Jujutsu Headquarters.
The moment Satoru and the others forced their way inside, the defensive measures stationed there reacted immediately.
It didn't matter.
Against them, the sorcerers assigned to guard the place were utterly outmatched. They couldn't even slow them down.
In truth, Gojo and the others barely needed to lift a finger.
Betty moved ahead of them, cutting through the resistance with effortless precision. One after another, the defenders fell, and the path opened cleanly all the way to the core.
She cleared the way straight to the higher-ups.
From inside the chamber, the officials could hear the fighting drawing closer, each impact echoing like a countdown. Footsteps followed, steady and unhurried.
With every step, the pressure grew heavier, swelling like a rising tide.
Closer.
Closer.
By the time it reached its peak, the footsteps stopped just outside the door.
The room fell into suffocating silence.
The door creaked open.
Gojo stepped inside as if he were entering his own home. Several high-ranking officials stood waiting, tense and on edge, their expressions tight with unease.
"Hard to get an audience with you old men," he said, his voice calm and distant.
The moment he spoke, something invisible spread through the room.
The air itself seemed to collapse.
A crushing force slammed down on the officials, multiplying gravity several times over. They were driven to the floor in an instant, pinned flat like broken dolls.
They weren't like Toji. They didn't have a Heavenly Restriction to reinforce their bodies.
"Careful now," Geto said lightly.
Cursed Spirits drifted behind him, their twisted forms crowding the air as they closed in on the fallen men.
"I wouldn't move if I were you. Things could get ugly."
The low growls of the spirits filled the room. Up close, their distorted bodies loomed like nightmares made flesh.
Even as sorcerers, the officials knew they wouldn't have time to activate a technique before being torn apart.
Gojo looked down at them, sprawled at his feet like discarded corpses.
A faint, cold smile curved his lips.
"Satoru Gojo, have you lost your mind?"
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Do you even realize where you are? This isn't a place where you can—"
"Shh."
He cut them off with a quiet sound.
"Surprised?" he asked.
"Can't make sense of it?"
His gaze swept over them, sharp and merciless.
"I figured you'd understand the moment I showed up here."
"Looks like I gave you too much credit."
"Gojo," one of them forced out, voice strained under the pressure, "leave now while you still can. We can pretend none of this happened."
"Pretend?" he echoed softly.
"You really are something."
He took a step forward.
"You're the rot at the heart of Jujutsu Society."
"As long as you exist, everything stays buried under your decay."
"I came here to end that."
"To cut it out completely."
"What nonsense are you spouting?"
"If you eliminate us, everything will fall into chaos!"
"Chaos?"
Gojo's voice remained light, but there was no room for argument in it.
"The world doesn't fall apart just because a few people disappear."
"You don't care about the future of Jujutsu Society. You care about your power."
"And if all you do is hold things back… then you don't need to exist."
The words landed like a verdict.
The officials felt their hearts drop, sinking into a cold, endless pit.
They had held power for too long not to recognize resolve when they saw it.
And what stood before them wasn't hesitation.
It was certainty.
Still, they refused to give up.
"Gojo, you're young. You don't understand why we made the decisions we did."
"We can explain everything."
"If there's something you disagree with, we can change it."
"Yes, that's right."
"Jujutsu Society needs all of us working together to improve. Someone like you, someone who dares to point out our mistakes, you're exactly what we need—"
They changed tactics mid-sentence, abandoning authority for appeasement, trying to soften him, to buy time.
Survival came first.
If they could leave this room alive, there would always be ways to restrain him later.
After all, no one was without weakness.
Power alone didn't mean freedom.
That was what they believed.
They were wrong.
A dull, wet sound cut through the air.
One of them stiffened mid-sentence.
Blood sprayed outward, bright and sudden, splattering across Betty's pale cheek.
A violet arrow had pierced straight through his chest.
His life drained away in seconds.
"Honestly," Betty muttered, frowning slightly, "couldn't this have ended sooner?"
Gojo glanced down at the corpse, then reached out and gently patted her head.
"Don't worry. I won't drag it out."
"I'll handle the rest."
He understood her.
Back in the Forbidden Library, even after he destroyed her most precious possession, the Book of Wisdom, she hadn't truly lashed out at him.
At her core, she was kind.
In all the time he had known her, the only person she had ever killed with her own hands was Toji.
And that had been because she thought he was in danger.
Fear and anger had pushed her over the edge.
Now, she stood here for a different reason.
To share the burden with him.
After all, destroying Cursed Spirits and killing people were not the same thing.
