Mahiru introduced Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto to Riko Amanai.
The assessment Riko gave of the two of them was—
"Uh, no way, seriously? These two guys who look like a couple of street punks are actually strong?"
The girl shrank behind Mahiru, grinning at the two boys.
"…" Satoru's eyebrow twitched. "Sounds like you're itching for a beating."
The assassins were as thick as flies, and it was genuinely exhausting. Fighting them off didn't tire the body so much as it wore down the spirit.
Go to the bathroom, twist the faucet, and what comes out is cursed poison water—Suguru turned right around, went to the hotel's pipes to hunt for clues, and gave the Curse User who'd been secretly slipping in poison a solid beating.
The phone in the suite rang, and the moment they picked up, they heard a long-range curse that sounded a lot like Cursed Speech. While neither Satoru nor Suguru noticed, Mahiru used genuine Cursed Speech to "curse" it right back.
It was landmines everywhere, basically.
The methods of assassination came in every bizarre form imaginable.
And yet, even so, they still had to go about their lives as normal.
"So where do you want to go next?" Satoru leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, wiping his sunglasses with a lens cloth—he really was at Jiahao's age right now. "Sure, taking you back inside the Barrier at Jujutsu High would be the safest, but a long time ago Lord Tengen left word to just let you do whatever you want… so, what do you want to do?"
The Barrier at Jujutsu High was safe, no question. But once she went inside it, Riko Amanai would never again have the chance to walk back out.
Even though the date of the Assimilation had been moved up, in theory Riko still had a few days she could move about freely. Call it a kind of hospice care, maybe—Tengen's meaning was to let Riko do whatever she pleased, eat some good food.
"Then I want to…" The girl thought for a moment, then thumped a fist into her palm. "Go back to school?"
Satoru was in the middle of eating fries, and he froze. "Huh? School?"
"Hey! Those are the fries Miwa-nee bought for me!"
"Didn't figure you for such a devoted student."
"Gah! How could you eat them all on me?! I hadn't even had any yet!…" Riko made a fuss, but then she sighed. "It's not that I love studying… it's just, I feel like once I assimilate with Lord Tengen, I'll never get to see my friends again…"
She didn't care about her own death, but never seeing her classmates and friends again… on some level, it still made her lonely.
"So you're the type who's popular at school, huh?"
"Of course! Obviously I'm popular!"
"Ha, now that's a rare sight." Satoru snickered. "And here you are, a chuunibyou brat with such a rotten personality."
"Who are you calling that?!"
The two of them tangled into a squabble.
Mahiru and Suguru exchanged a look.
"But if we go to a school, it'd be harder to protect her, wouldn't it?" Suguru said.
Because a school is full of students.
In a situation like this, going to school would just make a mess of things.
Yeah… there was no way they could go to a school…
Fine, forget school—the truth was they couldn't go anywhere at all. They'd be hunted no matter where they went. There was nowhere to go except Jujutsu High.
Come to think of it, with the assassins already swarming like this, openly out to kill Riko Amanai—couldn't the jujutsu side just call in more people for backup?
—In fact, no, they really couldn't.
The assassins were only half the trouble. The other half was this: right now, all across Japan, outbreaks of Cursed Spirits were wreaking havoc everywhere.
The vast majority of Jujutsu Sorcerers were pinned down all over the country, wiping out Cursed Spirits, with no one to spare for backup.
Some of these Cursed Spirits may have been deliberately released by the people who'd put a bounty on Riko Amanai, to muddy the waters. But far more of them were Passages of the Culling Game bleeding into this world.
Just like those few times at the haunted house and the hotel.
This world's jujutsu society still didn't know what the Culling Game was. They called these spots where Cursed Spirits gushed out of nowhere "Wellsprings"—roughly meaning "places where Cursed Spirits spurt out like a fountain."
So, all things considered, from every angle, Riko Amanai's best option right now was to return to the Barrier at Jujutsu High immediately.
Out here, every extra second was gambling with her life.
So—should they say it to Riko?
Tell her, "Even though we said you could do whatever you want, the truth is there's nowhere you can go, and in the end the only place you can go is still Jujutsu High"… should they say that?
Both Suguru and Satoru hesitated.
It was the best choice, but the pride and empathy in the two boys' chests wouldn't let them say it.
Because Riko Amanai really was pitiable.
And Mahiru saw right through this.
Which was perfect—the boys' state of mind was exactly what she could use to carry out her own plan.
Right now, the Passages of the Culling Game would only keep multiplying. Mahiru did have the power to destroy one of them, but the Wellsprings were too numerous, too widely scattered, and visibly climbing in number. Destroying a single Passage meant little.
She had to find a way to cure the root of the problem. And precisely because of that—whether for Riko Amanai's sake or for the sake of her own plan, Mahiru absolutely could not let Riko go back to Jujutsu High now.
So the girl spoke up—
"? Really? These assassins are a lot of trouble? Is it a big problem?" The blue-haired girl blinked, feigning confusion. "How come I don't feel that way?"
Satoru & Suguru: ?
"Ohh, ohh, now that I think about it carefully, for you two, this many assassins really would be a lot of trouble." Mahiru acted as if it had just dawned on her. "Then yeah, there's really nothing to be done about it."
Satoru & Suguru: …?
