It was a scene he had seen before.
A plain with clear air and tall mountains visible in the distance.
This was a place he often came to because he liked its quiet atmosphere.
"What are you thinking about?"
Junpei walked over to Kashimo, who was sitting on a suitable rock.
It was a little annoying that he’d sat down beside him without permission, but since this was the road to the end, Kashimo decided to let it go.
"Didn’t we agree not to make small talk so we wouldn’t leave each other with a bad aftertaste?"
"You talk a lot for someone who’s about to die."
"You insolent brat..."
The blue sky came into view.
Had it always been this blue, this beautiful? He had thought he would never see it again after dying.
These were the things he had been too busy fighting to notice.
"...."
If I went back to that time, would I choose the same life?
Would I still be wandering around, seeking strength and never being understood?
He suddenly wanted to ask.
"Did you become the strongest, or were you born the strongest?"
"I became the strongest. I don’t really get what you’re asking in the first place. Who’s born strong from the start?"
"Guys like Sukuna probably were. At least, that’s how I see it... I was the same."
From the moment he learned to handle cursed energy, he had become aware of his fate.
What he could see, others could not. What he could do, others could not.
It wasn’t wrong, exactly, but it was enough to make him feel that he was different.
"Do you understand weakness? Is that why you had so many comrades cheering you on?"
"Maybe. Before I got this power, I was at the very bottom."
"That was impossible for me. To me, everyone except myself was just a clod of dirt that could break apart at any moment."
A clod of dirt that would crumble if you merely tapped it.
A clod of dirt that could never see the world from the same perspective as he did, and would only lie on the ground waiting to rot.
Just as it is impossible for humans to love a clod of dirt, he had never been able to form a deep bond with anyone.
"Teach me. Is strength a lonely thing? Is endlessly searching for the expression of power the punishment given to the strong?"
If you know weakness, then surely you can give me an answer.
Tell me about the road I could never walk.
"First of all, what do you even mean by strength?"
"The power to protect myself."
"And yet you’re talking about loneliness and love when all you want is to use that power to crush others?"
Wasn’t that what strength was in the first place?
He had thought it meant proving oneself through power superior to others, but...
The boy in front of him was not talking about the "loneliness" gained through "strength," but about what "strength" itself was.
"If you’re strong from birth, then why the hell would your parents exist to raise you as a baby?"
"In the end, aren’t they fundamentally different beings from me?"
"That’s only because you think so."
Junpei tapped Kashimo’s head a few times and looked at him with a pitiful expression.
"In short, it’s a matter of perception."
"Perception, huh."
"You try to limit strength to ‘violence,’ so other people can’t meet your standards. That’s why you can look at them as inferior without hesitation."
Itadori Yuji.
At school, he had been an obvious strong one.
To him, Kashimo himself must have looked no different from a clod of dirt, or maybe a bug.
Because he had been hurt by someone from the same category, he could not sympathize with Kashimo’s feelings at all.
"And once you think you can’t associate with inferior beings like that, you push other people away..."
"....."
"Your loneliness is something you brought on yourself. No matter how misunderstood you were, no matter how impossible it was to understand them, you still could have accepted each other’s lives as they were. You just never tried to learn about other kinds of strength."
Just as the strong have the life of the strong, the weak have the life of the weak.
And yet he never even tried to look at that properly, then went and talked about loneliness. Ridiculous.
If you want to be loved by others, then you can’t also be afraid to approach them.
"How arrogant."
And so that was all he had to say to Kashimo.
At his rebuke, Kashimo quietly closed his eyes.
"Arrogant, huh. I suppose I may have been."
Had I really been unable to understand them?
Had I judged them by my own standards and pushed them away on my own?
Were the things I looked down on really worthless?
Questions surged over him.
"Do you regret it?"
"No."
I was satisfied with my life.
I accepted my loneliness and lived as myself until the end.
What good would it do to get an answer now?
"Then that’s fine."
Junpei’s figure moved away.
He’d gone to the trouble of summoning him, only to leave after lecturing him endlessly. What a rotten kid.
Still, he didn’t feel bad.
"Hey."
"What is it?"
"To those guys...."
Fushiguro Megumi. Itadori Yuji. Kugisaki Nobara.
Those insolent brats.
