Chapter 189: Chapter 189 - Are You Sure You’re Not Going to BE One of the Kids?
[The camera shutter clicked, freezing this spring where no one was missing, along with every expression on those young faces, calm, resigned, hiding a smile, all of it captured forever on that small square of photo paper.]
[With the group picture taken, the graduation ceremony’s mercifully brief formalities came to an end.]
[The group drifted together beneath the cherry blossom tree, conversation settling naturally onto the one topic no graduate could avoid: what comes next.]
["Me? Where else would I go."]
[Shoko Ieiri spoke first. She fished a cigarette from her pocket and placed it between her lips without lighting it, holding it loosely between two fingers as she shrugged, her tone as languid and unbothered as ever.]
["The infirmary here is spacious enough, the pay’s decent, and most importantly, it’s quiet. For now, anyway. Stay on, keep dissecting whatever bizarre corpses roll in, keep patching up you reckless idiots when you come back half-dead. That’s probably my life from here on out."]
[Shoko hadn’t changed from any previous simulation. She seemed born for that role, clinical, composed, wrapped in a detachment from the world that fit her like a second skin.]
[Against the certainty of her path, the two who’d blazed brightest at Jujutsu High, Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, showed something rare... hesitation.]
["Hmm... haven’t decided yet."]
[In this timeline, he was the strongest. But he was also a teenager who’d graduated without scars, a rebellious kid irritated by his family’s dusty traditions and not much else.]
[He was part of the Big Three Sorcerer Families, born into the Gojo Clan. Even if the seat of clan head was inevitably his, he’d never shown much interest in power for its own sake.]
[In this relatively peaceful timeline, untouched by the worst kinds of suffering, he lacked the visceral reasons to become a teacher, to gather allies, to burn the old order to the ground and start over.]
[Geto’s situation was more complicated.]
[Back in that remote village, your coldly rational "demonstration of justice" had killed the extremist impulse to annihilate every non-sorcerer. He’d accepted your argument: let rules judge evil, not tribalism define right and wrong. But the ache inside him hadn’t fully healed.]
[He wanted to travel. To see more of the world. To find out if there were others like Nanako and Mimiko, fellow sorcerers being tormented by those who couldn’t see curses, and whether he could protect them through means less drastic than genocide.]
[Neither Gojo nor Geto would ever walk away from being a Jujutsu Sorcerer. It was carved into their bones. They simply hadn’t figured out the shape of what came next.]
[Naturally, every pair of eyes drifted toward you.]
[Gojo, impatient as always, prodded the rigid line of your back with his rolled-up diploma, curiosity written all over his face.]
["Hey, Hayase. You’re the most mysterious one here. What’s your plan? Given your family situation, you’ll be living alone after this, right? Why not come stay at the Gojo estate? The training grounds are way bigger than anything they’ve got here."]
["Yeah, Hayase. What about you?"]
[Geto turned an inquiring look your way.]
[Shoko glanced over, cigarette still unlit between her fingers. Masamichi Yaga paused mid-adjustment of his vintage camera. Everyone watched, curious what kind of answer the person who never stopped surprising them would give.]
["I’d like to stay at Jujutsu High and become a teacher. The only question is... Mr. Yaga, are you still hiring?"]
[Silence crystallized in the air.]
[What sounded like the mildest possible statement landed like a depth charge, sending shockwaves through every person present.]
[You’d never breathed a word of this plan to anyone. You spent your free time coaching Yu Haibara and Kento Nanami with a teaching ability that bordered on inhuman, but not a single person standing under that tree had imagined you’d choose "teacher" as your first step after graduation.]
[Geto and Shoko traded a glance, surprised but quick to see the logic. Your Cursed Technique made it obvious. Phantom Night Parade’s capacity to copy and analyze abilities turned you into a walking jujutsu encyclopedia, the perfect sparring partner, a training tool no institution could replicate.]
[Geto, who’d mastered his pinnacle technique under your guidance ahead of schedule, understood this better than anyone.]
[The sole holdout was Gojo. He could follow the reasoning. Emotionally, he rejected it entirely.]
[As the person who arguably understood the depth of your power better than anyone alive, he’d been waiting to see what you’d do once you shed the training wheels of Jujutsu High. Something monumental. Something that would shake the foundations.]
[Instead you wanted to teach kids.]
[But that animal instinct of his whispered that your real purpose couldn’t be anything so simple. Something deeper was coiled behind those calm eyes, a design he couldn’t yet see the shape of.]
