In the silent aftermath beneath the shattered Eighty-Eight Bridge, rubble and splintered wood lay strewn like the aftermath of a miniature apocalypse. A desolate wind whispered through the debris, stirring up pale dust that clung to the ruined landscape.
A young girl, no more than twelve or thirteen, stood at the edge of the destruction. Beside her, a single, ornamental goldfish Shikigami glided through the air, its scales catching the faint moonlight.
"Kenjaku," the girl said softly, her voice a clear, gentle chime in the oppressive quiet. "There's nothing left here. Why did we come?"
The goldfish—Kenjaku—drifted a slow circuit over the ravaged ground before returning to hover by her shoulder. Its mental voice, cool and analytical, echoed directly in her mind. 'To observe. The residue here is significant. A domain was deployed and shattered. Sukuna's cursed energy lingers, intertwined with another, more refined signature.'
Kanon simply nodded, her bright eyes taking in the scene with a curiosity that belied the destruction. "It feels… cold."
'That is the void left by expended power. Come. There is nothing more to glean from this place.'
Inside the Shikigami, the ancient sorcerer Kenjaku assessed the situation with cold clarity. His current state was a monument to catastrophic miscalculation. After his narrow escape from Kamo Itsuki's group, grievously wounded and desperate, he had stumbled upon Kanon, a girl with budding sorcerer talent. A quick parasitic takeover should have been simple.
But Kanon, in a moment of instinctual fear, had summoned her Shikigami—this very goldfish. Kenjaku's depleted energy meant he had one shot. In a desperate gamble, he'd targeted not the girl, but the Shikigami itself. A parasitic leap into a being of pure cursed energy was uncharted, insane territory.
By some twist of fate, it worked. His consciousness overwhelmed the goldfish's rudimentary will. But the victory was pyrrhic.
He soon realized the cost. His true body—the preserved, technique-inscribed brain that was his core—was gone. Subsumed, transformed. The incompatible biology of a goldfish's neural structure had fundamentally altered the parasitic process. He wasn't a brain piloting a fish; he was the fish. A Shikigami bound to a human girl.
His initial plan was simple: bide his time, then have the Shikigami "turn" on its master, devour Kanon, and be free. But a horrifying truth emerged: if he consumed her now, the bond would sever. He wouldn't regain a body. He would fully manifest as a Cursed Spirit, likely a weak Grade 3, utterly vulnerable. A pitiful end for the great Kenjaku.
So, a new strategy was born. He would play the role of the guiding Shikigami. He would instruct her, protect her, and nurture her. Her growth as a sorcerer would strengthen their bond and, by extension, his power within this gilded cage. She was no longer a vessel to be discarded, but a host to be cultivated, a living anchor for his diminished existence.
He looked at the devastation before them—the clear handiwork of a catastrophic battle, one that likely involved Sukuna's energy and a devastating domain clash. Kamo Itsuki's signature was all over it.
'He's growing stronger. Faster. And he's collecting the pieces,' Kenjaku thought, the goldfish's glassy eyes seeming to stare into the middle distance. 'I need time. I need this girl to become something… useful. A tool, or perhaps, a key.'
"Come, Kanon," the mental voice said, its tone shifting to one of instructive calm. "We depart. There are fundamentals of barrier manipulation we must address. Your control remains inefficient."
The girl nodded, a slight pout on her lips at the criticism, but she reached out a finger to gently stroke the Shikigami's shimmering side. "Okay, Kenjaku. Let's go home."
Kenjaku, the mastermind reduced to a spectral guide within a bound spirit, led his young charge away from the ruins. His grand schemes of era-spanning chaos were forced into hibernation, replaced by the slow, meticulous work of tutoring a child. The path to revenge, or perhaps mere survival, was now a long and winding road, paved with a young girl's lessons.
His calculation was cold and precise. He would nurture Kanon until she reached Special Grade. Her ascension would elevate his own power within the Shikigami bond to that level. Only then would devouring her—severing the bond to become a free Cursed Spirit—be worth the risk. He would emerge not as a weakling, but as a true Special Grade menace. Kanon's innate talent was excellent; with a millennium of knowledge as her tutor, reaching that pinnacle shouldn't take more than a decade or two. He had waited centuries; he could wait a little longer.
There was another, more delicate calculation. As her Shikigami, he was bound by her will. If her resolve was absolute, she could command his destruction. Therefore, alongside training her power, he needed to cultivate her trust, her dependence. He needed to be her indispensable guide and protector. The eventual betrayal would require not just opportunity, but perfect timing and her utter, unsuspecting reliance.
After the parasitic fusion, Kanon, then a frightened child, had constructed a simple narrative to explain the sudden sentience of her Shikigami: it had "eaten a bad man's brain." No amount of logical argument from Kenjaku could dislodge this childish belief. To her, he was her Shikigami, now strangely wise and talkative, but still hers.
"Kenjaku," she said, her voice tinged with disappointment as she scanned the rubble. "You said there would be something to see here. But it's just rocks. There's nothing."
Kenjaku floated silently, his golden form absorbing the scene. He analyzed the cursed energy residue, the faint, discordant echo of a shattered domain, the sterile emptiness where a powerful malice had been recently extinguished.
'Uro forced an incarnation and was slain. The finger is gone. And this barrier residue... its structure is unfamiliar. Advanced. I've never seen its like.'
"Since it's not interesting here, where do we go next?" Kanon asked, turning her hopeful gaze on him. Her eyes held a boundless curiosity about the world, a stark contrast to the deathly quiet around them.
The question gave him pause. Uro had been one of his contracted pieces, an asset to be monitored and, when the time was right, deployed. Her death was a disruption. The loss of the finger was a strategic blow.
'Who in this era could dispatch Uro? And leave barrier traces...' The conclusion was inescapable. 'Kamo Itsuki.' After the ambush that nearly destroyed him, Kenjaku had made a thorough study of his adversaries. Kamo Itsuki, the Blood Manipulation prodigy with a genius for barriers, fit the profile perfectly.
'Is he systematically collecting the fingers? How did he know this location? Does he know the others?' The implications spiraled. If Kamo was hunting the fingers, he was moving directly against the foundation of Kenjaku's long-term plan for Sukuna's resurrection. It was a preemptive strike he hadn't anticipated.
"Kenjaku, you're making me dizzy," Kanon complained softly as the goldfish darted in agitated circles around her head.
Kenjaku forced his thoughts to settle. Panic was useless. His grand board was in disarray, a key piece captured, but the game was far from over. He had a new piece now—Kanon. And he had time.
'We adapt,' he thought, the goldfish slowing to a calm hover before the girl. 'We observe. We grow stronger. And we find out what Kamo Itsuki truly wants.'
"Patience," his mental voice soothed, adopting the persona of the wise guide. "Not all things of significance are immediately visible. We will go somewhere quieter now. Your control over cursed energy output needs refinement. A true sorcerer's strength lies in precision, not just power."
He led her away from the bridge, his glassy eyes looking back once at the ruins. The shadow of Kamo Itsuki loomed larger than ever. But in the golden prison of a fish and the untapped potential of a young girl, Kenjaku began to plot his next, infinitely patient, move.