"Right here! Master, this is the place!"
The old village chief practically jogged to the dilapidated wooden hut at the edge of the village in his eagerness. His face bore a nauseating mix of fanaticism and obsequiousness, and his withered fingers impatiently seized the rusty iron chain locking the wooden door, producing a grating metallic scrape.
He was about to take out his key and open the door that imprisoned the "monsters" for you, thereby demonstrating his village's "determination" to vanquish evil and uphold righteousness.
Bang!
A hand reached past the village chief's shoulder and pressed heavily against the rotten wooden door.
The tremendous force made the entire door creak under the strain and forcibly silenced the clattering chain.
The village chief shuddered all over and turned around, his face full of bewilderment.
Your impassive face was reflected in his cloudy eyes.
"M-Master... what do you mean by this...?"
The village chief drew his neck back in confusion. The villagers who had followed to watch, carrying torches and farming tools, also stopped and exchanged glances.
As far as they understood, now that the exorcists were here, shouldn't they immediately cast their spells and eliminate the monsters?
You did not look at the village chief's face, etched with wrinkles and malice. You merely stared at the rough wood grain prickling your palm, your voice utterly flat.
"It's a little dangerous inside. Let me... make a few more preparations."
"All right, then..."
Although your explanation left the village chief full of doubts, completely unable to understand what "preparations" opening a door required, his instinctive awe of you "important people from Tokyo" made him sheepishly release the chain and step aside, choosing to wait and see.
A brief, deathly silence fell before the hut, broken only by the night wind moaning through bare branches and the villagers' ignorant whispers a short distance away.
"Why has the master stopped?"
"Are the monsters inside too powerful?"
"What's there to be afraid of? Just burn those two jinxes to death, and it'll all be cleansed..."
Ignoring the malice buzzing around you like flies, you slowly turned your head and directed your gaze toward Suguru Geto, who stood a few steps away.
Calling Suguru Geto's expression "ugly" no longer sufficed. His face was ashen with extreme suppression, as though his stomach were churning violently.
You looked deeply at him and asked a question that sounded like a verdict.
"At this distance... you should be able to sense it by now, shouldn't you, Geto?"
What you meant by "sense" was not the nauseating, immense cursed residue of some Grade 1 Cursed Spirit, but the two trembling traces of human cursed energy behind this thin wooden door, so faint they were almost extinguished.
Suguru Geto was intelligent-one could even call him Jujutsu High's most perceptive genius aside from Satoru Gojo.
The original mission briefing had said "Grade 1 Cursed Spirit," followed by the village chief's absurd claim that "we locked the monsters up," along with your various unusual actions throughout the journey, your vague hints, and your deliberate dismissal of the Assistant Supervisor just now...
All those clues, together with the two faint traces of cursed energy his Special Grade senses now detected-all the pieces crashed together in his mind.
He did not even need to investigate why you seemed to possess the ability to "foresee the future," because the cruelest truth already lay naked before him.
He had already imagined what an absurd scene he would find behind that foul-smelling door.
Not some blue-faced, fanged curse, but two young Jujutsu Sorcerers who, merely because they possessed cursed energy and could see things ordinary people could not, had been treated as monsters by these ignorant "monkeys," chained inside a cage, and subjected to every kind of torment and abuse.
"Shunchen..."
Suguru Geto's voice was terrifyingly hoarse, like bloody froth squeezed from the depths of his throat. He stared fixedly at your hand pressed against the door and demanded an answer.
"What are you still waiting for?"
You did not remove your hand. You knew better than anyone what the hell behind that door looked like. You had stopped the village chief not to stall for time, but to stop Suguru Geto from falling into the abyss.
Looking into his eyes, bloodshot with extreme rage and the collapse of his faith, you spoke with utmost seriousness, enunciating every word.
"I only hope you can calmly face what you're about to see."
"Geto, I don't want you to use the scene behind that door as an excuse to fully embrace that... 'irrational,' insane idea you proposed at school."
You were reminding him, reminding him not to forget your argument in front of the vending machines.
Reminding him that no matter how ugly or disgusting these non-sorcerers were, once he chose to bring down that butcher's blade, he himself would become a monster who would purge even babies.
At your words, Suguru Geto's body trembled violently. He understood your warning.
Yet his expression only grew darker. The gentle smile that had always lingered at the corners of his mouth had now been replaced by a cold, deathly emptiness.
You could not have made yourself any clearer. The scene behind that door was the perfect antithesis of the "Greater Good" and "the strong protect the weak" he had upheld all his life-a sight he, as a Special Grade Sorcerer, could never accept.
Suguru Geto lowered his eyelids slightly. In those narrow, foxlike eyes, the last glimmer of "humanity" was rapidly fading.
He neither answered your warning nor argued against it.
He merely raised his head and issued you a brief command in a voice devoid of warmth.
"Open it."
The villagers around you continued their chatter, their ignorant gazes darting between the two of you, baffled by the strange, hostile tension between these two "masters."
These ignorant humans had no idea that once that door opened, what emerged would no longer be any so-called monster, but a true "god" who was about to slaughter their entire village.
Before you continue