["Yes! Of course I agree...!"]
[The first to recover was Yaga.]
["Hayase! If that’s what you want, there’s nothing I could ask for more!"]
[Inside, Yaga wasn’t just on board. He was two hundred percent in favor. A thousand percent.]
[If sorcerers had combat ratings, then teaching ability deserved ratings too. And your precision, your efficiency, your uncanny ability to tailor a training regimen to each individual student... in his estimation, no one else in the entire jujutsu world came close. You were a once-in-a-generation pedagogical treasure.]
[With you on staff, the average survival rate and growth ceiling of every future student would climb by a terrifying margin.]
[Your reasons were straightforward, though you’d never share all of them.]
[On the surface: train students, give them the strength to survive the brutal missions waiting in their futures. That was real, and it was enough.]
[Beneath the waterline, you needed an identity that let you fade from public view without severing your connection to the jujutsu world entirely.]
[As a Jujutsu High instructor, you could legitimately refuse most compulsory mission assignments from the higher-ups. You’d have the time and the cover to maintain contact with Mei Mei for intelligence work. All of it above board, all of it invisible.]
[Lie low. Gather information. Maneuver in the shadows. And quietly, without drawing a single eye, push your own strength as far as it could go.]
[No identity in this world served that purpose better than "Jujutsu High teacher."]
[You’d confirmed it across multiple previous simulations. As long as you spent most of your time within Jujutsu High, sheltered inside the barriers maintained by Tengen, the thing hiding in the dark, the one with stitches across his face, would have far fewer opportunities to extend his filthy reach toward you.]
[While you and Yaga sealed the arrangement, Gojo stood off to the side stroking his chin, brow furrowed, those Six Eyes spinning at a terrifying speed behind the facade of thought.]
[Then something clicked. His palm slapped against his fist, eyes blowing wide.]
[He was certain he’d seen through your true motive.]
[You wanted to stay at Jujutsu High because you’d lost to his Unlimited Void on that field. You couldn’t accept it. You were going to use Phantom Night Parade’s copying ability to study every student and sorcerer who passed through these halls, stockpiling techniques, building new combinations, getting stronger so you could come back and settle the score.]
[Perfect. The logic was airtight.]
[But a second thought chased the first. Even if you hoarded a thousand flashy techniques, his Domain Expansion would crush you all over again.]
[Still... if you believed getting stronger meant you’d finally accept his challenges... then that meant Satoru Gojo would get his chance at last. A clean, all-out, no-excuses fight where he could put you flat on your back and fulfill the one wish that had been eating at him since the day you met.]
["I’ve decided!!"]
[The sudden shout made Geto, still quietly contemplating his own future, flinch sideways.]
[He rubbed an ear that had gone numb from the blast and shot Gojo a withering look.]
["What are you shouting about now? Decided what?"]
[Gojo dropped his hand, planted both fists on his hips, and made his announcement with all the gravity and excitement of a man declaring war.]
["I’ve decided! I’m staying at Jujutsu High too, and becoming... a... teacher!!"]
["Huh...???"]
[Geto’s jaw dropped. He stared, finger rising to point squarely at Gojo’s nose, disbelief and disgust fighting for control of his expression.]
["Are you kidding me? You... you want to be a teacher? Are you sure you’re not going to be one of the kids?"]
[He couldn’t stop the image from forming in his mind. Gojo Satoru. The man who showed up late to every class, completed missions based entirely on his mood, and whose favorite hobby was tormenting his juniors... standing at a podium, shaping young minds.]
[He couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of student could survive that personality, or what unholy breed of delinquent that personality would produce.]
[The thought alone gave Geto a headache. He shook his head. No chance he’d ever consider the same path. Teaching required patience and responsibility, and both of those belonged in the hands of someone suited for it. Someone like Hayase.]
[Gojo caught the have-you-lost-your-mind look on Geto’s face, and irritation flared. He cut a sharp glance sideways and fired back.]
["What? How come Hayase gets to be a teacher and I don’t? Compared to a measly Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer who never bothered applying for a promotion, I’m the real deal. Certified Special Grade! Strength-wise, I’m way above him!"]
["God..."
[Geto pinched the bridge of his nose, abandoning any hope of winning the argument, and muttered back without a shred of patience.]
["Teaching and nurturing students... how about you start by dropping that ’the great me’ thing you do every other sentence, Mr. Gojo, sir."]
