Over the course of a month, Sherlock had played with dogs in Akita, sneaked drinks in Wakayama, and run into Kumamon in Kumamoto Prefecture before finally landing at Naha Airport in Okinawa and happily stretching out on the beach to sunbathe.
Sherlock had practically toured every inch of Japan, but he had left out two places: Kyoto and Tokyo.
And Sherlock had perfectly sound reasons for leaving them out. Kyoto was the home turf of the Three Great Families, and Kyoto Jujutsu High was positively overflowing with talent. How could a Curse User like Suguru Geto possibly dare to wander around Kyoto?
What? Tokyo, you said?
That was even more impossible! Everyone knew that Satoru Gojo, the strongest of the modern age, was based in Tokyo. A Curse User stirring up trouble in Tokyo would be like an old man swallowing arsenic because he had lived too long!
Besides, Sherlock's "tracking investigation" was backed by sound reasoning and evidence! From start to finish, he had stayed hot on the heels of the Special Grade Curse User "Suguru Geto."
Whatever else might be said, Sherlock's photo-editing skills had certainly improved by leaps and bounds over the past month!
As for the higher-ups, those Old Orange-Peels weren't idiots either. They had sent Assistant Managers to urge Sherlock to finish his mission more than once, but Sherlock only ever had one response.
Still hard at work investigating!
Did they not know Sherlock was giving them the runaround? Of course they knew! The Time Vessel Association was a legally registered religious organization. A simple online search would immediately turn up the address of its headquarters, that main office building in Tokyo.
Unfortunately, that fellow named Sherlock insisted on playing dumb despite knowing perfectly well. Not only had he directly equated the Time Vessel Association in the mission with Suguru Geto, but he had even found reasonable, legitimate grounds for refusing to return to Tokyo.
The Old Orange-Peels didn't dare actually do anything to Sherlock. After all, they still didn't dare completely burn their bridges with Satoru Gojo. If they really dragged Sherlock back to Tokyo and shoved him into the Time Vessel Association, Satoru Gojo would probably blow up at them when he returned.
No one dared offend the strongest!
But likewise, that didn't mean those rotten Old Orange-Peels could only grit their teeth and reimburse Sherlock's expenses, even if the money he had spent eating, drinking, and having fun that month was nothing to them!
So the Old Orange-Peels, accustomed to hiding in the shadows, adopted an extremely underhanded method.
They had people discreetly leak the details of Sherlock's mission on Jujutsu Society's dark web, along with his itinerary and evidence.
Their scheme was simple. Since he wouldn't return to Tokyo to make contact with Suguru Geto, they would force Suguru Geto to approach Sherlock himself!
Besides, as the very first disciple of Satoru Gojo, the divine child of the Six Eyes, Sherlock already attracted plenty of attention. Even if Suguru Geto could sit still, those Curse Users with grudges against Satoru Gojo might not be able to!
Whoever it was, anyone getting rid of Sherlock would be a good thing!
But those Old Orange-Peels would never have imagined that Sherlock's actions would cause such an uproar on the anonymous dark web.
It wasn't because of the sordid dealings between Sherlock and the higher-ups. Rather, Sherlock's enterprise-grade interpretation of the word "investigation" and his top-tier execution had put the same question into the heads of a whole bunch of Curse Users and Jujutsu Sorcerers.
You could fucking do that?
So utterly shameless and unscrupulous was Sherlock's behavior that it actually earned him the title "Unprincipled Sorcerer" on the dark web. By association, people on that anonymous dark web also began repeatedly questioning Satoru Gojo's teaching abilities.
After all, how could anyone who taught an "Unprincipled Sorcerer" be any good himself?
Working overseas with no time at all to follow any of this, Satoru Gojo would never have imagined that Sherlock had already dragged his reputation as an educator through the mud before even graduating.
Utahime, Shoko, and Nanami looked at the comments they had posted on the anonymous forum, gleefully fanning the flames to ruin Satoru Gojo's reputation, then slowly put away the phones they had just used, concealing their deeds and taking no credit.
Of course, aside from Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto's reputation had also been dragged through the mud.
The reason was simple. Some internet wizard had somehow dug up that pile of "evidence" from Sherlock's mission records and found the social media account Sherlock had used to "track" Suguru Geto all along the way.
That wouldn't have been much of a problem, except that Sherlock had obtained all his photos of Suguru Geto from Satoru Gojo's and Shoko's phones.
It didn't take a brain to figure out what sort of photos of Suguru Geto his classmates would have kept all these years.
What's more, after cutting Suguru Geto out of each photo, Sherlock had edited a different female "teacher" in beside him every time.
Although everyone knew the pictures were edited, that certainly didn't stop them from using this to poke fun at the Special Grade Curse User Suguru Geto on the forum, while also mocking those embarrassing old photos of him.
And so Suguru Geto, who had long since risen to become the Monkey-Exterminating Cult Leader, had been minding his own business in his cult when blame came falling out of the sky. By the time he discovered what had happened, Sherlock had already started sunbathing on a beach in Okinawa!
Want to know the most fucked-up part?
Suguru Geto had been busy developing the Time Vessel Association. The one who discovered this was Nanako, the older twin who liked trendy things, and the first thing she found was the social media account Sherlock used to post his "leads"!
When Nanako brought the account to Suguru Geto, his first reaction was, When did I ever go to these places? His second was, Something's fucking wrong!
With no time to explain to Nanako just who those female "teachers" beside him were or what they did, Suguru Geto pulled out his phone and began frantically searching the Jujutsu Sorcerers' dark web.
The more Suguru Geto read, the higher his blood pressure rose, and the tighter he clenched his back teeth. He knew that infuriating feeling all too well-it was exactly the same as dealing with Dickhead Cat!
Fine, fine, fine. Truly a master and disciple cut from the same cloth. So that's how you want to play?
After reading through the whole affair, Suguru Geto's vision went black, and a nasty idea began taking shape on the spot.
He worked hard to suppress the urge to punch something, forced a smile that tried to make the best of a bad situation, and did his best to keep his expression from looking so twisted. Selectively ignoring Nanako and Mimiko's questions about whether all the women in the photos were their mothers, he spoke directly to the twins.
"Let's go on a trip together! Sunshine, the sea, the beach, biki... ahem, pretty swimsuits. What do you think?"
Sure enough, the two little girls, who weren't grown up yet, were almost immediately captivated by the scene Suguru Geto described. Both jumped up and cheered as they accepted his invitation, then excitedly ran back to their room to get ready.
As for where Suguru Geto was going?
Simple. Okinawa!
Of course he saw through those disgusting Old Orange-Peels' scheme, but that didn't stop him from heading to Okinawa to properly discipline that Dickhead Cat's disciple on his behalf!
As for why Suguru Geto was going to Okinawa rather than waiting for Sherlock to return before teaching him a lesson? Simple. Even though Suguru Geto had defected, he still had no fondness for those Old Orange-Peels. He certainly wasn't going to follow their wishes and make trouble for Satoru Gojo!
He and Satoru Gojo had only had a fight. It wasn't as if they had stopped being friends!