He had been angry with them many times, but looking back, he seemed to have enjoyed himself in his own way.
"Tell them it was fun."
Maybe he had already found the answer and was just wandering around.
At first, he had been learning from a life he had been forced into out of pride.
That he could live together with them.
"Heh."
"You laughing?"
"Got it."
With that, Yoshino Junpei’s figure disappeared.
The scenery surrounding him also began to collapse and vanish.
Within it, Kashimo wore a satisfied smile.
"I really did something that didn’t suit me..."
Even becoming a cursed object had been worth crossing into the future for.
He was still lonely, but now he thought he understood the reason for that loneliness.
He had enjoyed the thrill of battle enough, so if he were born again, maybe he’d live a little differently.
"That was fun."
It wasn’t bad.
It wasn’t bad at all...
"Thank you."
As Kashimo met death, the domain was released.
Junpei fell through the shattered barrier and landed lightly on the ground.
-Tap
I won.
He had defeated all the rankers and reached the target score.
"Haaah...."
The first feeling that rose in him was not joy or elation, but exhaustion.
It had taken far too long to get here.
Right now, he just wanted to go back after finishing the job and rest.
"Kogane."
Junpei called Kogane and brought up the player rankings in a window.
{Player Rankings}
1st. [Yoshino Junpei - 1012 points]
.
.
.
.
Overwhelming first place.
Starting from 0 points and reaching the summit of the Culling Game with 1012 points took 3 days.
Considering that second place had only 12 points, he had practically monopolized all the points by himself.
"About 500 Culling Game players. Five points per person, so out of 2,500 points, 1,000... which means more than 40% died."
He had been in this crazy death game for so long that he felt like he was starting to see life as numbers.
It was a little unsettling, and pretty strange, but he still had things to do.
There were still problems left to deal with.
"Junpei-!"
"You did it!"
His comrades were running toward him from afar.
The grateful people who had believed in him and followed him.
Were they worried?
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"I’m perfectly fine."
"That was a truly incredible fight..."
"Yeah. He was strong, that guy. No wonder he was number one."
When he praised Kashimo, the expressions of the three first-years stiffened in a subtle way.
For the three of them, who had spent the last three days watching what an airheaded bastard Kashimo was, his dramatic end carried something that made them feel things.
They had thought he was just some worthless lightning freak, but in the end... he was kind of... something...
"Oh, Kashimo said he had something he wanted me to tell you guys."
"...?"
"That guy had a last message?"
"What is it?"
"He said it was fun being with you."
"Uh...."
Was that so?
All they could remember was teasing him.
They hadn’t expected the guy who seemed to have nothing in his head but fighting strong opponents to be thinking something like that inside.
"Ugh... this feels weird."
"Me too..."
"...."
Well, as long as he went out happily, that was enough.
He didn’t dislike the guy all that much either.
He hoped he’d be born with a calmer personality in his next life.
"Anyway, so that means we’ve passed 1,000 points now, right?"
"Yeah. Now... it’s time to get out of here."
Culling Game rule 8.
The time had come to spend 1,000 points and obtain the game master’s authority.
"What about Todo, Teacher Kusakabe, and upperclassman Hakari?"
"We got word that they reached the neutral zone while you were fighting Kashimo. They’ll be coming this way with Kurusu."
"Hey! You guys--!!"
"Ah, speak of the devil."
As if he had some ability to sense people talking behind his back, the moment their names came up, the Tsukumo Yuki extermination squad popped out from somewhere.
Behind them, Kurusu was following politely with her hands clasped together.
"So everyone made it safely."
"We got lucky..."
"Really."
"We got lucky..."
He didn’t know what had happened, but it seemed like everyone had really gone through something that could only be described as lucky.
Seeing that they hadn’t come together, Tsukumo Yuki’s persuasion must have failed.
Todo’s expression looked pretty gloomy, so he didn’t ask any further.
"Hello, Yoshino. Nice to see you again."
"Ah, yes."
He had met Kurusu a few times before.
When he went to the neutral zone, they had introduced themselves and talked, so they had become acquaintances of a sort.
He didn’t pay her much attention because he felt self-conscious around Nobara and because she seemed to like Fushiguro.
Anyway, now that she had arrived, it meant all preparations were complete.
