Young Satoru Gojo

A wet thud broke the silence.

The arm wrapped in dark purple cursed energy dropped to the ground as if something had sliced it clean off. Blood spilled across the concrete, staining the construction site red.

"Aaaagh!"

The man screamed.

Pain tore the sound out of him, reducing the seemingly unshakable Grade 2 sorcerer to a howling animal.

A small dagger rested quietly in the ground nearby. Under the moonlight, its edge gleamed with a coldness that made the air feel sharper.

"Boss!"

The second man rushed forward in panic.

Ren remained in the rocking chair, half-lidded and almost drowsy. For some reason, that only made the wounded sorcerer feel colder.

"A Grade 1 cursed tool? Impossible." The man forced himself to stay conscious and used cursed energy to slow the bleeding. His face had gone pale as he stared at the dagger. "Even the Zenin clan doesn't have many tools of that level."

His eyes were good enough to recognize it at a glance.

He could not read the exact curse carved into the blade, but a cursed tool capable of cutting through the body of a Grade 2 sorcerer so casually could only be Grade 1.

"Ren Zenin, you have gone too far." The man's voice shook with pain and anger. "Stealing cursed tools is a serious crime. You had better surrender quietly."

He had already decided that Ren must have stolen the dagger from the clan before leaving.

Even now, with one arm gone, greed flickered deep in his eyes. He wanted to use the Zenin name to pressure Ren into handing the tool over.

"You brat," he spat. "Do you really think a Grade 1 cursed tool lets you do whatever you want? What a joke. Throwing a weapon that powerful like a knife? What a waste."

His face shifted from bloodless white to feverish red.

His eyes rolled with calculation.

If I kill him now, this cursed tool will be mine.

The boy watched the thought unfold across the man's face and almost laughed.

"Ren Zenin died in a fight against a cursed spirit," Ren said lightly. "The cursed spirit was exorcised by me when I arrived too late. Something like that?"

The man's expression changed.

Ren had said exactly what he was thinking.

The filthiest part of his heart had been exposed in a single sentence. A brutal smile spread across the man's face.

"Idiot! Without that cursed tool, what are you going to fight me with?"

He lunged.

At the same time, a surge of dark purple cursed energy shot backward and pierced through the chest of his own subordinate.

The second man died before he understood what he had done wrong.

No witnesses.

A Grade 1 cursed tool was enough to make the man kill a subordinate without hesitation. If his own parents had been standing there, the beast his greed had turned him into might not have stopped for them either.

"Hahaha! Die!"

"Eight Ghosts ? Fall!"

Dark purple cursed energy condensed into an enormous palm and slammed down from above. The air warped around it, corroded by the force of the technique.

Ren did not even rise from the rocking chair.

He lifted one finger and moved it as if idly brushing away dust.

In midair, the man felt something go wrong.

Three sharp sounds cut through the night.

Three daggers identical to the one that had taken his arm drifted out with the movement of Ren's finger, beautiful and lethal, their cold light flashing as they flew straight toward his chest.

The man's face twisted.

He withdrew his cursed energy in a panic, twisted his body aside, and barely avoided them by throwing himself into an awkward, defensive posture.

"How do you have four cursed tools of that level?"

"Four?"

Ren looked at him as if the question itself was strange.

Then he snapped his fingers.

Behind him, countless daggers slowly emerged from the air, filling the night like a flock of black birds.

"No..."

"Divine Forge ? Crowfall."

The Grade 1 cursed tools the man had coveted swallowed him whole.

He tried to resist, his body burning through cursed energy like a candle in a storm, but the endless flock consumed him almost instantly.

Ren inhaled softly.

Every trace of cursed energy inside the man was drawn into him.

Six Vaults Devourer could consume cursed energy and turn it into Ren's own strength. He had no reason to waste it.

When the flock dispersed, the terrifying cluster of cursed tools vanished with it, as if it had never existed at all.

Ren had killed a person for the first time.

He felt no discomfort.

After seeing enough cursed spirits, perhaps killing humans had stopped being difficult.

Besides, some people were not necessarily kinder than curses.

A cursed spirit would always be a cursed spirit.

