Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 108 - The Excessive Burning of Youth

Yuji Itadori's "death" hit Tokyo Jujutsu High like a bucket of ice water dumped over everyone's heads.

Tokyo Jujutsu High's special training ground. 4 in the morning.

The sky was still dark. Cold mist hung thick in the air.

"Ha—!"

Maki Zenin's explosive shout split the silence. Her spear tore through the air with a shriek and slammed into the ground, blasting out a crater.

Sweat soaked her training uniform. It steamed off her body in white wisps, bleeding into the cold.

Beside her, Panda panted hard, his massive frame heaving with each breath.

"Maki, take a break. You've been going nonstop for six hours."

"Not enough."

She picked up her spear. Her eyes were cold as iron.

"Not nearly enough."

Across the ground, Toge Inumaki stood before a massive boulder, drilling the same commands over and over, working his Cursed Speech toward something like precision.

His throat was already raw. Every time he opened his mouth it felt like dragging sandpaper across his vocal cords, but he just tipped back another gulp of throat medicine and kept going.

"Shatter."

"Don't move."

In a corner not far away, Yuta Okkotsu sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. Rika Orimoto's immense Cursed Energy churned around him in a visible black whirlwind.

He was trying to push the Eight Gates Released Formation's meridian pathways into deeper sync with Rika's Cursed Energy.

Ever since they came back from Fukushima, the same thought kept cycling through his head. If he'd been there. If he could have been faster. Stronger.

Would that pink-haired kid who always smiled and called him "senpai" still be alive?

Regret and helplessness gnawed at every single one of them.

They all blamed themselves. If they had been strong enough, they never would have let a first-year who couldn't even control his Cursed Energy properly face that kind of situation alone.

Yuji had taught them the cruelest lesson there was, and he'd paid for it with his life.

......

Under the shade of the trees at the training ground's edge.

Toji Fushiguro, Satoru Gojo, and Suguru Geto squatted in a row like three guys with absolutely nothing better to do, watching the students train with the intensity of people who had lost their minds.

"Did we... maybe go a little too far?"

Toji Fushiguro scratched the back of his head. A rare flicker of something like embarrassment crossed his face.

He had only wanted to use "death" as a shock, make these brats feel the brutality of real combat, so they'd understand what was worth protecting and throw themselves into getting stronger. Good intentions, roughly executed.

But looking at the situation now, the youth was burning way too hot. It was about to burn straight to ash.

"Look at their eyes." Satoru Gojo muttered. "They could actually kill someone right now."

He paused.

"If I walked out there and said, 'Surprise! Yuji's not dead!' — do you think they'd hug me and cry, or just beat me to death on the spot?"

"Probably the latter," Suguru Geto said flatly.

Toji turned his head. "Satoru. How's Megumi holding up?"

"Hasn't left his room in 2 days. Kugisaki's been bringing his food in." Satoru Gojo clicked his tongue. "Kid spends every day acting like a miniature adult, and turns out he can cry like that."

Toji glanced at the video feed on the phone. His son looked absolutely pitiful. A small knot of guilt tightened somewhere in his chest.

Just a small one.

He pushed it to the back of his mind almost immediately and straightened up.

"Ahem. This is all necessary sacrifice."

His expression went dead serious. "You can't see the rainbow without going through the storm. You can't understand the weight of protecting something without first knowing real despair. The day they break through and come out the other side, they'll thank us for every bit of this."

Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo looked at each other.

The same thought passed between them without a word.

This guy could make the most shameless thing in the world sound like a motivational poster.

"Fine. Let them 'grieve' a few more days." Satoru Gojo pocketed his phone and stretched. "I should go check on our back-from-the-dead protagonist anyway."

Tokyo Jujutsu High basement.

It had been a storage room once, discarded cursed tools stacked and forgotten. Now it had been cleared out and converted into a makeshift screening room.

The space was dim. A projector threw shaky light against the wall, playing some old horror movie.

On the screen, a female ghost was crawling out of a television set.

