Plot and Guidance

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Settle in, take your time, and let's see what waits in the dark 🖤

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The training field at sunset looked like a battlefield that had given up pretending to be civilized.

Megumi lay flat on the ground, breathing hard.

Nobara sat a few feet away, her legs trembling too badly to stand.

Maki rested a wooden staff against her shoulder and looked down at them without a trace of mercy.

"Again."

Nobara lifted one shaking hand.

"I would like to file a complaint."

"Denied."

Megumi forced himself upright.

Nobara glanced toward the dorms, then hesitated.

"Hey. About White Zetsu--"

"Focus," Maki cut in.

Nobara clicked her tongue.

Before she could argue, a cheerful voice drifted across the field.

"Niece! Little delinquent! Hedgehog boy! Yours truly has arrived!"

White Zetsu came strolling over with both hands behind his head.

Maki's face darkened. "Don't call me that."

"But the title is accurate."

"It is not."

White Zetsu ignored her and turned toward Nobara. "And you, Lady Thirteen. Your recovery pleases me."

Nobara picked up a rock.

White Zetsu immediately hopped behind Panda, who had just arrived with Inumaki.

"Panda, my loyal fortress!"

Panda looked down at him. "When did I agree to this?"

"Bonito flakes," Inumaki said.

Maki swung the staff.

White Zetsu ducked, using Panda's enormous body as a shield while circling around him with disgraceful skill.

"Violence against elders! Shameful!"

"You're not my elder!"

"I helped raise the man keeping you alive. Close enough."

Maki swung harder.

Half a month passed in that noisy rhythm.

Far from Tokyo, steam curled over a secluded hot spring.

Jogo sat in the water with his single eye half closed. Hanami stood nearby in silence. Dagon floated at the edge, splashing softly.

Kenjaku, still wearing Suguru Geto's body, held a small talisman between two fingers.

"A commissioned Curtain tool," he said. "Pre-sealed. Feed it cursed energy at the right time and it will activate without requiring the caster to remain on-site."

Jogo looked at the talisman with suspicion.

"It can stop Satoru Gojo?"

"Stop him? No. Delay him, perhaps for half a minute."

"Half a minute is nothing."

"Half a minute against Satoru Gojo is already a luxury."

Hanami's quiet voice emerged from the side. "The plan changed. Itsuki Zenin was not supposed to be our enemy yet."

"No," Kenjaku said. "But change is not always harmful. If Gojo suffers, we benefit. If Itsuki suffers, we also benefit."

Jogo's gaze shifted toward Hanami.

"And if Hanami dies?"

Kenjaku smiled. "Then Hanami should not die."

Jogo's cursed energy flared, heating the water around him.

Dagon sank a little lower.

"Where is Mahito?" Hanami asked.

"Out looking for inspiration," Kenjaku said.

Jogo clicked his tongue. "That brat is going to cause trouble."

"That," Kenjaku replied, "is precisely why he is useful."

At a movie theater in Tokyo, the smell of blood had already gone stale.

Several corpses sat twisted in their seats, their shapes no longer entirely human.

Yuji stood beside Kento Nanami, his face pale.

"They were people," he said.

"Yes," Nanami answered.

"And now..."

"Now we find the curse responsible."

Nanami crouched and studied the traces left at the scene.

"Cursed energy residuals. The culprit did not bother hiding them."

Yuji clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened.

At Tokyo Jujutsu High, Megumi stood alone on the training field until White Zetsu wandered over with a half-eaten snack in his hand.

"You called?"

Megumi looked at him. "I want guidance."

"From me?"

"On the Ten Shadows Technique."

White Zetsu blinked twice.

Then he put a hand to his chest.

"At last. The young understand my greatness."

Megumi's expression remained flat.

"Itsuki-sensei said you helped him before."

"I did. Naturally. A genius like Itsuki still benefited from my profound insight."

"Then teach me."

White Zetsu grinned.

"Very well, young Fushiguro. First lesson: your shadow is not a bag. It is a mouth. A road. A hiding place. A battlefield. Stop treating it like storage and start treating it like another limb."

Megumi's eyes sharpened.

White Zetsu continued, enjoying himself.

"Your shikigami are tools, but the shadow itself is yours. If you only summon and dismiss, you are wasting half the technique."

Megumi lowered his gaze to the darkness at his feet.

The shadow stirred.

White Zetsu leaned closer.

"Yes, like that. Now, try to let it swallow something small."

The shadow surged.

White Zetsu vanished waist-deep into the ground.

"Hey!"

Megumi froze.

The cursed spirit sank another inch.

"Not me, you gloomy brat!"

His hand slapped the ground, fingers scrabbling for purchase.

"Pull me out!"

Megumi hesitated for half a second.

White Zetsu noticed.

"Do not use your teacher as a test object!"

The shadow finally released him.

White Zetsu rolled onto the grass, breathing hard.

Megumi looked away.

"Sorry."

"That pause was not an accident."

"It was."

"Liar."

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