In the months after Suguru Geto died, Gojo had a hard time, and it wasn't something that he could really talk about with anyone. To most, Geto was a monster—good riddance, the world didn't have to go through his nonsense anymore. Then there was this tiny group that knew Geto losing his life was actually very dark and sad. Those who fought their demons and won knew how sad it actually was for those who lost.
The fact that he and Geto had been together wasn't any sort of secret. When they were only first years who were just barely starting to understand themselves, the political forces that opposed Gojo exposed them to their families, and that had been difficult for both of them.
Gojo's grandfather had a difficult time understanding why his all-power grandson, crown jewel of the clan and wielder of the ultimate power, would be drawn to homosexuality when he could have had any woman he wanted.
This turn of events and the consequences they brought were difficult for Satoru, who wasn't ready to come out and didn't even know how he was. Was he gay? Bisexual? He and Geto were really deprived of the opportunity to quietly figure that out for themselves.
Gojo grandfather had been so disappointed in him; he sat him down and told him that the future head of the Gojo clan couldn't be a homosexual. He needed to grow up, and take a wife in a few years like everyone else and have a bunch of kids because he had to maintain the legacy that he had inherited.
It was a humiliating scandal, and one that was carried on the wings of gossip to every corner of the sorcery world.
They were just kids.
Everything that happened, happened, and after Geto left, Gojo had all these experiences, chasing a high that would make him feel the way that he did when he was sixteen and loving someone for the first time. There had been all kinds of people he did all kinds of things with, but there was never a bite as sweet as his first.
His family was so frustrated with him because it wasn't like he'd had a short phase where he went a little too hard. It had been over a decade.
When his journey with Geto actually came to an end in that alleyway, he'd felt a kind of soul-ripping, agonizing grief that he still could not describe to anyone, yet as he stumbled away from the body, feeling like he might just die from grief, he had to be Satoru Gojo.
His students needed him.
Ingrid Reksten appeared in his universe shortly thereafter, a gentle smile that greeted him when he got his coffee and breakfast at the bakery most days. She was using a different name then, but she was, or he thought she was, an outsider. Someone who didn't know about the unfathomable grief that he was experiencing. Someone from outside the world of sorcery. He thought that to her, he wasn't Satoru Gojo.
She endeared herself to him through corny jokes and a 'girl living abroad' kind of adventurous innocence. As far as he knew, she was just a random girl who had no idea what was going on with him, but her presence actually seemed quite warm to him, even in retrospect.
Eventually, he got hungry for that warmth, and when she finally got him alone, she sank her teeth into him, telling him that she was grieving the loss of her child, who had died shortly after he was born the year prior. This story seemed authentic; she had stretch marks on her belly and hips.
So he talked about his own grief with her, and he frequented her company for a while, until she was suddenly gone. She was mourning a deep loss, one that she said cut her to the core, and he was too. She showed him pictures of her baby belly and he showed her pictures of Suguru Geto while they had despairing relations elevated by pills and alcohol.
The really depressing fact for Gojo was that he came so close to finding out that woman was messing with him; he found out her name was Ingrid Reksten because it was on a bottle of medicine he saw in her bathroom when he was looking for toothpaste. He just thought at the time that she was probably lying about her name because she was taking a break from her responsibilities and her life.
At the time, he'd never heard of the Reksten clan because they weren't significant enough to ever be mentioned to him.
The most important thing he and Ingrid had in common was that each of them were responsible for death of the one they were mourning, a fact neither of them ever mentioned.
Gojo didn't know if her grief was necessarily inauthentic. It was perfectly possible that she was pained over what she had done to her other child and simply didn't have regrets. After all, he didn't regret killing Geto, but it made him wish he could die sometimes too. It was simply a violent act he had to do.
In other words, he didn't fall for some stupid little lie. He fell for a complex system of carefully laid emotional traps and a web of manipulation. They approached him at the right time with the right sentiments and presented a narrative that caused him to wallow in the fling and never question it.
If he hadn't witnessed the anomaly, he wouldn't have asked the questions, wouldn't have looked for them, and probably wouldn't have found out about all of this until it was too late, if he ever found out at all.
Yet when he finds the Reksten siblings in Hamamatsu after days of looking all over the place for them, he's sure of two things:
First, there's no chance at all that Tore was responsible for the anomaly. He didn't have the metaphorical muscle to pull off something like that according to Six Eyes. Gojo wasn't even sure if he had the oomph to pull off a domain expansion.
Second, he confirms that there is a baby inside of Ingrid and it actually carries Limitless, proof it's a Gojo baby.
It makes him feel sick to his stomach, as he isn't trying to have a kid, and if he was, it wouldn't be like this.
