Blood

New chapter is live.

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

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Loose stones rattled down from the air and scattered across the ground.

Yuji, who had been sprawled on the street, was pulled out of the cursed spirit technique's range.

Jujutsu High's reinforcements had arrived.

Panda.

Toge Inumaki.

Atsuya Kusakabe.

From Kyoto Jujutsu High, Iori Utahime had arrived with her students at almost the same time.

"Thank you, Todo-senpai."

Kasumi Miwa looked at the towering figure beside her and let out a long breath of relief.

"Everyone..."

Yuji, covered in wounds, was dragged out of the technique's range by Kusakabe, who had opened a Simple Domain around them.

He stood and looked at one teammate after another.

Hope flickered in his eyes, then dimmed almost immediately.

'Can someone like me, a murderer, still call myself their friend?'

Kenjaku's indifferent gaze swept over the newcomers.

The strongest among them was Grade 1. The weakest was Grade 3.

To him, it looked like a group of insects gathering together for safety.

His expression showed only mild irritation.

"Everyone, the cursed object that sealed Gojo-sensei is in his hands!"

Yuji wiped the blood dripping from his forehead and warned them gravely.

"He's strong. The cursed spirits he controls can release individual techniques too."

He did not need to tell them.

Every sorcerer who had just arrived had already received the information through one channel or another.

Before the Kyoto students entered the barrier, Yaga had passed along the latest update.

"Looks like this will be a rough one."

Todo tore open the top of his uniform, his expression heavy.

"Best friend, remember to move with my technique."

Todo's cursed technique was Boogie Woogie.

It activated when he clapped his hands and swapped the positions of two targets containing cursed energy.

The targets could be people or objects, as long as cursed energy was present.

Its weakness was that the range was limited, and it could not move an entire group at once.

During the Goodwill Event, when they had fought Hanami together, Yuji had briefly experienced that feeling of spatial displacement.

That was why Todo specifically asked Yuji to coordinate with him.

"Yeah."

Yuji answered in a low voice as cursed energy began to rise around him.

"Nishimiya?"

Utahime and Noritoshi Kamo frowned slightly when they saw Momo land silently beside them.

The sky was supposed to be her battlefield.

Why had she come down?

The Kyoto students had only just looked up before the unconcealed figure overhead froze them in place.

Those blood-red eyes were cold to the point of inhumanity.

Meeting them for even a moment made them feel as if their souls had fallen into ice.

When had he appeared?

He was not high above them, yet none of them had sensed the slightest trace of cursed energy.

Heavenly Restriction?

No.

Todo's gaze swept over the figure above, and he quickly analyzed the abnormal situation.

This was a deeper mastery of space than the one Itsuki had shown when fighting Satoru Gojo during the Goodwill Event.

He appeared to exist in reality.

In truth, his body and aura had already shifted into another space.

"No wonder I can't feel even a drop of cursed energy."

"He's in another world."

Todo's brow tightened, and his heart sank.

His technique required him to sense cursed energy before it could activate.

Against Itsuki, he could not touch the man's body.

He could not even swap him.

"Seriously..."

"What a monster."

...

"What do you think, old friend?"

Kenjaku stepped forward and pointed toward Mai in the crowd.

"Can I kill her?"

Endless probing.

Every step Kenjaku took was a test of Itsuki's information.

Earlier, he had sent a message to Sukuna.

Now, he was probing Itsuki's weakness.

Itsuki slowly descended from the air and landed at the center of the battlefield.

His expression did not change in the slightest.

Step.

Step, step.

Maki, Nobara, and Megumi arrived at the battlefield as well.

White Zetsu came last, strolling leisurely to Itsuki's side.

The battlefield fell into a strange silence.

Against Kenjaku, Jujutsu High's side could still imagine a chance to fight.

But now they were facing Itsuki Zenin, the monster who had defeated Satoru Gojo head-on.

No one dared to act recklessly.

No one even dared to run.

Standing beside Utahime, Kusakabe broke out in a cold sweat.

At that moment, saving Satoru Gojo was no longer on his mind.

He was thinking only about how to leave Shibuya alive.

Kenjaku did not move either.

He only studied White Zetsu beside Itsuki with obvious interest.

A cursed energy reserve beyond special grade.

A bizarre technique that resembled possession.

"Hello, White Zetsu."

A specimen of extreme research value.

Kenjaku smiled and waved, forcing down the urge to activate Cursed Spirit Manipulation and absorb White Zetsu on the spot.

"Hello, my ass."

White Zetsu pointed at the briefly stunned Kenjaku and opened fire.

"Uncle Zetsu has excellent senses, got it?"

"Stop staring at my back with those creepy little eyes."

"I'm not into that."

"Tch. Brainless freak."

White Zetsu spat thick phlegm at Kenjaku's feet, his face full of disgust.

After a half-second pause, he kept going.

"Right, sorry. You're not brainless."

"You've got too much brain."

"You brain-soup bastard!"

"Uncle Zetsu is going to-"

Kenjaku stared at the empty space where White Zetsu had been standing.

His eyes went blank for a moment.

Brain-soup bastard?

In a thousand years, this was the first time he had been cursed out so filthily by a cursed spirit.

Itsuki, who had pulled White Zetsu into the Kamui Dimension, also felt the corner of his mouth almost twitch.

That mouth was genuinely toxic.

Even the sorcerers from Jujutsu High were stunned speechless by White Zetsu's barrage.

After only a brief moment, Kenjaku behaved as if nothing had happened.

He smiled lightly at Itsuki.

That subtle gaze was filled with calculation.

"Mai. Come here."

Itsuki's tone allowed no refusal as he looked at Mai inside the Kyoto group.

"Brother... Itsuki."

She wore her school uniform, her short dark-green hair framing a pale face.

The gun in her hand was still Guren, the weapon White Zetsu had given her back then.

Mai instinctively took two steps forward, then froze.

In the corner of her vision were the companions she had spent the last two years beside.

They did not stop her.

They did not even try to persuade her.

They only waited quietly for her decision.

Mai's fingers clenched hard, hesitation and struggle written across her face.

She still remembered how her mother had whispered in her ear every day when she was a child.

Obey Itsuki's orders absolutely.

Mai had never once imagined she could disobey him.

She took another step toward Itsuki, and her face grew even paler.

She did not have Maki's courage.

She did not have that fearless defiance.

Mai had grown up inside the Zenin estate. Better than anyone, she knew what happened to people who dared disobey Brother Itsuki.

She closed her eyes tightly and took another step.

But even with only darkness in front of her, memories from the past two years surfaced one after another.

Training together.

Late-night meals.

Fooling around.

Surviving life-and-death missions together.

During exorcism missions, Mai had saved her teammates.

Her teammates had saved her too.

It was not just time spent together.

It was two years of trusting one another with their lives.

Drip.

Her nails pierced her palm, but the pain barely mattered.

The tearing pain in her heart was far worse.

She did not dare refuse aloud.

When she opened her eyes and met Itsuki's calm gaze, Mai's eyes were full of pleading.

Hot tears fell one by one and struck the ground.

"Mai..."

The Kyoto students could not hold back.

Their teacher, Utahime.

Momo Nishimiya.

Kasumi Miwa.

And Maki, not far away.

Several voices started to call her name, only to freeze when blood suddenly splashed through the air.

Pierce.

The roots of the Gedo Statue pierced straight through Mai's body.

Before that splash of blood could even hit the ground, Mai was dragged into the Kamui Dimension.

"Mai!"

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