Ms. Gojo thought she was dating an ordinary person's boyfriend.

When the interrogation room door was pushed open, the man sitting in the chair subconsciously raised his head.

He was originally from a branch of a conservative sorcerer family. He was finally placed in the General Affairs Department, but because of his insignificant background, he was secretly targeted and turned against his own side.

Upon seeing that it was Gojo Satoru who had entered first, his shoulders trembled violently, and a hint of apprehension flashed in his eyes, but he quickly forced himself to calm down.

Then he saw Sumirei following behind Gojo Satoru.

With black hair, pale skin, and a clean dark coat, his face was expressionless, and even the fluctuations of his magical power were negligible. He looked much more harmless than Gojo Satoru.

The man's breathing calmed down a little.

Gojo Satoru took in the man's subtle expressions. He silently retreated to the wall, stood against it, crossed his arms, and his six eyes darted behind his sunglasses, looking like he was watching a good show.

Sumi Kichikawa walked to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

He didn't do anything, just quietly looked at the man in front of him without saying a word.

one second.

two seconds.

Five seconds.

The interrogation room was so quiet that only the low hum of the overhead lights could be heard. The man opposite him began to feel uneasy; he moved the cursed device on his wrist, and the bones that had been bound for so long made a soft cracking sound.

Sumire Kawakawa was still looking at him.

"You're wasting your energy." The man finally couldn't stand the deathly silence any longer. He gritted his teeth and spoke, his voice filled with a morbid certainty. "I won't say anything. Even if you kill me, I won't utter a single word."

Sumi Kichikawa did not answer immediately.

He slowly unfolded the leaked document on the table and lightly tapped it with his fingertip.

"I know why you're so confident." Sumi Kikawa's voice was soft, her pace unhurried, "—it's because of 'bondage,' isn't it?"

The man's pupils suddenly contracted.

"In this world, 'binding' is an equivalent exchange enforced by the law of causality," Sumi Kikawa stated calmly.

"You have entered into a one-sided death pact with the person behind you. If you reveal any information to the expert, you will immediately suffer the consequences."

In exchange, that person promised that as long as you don't speak up, your family will be "protected".

The man gritted his teeth and remained silent, but cold sweat was already beading on his forehead.

"You think this constraint is your get-out-of-jail-free card."

Kikawa Sumi leaned forward slightly, her calm, dark eyes seeming to see right through his soul.

"You feel that as long as this constraint exists, you have the perfect reason not to speak—after all, you can't say it even if you want to, because you'll die if you do."

"You think that person is protecting you and your family in this way?"

A slight smile played on Kichikawa Sumi's lips.

You're wrong.

Sumire Kikawa's tone suddenly became more serious.

"The person hiding behind the scenes is a master strategist. The reason he bound you to this arrangement wasn't to protect the secret—he has a million ways to ensure the information doesn't leak out, such as erasing your memory or giving you a substitute. The reason he chose the most costly method, 'binding,' is simply because he needs a time bomb."

"In his eyes, from the day you were placed in the director's department, you were already a expendable commodity."

Sumire Kichikawa tapped her long, slender fingers lightly twice on the table.

"He kept the information in your head, this constraint, so that the moment you were captured, your death would cut off all the leads we were investigating. You think he'd feel sorry for you? He'd just applaud. Because you died at the most opportune time, according to his script."

"As for your sister..." Sumi Kichikawa paused, "Someone who schemes against even his own pawns to the death, do you really think he would keep a verbal promise to a discarded piece?"

The man's lips trembled violently: "You're talking nonsense... He promised me that as long as I don't tell, my sister will..."

"If he truly valued your loyalty, he wouldn't have left you with no decent way out."

Sumire Kikawa calmly interrupted him.

"The restraint is a two-way street. He demands that you keep quiet, so as an equal price, he should at least leave you a way to speak out and survive, but he didn't."

"Because in his eyes, you never need a way to survive."

The man's psychological defenses began to falter.

But it was just a tremor.

