HxH: Ryomen... Satoru?

The group returned to the Gojō estate quickly. Cyr was already reclining beneath the eaves, propped up on one arm, his mind still turning over the image of that man with the stitched-up forehead.

"Who's that guy? The one from the Zen'in clan," Cyr asked Gojō Haru.

Though Haru wasn't lying down like Cyr, his sitting posture was just as casual and unrefined.

Definitely not in line with the graceful, poised manner of sitting popular in their current era.

"You mean Zen'in Ryōhei? He's a jujutsu sorcerer from the Zen'in family," Gojō Haru explained. "He didn't inherit the Ten Shadows Technique, but he's still fairly strong."

"Huh…" Cyr made a noncommittal sound. "That stitch on his head—was he born with it?"

He was seriously tempted to crack open the guy's skull and see what was inside.

"Oh, that? Of course not. Who's born with a wound like that on their head?" Gojō Haru chuckled and shook his head.

"About three years ago, Zen'in Ryōhei was injured during a mission. He ran into a powerful cursed spirit and barely made it back alive—that's when he got that scar," the white-haired, blue-eyed man explained.

"I see…" Cyr nodded slightly.

As if. He didn't believe that for a second. Most likely, the Brain had taken over that guy's body three years ago.

And no one noticed—not even Gojō Haru with his Six Eyes saw anything wrong…

Well, the Six Eyes couldn't see through everything. They didn't grant X-ray vision, nor could they directly expose another sorcerer's technique. They could only analyze the flow of energy and draw conclusions from there.

If there wasn't enough information, there wouldn't be any conclusion.

If Cyr hadn't already known about the Brain, even his Six Eyes wouldn't have revealed anything.

After all… occupying other people's bodies and techniques was the Brain's innate cursed technique.

"Your name's probably going to spread through Kyoto before long," Gojō Haru said teasingly.

"Maybe a thousand years from now, I'll even see my name in a history book," Cyr said with interest.

Imagine that—someone in the future flipping through a history record and going, Wait, who the hell is this 'Gojō Cyr'? Then checking the Gojō family lineage and not finding him listed anywhere.

That'd be pretty funny.

"…If you change the course of history, what do you think the future will become?" Gojō Haru asked curiously.

He didn't seem the least bit concerned about historical divergence.

"Well, it can't possibly be worse than the future I saw," Cyr shrugged.

Going by the manga timeline he remembered, Sukuna went totally berserk in the future, and Gojō Satoru got cut in half at the waist. Even if he did mess up the timeline, could it really turn out worse than canon?

Unfortunately, the last part he'd seen was Gojō getting bisected. He never got to read what happened after that.

Hopefully Ijichi didn't lose his mind too…

"So then, what kind of future did you witness?" Gojō Haru pressed, genuinely curious.

It was only natural to want to ask, after all—who wouldn't be interested in hearing about the future from someone who came from it?

"…Jujutsu sorcerers lost, completely," Cyr said after a short pause. He skipped a lot of details and gave the summary.

"That's… quite the brief summary," Gojō Haru said with a wry laugh.

Completely lost? What did that even mean? Were they wiped out? Or what?

"Basically, in the future there are only a handful of sorcerers left who can actually fight. The onmyōji had all gone into seclusion, and the number of cursed spirits didn't just hold steady—it increased," Cyr elaborated after thinking it over.

Right now, there weren't all that many cursed spirits, and most of them weren't particularly powerful. The real threats mostly came from yōkai.

There just weren't enough people around, and ordinary villagers didn't have the mental capacity or emotional burden to spawn particularly strong cursed spirits.

But in the future's highly urbanized, globalized society, with overworked salarymen, aging populations, and intense competition… people's mental states weren't exactly stable.

Which made it a lot easier for cursed spirits to manifest.

"And the cursed spirits get stronger and more numerous every day, so much so that people who've only awakened cursed energy for a week are being sent into battle…" Cyr trailed off, looking deeply unimpressed.

He was talking about poor, unfortunate protagonist Itadori.

"…Can they even win?" Gojō Haru asked seriously.

"Of course… not," Cyr replied with a bright, unbothered smile. "They nearly get killed every single time."

"I doubt it's just that," Gojō Haru said, smiling knowingly. "Even if the jujutsu world is short-staffed, it wouldn't go that far."

"From what you're describing, it sounds more like those rookies are being sent to die on purpose," said the current head of the Gojō family.

His political instincts were sharp.

"Well, it's the Big Three Sorcerer Families," Cyr said lazily. "After a thousand years of existence, of course they've developed some problems—like rigid social hierarchies…"

"Ah, I just remembered something." Cyr suddenly thought of a quote.

"'Those not of the Zen'in are not sorcerers; those not sorcerers are not human.' That line's pretty famous," he said with a squinty-eyed smile.

"…That's seriously…" Gojō Haru widened his eyes.

"No one says stuff like that anymore," Cyr said casually.

"The Zen'in clan did often recruit people with jujutsu talent and grant them the Zen'in surname. The Kamo family was more focused on intermarrying with onmyōji to strengthen their bloodline, which led to more gifted descendants."

"The Gojō clan…" Gojō Haru trailed off when it came to his own family. He didn't know how to describe them.

Compared to the Zen'in and Kamo families, the Gojōs were honestly… kind of a mess.

"I really don't get how anyone from the Zen'in clan had the nerve to say something like that," Cyr sighed lazily. "Weren't they afraid other sorcerers would come burn their house down?"

"If someone had dared say that while I was still alive…" Gojō Haru just smiled wordlessly.

Because when he was alive, no one would have dared to say something like that.

But after he died, the Zen'in clan probably became the strongest of the Big Three.

So it wasn't that surprising they felt bold enough to say such things.

"The Gojō clan… is actually the weakest of the Big Three?" Cyr muttered thoughtfully.

Maybe it was because the strongest sorcerer with the Six Eyes was born into the family. To balance that out, the rest of the clan's members had average strength?

So while the Zen'in and Kamo clans were stronger overall, neither could beat the Six Eyes sorcerer on their own.

Which also explained why later on, even though Gojō Satoru was the clan head, he didn't have much say in the higher-ups' decisions… probably because there weren't many other Gojōs among them.

A single god surrounded by walking liabilities.

"If you include me, we're the strongest," Gojō Haru said lightly, with easy confidence.

Without him… yeah, then they really were the weakest.

After all, the Gojō clan's Limitless technique wasn't something just anyone could use. Without the Six Eyes, even if someone inherited the technique, they wouldn't be able to wield it properly.

Because it required extremely fine cursed energy control, and consumed a lot of energy.

Only with Limitless and Six Eyes together could someone reach peak power. You needed both.

Likewise, even if you paired the Six Eyes with a Zen'in or Kamo technique, it still wouldn't be the strongest combo.

Because those techniques just didn't have the same potential.

"You get it, right? The synergy between Limitless and the Six Eyes," Gojō Haru looked at the boy and asked.

"…Yeah," Cyr shrugged.

The combo worked great—but the burden was heavy too. If anyone else tried using it, it'd probably be even harder for them to handle.

"So then, Cyr-kun, since you've come back a thousand years into the past… what do you plan to do? You must have something you want," Gojō Haru asked, his tone sure and calm.

°°°

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