Satoru Gojo recognizes their cursed energy, little dots of light out in the dark on a very cold January night. It's two in the morning; he wonders why they've come and isn't going to leave them in the cold. There's probably going to be a snowstorm anyway, and he doesn't know how they're doing or if they're okay.

Satoru is already in bed, but he dresses quickly and speeds to the bus stop outside the campus where Mimiko and Nanako were sitting, crying and cold.

They're startled when he appears in front of them.

"Hey there, ladies. It's too cold and wet for you to be out and about. Is there anything that I can do for the friends of my friend?"

Geto's death is still fresh, and Mimiko wants to scream about how much she hates him, and Nanako wants to attack him out of blind rage and grief.

He knows this. He also knows they would not have shown up there if they weren't in desperate need of help, or if they had anyone else that they could turn to.

Nanako is shaking because they've been sitting there for a while. "We have a question we need to ask you."

"Okay."

"Are you sure that you killed Master Geto?"

Satoru is startled and dismayed by this question and believes initially that they're having difficulty grieving because they didn't see the body. Since Suguru raised these girls for ten years and they just lost their adoptive father one month ago, he wants to be as gentle as possible, because he is the one who brought this pain to them.

Satoru nods. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Do your people have his body?"

"It should have been cremated and delivered to the Geto family. If you want to visit his grave, I can talk to his family. His grandfather will understand."

Nanako says, "He came home."

Satoru's blood runs cold.

Tears start to spill as she cries, "But it's not him. The face is the same. The voice is the same. But it's not Master Geto. We just know it's not him! Master Geto was kind and warm and he always looked after us."

They sob, and Satoru stands stunned, his eyes wide with horror. He knows he killed Suguru Geto, has no doubt. There's not even a one-in-a-trillion percent chance he didn't die right there in the alley.

Satoru realizes the position these girls are in; there's some sort of monster in their lives, masquerading as their loving adoptive father. As powerful as Geto was, it wasn't like they could just tell anyone. They had to come to his killer, a decision that probably hurt like all hell, and on top of that, they probably didn't have anywhere to go if they were running away from fake-Geto.

"You two, please come with me. I know that you both probably hate me, and that's okay. But my apartment is warm and safe, and you two need to be warm and safe right now."

Satoru brings them to his apartment, starts up the fireplace, and lets them warm up while he makes them hot cocoa and tries to bend his mind around the pure, incomprehensible horror that there is something in the world pretending to be Suguru Geto.

Mimiko's stomach growls, and he goes back to the kitchen and prepares a simple meal for them.

They consume the fried rice like they haven't eaten all day, and once they've recovered from the cold, he learns they have run away from their lives with nothing but a couple of changes of clothes in their backpacks, and enough cash to eat for only a few days, having decided to bet everything on the chance that the person Geto called a friend might help them.

Satoru sits with them in front of the fire and says, "I know this is an incredibly painful subject for you both, but that you understand why things went the way they did in the end. So we don't have to talk about that. What I will say is that I can absolutely confirm with no room for doubt that Suguru passed away when he was with me. Whoever this person is, it's not Suguru Geto."

This brings tears, and he says, "Can I ask you some questions?"

They nod.

"Does this person have the ability to use Suguru's technique?"

They nod.

"Oh hell, that's a pain in the ass."

Nanako answers, "If he couldn't, we'd kill him ourselves. There's a scar. Suguru burned himself once, when he was making breakfast. This person has it too."

Satoru asks, "Have you observed this person sleeping as Suguru Geto?"

"Yes."

The answers to their questions are disturbing. To them, people who have known him for ten years, his body is completely indistinguishable. They fervently believe that something is living inside of Suguru's corpse, and they're terrified and distraught. The fact that the person is able to use Suguru's technique is almost indisputable proof that they're right.

This person walks with the weird little limp Suguru had from tearing his ACL in junior high, possesses little marks and scars, even has the same chipped tooth.

A shapeshifting technique would cause the user to switch back while sleeping.

A copy technique might allow the use of some techniques, but not persistently.

Satoru is disgusted and upset, so he can't imagine how they feel, being young people who looked at him as their father. In some ways, he had been mourning the loss of Suguru Geto for many years, but for them, he had just been taken away.

He makes up two futons in his guest room and runs the bath for them.

