Chapter Text
Faced with his best friend's accusation, Geto Suguru didn't get angry. He didn't sneer, either. He just smiled back, perfectly natural, like breathing.
It was as if he'd rehearsed this exact scene countless times in his head. Every movement carried the practiced precision of a stage actor hitting his mark.
"Specifically," he said, "what are you referring to?"
Gojo Satoru jerked his hand back like the words had physically struck him.
"Don't play dumb with me!! Did you do this?!"
"..."
Gojo jabbed a finger at the village in the distance , swallowed by fire, orange light bleeding into the dark sky. His expression held disbelief, fury, and something else underneath both of those.
Panic.
"Why did you do this?!"
"Go, don't get so worked up." Geto's voice stayed level. Then, as if making a small concession for his companion's sake, he glanced upward, thoughtful. "Didn't I tell you about the people in this village? You hated them too."
"Hah?!"
Gojo Satoru's fury spiked.
"You kill them just because you hate them?! Are you insane?!"
"Heh."
Geto Suguru looked almost amused. He opened his mouth to say something,
...
His lips stopped moving. His gaze dropped.
Nanako and Mimiko were behind him, their small hands trembling against his back. He noticed. And he stopped.
"Rather than that—" Geto changed the subject. "I thought Himmel would get here first. Knowing him, he would've figured this out before anyone else..." His eyes read Gojo's face and a faint understanding crossed his own. "Ah. That look. He told you, didn't he?"
Something like dry amusement entered his voice. "Himmel didn't come himself, of course. That's him. He'd think it'd be better for the two of us to work things out without him hovering over us." A quiet pause. "How kind of him, Go. You're really trusted."
How Himmel had worked this out.
It wasn't complicated. It just required thinking it through.
He'd already established one thing: [The mole in the upper echelons had been targeting Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru from the very beginning.]
Layer in the analysis of the Star Religious Group's strike on Geto's parents, and a few facts followed naturally.
Timing.
The enemy hadn't moved in November, when everyone's guard was down. That meant they had complete knowledge of everyone's schedules. Which meant they'd almost certainly rented the apartment downstairs in November, planted the bomb, and waited.
If they'd been following them that long, they knew about the Hasaba twins.
The twins were clearly important to Gojo and Geto. But , why? As far as the upper echelons knew, they were nobody. Because Yaga had kept Himmel's nature as a Shikigami secret. The twins had never formally enrolled.
So the mole would investigate.
And once they started investigating, they'd follow the thread. Trace the twins backward from the first moment they appeared. Pull surveillance footage, cross-reference travel records, work their way down the line until they found where the twins came from.
Which was this village.
Therefore.
[Since the mole had made contact with people in this village, the reverse was also true , Geto Suguru would come here, hunting for the mole's real identity.]
For someone as sharp and meticulous as Geto Suguru, the reasoning up to this point was easy.
Himmel had laid it all out for Gojo Satoru. And Gojo had come.
But,
"...Go. Your parents are fine."
Gojo Satoru pressed down on the anger coiling through him and said it straight.
"It's probably Nanako's technique. Her ability seems to work through a phone — she interferes with the existence of whoever's been photographed. She hid your parents inside a photo, and it shielded them through the first explosion."
Behind Geto, Nanako and Mimiko heard those words. Light rushed back into their eyes. Their grip on his sleeve tightened.
"After that, because Nanako was unconscious, the technique destabilized. But it didn't collapse outright — they weren't ejected. It held. They were only found near the scene tonight, after she woke up."
"They have some suffocation damage from being under the technique's effect that long. But Shoko can fix that. Quickly."
"So come back. Go!"
Nanako and Mimiko were trembling now, unable to stop themselves from looking up at Geto Suguru's face.
But,
Those eyes were exactly the same as before.
No light in them.
"I refuse, Go."
The man said it gently.
"My parents have nothing to do with it. Honestly, all of that , it doesn't matter."
"That incident was just a trigger. A reason to stop delaying."
"I've been struggling with this for a long time. Wavering. Using the time I spent with everyone to lie to myself, to push the decision further down the road. But it's over now. All of it."
"Go."
Geto Suguru looked at his best friend. No hatred in his eyes.
"It has nothing to do with any of it. I just..." A brief pause. "Can't keep living as a jujutsu sorcerer."
Nonsense.
Don't say something like that. Who the hell is supposed to understand that?
God, he wanted to grab the guy by the collar and beat him senseless , yell at him until his throat gave out, spit flying, the works.
But before he'd come here, Gojo Satoru had spoken with Himmel.
The Hero had given the young strongest exactly one right to be willful. One.
And alongside it, a piece of advice.
[Gojo, I might be overthinking things , but if you see Go, ask him this.]
"Answer me, Go."
Gojo Satoru's voice dropped. His eyes stayed locked on the stranger wearing his best friend's face.
"What did you see here?"
[.]
Geto Suguru's smile froze for half a second.
His heart skipped a beat.
A voice from the past caught up with him.
[Hey, long time no... no...]
Distorted sound. Clipped images. Like a television screen drowning in static.
What... had he seen?
[,, Geto ■■]
"Hah."
Geto Suguru crushed the restlessness rising in his chest and kept his voice even.
"...Figured it out."
"Of course. The timing doesn't add up."
Timing.
The explosion: [21:30].
Almost simultaneously, Himmel arrived on scene. Geto's parents were nowhere to be found. He made a guess, moved fast , took Nanako and Mimiko away and got them to the hospital.
Minutes later, surveillance footage caught Geto Suguru at the fire.
Then nothing. He vanished.
[21:50].
Gojo Satoru received word.
Everyone had been searching since then, until Himmel worked out where Geto might have gone , the Hasaba twins' original village.
And now, it was four in the morning.
Factor in travel time. Geto had been missing since 9:30. He returned to Jujutsu High at 3:00 AM, collected Nanako and Mimiko, and came back here , arriving at 4:00 AM.
One-way, using Cursed Spirits. An hour at most.
But Geto had vanished from city surveillance immediately after the explosion. No cameras caught him anywhere in the city. That meant he'd recognized the trail almost instantly , the Hasaba twins' village , and reached it somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 PM.
So.
The blank gap from 11:30 to 3:00 AM.
[What was Geto Suguru doing?]
[What had happened? What had he seen , that made him decide?]
"Not going to answer?"
Geto showed no sign of responding. Gojo Satoru ran a hand through his hair, impatience bleeding through.
"Fine. Then I'll just drag you back."
"Think you can?"
"Yeah."
Gojo Satoru's eyes went cold and flat.
"Even if I have to break every bone in your arms and legs first."
"Haha."
Geto laughed.
"Now that," he said, "I'm actually looking forward to."