On the bright, sunlit beach formed within Dagon’s innate domain, the sea breeze carried the relaxed atmosphere of a tropical resort.
But the moment Atsushi heard the task Kenjaku had assigned him, the laid-back expression on his face disappeared completely.
“Huh?
So you do know how to be scared.”
Nearby, Mahito was idly digging his bare feet into the warm sand.
The moment he saw Atsushi’s look of disbelief, he immediately mocked him.
“You were just talking about goats charging into a pack of wolves.”
“Looks like Gojo scares him a lot more than you do.”
Hearing Mahito’s jab, Kenjaku smiled and happily added fuel to the fire.
“That’s not the issue.”
Atsushi looked thoroughly exasperated.
“I couldn’t avoid Mahito’s attack earlier, so I had no choice but to fight back.
But with Gojo, you’re asking me to deliberately walk into a fight I have no chance of winning.”
“I’m a Grade 3 sorcerer, and you want me to fight Gojo Satoru?”
Atsushi looked between Kenjaku and Mahito and helplessly spread his hands, his expression practically saying, What do you expect me to say?
“Relax.
Gojo doesn’t usually kill people on sight.”
Kenjaku raised a finger as if reassuring him.
“Besides, among everyone currently on our side, you’re the only one besides me who can approach Gojo directly without immediately revealing what you are.”
“Special Grade cursed spirits have far too much cursed energy to hide, and the curse users working with us wouldn’t last long against him.”
“And although I said you’d be challenging Gojo, in reality, you only need to do one thing.”
“Use that abnormal property of your attacks and see whether you can pierce his Infinity.”
Having spent a thousand years plotting from the shadows, Kenjaku reclined in his lounge chair and began laying out the plan in an orderly fashion.
“Is Gojo Satoru really that strong?”
Although Atsushi had insisted that this wasn’t about who was scarier, Mahito had clearly noticed the difference in his reaction when Gojo’s name came up.
In Atsushi’s eyes, Gojo was obviously on a completely different level from Mahito.
That realization bruised the cursed spirit’s pride slightly, and Mahito looked toward Kenjaku with obvious dissatisfaction.
“Very strong.”
Kenjaku rested his chin on one hand.
“Far beyond anything reasonable.”
He seemed to run through a battle in his mind before continuing.
“Mahito, if you leave me out of it, the strongest among us in a straightforward fight is unquestionably Jogo, correct?”
“Mm…
In terms of raw destructive power, none of us can match Jogo.”
Mahito didn’t argue.
Even he understood the difference between their direct combat abilities.
“But what if I told you that even if you included me, and you, Jogo, Hanami, and every curse user we’ve recruited all attacked Gojo Satoru head-on at the same time…”
Kenjaku smiled faintly.
“We would still lose.”
“Would you believe me?”
“Huh?”
Disbelief flashed across Mahito’s stitched face.
“Seriously?
He’s that ridiculous?”
“Completely serious.”
Kenjaku continued smiling with narrowed eyes.
“You’ll have a chance to see it for yourself.”
“But more importantly, if we want to accomplish our ultimate goal and create an age where curses can truly flourish, then removing Gojo Satoru from the board is unavoidable.”
“Okay…
but if he’s really that absurdly strong, how are we supposed to beat him, Professor Geto?”
Mahito asked like an overly curious student.
His mismatched eyes almost seemed to sparkle with interest.
Kenjaku, apparently enjoying the role of teacher, looked quite pleased with himself.
“Originally, there were two methods.”
He slowly raised one finger.
“The first was Ryomen Sukuna.”
“The figure known as Ryomen Sukuna truly existed in the past.”
“Although the truth differs from the legends surrounding him, the King of Curses possessed overwhelming power.”
“He is one of the very few beings who could potentially defeat Gojo Satoru.”
“Sukuna’s vessel…
Itadori Yuji?”
The moment Mahito heard Sukuna’s name, he quietly murmured the name of a certain boy.
Atsushi, who had been listening from the side, immediately caught that detail.
Clearly, Mahito had already encountered Itadori Yuji, the protagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen, at this point in the timeline.
“But Ryomen Sukuna isn’t someone we can control.”
Mahito immediately pressed on.
“So what’s the second method?”
“The second method…”
Kenjaku’s eyes darkened.
“Seal Gojo Satoru.”
“With our current strength, killing him is impossible.”
“But sealing him is still within reach.”
“And to accomplish that, we need the Special Grade cursed object in my possession, the Prison Realm.”
As he spoke, Kenjaku reached into the wide sleeve of Suguru Geto’s robes and slowly produced a lifeless gray-white cube as though performing a magic trick.
Atsushi’s attention was immediately drawn to the bizarre object.
