Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 51 - Belated Vindication, Unreachable Number

Veins stood out on the back of Gojo Satoru's hand.

CRACK!

The old man's cervical vertebrae crushed under his bare grip.

His head dropped, boneless.

Gojo Satoru let go. The still-warm body slid down the wall and pooled on the floor like a burst sandbag.

This wasn't a battle. It was a one-sided, purely physical execution.

The slaughter kept spreading.

In the back of the room, a middle-aged official finally broke. His legs buckled. His knees hit the floor with a heavy crack.

"I was wrong!" he sobbed, tears and snot streaming down his face. "I really was wrong! Please, spare me!"

Toji's mouth pulled into a grin. "You know what I hate most? Apologies. After the fact."

He was already gone before the last word landed, a green blur tearing through the panicked mob, faster than any civilian eye could track.

One punch caved in an elder's sternum. His heart blew out through his back.

One kick snapped a director's spine. The man folded and dropped like something boneless.

No flashy technique exchanges. No Cursed Energy. Just the most primal, most brutal, most efficient way to harvest human bodies.

Ten minutes ago these old oranges had been sitting at the head of the table, issuing commands from on high. Now they were scattered across the floor in mismatched pieces.

The entire underground conference room had become a slaughterhouse.

A thick, gut-turning reek of blood rose to the ceiling. The walls were painted with splatter. Tissue clung to the marble.

The dignity and authority Jujutsu Headquarters had maintained for centuries, obliterated in minutes, by nothing but absolute physical violence.

Five minutes later.

The last surviving administrative assistant was wedged into a corner. A yellow stain spread beneath him. He looked up at the two figures standing among the carnage, his eyes rolled back, and he hit the floor unconscious.

Gojo Satoru looked away and walked toward the door.

Toji worked the pen he'd casually jammed into a senior official's eye socket earlier, pulled it free, wiped it clean on the dead man's jacket, and dropped it.

"Feel good?" Toji rolled his shoulders, flicked a bead of blood off the back of his hand.

Gojo Satoru let out a long, heavy breath. "Damn good."

"Only complaint — these old bones were way too brittle. Terrible hand-feel."

He tilted his head back and looked at what was left of the Barrier ceiling.

Jujutsu Headquarters: destroyed.

The filth they'd tried to bury Suguru under: washed clean, in the most direct way possible.

But Suguru still hadn't replied.

From the moment the recording went public until right now, Geto Suguru's line had been dead. Nothing but a flat, unreachable busy signal.

The two of them stepped over the bodies without a word and walked out through the conference room doors, their faces blank.

Yoshinobu Gakuganji was still standing in the hallway. Like a statue. He'd never moved.

The old man clutched his guitar, staring at the hell through the open doorway. A chill crawled up from the soles of his feet all the way to the crown of his skull. His entire body had gone cold.

"Tell the people outside to come in and clean this up," Gojo Satoru said, passing him without a single glance. He didn't even give Yoshinobu Gakuganji the edge of his peripheral vision.

"And pass something along to those cowards in the Kamo and Zenin Clans. Next time they try to push another fossil like these into power, I'll personally go and tear down both of their main family estates."

The two walked out of the Kyoto underground facility side by side. Neither of them looked back.

...

Iori Utahime's heel came down on something wet and yielding.

She looked down. In the stuttering light of the corridor's emergency lamps, she saw what was under her shoe, a chunk of flesh, a scrap of fabric still attached.

Her stomach lurched. She slapped a hand over her mouth, braced against the ruined wall, and dry-heaved.

Behind her, the Kyoto Jujutsu High students just sat down on the floor where they stood.

The conference room that had been the crown jewel of Jujutsu Headquarters no longer existed.

The half-meter-thick bronze doors had been torn apart like paper. The marble table, 12 meters of solid stone, was rubble. The walls were covered in blood and human tissue. The stench was so dense it overpowered even the mold and sewage smell rising from the drains.

