Location: Main Estate, Outer Walkways
Time: 09:30 PM
Noritoshi Kamo walked slowly down the long wooden corridor.
He tucked his hands deep inside the sleeves of his dark kimono to block the cold air.
STOMP. STOMP.
A young clan guard hurried around the corner holding a paper lantern.
The man immediately stopped in his tracks and bowed deeply.
"...Lord Noritoshi," the guard said nervously. "...You should be resting in the inner chambers."
Noritoshi stopped walking.
He gave the young guard a warm, polite smile.
"...I just couldn't sleep," Noritoshi replied softly. "...I wanted to check the perimeter myself."
Sato stood up slightly straighter and raised his lantern.
"...The walls are completely locked down, my lord," Sato reported quickly. "...We doubled the outer watch right after the woods were cleared."
Noritoshi gave a slow, appreciative nod.
"...You are doing a great job," Noritoshi said. "...Make sure you grab some hot rice from the kitchen when your shift ends."
Sato bowed his head again.
"...Thank you, Lord Noritoshi," Sato answered gratefully.
The young guard hurried down the hallway.
Noritoshi watched him turn the far corner.
The warm, caring smile instantly vanished from his face.
His expression turned completely blank.
Noritoshi turned his head and looked at the dark glass of the sliding window.
He stared at his own reflection.
He pulled his right hand out of his sleeve and held it up to the moonlight.
Small, brown liver spots covered the back of his pale skin.
He slowly curled his fingers into a fist.
CRACK.
His knuckles popped loudly in the quiet hallway.
'This vessel has maybe ten good years left before the physical combat limits degrade.'
PUFF.
He let out a slow, quiet breath.
His brain-hopping technique allowed him to live for centuries.
He accepted the decay of his hosts as a simple, practical fact.
He just needed to wrap up his work here and find a younger body soon.
Noritoshi lowered his hand and looked out toward the dark estate gardens.
He thought about the chained woman resting on the stone slab underground.
He created the Death Paintings to force a new stage of human evolution.
He wanted to splice a human and a curse together to generate absolute, unpredictable chaos.
He wanted to create something even he couldn't understand.
Instead, the results were entirely boring.
The cursed wombs were stable, predictable, and bound by standard rules.
'They are just average monsters. Aside from the first one.'
Noritoshi closed his eyes.
He pushed his cursed energy outward across the estate grounds.
FSSSH.
He swept his senses directly over the branch family quarters.
He checked the sleeping children one last time just to see if the recent trauma sparked a real anomaly.
He felt nothing but standard, average limits.
Noritoshi opened his eyes and let his energy drop completely.
If genetic splicing couldn't trigger the mass evolution he wanted, he needed to change his approach.
"So what should we do for the eight and ninth one?"
He looked up at the cloudy night sky.
"Oh, I almost forgot about it."
He needed to start traveling across Japan to find sorcerers.
'I need to start forging contracts with the strongest dying fighters of this era.'
He turned away from the window and continued walking down the dark corridor.
It was time to start preparing the board for a much larger game.
--<>--
Location: Third Communal House, Hanzo's Quarters
Time: 11:00 PM
The wooden room was completely pitch-black.
Ten people lay on thin straw mats across the floorboards.
SNORE.
A boy near the sliding door breathed heavily in his sleep.
Hanzo sat up in the dark.
He waited a few minutes to make sure the matrons were completely gone for the night.
He pulled off his spare gray linen shirt.
RUSTLE.
He rolled the fabric tightly and shoved it under his thin blanket.
He patted the lump down until it resembled a small sleeping child.
Hanzo crawled quietly into the far corner of the room.
He pressed his back against the cold wooden wall.
He looked down at his own weak hands.
His fingers were raw and bleeding from scrubbing the patrol uniforms all morning.
'Grade three...'
He closed his fists tightly.
'No innate technique.'
His father Noboru was a fully trained sorcerer, and a single Grade 1 curse killed him easily.
The human body was incredibly fragile.
Even his father who had an innate technique was still helpless.
And him who didn't had any inherited or innate technique, he was also a piece of meat waiting to be thrown at a random curse.
He thought about the society right now. As far as he remembers in the anime the elders and the members of the Jujutsu council is so traditional and corrupt. How much more today when he was born in the Meiji era.
They were just like the biased female judge from his past life.
They operated on a rigged, traditional system.
Or those countries that started the war and killed him.
If he just stayed a loyal, average branch member, the elders would eventually use him as a disposable soldier to protect the main bloodline.
'I refuse to be a pawn.'
Hanzo let out a slow, quiet breath.
He remembered Instructor Juzo's lecture in the courtyard.
He needed a Binding Vow with himself.
Hanzo started piecing the logic together in his head for hours after seeing Noritoshi Kamo earlier.
"First, I couldn't just seal away all of my cursed energy... I can get a reference from the overtime binding vow of Nanami."
