"What do you think?" Jiki asked her without turning to face the much shorter girl.
"It's lively and… bright." He noted the faraway tone of her voice and finally turned with a raised brow to observe the joy on her face as her head spun left and right on a swivel, trying to take in everything that she could at once.
The image brought to mind Aiko, and he blissfully wondered how her attempt at making the Bolognese spaghetti she had fallen in love with was going.
He had personally grown disillusioned with the scenery, considering his first sight of them nearly led to Aiko's death, and while he had never spent much time in the city, he was an adaptable sort. The difference between the city and the Hidden Leaf Village was simply down to scale, and after two or three trips in, the sights had turned mundane for him. He wondered how long it would take for Nobara to feel the same.
Another glance at her still-spinning head led him to believe it would be significantly longer than it did for him.
He turned his focus back to the city, cutting his way through the crowd with an apathetic glare and an aura of menace that served to separate them from the hustle and bustle of downtown Tokyo.
"How is the old woman?" he asked, as it didn't seem like Nobara was getting distracted anytime soon. He might have the patience of a ninja trained since he could crawl, but even he grew tired of being drawn along on shopping sprees by the whims of different women.
And somehow, the question got past the veil of joy that Nobara emitted as she stopped her spin. They had gotten to a clothing store, and she had stepped out of the changing room to display what she picked.
She turned to him with amusement on her face. "Old woman?"
He realized his mistake a second later and immediately channeled his inner Kakashi as much as he could, slouching on the chair he sat, lazily looking away to show a lack of interest, and finally, a gruff voice that would leave him borrowing one of Toge's throat medicines if he kept it up for long.
"The old hag," he corrected himself. The duo stared at each other for a short second before Jiki broke his imitation with a smirk as Nobara almost fell to her knees laughing.
"Hahahahhahh."
When she finally regained herself, she wiped away tears from her eyes and sat to join him on the seat.
"Doing what stubborn old women do, I guess. Living," Nobara finally replied with a smile.
"I tried to convince her to come with me, you know. Her duty in the village ended the moment you sealed Jorogumo. But you know her."
And he did know her. He had not stayed with the older woman for long, but he knew her type. Rare was the shinobi that died old. Rarer was one of them likely to uproot themselves from wherever they had found or made a home, regardless of the bad memories it held. They would hold onto it with the grip of the dead.
Jiki let the silence play for a bit before replying. "I don't think she would've liked the city, and you still have shopping to finish. We are burning daylight." More importantly, he had a meal being prepared for him.
With that comment, Nobara shot back to her feet, melancholy gone like it was never there. "I have classmates to impress with my magnificent presence and clothes!" She bolted into the changing room once more as Jiki got an alert on his phone.
He raised it up and swiped it open to reveal the message—a picture of a pot of spaghetti with a grinning Aiko in the background.
Yes, he couldn't wait to finish this and head back… home. That same moment, a crow cawed as it dived into the store to alight on his arm, gripping the appendage he had raised instinctively with a tight grip.
He looked at its eyes and understood immediately. The slippery duo were close by.
Junpei's steps were slow, as every movement reminded him of what he had suffered barely hours ago. They had been careful and focused all their hits on the parts his clothes could hide after a teacher had seen his forehead a day ago.
But sometimes, they got too enthusiastic, and they slipped up. He tasted iron in his mouth once more and spat it to the side, ignoring the sharp pain that came from his split lips.
"You're being awfully quiet," Mahito remarked as he glanced sideways at him. The strange curse? Man? remained as carefree as ever, hands clasped behind his head as they headed towards their hideout beneath the city. "Still brooding over it?"
Junpei's eyes remained fixed on the ground as he continued to trudge forward, his voice tired.
"Not really, it was just another day," he admitted as he continued to lurch alongside the curse. They still had a bit of sunlight before he had to return back home. Not that his mother was aware he had skipped school halfway.
Mahito nudged his side, and he stared at the grin on the patchwork face. "It's only a matter of time. I promised to help you out, didn't I? Don't worry about it. That anger and hate you're feeling opens two real choices for you. You can let it simmer, allow it to boil and seethe within you, or you can simply let it cool."
He turned to face the curse as it continued speaking. "Yet letting it cool means you would never have need of it. And if you don't have need of it, why should I bother." The curse ended with an uncaring shrug.
And something desperate entered Junpei's tone when he replied. "I'm not going to." Sensing his desperation leak, he let out a ragged breath and composed himself before continuing.
