The One in the Coffin

"Yemo, I do not want to argue with you."

Muchi's voice faded through the old forest, lazy as always, yet the words he left behind carried no trace of joking.

"I will only tell you one thing. Twenty years from now, even if you break free of your seal, Ren Zenin's strength will be something you cannot fully see."

"Believe it or don't."

After saying that, he glanced at Gara, whose body was wrapped in holy light and rolling Buddhist radiance. Muchi's figure began to scatter. Darkness swallowed the edges of him, and only a soft sigh fell beside Gara's ear.

"Ren Zenin drew Niten Ichiryu."

Light flashed in Gara's eyes.

For him, that was no small matter. Niten Ichiryu was mankind's malice toward gods and cursed spirits given the form of a blade. It was the will left behind after Miyamoto Musashi, the strongest swordsman among mortals, died and became a cursed tool.

Its effect was simple and terrible. Every strike cut directly into a cursed spirit's root. Every slash carried the possibility of erasing a curse completely. Among cursed tools meant for killing, it stood at the very top.

But drawing Niten Ichiryu was almost impossible.

Only a sorcerer whose will could be acknowledged by Miyamoto Musashi could pull that sword free.

Gara had fought beside Miyamoto in the same age. Because of that, he understood better than most how proud that man had been. Musashi had carried no cursed energy, yet with an ordinary blade in hand, he had made every cursed spirit in Japan hear his name and retreat.

Gara still remembered asking him what kind of person in the world could stand equal to him.

Musashi had laughed.

"What kind of person can match me? Too many, if you mean everything. Inuzuka's calligraphy. Yamato's tea ceremony. I could never catch up to those."

Then his smile had faded into something lonely.

"If you mean swordsmanship, then no one."

That age had not produced anyone who could carry Musashi's will. Even after Musashi became Niten Ichiryu, Gara had once tried to draw the blade and had been rejected.

Only someone recognized by the strongest could use it.

And Ren Zenin could now use that sword freely.

In Gara's eyes, Ren's value had changed again.

"The matter of the body still needs discussion," Gara said.

Yemo said nothing. His mouth curled with mockery. The rage in his eyes had been forced down, but it looked less like extinguished fire and more like lava hidden beneath a mountain.

"Fine," Yemo said. "Think about it properly, then. I am tired."

He closed his eyes and sank back into sleep. Gara seemed to want to speak, but after seeing Yemo's attitude, he only shook his head. Light scattered around him, and his figure vanished from the prison of ancient trees.

Only after a long time did Yemo open his eyes again.

He stared at the place where the two of them had stood. Hatred deep enough to reach bone flared in his gaze.

Boom.

Boom.

Two terrifying blasts of cursed energy struck the ground. He treated the earth as if it were the two men who had just opposed him and poured his anger into it without restraint.

"Ungrateful bastards."

"Without me, none of you would have survived back then."

"Good. Very good."

His voice went from madness to calm as he spoke. By the end, it was deep and still, like a dead sea.

He looked toward Tokyo as if he were staring at prey.

In Suicide Canyon, before the wooden cabin where Yadha had once lived, a young monk in white walked slowly to the table.

He looked at the cup there and smiled. When that smile appeared, even the terrifying space around him seemed to brighten.

A pale rosary hung around his neck. The beads looked sorrowful and old, as if they had endured countless years.

The monk sat beside the table and lifted the cup. Clear tea flowed into it from empty space with a soft sound.

"Falsehood," he said, looking at the empty stool across from him, as if a black-robed figure were still sitting there. "Your tea has not improved at all."

His voice carried a hint of memory.

"Yadha. I told you so many times. It is better to guide a flood than to dam it. Resist your own ability forever, and what waits for you in the end is ruin."

He folded his hands together.

"Fortunately, I can still feel your rules. They remain intact. You should have been controlled by Ren Zenin, like Ketsuen-gami."

As he spoke, the air around him began to distort. His words carried rules that made the surrounding space feel slightly misaligned.

"Do not be so anxious. You always wanted to finish everything at once."

"A few hundred years from now, the ones laughing in place may not be us."

He looked into the void as though speaking across time to an old acquaintance. A mirror-like turbulence slowly appeared before him. The figure inside could not be seen clearly, but behind that figure hung an enormous red wine gourd, and the gourd carried a savage mouth.

