16 Does it matter?

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I couldn't resist myself. I had to post another one.

It was funny to me to write this. I hope you enjoy.

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(Suguru POV)

"I want to be with everyone longer! I want to go to all kinds of places with everyone!"

I can only smile at that and reach out my hand. 

"Let's go home, Riko-chan."

*Bang*

.

.

.

Time slows down to a crawl. I see a red cloud, a headband falls to the ground and I see Riko's head shoot to the side. Her body falls to the ground slowly.

And then ... an arm, a body ... someone appears and catches Riko's body before it falls to the ground. What?

All this happens before my mind can catch up. When I realised what happened someone stood in front of me with Riko in his arms. With one arm he holds her and with another, he touches her head.

Just as I want to attack I get to see the man's face and realisation overcomes me. I've seen that face already and know who it is. 

Hadesu Gojo, Satoru's brother is standing there, seemingly trying to stop the bleeding on Riko's head. 

My mind tries to piece things together and the loud shot I heard comes to mind. The wound on Riko's head and her falling down ... Someone shot her. But who?

When I turn around I see someone standing at the entrance of the tomb. But why is ... he here? Where is Gojo?

"Okay, the job's done. It was a good show but a job is a job you know.", the man says.

"Why are you here?"

"Hm?", the man does not seem to understand what I am asking him and looks at me with a puzzled expression. And then he understands and smiles.

"Because I killed Gojo Satoru, of course... 

... what? Surprised?"

"Is that so? ... ... Die!"

I just blank out for a second and attack him.

(3rd Person POV)

Suguru summons his rainbow dragon curse and attacks Toji with it. It lunges at Toji who just looks at the attack coming and does not retaliate. He takes the hit and they smash through multiple walls. 

The rainbow dragon pushes him into the air and while flying Toji simply responds by nonchalantly firing off several bullets at Suguru who manages to block the three shots. 

The amount of swag dripping from Toji is palpable and makes the narrator question who to root for. 

*Cough*

Suguru is able to block all the shots fired from Toji's handgun with a squid-like curse while Rainbow Dragon crashes into the wall. Toji avoids the curse and continues revealing his hand. 

He possesses a cursed spirit that can store objects and shrink itself within its own body so Toji can swallow it. This keeps it invisible, allowing Toji to pass through the barriers with cursed tools. 

That was also the reason why they weren't able to sense him when he came through the barrier and stabbed Gojo in the back. The Katana was a regular weapon. If it were not then Satoru would have had his Infinity active and the surprise attack would not have worked. 

So instead of going for the immediate kill of Riko, Toji decided that Satoru was the bigger threat and created this plan. 

When Toji was finished explaining about his dear inventory curse, the curse suddenly shivered. Toji looks at the curse and then looks around. Not seeing anything, he simply shrugs and looks back to Suguru. Who knows why the curse shuddered, but I guess it doesn't matter, we'll find out soon enough. 

Suguru is not amused by Toji's monologue and demands he shut up.  Suguru then asks how Toji managed to follow their group without having left any residuals behind. 

Toji reveals that his five senses are enhanced enough to use traditional tracking methods on them. 

Suguru's last question is about Kuroi's fate but Toji says she's lucky if she survived. Suguru tells Toji to die once again and sends Rainbow Dragon at him. Toji blocks the dragon with his Soul Splitting Katana, a cursed tool he took out of the inventory curse.

The Soul Splitting Katana is an amazing cursed tool. It is a large Japanese broadsword with a fur tsuba and a dark handle. It bypasses physical toughness and cuts directly at the soul, making it a weapon to be truly feared.

The fight continues with Toji being a total badass and seemingly loving every second of it. 

He dodges curses left and right and blocks with the Soul Splitting Katana. While he has high altitude he turns the direction of the fight around and finally attacks the Rainbow Dragon. 

Coupled with Toji's physical talent, the Soul Splitting Katana is able to cut through any of the curses Suguru sent his way. Before the dragon-like curse can even react, Toji slices it in half, exorcising it in an instant. 

Suguru gets on top of one of the buildings to create space, surprised Toji was able to exorcise his curse with the hardest skin with ease. 

Toji recognizes the technique as curse manipulation and calls it a bunch of rubble.

Suddenly, Toji gets caught inside a Domain by Kuchisake-Onna, an Imaginary Vengeful Spirit. This locks him into a Binding Vow that can't be broken until he answers her question. 

Kuchisake-Onna asks if he thinks she's pretty but his smug response only angers her and she screams. I mean he had to expect that response from what you can only assume to be a female curse. Just answer the question man. You learn that from your father pretty early in life.

A pair of scissors suddenly appears in her hands and larger forms of the blades instantly appear ready to sheer off his limbs. A line of blood appears behind the left ear of Toji. The Sorcerer Killer with his unimaginable speed, takes out the Inverted Spear of Heaven from his inventory curse and uses it to deflect all the blades with incredible speed that surprises the spirit.

The Inverted Spear of Heaven is a special-grade cursed tool with the ability to completely nullify cursed techniques on contact. It uses an imbued cursed technique fueled by foreign cursed energy. He used this to force the stoppage of the Infinity technique, completely bypassing the nearly impenetrable Limitless. 

