Chapter 51: Wrapping Up the Sewer
Kento Nanami had already evacuated the shaken Yoshino family.
Assistant Supervisor Ijichi Kiyotaka was waiting aboveground and would escort mother and son straight into the safety of Tokyo Jujutsu High's barriers.
The sewer, vast and dark, had been left to one man alone.
Yami stood ankle deep in filthy water, his fingers wrapped around the hilt of Shiranui.
The air was heavy with the stench of rot, blood, and something fouler still. Mahito might have escaped, but the nightmare he had left behind was still crawling through the darkness.
Moans rose from every corner of the tunnel.
Some of the transfigured humans dragged themselves forward on limbs that no longer belonged to any sane anatomy. Some had faces displaced across their bodies like melted wax. Others had swollen into grotesque masses of flesh, barely resembling people anymore.
A trembling voice rasped out from the shadows.
"Kill me…"
Another followed, weak and broken.
"It hurts…"
The sound was enough to turn the underground into a portrait of hell.
Yami did not move immediately.
His gaze passed over each warped figure, and there was not a trace of disgust in his eyes. Only sorrow.
These were not monsters.
They had once been ordinary people.
An office worker returning home after overtime. A student skipping school out of boredom. A housewife heading out to buy groceries. People with routines, families, worries, and small hopes. People who should have gone on living.
Mahito had turned them into this.
And there was no saving them now.
Idle Transfiguration did not merely damage the body. It twisted the shape of the soul itself. Once the soul collapsed, the flesh followed. Even Reverse Cursed Technique could not restore something that had been distorted at the root.
Death was the only mercy left to them.
Yami lowered his head.
"I'm sorry," he said softly.
Then he raised Shiranui.
The sharp, violent aura that had surrounded him moments ago quietly faded. The crackling fury of thunder vanished like smoke. In its place came something calm, deep, and almost tender.
The air grew moist.
It was as though a silent rain had begun to fall inside the sewer.
Yami drew in a long breath.
[Water Breathing, Fifth Form: Blessed Rain After the Drought.]
Among the forms of Water Breathing, this was the gentlest cut.
It was not a technique meant for battle.
It was a blade used only when the one before you had already accepted death. A final kindness. A painless release. A merciful rain after unending drought.
Yami moved.
There was no explosion of sound, no dazzling burst of force, no roaring heat tearing through the dark.
He drifted through the sewer like flowing water.
A step. A turn. A slash.
His sword flashed with quiet elegance, and the transfigured human before him stilled instantly. The agony on that ruined face faded. The twisted muscles relaxed. For one fleeting moment, there was peace.
Then the body dissolved into ash.
Another came stumbling from the darkness, dragging an extra arm behind it like dead weight.
Yami passed by it in silence.
One clean stroke.
That thing, too, fell quiet.
He continued onward, weaving through the tunnels like a wandering undertaker delivering the final rites to those whom the world had abandoned. Every cut was smooth as silk. Every motion precise. There was no hesitation in his blade, but neither was there cruelty.
He was not killing them.
He was carrying them across.
One by one, the groans faded from the sewer.
One by one, the twisted remnants of broken souls dissolved into black ash and drifting cursed smoke.
A faint murmur lingered in the darkness after one of the slashes.
"Thank you…"
Yami did not know whose voice it was.
Perhaps it belonged to one of the souls he had just released. Perhaps it was only the echo of his own heart.
Either way, he did not stop.
With each swing of the blade, something in him grew clearer.
Life.
Death.
Mercy.
The weight of the sword in his hand no longer felt like that of a weapon meant for slaughter. In this moment, it was closer to a ferry crossing a dark river, carrying the dead toward rest.
The sewer slowly fell silent.
Only then did the system's voice ring out in his mind.
[Ding! The host has displayed an extremely high level of spiritual compatibility with the role!]
[Tsugikuni Yoriichi's compassion and gentleness perfectly overlap with the host in this moment!]
[Synchronization has risen significantly!]
[Current synchronization: 18.9 percent!]
[Only one step remains before 19 percent!]
[System prompt: Higher order forms of Sun Breathing are on the verge of unlocking. Please continue.]
The notifications came one after another.
Yami's heart, however, remained still.
He sheathed Shiranui and stood for a moment in the deathly quiet sewer, watching the last traces of cursed energy drift apart into nothingness.
Then he bowed slightly toward the empty darkness.
"Rest in peace."
After that, he turned and walked toward the exit.
When he pushed aside the manhole cover and climbed back to the surface, sharp sunlight poured over him.
It was almost blinding.
Yami instinctively lifted a hand to shield his eyes.
For a moment, the nightmare underground felt unreal, like something that belonged only to a bad dream.
But he knew better.
That tragedy was not an exception.
As long as curses existed, as long as human malice continued to breed them, tragedies like that would keep repeating.
All he could do was grip the sword in his hand tighter.
…
The memory receded like a tide.
Noise flooded back into the world.
The cries of startled birds. Wind rushing through the forest. Footsteps grinding over dirt and roots.
The site of the Sister School Exchange Event.
Yami slowly opened his eyes.
He stood in the middle of scorched earth blasted open by thunder, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. Across from him stood the full group from Kyoto Jujutsu High.
Kamo Noritoshi at the front.
Kasumi Miwa, tense and pale.
Momo Nishimiya hovering just above the trees on her broom.
Mai Zenin with one hand near her weapon.
Mechamaru silent and unreadable.
Every last one of them stared at him as though they were looking at a wall they had not expected to exist.
Only minutes earlier, the exchange event had begun in earnest.
According to their plan, the Kyoto team had split their attention at once, intending to use their numbers to hunt down Yuji Itadori first.
They had not made it far.
Because before they could reach the deeper forest, a gold red thunderbolt had fallen from the sky like a meteor.
It had torn through the woods, smashed open the ground in front of them, and cut off their route completely.
Then Yami had stepped out of the smoke.
One man.
One sword.
Blocking the entire path of Kyoto Jujutsu High by himself.
No one moved.
No one spoke first.
The tension in the forest thickened to the point of suffocation.
Kamo narrowed his eyes.
He had heard the reports.
The first year from Tokyo with no Cursed Energy.
The anomaly personally valued by Satoru Gojo.
The swordsman who had butchered a Special Grade and forced even the higher ups to take notice.
Even so, seeing him in person was a different thing entirely.
It was not merely strength.
It was presence.
Yami stood there without emitting even a trace of cursed power, yet the calm around him was more oppressive than killing intent. The stillness itself felt like a warning.
Kamo's fingers subtly tightened around the blood pack concealed at his side.
"So it's true," he said at last. "You really came alone."
Yami's gaze moved across the group without hurry.
There was no contempt in those eyes.
No arrogance either.
Only the same kind of quiet composure he had worn in the sewer while delivering the dead from suffering.
That calm made the others more uneasy than open hostility would have.
"Until the match is over," Yami said, his voice even and clear, "no one passes through here."
For a heartbeat, the forest fell into absolute silence.
.....
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