(THO) CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Gojo was wary. It wasn’t a feeling he liked. Or one he was used to entertaining. Flippant? Yes. Hypervigilant? Always. But wary—that slow-cr

Gojo was wary.

It wasn’t a feeling he liked, or one he was used to entertaining.

Flippant? Yes. Hypervigilant? Always. But wary—that slow-creeping unease that coiled low in the gut and whispered you know what’s coming and can do nothing—was foreign. Unwelcome. And worse? It made sense.

He stood on the rooftop after leaving the basement, high above the PRT headquarters, and far from the reinforced stairwells and surveillance dead zone. The city sprawled below him in indifferent silence was his only companion.

Scion.

The name reverberated with all the gravitas he felt it needed.

He’d heard of monsters before, killed some, fought arguably worse, and stared down certain death with a grin and no backup plan.

But this wasn't just any monster.

This was an alien intelligence. A being that seeded power through trauma, that watched, recorded, and harvested the data gotten from it. A being so far outside the laws of nature, so powerful, that Contessa’s Path to Victory—her literal cheat code—couldn’t beat him.

That last part stung more than it should have.

Gojo leaned forward, forearms resting on the concrete rail. His blindfold stayed on, not because he needed it, but because it was easier not to look at a world that suddenly made less sense, but paradoxically, more sense.

Besides, he didn’t need to see the skyline. It hadn’t changed. The people still moved like ants below him. The world still ticked forward despite what he had learned.

But something inside him had shifted.

He had always lived with certainty.

That he was the strongest.

That he knew more than the rest.

That no matter the problem—curse, monster, higher-ups, the very structure of a society—he could cut it down.

But now? Now he wasn’t sure.

Not just because Contessa could ‘path’ him now—though that alone was annoying in a deeply personal way—but because he had, for a moment, believed this world would be... simpler.

Not exactly peaceful, but manageable.

Something he could stroll through, fix a few things, maybe punch a person or two, and be left alone.

A vacation.

He’d thought this world might offer peace by contrast: no cursed energy, no Sukuna, no weight of legacy on his shoulders. But that illusion had died in that private room below.

He didn’t feel small, not even now. But he did feel something akin to being adrift.

What was he supposed to do with this?

Help Cauldron? Ally with the secret keepers and manipulators? Trust a woman who had said, with total calm, “You died. And it was underwhelming.”

He ran a hand through his hair, letting out a quiet breath.

“Great,” he muttered. “I get isekai’d and instead of leveling up, I find out God’s a golden sociopath.”

He threw his head to the sky. No stars tonight. Just clouds and light pollution and the unique ambient noise of Brockton Bay.

It wasn’t fear he felt.

It was… emptiness.

A lack of purpose. 

Gojo had tried to fill that void with new sights, new knowledge, new enemies to toy with. He’d told himself that learning the rules of this world was enough. That maybe, just maybe, understanding it would give him something to hold onto.

But now that the people behind the curtain had names and plans and whispered truths about things even he couldn’t kill…

What was the point?