Chapter 10:

Baiting the Hook

Jujutsu Kaisen: The Zenin Eclipse

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"Do not make me repeat myself."

"Suguru... he killed everyone in the village."

Jujutsu High.

Masamichi Yaga was the teacher of Satoru Gojo, Shoko Ieiri, and Suguru Geto.

Facing Gojo, who had come to demand confirmation, Yaga repeated the facts with a calm expression.

"Not only the village. Suguru's parents' house as well."

"Judging from the blood left behind and the lingering traces of cursed spirits, he was most likely responsible there too."

"No way!"

Gojo shouted at his teacher in disbelief.

But when he noticed the pain and helplessness buried deep in Yaga's eyes, his mouth opened, and no words came out.

Gojo gripped the absurd report in his hand until his nails dug into his palm and drew blood.

Red streaked across the paper, but the printed text remained clear.

Village Death Investigation: 112 residents killed by cursed spirits.

Analysis of the residual cursed energy identifies Suguru Geto's Cursed Spirit Manipulation as the cause.

Motive: unknown.

Recommended action: execute Suguru Geto, a special grade curse user.

At the Zenin estate, in the meeting room.

One benefit of belonging to a major power was that all kinds of intelligence arrived quickly.

Itsuki scanned the report, and a faint smile touched his lips.

His interference had not altered this part of the timeline.

"Make preparations," he said. "I am going out later."

Naobito paused, confused as to why the report had made Itsuki want to leave the estate.

Especially now, with a black market bounty on his head.

There were plenty of curse users watching the Zenin gates from outside.

But after thinking of Itsuki's current strength and his habit of treating every decision as final, Naobito hesitated only briefly before nodding.

"One more thing," Itsuki added, as if something had just occurred to him. "This is the first public outing of the Zenin clan head. Make it grand."

"Understood."

Naobito turned to pass down the order.

He could already guess what Itsuki was planning.

First, he had deliberately raised the bounty on the black market.

Now he wanted to leave the estate in the most conspicuous way possible.

This was obviously bait.

Curse users were sorcerers who chose crime.

They used jujutsu for money, murder, and personal freedom, while hiding from the institutions that hunted them.

Even if the target was the head of one of the Big Three Families, a billion-yen bounty was enough to lure out a few fools who valued money more than their lives.

Most importantly, Itsuki's age made them dream of getting rich.

The estate gates clanked open from within.

The scouts hiding at a distance immediately focused.

Two short beeps sounded as two rows of expensive black coupes slowly drove out through the gate, ten cars in each row, arranged with perfect precision.

In the center of the motorcade sat a bright red four-seat convertible supercar, impossible to miss.

The driver was a non-sorcerer.

Itsuki sat in the passenger seat, dressed in loose black clothes, looking out at the scenery beyond the estate with genuine interest.

Since his birth, Itsuki had never seen the outside world for himself.

"Brother Itsuki," Maki said from the back seat, pressing her lips together in worry, "maybe you shouldn't bring us along."

Mai tightened her small fists when she heard her sister.

She did not agree, but she did not argue either.

The expression on her little face was full of both longing and conflict.

She badly wanted to see the outside world.

She also did not want to make things difficult for Brother Itsuki.

"You wanted to see the city, so see it," Itsuki said lightly from the passenger seat. "Do not worry about causing me trouble."

"No one in the Zenin Clan dares question my decisions."

"And if someone does, they can die."

He glanced back at the two little girls and smiled.

"Your mother is in another car."

"Once we arrive, she can take you around for a while."

Before the girls could answer, Itsuki turned to the driver.

"Go."

The driver hurriedly nodded and relayed the order through his earpiece.

The motorcade slowly entered the road, heading toward the address Itsuki had named in full view.

At the same time, the hidden watchers immediately reached for their phones.

After months of surveillance, the target had finally left the estate.

Noon.

Clear sunlight over Shinjuku.

A tall boy in casual black clothes and a high school girl in uniform with a slim cigarette between her lips stood by a roadside railing, speaking calmly.

"I have to ask," Shoko said, taking a light drag from her cigarette. Her tone was flat. "Did you really do it?"

Facing an old friend, Suguru Geto smiled and shrugged.

"Unfortunately, they got it right."

"I see..."

"One more question. Why?"

Shoko looked indifferent on the surface, but the deep bite mark on her cigarette filter betrayed how shaken she really was.

Geto narrowed his eyes and watched the people moving along the street.

"I want to create a world that exists only for jujutsu sorcerers."

Hearing that absurd answer from her old friend, Shoko laughed.

Geto's calm admission shattered the last trace of hope in her heart.

"I never expected everyone to understand me," Geto said. "I only want to create the ideal world I believe in."

"So no one understood you, and this is what you chose?" Shoko lowered her head and took the phone from her pocket, her voice edged with mockery. "That's childish, Suguru."

"Moshi moshi, Gojo."

"Geto is here with me."

Geto did not try to stop her from informing on him.

He simply watched the flow of people, his thoughts drifting.

Non-sorcerers created curses through their negative emotions, and sorcerers risked their lives cleaning up the consequences.

Birth. Exorcism. Absorption.

An endless cycle.

As long as non-sorcerers existed, curses would continue to be born.

Yuki Tsukumo had called Jujutsu High's approach treatment of the symptoms, not the cause.

Geto had chosen the most direct cure: eliminate every non-sorcerer.

"Hm?"

Geto hummed softly as he saw the crowd splitting toward both sides of the street.