The figure seemed to speak. No sound came through.

"You imaginary cursed spirits are all like this," the monk said softly. "Stubborn, calling yourselves gods. What use is that? Before him, all of you can only bow."

He waved his hand and erased the image.

Then he drank the tea that had flowed backward from the past.

Black mist rose beneath his feet. Guided by some unseen force, his body slowly disappeared within it. A moment later, he appeared in the deepest darkness of the canyon.

Countless pale bones lay beneath him. Beside him stood a massive coffin.

The compassion on the monk's face gradually faded. He placed one hand on the coffin, expressionless now, his eyes carrying a light whose meaning was hard to read.

"Elder One, I have walked out of that old monk's wager."

"Humanity does have a few interesting beings."

"You were right. This world is still worth watching."

"The endless river of time contains everything, but I still cannot find your shadow in it."

His voice seemed to be repeated by countless versions of himself across countless times. It was not loud, yet it carried a power that could not be explained.

In his blue eyes, the black coffin stood quietly, as if it had existed there from the beginning of the world. Past, present, future; no matter where time moved, the coffin existed at every node.

Time was the deepest and most mysterious thing in this world. The smallest change could overturn a future. A butterfly beating its wings across the ocean might birth a storm on another shore.

The monk's eyes held endless futures and endless pasts.

Yet no matter how any world changed, no matter how ugly any past became, that coffin remained.

Even after crossing ages and severing time itself, the Elder One he respected still could not escape the fate of sleeping.

"Soon," the monk whispered. "This era is not bad. It has a vessel capable of bearing your existence."

"Among the new humans, there is an interesting one. He drew Niten Ichiryu. More importantly..."

The monk paused. His mouth curved like a sly fox's.

"More importantly, like you, he is someone I cannot see in the river of time."

"You will be interested in him. I am certain."

He sat cross-legged beside the coffin. Glimmering light moved around him, and time itself seemed to flow through his body. He looked like a bodhisattva descending from the western heavens, carrying peace into the human world.

Beside him, however, black mist above the coffin formed something like a roaring evil spirit.

Its shape could not be spoken, described, seen, or written.

It was humanity's deepest fear.

It was the only curse in the world.

Far away, in a place that looked from the outside like a vast church, a powerful heartbeat echoed through a room.

Silver crosses hung high above. Golden flowers covered the floor. Pure white foam drifted through the air. Everything appeared holy and beautiful.

At the center of that beauty floated a cursed womb more than ten meters tall.

Black runes covered it like chains. The power binding it looked similar to cursed energy, but careful observation would reveal something entirely different.

The heartbeat came from inside the womb.

If Ren had been there, he would have recognized it at once. It was the cursed womb that had once been nurtured in the depths of Curse Island and later vanished without warning.

A cursed womb was a protective state that appeared before certain special-grade beings were born. This one, however, was different from any cursed womb known to the jujutsu world.

It had been evolving for too long.

Born on Curse Island, nurtured by the curses of countless sorcerers and immortals, it had soaked in pure resentment for a thousand years. Yet even under that weight, it had not hatched.

The faster a cursed womb evolved, the stronger the cursed spirit inside usually was. That was common knowledge. But this womb had been gestating for a millennium, and even the faintest trace of power it leaked could make people afraid.

"Something this rare really cannot be made without cursed spirits," a voice said above it.

A man in black priest's clothing sat on the cursed womb. His eyes held two chaotic vortexes, and his plain face carried a strange charm that made people want to trust him.

The monster feared by humanity sat quietly beneath him like a pet.

"Do not be anxious, little one."

He stroked the disgusting membrane of the womb as gently as if comforting a child.

"You have waited a thousand years. What does waiting a little longer matter?"

"The one who nurtured you has already died beneath his own ambition."

"In human eyes, you are a monster that devours everything. In the eyes of your own kind, you will also be an anomaly."

Under his voice, the cursed womb slowly quieted, like a stone statue falling asleep.

The priest smiled faintly.

Then the church doors opened.

A believer in white entered, knelt with one hand against his chest, and looked up at him with fanatic reverence.

"My lord," the believer said. "More than a dozen believers have arrived outside. They seek your blessing. They wish to leave their decaying shells behind and become eternal spirits."

The priest's smile widened.

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