When Zoro and Toji returned to Jujutsu High with the Death Paintings, the school was naturally thrown into chaos.
"I'm Choso. I've come here with my brothers to learn how to live as humans. Please take care of us."
"Please take care of us."
"Please take care of us!"
Seeing the three members of Death Paintings sitting politely at the classroom desks and bowing to him, Yaga felt overwhelmed. It seemed like he had lived too long, although he wasn't even forty yet.
Yaga pressed his fingers between his eyebrows. They weren't dogs or cats, but hybrids of humans and curses, and there were three of them.
"…Why exactly did you bring them here?"
"According to Zoro, Tengen told him to bring them."
"God damn!"
Lord Tengen, why? Yaga asked a question to which there was no one to answer.
"Wow, they really are hybrids of humans and curses."
Satoru took off and put on his sunglasses several times, marveling at the Death Paintings.
"They used really high-quality bodies for the resurrection, so there are almost no traces of them being cursed tools. Even a non-sorcerer would believe they're human. What did you use for the resurrection?"
Zoro remained silent for a moment. Gojo tapped him, pulling Zoro out of his thoughts.
"Hey, Zoro. Didn't you hear?"
"Hmm? Oh... we used the bodies given by Tengen."
He didn't mention that the bodies were originally specially crafted by a Heian-era sorcerer to house Zoro's soul and body when he was summoned to this world. If he did, the explanation would never end.
Shoko was experimenting with a few drops of the Death Paintings's blood.
"Indeed, if their blood enters a human body, it causes a rejection reaction. That makes sense. They are hybrids of humans and curses."
Interesting. Shoko murmured as Geto watched her with a troubled expression.
'I never imagined I'd be going to school with half-curses.'
If Geto's knowledge of jujutsu history was accurate, these beings were born about 140 years ago.
'If they enroll in Jujutsu High, I'll have juniors who are 140 years old.'
The family tree was already tangled enough with Zoro's arrival, but having 140-year-old juniors? Geto pondered seriously.
'Would hybrids of humans and curses be subject to my curse manipulation? ...No, wait. I shouldn't be thinking about that.'
Geto slapped his face lightly between his palms. This must be Satoru's influence. He justified himself with this thought.
Better not look at them. Seeing them only makes me think more. Deliberately averting his gaze from the Death Paintings, Geto changed the subject.
"What happened with Riko-chan?"
"…They said they're going to strip Amanai of her status as a vessel."
"Lord Tengen has already announced it. Amanai Riko is no longer the vessel."
"So, Riko won't have any more ties to the jujutsu world."
Although she could see curses, she was a non-sorcerer. No matter how severe the shortage of personnel was, the jujutsu world wouldn't forcibly conscript someone like her.
Gojo rested his head on the desk.
"So, what was Tengen thinking when he decided to strip Riko of her vessel status? Did he get scared of fighting us?"
"…Oh. It looks like he no longer intends to assimilate."
"Huh, is there a way for him to maintain his consciousness even as a curse? Or is he just giving up?"
"Either way, we need to keep an eye on things for a while. It would be troublesome if Lord Tengen starts to antagonize humans."
While Gojo and Geto continued their conversation, Zoro remained lost in thought. Observing this, Toji grabbed Zoro and lifted him up.
"Hey, where are you going, Sensei?"
"I have something to discuss with my son."
Toji quickly left the classroom, carrying Zoro, and stopped in a quiet forest within the school grounds. Zoro, still dangling from Toji's grip and deep in thought, glanced up at Toji.
"You said you had something to discuss. Go ahead."
Toji carefully set Zoro down on the ground and replied.
"After you've finished your thoughts."
"…You knew?"
"Kids talking to you and you not hearing a word? Of course, I knew."
Ever since they left Star Palace, Zoro had been deep in thought. The fact that he responded to Yaga and the second-year students with a delay was evidence of this.
Zoro scratched his head.
"There are some parts I haven't sorted out yet."
"Then sort them out."
