When Cursed Spirits Aren't Enough

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August 2007.

Scorching sun. The cry of cicadas.

Tokyo Jujutsu High.

Satoru Gojo's birth had already shifted the balance of the jujutsu world. After surviving Toji Fushiguro and awakening further, he had only widened the gap between himself and everyone else.

Satoru Gojo.

Suguru Geto.

Shoko Ieiri.

These days, it was rare for the three classmates to gather around the same table.

Gojo and Geto were either exorcising cursed spirits or traveling to the next exorcism.

As for Shoko, the higher-ups treated her like a treasure. Naturally, she did not need to go out and fight.

Her talent for using Reverse Cursed Technique on other people's bodies was something even the current Satoru Gojo could not do.

"Hey," Shoko said around the lollipop in her mouth, her words a little muffled. "Aren't you even a little interested in the eleven-year-old running the Zenin Clan?"

"His bounty on the black market is already several times higher than yours."

She looked at Gojo, who was sitting cross-legged in midair.

"Hm?"

Gojo blinked at Shoko's sudden curiosity, then answered honestly, "Interested? A little."

"The kid stays inside the Zenin estate all the time. He hasn't shown his face outside."

"As for that ridiculous bounty..."

Gojo spun the straw in his hand, his tone turning playful.

"A full billion yen. One of the other clans definitely had a hand in that."

"But..."

He turned toward Shoko with theatrical horror on his face.

"Why are you suddenly so interested? Don't tell me the great Shoko Ieiri has started collecting clan gossip."

Gojo lifted both hands and pointed at her, his expression absurdly exaggerated.

Then he nodded as if everything finally made sense.

"No wonder neither of the handsome guys beside you can get your attention. Scandals are more your type."

Shoko rolled her eyes so hard it almost looked painful.

"Idiot."

That idiot Gojo had been absorbed in refining his cursed energy control.

Geto, for reasons Shoko could not quite name, had grown quieter by the day. The shadows under his eyes had only gotten worse.

As the person who kept the two strongest from drifting too far apart, Shoko had noticed. That was why she had thrown out the topic in the first place, hoping to break the heavy atmosphere.

They saw less and less of one another.

And Itsuki Zenin, the boy who became head of the Zenin Clan at ten, had been the jujutsu world's favorite subject of gossip for half a year.

His age, and the bounty that kept rising on the black market every day, made sure of that.

"Geto," Gojo said after he finished teasing Shoko, turning as if he was about to check on his other best friend. "Haven't you lost too much weight lately?"

A phone rang before the conversation could continue.

"Moshi moshi."

After hanging up, Gojo waved at his two friends with a grin.

"Mission time. Let's hang out later."

He pushed the sunglasses up on his face and left with his usual breezy confidence.

Leaning against the wall of the school building to avoid the sunlight, Suguru Geto slowly raised his head from the shade.

Cursed spirits came like maggots.

Endlessly.

Exorcise. Absorb. Exorcise. Absorb.

Again and again.

The taste of a cursed spirit was like swallowing a rag used to wipe up vomit.

As he watched Gojo walk away, Geto's expression turned unreadable for a moment.

'It used to be we were the strongest.'

'Now...'

'Satoru is the strongest.'

Geto's doubts deepened.

At the Zenin estate, outside the cursed warehouse.

Maki Zenin and Mai Zenin each carried a lunch box as they stepped into the darkness beyond the door.

Hearing roars from deep below, Mai shrank closer to her sister's back.

"It's been more than half a year," Maki said, glancing back at her sister clinging to her. "You're still not used to it?"

For more than half a year, Itsuki, the young head of the Zenin Clan, had spent nearly all his time in the depths of the cursed warehouse.

Their mother had insisted that they deliver his meals.

Born into the Zenin Clan, the sisters had matured early enough to understand why.

So whenever Itsuki was buried in his work, they timed their visits and brought him food.

"A Grade 2 sorcerer, and you only managed to capture one Grade 2 cursed spirit?"

"I did not expect you to capture anything above your grade, but you cannot even bring in a few more at your own level?"

The sisters had only just entered the underground passage leading to the sealed cursed spirits when a flat voice drifted up from below.

"Clan head, I-"

A voice thick with fear and panic rang out, then stopped abruptly.

The abrupt silence told the girls they had been noticed. They froze, then lightened their steps and carefully continued down.

Aside from their mother and their older half-brother, no one in the Zenin Clan cared for them.

After descending through the dark passage, the two girls finally saw the basement clearly.

Their eyes widened.

The Hei, the elite unit made up of the clan's sorcerers, stood with their hands behind their backs and their heads lowered, each one respectful and visibly afraid.

At that moment, none of them carried the arrogance they usually showed in the clan.

They looked no different from servants who had made a mistake.

Nearby lay a corpse split in two and soaking in a pool of blood.

Maki had seen him at the training grounds before. He had been a Grade 2 sorcerer from the clan.

Looking at Itsuki, who stood expressionless with one foot in the blood, Maki suddenly remembered the night half a year ago.

She felt a tug from behind.

When she turned, she saw Mai trembling with her head lowered, one pale hand clutching her clothes tightly.

Realizing something, Maki gently set down her lunch box and pulled her frightened sister into her arms.

Mai could not be blamed for being scared.

Unlike Maki, she could see the cursed spirits covering the floor.

Brains, organs, arms, legs, and hideous remnants of cursed spirits in every shape imaginable filled the basement until it seemed packed solid.

In Mai's eyes, the spacious underground chamber had become its own private hell.

The sorcerers standing with their hands behind their backs saw something similar.

No one showed any outrage for the dead sorcerer.

After half a year, they understood the new clan head's temper.

Fail a task, die.

Ruin his mood, be crippled.

Resist or run, and death would start to look merciful.

The void opened beside Itsuki's shoulder.

Two giant hands, withered like deadwood, gathered up the cursed spirit remains scattered across the floor and pulled them into the void.

A moment later, two dry fingernails pierced through space again, skewered the sorcerer's corpse at Itsuki's feet, and carried it away.

The basement floor was left bare.

From the space beside Itsuki came the sound of chewing.

The chewing was painfully loud in the silence.

Even the row of punished sorcerers shivered at that sound, let alone a little girl like Mai.

Maki could not hear it, but she could see the corpse vanish in an instant.

"My pet likes more than cursed spirits," Itsuki said, his cold gaze sweeping over the sorcerers. "It also has a taste for sorcerers with strong cursed energy."

"If the numbers are short next time, your bodies will do."

There were Grade 1 sorcerers among them, but under the boy's emotionless gaze, all of them lowered their heads in fear.

No one dared argue.

"Get out."

"A pack of useless fools. Do not ruin my appetite."

To the sorcerers, Itsuki's cold dismissal sounded like mercy.

They suppressed the relief surging in their chests and retreated with extreme caution.

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