"Instead of working hours I can seal my cursed energy for months or even years until I'm old enough and ready to use it... Then let's set it for ten years."
"....Using 25% of my cursed energy right now is enough as a growing child."
He would leave twenty-five percent active.
To the instructors and the elders, he would look exactly like Ren or Daiki.
He would be a perfectly average, unthreatening child.
But sealing seventy-five percent of the total cursed energy and unable to access it for years. Even when training, fighting cursed spirits or even life threatening situations.
The severe restriction should result in a terrifying evolution after the binding vow is complete
Because his available output was so strictly limited, the body may learn to compress and refine cursed energy flawlessly.
"...Next plan for another binding vow."
Hanzo thought about setting a daily quota, like ten thousand punches. Like Netero in Hunter x Hunter anime.
'No, that doesn't make sense.'
A six-year-old body couldn't physically reach that number, and a sixteen-year-old body would eventually find it too easy.
"And it's not gratitude but hatred..."
It had to be a progressive scale.
He would force his physical body to absolute exhaustion every single day.
Right now, a ten thousand strikes would completely exhaust his young muscles and he may not even be able to finish it in a few hours.
But instead as he grew, the exhaustion threshold would naturally push higher into the thousands.
Hanzo rubbed his wrists.
He thought about the penalty. The risk if he failed.
"If I miss a single day of total exhaustion... my cursed energy will be permanently unusable... Yes, this is the risk I need to bear... To become completely useless and become a normal human... Never be able to use cursed energy."
Hanzo stared into the dark room.
He still had a massive problem.
With only a quarter of his energy active, his actual attack power would be pathetically weak.
He needed a way to attack stronger.
Hanzo thought about the passive cursed energy armor that sorcerers constantly kept around their bodies.
"Then I can just selectively deploy it. I already trained with Ko and Ren."
If he voluntarily forfeited his defense.
He would become a pure glass cannon, leaving his skin completely exposed to lethal damage.
"We can also make it a conditional or a temporary binding vow."
In exchange for that massive risk, his active energy would snap directly to his point of impact instantaneously.
"This would give me devastating, pinpoint strikes... Leaving zero cursed energy reinforcement all over my body but a hundred percent cursed energy gathered milliseconds before impact."
Hanzo rested the back of his head against the wood.
He had the vows structured perfectly.
He estimated he had roughly ten years until the Meiji era ended in 1912.
Ten years of this brutal, daily torture would forge a physical vessel completely different from a normal human.
Hanzo thought Noritoshi Kamo again.
"Kenjaku should be finished or still experimenting with the cursed wombs: death paintings. I don't know when he will finish it but..."
He thought about the glass jars sitting somewhere main estate right now.
"It should be before the end of the Meiji era which should be 17 years from now. And I also need to master barrier techniques..."
That's right.
Hanzo already have the exact outline and what the end goal of this ten year foundation was.
A normal human body would instantly melt from the poison of a cursed object. How much more from a special grade curses.
But a body...
A will...
A spirit...
and a soul tempered by a decade of hatred training and cursed energy output restrictions might actually survive consuming the weaker one first.
"This is a gamble... Whether I survive or die..."
'I lack an innate technique.'
He looked at his raw, bleeding hands one last time.
'So I will just get it. And steal it.'
Once Kenjaku eventually abandoned the Kamo clan, those curse wombs would be left behind.
He would consume all the Death Paintings. From the weakest to the strongest.
One by one.
He would stop being human entirely. And become a half cursed spirit.
--<>--
A few minutes later.
Hanzo sat completely still in the dark corner.
He had the three plans locked in his head.
Seventy-five percent sealed. Progressive exhaustion. Zero passive armor.
HUFF-PUFF.
He took a slow, quiet breath.
He focused on the cursed energy pooling in his stomach.
"...I bind my flesh to these conditions," Hanzo whispered to the dark room.
He waited for something to happen on his body.
"..."
"..."
"..."
He waited for some kind of heavenly chain to wrap around his soul.
Nothing happened.
A boy snored loudly from the other side of the room.
SNORE.
Hanzo frowned deeply.
He pulled a small spark of cursed energy into his right hand.
FSSSH.
A faint blue light illuminated his raw, bleeding knuckles.
"...I accept the risk," Hanzo whispered again.
He pushed the cursed energy directly against his own chest.
He held it there for five seconds.
The spark just fizzled out against his gray shirt.
He felt absolutely nothing.
Hanzo dropped his hands to his lap.
SIGH.
He let out a long, quiet sigh.
"I have absolutely no idea what I am doing now."
He realized the manga skipped this exact mechanical step entirely.
The characters just announced their vows in their heads or shouted them at their enemies.
The scene would change, and they were suddenly stronger.
The author never bothered to explain how a sorcerer physically pressed the start button.