Tore's technique-stealing technique is such a cheat code, but obviously, sorcerers weren't going to put up with some curse user killing and stealing from them, and honestly, Gojo doesn't think just from observing Tore with Six Eyes that he could capture many powerful techniques on his own.
If he stole a technique from a family, he'd be pursued by an alliance of families, which is what's currently happening.
Gojo assumes Ingrid is still in Japan because the European sorcerers found out what they'd done before and were actively hunting them. Otherwise, the first thing they would have done when she became pregnant was get her out of Japan to decrease the chance that the Gojo clan would find out what they had done.
Unbeknownst to Gojo, in the other timeline, Tore leaving Ingrid in Japan while he goes to settle up overseas is what ultimately leads to the siblings being on different continents during the cataclysm, which in turn leads to Ingrid trying to hide her prize from the Jujutsu Society and a showdown between a more seasoned Tore and Yuta Okkotsu much later on.
In this timeline, they don't know it yet, but their worst case scenario of being discovered by Satoru Gojo is already in progress as Gojo stands on a rooftop and watches them inside a hotel room.
He watches them for a while as they sit on a sofa in a hotel suite watching a movie.
They look a lot alike: tall, slightly reddish and light blonde hair, a number of freckles that can be considered cute, and faces that are attractive in the mathematical sense.
To an observer, they appear to snuggle more than a brother and sister who are grown adults should, and Tore rubs her little belly like he is an expectant father and not like he's planning on killing the baby as soon as it's born.
To Gojo, they seem like people who would fascinate someone who studies human psychology.
The really scary thing is that there's no guarantee that this is even the second time these two have done this scam. He has two other techniques; there's no saying they haven't done this before, or that he hasn't had other women in his clan do this service for him, because there's always a chance a child wouldn't have a technique or wouldn't have a technique worth taking.
It's just such an abysmally dark situation, and they are certifiable monsters.
Satoru knows he fucked up catastrophically getting involved with these people.
Tore is a menace, and the only way he can get stronger is by killing others, which he has already demonstrated he plans to do by targeting the most vulnerable sorcerers.
Since he is a curse user who has absorbed a technique that will make it impossible for him to be imprisoned, no one is trying to take him into custody to face justice. It's the same for all powerful sorcerers; once a person can't be easily contained, if they cause problems, the only option is to kill them.
The European authorities had contacted him earlier in the day and stressed that considering the difficult nature of the Temporal Distortion technique, it might be best if Gojo was able to contain the 'Tore Reksten issue.'
In other words, they had heard that he was on the hunt and they were really hoping that Gojo would end Reksten so he wouldn't return to Europe and start killing sorcerers there.
Gojo had no intention of letting Tore Reksten escape, and he didn't disagree that it would probably be best if he dealt with Tore.
That was the responsibility of the strongest, after all, and if he had to be the executioner when it was Suguru Geto, he could certainly be the executioner for this monster.
He waits for them to separate because he actually doesn't know what to do about Ingrid. That's a complicated question. Tore is the part that's not complicated, and Ingrid is probably an easier question to answer if Tore isn't around.
He waits, quietly.
Tore leaves the hotel to go to a store down the street for beer later that night, unaware that eyes are on him.
Unfortunately, it's not only Six Eyes that watches him from the shadows.
To Kenjaku, everything that Satoru Gojo does is worth watching, so if he does something unusual like sending an email out to all the regional sorcery organizations in the world asking for information about a time manipulation technique, well—that's something.
Kenjaku also received this email due to one of the recipients being a Suguru Geto sympathizer, and he was fascinated, because he'd never heard of a time manipulation technique either. In theory, if space and gravity manipulation were possible, there were perhaps not actually limits on what facets of reality that sorcerers could manipulate, given the correct technique.
Master Ducreaux, who had a grandson born and killed by the Reksten siblings, actually had no problem telling anyone everything about Tore Reksten. Sorcerers, curse users, whatever. Because in the end, Ducreaux doesn't care how it happens, he just wants the Rekstens to meet whatever the worst possible end is.
This led to the even more fascinating discovery by Kenjaku that Tore Reksten not only had Temporal Distortion, but he could take whatever techniques he wanted.
Kenjaku is fascinated.
Obsessed, even.
The more he learns about the situation, the more he thinks the Rekstens are not that different from him. They're gross, weird people doing disgusting things that literally everyone else on earth would find absolutely repugnant. But Kenjaku made a bunch of cursed fetuses and then aborted them all, so there's that. He even gave birth to a child himself, as the mother.
These people are basically the same as him, except stupid enough to get caught.
Gojo's reasons for seeking Reksten are unknown to Kenjaku.