Mahito looked at him with his unnerving heterochromatic eyes. One blue and one gray stared into Junpei's brown till he finally saw what he was looking for, and the curse smiled, a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Good, now come on. I want to start experimenting on-"
"Do you recognize what you're frolicking with?" a calm voice interrupted Mahito's speech as it called out from above them.
Mahito's reaction was instantaneous. As soon as he heard the voice, he crafted an extra pair of eyes, their gaze shifting upward with predatory precision. Junpei, slower to react, squinted and blinked his lone visible brown eye, trying to make sense of the new arrival. They had wandered into a narrow alleyway, and the voice that cut through the tense silence belonged to a white-haired teen.
The teenager's features were sharply defined, his red eyes were cold and apathetic, yet tinged with a flicker of curiosity as they lingered on Junpei's battered form. The white-haired figure crouched effortlessly against the wall, defying gravity unnaturally.
"You're the one I saw a few days ago?" Mahito exclaimed with a smile, as he tilted his head up and allowed his features to drift back into a semblance of regular humanity. Yet if the teen had any interest in Mahito at first it had been lost, as his full focus rested once more on Junpei.
Yet the teen replied to Mahito anyway, even if his eyes remained focused on Junpei.
"It speaks," the teen remarked, his voice dripping with an unsettling calm. Despite the casual observation, there was an underlying edge to his words that sent shivers down Junpei's spine.
Junpei blinked again and even made an attempt at clearing his eyes as he tried to rationalize thr sight of the boy barely older than him, defying gravity in the way he stood vertically on the wall above as he watched the duo.
Finally, he turned his attention away from Junpei and focused it on Mahito, and Junpei staggered back and breathed out. He did not know what that was, but there was a choking pressure that came with the scarlet gaze. Yet it was one that Mahito was handling well enough as he sent a flashing grin up at the intimidating teen.
"I knew you looked like fun," Mahito said, his voice filled with a mix of amusement and challenge.
"Another unregistered special grade. Judging by the fully coherent speech patterns, huge yet unrefined cursed energy. Probably a newly born one." The teen spoke in a clinical tone that sent another chill down Junpei's spine. "I thought your kind was supposed to be rare."
"Ha!" Mahito laughed, "And you're a sorcerer. You're supposed to be more common. I wondered when I'd see one of you."
The white-haired teen made to reply again before the patter of footsteps rang out, and as one, they turned to see the new arrival.
"Jiki-san! You left me with all the bags and ran off alone-" The newcomer froze on the spot. Long enough for Junpei to take in her features. Brown-haired, short, and beautiful, he noted with a blush. Then he got to her eyes and noted how hard they were. That was all the sign he got before the girl dropped her bags like a hot potato as a small one-handed hammer slipped out of her sleeve.
"Jiki?" This time her voice lacked the whining tone it had a few seconds ago.
"Don't worry about them. This is only going to take a moment."
The chill that Junpei felt at the teen's presence spiked as he suddenly felt like a mouse in a cat's paw. Even Mahito had gone quiet and tensed as the teen stared down at them.
Brrrrrrr
The next second, a phone rang, and the teen frowned as he slipped the phone out of his pocket and put it to his ear in response. And for a split second, Junpei saw something he thought was anger on his face.
Something dark, something apoplectic, something that stopped his heart from pounding for a second. Then it was gone, and the teen's expression was somehow even more empty than it had been before.
"Come, Nobara. We're leaving." That was all he said before he disappeared in a blur of movement. The girl looked just as confused as they did before she gave off a nervous laugh, picked her bag up, and pivoted on the spot.
Mahito and Junpei stayed together in heavy silence inside that alleyway, each lost in their own thoughts as they processed the events of the past few minutes. Finally, Mahito broke the quiet, his voice unusually subdued.
"It seems I'll be accepting that offer from the weirdo after all," he muttered.
It took Junpei another second to place what he heard in Mahito's voice, but he knew it—because that was how he always sounded when his bullies cornered him. Fear.
Jiki walked through the clan gates, noting that one part of it was barely hanging on to its hinges as it creaked ominously.
He pushed it as he stepped past, ignoring the further creak and the heavy thud of the gate falling behind him as it signified it had come to the end of its life.
His feet took him through the pockmarked grounds of the clan. His stride was languid. His gaze cataloged everything—the blood splashes on the ground, the still-present but rapidly dissolving presence that was the cursed energy-grown wooden spikes.
Scarlet eyes roved over the inner parts of the clan, while his eyes drifted over both the still bodies and the moving ones that were making some effort to carry their dead brethren.
