Chapter 47: 46. Downfall
(A/N: I guess when this arc is done, I will take some time to rewrite arc 1 and 2. I have 4th stage cancer reread that shit.
So should I publish it into a new one and keep this one as it is or fk it we ball.)
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On Geto's side
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Fires burned across Jujutsu High's courtyard. The air thickened with smoke and the lingering stench of blood and cinder mixed.
And at the heart of it all, Suguru Geto stood alone.
Elevated on the temple steps, he looked down upon the chaos below.
The battle was not yet over. But its outcome had already been decided.
Behind him, the rogue Sorcerers he had gathered stood in formation, their expressions a mix of reverence and ruthless determination.
Below, the remaining dogs of Jujutsu High struggled to their feet, their bodies battered, their wills shaken.
Now was the time for a grand final speech it seemed.
Geto took a deep breath, letting the weight of the moment settle. Then, in a voice that carried across the broken battlefield, he began.
"Can you feel it? The rotten stench of this so-called great Sorcerer Society?"
He gestured outward, his hand sweeping across the ruins of Jujutsu High. The shattered pride of a once-untouchable institution.
"This is the reality of our existence. A world where we, the true inheritors of strength, are shackled by the weak."
"Where we are forced to protect the very people who fear us, who curse us from behind the back, who call us monsters while clinging to the power they will never understand."
His voice was calm and measured. But beneath the composure, it carried something far more dangerous.
A conviction.
"Tell me this… how many of you have lost friends, your family, your future… all for the sake of protecting a world that has forsaken you?"
A murmur rippled through the ranks of his followers. Some bowed their heads while others clenched their fists.
His speech was very effective in rousing the burning hatred of them.
The staff of Jujutsu High stared up at him, some with rage, some with defiance… and some with something dangerously close to doubt.
Geto let that doubt linger for a little bit more before he continued.
"Perhaps you think what nonsense is this madman saying? Yes, you are absolutely right. I'm mad. My sanity is lost in the pursuit of something greater than myself."
"I was once like you. I fought for the system. I believed in its teachings. I walked alongside the strongest sorcerer this world has ever known. Satoru Gojo."
His gaze flickered to Gojo, who stood amidst the wreckage, his breath slow and steady, his eyes hidden behind his blindfold. It seemed like Miguel had failed in stalling Gojo. Well, not that it mattered because it was the Gojo Satoru we were talking about.
"And yet… look at us. Left in this ruin fighting for the sake of some cowards hiding behind the curtain, manipulating the scene."
"Is it because it's our duty to protect those things only for them to take it for granted?"
His voice grew colder as he stared at his best friend.
"Our life is nothing but another commodity in their game of trying to take control over this fucking society."
"We are cursed, not by fate, not by our own existence… but by humanity itself. By those who cannot wield Cursed Energy, who are born weak and remain weak during their lifetime."
"Yes, if you ask me... They are the disease. And we, the strong, are forced to be their cure."
He extended his arms now as if welcoming the world itself into his embrace.
"But I can't stand that… at least, not anymore. The mere thought sickening me enough that I want to throw up on the spot."
"No longer will we live in service to the powerless. No longer will we bow to the weak. We are not their protectors."
His fingers curled into a fist.
"We are their successors."
The air around him vibrated with Cursed Energy. The rogue sorcerers cheered, their voices rising in an atmosphere of rebellion.
"The age of Jujutsu Society is over."
"With it, the Golden Age of us Sorcerers has begun once again."
He turned his gaze back to Gojo, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips.
"Tell me, Satoru… will you stand in my way?"
The battlefield fell silent.
And Gojo… finally lifted his blindfold.
For a moment, the battlefield was silent. The famous Six Eyes gleamed under the fractured moonlight, their infinite depths unreadable.
But then, he laughed. Not the usual, carefree chuckle nor the lazy amusement he so often wore as a mask.
This chuckle was low, tired… and bitter.
