In the Fushiguro household, a woman with long black hair was irritably dialing her husband's phone number.
Fushiguro Toji had gone missing again.
Only after the two got married and he willingly married into her family did she realize she had been deceived. This man, whose appearance gave off an imposing and dependable impression, was absolutely unsuited for family life. He had practically treated her as nothing more than a nanny responsible for taking care of the children.
"In the past, he'd at least answer the phone once a week."
"That bastard Toji—doesn't he even plan to care about his son's kindergarten enrollment anymore?"
Listening to the endless busy tone from the unanswered call, Fushiguro Akiko's dissatisfaction with her husband grew stronger with each passing day.
Things had reached the point where she could no longer contact him at all for an entire month. Fushiguro Akiko was utterly helpless. She could only blame herself for misjudging him. Her second marriage had been a failure. She had gone from being a single mother to becoming a full-time housewife trapped in a widow-like household, raising two children on her own.
Fushiguro Akiko stood up and had no choice but to take care of the two children at home.
At dinnertime, she brought out a simple meal—food that only needed to be heated in the microwave before serving.
Hearing their mother's—or stepmother's—voice, the two children came out of their rooms and climbed onto their seats at the dining table.
As the older stepsister, Fushiguro Tsumiki was one year older than Fushiguro Megumi, who had been born in the winter of 2002. She was also slightly taller. Despite her young age, she had already learned how to help her mother set out the bowls and chopsticks. She had also learned to read people's moods and knew better than to provoke her mother when she was in a bad mood.
During the meal, the family of three ate in complete silence.
After dinner, Fushiguro Tsumiki handed the television remote to her younger brother before heading into the kitchen, where the woman was washing dishes.
In a small voice, Fushiguro Tsumiki asked,
"Mom, Megumi wants to know when he'll be able to start school?"
Fushiguro Akiko responded indifferently, "The enrollment procedures weren't completed this year. Toji disappeared at the beginning of the month. Whenever he's actually needed, he's nowhere to be found. You can't expect me to handle everything by myself. We'll talk about it again next year."
In Japan, children between the ages of three and five are expected to attend kindergarten and receive preschool education. Parents generally need to prepare in advance, especially when competing for admission slots at highly sought-after kindergartens. Fushiguro Toji had no awareness of such matters, and Fushiguro Akiko had no intention of reminding him. She had never imagined that from March through April of this year, she would be completely unable to reach him.
Fushiguro Megumi was now a little over three years old. Having missed the April enrollment period, he could no longer enter kindergarten this year and would have to wait until next year's entrance examinations.
Fushiguro Akiko felt that the father and son had only themselves to blame.
In the living room, a little boy with sea-urchin-like spiky hair hopped down from the sofa and walked over to the kitchen doorway. After hearing that he would not be able to attend school until next year, he did not voice a single complaint. Instead, he quietly returned to the sofa, clutching the remote control and absentmindedly flipping through channels.
Megumi's attention was not actually on the television.
He was young, but mature beyond his years. He already understood that in every woman's household he entered, he had no right to speak.
As far back as his hazy childhood memories reached, he had never seen his biological mother. Other people had mothers; he did not. His biological father had taken him from one woman's home to another, and he had always lived as someone dependent on the charity of others. Occasionally, Megumi remembered being thrown out alongside his father. The women would curse them as they drove them away, calling them a father-and-son pair of gambling addicts who did nothing but waste money.
When Crayon Shin-chan appeared on the television, Megumi's vision still blurred for a brief moment despite himself. He rubbed his eyes. The warm and lively family in the story—always bickering and making noise together—had nothing to do with him. He tried his best to suppress the faint but overwhelming panic and confusion that threatened to swallow both his heart and mind.
What kind of person was a child who didn't go to kindergarten?
Megumi couldn't imagine it.
But he had no mother who loved him, and now even his only father no longer cared about him.
When his stepmother emerged from the kitchen, Megumi looked at the mother and daughter who shared no blood relationship with him and felt like a complete outsider.
