Your Life As A Tokyo Jujutsu High Background Student

Chapter 12 - Nightmares and daydreams

Opting out of Gojo's "search and destroy" rampage was undoubtedly one of the wisest decisions you had made in your life. The arrogant man had lived up to his penchant for ridiculously over-the-top showmanship once again — and then some.

Your initial somewhat unhinged but nonetheless ingenious scheme had called for a nice, stealthy resolution. But of course, Gojo had to turn it into a full-blown destructive spectacle of epic proportions. Reports came filtering back of the unstoppable maniac razing an entire warehouse district where that gang of two-bit curse user punks was holed up. He didn't just take the place apart - no, that would be too pedestrian for the world's strongest psycho sorcerer.

Gojo had to stage a grand ceremonial performance out of the whole goddamn thing. He methodically crushed and obliterated every single structure, leaving just enough room for the panicked curse users to desperately dodge and scramble for their pitiful lives. Gojo also saw fit to blow off several blocks beyond the warehouse just because he could, leaving an unmistakable trail of smoldering craters and decimation visible across the neighborhood. Thank every divine entity no civilians were around (weird, right?), otherwise Gojo's deranged stomping grounds would've racked up a body count to rival the worst massacres in history.

By the time Gojo had finished indulging his deranged power-tripping tantrum, he came swaggering up to HQ's entrance like a kid totting a bundle of snapped tree branches behind him. Except in this case, it was the mangled, barely breathing bodies of those poor bastards supposedly behind the assassination attempt on Shoko's life.

The administrative department's reaction was as predictable as it was depressing. Half of those paper-pushers were near hyperventilating at their desks, white-knuckling their chairs. The other withered half could only shake their heads and sigh that deep, soul-crushing sigh reserved solely for Gojo's outlandish shenanigans.

Within minutes, the bureaucratic gears began clunking into motion on their coverup protocol number two: the old "whoops, big ass earthquake struck downtown" song and dance. You could practically hear the artful bullshit stories being finely tuned to downplay the mind-boggling scale of destruction Gojo had wrecked upon that ill-fated warehouse district.

Under Gojo's ominous glowering, the guards practically tripped over themselves to release you miserable lot from your cramped holding cells. Your scheme paled in comparison with Gojo's unadulterated devastation. You wondered if his overkill was intentional - a diversion to get you all off the hook. Though knowing that ego-maniac, probably not.

With their resources already stretched to the brink containing the fallout from Gojo's rampage, the higher-ups could hardly bother with a disciplinary tribunal for your minor infraction. A few lackluster wrist slaps later, your crew was effectively free to go.

The results were anticlimactic, to say the very least. After all that excessive destruction and grandstanding, you'd expected the trail would ultimately lead back to some big bad overlord. A fully fleshed out villain with deliciously sinister motivations to go for Shoko's head. Or at the minimum, a scorned ex out for vengeance.

Instead, it appeared those warehouse thugs Gojo so zealously pulverized were simply guns for hire - mercenaries willing to take on any contract that lined their grimy pockets. When interrogated, the sorry saps all swore up and down they had absolutely zero clue who the actual client was.

The best, most utterly useless description any of them could cough up was some vague mention of their shady employer being a young person with a severe bob cut, dressed in monk robes of all things. For real?! Those painfully unspecific criteria could apply to practically any teenage edgelord attempting to look wise and mysterious these days.