He tilted his head slightly, a humorless smirk playing on his lips. "You know, Suguru… that's the first thing you've said in years that actually makes sense."
Geto's smirk didn't fade. "Oh?"
Gojo exhaled, shoving his hands into his pockets. His shoulders loosened slightly.
"I've thought about it too, you know?" His voice was softer now, laced with something almost like regret.
"The system's broken. The Higher Ups? Useless. They send the kids to die, they cover up their mistakes while they cling to their seats of power like roaches that refuse to die."
He looked away as if seeing something far beyond the battlefield.
"They turned Yu Haibara into another statistic and slammed it as an accident."
"They treated Riko's life like a bargaining chip, and when it was over, they expected us to move on."
His fingers twitched at his sides.
"Like she was nothing."
The weight of those words settled over the battlefield.
Even Geto's expression flickered.
Gojo met his eyes again, and this time, the amusement was gone.
"I get it, Suguru. I really do." His voice was quiet but unwavering. "The world we're trying to protect? It doesn't deserve us."
The rogue sorcerers murmured, shifting uneasily. Some of the staff looked shaken to hear Gojo Satoru himself say those words.
"But."
The air changed.
Gojo's smirk was still there. But now, it was something sharper.
"You're wrong about one thing."
His fingers tensed.
"You think strength is what makes us right?" His voice was steady, but his Cursed Energy was rising, making the air crackle with pressure.
"You think just because we're stronger, we get to decide who lives and who dies?"
He took a step forward, and the ground beneath his foot fractured.
"That's the same bullshit logic the Higher Ups use."
His Cursed Energy exploded outward, warping the space around him. The weaker Sorcerers stumbled back, their bodies instinctively rejecting his presence.
"You're not some revolutionary, Suguru." His tone remained eerily casual, but his energy was anything but. It was suffocating.
"You're just replacing them. You're but another product of this vicious cycle."
The tension snapped.
Geto's smirk vanished.
For the first time, he curled his fists. "You—"
Gojo cut him off. "You think you're liberating sorcerers?"
His voice turned sharp, eyes narrowing. "You're just making more victims. You're just proving them right for not trusting Sorcerers."
"You talk about the strong ruling over the weak, about breaking the system. But all you're doing, Suguru…"
His expression hardened.
"…is becoming the very thing you hated most."
"And what gives you the right to judge me? After a decade, you're just the same as when we parted. You took no step forward, all you did was slack off around, playing the game of being a teacher."
Geto's jaw tightened. His body turned rigid, his Cursed Energy coiling around him like a bubbling rage barely held back.
"You're the strongest? Yes, so what? What is the point of being the strongest when you're still the slave of this rotten system?"
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, Geto exhaled.
His smirk returned, but this time, it was smaller, hiding the sadness beneath.
"…Ahh you still don't get it, Satoru." His voice was quieter now, lacking its earlier grandeur.
"You think you can save them. You think you can change this world without breaking it first."
His eyes darkened.
"But do you know what the difference is between us? It's that I dare to take the first step of destroying it to rebuild it from scratch while you remain a slave to it."
A pause stretched between them and then, almost at the same time, they moved.
The night shattered around them as Gojo and Geto clashed.
A final battle, not between enemies but between two friends who once believed in the same dream.
Geto swung first, his Cursed Spirit Manipulation twisting through the air like a living storm.
Dozens of high-grade Curses surged forward, their monstrous forms lunging at Gojo from all sides.
But Gojo didn't falter.
With a flick of his wrist, Infinity expanded. The moment the curses entered his range, their movements slowed to a crawl, their bodies suspended mid-lunge, inches away from touching him—yet forever out of reach.
Geto didn't wait. His hands moved in a blur, summoning more.
A skeletal centipede Curse burst from the ground, its bony tendrils snapping toward Gojo's throat.
A massive ape-like curse, covered in shifting black flames, barreled forward, fists crashing down.
A swarm of needle-thin, flying Curses rained down like daggers from the sky.