Okkotsu Yuta, Maki/Mai, Choso.
Kusakabe Atsuya, Todo Aoi, Hakari Kinji.
Itadori Yuji, Fushiguro Megumi, Kugisaki Nobara.
Yoshino Junpei.
Every Jujutsu High player who had participated in the Culling Game had gathered in one place.
Taking a deep breath, Junpei called Kogane.
"Kogane, I want to use 1,000 points."
"Request received!"
As the request was accepted, the score of 1012 points dropped to 12.
As if celebrating the achievement of 1,000 points, fireworks burst from Kogane’s head and a song began to play.
With the reward, information was disclosed, and Junpei came to understand the extent of the game master’s authority.
"As long as it doesn’t violate eternity, almost anything is possible."
He could even rewrite the rules, and the game master could permanently leave the Culling Game.
Even so, he would never have a reason to use this.
-Congratulations! You have become the glorious Culling Game’s first game master!
The birth of the game master.
As if resonating with that auspicious moment, heaven and earth turned over and the barrier began to move.
-Ending the first Culling Game.
Where there is death, there is a new beginning.
237 players died in the first Culling Game.
Their souls, wandering the nine heavens, were absorbed into the barrier and expanded its range.
-Rumble, rumble, rumble...
Farther from Tokyo.
Wider.
It moved forward, greedily devouring everything within its expanding range.
-Boom!
At last, the barrier stopped at a distance that was hard to follow with the naked eye.
"What the hell...!"
"At this rate it’ll cover all of eastern Japan and still have room to spare!"
Everyone shuddered at the majestic sight.
How far was it going to keep expanding? The barrier that had once covered a radius of 15 km now seemed to easily exceed 300 km.
At this rate, swallowing the entire world wouldn’t take that long.
"Everyone who wasn’t caught up in it must have been forcibly brought in too."
-Mass influx of players detected! Announcing the opening of the second Culling Game!
The second Culling Game had already begun.
Before irreversible casualties could occur, they had to destroy the barrier quickly.
Swallowing hard, Junpei turned his gaze to Kurusu.
"I’m ready."
Now, it was the angel’s turn.
"Kogane!"
"Yes!"
"I transfer my game master authority to Kurusu Hana."
At a request outside the algorithm’s range, Kogane’s eyes spun rapidly as it checked whether this violated the rules.
Fortunately, as Tengen had said, it must have broken through a loophole in the system, because Kogane’s state returned to normal.
"Once you choose this, it can never be reversed. Do you still wish to transfer it?"
"Yes."
"Beep-beep. The authority of player ‘Yoshino Junpei’ has been transferred to ‘Kurusu Hana.’"
Like linking a file through the cloud, Kurusu’s Kogane rose up and resonated with Junpei’s Kogane.
One second, two seconds, three seconds... just as that brief moment felt like eternity,
"Transfer complete!"
The synchronization ended.
Now the Culling Game’s game master was Kurusu Hana.
With a zzzing, her eyes lit up and the words she had prepared came out of Kurusu’s mouth.
"I command you by the authority of the game master."
I grant my technique to the barrier of the Culling Game.
Those words.
How far had he run just to hear those words?
For a brief moment, before his sense of accomplishment could fully rise, the Jujutsu High sorcerers were moved to tears by the sight before them.
"Ah..."
"Ahhh..."
-Swish, swish, swish
The angel’s technique, Jacob’s Ladder.
As the technique that nullified techniques took effect across the entire barrier, the barrier that had confined the Culling Game all this time vanished.
Beyond the black pillars cracking apart and collapsing, the blue autumn sky was revealed.
"It’s over..."
Starting with someone’s muttered words, cries of joy erupted all at once.
"------!!!!"
The first Culling Game.
(2018.11.08~2018.11.15.)
End.
"Wow, they really did it."
"Yeah."
"It’s a touching scene, but... if it ends like that, it wouldn’t be fun, would it?"
"Right."
"You’ve been answering really short lately."
"What do you want me to do? My head’s been killing me since yesterday!"
"Tch, stop whining."
"I’m not whining...."
"Let’s go. We need to welcome the new game master."
The final ordeal.
To ring in its prelude....
"Sukuna... are you listening?"
The darkness had not ended.
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