs like a child. "Came to chat."

"It's one in the morning."

"That's why it's called a late-night chat."

Suguru Geto looked at him and sighed helplessly. He leaned back against the headboard and pulled the blanket up to his waist. "About what?"

Satoru Gojo tilted his head and thought for a moment.

"Tomorrow," he said.

"What about tomorrow?"

"We're going to Zama tomorrow." Satoru Gojo's tone was casual, but Suguru Geto noticed his fingers tighten slightly against his knees. "You said it was a gut feeling. I told you I had one too."

"So?"

"So I want to ask you something." Satoru Gojo raised his head, his azure eyes fixed on Suguru Geto. "When did you first know something was wrong with that mission?"

Suguru Geto fell silent.

Three seconds.

Five seconds.

"A long time ago," he said.

"How long?"

"So long I can't remember."

Satoru Gojo stared at him for a few seconds, then smiled. It was a faint, gentle smile, like a leaf landing on water, barely raising a ripple.

"All right," he said. "If you won't tell me, I won't ask."

He stood, smoothed the wrinkles in his pajamas, and walked to the door. Then he stopped without looking back.

"Geto," he said quietly, "whatever happens tomorrow, I'll stand in front of you."

Suguru Geto's heart gave a sudden, hard beat.

"Why?" he asked.

Satoru Gojo looked back. Moonlight spilled through the window onto his white hair and eyelashes, making him look like someone who didn't belong to this world.

"Because you're my best friend," he said. "The only one."

Then he left.

The door closed softly behind him.

Suguru Geto sat in the darkness, listening as Satoru Gojo's footsteps faded into the distance. He lowered his head and looked at his hand. It was trembling.