The sight of so many people with such familiar features, dead or dying, brought back unwanted memories.
Memories he shoved into their pit once more as he continued his unhurried pace. He ignored the questioning stares as he finally got past the courtyard and moved further into the clan.
The night parade of a thousand demons had been over weeks ago. There was no reason this had anything to do with it. Yet someone had attacked the Gojo clan. He would've admired the audacity if they had not—
He blinked away the sudden enhanced clarity as he tried his best to ignore the sudden freezing of the still-alive clan members. They avoided him like a naked blade; his air of animosity was a heavy cloak around him, even if he had not deigned to express his outrage.
It was palpable in his cursed energy. His continued steps brought him closer to his first destination. He would have to pay his respects first. He opened the doors of the mansion, doing the act physically for the first time.
He didn't bother wandering and instead began to head down. He arrived at another's battleground—the remains of one, to be precise. The golden Buddhist statues that had decorated the underground cavern had been destroyed and demolished in the fight that had taken place before his arrival.
Down in the pits of the clan, he was awaited by someone. But it was not the gray hair and withered old form of Tatsumi. Instead, Satoru stood in front of him, back to Jiki and eyes directed at the ground where a crater had formed and the blood splashes that tore markings on the ground.
"Old man Tatsumi?" he asked, his voice barely audible even in the silence.
"Dead," Satoru replied stoically. Then, as Jiki walked to stand beside him, Satoru pointed at the ground, and Jiki truly looked.
The blood splatter had not been as random as he had thought. It had been a writing. He tilted his head as he analyzed what he could observe.
"Gravi—"
Gravity?
It was incomplete, like a message that the owner had not managed to finish.
"The old man's work?"
"Yes," Satoru replied, his gaze still focused on the writing, or more accurately, the warning. "She's back upstairs, in my personal quarters. You should check up on her." Jiki didn't need any further prompt.
He glanced back at his cousin and patted his shoulder before turning and taking the stairs back up. Whoever had attacked the clan had been quick, clinical, experienced in creating barriers and isolation. He had seen the work done in the courtyard and Old Man Tatsumi's lair. It had been the work of two different people.
One to distract the clan, another to kill the old man.
He remembered Yuta's warning about Geto's true killer. The similarities between the wooden stakes present here and the ones that had torn a hole through Geto were not ignored, especially when he remembered how those wooden stakes nearly tore a hole in him, years ago. A sorcerer and a Curse.
His steps slowed as he entered the building that served as the clan head's personal quarters. As he approached her room, a part of him wished the journey were longer. A deeply human desire to delay the inevitable. But despite his wishes, he found himself standing before her door seconds later. Without bothering to knock, he opened it and stepped inside.
The maids inside immediately bowed and left the room in haste the moment they caught sight of him, leaving him alone with her prone form.
Aiko was lying on the bed, dressed in a stark black gown instead of her preferred black-and-white maid uniform. Her features were unmarked and unhurt, save for the scar she'd received trying to save him—the scar from the day that marked his descent into the world of sorcery. She looked peaceful, as if she were merely sleeping, and Jiki might have wanted to believe that was true if not for the glaring sign of that lie etched on her forehead.
He stood over her unconscious form, and all he felt was regret. Regret for leaving her alone. Regret for going to Jujutsu High without her. Regret for not spending as much time with her as he should have.
Regret was a bitter taste, one he thought he had grown familiar with until now.
His eyes imprinted the all-too-familiar seal etched into her head with the clarity the Sharingan was known for. Etched the surprisingly simple face of a girl who had watched after him for as long as he could remember. Her eyes were hidden, yet the scars she had gotten from putting herself in front of a blow aimed at him remained.
"Jiki?" Satoru called out as he stepped into the room. His cousin had been the one to call him, and he had made his way as fast as he could, yet it was all for naught.
"How?" Jiki replied, his voice empty.
"We don't know. I got a distress message from Old Man Tatsumi, and when I got there, he was dead and Aiko was unconscious."
Jiki strangled the impulsive urge to lash out, to say something stupid. Maybe punch the wall to express his anger.
But more than others, control was paramount to him. So the only sign of the inner turmoil he was suffering through was in how empty his voice was.
Someone had brazenly walked into the clan and hurt Aiko, put her into the coma a lot of people had been falling into, then somehow managed to kill Old Man Tatsumi.
He found himself wondering who. Who deserved this dark, hot rage he could feel in his chest. But before that, he had something more important to do. Scorched-earth tactics could wait. He already had a theory, and this person had simply pushed his hand to test it.