Nanako gets a phone call, and they call him in.

She answers on speaker phone.

"Master Geto?!"

"Yes, Nanako. I just noticed that you and your sister haven't made it back yet. Is everything all right?"

Nanako said, "It got really cold, and so we sat down at a café until things warmed up. But they didn't. We found a place around here to crash. We'll come home in the morning."

"Come home now. I want to share my bed with you tonight."

Satoru's stomach turns as he realizes what this imposter has been doing to Geto's precious girls. He almost picks up the phone and identifies himself; he's almost certain that someone inhabiting the body of Geto will know his name.

But he doesn't.

He also knows that he has limited time to act because whoever it is, they're going to realize the girls ran away if they don't come home immediately, so 'immediately' is his timetable too.

As soon as they hang up, they seem to be contemplating going back; they're scared of his wrath.

"You're safe with me. I promise. Tell me where he's expecting you to show up and any information you have about the location."

Information pours out of them, and all of it is incredibly disturbing.

They've been paying close attention, spying, even, trying to figure out whether the person could possibly really be Geto.

There are other players:

A person who might be a woman or a man, with short white hair that has red blotches. They don't know her name, but she spends a lot of time speaking with fake-Geto in private.

There are four cursed spirits that spend time in the hideout:

First, a silent crustacean-like curse named Dagon. According to them, it sits around a lot and doesn't do much.

Second, a giant white monster with antler-like eyes named Hanami. This one speaks, but her words are unintelligible, powers unknown.

Third, a pale humanoid-like curse with one central eye and a volcano head named Jogo. They've observed fire coming out of his head when he gets minimally annoyed. This one is capable of intelligent human speech and has long conversations with fake-Geto.

Fourth, a very human curse named Mahito. They don't know his powers, but he has stitches all over his face, he seems intelligent, and there's something about him that seems explicitly evil.

These girls were raised by Geto and had cursed techniques, so he didn't think it was possible that they were confusing the cursed spirits for curse users; after all they knew the red-blotched person was a sorcerer. It wasn't completely unheard of for certain special grades to possess intelligence and communication abilities, but multiple special grades working together with curse users was bizarre at best.

They have something; a cursed object: a cube covered in eyes. He thinks he knows what it is, but it's almost incomprehensible that they would have it. Whatever it is, 'it is for Satoru Gojo.'

Satoru travels to the warehouse that is serving as the hideout and enters through a side door using Nanako's key.

When he walks in, he finds a surreal scene:

Fake-Geto, sitting around a table with a Monopoly game set up. Around it, the cursed spirits described by the girls as Mahito, Jogo, and Hanami. There was a curse user—a powerful one—in a back room that he could sense, and the crab-like curse Dagon was sitting against the wall.

Satoru pulls his blindfold off and glares, and even to his Six Eyes, the man seems like Suguru Geto. He imagines that if this was sprung on him at the wrong time, he might lose his shit, but he already knew there was some sort of imposter situation, and if the words of the girls weren't enough, hearing this creature order them into his bed and sit around with a bunch of special grade curses was.

As he stands there, he is sure that this person is not Suguru Geto, but all his senses are fooled mostly, but his soul tells him something isn't right about the picture beyond his knowledge.

And he remembers:

Several of his predecessors have had run-ins with a mysterious curse user, believed to be immortal, who can steal the bodies of dead sorcerers and live in them. The only indicator they felt was a strange slight unsettling feeling, like they were looking at an illusion or something that's not real.

Kenjaku recognizes Satoru Gojo as he appears in their hideout for no apparently reason, and he stares in shock, in disdain, in disgust. They have not interacted with him; there's no reason he should be there.

Their situation couldn't be worse; they're in a warehouse that's part of a massive factory complex that went out of business years ago, which is sandwiched between a watershed and lake used for cooling when it was open. They're on the outskirts, barely tucked into the Tokyo metro. There are probably less than ten humans in a four hundred meter radius, that's why they chose this location.

It is the worst most fucking horrible place to get caught by an enraged god who could unmake the world if he wanted to. There aren't any sorcerers around; he doesn't need to hold back.

Still, he says, "Yo, Satoru. It's been a long time."

"You have me mistaken for someone that you know, because I am certain that we have never met. Pretty sure you might be a dipshit named Kenjaku that my ancestors wrote about in their journals."

