“All right…
That’s enough.
Both of you, stop.”
Just as Mahito was about to give in to his killing intent, Kenjaku intervened.
A miniature gray vortex appeared without warning above his palm, positioning itself squarely between the enraged Mahito and Atsushi, whose body was gradually being covered in blood armor.
“We’re all going to be allies from now on, after all.
Think of this as nothing more than an opportunity to see what each other’s techniques can do.
There’s no need to actually start killing each other.”
Kenjaku wore the false, conciliatory smile of someone trying to play peacemaker.
But the miniature vortex floating above his palm was anything but harmless.
Countless low-level cursed spirits had been forcibly fused and compressed within it, producing an unmistakably dense surge of cursed energy.
“Maximum: Uzumaki…”
Even Mahito, who had been on the verge of going berserk, gradually calmed down after recognizing the vortex that represented the pinnacle of Cursed Spirit Manipulation.
“Looks like you really are fond of this kid.”
Mahito glanced around.
Jogo, the volcano curse, and Hanami, the forest curse, were both absent.
Only Dagon, still a Cursed Womb and the one maintaining this innate domain, remained nearby.
So Mahito took a step back.
His mouth, however, remained as viciously childish as ever.
“Geto, don’t tell me this guy’s your secret kid or something.”
“My secret child…”
Kenjaku wasn’t offended by the crude joke.
He leisurely reached toward the slowly rotating gray vortex.
“That might not be as impossible as you think.”
Mahito’s expression immediately twisted into disbelief.
Seriously?
Kenjaku curled his fingers slightly and drew the vortex back into his hand.
“Whatever.
You’ve done plenty of disgusting things before, Geto, so I’m not even going to ask about that.”
Mahito stared curiously at Atsushi for a while.
But Atsushi’s expression gave nothing away, so Mahito eventually lost interest and relaxed his brow.
Barefoot, he walked to one side of the beach and casually dropped into a lounge chair as though nothing had happened.
Leaning back, Mahito stretched lazily.
Then something deeply unsettling happened.
The fingers he had lost began growing back as the flesh of his hand twisted and shifted.
So he’s reshaping the missing part of his soul by distorting the rest of it.
Atsushi silently watched Mahito regenerate and immediately understood what he was doing.
The total mass of his soul has decreased, but its function is still intact.
Until he loses enough of his soul for that damage to interfere with its overall structure, an injury like this might as well not matter.
“Of course I brought him here for a reason.”
Kenjaku leisurely sat down in another lounge chair beside Atsushi and lightly rested his chin on one hand.
“You’ll understand soon enough.”
A thousand years of experience had clearly turned Kenjaku into the sort of person who enjoyed speaking in riddles, and his deliberately mysterious tone made Mahito frown.
“I once explored the possibility of creating offspring born from both humans and cursed spirits.”
Kenjaku abruptly changed the subject.
“That experiment wasn’t exactly a failure, but I wouldn’t call it a success either.”
Resting his chin against his hand, Kenjaku’s thoughts seemed to drift far into the past.
“Because in the end, the offspring I created were nothing more than disappointments.
They showed no real potential.
They couldn’t even surpass ordinary humans.”
Mahito possessed extraordinary intelligence.
It only took him a moment to follow Kenjaku’s train of thought.
“That’s because humans are weak, isn’t it?
Mixing cursed spirit blood with humans wouldn’t suddenly make them comparable to real cursed spirits.”
Mahito grinned.
“You were making defective products from the beginning, Geto.”
Kenjaku narrowed his eyes but didn’t argue.
He merely gave Mahito a meaningful smile.
“Perhaps.”
He spoke casually, as though the failure of those experiments meant nothing to him.
“But recently, my opinion changed.”
Kenjaku paused.
“No.
More accurately, it changed only moments ago.”
As he spoke, Kenjaku slowly raised his head.
His gaze locked onto Atsushi with an intensity that bordered on obsession.
“Perhaps I actually did create what I was searching for.”
“After all, what I’ve always desired is chaos born from my own hands, yet ultimately beyond my control.”
There it was again.
That look.
Even Atsushi, who wasn’t especially sensitive to ordinary human emotion, felt physically uncomfortable beneath Kenjaku’s almost affectionate stare.
He instinctively looked away and turned his attention toward the rolling waves instead.
But Mahito finally understood what Kenjaku was implying.
“You mean…”
Mahito abruptly sat upright in the lounge chair.
The stitched scars across his face shifted with his expression of disbelief.
“You’re saying this Blood Manipulation user might actually be some abnormal human you created…
or whatever he is?”
“Who knows?”
Kenjaku smiled.
“Perhaps he truly carries the bloodline of one of the bodies I inhabited long ago.”
“Or perhaps, after countless coincidences accumulated over all these years, he simply happened to appear.”
“A miracle that perfectly matches what I was hoping to find.”
“It’s been such a long time, after all.
Even I can’t remember everything anymore.”
Kenjaku gave an answer so deliberately ambiguous that it practically invited speculation.
Then his smile vanished.
His eyes became as sharp as scalpels as he addressed Atsushi directly.
“Before anything else, though, there’s something I want to ask you, sorcerer.”
“Your instincts are unusually sharp.”
“If you could accurately sense the danger of Mahito’s technique, then there’s no chance you failed to notice the difference between his cursed energy and yours.”
Kenjaku’s gaze hardened.
“Yet despite being in such a hopeless situation, you attacked him without hesitation and deliberately provoked him.”
“Was that because you assumed I would protect you?”
“Or are you arrogant enough to believe that, with your current strength, you could actually kill Mahito?”
Kenjaku had already decided how he would judge Atsushi.
If Atsushi answered that he expected Kenjaku to protect him, then he was merely a weakling who mistakenly believed he understood other people’s intentions.
