Chapter 87: Killing My Way Back to the Higher Ups
Tokyo.
Deep within the mountains, where the old foundations of the Jujutsu world still hid from sunlight, the chamber of the Higher Ups was unusually bright tonight.
Candles burned.
Paper screens glowed softly.
The scent of old wood, incense, and decay hung in the air like a sickness that had long since seeped into the walls.
Several old men in formal robes sat upright behind the screen at the head of the room, their silhouettes rigid and self important. In front of them, an Assistant Supervisor knelt with his forehead nearly touching the floor, his whole body trembling so visibly that the sleeves of his uniform rustled against the tatami.
"M my lords…"
His voice shook.
"The cursed energy readings at the Fukushima nuclear plant have vanished."
A brief silence followed.
Then one of the old men let out a low, pleased hum.
"Vanished?"
The voice that came from behind the screen was ancient and damp, like something that had been left to rot in a cellar for too many years.
"Which vanished first?"
There was no effort to hide the satisfaction in it.
"The curses… or that insolent brat?"
The answer hardly mattered.
Not really.
They had already decided on it in their hearts.
Three specially mutated Special Grade Cursed Spirits.
A fused Domain.
A sealed battlefield.
Against a first year student with no cursed energy.
Even if that student was Yami.
Even if that student had become a thorn they could no longer ignore.
This time, he should have died.
This time, he had to die.
The Assistant Supervisor swallowed hard before continuing.
"According to the monitoring team's final report… all cursed energy signatures within the site dropped to zero simultaneously."
His throat tightened.
"In practical terms, that means mutual destruction is the most likely outcome."
He lowered his head further.
"Taking into account the regenerative capacity of the three Special Grades, as well as the physical limitations of a sorcerer with no cursed energy…"
He forced the last words out.
"It can be confirmed with high probability that the target is dead."
For a moment, nothing moved.
Then the room exploded with laughter.
Harsh.
Old.
Ugly.
The kind of laughter that belonged to people who had never once doubted the rightness of their own cruelty.
"Excellent!"
"Very good!"
"This is what happens when a child forgets his place!"
"What Sword Saint? What genius?"
One of them slapped the armrest of his seat hard enough to make the lacquer creak.
"In the face of institutions, in the face of rules, in the face of power, he was only ever a slightly sharper blade than the others."
Another snorted.
"And now even that blade is broken."
The atmosphere in the chamber grew lighter by the second.
They could finally breathe again.
The nuisance was gone.
The danger had been removed.
Even Gojo Satoru, for all his arrogance, would have no clean way to challenge this outcome. The incident had happened during an official mission. There had been Special Grade involvement. There were procedures. Reports. Layers of justification.
Everything could be buried.
One of the old men lifted a hand in satisfaction.
"Draft the announcement immediately."
His tone was calm now, already moving on to cleanup.
"State that Tokyo Jujutsu High first year Yami died in the line of duty while carrying out a Grade 1 mission. He encountered Special Grade cursed spirits, failed to retreat in accordance with operational judgment, and perished during the incident."
Another voice added without hesitation,
"And send recovery personnel to retrieve his weapon. A cursed tool of that class shouldn't be wasted on a corpse."
That was the moment the door exploded.
Boom.
The meeting room doors, made from centuries old fragrant wood and once praised as sturdy enough to withstand a Grade 2 cursed spirit's assault, burst inward in a storm of splinters and broken hinges.
Wood fragments shot through the room like shrapnel.
The Assistant Supervisor screamed and threw himself flat to the ground.
Behind the screen, several of the elders jolted so violently they nearly lost their balance.
"What is the meaning of this?!"
"Who dares?!"
"This is the chamber of the Higher Ups!"
But the shouting died almost immediately.
Because the dust settled.
And a figure stepped through it.
Slowly.
Without any sign of urgency.
Without any sign of injury.
Without any sign of mercy.
Yami walked into the room carrying the smell of blood and radioactive dust with him, as if he had come straight from the mouth of hell and found the place beneath his notice.
His uniform was stained.
His body still carried the residue of battle.
But he did not look worn down.
He looked worse.
The left side of him carried the residual heat of the sun, distorting the air with invisible waves. The right side of him seemed wrapped in a pale, deathly chill, like moonlight made into something sharp enough to cut.
Sun and moon.
Heat and cold.
Mercy and slaughter.
Both were present in him now.
And together, they formed a pressure so terrifying that it dwarfed even the three Special Grades he had just erased.
One of the elders pointed at him with a shaking hand.
His finger trembled so badly it looked like it might snap off.
"You…"
The word barely escaped him.
"How are you still alive?"
Another elder's breathing turned ragged.
"That was a sealed field… three Special Grades… a fused Domain…"
His voice cracked.
"You don't even have cursed energy. That should have been impossible…"
Yami did not answer immediately.
He did not even look at the man who spoke.
His gaze swept slowly across the room, passing over each old face in turn.
He looked at them the way one might look at a row of insects pinned under glass.
No.
That was too generous.
He looked at them like corpses that simply had not realized they were dead yet.
Then he started walking again.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Each footstep echoed through the chamber like a nail being driven into a coffin.
He stopped beside the long conference table, the one that symbolized the highest authority in the Jujutsu world.
Then he reached into his pocket.
The old men stiffened at once.
For a split second, several of them clearly thought he was drawing the sword.
He wasn't.
What he took out instead were three pulsing objects no larger than a fist.
The cursed cores of the three mutated Special Grade Cursed Spirits.
Even now, they still leaked the foul remnants of their power.
And woven into that lingering curse was something colder, sharper, far more terrifying.
The sword intent of the moon.
Yami looked down at the table once.
Then dropped the cores onto it.
Plop.
The sound was light.
The effect was not.
The moment the cores struck the polished wood, the cursed energy inside them erupted outward in a violent burst.
Crack.
Boom.
The priceless conference table was obliterated on the spot, collapsing into splinters and powder beneath the shockwave. The force slammed into the elders behind it, throwing them backward in a tangle of robes, screens, and undignified panic.
One old man crashed into the wall.
Another was thrown sideways so hard his hat rolled across the tatami.
A third landed on his back and lay there gasping like a fish dumped onto dry land.
Yami stood over the wreckage, expression unchanged.
"So."
His voice was quiet.
Too quiet.
"This was the accident you prepared for me?"
No one answered.
No one dared.
His hand rose and settled lightly against the hilt of Shiranui at his waist.
His thumb pushed forward just a little.
A section of black steel slid free.
Only a few inches.
That was enough.
The room temperature dropped instantly.
Killing intent spread across the chamber in a slow, merciless wave, so sharp and suffocating that the assistant supervisor on the floor nearly lost consciousness on the spot. The elders, who moments ago had been celebrating his death, now looked like a group of old men who had suddenly remembered what fear was.
Yami's eyes moved from one to another.
"You disappoint me."
The words landed harder than a shout.
His thumb pressed a little farther.
The whisper of steel leaving the scabbard sounded like the opening note of a funeral.
"If this is all the Higher Ups can do…"
His gaze remained cold.
No anger.
No dramatic outburst.
Just finality.
"Then I think this rotten institution has no reason to continue existing."
He tilted the blade just slightly.
The black edge caught the candlelight.
It looked like darkness given form.
Then, with the entire chamber frozen beneath his presence, he asked softly,
"What do you think?"
.....
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