The Binding Vow of Lazarus

Chapter 97

"Where does it start, if you don't mind me asking?" Larue interjected.

"I don't mind, ask away," she said with a shrug, "I'll answer them as they come. This is confusing enough. As for the start, it's exactly when we bring Sarah here to the school."

"How do you know that was the first time?" Utahime asked, sinking into her seat.

Tsukumo flashed a grin. “We don't. That's the crazy part. But the first round that I remember? Pretty mundane, believe it or not. Not too many deaths early on, things seemed… okay. Until Sukuna showed up and wrecked everything anyway.”

Her grin faded into a sigh. She began to count off names on her fingers. “Geto and Okkotsu died fighting him. After that, Nanami, Morishita, and Haibara got crushed in a coordinated attack that failed.” She dropped her hand. “Even Yaga and Kusakabe tried with Mei-Mei and Todo. Once the students started dropping that was pretty much it— until Gojo stepped in.”

“Why didn’t he go first?” Larue asked.

“Because he was trying to get Sarah back from Kenjaku,” Tsukumo explained with a wry smile. “What we didn’t realize at the time was that Kenjaku was already cheating. He planted the idea in Gojo’s head that one of us had to go back with him and reset the world to save everyone. Sarah told me about it after he brought her back to the safe house.”

She chuckled. “Gojo fought Sukuna and won, but by then so many of us had died that we had no choice. Either reset or let curses consume the world. We all considered going together, but in the end Sarah asked to go with me alone and didn't tell anyone.” She paused. "She… had her reasons."

Her expression tightened as she hesitated, then pushed forward. “The next one… was a terrible mistake. Geto was in control that time. I kept Sarah away from everyone, locked her away, thinking I could handle it all myself. The higher-ups did what they do best and screwed everything up by keeping her like slave. No one was there for her, so she sought out Geto for salvation. And giving him that kind of power?” She shook her head, grimacing. “Biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”

“Wait, pause,” Haibara cut in. “Didn’t you lose your memories when Sarah went without you?”

“Right you are, I was getting to that.” Tsukumo pointed at him. “Tengen remembers everything across the attempts. I only know what happened because Tengen has recently been allowed to talk about it again and then they were able to share the memories with me.”

“This is part of the game?” Miguel asked.

“Exactly,” Tsukumo nodded. “Though only Kenjaku calls it a game. Tengen and Sukuna… well…”

“Sukuna is a part of this too?!” Haibara blurted.

“Oh yeah. This shit is convoluted as hell,” Tsukumo scoffed. “To them, we’re nothing more than dolls forced to play out timelines until one of their conditions is satisfied.”

“So then… what happened in the last one?” Suzu asked quietly.

“Right. Last time, I kept Sarah away from both Gojo and Geto in a different location. That… didn’t work out either. Gojo lost to Sukuna, even though he shouldn’t have. Honestly, I think he just… gave up. He didn’t have much left to live for I suppose.” She shrugged. “So this time, I had Yaga step in and introduce Sarah to his little trio of students and he seems to have the resolve we'll need for later.”

Shoko, who had been silent until now, finally spoke. “So if Gojo doesn’t at least know Sarah, he dies to Sukuna?”

“That’s the pattern, we think,” Tsukumo admitted. “There are certain events that repeat no matter what. Sukuna fights Gojo is always one of them. The context changes, but it always happens.”