Less than half a year of living together was nowhere near enough to give him a sense of security.
He gave up the spacious sofa to them and retreated to the bedroom as though fleeing from something.
"I'm going to sleep."
He neither called her "Big Sister" nor "Mom." No one had ever taught Fushiguro Megumi to do such things.
He naturally saw himself as excess baggage—a burden tagging along with others. Being disliked and treated as unwanted seemed perfectly normal to him.
At eleven o'clock that night, Fushiguro Megumi lay asleep in his small children's bed. There was not even a stuffed teddy bear beside him. His short little limbs were curled in slightly as he slept, clutching the blanket tightly in a posture that betrayed his lack of security. His childish face already carried traces of his father, Fushiguro Toji.
A portion of the curtain by his window was pulled aside from the outside.
Two teenagers climbed in through the window.
Asou Akiya moved quietly to the bedside and, under the faint glow of the moonlight, gazed at the little sea-urchin-haired boy's face.
Zen'in Naoya took a closer look and immediately confirmed it.
He really was Cousin Toji's child!
The blood relationship between father and son could not be erased. Fushiguro Megumi possessed facial features strikingly similar to Fushiguro Toji's. Though there was no scar at the corner of his mouth and his hairstyle seemed to have come from the other mother, who had long since passed away.
Despite his worship of Fushiguro Toji, Zen'in Naoya felt no affection for the child simply because he was Toji's son. On the contrary, he looked at Fushiguro Megumi with vicious hostility in his eyes. Had it not been for Asou Akiya's presence, he might already have attempted to kill the boy.
Watching Asou Akiya sit beside the bed and tuck the blanket more securely around the sleeping child, Zen'in Naoya felt nothing but contempt.
How hypocritical.
How laughable.
He swept his gaze around the bedroom and discovered that the family was astonishingly poor. The instinct for self-preservation that had been drilled into him promptly stopped the sarcastic remarks rising to his lips.
["I'm taking you to meet him. When you see your nephew, you are not allowed to make a sound. Stay by my side."]
["Can't do it? Then you can die in Fushiguro Megumi's room."]
"..."
Zen'in Naoya had a stomach full of complaints he wanted to vent, but he had been given a strict gag order in advance.
Asou Akiya took in every detail of Fushiguro Megumi's bedroom.
Afterward, Asou Akiya searched for Fushiguro Megumi's school bag.
He couldn't find one.
That alone was enough for him to roughly understand the child's situation.
Japanese kindergartens began their school year in April. Megumi had already reached the appropriate age for enrollment, yet no one in this blended family seemed to care about it. April? Around that time, Fushiguro Toji had still been out indulging in gambling. How could he possibly remember his son's enrollment date?
Zen'in Naoya had no idea what Akiya was looking for. Silently, he urged him onward:
[Let's go see Toji's wife.]
Asou Akiya rolled his eyes.
In the middle of the night, two teenage boys illegally breaking into someone's home and then sneaking off to spy on a married woman?
Asou Akiya was incapable of doing something that would destroy his reputation like that.
Using Fushiguro Megumi's bedroom as a starting point and extrapolating from the details, he analyzed the boy's circumstances. So far, there was nothing in the room apart from items belonging to a young boy.
The family relationship was average at best. The father was absent for long periods. The stepmother took care of her stepson's daily needs, but she did not regard him as her own child. He lacked neither stationery nor other necessities, yet there was no school bag...
Asou Akiya opened the wardrobe and examined the child's clothing.
The colors were almost entirely black, white, and gray.
The only bright-colored garment was a yellow short-sleeved shirt. After that came a grayish-blue long-sleeved T-shirt.
A faint discomfort stirred in Akiya's stomach.
Immediately, he erected a small-scale Curtain, isolating the child's bed from all sounds in the surrounding area.
Covering his mouth, he dry-heaved twice.
Then he spat out a damp, dark-purple, fur-covered ball of flesh.
Zen'in Naoya: "???"
His expression became indescribable.
Taking three steps backward, he exclaimed, "Kamo? Do you have some kind of hobby involving eating cursed spirits?"