A human would not always remain human.

"Oho!"

A cool young voice rang out behind him.

"Caught you, Ren Zenin. You killed someone. That's huge news."

Ren showed no surprise. His mouth curved slightly, but he did not turn around.

"Why are you here?"

"Wow. Still that boring, huh?"

The boy behind him clicked his tongue. In the next instant, he appeared in front of Ren.

He had silver hair that fell like frost under an autumn moon, black casual clothes, sunglasses perched over a sharp nose, and an expression so relaxed it bordered on offensive.

He had just witnessed a murder.

He looked as if he had seen something mildly entertaining on television.

The silver-haired boy crouched across from Ren, pulled out a camera, and started taking pictures.

"Don't waste your time," Ren said, rare helplessness crossing his face. "You won't be able to photograph me."

The beautiful boy ignored him completely and kept pressing the shutter.

Then he checked the film.

The image was black.

Not even Ren's shadow had appeared.

"Your technique really is weird."

The boy flicked his left hand, and the camera disappeared.

Ren slowly sat up from the wisteria-patterned rocking chair.

"Aren't you supposed to be busy being the next head of the Gojo clan?"

He looked at the boy in front of him.

"Satoru Gojo."

"Hey, what's with that tone? I came all this way to see you, and that's how you treat me? I'm hurt."

Satoru Gojo lifted his brows, shrugged, and gave Ren a bright, wounded smile.

"We're friends, aren't we?"

Ren stood and snapped his fingers again. Under Gojo's curious gaze, the rocking chair dissolved into nothing.

"Long time no see, Satoru."

"Don't make it sound so sentimental, Ren."

They looked at each other and smiled.

Satoru Gojo would one day stand at the apex of the jujutsu world. For now, he was still a teenager, but the shape of a king had already begun to show through him.

The Six Eyes had already made his name feared.

The Gojo clan had chosen him early as the future head of the family.

Years earlier, before Ren was expelled from the Zenin clan, the Big Three Sorcerer Families had held a formal gathering.

Gojo had already been the center of everyone's attention.

For some reason, in the middle of all that noise, he had noticed Ren.

At the time, Gojo had looked like a young heir trapped at the center of a room that wanted something from him. Bored out of his mind, he had glanced around and found a quiet boy standing alone in a corner.

The moment he saw Ren, an absurd thought appeared in his mind.

He had found one of his own.

One boy stood beneath a sky of admiration.

The other was sinking in mud.

Somehow, they had become friends.

That connection had been cut off after Ren left the Zenin clan. Only today had Gojo finally found the friend he had not seen in so long.

"It really has been a while," Gojo said. "But this isn't the time to catch up."

He crouched and looked up at the sky.

Dark purple curses gathered in the air, linking together like a spiderweb.

"In a place this soaked with curses, even a dead Grade 2 sorcerer can leave something ugly behind." Gojo rested his chin on one hand, his hidden eyes watching with interest.

"I know," Ren said. "So what?"

His body stood straight as a spear while the curse took shape above them.

"No matter what he becomes, a killer gets killed. If he turns into a curse..."

Ren's voice was cold enough to empty the night.

"Then I'll kill him again."

Gojo paused.

Then his smile widened.

"You really are..."

A massive roar cut him off.

A new cursed spirit appeared in midair, shaped by the resentment the dead sorcerer had left behind.

It was made entirely of arms. No head. No torso. Just countless limbs layered together into a grotesque curse.

A Semi-Grade 1 cursed spirit had been born.

"Mine! It's all mine!"

"Everything is mine!"

The curse twisted and launched itself toward the two boys like a cannonball.

The force of its descent kicked up a violent wind, whipping their clothes around them.

Gojo pushed his sunglasses up lightly.

He did not even look at the terrifying cursed spirit. Instead, he glanced at Ren and continued what he had been saying.

"Interesting."

Then Gojo's hands formed a strange sign.

The Semi-Grade 1 cursed spirit froze in midair.

"Ghh..."

Gojo bumped Ren's shoulder with his own, teasing.

"See? This is what friendship looks like. I'll handle your mess for you."

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