Jujutsu Kaisen: Survive First, Become a God Later

The only one whose fragile life was truly at absolute risk during that fight was Nobara Kugisaki.

The absolute worst-case scenario for that encounter would have been Yuji Itadori ruthlessly killing both brothers sequentially while Nobara Kugisaki tragically succumbed to the poison.

Yuji Itadori simply countered the deadly abilities of the two Death Painting brothers far too perfectly.

From a purely human standpoint, even Mahito had to admit that the corrupt Jujutsu Headquarters had done at least one genuinely decent thing by sealing those wombs away.

As for why Kenjaku coldly looked down on his own creations, the Death Paintings...

He even openly looked down on Yuta Okkotsu, so one could easily imagine just how impossibly high his standards were.

Kenjaku simply couldn't be viewed through the narrow lens of a normal Jujutsu Sorcerer.

His perspective was so incredibly vast and his ambitions so impossibly high that he genuinely didn't care about a mere nine Special Grade combatants.

Incidentally, in the original timeline, Kenjaku was ultimately killed by the very same Yuta Okkotsu he had so arrogantly looked down upon.

Yuki Tsukumo spoke flatly.

"To completely eradicate Cursed Spirits, you can't possibly succeed without being at least a little bit crazy."

Mahito was left utterly speechless.

He finally let out a heavy sigh.

"No wonder you said you're heading straight to Hell."

"As expected, Heaven simply wouldn't be able to accommodate you."

"All Jujutsu Sorcerers should go straight to Hell, regardless of whether they are official Sorcerers or rogue Curse Users."

Yuki Tsukumo laughed out loud.

"Mahito, you are truly kind."

"You are so blindingly kind that your eyes are completely blind to the inherent, suffocating darkness that belongs to all Jujutsu Sorcerers."

Mahito pointed a finger at himself in confusion.

"Me?"

"Kind?"

"Let me tell you exactly why I am completely unwilling to trust you, no matter what happens."

"I know clearly that your acquired human education has successfully overridden your innate Cursed Spirit nature."

"And I know for an absolute fact that your magnanimity and immense charisma are more than enough to perfectly stabilize the entire world."

Yuki Tsukumo turned around.

Her blonde hair fluttered slightly in the wind, catching the cool, refreshing spray from the canal.

She pressed a hand down on her long golden hair to keep it steady and let out a bright, ringing laugh.

"Listen very closely, Mahito."

"All creatures that wield Cursed Energy, regardless of whether they are Jujutsu Sorcerers or Cursed Spirits, are a bunch of absolute lunatics."

"The more powerful the existence, the more deeply and terrifyingly insane they are."

"This universal truth has absolutely nothing to do with what the individual themselves might naively think or believe."

"I'm not just repeating the simplistic, overused notion that powerful Sorcerers tend to become extreme as an unfortunate side effect of using their power."

"In fact, even that common understanding is fundamentally wrong."

"The true answer lies directly within the Soul."

"Some Souls are simply innately prone to generating massive amounts of negative emotions—anger, sorrow, fear, irritation, and bitter jealousy."

"It might not be immediately apparent when they are very young."

"But as the Soul matures and ages, that person's thoughts will increasingly slide toward much darker, crueler directions."

"This underlying distortion is the most fundamental, baseline instinct required for becoming a Sorcerer."

"Think about it carefully."

"If Sorcerers were born purely through simple genetic inheritance, how on earth did the very first Sorcerer ever come into being?"

"Take the Special Grade Sorcerer Suguru Geto, for example; his parents were completely genuine, ordinary non-sorcerers."

"So how was a monster like him born from them?"

"It originates entirely from a sudden, violent mutation of the Soul."

Yuki Tsukumo watched the rolling waves of the canal, her tone suddenly tinged with deep reminiscence.

"I was completely stunned when I first realized the horrific truth, too."

"In fact, countless pieces of irrefutable evidence are right there out in the open."

"But very few Sorcerers ever bother to actually study them, and even if they do notice the patterns, they absolutely refuse to admit the truth."

"The Soul itself is permanently engraved with human cognition and all of a person's life memories."

"Therefore, all dead Souls brought back to the physical world through Seance Techniques clearly know exactly who they are."

"Moreover, once those summoned Souls violently invade a living vessel, they can effortlessly use their old Cursed Techniques."

"This is because the exact moment a Soul successfully invades a body, its sheer presence forcibly remodels the physical flesh to match its shape."