Good heavens.
Had the heir of the Kamo Clan already become this deranged?!
Asou Akiya couldn't be bothered to respond.
He pulled out a wet wipe and carefully cleaned the corner of his mouth. Then he allowed Ugly Treasure to return to its larger form and retrieved a bottle of alcohol disinfectant from inside its mouth.
Without hesitation, he thoroughly sprayed the cursed spirit from head to toe.
Only after physically disinfecting Ugly Treasure did Asou Akiya permit it to climb onto his body.
"Megumi— Megumi—" he called softly.
Ugly Treasure unconsciously repeated a word other than "Mama" for the first time.
Fushiguro Toji's dog-training methods had been far more effective than Asou Akiya's. Through sheer persistence, he had actually taught the cursed spirit to recognize its little master.
Sensing Fushiguro Megumi's presence, Ugly Treasure had grown restless inside Asou Akiya's stomach. The moment Akiya released it, the cursed spirit pitifully draped itself over his shoulder. Its worm-like body coiled around the slender frame of the sixteen-year-old boy, whose muscles had yet to fully develop. Its grotesque goldfish-like eyes and infant-like face turned toward Megumi's sleeping form.
"Megumi—"
Zen'in Naoya looked even more disgusted.
"It knows Toji's son?"
Asou Akiya patted Ugly Treasure on the head and brought it closer so it could look at Fushiguro Megumi.
"It's called Ugly Treasure. It's a cursed spirit that Toji raised. It used to help take care of Fushiguro Megumi."
A gleam flashed through Zen'in Naoya's eyes. He immediately understood.
"A spatial-type cursed spirit? Toji's weapon storage?"
Asou Akiya calmly stated the facts.
"It's mine now."
Zen'in Naoya: "..."
Damn it.
Suddenly, he remembered a certain special-grade cursed tool.
"Then who has the special-grade cursed tool Inverted Spear of Heaven now?"
Asou Akiya denied possessing it.
"Gojo has it."
Meanwhile, Ugly Treasure's stomach was hiding a pile of shattered fragments.
Zen'in Naoya felt that something was off. The person who had taken away the weapon was Akiya, so why had he given it to Gojo Satoru?
"Then why didn't you kill—"
"Stop right there. Are you sure you want to discuss that kind of thing here?"
Asou Akiya cut off his excessive questioning.
Zen'in Naoya fell silent.
His mentality became increasingly unbalanced.
Could it be that Gojo Satoru received different treatment from him?
After remaining in Fushiguro Megumi's room for a short while, Asou Akiya still refused to indulge Ugly Treasure's desire to cuddle up against Megumi.
He kneaded the cursed spirit back into a meatball-sized lump and swallowed it down his throat once more.
Fortunately, it had no taste.
At least he did not have to endure the suffering Getou Suguru experienced when subjugating and consuming cursed spirits.
They walked through the streets in the early hours before dawn and took a taxi back to Tokyo. By now, Zen'in Naoya had completely lost the desire to argue.
Asou Akiya had sealed off every opportunity for him to make a move against Fushiguro Megumi.
The conditions he imposed were as harsh as they could possibly be.
And that was not all.
After arriving in Tokyo, Asou Akiya and Zen'in Naoya immediately began searching for a suitable rental property and kindergarten without stopping to rest. At the same time, Akiya issued a new command:
"I'll allow you to be able to express your killing intent, but you will know your limits."
"You are his uncle."
"And during these five years governed by the Binding Vow, you can only be his uncle."
Asou Akiya did not care in the slightest about the five-year time limit. Five years later, if he wanted to renew the arrangement, he would have more than enough ways to do so.
At this stage, what he needed was for Zen'in Naoya to face reality.
"If Fushiguro Megumi dies, you'll be buried alongside him."
"If Fushiguro Megumi becomes crippled, you'll become crippled alongside him."
"I'm a fair person."
"I believe in treating everyone equally."
Asou Akiya's words filled Zen'in Naoya with humiliation.