On the sofa, Yuji Itadori clung to an ugly-cute cursed corpse plushie like his life depended on it.

"Don't come out, don't come out, don't come out—"

Eyes squeezed shut, muttering frantically.

BAM!

The plushie came to life without warning and drove a clean right hook into his chin.

"Augh!"

Yuji yelped and tumbled off the sofa, taking the plushie with him.

"Failed again, Yuji."

A cheerful voice drifted over from beside him.

Satoru Gojo sat perched on a bar stool, working through a box of premium strawberry daifuku with obvious satisfaction. He nudged his sunglasses up and looked down at Yuji rubbing his jaw on the floor.

"The second your emotions fluctuate, your Cursed Energy output cuts out. This cursed corpse is wired to attack the moment it stops sensing a stable flow of Cursed Energy coming in."

He popped another piece of daifuku into his mouth.

"Your Cursed Energy control is honestly worse than a toddler learning to walk."

Yuji dragged himself up off the floor and pulled the punch-happy plushie back into his arms.

"Gojo-sensei, I didn't even know what Cursed Energy was until recently." He scratched his pink hair, a small pout working its way onto his face. "And why can't I train with everyone else? I'm alive again. Megumi and Kugisaki have got to be worried. I want to go see them."

Satoru Gojo paused mid-chew.

He swallowed, and the corner of his mouth curved into something quietly wicked.

"Those two? They're a little busy right now."

He pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and tossed it to Yuji.

"See for yourself."

Yuji fumbled the catch.

A video was playing.

On the screen, Megumi Fushiguro was soaked through, holding Yuji's "corpse," crying so hard he could barely breathe. The despair in that voice, the raw self-blame, it cut straight through the screen.

Yuji went still.

He had never seen Megumi Fushiguro make that face. Not once.

That guy who always kept a cold expression and delivered deadpan critiques like clockwork, he had cried like this. For him.

Something inside his chest took a hard hit.

"Megumi..." Yuji's eyes stung.

"You see it." Satoru Gojo hopped off the stool and walked over. "That life of yours was bought back with the self-blame he's going to carry for the rest of his life."

He looked down at Yuji, and for once his tone was completely serious.

"Sukuna can take your body again at any moment. If you can't control your Cursed Energy perfectly, the next time this happens, it won't just be you who dies."

He extended one finger and pressed it to Yuji's chest.

"You want to do something that matters? Then get stronger."

Yuji kept his head down, staring at Megumi Fushiguro's tear-streaked face on the screen.

That face felt like a whip across his nerves.

He would never let his friends look like that again.

Never.

He raised his head.

His eyes had changed. The grievance was gone. The confusion was gone. What replaced them was a resolve so hard it was almost ferocious.

"I understand."

He sat back down on the sofa and fixed his gaze on the projection screen.

"Gojo-sensei. Keep going. I don't care how many times I get punched. I'm going to control this power."

Satoru Gojo smiled.

This brat really was a perfect vessel.

Though, if this kid ever found out that he and Toji had been deliberately keeping Megumi Fushiguro in the dark, Satoru Gojo wondered whether they'd team up and come after both of them.

The image made his smile a little wider.

Then his phone rang.

He picked it up, voice still carrying that idle edge.

"Hello? Ijichi? What's the emergency?"

The voice on the other end was Kiyotaka Ijichi's, shaking, pitched high with something that sounded a lot like terror.

The smile on Satoru Gojo's face disappeared.

"A movie theater?"

His voice went cold.

"What's the situation on site?"

"3 dead? How?"

He listened to the report without moving. His eyes sharpened into something else entirely.

"...Understood. Seal off the scene."

He ended the call and stood.

Yuji watched him. That expression, he had never seen it on Satoru Gojo's face before. Something cold clenched in his gut.

"Gojo-sensei. What happened?"

Satoru Gojo turned and looked at him. A beat of silence.

"Congratulations, Yuji."

"Your practical lesson just got moved up."

➤ Next: Paradise Game — Face to Face