All of this is happening because in Alghera's timeline, neither Gojo nor Kenjaku ever heard about Tore Reksten before they died, but Reksten eventually crossed Ryomen Sukuna, who took his body and Temporal Distortion. Sukuna then used Temporal Distortion to throw Yuji's soul back in time, a phenomenon which Gojo witnessed.
Gojo became aware of Temporal Distortion as a consequence of Sukuna using the technique he stole from Reksten, and Gojo's investigation has led to both him and Kenjaku learning about Tore Reksten.
In other words, Reksten is in danger from Kenjaku and Gojo because his future self pissed off a completely different malevolent, scheming body-snatching Japanese sorcerer. He has no idea that he is becoming the first person in human history to make a mistake so terrible that it traveled back in time to ruin his life in advance.
Of course, none of them know the events of that future. They can only see the chaos that is taking place before their own eyes, a mess of growing entanglements.
Gojo and Kenjaku both decide that something is happening in the world that is beyond their current knowledge. Forces are in motion, but the questions are what those forces are, who set them into motion, and why did they do it?
Kenjaku, who is nearby, but not nearby enough that he might ever be spotted, follows along as Uraume texts him, wondering how everything will go. He does wish he could be there, but he can't spoil the big surprise he has for Gojo.
When Gojo is just about to attack, he suddenly detects the presence of absolutely monstrous cursed spirits in the area. One, two, three…there's a sorcerer he doesn't know too.
He was planning on sneaking up and killing Reksten with one blow, but the special grades activate Reksten's senses and when he turns, he finds Satoru Gojo standing behind him.
Gojo mistakes the others as Reksten's allies, because he is scum and that seems like the obvious conclusion to make. Reksten doesn't know the curses but knows they're not Gojo's allies. And anyway, coming from a part of the world where special grade curses are so rare he has never seen one, it's alarming to suddenly have these monsters everywhere.
Gojo isn't sure where the extras came from and knows one of them can probably conceal their presence, so that sucks. And also, they're in the middle of a city. It's populated. He didn't think it would be a problem to brain Reksten with his cursed technique since he is clearly drunk, but things have changed.
It's not a place that he can fight multiple three special grade curses and two sorcerers. Since Reksten knows he's there, he's probably going to be a pain in the ass with his cheat-technique too.
He's seen Reksten with Six Eyes, so he can catch up with later; there's no reason to cause a mass casualty event in the middle of a city, especially since Reksten isn't trying to kill anyone right at this moment.
Gojo decides to withdraw but is surprised to find that the others aren't Reksten's allies at all and carry on with attacking him in the middle of the street.
He's not sure what to do.
He observes the curses and finds them…mysterious and powerful. They're working together as a group under the leadership of the sorcerer, a white-haired individual with red blotches in her hair.
There's a curse with fire abilities that are not permissible in this environment, one that can manipulate trees and natural elements, and one that seems infinitely more dangerous and disgusting. They work together, under the androgenous ice sorcerer.
These curses are powerful, and this assault force is able to put Reksten on the ropes right away, despite the fact the power of Temporal Distortion.
The technique Reksten is apparently most comfortable with is an ice technique as well, but the other ice user is clearly a near-perfect elementalist, and her movements are practiced, precise. Using only the ice element, she would smoke Reksten any day of the week.
Gojo decides to drop his veil and watch for a few seconds.
Briefly, he considers the possibility that the ice user is like Yuta and has control of these curses, but they're not moving like they're slaves. They're moving like they have come to this place out of free agency and that's extremely unusual.
Since when did curses work with sorcerers? And how rare are curses with mental faculties capable of strategic, coordinate movement? This situation is just another strange and frustrating mystery.
It's also one that's incredibly dangerous, and Gojo decides the only way to stop this conflict from killing civilians in the area is to end it himself.
Reksten is obviously everyone's target, so if he eliminates the target, certainly none of the other players on the field have a reason to fight him. They don't seem interested in that at all.
The other side seems to know that they have to stay out of melee range of Reksten or he'll get them with Temporal Distortion, but the slowest of the curses, a hulking white tree monster, isn't fast enough to move out of the way, and he's able to see this technique in use and finds that from a distance, he can tell a technique is being used, but it doesn't really look like anything from the outside.
It would be almost impossible for a person without knowledge of the technique to figure it out in a battle, making it unbeatable as long as no one knows about it. But Tore pissed off people who will tell everyone his business in hopes that something very bad will happen to him, which seems to be what is happening now.
This distance requirement helps push the battle toward a park since the attackers seem aware that if they crash into the buildings where people are, it'll be harder to maintain distance.
Gojo thinks this other group doesn't want to actually kill Reksten, which is more disturbing than the idea that they do.