Even after all of that, Gojo was untouched.
His Six Eyes tracked every movement, his mind processing each attack with inhuman precision.
His Infinity rippled, expanding, contracting, warping space itself to render every assault meaningless.
Then in a blink of an eye, Gojo vanished.
Then suddenly, he was behind Geto.
"Too slow, Suguru."
His foot shot forward, a brutal kick to Geto's ribs.
CRACK!
Geto's body launched across the battlefield, smashing through the rubble of Jujutsu High's front gates. The stone crumbled around him, dust billowing into the air.
But before Gojo could press forward, his eyes flickered—
Something was wrong.
That was when he saw it.
Geto's attack was not aimed at him.
But at the student's direction.
Geto, still coughing from the impact, wiped blood from his mouth. A smirk appeared on his bloody face. "Did you really think I'd only aim for you, Satoru?"
From above, a massive, dragon-like Curse was already descending upon the battlefield, its gaping maw wide open—
And it was heading straight for Maki, Panda, and Toge.
They were too far for him to reach them in time.
Gojo's heart lurched.
In that instant, he was presented with a choice.
To kill Geto now… or to save his students.
But for Gojo Satoru, there was never really a choice.
BOOM.
In less than a breath, he moved.
The ground beneath him shattered as he blurred across the battlefield, a shockwave ripping through the air.
The dragon was already charging in their direction with great speed, devastating the Jujutsu High with its massive body.
Then a flash of blue appeared on the tip of Gojo's fingers.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Blue."
The dragon Curse's body crumpled inward, a gravitational force consuming it from the inside out before imploding in a violent burst of energy.
The shockwave pushed everything aside, leaving no trace of the Curse in its wake.
Gojo exhaled sharply.
But there was no time to breathe because Geto was already there.
"You're predictable, Satoru."
From Gojo's blind spot, Geto's staff came swinging.
For the first time in years it seemed, Geto landed a hit.
CRACK.
Gojo's head snapped to the side, blood spraying from his lip as he skidded across the shattered ground.
He barely caught himself before impact, boots grinding to a halt against the rubble, just in time to see Geto already closing in.
"There's no way I'd land a hit on that arrogant face of yours under normal circumstances because of that annoying Infinity." Geto mused, his voice steady and confident.
"But what happens when all your attention is on saving the kids?"
He didn't need an answer. Gojo already knew.
Even if Gojo wasn't paying attention, his Infinity was automatic, a perfect subconscious defense.
Unless, of course, there was a loophole.
And Geto found it.
At that precise moment, Gojo used all of his willpower to convert his neutral state of Infinity into the negative state of Blue to erase the dragon Curse, that split-second shift in states had given Geto an opening, just long enough to land a hit.
Gojo exhaled, wiping the blood from his mouth. Then, he grinned.
"Not bad, Suguru." He rolled his shoulders, wiping the blood from his chin.
"I was wondering if you'd actually make me bleed tonight."
Geto's expression was unreadable. "I'll do more than that."
Gojo lifted his hand, his fingers twitching.
The air shifted as dense Cursed Energy vibrated around them.
Geto tensed.
He recognized this immediately.
"Tch—so we're doing this, huh?"
The battlefield trembled beneath them.
Cursed spirits began pulling toward Geto like a gravitational force, their bodies twisting and spiraling inward.
Hundreds and thousands of all types of Curses alike, all condensed into a singularity.
"Maximum: Uzumaki."
The moment he uttered the words, the very air collapsed inward.
The maelstrom of Cursed Energy took shape.
A monstrous black mass, spiraling with condensed hatred, undiluted.
But for Gojo in the face of this?
He just sighed. "Man… you really never go half-assed, huh?"
Then, his fingers shifted.
The air around him warped, an ominous pulse surging outward.
In an instant, Cursed Energy gathered at his palm, spiraling violently into a purple ball of pure, raw devastation. Blue and red light intertwined into something unnatural.