Kenjaku flinched at the mention of his name, and said, "Every damn time…every goddamned time…Every time, Six Eyes appears."

"Don't worry, I'm about to release you from the cycle."

Mahito is the first to move and ran for Satoru. "One touch, one touch!"

His hand touches nothing, and Satoru said, "Talk about stranger danger! We haven't even been properly introduced. I can see your technique is abhorrent and truly disgusting, but if you need to touch me to use it, you're out of luck, buddy."

The hideout was littered with stuff and Gojo could sense what he assumed was a treasure trove of cursed objects. There were papers all over a desk as well, and this odd assortment of villains was clearly trying to do something.

Satoru decides to do his best not to trash the place.

He knew this was a worst case scenario for them; whatever they were doing, Kenjaku knew who he was and knew they were fucked.

The scene explodes into violence, and Kenjaku tries to use the cursed spirits to escape.

There's some ice too—the curse user springs into action as Kenjaku attempts a vertical escape using a flying cursed spirit that looks like a huge worm with wings.

Satoru knows it'll be easier to find the cursed spirits than a body surfer; surely, if he escapes, he'll find a new body right away and then Satoru won't know where he is.

The ice curse user is unusual as well, and he thinks they might be the result of a cursed object incarnation. Whatever the situation, neither Kenjaku nor the ice user were in the body they were born in.

Satoru realizes Kenjaku isn't trying to escape the area, but travel to a different part of the factory complex, probably to go find the Prison Realm, as the girls said he stored it in a vault in a different place. This was fine, because first of all, Satoru had the Prison Realm, and secondly, if Kenjaku got far away from the main hideout, Satoru wouldn't have to destroy it to kill him.

The cursed spirits were a terrible pain in the ass; the one with the fire technique had abilities that would be considered apocalyptic if there were civilians or literally any other sorcerers nearby.

But there aren't!

This location is perfect for what is going to happen here: he doesn't have to worry about civilians or property damage. The owners of this closed factory will probably be giddy with delight when they find out they can cash their insurance check because obviously no one wants to buy the place.

Kenjaku knows they're fucked, and Satoru knows he knows they're fucked because the Prison Realm is a priceless, rare object of incalculable value. It is the second unspeakably powerful cursed object that has been carried to Japanese soil with the intent of ending him. If they had any hope of defeating him by any other means, they would not have gone to the effort of finding it. The mere fact it is an object in play was an acknowledgement that they understand he is too much for them.

He gets annoyed and summons a Blue attack, and it tears through the cursed spirit Hanami as she sends branches ahead of him that temporarily obstruct him. The ball of Blue hits Hanami like a bomb and it—or she, as the girls called her—explodes into ash and purple fire before turning in the air and hitting the curse user.

The ice curse user defends themselves with domain amplification, which he takes as a sign their mastery level is quite advanced.

A massive wall of ice hit by a ball of fire slows him down and them obstructs his highest level vision for a moment, and he responds by warping behind the curse user and punching them so hard in the back of the head with a punch charged with blue that they simply crumple to the ground.

Mahito tries touching him at the exact moment he punches the curse user out but finds that his Infinity is selective, and he can make precise rules about what gets through.

Satoru wants to chase Kenjaku, but he realizes this curse who can kill simply by touching any human being no matter how powerful they are can't be permitted to escape. He looks into his eyes and simply knows that he's going to kill sorcerers before he is stopped, and that killing him is going to be difficult task for anyone else due to his strange body.

He doesn't know that Kenjaku is betting everything on Mahito's technique; Mahito can't die, and so he turns and opens a domain expansion.

"Domain Expansion: Womb Profusion."

Satoru crosses his fingers. "Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void."

Kenjaku knows it's a longshot but he's stunned when his domain shatters in an instant and he finds himself standing in Satoru Gojo's domain, where Gojo is holding some random entrails and organs he has ripped out of Mahito, including the part of him holding his soul in the split second before the domain opened.

His hand glows with Red as the organs were torn apart by the repelling, churning force Limitless's reverse curse skill.

Mahito perishes.

Kenjaku is using Falling Petals to protect himself from the brain-destroying effects of merely standing in Unlimited Void.

Everything has gone to hell.