"Got it. Just give me a moment."
Zoro sat cross-legged on the ground, straightened his back, and closed his eyes as if meditating.
However, Zoro wasn't meditating. He was organizing the jumbled information in his mind to make it more comprehensible.
"...."
Toji stood silently at a slight distance, not asking any questions, while Zoro, with barely audible breathing, focused solely on his thoughts.
Toji had used his observation haki to sense what was happening during the conversation between Tengen and Zoro, but he had deliberately adjusted his hearing, so he didn't hear their conversation.
Still, a few snippets had unavoidably reached his ears.
"…didn't exist… 'this world'…"
"…bring… people worse than Ryomen…"
"…curse… creation… day?"
Toji pushed his natural curiosity and questions deep into his mind, as he had done in the past.
"It doesn't matter."
He kept repeating to himself that it didn't matter what Zoro had discussed with Tengen.
After a long while, Zoro opened his eyes. His gray eyes were clear and resolute, like the crisp air of an autumn dawn.
"Have you organized your thoughts?"
"For the most part."
He had combined scattered memories, dreams, emotions, and information in his mind. It was like finding and sorting puzzle pieces scattered everywhere and fitting them into place.
As a result, a few things had become clear.
'The white path in the darkness I saw in my dreams.'
That was probably… the memory of entering the body prepared by Kannon.
The dream where everything was still in the darkness, the one where the white path appeared, and even the dream with the heart and red thread—all of them.
'They weren't just simple dreams.'
They were all memories of things Zoro had actually experienced.
'These were events I went through in the state between dying and being reborn.'
That's why they were hard to recall without borrowing the unconscious space of dreams.
'In the end, I didn't take that white path.'
Every time the white path appeared, Zoro turned back at its threshold. He didn't know why. He just didn't want to go that way.
'It was an instinctive decision.'
He had a sense that going there would be wrong.
If he had taken that path, he would have inevitably become a cursed spirit, so it turned out well in the end.
'And… the sound that often echoed in my dreams after being born, like metal clashing.'
Zoro delved into his memories to find the sound that most closely resembled it.
'It was similar to the noise Franky made when he misaligned the gears in a machine.'
The sound of mismatched gears awkwardly meshing, scraping against each other as they forcibly turned.
'The world was resisting.'
Resisting Zoro's strength.
'If I had been the cursed spirit Kannon originally intended to create, it might have been different, but a non-sorcerer isn't supposed to be that strong.'
Toji's Heavenly Restriction grants immense physical abilities but completely lacks the fundamental energy of this world, cursed energy. Sorcerers have powerful techniques and abundant cursed energy, and in proportion to a sorcerer's cursed energy, cursed spirits are also born.
Non-sorcerers have faint cursed energy and faint strength, so one non-sorcerer has the value of a speck of dust on the world's scale. Equivalent exchange is the basic law of this world.
'Then it stopped after I killed the special-grade cursed spirit.'
With the sound of something breaking with a screech and a crunch. Only then did the world accept Zoro's strength.
'Or the world's laws broke.'
Zoro thought it was the latter. Thinking about it, it made sense why Tengen decided to stop the assimilation. The truths of the world were already shattered, so what was the point?
'But not everything is clear yet.'
It felt like there was still a missing piece, like a picture with one part left blank.
For example, the dream with the heart and the red thread.
Despite resolving many other questions, that one remained unclear.
'If that too was a memory from before I was reborn, like the dream with the white path…'
It seemed that just before being reborn, Zoro chose to obtain a heart instead of giving up the red thread.
The problem is that Zoro doesn't know what the red thread is.
Nor the owner of the heart.
Toji came over and sat down next to Zoro. Zoro was lost in thought, and Toji looked at him quietly. Silence hung between them, but it was a comfortable silence, not awkward.
"How much did you hear?"
Toji looked at Zoro's profile at the sudden question. Seeing Zoro's calm eyes, Toji answered honestly.
"Bits and pieces."
"That means you didn't understand anything."