Yet what came next shocked him even more.
"During these five years, I hope the two of you can coexist peacefully. Since you're his uncle, I'd like you to provide your nephew with a measure of protection."
"So let me make this absolutely clear to you."
"Fushiguro Megumi will not hold a higher position than you."
"You are equals."
"If you die, Fushiguro Megumi dies as well."
"If you become crippled, Fushiguro Megumi becomes crippled as well."
"In my eyes, a Ten Shadows Technique that has lost its ultimate trump card is no different from the Projection Sorcery."
Asou Akiya grasped Zen'in Naoya's psychology perfectly and squeezed exactly where it mattered.
"Come."
"Let's establish a new Binding Vow."
This was the Zen'in Clan's inherited Ten Shadows Technique...
Whoever possessed it was virtually guaranteed to become the clan's next heir.
Zen'in Naoya stared at him in disbelief.
Originally, he had already prepared himself to obey outwardly while secretly resisting for the next five years. If he could no longer endure it, he had even considered ending his own life.
Yet now Kamo had bound Fushiguro Megumi's life directly to his own, elevating the value of his life to the same level as the Ten Shadows Technique itself.
"You aren't joking?"
Zen'in Naoya's entire worldview was being shaken.
He did not immediately agree to establish the new Binding Vow. Instead, he desperately wanted to know Kamo's true thoughts and obtain validation from a mind he considered one of the greatest intellects.
"You really think that?"
"Among the Three Great Clans, it is universally acknowledged that the Ten Shadows Technique and the Six Eyes stand at the same level. Projection Sorcery is merely a modern technique that appeared in recent centuries. It isn't even one of the Zen'in Clan's inherited techniques. Its potential and upper limit have already been fixed."
Asou Akiya raised one finger.
"First, let's discuss the historical evidence."
"The claim that they stand at the same level originates from the incident several hundred years ago in which the clan heads of the two families killed each other."
"How much exaggeration and misunderstanding are mixed into that story, both of us know perfectly well."
Zen'in Naoya immediately blurted out,
"It's because of Makora, the Divine General shikigami that no one in history has ever successfully tamed!"
Asou Akiya raised a second finger.
"Second, the Ten Shadows Technique is extremely dependent on the total amount of cursed energy possessed by its user."
"If the user's cursed energy is weak, the shikigami will be weak."
"My estimate is that Fushiguro Megumi's total cursed energy won't be anything extraordinary. It should be roughly on the same level as yours was at the same age."
Zen'in Naoya had never paid attention to his nephew's cursed energy reserves. After thinking back carefully, he answered uncertainly,
"I suppose... that's true...?"
Asou Akiya lowered his hand.
Immediately, Zen'in Naoya grabbed it and forced it back up.
"Keep talking!"
Akiya reminded him with a teasing smile,
"Naoya, you hate being looked down on more than anything."
"When we established the Binding Vow, you looked as though you'd rather die than accept it."
"And yet, right now, I'm discussing this matter entirely from a position above you."
Zen'in Naoya's face alternated between shades of green and purple.
"You! Just! Say it!"
"Fine."
"Fushiguro Megumi did not inherit the physical constitution of the Heavenly Tyrant."
"His frame is on the smaller and leaner side. His talent for hand-to-hand combat is limited."
"Rather than fearing the growth potential of the Ten Shadows Technique itself, what you truly fear is a Ten Shadows user who possesses the talent of Gojo Satoru."
"A Ten Shadows user born as a divine child, gifted with overwhelming combat talent, capable of using cursed energy with virtually no waste, and able to awaken Reverse Cursed Technique."
Asou Akiya exposed the blind spot that had trapped Zen'in Naoya's thinking.
"The truth is that you're afraid of Gojo Satoru."
Asou Akiya continued,
"I can guarantee that there is only one Gojo Satoru in this world."
Then he delivered the most direct piece of evidence.
"The clearest proof is that three years ago, when Fushiguro Megumi was born, the balance of the jujutsu world did not shift."