He decides to contain Reksten and whoever else he can catch inside of his domain since that will limit the damage to the surrounding area.
The other side has clearly been warned about this possibility because they scatter like ants when he rejoins the fight, and Reksten, disoriented about being in a battle everyone is trying to hurt him, achieves divine enlightenment inside of Infinite Void.
Foreign sorcerers rarely if ever encounter domain expansions, and since Reksten's default technique isn't actually offensively useful, he offers a meager defense. It's not enough and he ends up standing catatonic in Infinite Void, blood and cerebral spinal fluid oozing out of his eye sockets as he stares into the void.
Gojo had wanted to express his grievances more violently, but his fun had been ruined.
Cracks appear at the barrier of his domain; someone is trying to cast another domain on top of his from the outside, and while getting out of a domain is impossible, it's not entirely impossible to break in.
It's the fire curse, which is smart, because cursed spirits have more limited minds and aren't so catastrophically damaged by his domain. If it had been the ice elementalist, this might be a fatal move for them. Even though Gojo's domain can stand up to it, if the fire domain implodes, it might do some serious collateral damage to the city, which could turn into unacceptable casualties.
The curse with a patchwork face grabs Reksten and runs, and Gojo really isn't sure that he cares. The man's brain is literally leaking out of holes in his face; it's not like he's going to join the super evil fight club. Absolute best case scenario, the only thing he'll be able to do is drool and howl indiscernible curses at the gods for allowing him to be turned into a vegetable. But more likely, he'll just die in the next few minutes or hours from a brain bleed.
Gojo is annoyed as hell that he can't just go at it with the group, but there are too many people around. There's an offer that he can let them go and no one will die or he can fight them and people will die.
He is sure that the tree curse is the one that can hide presences from him.
Nothing about the situation went the way he wanted it to, and despite the fact that everything was already confusing enough, suddenly there are just more things that don't make sense.
The extraordinarily powerful curses working together under a human, a human leading them in an attack? She didn't seem like she was in charge of anything; there was strong 'lieutenant energy' about her. The ice user definitely wasn't the boss.
After investigating the area, it's clear they moved around underground before making themselves known. While he can see underground, he has to know to directly look at a spot to see it. If special grades were just walking around above ground, he'd be able to see a current of cursed energy in the air.
In addition to the tree curse's ability to conceal aura, this had been enough to prevent him from detecting their presence.
While he looks around for clues, Uraume and the special grades deliver Reksten to the abandoned building where they'd hurriedly set up only an hour before the attack.
Kenjaku is pleased to see that they secured their prize.
The original plan was to try and intercept Reksten and talk him into coming along willingly, but that required them to find Tore Reksten before Gojo did, and that just didn't happen.
Uraume is annoyed at Kenjaku for sending her on this 'errand' because tempting the most powerful sorcerer on earth with violence is not a 'side quest,' it's attempted suicide.
Kenjaku told them to bring Reksten back even if he was dead, and while the curses don't know why he would want a corpse, Uraume certainly does.
It's Gojo's second time to unknowingly let a dangerous vessel slip right out of his fingers and into Kenjaku's grasp.
After assessing Reksten's condition, Kenjaku says, "How convenient! It looks like Satoru Gojo has essentially lobotomized him for us, which should make it much easier for us to keep him until I am ready."
Mahito asks, "What are you going to do with a human with a destroyed brain?"
"He doesn't need a brain for what I need him for. This is actually the best outcome. His body will stay in good condition, but he won't cause us any trouble. I am incredibly pleased by this turn of events, actually. Although we do need to leave the area as soon as possible before you-know-who has time to look for us," Kenjaku explains.
As they leave the city, Gojo is left with whatever the hell this battle has been. He regrets not fighting the curses and risking the locals before he even finishes a cursory investigation of the area.
When he finishes up, he thinks about how he will explain this to the Jujutsu Society since this incident requires an explanation. There weren't any civilian casualties because the battle happened so late at night and broke out in an area where many stores were closed, but there was a lot of property damage. The Jujutsu Society's investigators were going to know something pretty serious went down and that extremely powerful curses were in this area for some reason.
If he'd known other attackers were nearby, he would have played his hand much differently.
Both this situation and the overall predicament he is in remind him that despite being the strongest, sometimes he just really fucks up.
At some point, he realizes he is procrastinating the next item on his to-do list because he does not want to do it.
Satoru doesn't even really know what he wants to do?
When he goes to the hotel room where he saw Ingrid with her brother, she's already fled on foot after hearing the battle and almost makes it to the train station when a familiar white Ferrari screeches to a halt on the sidewalk.
Her greatest fear was that all that noise down the street had been Gojo.