The space around it distorted, pulling debris, air, and reality itself toward it like an unstoppable vacuum.
Gojo exhaled, voice steady.
"Imaginary Technique: Hollow Purple."
Two ultimate techniques unleashed at once.
The moment Hollow Purple and Maximum: Uzumaki collided, the world broke.
BOOOOOOOOOM.
A shockwave of pure annihilation erupted across the battlefield, ripping through the remains of Jujutsu High.
The ground fractured into deep, bottomless chasms, the very air igniting from the sheer force of their clash.
The sky itself split open under the explosion of Cursed Energy, swallowed everything.
Time seemed to slow when Gojo and Geto stood firm after that collision.
Geto panted, sweat dripping down his brow, his body strained from the sheer force of Uzumaki. His grip tightened around his staff.
On the other hand, Gojo stood unwavering. Instead, he seemed to smile.
"Close one." He admitted, rolling his neck. "You almost had me there."
"Stop being sarcastic. I spent several years collecting that many Curses and you match it easily." Geto smiled bitterly.
"But let's be real, Suguru." He lifted his hand. His Cursed Energy was still rising.
They both knew that the next move would be the last.
A moment of silence stretched between them.
Then at the same time, they moved.
Gojo raised his hand, his fingers curled.
Geto clapped the back of his hands together.
And the world collapsed.
[Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void.]
[Domain Expansion: Cradle of the Unborn.]
The battlefield disappeared, swallowed by the darkness.
Reality itself split in two as both domains unfolded at once.
Gojo's domain was an endless abyss, an overwhelming flood of infinite knowledge that consumed everything within it. Time, space, and even thought unraveled in this void, leaving only an eternity of knowledge.
Clashing against it, Geto's Cradle of the Unborn was a waking nightmare.
A pitch-black expanse where countless writhing Curses twisted together in an unholy procession, their tormented howls echoing through the void. It was a funeral for the unborn, a requiem for those who never existed, and a Curse he had for humanity itself.
Their domains clashed, Cursed Energy colliding, tearing apart the space between them as two absolute forces fought for dominance.
The ground beneath them vanished.
Cursed spirits howled in agony as Unlimited Void began to overwrite reality, swallowing Geto's domain piece by piece.
His domain was dissipating into nothing in real-time.
Geto's teeth clenched. He had seconds.
His arms trembled as he poured every last drop of Cursed Energy into his domain.
But he wasn't just fighting Gojo.
He was fighting Infinity itself. And he was losing.
The pressure of Unlimited Void crushed down on him, his senses drowning in an endless flood of knowledge.
His mind could not keep up and his thoughts became fragments.
His domain broke down.
Gojo's voice echoed, distant yet absolute.
"This is the end, Suguru."
In response, Geto sighed with a content smile.
Even as his body failed him.
Even as his vision blurred.
Because deep down… he had always known.
There was only one strongest.
And it was never him.
His domain shattered.
In an instant, the sea of monsters collapsed, swallowed whole by the abyss of Unlimited Void.
Gojo moved, his form blurred, crossing the battlefield in a single instant.
With a decisive strike, his fist slammed into Geto's chest.
CRACK.
Geto's body launched backward, crashing through the rubble before skidding to a stop.
Silence.
The domains faded and the battlefield returned.
Geto didn't get back up.
Gojo stood over him, breathing heavily, his expression unreadable. His best friend, his only equal, lay broken before him.
The fight was over.
For real, this time.
"…You lost." Gojo murmured.
Geto coughed, blood staining his lips. Even now, even in this bitter defeat, he still smirked.
"…Yeah, I know." He admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.
The strongest had won as he always did.
"Any last words?"
Silence stretched between them, heavy with everything left unsaid.
Geto's gaze drifted upward, past Gojo, to the darkened sky above. "You remember that summer? Back when we thought we'd fix the world together?"
His fingers twitched as if reaching for something long gone. "Feels like a different lifetime."