If he answered that he believed he could kill Mahito, then he was nothing more than a lunatic incapable of recognizing the difference in strength between them.
Either answer would be enough.
Kenjaku would kill him here without hesitation.
Leaving only the body behind would be sufficient.
Just as killing intent began to rise deep within Kenjaku’s eyes, Atsushi answered.
“If I can’t win, does that mean I shouldn’t fight?”
“I don’t believe you’ll definitely protect me.”
“And I don’t think I can kill this Mahito guy either.”
“Is that so?”
Kenjaku leaned forward slightly.
“Then why attack when you knew you would almost certainly die?”
“To put it simply, what you did was like a goat born without the ability to feel fear charging headfirst into a pack of starving wolves.”
Kenjaku smiled.
“How unfortunate.
It would be torn apart instantly.”
He used the cruel comparison to describe Atsushi’s behavior, which seemed to defy even the most basic instinct for self-preservation.
But Atsushi’s expression didn’t change.
He simply looked at Kenjaku and answered with the same analogy.
“Then what about a goat that turns its back on the wolves and runs as hard as it can, only to have its throat torn out anyway?”
Atsushi’s eyes remained calm.
“Is that goat somehow luckier than the one that turns around, charges straight at them, and gets torn apart in the process?”
Kenjaku’s smile froze.
He fell silent for a long moment.
Eventually, his narrow eyes slowly closed into slits again as he considered the answer.
“Come to think of it, I never asked why you exorcised so many of my cursed spirits.”
Kenjaku finally broke the silence.
“You’re not a sorcerer from Jujutsu High, are you?”
“So what was your reason?”
“Ah.
Sorry.”
Atsushi looked slightly embarrassed.
“I didn’t know those cursed spirits belonged to you.
Cursed Spirit Manipulation is pretty rare, after all.”
“But if you really want a reason…”
“I wanted to get stronger.”
“Stronger?”
Kenjaku tilted his head and looked Atsushi up and down as though he’d just heard something amusing.
“Interesting.”
“But sorcerers aren’t like cursed spirits.”
“Generally speaking, once a human is born and develops to a certain point, the structure of their brain stabilizes, and the amount of cursed energy their body can possess reaches its natural limit.”
“At a fundamental level, their cursed energy won’t simply continue increasing.”
Kenjaku’s gaze swept across Atsushi.
“And your body appears considerably weaker than that of an ordinary human.”
“Perhaps it’s some kind of Heavenly Restriction you were born with.”
“You’re carrying a body so frail that even ordinary physical activity seems difficult, yet you’re still obsessed with becoming stronger.”
Kenjaku smiled faintly.
“So what exactly are you trying to accomplish?”
“My reason for getting stronger?”
Atsushi looked genuinely confused after hearing Kenjaku’s lengthy explanation.
“You need a reason for that?”
“Generally speaking, yes.”
Kenjaku answered with obvious interest.
Then, as though testing a theory, he immediately turned toward Mahito.
“Mahito.
Why do you want to become stronger?”
“Huh?
Stronger?”
Mahito laughed without restraint, wearing that same innocent and cruel smile.
“That’s just a side effect of surviving, isn’t it?”
“But my actual goal is simple.”
“I want to live however I want.
Completely free, with nothing holding me back.”
“And if I want to live that way, then obviously I need to become stronger.”
Mahito’s grin widened.
“Then I’ll kill every last human who acts like they’re something special when they’re really nothing more than weak, hypocritical insects.”
“That answer suits you perfectly, Mahito.”
Kenjaku nodded and seemed to sink briefly into old memories.
“I was much the same.”
“A very long time ago, I also pursued the greatest strength I could possibly attain.”
“My goal was to survive for as long as possible.”
“And to see what the world might look like if I succeeded.”
Kenjaku turned back toward Atsushi.
“Everyone, or perhaps every being that possesses a soul, has some fundamental logic or desire behind wanting strength.”
“Wouldn’t you agree, sorcerer?”
Mahito eagerly joined in from the side.
“Exactly.
If you don’t have a reason why you absolutely need to become stronger, then in the jujutsu world, that’s basically the same as having no reason why you absolutely need to survive.”
“Someone like that would never make it very far.”
“So?”
Kenjaku pressed Atsushi again.
“What’s your answer, sorcerer?”
Atsushi stood where he was as the sea breeze tousled his naturally messy black hair.
Before him were two beings who, despite moving in completely different directions, had both spent a great deal of time contemplating the nature of their own existence.
Faced with their question, a faint ripple finally appeared in the depths of Atsushi’s clear black eyes.
“A reason?”
“Even if you ask me something like that…”
“I don’t know.”
The instant Kenjaku heard the seemingly hollow answer, the intense expectation in his eyes gave way to profound disappointment.
“I see.
Perhaps I was mistaken…”
Kenjaku never finished.
Atsushi interrupted him.
“I don’t understand why you’re asking something like, ‘Why do you want to become stronger?'”
Atsushi raised his head.
He lifted one hand toward the artificial blue sky formed from cursed energy.
His tone was as natural as if he were stating that the sun rose in the east.
“Because strength is there.”
Against the false sky, Atsushi’s outstretched hand seemed to close around the false sun itself.
For a moment, even the air seemed to freeze.
Mahito’s reaction was immediate.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He couldn’t understand.
A cursed spirit born from humanity’s malice couldn’t comprehend Atsushi’s reasoning, something that seemed to completely reject the instinct to seek safety and avoid harm.
But beside him, Kenjaku reacted entirely differently.
His eyes lit up with almost fanatical intensity, as though he’d just been struck by lightning.
“You…”
His smile slowly widened.
“Perfect.”
That ancient soul, which had inhabited countless bodies across a thousand years.
For the first time in centuries, felt something stir within him again.
(To be continued.)