"S-Satoru. Did you hurt my brother?"
"Yeah, I scrambled his brain like a goddamned egg. Get in the car," he growls.
Obviously, he is the most powerful living creature on earth and she's a human with no cursed energy, so Ingrid knows she can say no, but it's not going to do any good. It's not like he can't force her to do what he wants, and if she makes him get out of the car, she assumes it'll be worse.
She gets in, and he pulls off before she even finishes fastening her safety belt.
For a long time, he is silent, his eyes occasionally cutting over to one side to peer at her belly.
"Where are we going?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet."
"Where is Tore?"
"Probably being eaten by cursed spirits. Do you guys know a man or woman with an ice ability and three special grade curses?"
She answers, "What do you mean 'know' special grade curses? I've never even seen a special grade curse!"
What is he even supposed to do now?
He feels like most people would feel this is an asshole sentiment, but he doesn't want this baby to be born, and he's absolutely sure that if he just makes her get out of the car, someone will kill her. This family has activated mutual protection pacts of an entire continent of sorcerers, and thanks to Gojo putting feelers out for a time manipulation technique and Master Ducreaux telling everyone all the business in hopes it results in a bad ending, it seems like 'bad ending' is just the default outcome for this woman.
She is basically already toast.
"How far along are you?"
"Twelve weeks."
"Is it healthy?"
"Yes, everything is going well so far."
She panics about her brother, hoping her cell phone will ring, but it doesn't.
When he realizes she has her cell phone with her, he snatches it and throws it out the window so no one can use it to track where she is.
Satoru eventually decides that he will take her to the Gojo clan estate and figure out what to do from there. Without Tore, Ingrid probably doesn't want it to be born either. Having an abortion and then setting her free to meet whatever fate awaited her seems like the easiest way to deal with the situation.
At the same time, he can tell that that the baby she's carrying is going to powerful, probably to the point that if he had fifty kids with other women, there probably wouldn't be another one like this. This life will potentially be the future of his clan, and a star in the future generation.
Extinguishing that potential because he doesn't want to face further consequences for his own actions would be a mistake, not just morally but also strategically.
Also, he just absolutely does not want this woman to have his baby, doesn't want to have a baby with this woman, doesn't want this baby to exist at all. His very soul rejects this entire situation.
As much as Satoru loves being a teacher and taking care of kids, he hasn't really been that into having his own kid. At some point, it is basically inevitable. He is the product of selective breeding and must acknowledge that it is necessary, but he assumed he'd just deal with that later on, and in different circumstances.
In his life plan, at some point in his thirties, he would accept an arranged marriage with someone he could tolerate, pass on the family genes, and continue to focus on sorcery. Would he be a good dad in that distant future? Yeah, probably.
Does he want to be a dad right now, with this baby-killing woman? No.
Gojo doesn't really think of abortion as being immoral in any sort of way in the general sense, but the more he thinks of it, the more he thinks that this option is strategically disadvantageous and the equivalent of making an unborn child bear the consequences of the choices adults made.
It's just a really long drive, and he's left with way too much time to think about how much he hates both the options and outcomes.
Ingrid is silent during the ride, anxious about her brother and her situation. Satoru implied he didn't die during the attack, but clearly things had gone very wrong for him. She doesn't know what Satoru is going to do to her, but he's not exactly a nice guy. After all, the only reason she was able to lead him around by the nose is because he was grieving having killed his first lover. It's not like he'll hesitate if he decides he wants her to die as well.
She's not sure if her baby will offer her any protection, as he remains silent but looks over at her belly with a rather sinister look on his face now and then, until he puts his blindfold on and stops looking altogether. Since she doesn't know if Tore has died or not, she feels like she should do her best to save herself and her baby just in case she is still able to reunite with her brother later, although that would be dependent on many things happening.
When they arrive at the massive, sprawling Gojo estate, a huge property outside of Kyoto, a massive iron gate opens to the walled property, and Gojo parks in a big parking garage near the entrance.
Since the estate is fifteen centuries old, there aren't paths wide enough for cars through the ancient gardens, and after ordering her to follow him, they follow a winding stone path under massive trees and over a stream, dimly lit by little lights placed here and there.
There are buildings dotting the various paths, traditionally styled dark wood with blue, curved roofs. The main building encloses a massive central garden, but they walk past that to a cottage further along the path.
The door isn't locked, and when he slides it open, he kicks off his shoes and looks around. There are two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living area, and a nice bath.
Sakura Cottage is actually a very pretty little house, so while he's sure Ingrid is upset about her brother and her loss of freedom and also all the people trying to kill her, he doesn't really think she's entitled to any complaints, all things considered.