Since he had heard snippets of the conversation with Tengen, he couldn't piece together the whole story.
Toji shook his head.
"There's no need to know. Right?"
"From my perspective, there is."
Zoro rarely talked about his past, and he didn't pry into others' pasts either. What's the point of knowing?
But Toji was different from Zoro.
"Are you okay with this, Dad?"
"Of course."
"If you ask, I'll tell you. I'm not sure if I can explain it well, though."
It wasn't that Zoro didn't want to tell Toji; the story was just so long that he might get tangled up while explaining. Still, if Toji wanted to know, he wouldn't keep it from him. After all, he was his father.
"I…"
Toji started to say he was fine but hesitated. The words wouldn't come out. Seeing this, Zoro snorted.
"That's why I'm telling you to ask."
You can't even convincingly lie about being okay. Zoro playfully punched Toji in the chest with his fist.
"Why are you so afraid of yourself? Are you worried that if you learn about me, you'll suddenly see me differently?"
"...."
"You're not like that. What's the point if I know something that you don't?"
Toji chuckled at Zoro's confident remark.
"You trust me too much."
It's not like you've never been betrayed before. Zoro understood the unspoken words from Toji.
"…You're so twisted."
Zoro sighed. Toji had no faith in himself.
Toji closed his eyes tightly and then opened them again.
Still, Toji had no intention of hearing the story. Being rejected by his birth parents was a far more unpleasant feeling than he had anticipated. He didn't even want to consider the possibility that Zoro might get hurt because of him.
"Let me ask just one thing."
"Sure."
Zoro's eyes, unusually firm for a child, looked at him. The color was similar to Chie's, yet unlike either Chie or Toji.
You knew, didn't you? A small voice whispered in his mind.
…He knew. No matter how consciously he tried to ignore it, Toji's instincts had noticed long ago.
Since Zoro's fourth birthday, when he had shown no hesitation in cutting down both curses and humans. Or maybe from the very moment he first looked into those gray eyes, which held an unshakable conviction that no one in this world could match. Toji instinctively knew.
This wasn't Zoro's first life.
"Are you okay?"
Toji barely managed to ask.
"Being born in this land, as my son…"
Were you alright?
Zoro's eyes widened. When he finally spoke, his voice carried no trace of falsehood or hesitation.
"Of course."
"...."
"It's fine. It's been fine."
Now and before. From the moment he was born, it had always been fine.
Of course, it was confusing at first, but it wasn't bad. Living is far better than dying.
Though he lost some of his power due to the change in worlds and couldn't meet the connections from his past life…
'That's what death is.'
An end. A severance. A complete finish.
He couldn't say he had never missed his past life, but he never thought about wanting to return. Even now, knowing he could never go back, he didn't want to deny that fact and struggle against it. Zoro accepted reality calmly.
And,
"It was a bit more okay because you were my father."
Though Toji was flawed as a human, he wasn't bad as a father. There were times when having Toji as a father wasn't always beneficial, and he had made many mistakes with Zoro, but still.
He had never not loved Zoro.
Zoro acknowledged that. It was a greater help than he had expected.
"So you don't need to worry about me."
I was fine, am fine, and will continue to get even better.
Zoro said to Toji what he had once said in front of Chie's grave. Toji managed to respond with a choked voice.
"…Alright."
That's enough. It really is.
If you're alright, then I'll be alright too.
"But I'll still keep worrying about you."
"Why?"
"Because you have no sense of direction."
"Huh?!"
Toji spoke with a serious expression.
"I'm not joking. I still don't understand how you manage to turn around and end up going the opposite direction on a straight road. No matter how much I think about it, you must have lost your sense of direction when you were reborn— Ow!"
"Making fun of me is your life's joy, isn't it? Huh?!"
Damn father. Zoro slapped Toji's back with his palm.
...
[Author's Note]
Vote with your power stones, it motivates me to keep posting chapters.
If you're interested, you can read 20 advance chapters on my Patréon.
patréon.com/fumiaki