[Location: Tokyo Jujutsu High. The Archives.] [Time: September 2007. Late Night.] . The summer of 2007 didn’t just end; it rotted away. It started with Riko Amanai. A girl with a future, erased by a bullet and the applause of ignorant monkeys. Then it was Toji Fushiguro, the man who broke the sky. And finally, Yu Haibara. A kid who just wanted to help people, sent home in a box because the higher-ups couldn't be bothered to grade a mission correctly.

The "Strongest Duo" was dead. In its place stood a god and a ghost.

Satoru Gojo had ascended. He had touched the core of cursed energy, figured out the trick to running his brain 24/7 without frying it. He was untouchable. Literal infinity wrapped around his skin. But Suguru Geto? Suguru was sinking into the mud, swallowing vomit-tasting curses and asking questions with no answers.

And then there was her.

Satoru sat in the archives, legs kicked up on a priceless table, flipping through mission reports he wasn't reading. His Six Eyes were throbbing behind his dark sunglasses, picking up on everything. Every flow of energy in the school.

He felt her signature. It was frantic. Erratic.

For weeks, she’d been a shadow. Quiet. Too quiet. Satoru had been so busy high on his own power trip, perfecting Red and Purple, that he hadn't noticed the silence stretching between the three of them until Suguru was already gone. Gone to slaughter a village. Gone to become a curse user.

Satoru crushed the paper in his hand. He wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

He felt her energy spike. Not towards the dorms. Towards the edge of the Tengen’s barrier.

---

[Location: The Main Torii Gate, Mountain Path Exit.] [Time: Same Night. 11:43 PM.] . The rain was coming down in sheets, a freezing, miserable downpour that turned the stone steps of Jujutsu High into a slick hazard. Thunder rattled the heavy timber of the Torii gate, flashing stark white against the black forest.

She was there. A lone figure with a bag slung over one shoulder, hair plastered to her face, trudging towards the exit. She looked like hell. She looked like she was marching to her own execution.

She took a step toward the boundary line.

BOOM.

The ground two inches in front of her toes exploded. Debris and stone shards scattered, but not a single pebble touched her—stopped by an invisible wall before it could graze her skin.

"Going for a midnight stroll?"

Satoru sat perched on top of the massive Torii gate, looking down at her. He didn't look like a student. He didn't look like a friend. He looked like a predator.

He hopped down, landing silently despite the heavy combat boots. He wasn't wearing his uniform jacket, just the fitted white button-up, soaked through instantly, clinging to the muscle underneath. No blindfold. No sunglasses. Just those terrified, terrifying blue eyes glowing in the dark, unblinking.

She didn't turn around. She just stood there, shoulders hunched, radiating that same sick, heavy despair that Suguru had reeked of.

"Report says you cleared out your room," Satoru said, his voice cutting through the sound of the rain. It wasn't playful. It was cold metal. "Personal effects gone. Uniform left on the bed. You even left your student ID."

He took a step forward. The pressure in the air spiked—heavy, suffocating. The birds in the nearby trees had stopped screaming minutes ago; even nature knew to shut up when he was pissed.

"I let Suguru walk," Satoru muttered, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. He closed the distance, looming over her. At 190cm, he cast a long shadow even in the dark. "I watched his back as he walked into a crowd in Shinjuku and I didn't do a damn thing. I thought, 'Maybe he needs space.' I thought, 'He'll come back.'"

He laughed, but it was a jagged, violent sound.

"And now you. You think because the system is shit, because the higher-ups are brain-dead fossils, that you get to just... punch out? You think you get to run to him?"

He was right in her personal space now. He could smell the fear on her, mixed with the ozone of the storm. She tried to move, to step around him, to offer some excuse about the mission, about the rot, about how she couldn't breathe here anymore.

Satoru’s hand shot out, slamming against the Torii post next to her head, boxing her in.

"Don't," he hissed, his face inches from hers. "Don't you dare lie to me. My eyes see everything, remember? I can see your heart rate. I can see the curse energy pooling in your gut. You're done. You're quitting."

The realization hit him then, harder than Toji’s blade ever had. She wasn't just leaving the school; she was leaving him. She was choosing a genocide-happy cultist over him because Satoru was 'The Strongest,' and the strongest doesn't need anyone, right?

That pissed him off.

"You think I'm going to let you walk out that gate and die in a ditch somewhere? Or worse, have me execute you in six months when you make the news?"

The air around them began to warp. The raindrops stopped falling around them, suspended in mid-air by the Infinity, creating a dry, breathless vacuum between their bodies.

"Suguru is gone. I can't save him. I can't fix his brain." Satoru’s voice dropped to a dangerous, guttural whisper, his eyes manic and wide. "But you? You're right here."

He grabbed her shoulder. His grip was bruising, possessive. There was no gentleness left in him tonight. Only desperation masked as tyranny.

"I don't care if you hate me. I don't care if you scream and cry and curse the day you met me. You aren't leaving this mountain."

His thumb press even more against her skin through the fabric.

"Try to run, and I'll drag you back to the dorms by your hair. Try to fight, and I'll knock you out before your neurons can even fire the signal to move. I’m the strongest sorcerer alive, sweetheart. Do you really think you can escape me?"