Gojo didn't answer.
Geto turned his head, looking at him not as an enemy, not as a traitor, but as the friend he had once known.
"…Tell me, Satoru." His voice was quieter now. "If things had gone differently… if I had stayed…"
His eyelids fluttered, his strength fading. "Do you think I would've been happy?"
Gojo's hands curled into fists, his nails digging into his palms. For the first time in his life, he didn't know what to say.
Instead, he knelt beside Geto, lowering himself to his level. For once, they weren't standing on opposite sides.
"…I don't know. I'm not a prophet." Gojo finally admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "But I think… I would've been."
Geto's breath hitched for a moment. Then, slowly, he smiled.
A small, tired smirk.
"That's enough. Cuz deep down, I really hate those monkeys..."
The words had barely left Geto's lips when the slow, deliberate sound of clapping echoed through the shattered ruins.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"Magnum opus."
Gojo's head snapped toward the voice, his expression darkening, eyes narrowing into a cold glare. "Makima."
She stood at the edge of the battlefield, poised and untouched, adorned in the gorgeous black and white nun outfit, her red hair flowing in the night breeze.
There was no urgency in her movements, no tension in her frame as if she had been waiting for this exact moment.
Makima ignored Gojo completely. She had no interest in the victor.
Her golden eyes flickered toward the broken man lying on the ground.
Then, she crouched beside him.
The weight of her presence pressed against Geto's dying body, heavier than the wounds that weakened him. It was colder than the blood soaking his skin.
She murmured, voice as gentle as it was inescapable. "Give everything to me, Geto-kun."
Gojo moved on instinct, stepping forward only to be stopped.
A firm grip clamped down on his forearm, halting his movement completely.
His gaze flicked to the side, sharp and calculating.
Veilhem.
The knight stood beside him, his armored gauntlet glowing with an eerie golden flame, wrapping around his hand like a living entity.
Veilhem was grabbing him through Infinity with no help from any Cursed Tool.
How?
Gojo instantly yanked himself free, leaping back to create some distance. His mind raced as he tried to comprehend this anomaly.
"What did you do?"
While the two were staring at each other, on the other side, Makima continued staring into Geto's unfocused eyes.
"For even God has abandoned you." she whispered, brushing a hand through Geto's sweat-drenched hair.
"Whereas us Devils are closer to you than any god could ever be."
Her fingers lingered against his temple, the touch deceptively soft.
Geto's breath was ragged. His body screamed at him to resist.
But her words burrowed deep into the cracks of his resolve.
How long had he fought?
How long had he tried?
And yet in the end, he lost it all.
Perhaps he had never been strong enough to change the world.
Perhaps he had been wrong.
Makima smiled. She could feel the moment his mind began to break.
"I will ask once again." she whispered, her lips close to his ear.
"Say the words. Give me your everything."
The words wrapped around him, tightening like chains.
A choice, disguised as fate.
However, this time, he didn't fight it.
His lips parted.
His voice was weak, trembling.
But he spoke.
"…I entrust everything to you."
Gojo's heart stopped. His breath caught in his throat.
Makima's smile widened.
"Be it this body…" Geto whispered.
"Be it the mind…" His vision blurred. His body was failing.
But his voice did not falter.
"Or even my soul… take it all."
With that, the contract was sealed. And as Makima placed a hand over his eyes, his breath left him.
Not in death but in surrender.
His body twitched. Then, he was still.
Gojo could only watch as Geto's thoughts slipped away, his best friend now nothing more than a hollow vessel.
She didn't use any of her power to make Geto succumb to her, he did it with his own will and it gave her a new perspective on how to manipulate people.
Makima rose to her feet and with a small, satisfied smile, she turned to Gojo and Veilhem.
"Now then…" she mused.
"…Shall we begin?"
"What did you do?!" Gojo shouted at her.
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(A/N: I will explain why my boi could bypass Infinity in the next chaps so be patient scrubs.)