This cottage was built by his grandfather before he died for his very young, pretty foreign mistress, so Gojo knew his grandmother was going to be pissed off to see her grandson bringing a foreign woman who isn't his wife to stay there.
Gojo says, "You'll be staying here. As long as you don't try to run, I won't chain you up. This estate is ancient, and we do have a dungeon. You will stay inside at all times, no exceptions."
"I'm a prisoner? What kind of monster imprisons a pregnant woman?"
Gojo answers, "I'm a mostly nice guy, but you victimized me, lady. Besides, this is protective custody for a member of the Gojo clan. You can leave once you've returned what you stole from this clan, and we won't take our own vengeance against you. But you will leave here immediately after, and those people you pissed off before we met are going to get you as soon as you leave here."
Ingrid nervously asks, "You would separate a child from its mother?"
"Is that a serious question?"
He has no intention of ever looking at or speaking to this woman again after this moment, and he has already decided to put someone else in his clan in charge of managing her until she gives birth and leaves the property.
Adopting a policy of 'live and let live' seems like the best thing he can do even though he feels entitled to vengeance.
At the moment, Satoru is full of intensely negative emotions about this whole incident, but he suspects that once he starts to clear some of that out of his mind that he'll feel better about the baby. Even if his feelings only make it as far as neutral, he can make sure it grows up well and has a good life.
Gojo is down and in a remarkably sour mood once he leaves the cottage and sends one of the clan's attendants to go deal with getting her whatever she needs to settle in. This has arguably been one of the worst days of his life that didn't involve someone cared about dying.
Between having to drive around for days looking for the dumbass siblings, confirming Ingrid was pregnant with his baby, being forced to reflect on what a cruel and heartless scheme she actually ran against him, not realizing there were other players coming for Reksten, not positioning his attack better so he could fight more when the battle expanded, not knowing what happened to Reksten, not being able to pursue the special grades, learning about these unregistered special grades…
This whole day has been shit, and now he has to deal with an avalanche of consequences and 'I told you so's' that he really doesn't want to hear from his family.
Once he gets finished with that, he has to go make a report to the Jujutsu Society about how he ended up in a conflict in a populated area in Hamamatsu with three unregistered special grades while he was out for 'personal reasons.'
XXX
While Gojo is so frustrated that he's ready to explode, Kenjaku awakens the next morning with a renewed sense of vigor.
Kenjaku remains unaware of the anomaly, or what sent Gojo to look for Tore Reksten, but Kenjaku is thrilled, pleased, and incredible excited about the outcome of the impromptu operation.
By then, he and Uraume have returned to their secret base with their prize, and while they enjoy a breakfast prepared by Uraume over her complaints about the risk involved in the mission, he takes in the sunshine pouring into the dining area through big sliding doors.
"Isn't it a beautiful morning, my friend?"
Uraume narrows her eyes and asks, "Are you even listening?"
"No, I'm in a good mood, and I can't be bothered with the discouraging words of a naysayer."
Is it a beautiful, perfect morning, with views of sun-kissed fields outside?
Is the meal not delicious?
The white-haired woman finds Kenjaku's joyous mood to be infuriating, since he was not the one who was put at risk. If Gojo had decided it was more important to eliminate the special grades than to prevent civilian casualties, he probably would have killed every single one of them, and Kenjaku really thought that was acceptable as long as he got his hands on the time manipulation technique.
While the curses had been hyped that Gojo didn't seem very strong to them, Uraume tried her best to explain that Gojo essentially let them win without putting up a real fight because if he gave them his all, several city blocks would have been destroyed. They don't really accept this information because they are cursed spirits, and even intelligent cursed spirits are still sort of dumb.
Infinite Void left Tore Reksten in a vegetative state that was probably permanent unless someone used reverse curse technique to heal him, but no one was going to do that. For Kenjaku, this was a wonderful outcome because he wasn't ready to change vessels, and at the same time, it sounded like Reksten would have been difficult to keep as a prisoner if his brain still functioned normally.
And so, Kenjaku now possesses the technique that Sukuna used to destroy the future.
It's such an unexpected boon, a blessing he didn't even know existed a week ago, and now, a mysterious power that he will own. He ponders what he can do with it, what the limits are, if there are limits?
There is a part of him that is almost giddy with excitement, since he is very old, and it is very rare for something completely new to exist in his mind.
After his meal, he moves on to a project he has been working on.
In an empty bedroom, he has a massive pinboard covered in notes, and when Uraume follows him there, she finds this board is new and it seems to be the product of madness or mental disease of some sort, pieces of yarn and some notes stuck up with red question marks.
"What is this?" she asks.