Because he knew that as long as he hadn't spoken, the restraints were still protecting him, and he was still safe.

No matter how eloquently Kikawa Sumi spoke, he dared not gamble.

Seeing the last glimmer of hope in his eyes, Kikawa Sumi wasn't surprised.

He had expected this to happen.

He stood up, walked around the table, and stood in front of the man.

Standing in the corner, Gojo Satoru's six eyes widened slightly.

In that instant, he seemed to sense that the almost non-existent presence of Kikawa Sumi had suddenly undergone some strange qualitative change.

Something deeper and more ancient, something that seemed to transcend cause and effect, was slowly awakening with his will.

Sumi Kichikawa reached out and gently placed her hand on the man's shoulder.

"Your biggest trump card is that restraint that will kill you the moment you open your mouth, isn't it?"

Sumire Kichikawa lowered her eyes.

"What if I change the rules?"

The man suddenly raised his head.

Just as his gaze met the dark eyes of Kazugawa Sumi—

He clearly felt that the unbreakable "binding" chain deep within his soul, personally blessed by the law of causality, was slightly loosening under an indescribable force.

"I just forcibly modified your binding judgment conditions."

Kikawa Sumi looked down at him, her tone cold.

"Now, the rule of the bondage has become: as long as you tell me all the information about the outposts, contact methods, and contact person characteristics that you know in the coming period of time, as long as you tell me everything without missing a word, you are safe."

"Not only is it safe," Kikawa Sumi paused slightly, then looked up at Gojo Satoru leaning against the wall, "in exchange, our strongest student will be responsible for protecting you and your sister's safety afterward."

The man's gaze followed Sumire Kikawa's line of sight and landed on Satoru Gojo.

Gojo Satoru stood there with his arms crossed, his pale blue eyes coldly glancing over through the gaps in his gradually slipping sunglasses.

That nonchalant air of looking down on everyone else, at this moment, became the most powerful evidence to convince the man.

—That's Gojo Satoru.

He was a man who was practically "invincible" in the entire world of sorcery.

If the vocational college is really willing to take it on, if even the strongest institution is willing to offer a promise of protection...

The man's bloodshot eyes began to tremble violently as he suddenly glimpsed a glimmer of hope in a life-or-death situation.

"How...how can you prove you've really changed?"

"Can't you feel it yourself?" Sumire Kichikawa asked calmly.

The man was stunned.

He suddenly began to sense inward—the chains that had tightly bound his soul were indeed loosening.

That deep-seated, causal pressure of "dying if you open your mouth" actually... disappeared at this moment.

He opened his mouth in a daze.

He tentatively uttered a single word first.

Nothing happened.

Then, he mustered his courage and uttered a name that had been previously forbidden to be mentioned.

Still nothing.

The man's tears welled up instantly.

The fear that had been suffocating them during this period of restraint seemed to finally find an outlet at this moment.

"I'll talk... I'll talk..." he choked, his words incoherent, "The base is... in an old warehouse in western Tokyo, the coordinates are... the contact person is someone named..."

Like a fish finally freed from a fishing net, he hysterically poured out everything he knew.

Kikawa Sumi listened quietly, taking notes of all the information.

He quietly sat back down in his chair, listening with an almost gentle demeanor as the man personally revealed all the secrets he knew, word by word.

After the man slumped completely in the chair and finished explaining the characteristics of the last contact, he looked up at Kikawa Sumi with an almost devout gratitude in his eyes, as if he had survived a disaster.

"I've said everything... I've said it all..."

Sumi Kichikawa stood up.

He glanced down at the man, his eyes as calm as a deep pool of water.

"I know," he said softly. "Thank you for your hard work."

Then he turned and walked toward the door.

The moment he turned around, the suffocating, abyss-like oppression emanating from him receded like a tide.

He transformed back into that clean-cut young man with a hint of docility in his eyes.

Gojo Satoru straightened up from the wall and followed him out.

The interrogation room door closed gently behind them.