After a little over ten minutes of walking, the three of them stopped outside a traditional Japanese-style room.
Perhaps to impress upon Tōru Azuma how serious the situation was, Masamichi Yaga hadn’t said a single word to him along the way.
Only after they arrived did he speak with a grave expression.
“Utahime, wait outside.
The higher-ups may want to ask you some questions about what happened later.”
Then he turned to Tōru Azuma.
“Are you ready?
Things won’t be so easy from here on.”
Tōru Azuma knew he had no way out of this, so he could only nod.
The next moment, the sliding door opened, and a stale, unpleasant odor drifted out from inside.
Masamichi Yaga entered first, with Tōru Azuma following closely behind.
Once the door slid shut behind them, the dim surroundings and faint lighting made him blink instinctively before his eyes adjusted enough to make out the room.
It was roughly square, with a long table on either side of the entrance.
All kinds of people sat behind them, most of them elderly men wearing clothes decorated with intricate and unusual family crests.
Directly opposite the entrance stood a separate table.
Behind it sat an elderly man dressed in a black kimono, his hair gray and his body hunched.
The darkness concealed most of his face.
After entering, Masamichi Yaga whispered a few words to a middle-aged man in a suit who was standing nearby.
The man then approached the old man at the head of the room and spoke with him in a very low voice.
Tōru Azuma, meanwhile, simply stood where he was and endured the many eyes studying him.
Most of them made no attempt to hide their feelings.
Some were suspicious.
Some were curious.
A few even showed obvious hostility and malice.
But perhaps because the man seated at the head had yet to speak, everyone remained silent.
“Hmm.
I understand.”
The old man finally finished speaking with the middle-aged man in the suit and turned his attention to Tōru Azuma.
“You said your name is Tōru Azuma?”
“Yes.”
Tōru Azuma’s nerves tightened.
He knew the real interrogation was about to begin.
Sure enough, the old man at the head of the room showed none of the restraint or mildness Masamichi Yaga had displayed earlier.
The moment Tōru Azuma answered, he spoke in a tone filled with undisguised suspicion.
“Masamichi Yaga asked you several questions earlier, but the answers you gave were far from satisfactory.”
“If there weren’t enough unusual circumstances surrounding you, you probably wouldn’t be standing before us right now.
You would have been sent directly for execution.”
As he spoke, the old man watched Tōru Azuma’s expression carefully.
When he saw the boy first freeze in surprise, then show clear unease and aversion, some of the thoughts in his mind shifted slightly.
But he didn’t rush to any conclusions.
Instead, he glanced toward a middle-aged man concealed in one of the darker corners of the room.
The man nodded, unfurled a scroll in front of himself, dipped a brush into blood-red ink, and held it poised above the paper.
The old man turned his attention back to Tōru Azuma.
His voice was calm and matter-of-fact, as though this were nothing more than routine procedure.
His next sentence, however, made Tōru Azuma’s back tense.
“But this time is different.
We have a way to determine whether what you say is true or false, so I suggest you think carefully before answering.”
The old man offered no explanation of how they intended to verify his answers.
Nor did he say what they would do if they discovered he was lying.
The people seated behind the long tables on either side fell completely silent.
“First question.
Were you involved in the attacks that occurred at the various subway stations yesterday?”
Tōru Azuma paused.
Not because he was hesitating, but because Masamichi Yaga had already asked him the exact same question.
Naturally, his answer hadn’t changed.
But why were they asking him again…?
Wait.
They had just said they possessed a method of verifying whether his answers were true.
So from their perspective, his previous answers hadn’t been convincing enough, and that was why they wanted him to answer again under verification?
He had already known that the Jujutsu World’s higher-ups were suspicious by nature, but these people were really taking it to another level.
“No.”
His answer was quick and simple.
Unlike before, he didn’t bother adding an explanation.
At a time like this, the more he said, the more chances he had to say something wrong.
Since they had a way to verify his words, he might as well let them do it.
The middle-aged man in the corner wrote the question onto the scroll.
A black answer then appeared behind the written words.
After seeing it, he nodded toward the old man at the head of the room.
The others noticed the subtle gesture and began exchanging looks.
If they weren’t still in the middle of an interrogation, they probably would have started whispering among themselves already.
The old man at the head said nothing.
He merely nodded before continuing.
“Second question.”
This time, his words came more slowly and deliberately than before.
“Are you a spy sent to infiltrate the Jujutsu World?”
Tōru Azuma frowned at the even more absurd question.
He was just about to answer when the old man raised a hand to stop him.
“Don’t answer yet.”
He leaned forward slightly.
The dim light fell across half of his wrinkled, imposing face, creating an oppressive atmosphere that made it almost difficult to breathe.
“We can find no record of your identity.
You suddenly appeared at the scene of an attack.
And on top of that, your body contains an enormous amount of Cursed Energy.”
“I don’t believe our luck is so extraordinary that we would simply stumble across such a promising talent by chance.
That makes it highly likely that someone deliberately sent you here.”
The old man paused, and his voice grew even more severe.
“Are you working for someone?”
Tōru Azuma could almost hear the faint crackle of a candle from somewhere behind him.
His brow furrowed even more deeply.
Not because he felt guilty, but because this question was even more ridiculous than the last.
At least the previous one made some sense.
He had suddenly appeared at the scene of an attack, so it was only natural for them to suspect that he might have been involved.
But this?
Who would send someone who couldn’t even use Cursed Energy as a spy?
And then deliberately drop that spy right in front of a Cursed Spirit?
What kind of organization would come up with such a nonsensical plan?
Weren’t they afraid something would go horribly wrong?
He nearly snapped back, “Who would send someone who almost got killed the moment he arrived to act as a spy?”
But he forcibly swallowed the words.
This wasn’t the time to win an argument.
So he answered stiffly.
“No.”
The middle-aged man in the corner looked down at the scroll again.
When another black response appeared beside the question he had written, surprise crossed his face, as though he hadn’t expected that result.
Still, when the old man looked toward him, he silently nodded once again.
This time, the others in the room could no longer conceal their reactions.
They immediately began whispering among themselves, their faces filled with shock and disbelief.
Some of their murmured conversation even reached Tōru Azuma.
“How is that possible…?
Something like this…
how often could it possibly happen?”
“Exactly…
Could this really be…?”
“The fate of the world has always been unpredictable.
Something like this happening isn’t entirely impossible…”
“So are we really going to do that…?”
Tōru Azuma paid little attention to the scattered whispers.
Instead, he looked toward the dark corner of the room.
It was so dim that he could barely see anything, but he had keenly noticed that the old man at the head had looked in that direction twice now.
The others also seemed particularly interested in whatever was over there.
So was the person, or perhaps the object, determining whether his answers were truthful located in that corner?
While he was considering the possibilities, the old man at the head cleared his throat.
The room instantly fell silent again.
When Tōru Azuma looked back at him, however, he could make out a trace of contemplation in the old man’s gaze.
It seemed they really had confirmed that his answers were truthful.
That was probably why they found the situation so strange.
The old man soon regained his composure.
Compared to before, however, some of the sternness had faded from his demeanor, and even his voice sounded slightly more relaxed when he continued.
“Then, the third question.
Are you willing to enroll in Tokyo Jujutsu High, accept our supervision, and learn how to become a fully-fledged Jujutsu Sorcerer?”