Kenjaku answers, "As you know, our plans have been complicated by a massive amount of missing information, like knowledge has been deleted from the world. At least, it has been deleted from our minds."
"What about it?"
The mastermind explains, "In your case, we know that you are very closely linked to whatever information has disappeared from the world. If I think back to all of the things I've done, my actions usually make sense to me because I still retain the information I had when I made them.
"If I look back at something I did and it no longer makes sense to me, it means that information that motivated me to do it has been removed. When I think about why Jogo is with us, I understand that because no information about Jogo is missing. But I can't remember why you and I are together, how we met, or any material details about our partnership."
He holds up a piece of paper with a huge circle cut out of the middle. "You have no way of knowing where the rest of this piece of paper is. I wrote a message on it, but you don't know what that message is because that part has been cut out. You don't know who cut the paper, or their reasons for doing it, or how it was done. What you can determine by looking at the whole page is the size and shape of what is missing.
"We may not be able to grasp the fine details, but there are certainly clues about this forbidden knowledge that we can gain if we are able to determine the size and shape of this informational void. In other words, we can learn some part of what we've forgotten by examining the gaps in our consciousness."
Uraume nods in understanding that Kenjaku is trying to recover whatever knowledge he can by examining the context surrounding the missing information.
Kenjaku says, "Sixteen years ago, I gave birth to a child."
"What?! Why? As a woman?"
"Yes! I don't know why I did it. It doesn't make sense to me now. I possessed this woman's body and slept with her husband. It was quite scandalous even for me. If I'm missing maybe thirty percent of my knowledge about you, I'm missing ninety-five percent of my knowledge about this incident. Whatever we have forgotten, it is very closely related to the child, Yuji Itadori.
"I believe we will be able to determine much more about what knowledge was lost if we can determine who Yuji Itadori is and what purpose he serves in the world. Unfortunately, and probably not coincidentally, he's become someone inaccessible to me. For some reason, in this tiny window of time when chaos has emerged, Satoru Gojo recruited him as a sorcerer. The fact that this happened seemingly at the same time as this Great Forgetting is telling, as is the fact that right after, Gojo broadcast the fact he was looking for someone with a time manipulation technique."
Uraume asks, "You think Gojo caused us to forget?"
"No. Gojo is a nosy, messy busybody who meddles in affairs because there are not forces that limit him properly. It's more likely that Itadori is the one who matters and Gojo has inserted himself into the situation unnecessarily to make things difficult for us."
After listening to him explain what a pain in the ass Gojo is, she decides it's not worth pointing out that Gojo has made it so that it is difficult for Kenjaku to approach his students because that is his job as their teacher. If horrible villains like Kenjaku could just menace the student sorcerers, they'd probably all just die.
The issue that Kenjaku presents to sorcerers in each era he comes across is age. Kenjaku is a thousand years old and Gojo is in his late twenties, and while Gojo certainly has the raw power to eliminate any of them including Kenjaku, it's unlikely that the younger sorcerer will ever gain a strategic advantage purely from devising a better strategy than Kenjaku.
While Gojo is confident that no one can defeat him in battle, Kenjaku has no intention of trying to overpower him. Gojo is young and arrogant, and he will make the exact mistakes that Kenjaku expects him to make.
The right decision for Gojo to make in Hamamatsu was to kill her, kill the curses, and kill Tore Reksten, even if it meant civilian fatalities. If he'd done that, Kenjaku would have been profoundly weakened. Losing Mahito would have further crippled basically every plan he had.
When the bodies start piling up, Uraume believes Gojo will realize that he had a chance to stop everything before it started and he failed over concerns about a number of civilian casualties that will be nothing compared to what happens later.
The fixation on Yuji Itadori leaves Uraume wondering if he and she both have a connection to the erased knowledge, if they also have a connection to each other? If so, had Kenjaku been hiding this connection previously?
Uraume can't remember why she came to this era, but she knows it wasn't out of loyalty to Kenjaku or a belief in what he was doing. On a good day, Kenjaku was a mad scientist playing with dangerous chemicals without regard for the consequences. Uraume didn't really think he was a genius or anything like that.
Being able to outsmart someone who was one thousand years younger wasn't exactly a sign of great intelligence or anything.
If Kenjaku was really smart, he would have realized Gojo was obviously a victim of the Reksten siblings because it seemed obvious to Uraume. Had they grabbed the woman and her brother, Kenjaku might have really been able to play with fire. But as a Sugawara, the idea of this gross brain of a man getting his hands on the family's treasured gifts grosses Uraume out, and so she didn't say anything.
Uraume contemplates if perhaps she should try to contact Yuji and see if she can remember anything, and then realizes that Kenjaku told her about him specifically because he wants her to do that. It's not like he can get anywhere near one of Gojo's students wearing Suguru Geto's face.