"The jujutsu world showed none of the instability that accompanied Gojo Satoru's birth."
Zen'in Naoya stared blankly ahead, his thoughts in complete disarray.
"What I fear isn't the Ten Shadows Technique itself?"
"Fundamentally, what I fear is Gojo Satoru?"
He spoke in confusion.
"So in your eyes, a Ten Shadows user whose trump card is gone and whose cursed energy reserves aren't particularly outstanding is really that unimpressive?"
Asou Akiya nodded frankly.
"Under normal circumstances, yes."
Then he added,
"Of course, if the Ten Shadows user were Toji, that would be a different matter entirely."
A trace of admiration entered Akiya's voice.
"A powerful mentality combined with a powerful technique—that is a truly terrifying combination."
Zen'in Naoya involuntarily imagined Toji wielding the Ten Shadows Technique.
A shiver immediately ran down his spine, raising goosebumps all over his body.
Asou Akiya had no interest in continuing this hypothetical discussion.
"Since you don't want to establish the Binding Vow—"
"Who said I don't?!"
Naoya interrupted instantly.
"I'll do it!"
"Good. Then let's get it over with."
Asou Akiya cut straight to the point.
"Tomorrow we'll go pick him up."
"If we move quickly enough, he can still make this year's kindergarten enrollment."
"But first, we need to find a suitable school and a place to live."
Asou Akiya had already taken possession of Toji's spatial cursed spirit and was now preparing to adopt Toji's son as well.
This left Zen'in Naoya deeply suspicious that his cousin must have somehow offended Akiya in the past.
Otherwise, how could someone lose both his property and his child to the same person?
It was a fate even more tragic than that of an ordinary sucker.
At last, Asou Akiya revealed the part where his intentions were far from pure.
"Naoya, hand over your bank card."
"...?"
"Where's your black card?"
"..."
There was a particular kind of bewilderment that came from Zen'in Naoya having never even seen a modern luxury credit card before.
Considering that the other boy was only fifteen years old, Asou Akiya decided not to investigate further.
Instead, he simply confiscated Naoya's bank card.
In the dead of night, the two stood before an ATM belonging to a certain bank.
Zen'in Naoya hovered awkwardly beside him, stammering and avoiding eye contact.
Then Asou Akiya saw the account balance displayed on the card.
His face instantly darkened.
A dreadful premonition struck him.
It seemed that this month, he would be shouldering a great many unexpected expenses.
Asou Akiya uttered a merciless sentence:
"Tch. Useless Zen'in."
It wasn't even the end of April yet, and Zen'in Naoya had already spent every yen of the allowance his family had given him!
No wonder this little rainbow-cloud piglet hadn't dared to show up at school!
What a pauper!
Inside a convenience store that sold stationery, Asou Akiya personally drafted an IOU for Naoya.
"You're coming back to school on Monday."
"Starting next month, whatever amount of money you owe me, you'll repay it tenfold."
Zen'in Naoya signed it dejectedly, forcing himself to maintain a facade of pride as he said,
"Whatever. It's only money."
After signing, he still couldn't resist making one snide remark.
"Gojo Satoru's card is with you, isn't it?
Why don't you spend Gojo Satoru's money instead?"
A smile bloomed across Asou Akiya's face like a vast field of black lilies spreading behind him.
"Do you want the Gojo Clan to find out that Gojo Satoru is raising a child on the outside?
Do you know what Toji's former profession was?
He was a gigolo living off women!
Are you trying to make the Three Great Clans completely believe that those two really had something going on?"
Zen'in Naoya: "..."
Asou Akiya raised his voice dramatically:
"This child carries the blood of your Zen'in Clan!"
As long as Getou Suguru never defected, Gojo Satoru would never develop the idea of raising children or gathering powerful companions around himself.
For at least the next three years, Gojo Satoru would not even remember that a person named Fushiguro Megumi existed.
Naturally, the responsibility for Megumi's expenses belonged to Zen'in Naoya!
...
Thus, the wallet of the second young heir among the Three Great Clans fell into someone else's hands.