"Where is Tsumiki Fushiguro?"
...
The news about the Gojo Clan attack had been slow to spread to the four corners of jujutsu society, but it could not be hidden for long as it shook its very foundation. Even more than the Night Parade, the idea that one of the three great clans could be so brazenly attacked sent a cold wave of fear through the hearts of many sorcerers.
Yet where some worried about the fact that a powerful family could still be vulnerable, in the shadows of a room, where the light of fear cast only faint flickers, other sorcerers—those who had long since passed their prime and whose remaining power was not wielded by the strength of their arms nor their techniques—rejoiced and plotted.
Resentment had long since festered in their hearts, and now, with the Gojo Clan wounded, even if their two scions had yet to be humbled, they saw a chance to reclaim some measure of their lost pride.
In the darkness, they whispered to one another, plotting how this upheaval could be turned to their advantage. while even darker thoughts went to the still unknown factor that had caused the damage. Remnants of Geto's allies perhaps.
...
It had taken them weeks to get all the preparations ready. Long weeks where he had spent most of it sitting beside Aiko.
Weeks he had spent away from school and ignored summons from the Higher-ups. Now here they were at the ancient shrine of Seimei Jinja Shrine, a shrine dedicated to Abe no Seimei, an Onmyoji and sorcerer of the mid-Heian period. It was a place that served to repress and weaken curses in its presence, whatever sorcery the man had done to the shrine outlived him. They were gathered at the very peak, on a bare mountain.
It was a gathering of only the most trusted people, sorcerers that could be counted on one hand. Only one person was not as trusted, but she owed them her life—a life debt that she was repaying with her presence and the act of keeping this a secret: Utahime Lori. Yet that was not the only reason she agreed to come. She had made Jiki an offer, one where he would have to finally answer the summons of the Head Miko at the main shrine in a couple of days after this.
In the middle of the crowd lay the pale slip of a girl, Tsumiki Fushiguro.
Utahime, stood in a corner as she limbered up for her part in the ritual. Megumi was missing. The teen had gone on his first solo mission as an official jujutsu sorcerer—an easy retrieval mission whose true purpose was to keep the boy away.
They paid for sending Megumi away with the presence of a very invested Toji Fushiguro. The Sorcerer Killer stood in another corner, draped in a black muscle shirt and white pants. With the purple curse wrapped around his frame and thin eyes narrowed at Jiki, it couldn't be more clear that the man was primed and ready for violence.
Satoru stood in the air, meters above them, hands in his pockets and glasses missing as he stared down at them all like a god elevated above all men. He had been the one to lay the curtain that hung over the shrine.
On the other side of the laid-down girl was Shoko, a cigarette in her mouth as she toyed with her phone and cursed when she couldn't get any network. Behind her stood Principal Yagi, a modified curse corpse—one that was as flesh and blood as it was thread and cotton—sat beside him. It lay limp as it rested against the rock. An empty receptacle with the chance of being more.
"It is time."
Utahime began to dance.
Her movements were deliberate and graceful, every step and gesture imbued with her cursed energy. The air shimmering around her. The scarred Miko began to chant softly, her voice a low hum that resonated with the energy of the shrine.
Toji shifted his stance slightly, muscles taut and ready for action. The purple curse around him seemed to pulse in time with Utahime's dance.
Meanwhile Satoru, watched from above, his gaze was inscrutable. Without his glasses, his eyes were piercing, taking in every detail with a detached curiosity.
Shoko continued to fiddle with her phone, but her eyes occasionally flicked up to watch the ritual. Despite her nonchalant demeanor, she was alert, ready to step in if anything went wrong.
Principal Yagi stood stoically beside his puppet, his expression unreadable. The puppet itself seemed almost lifelike in the growing light, its empty eyes staring ahead as if waiting for something.
The air grew thick with anticipation as Utahime's dance reached its climax. Her movements became more frenzied, her chanting louder and more insistent. The air around them crackled with cursed energy, a tangible force that set their nerves on edge.
Finally, Utahime came to a halt, her arms raised high above her head as she uttered the final words of the ritual. Jiki and everyone in the range of her cursed technique felt their cursed energy output peak to never before reached heights.
"Now." Satoru's voice was a soft whisper, yet they heard it all the same, regardless of how high up he was.
Jiki let out a deep breath as he ignited the spark that was his cursed energy, sending the mercurial flow towards his eyes and feeling it morph from Its three tomoe state to Its Fuma shuriken form.
With a single hand seal, he snapped open his eyes and whispered out. "Susanoo."