"The residual Cursed Energy within the vessel forcibly mutates to match that of the deceased Soul, and the Cursed Technique is directly engraved onto the new physical body."

"I heavily suspect that if the nature of the Cursed Technique is suitable, the Soul itself might be capable of generating and using Cursed Energy without needing a physical body at all."

"So, do you finally understand now?"

"Jujutsu Sorcerers are born madmen!"

"This inescapable distortion originates directly from the Soul itself."

"No Jujutsu Sorcerer alive can possibly escape it."

"Do you honestly think we Sorcerers are normal, well-adjusted people?"

"We only appear relatively normal because there are even crazier, more violently deranged Sorcerers constantly keeping us in check out of fear."

"You really should have seen how absolutely terrifying the past was before Satoru Gojo was born."

"Vicious Curse Users emerged endlessly, leaving the regular Jujutsu Sorcerers run completely ragged just trying to stop the bleeding."

"The corrupt Jujutsu Headquarters forcefully monopolized all knowledge and use of Cursed Energy."

"And the arrogant Big Three Sorcerer Families still strictly follow the archaic, barbaric rules of the Heian Era to this very day!"

"And then there's Satoru Gojo."

Yuki Tsukumo paused, her lips slowly curling into a cold, cynical smile.

"He is the absolute biggest madman of them all."

"He actually wants to bring genuine, systemic fairness to the Jujutsu World."

"If he were still a naive child, I wouldn't say much about it; I'd just find his grand dreams cute."

"But the man is twenty-eight years old now, and he still stubbornly clings to such ridiculous ideals?"

"What a complete joke!"

"Does he think this entire brutal society is just a game of child's play?"

"Does he genuinely think that just because he's the strongest, whatever he verbally dictates magically becomes reality?"

"In this hidden world, the strong inherently deserve absolute privilege because it is a society where individual destructive power completely surpasses everything else."

"When a single person can effortlessly dominate the entire world through brute strength without needing to rely on any social connections whatsoever..."

"And you expect a living god like that to happily work a mundane nine-to-five job?"

"To force them to work brutal overtime until nine or ten at night, return to a cramped home, wash up, and collapse into bed without even eating dinner, living a life more exhausted and pathetic than a stray dog?"

"Do you honestly think that level of quiet submission is possible for someone with godlike power?"

"Let me be completely blunt about this."

"Satoru Gojo is nothing more than a giant infant!"

"It's just that this giant infant happens to have a very slight sense of self-awareness."

"He knows perfectly well that he cannot govern the entire Jujutsu World all by himself."

"So he became a teacher, wandering around collecting promising disciples from everywhere."

"He is deludedly trying to overthrow the existing, brutal order that has successfully maintained global stability for millennia."

This exact logic was the core reason why Yuki Tsukumo had always deeply looked down on Satoru Gojo.

She fundamentally believed that the man had gone utterly insane, living in a fantasy world completely beyond her comprehension.

This isn't to say that the concept of fairness is inherently bad.

Doesn't modern human society heavily advocate for true fairness, too?

Never mind whether true equality is ever actually achieved; the societal propaganda constantly preaches it.

But that is the reality for ordinary human society!

No matter how physically strong or highly skilled an ordinary human becomes, a single bullet to the head is more than enough to kill them instantly.

Because of that inescapable physical fragility, ordinary people deeply crave systemic fairness.

They subconsciously know that despite minor individual differences, they are essentially the same fragile creatures and thus desperately deserve equality to survive.

But Jujutsu Sorcerer society is absolutely nothing like that!

A Special Grade Sorcerer like Yuki Tsukumo could effortlessly and single-handedly slaughter everyone in the normal world.

She can skillfully use Reverse Cursed Technique to heal any fatal wound in seconds.

Conventional human weapons like bullets and artillery shells are completely useless against her.

Even if an entire nation decided to drop a nuclear bomb on her head, she possessed the terrifying power to drag the entire world down into the abyss with her before she finally died.

You expect an existential threat like that to humbly submit and become an obedient wage slave?

Even if she were somehow incredibly willing to play along, do you think any mortal boss would actually dare to hire her, knowing what she could do?

That terrifying discrepancy in power was exactly why Yuki Tsukumo concluded that Satoru Gojo was truly, genuinely insane.

His sheer naivety was insane to a bone-chilling degree.

Mahito laughed softly.