Yoshinobu Gakuganji was propped against the wall at the end of the corridor like a puppet with its strings cut.

He clutched his electric guitar. Three strings were snapped. His eyes were hollow, fixed on the wreckage at his feet.

"Principal..." Iori Utahime forced herself forward, swallowing down the nausea. "What in the world..."

Yoshinobu Gakuganji didn't look at her. His gaunt lips trembled. The same words came out, over and over, barely above a breath.

"Monsters. These two monsters who play by no rules..."

At that same moment, the jujutsu world's entire communication network went down.

The news that the core elders of Jujutsu Headquarters had been physically exterminated by Gojo Satoru and Fushiguro Toji spread like wildfire across every Auxiliary Supervisor's terminal.

The group chats for low-ranking sorcerers were moving faster than anyone could read.

"The old oranges are all dead? Just killed like that? FINALLY, hahaha!"

"Did you hear the recording? 117 lives — to frame Geto-sama — they even killed their own people!"

"Good riddance! Those high-and-mighty bastards had it coming!"

"Those two senpai are on another level entirely!"

Slowly, the names began to spread, whispered at first, then shouted, through every corner of the jujutsu world. The Divine Child, Gojo Satoru. The Tyrant, Fushiguro Toji.

Tokyo. Zenin Clan main estate.

The current clan head, Zenin Naobito, sat at the head of the table. The sake cup in his hand had stopped halfway to his mouth.

He stared at the intelligence operative trembling in front of him. A muscle in his jaw jumped.

That powerless waste. That disgrace they'd thrown out the door years ago. He'd teamed up with the Gojo Clan's Six Eyes and slaughtered Jujutsu Headquarters down to the last man.

And then had the nerve to send a message: whoever sticks their neck out next gets their main estate torn down too.

Zenin Naobito set his sake cup down on the table.

Hard.

Sake splashed over his fingers.

Retaliate? With what? Offer up the Zenin Clan's skulls to fill the fists of those two killing stars?

He knew exactly what he was dealing with. Men who didn't play by any recognized rules. Men who flipped the table and killed everyone sitting at it without a second thought. Against that, traditional power plays were a joke.

The Kamo Clan had gone equally silent. The same deathly quiet.

Within a few hours, under the tacit blessing of whatever rational leadership remained among the Three Great Families, and with Jujutsu High looking the other way, an emergency meeting was thrown together over an encrypted channel.

The surviving conservative faction and the new-generation reformists reached a unanimous consensus for the first time in living memory: bow. Immediately. Completely. To the two insane Special Grades, Gojo Satoru and Fushiguro Toji. No conditions, no delay, no reservation.

A new Jujutsu Headquarters, staffed entirely by middle-aged pragmatists, was assembled at a speed that shouldn't have been possible.

To demonstrate sincerity, they even extended a cordial invitation to a branch elder of the Gojo Clan to join the core leadership.

The first directive issued by the new Jujutsu Headquarters was a top-priority red official document.

Morning light broke through the thin mist and scattered across the waterlogged streets of Kyoto.

Gojo Satoru walked with both hands in his pockets. His phone was going insane inside them.

He pulled it out. The red-header document filled his screen.

"...The former elders of Jujutsu Headquarters, for abuse of power, massacre of civilians, and the deliberate framing of Special Grade Sorcerer Geto Suguru, have been purged by Gojo Satoru and Fushiguro Toji. This act is recognized as righteous justice, hereby notified to the entire jujutsu world. Effective immediately, the Special Grade arrest warrant for Geto Suguru is officially and permanently revoked. All honors and standing are fully restored."

Gojo Satoru opened his contacts. He dialed Geto Suguru's number one more time.

Beep...

Beep...

Cold. Flat. Unanswered.

Gojo Satoru stared at the name on his screen.

Something dark and formless was spreading through his chest, wild and fast, and he couldn't make it stop.

➤ Next: The Lost Man and the Tyrant Who Came Home