All of it.

The fact Mahito would be almost impossible for sorcerers to kill was one of the reasons that he didn't really have a contingency for what he would even do if he died. In theory, Satoru Gojo might be the only Jujutsu Society sorcerer who might be able to do the deed.

If he thought there was a serious risk of that happening, he would have consumed him already. Kenjaku had made a gamble that he could use Mahito's malicious, murderous nature to advance the narrative and cause mayhem among sorcerers to the point of probably killing some of them, and now he'd lost because Satoru Gojo killed Mahito before he killed even one sorcerer.

Kenjaku says, "This really is the most bullshit thing that has ever happened in the history of everything."

"Did you risk your life to save that monster?"

"Risk my life? Surely you jest. I have thousands of cursed spirits stored in this body right now, and millions hidden in the earth, and I will unleash them."

"…the ones that are in your body will die instantly if you let them out in my domain, and you can't interact with the outside world while you are in here. But thanks for the tip. Now I know I have to get rid of you before you get out of here even if it messes up that body."

Satoru has his theory, since Kenjaku is using the cursed technique of the body, and while Kenjaku does loose all of the cursed spirits in the body's inventory, Satoru simply makes his domain several times larger to accommodate them and sends balls of Red bouncing around at lightning speed, shredding them all as soon as they emerge.

In the middle of this maelstrom, he appears behind Kenjaku, grabs him by the hair, and pulls so hard he expects Geto's entire head to come off, but instead only the top does and he sees what Kenjaku actually is: a brain in an empty skull.

Satoru rips the brain out and as his domain is assaulted from the outside and starts to crack, a strange chill filling the air. He believes the ice user has awoken and is trying to break Unlimited Void from the outside. They're surprisingly adept, he notes, as he crushes Kenjaku's brain-body in his hands and then rips it apart with cursed energy until it's just a little ball of pink mist.

He knocks the ice user out again once he releases his domain and then hunts the other two curses, Jogo and Dagon. Dagon has not moved from his spot in the main building and dies without incident; he's clearly very powerful but doesn't use that power for whatever reason.

Jogo goes down after a fiery melee where he thinks that Satoru will be unable to use his technique so soon after a domain expansion and dies in a bloody, lopsided, one-way domain expansion, leaving only the curse user.

It is twelve minutes and thirteen seconds from when he arrives to when the last cursed spirit falls.

When he finishes, he notes the curse user has gotten up again, and he pursues them to small vault lined in seal papers. It's open, and they are simply standing there, staring.

"Looking for this?" he asks holding the Prison Realm, "Your name is Uraume, right? I heard someone yell it during the fight."

They nod. "It was the girls, wasn't it? I told Kenjaku to leave those girls behind. When he refused, I told him not to harass them at night. He thought I was saying that for their sake."

"Everybody's dead, Ice Princess. All four curses and the Brain. Obviously, you're going to be taken into custody. I have so many questions to ask you. The first one is…what the hell are you? Are you incarnated successfully in the body of a person? What I'm thinking is that you're basically what would happen if someone ate cursed remains and their power took over the body instead of destroying it. Which is fascinating."

Uraume knows they can't defeat Satoru in battle or successfully escape from him. If they were going to escape, they would have needed to flee right away when the attack started. Now, there's no one left to distract him.

Kenjaku is dead, the sorcerers are going to recover the cursed objects, including the fingers, along with plans, schematics, journals…they will learn about a thousand years of lies, corruption, and conniving, all for something that will never take place now.

Uraume hopes against hope that Kenjaku hasn't written down the rune technique used to create cursed body parts that hold human souls. If he wrote it down, it was probably only mere days until the Jujutsu Society figured out how to reverse the spell and permanently destroy both the cache of cursed body parts he planned to use to reincarnate past sorcerers and the fingers of Sukuna.

The Jujutsu Society has a number of these fingers, and they are going to find eight in the factory complex, including four collected by Kenjaku, three collected by Uraume themself, and one collected by the girls. It is possible the Jujutsu Society might know the locations of eight to ten fingers, including fingers that might be kept by the clans, and if they destroy eighteen of twenty fingers…well, Sukuna's revival becomes less viable even if one finger is destroyed.

Gojo looks around and says, "No fucking clue what any of this is, but game over, am I right?"