Its surface was covered in evenly spaced seams.
Looking more closely, those seams resembled countless tightly shut, grotesque eyes.
“A Special Grade cursed object…”
Mahito didn’t seem particularly interested in its appearance.
After briefly examining the ominous cursed energy radiating from the gray-white cube, he asked the obvious question.
“Something like that must have pretty strict activation conditions, right?”
“Correct.”
Kenjaku nodded approvingly.
“To seal Gojo Satoru, he must remain within the Prison Realm’s effective range for one minute’s worth of time in his mind after it is opened.”
“I originally intended to have Jogo and the others handle that part.”
“But according to my calculations, the odds of success still weren’t particularly high.”
Kenjaku casually slipped the Prison Realm back into his sleeve.
“After all, even a single minute is an absurdly long time when you’re dealing with Gojo.”
Then Kenjaku’s tone shifted.
A sharp gleam appeared in his narrow eyes.
“But now things are different.”
“If an abnormal attack exists that can pierce even Gojo’s Infinity…”
He glanced toward Atsushi.
“Then as long as you appear at the right moment, sealing him may become considerably easier.”
Once again, Kenjaku looked at Atsushi with that deeply uncomfortable, almost parental expectation in his eyes.
“Then in that case…”
Mahito rubbed his chin and asked another question that was extremely typical of him.
“If this guy’s attacks really can ignore defenses, and can even strike directly at the soul like when he cut off my fingers…”
“Couldn’t he just kill Gojo Satoru directly?”
“Impossible.”
Kenjaku immediately shook his head.
“No matter how unusual the property of his attacks is, he’s still fundamentally a low-grade sorcerer.”
“His cursed energy output is limited.”
“And right now, he can’t even apply that defense-ignoring property to his entire attack.”
“Even if he can pierce Gojo’s Infinity, there’s no chance he could actually kill him.”
“At most, he might inflict a minor injury.”
“And if he focused too much on maximizing the damage and exposed an opening, Gojo would take him out instantly.”
Atsushi had been standing there listening to Kenjaku and Mahito casually discuss the details of his potential death.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Hey.”
“Stop deciding what I’m going to do without asking me.”
“I haven’t agreed to go after Gojo Satoru.”
“There’s a limit to how much you can decide on your own.”
“You think you can refuse?”
Mahito, who had been grinning moments earlier, suddenly turned his head.
His stitched face became cold and sinister as he stared at Atsushi.
The killing intent of a Special Grade cursed spirit seemed to press down on the beach.
“If I refuse, the worst-case scenario is that you kill me here.”
Atsushi didn’t waver.
“If I challenge Gojo Satoru, the worst-case scenario is still that I die.”
He looked back at Mahito.
“So what makes you think I won’t refuse, curse?”
Atsushi and Mahito stared each other down.
For a moment, the air over the beach became suffocatingly still.
This is strange…
Mahito’s expression shifted.
His soul…
It really isn’t reacting at all.
“Hahahaha!”
Mahito finally burst into manic laughter.
“What the hell is this guy’s soul made of?”
“He’s a complete freak!”
“Geto, he seriously isn’t afraid of us at all.”
“So what now?”
Mahito had initially tried to intimidate Atsushi, maintaining the threatening expression in an attempt to force him to submit.
But after sensing just how completely undisturbed Atsushi’s soul remained, he eventually dropped the act and started laughing, turning to Kenjaku instead.
“Relax.”
Kenjaku spoke at the right moment, breaking the stalemate.
“If I wanted you dead, I could have killed you already.”
“As I explained before, Gojo Satoru won’t simply kill a human on sight.”
“Even if you’re a curse user, unless you cross a line he won’t tolerate, such as harming one of his students, he won’t necessarily go straight for the kill.”
Kenjaku began carefully explaining the plan to Atsushi.
“Your task is very simple.”
“During the upcoming Kyoto Sister-School Goodwill Event, while the others are causing chaos, you’ll appear and fire one Piercing Blood at Gojo Satoru.”
“That’s all.”
“The purpose is simply to test whether your attack can actually pierce his Infinity.”
“Once Gojo knows his Infinity isn’t completely reliable against you, that uncertainty may give us another variable to exploit later.”
Kenjaku’s expression was full of confidence in his plan.
“Besides…”
“You said it yourself, didn’t you?”
Kenjaku looked directly at Atsushi.
“You want to become stronger because strength is there.”
“So when the strongest sorcerer of the modern era is standing right in front of you…”
His smile deepened.
“Are you really telling me you don’t feel even the slightest urge to test yourself against him?”
The expression on Kenjaku’s face made the intentions of a thousand-year-old schemer completely obvious.
(To be continued.)