He's really just baiting her to go risk getting clobbered by Gojo, and she decides she won't take the bait for now.
Kenjaku looks up from his pinboard to find Uraume staring at him in disgust and asks, "You're looking at me like I'm a giant pile of garbage on the side of the road."
Uraume answers, "Being in such a handsome body really doesn't suit you."
Then, she smiles.
"That was incredibly unnecessary. Are you still mad about last night?" he asks, letting out a nervous laugh.
"I have a mission, and while I do not remember what it is, I am certain it was not to waste my life assisting you with your imbecilic, hare-brained schemes."
Kenjaku says, "I'm going to evolve humankind in the grandest game of all. Can you imagine the violence? A plan of inescapable violence and fighting."
Uraume answers, "It's not really an accomplishment to make sorcerers fight each other. They'll literally do it for no reason. Manipulating sorcerers into fighting each other is like manipulating a hungry dog to eat a steak. You're such a mastermind, so smart, so insightful, a master schemer indeed, making all those hungry dogs eat exactly what they were craving all along."
"What an icy tart you are today."
"I'm going outside. That weird sour smell that seems to be wherever you are is unpleasant."
XXX
While Kenjaku has zeroed in on Yuji as being closely related to whatever has gone wrong with his plan, Yuji himself is having a good morning.
He awakens to the familiar feeling of his bed being invaded. The top bunk, bottom bunk situation does absolutely nothing to keep Ryokun from invading his sleeping area. After only one week, he has learned that he can throw his toys up and then climb up, and can even make it to the top holding a snack in one hand after taking it from a cabinet he shouldn't be able to reach.
Child safety latches posed a challenge for him only once.
Yuji opens his eyes and Ryokun is there in his tiger pajamas, ripping open a bag of fruit snacks with his teeth.
"Good morning," Yuji mumbles.
"Good morning, you wanna snack?"
"We should get ready to go down to the cafeteria."
"Okay, but…"
"But what?"
Ryokun puts his snack aside, and exclaims as he jumps on Yuji, "I'm a tiger! Rawrrrrrrrrrr!"
They have a little wrestle, as has become their custom, and Yuji tickles Ryokun until he is reduced to scream-giggling, kicking his feet and unable to control his body anymore.
They get dressed and ready for the day and meet with Megumi and Nobara in the cafeteria. It's a little weird that they're the only three kids in their class and one of them has a child for some reason, but they have an all right time.
After they walk together to drop Ryokun off at daycare, they head to the train for a planned shopping trip and day off.
The three teenagers are free to do whatever they want for the day, they have money, and two of them are new to Tokyo, so they set out on a grand adventure.
They speculate about the cause of Gojo's unexpected absence throughout the trip, although Megumi, who has known Gojo for much longer, is actually very concerned about whatever is going on with their teacher.
In all the time that he's known Gojo, he's never known the sorcerer to disconnect from them like he has. He's sure if he called Gojo with a serious problem, Gojo would show up and help, but something is obviously going on with him.
Sometimes he travels for work, because if a powerful curse is born in a country without any sorcerers, what else can they do but make an appeal to someone who can help them? It doesn't sound like that's the issue.
On top of that, they overheard rumors at breakfast that something had happened with Gojo the night before, some dust up he had even though he was supposed to be dealing with a personal emergency.
When they leave the station at Shinjuku, for a split second, Yuji sees a flash of the place being absolutely wrecked, a sea of rubble as far as the eye can see, yet overgrown with vines and plants like it has been destroyed for a while.
Then he blinks, and he's still surrounded by shops and people.
It's only for a split second, and he pushes it out of his mind, attributing it to the strange, unwanted noise that keeps happening in his mind. Just when he starts to relax while they're walking around, he has another flash of the place being freshly destroyed, not overgrown, smoldering.
Yuji feels anxious, and like if he stays, he's going to have more of these, so he politely tells the others that he's going to head back on his own, and they immediately reject this and travel with him to the next stop on their tour, where nothing happens.
Megumi isn't as stressed as Yuji is because he's not experiencing brief visions of an apocalyptic future, but he feels the distinct feeling that they are being watched while they are in Shinjuku, and then after for two more stops.
When he texts Nanami, Nanami knows Megumi's instincts are very sharp because he's already been training for a while, and that if he feels like someone is watching them, he's probably right. He sends a car to pick them up and rides along, just in case, but when he arrives, nothing has happened and they're able to return without incident.
It's just another mysterious event in a chain of growing complexities and mysteries that leaves Nanami on edge as they all move into a future that suddenly seems riddled with uncertainties.