"Looks like you beat me to it," Geto said with a wry smile, scratching his head.
The Cursed Spirits around him surged forward.
"No!"
"Stop!"
"Help me, please!"
The room filled with screams.
Gojo walked through them.
He didn't use Blue.
He didn't use Red.
He simply reached out, applying the Limitless Cursed Technique directly.
Invisible pressure crushed down.
One by one, the officials were compressed, their bodies collapsing under an overwhelming force until nothing remained but silence.
It didn't take long.
The screams faded.
The room grew still.
"It's over," Gojo said quietly.
He stood in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by bodies, his clothes stained red.
Betty looked at him, her expression complicated.
"It didn't have to end like this."
"It did," he replied.
He glanced down at the blood on his hands, then smiled.
Under the crimson, the expression looked almost warped.
"This is something worth remembering."
"It's proof of what I've become."
"What are you even talking about?" Geto cut in, wrinkling his nose as he stripped off his blood-soaked jacket and tossed it aside.
"Enough with the cryptic nonsense. Let's go wash up. You're disgusting."
"All right, all right," Gojo sighed, the mood breaking instantly.
"I finally get a moment to reflect, and you ruin it."
"Yeah, yeah. Reflect all you want. I'm going to shower before I lose my appetite."
"Oh, right. Dinner."
Gojo blinked, then nodded.
"You've got a point."
"Come on, Betty."
He glanced back at the room once more.
"Who knows, we might be back here again someday."
"…Did you really need to say that out loud?" Geto muttered.
"Sorry."
They left just as easily as they had entered.
And within moments of their departure, the news spread.
The complete massacre of Jujutsu Headquarters' leadership.
In the modern world, information traveled fast. A few messages, a few calls, and the entire Jujutsu Society knew.
Shock rippled through everyone.
Sorcerers.
Curse Users.
If Cursed Spirits could understand it, even they would have been stunned.
No one could have imagined it.
The rising star of the Gojo Family, the man already considered the strongest of the next generation, had wiped out the very core of the system.
Panic followed.
People scrambled for answers.
Some feared what it meant.
If Gojo could kill the higher-ups without hesitation, what about everyone else?
Even the most reckless Curse Users found themselves uneasy.
This wasn't good news for them either.
If someone like him turned against the world, there would be nowhere to hide.
For many, that night passed in restless fear.
And yet, the man at the center of it all couldn't have cared less.
Gojo soaked comfortably in his bath at home, steam curling around him as he leaned back against the tub.
Later, he would have dinner with Riko and the others.
The contrast made him pause.
All that hesitation before.
All that thought.
And in the end, it had been this simple.
His mind drifted to Betty.
If not for her, who knew how long it would have taken him to act?
"Let's hope they're not stupid enough to push things further," he murmured, staring up at the fogged ceiling.
By the next morning, the entire Gojo Family was under scrutiny.
Speculation ran wild.
Gojo ignored it.
He strolled into Jujutsu High with Betty and Geto as if nothing had happened.
"Hey, Yaga-sensei," he called out with a bright grin. "Miss us?"
Masamichi Yaga looked at the two of them, his usually stern face filled with weary exasperation.
"I thought I'd hear about something like this beforehand."
"You did," Gojo replied casually. "I told you a while ago."
Yaga removed his glasses, pulling out knitting needles and yarn with practiced ease.
"What are you planning to do next?"
"Nothing special. Things stay the same."
He shrugged.
"I'm not taking over Jujutsu Headquarters. I just didn't want things to stay rotten."
"The Gojo Family will release a statement today explaining what happened."
"As for who takes charge afterward, that's not my concern."
Yaga's expression darkened.
"That's… incredibly irresponsible."
"Then how about this?" Gojo said, as if struck by a brilliant idea.
"You take the position."
Yaga froze.
"I was already thinking about it before. This works out perfectly."
"If you're in charge, Panda and the others can exist openly without anyone targeting them."
"And honestly, no one fits that role better than you."
He tilted his head slightly.
"Gakuganji from Kyoto isn't bad either. You two get along, right? You could handle it together."
Yaga's face turned black with irritation.
"And what about Jujutsu High? I'm the only teacher here."
"You can recruit more," Gojo said without hesitation.
"The bigger issue is fixing what's broken at the top."
"And come on, does Geto even need a teacher? He's out on missions all the time anyway."
"Kento and Yu are solid too. If you're worried, they can teach in the future."
"You can take your time finding people you trust."
He smiled.
"So, what do you think, Yaga-sensei?"
Yaga stared at him in silence, the weight of everything settling in.