Using this hack, Toji Fushiguro was able to 'kill' Satoru Gojo. But whether he truly killed him ... we shall see. 

Back to the almost-finished fight, Toji does not even turn around when he finds Suguru to stand behind him. There is nothing for Toji to fear in close quarters and he officially calls this fight over. 

Suguru flips that on Toji and in a last-ditch effort attempts to absorb his inventory curse. The curse manipulator believes he can take the curse and eliminate the weapons cache, giving him some sort of advantage. 

However, Suguru is repelled and Toji tosses the Inverted Spear of Heaven in the air, draws his longsword from his cursed spirit's mouth and slices both Suguru and Kuchisake-Onna several times. 

The cursed spirit is instantly exorcised and blood spills viciously from Suguru's slashed chest. Before a moment has even passed, Toji catches the Inverted Spear of Heaven and knocks Suguru unconscious by smashing his face with it, effectively ending the fight. 

.

Toji walks over to the body of Riko and takes her with him. He still has a job to do after all. Wouldn't want to not get his money after all that effort. But now that he thinks about it ... where is that man that stood over Riko?

Did he leave after he couldn't heal her? Or was he waiting to ambush him? He thought for a moment and then shrugged again. No matter what it was, he would get his money now. 

Carrying her body he brings Riko's corpse back to the House of the Children of the Star as proof of his success. The members of the Time Vessel Association are unbelievably happy at first and look at the body while one of them happily offers Toji extra money for all his troubles. 

But then ...

"What is this? What are you trying to pull here Toji Fushiguro? Are you trying to trick us? Do you take the Time Vessel Association fools?"

Toji has no idea what they are talking about.

"What are you talking about?"

He takes a look at the corpse and then notices it too. That is ..

"This is not Riko Amanai. This is not the target we told you to kill. Are you trying to cover up your failure and take our money? This is outrageous!"

Toji does not say anything and simply thinks about this. It is very untypical of him not to notice something like this. Was there a swap? The sorcerer!!! Did he take her body with him to not have him get his money? Just for spite? 

But where did the body come from? It seemed like someone was going to die.

(Hades POV)

I breathed out the air I was holding in. It is surprising really. I was not planning on cutting it this close. Hehe. Imagine my surprise when I forced my way in only to find the entire area destroyed by what had to have been Satoru's Lapse: Blue.

Without even checking on my brother I sped towards the Tombs. There was no time to waste here and who cares about canon when you could manipulate boundaries? 

I was f*cking Hades, it was time I began to act like it. F*ck the consequences I was going to change things for the better. 

I felt for Suguru's or Riko's energy as I knew that Toji would not have any cursed energy. I trained myself to feel presences without cursed energy but to truly perfect it, I would have to go to One Piece. Haki was a great technique to have and I wanted to use it. 

I blitzed through the corridors and arrived behind Toji Fushiguro just as he aimed his gun. The Six Eyes were activated and everything slowed down.

The bullet slowed down ... I reached out with my left hand ... I activated Blue on the bullet trying to stop its advance and pull it back.

The bullet hit her skin. Giving no resistance the skin gave way, as did the temporal muscle and the skull...

Before the skull was fully penetrated though I managed to lock on the bullet, thanks to my control and stop it from advancing. Due to the dangerous area it was in though, I did not pull it out yet. 

I made sure that it lost all of its momentum and teleported next to her. I caught her before she could fall to the ground and held her up. With my other hand that was still using Blue, I held her temple.

I could not do it like this and would need to lay her down. Thankfully the idiots started their fight and left me alone to do what I had to. It was important to fool Toji for a short while. 

I didn't waste any time and lay her down on the ground. My left hand was still using Blue and now that I had full concentration on my task I began to pull the bullet out. I had to hurry, she was still bleeding quite heavily and head injuries always bleed much.

After I got the bullet out, I immediately used Reverse curse technique to heal her. I don't know whether she carries any lasting damage, we shall see about that, but she would live for sure. 

The other two were still fighting and it does not look like Suguru Geto is going to win this fight. I mean you can't win when boss music starts to play and the other guy just slices through one of your strongest curses. 

"Hmm, I could do something to make this even more fun. Hehe, I know. Let us go to some morgues."

I used the time I had to go search for a woman that looked somewhat like her. Oh my, I was not thinking about the problems it would cause when I asked the woman that worked there whether she could change the clothes ... 

Anyway, I managed to swap out the two and I mean IF you look closely you understand very quickly that it's not the same woman but who am I to judge? Maybe it works and I get a laugh out of it. 

*Present time* 

I got a laugh out of it. To see the reactions of those time-vessel freaks and Toji's angry expression was hilarious. 

... What? You have to learn to enjoy the small things. 

Now for the grand rematch and eventually for my prize. I saw when Toji took out his inventory curse and was filled with greed. I would take that as well as all the goodies that were inside. 

Those were some good weapons and tools that I could study until the time I would come back. Those weapons had potential and if I learn how they are made and then improve upon them, I have weapons that could kill gods. 

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And there you have it folks!

I used wiki for this chapter and I think you notice (it's the fight). And yet it was quite fun to write this chapter.

After the fight was over I could do what I wanted and using my willpower, I managed to push the reveal of her surviving till the end for a cool reveal (at least to me).

Also gave you some foreshadowing

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