Chapter 178 : The Storm's Eve Before the Kyoto Battle
Gojo Satoru's words contained some terrifying implication, his fingertip's condensed and gathered immense cursed energy indicating what this so-called "sunrise" was.
The thunderously falling explosive force would bloom into incomparable brilliant radiance, creating sunrise-like shocking brilliance for Kyoto before dawn arrived.
And the white-haired man would stand high above ten thousand li, his clear blue eyes looking down at the city annihilated in splendor.
Even Jiang Lai, who was prepared, couldn't help but fall silent for a second when imagining this scene.
After a moment, Jiang Lai replied: "No need." He said calmly, "Sunrise and sunset need not be forced, just let nature take its course."
Gojo Satoru snapped his fingers, nimbly retracting the cursed energy from his fingertip. The dangerous aura that had leaked out disappeared again in a breath. He tilted his head slightly, curving his lips lightly: "Oh, then forget it."
The dangerous thought from just now seemed to be contained in an instant, and Gojo Satoru's attention returned to the after-dinner dessert. He hummed an unknown tune, his slender fingers gripping a pure white dessert fork.
Jiang Lai also stopped talking and continued eating, though his focus had long since shifted away from the food.
In that brief interaction just now, he once again felt Gojo Satoru's unstable mental state.
Although the white-haired man looked similar to usual on the surface, casually cheerful and leisurely as always, behind that dashing liveliness, suppressed gray emotions were expanding bit by bit, like a massive whale slowly swimming in the dark depths of the sea.
The boundaries between destruction and protection, chaos and order, became very blurred. The calmly mad strongest could overturn everything at any moment.
At this moment, only spider-silk thin threads connected his rationality, preventing Gojo Satoru from completely losing self-restraint over his power.
"Tomorrow." Gojo Satoru suddenly spoke, interrupting Jiang Lai's thoughts. "Is the release day for Uji City's Seven Thousand Cat brand matcha rice balls."
"?" Jiang Lai was slightly stunned, somewhat surprised by this abrupt new topic.
Tomorrow was Sunday, the time Gojo Satoru had announced early and decided for implementing the Kyoto plan. Why would he suddenly mention desserts from neighboring Uji City now?
"I kind of want to eat them......" Gojo Satoru crossed his hands together, speaking slowly, then suddenly seemed to remember something. "Why don't you help me buy some? How about it?"
Jiang Lai's eyebrows raised slightly. He understood very well the meaning behind these words, so he thought: clearly we decided to travel together before, why does he want to send me away now?
He didn't point this out, just replied calmly: "Too far, I won't go."
Gojo Satoru leaned back against the chair back, pondering thoughtfully, waving his finger to gesture: "It's not that far, just next to Kyoto."
"Even so, I'm not a personal shopper." Jiang Lai crossed his arms in front of him. "Just for one type of dessert, there's no need to run that far."
Gojo Satoru chuckled softly, his magnetic voice rising slightly, like a white big cat being clingy: "But I really want to eat them, what should I do?"
He lifted one corner of his eye mask with one hand, revealing his left eye that was beautiful and lively like a gem, blinking as he said, "Don't worry about payment, I'll cover everything."
"......" Jiang Lai didn't answer immediately.
He saw the glittering light in the other's exposed eye. The other didn't seem to be asking him to leave just for that released dessert.
So, after a brief moment, Jiang Lai nodded in reply: "Alright, then I'll make the trip."
Gojo Satoru pulled out his wallet from his chest, cleanly tossing it to the black-haired youth across from him, saying lightly: "I'll leave it to you."
Jiang Lai caught the wallet the other threw. Its thickness and weight indicated the abundance of money inside.
Even though the Six Eyes had become a cursed user, it didn't affect his funding chain. In terms of money, Gojo Satoru had never been lacking, just changing from using cards more to using cash more.
Jiang Lai didn't know what the meaning behind Gojo Satoru's action was. He lowered his eyelids, looking at the wallet.
"Staring at the wallet the whole time, are you mesmerized by all that money...... thousand-year-old monster?" Gojo Satoru propped his chin with one hand, his voice rising at the end.
The long-unheard nickname made Jiang Lai's expression pause slightly. He looked up at the white-haired man sitting leisurely across from him.
Gojo Satoru said playfully: "After hearing those stories you told, I feel this nickname is very fitting. You won't be angry, will you?"
During high school, whenever Gojo Satoru called him [old monster], Jiang Lai would always lightly tap the Six Eyes divine child's head with his invincible phone-kun (book), maintaining a breezy attitude while symbolically retorting with a sentence or two.
Hearing it now in the Crossroads Tower, Jiang Lai no longer had the playfully annoyed emotions of hitting people from before, only certain inexplicable sentiments and memories arose.
After pausing for a moment, Jiang Lai said: "I won't be angry. If you want to call me that, then call me that."
"Despite having powerful strength, your temper and patience are unexpectedly good." Gojo Satoru curved his index finger, resting it at his chin. "How rare."
Jiang Lai smiled gently, saying warmly: "If my temper and patience weren't good, I would have left here long ago to beat someone up, starting with [overly familiar]."
Gojo Satoru: "?" For some reason, that peculiar sense of inexplicable sarcasm came out again.
He naturally crossed his slender hands together, pure white eyelashes fluttering. The black eye mask he put back on concealed those indifferent snow-like Six Eyes.