"Damn! Gege..."
Hanzo rubbed his aching temples.
He was sitting and doing poses by himself and felt completely ridiculous.
He also realized that blindly guessing was incredibly dangerous.
If he accidentally pushed his cursed energy the wrong way while actively thinking about his brain exploding, he might actually kill himself on the spot. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
He looked toward the sliding paper door.
He needed an actual teacher to explain the physical mechanics of intent and energy flow.
'I will just ask Instructor Juzo tomorrow.'
It was the most logical solution.
It was perfectly normal for a young growing kid to ask a bunch of questions during training.
Juzo would just think he was a curious child.
No one would suspect he was building a ten-year death contract.
He then went back to bed.
RUSTLE.
Hanzo laid down and pulled the blanket over his shoulders.
"Let's get some sleep. There is still work tomorrow morning."
--<>--
Location: Kyoto, Pontocho Alleyway
Time: 2:30 AM
Cold rain poured down into the dark alleyway.
Water ran down the brick walls.
A young man leaned against a wooden crate under a small canvas awning.
He had dyed blonde hair tied up in a messy knot.
He wore a traditional yukata with a modern, pinstriped Western suit vest buttoned directly over it.
A short, balding man in a wet business suit stood three feet away.
A muscular bodyguard stood right behind him holding an oil-paper umbrella.
"...You finished the target, Reiji?" the balding man asked nervously.
The blonde man pulled a wooden toothpick out of his mouth.
"...I told you to stop calling me that, Koji," he said in an annoyed tone.
He flicked the toothpick into a puddle.
SPLASH.
"...It's Reggie Star now," Reggie corrected him. "...Suda Reiji is dead. That traditional crap is boring."
Koji wiped rain from his chin.
"...Right, Reggie," Koji muttered. "...Here is the payment."
Koji reached into his wet suit jacket.
RUSTLE.
He pulled out a brown paper envelope and tossed it onto the crate.
THWACK.
Reggie picked it up and flipped the flap open.
He quickly dragged his thumb across the paper bills.
He stopped counting and looked up.
"...We agreed on five hundred yen," Reggie stated flatly. "...There is only three hundred in here."
Koji took a step back.
"...The post-war economy is terrible right now," Koji argued.
He pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward the main street.
"...My clients are losing money at the trading ports," Koji continued. "...Be reasonable."
"..."
Reggie just stared at him.
"...Three hundred is a fortune for an independent sorcerer," Koji pushed. "...You don't have a clan to back you up anyway."
Sigh.
Reggie sighed.
"...You really want to play this game?" Reggie asked.
He reached into the pocket of his Western vest.
He pulled out a small, printed paper receipt from a local general store.
"...Hehe...You traditional guys are so stuck in the past," Reggie laughed. "...Carrying around those big, stupid parchment scrolls just to use a technique."
He rolled the printed receipt between his fingers.
"...The Western paper is so much better," Reggie said. "...It fits right in my pocket."
He channeled his cursed energy directly into his fingertips.
FWOOSH.
A blue flame ignited the edge of the paper.
The receipt burned into ash instantly.
"...Contractual Recreation," Reggie whispered.
A dark shadow appeared in the air directly over the bodyguard.
The large man looked up.
"Huh?" the bodyguard grunted.
CRASH.
A solid cast-iron woodstove fell out of the sky.
It slammed directly onto the bodyguard's head and crushed him against the cobblestones.
SNAP.
The oil-paper umbrella broke in half.
Blood mixed into the rain puddles.
"What's wrong with you?!" Koji screamed.
He slipped on the wet stones and fell hard onto his backside in the mud.
SPLAT.
"...Are you crazy?!" Koji yelled.
He scrambled backward until his back hit the brick wall.
Reggie stepped out from under the awning.
The cold rain soaked his clothes immediately.
He walked over and looked down at the terrified broker.
"...The Zenin clan is bleeding out at the western docks," Reggie explained casually.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out another crumpled receipt.
"...The Gojo retainers are busy on the train tracks," Reggie added.
He crouched down in front of Koji.
"...The major families are too busy fighting curses to take your private assassination requests," Reggie said.
He tapped the new receipt against Koji's wet cheek.
"...That means the demand for rogue sorcerers just skyrocketed," Reggie finished with a wide smile.
Koji stared at the blue spark flickering on Reggie's hand.
"...Okay, I understand!" Koji shouted frantically.
Koji reached deep into his pants pocket.
He pulled out a thick roll of bills tied with string.
He shoved the money directly into Reggie's hand.
"...Just take it," Koji begged. "...Let me walk away."
Reggie stood up.
He slipped the roll of cash into his vest pocket.
"...See?" Reggie laughed. "...The economy is doing great."
He turned around and walked down the dark alleyway.
He stepped right over the crushed bodyguard.
'I need a dry place to count this.'
--<>--