CHAPTER TEN

Gojo sat cross-legged on the edge of a skyscraper, the night air tugging at his coat and hair. Below him, Brockton Bay lights flickered unevenly. Sirens rose and fell in the distance. Even the stars above seemed dimmer, as if they couldn’t be bothered to shine on a city like this.

He wasn’t blindfolded tonight.

His Six Eyes shimmered in the dark, glinting with the kind of clarity no one else could bear. They mapped everything—every crack in the city’s foundation, every hint of violence waiting to happen, every thread of wrongness that clung to the people here like parasites. He saw all of it.

So he wasn’t smiling, either.

Not tonight.

“Riko,” he murmured. “You’d have hated this place.”

He pulled a lollipop from his coat and unwrapped it with one flick of his fingers, letting it sit between his teeth. Cherry.

“They don’t have curses here,” he said, eyes on the scattered crowd along the ruined Boardwalk. “Just people.”

“But there are monsters,” he added quietly. “They call them Endbringers.”

The name alone deserved mockery, but they were simply symptoms of a larger issue.

Futility. 

The lollipop clicked against his teeth.

Jujutsu society was broken, but he believed it could be changed. Earth Bet? It seemed rigged from the top down. Parahumans were victims of manipulation by powers they didn't understand, forced to become weapons—just like Riko was supposed to be. 

If she was here, she would see the “heroes” and realize quickly: they weren't saving the world. They were just keeping it from dying faster.  

“Suguru would’ve had a field day. Bet he’d say this world was proof he was right.” A bitter laugh escaped him—low, dry, undeserved. “Hell, I might’ve even agreed.”

He let the silence linger, leaning back on his palms to stare at the moon.

Then, after a long moment, he said it—not flippantly, not mockingly, but with sharp, tired certainty:

“This isn’t strength. It’s survival and pain, repackaged into something appetizing.”

He thought of Glory Girl.

He thought of the girl with the bugs, Skitter tight. 

He thought of the villains clawing at each other for inches of ground in a broken city. 

Survivors playing at gods. 

Pretending they were strong.

Gojo rolled the lollipop to the other side of his mouth and spat it into the air. It arced once, briefly caught the moonlight, and then disappeared into the dark below.

“I died,” he said, “Fighting the only man who ever made me wonder if I was enough.”

His hand tightened.

“And now, I’m here. A world without curses. Without a rival. Without my students.”

Another pause.

Gojo’s shoulders slumped just slightly—not in defeat. In disgust.

“I was the strongest,” he said. His voice didn’t carry far. It didn’t need to. “Still am.”

He stood, coat rippling behind him like a flag that refused to bow.

“But there’s no one left to prove it to.”

The wind howled as he closed his eyes.

He remembered Suguru’s voice. The way he smiled like he carried the world’s sorrow in one hand and dared you to take the other.

He remembered Riko, reaching out for the future she never got to have.

He remembered dying—not with fear, but with clarity.

This is where it ends.

Except it didn’t.

Now he was stuck in a world where the only thing that mattered was who had suffered more.

Where strength wasn’t earned. It was handed out like poison.

He looked down at the city.

Then spoke—not loud, but clear. Like a declaration.

“Throughout heaven and earth,” he said.

His eyes‘ glow brightened.

“I alone am the honored one.”