What Gojo Satoru didn't say aloud was that the earlier nickname had instinctively slipped out. He actually hadn't thought much about it at the time; that pet name seemed to originally exist in his mind.
His thoughts, constantly swaying between the edge of rationality and madness, were rarely slightly calm at this moment. He watched the person sitting across from him.
From the beginning, the other had possessed incredible mystery and inexplicable trust toward himself. The Six Eyes sensed the other's sincerity and genuine heart.
The results from Six Eyes analysis indicated that the person before him was a powerful jujutsu sorcerer, while also possessing some indistinguishable parts, as the person himself said, like a "monster."
In a few dazed moments, Gojo Satoru actually felt the black-haired youth was a condensation of cursed energy born from his own regrets and obsessions, a friend constructed by hallucinations after losing his mind.
Or perhaps the other was real, just mistakenly entered from another world. Gojo Satoru's eyelids drooped lightly, his lips curving up. He was somewhat envious of himself in that world.
Tomorrow's Kyoto, Gojo Satoru had a premonition that those rotten oranges would definitely deploy Ryomen Sukuna here for a grand and intense battle with himself.
However, he himself also planned to make a big scene, thoroughly destroying Kyoto's Big Three Families' old sites and the Supervisory Committee's conversion formation arrays that were most likely there.
Adding Ryomen Sukuna to make that area shatter even more thoroughly wouldn't be bad either.
By now, on the day before the Kyoto battle, Gojo Satoru no longer wanted to waste mental energy distinguishing between true and false, enemy and friend, conspiracy or luck. The companionship during these final days had been enough.
He finally decided to let the black-haired youth leave.
Gojo Satoru had previously issued announcements to evacuate Kyoto's masses, and naturally also prepared to clear away unrelated personnel around himself at the end.
This way he could do it without any hesitation or concerns, thoroughly releasing the suppressed immense power in Kyoto.
Asking the black-haired youth to go to the neighboring city to help bring back desserts was a clumsy excuse, but Gojo Satoru knew the other would agree.
He had already sensed and observed (or subconsciously perceived) that the navy blue figure before him had great tolerance and indulgence toward himself.
Moreover, there wasn't just desserts over there, but also the last Ryomen Sukuna finger he had hidden. Based on the stories the black-haired youth had told, he would handle the last finger well.
In any case, it wouldn't fall into the hands of those rotten oranges.
Gojo Satoru's gaze fell distantly outside the window, watching the endless night scenery.
Come on, tomorrow, he thought.
……
"They open for sale at six in the morning, and the queue is always super super super super long, so you must go early! You must buy some!"
"I know, I know." Jiang Lai turned sideways. "I'll be back soon."
Gojo Satoru waved goodbye to the navy blue figure.
After the other left, Gojo Satoru contained the smile on his face, returning to an expressionless state.
At this time, the sky wasn't yet bright. He rose into the air, suspended high above, looking down at the ant-sized buildings on the ground.
With his fingers spread, all things seemed to be gathered in his palm.
The pre-dawn wind carried coolness as it lifted his collar. Gojo Satoru half-squinted his eyes, gazing at the boundary between heaven and earth. The heavy cloud layers of the overcast day slowly accumulated above.
The white-haired man's fingertip swayed lightly, condensing a bright cursed energy.
The strongest's cursed energy instantly swept up high-altitude storms, seeming able to tear space as it pulled and expanded. The city's edge gradually became shrouded in some semi-transparent barrier.
Gojo Satoru's Six Eyes glimpsed the cursed energy changes at the edge position. He sneered and muttered to himself lightly:
"As expected, they set up barriers...... those old geezers. But if I really intended to expand the attack range, these couldn't stop me."
Some dark, cold, viscous cursed energy surged up from Kyoto's highest tower position. Gojo Satoru locked onto the location almost instantly.
He clicked his tongue lightly, then his face bloomed with a silent mocking expression: "They really let that guy out...... truly a bunch of rotten oranges from the gutter."
I promised Yuta to try to save that boy named Itadori Yuji, Gojo Satoru thought. Then I'll find a way to force Ryomen Sukuna back in.
Without the last finger gathered, Ryomen Sukuna would never be complete, and the death sentence bound between the higher-ups and Yuta wouldn't be forcibly executed.
With thoughts flowing in his heart, amid the pre-dawn clouds and chaotic cursed energy fluctuations, Gojo Satoru's long-suppressed madness surged up.
He tore off his eye mask, his brilliant Six Eyes carrying a tsunami that struck the heavens, his blue pupils gleaming brightly.
"Hey…" Gojo Satoru stretched his voice across the distance, transmitting his words with cursed energy while laughing wildly, "What are you doing down there? Come up and fight!"
He made a beckoning gesture while suspended in air, his posture quite dashing and exhilarating.
The Six Eyes' excellent vision could clearly see Ryomen Sukuna standing on the high tower.
That guy stood there, his black-marked arms crossed in front of his chest, looking somewhat lazy.
Ryomen Sukuna's crimson eyes lifted as he snorted with laughter: "I'd like to kill you directly, but according to those guys' arrangements, someone else is responsible for the opening."
Gojo Satoru's eyebrows raised slightly, his face still wearing that grand smile, his downward gaze carrying some nonchalance.
However, the next second, Gojo Satoru's smile suddenly froze. Some familiar cursed energy faintly appeared, and in the Six Eyes' vision, a youth with half-long hair tied in a bun walked out from inside the tower's top floor.
It was Geto Suguru.