"People your age would choose to go back to school when faced with this many assassins, whereas I—I'd choose to take the assassins out." Mahiru covered her face, tilted her head back, and laughed helplessly. "It's just so… haha…"
Satoru & Suguru: ???
Damn it, they were pissed.
Suguru and Satoru—there was no doubt about it, they were pissed.
Even though they could tell Mahiru was only using provocation, these two sixteen-year-old high schoolers, called "the strongest" day in and day out, still got riled up in the face of Mahiru's classic little speech.
—How the hell are you posturing like… how is there anyone who can front harder than us?!
—You're really looking down on us two strongest, aren't you?!
"Ha! What are you talking about? How could I ever be bothered by something like this?" Satoru burst out laughing on the spot, hands in his pockets, declaring himself invincible.
"I just find it a nuisance, that's all." Suguru wore a smile too, though the corners of his mouth were a bit strained. "It's not that I'm saying we should go back…"
"Uh." Riko looked at Satoru and Suguru with disbelief. Even she could hear that Mahiru was using reverse psychology.
These two are really falling for this?
"Really? You two are that strong?" Mahiru's eyes went wide, faking surprise, wearing a delighted expression. "Then before Riko-chan dies, she'll get to have a happy time. Isn't that wonderful."
Riko turned her gaze back to Mahiru.
"No, I'm going to assimilate with Lord Tengen, I'm not dying."
Do you have any manners?
"That said, even though our side's strength is… genuinely formidable, the enemy is in the light and we're in the dark. How exactly should we take the initiative and strike?" Suguru asked.
"Aw, that's simple." Mahiru waved a hand.
"You mean…?"
"We just go straight for the enemy's lair, don't we?" Mahiru laughed. "With Riko-chan as the bait."
"…Huh? What?" Riko blanked, then it clicked, and she pointed at herself and shouted, "You want to use me as bait?!"
Aren't I the one you're supposed to be protecting?! Why am I the bait?!
Tokyo, the racetrack.
Toji Fushiguro was betting on the horses.
There was no doubt about it—he'd lost again.
"Tch."
This horse ran slower than he could walk. Every time he lost, he half wanted to get down there and make the horse ride him instead.
"Hello there, Mr. Toji Zenin." A voice appeared beside him.
Toji Fushiguro cut his eyes to the side. "I married into the family. My name's Fushiguro now, not Zenin."
"Oh, my apologies, Mr. Toji Fushiguro."
The newcomer was a man who looked no different from an ordinary office worker. Clearly he'd disguised himself with great care. But if you looked closely, you could catch, in those eyes, a sinister cruelty tucked beneath the kindliness.
No good sort, in any case.
The man took the seat beside him. "The assassins have all set out and begun moving now. When are you planning to start?"
Toji Fushiguro glanced at the man beside him. "You got a thought about it?"
"Ah, no, no, no, don't get me wrong, I don't have my own opinion, I'm just anxious on your behalf." The man hurriedly waved his hands and smiled ingratiatingly. "You have to understand, with this assassination, those ordinary people don't really have much hope of pulling it off… The few with the best shot at taking first prize are you, Mr. Fushiguro, that African fellow, and the old man of the New Shadow Style… no one else."
"…And so?"
"Word is they've all started to make their move." The man asked probingly, "So you…"
In the original story, the forces trying to assassinate the Star Plasma Vessel came in two camps.
One was the Curse User organization Q, who wanted to use the Assimilation to send Tengen into a rampage.
The other was the religious group that worshipped Tengen—the Time Vessel Association.
This Time Vessel Association believed Riko Amanai wasn't even qualified to assimilate with Tengen, that letting her assimilate would be no different from defiling Tengen's body. It was they who had hired Toji Fushiguro to kill the Star Plasma Vessel. And this man before him was obviously one of the Time Vessel Association's leadership.
Only, by this man's account, the situation this time was clearly vastly different from the original story. The forces wanting Riko Amanai dead had suddenly sprung up in overwhelming numbers, and the chaos of the affair had multiplied geometrically. That was probably also the reason the bounty this round was so absurdly large in both amount and scope.
"What's the rush?" Toji Fushiguro curled his lip. "If someone else kills the Star Plasma Vessel, shouldn't you all be happy about that?"
"But the Star Plasma Vessel's corpse must be in our hands, and it must be by our hand." The man's tone grew slightly anxious. "Because according to our intelligence network… the others' aim in killing the Star Plasma Vessel is to exploit its properties to poison Lord Tengen. How could we allow something like that to happen!"
"…" Toji Fushiguro narrowed his eyes. "Is that so. Where'd you learn that?"
"It's intelligence our comrades in the jujutsu world got off the black market."
"Oh."
Toji Fushiguro tilted his head.
Things were getting messier and messier. So each force's goal was different. Not all of them purely wanted the girl dead. There were too many forces, each with its own scheme. Each spreading its own information, and for a moment, even Toji Fushiguro couldn't be sure how to strike for the greatest payoff.
Still… the truest path is the simplest.
At the end of the day, once he butchered that Star Plasma Vessel, it'd be done. All he wanted anyway was the money he'd get once the killing was finished.
"Relax, I've got it figured out. The Gojo Family brat isn't so easy to take down, and that green-as-grass blue-haired brat has plenty of mysteries about her too." Toji Fushiguro spread his lips into a cruel smile. "So… I'm waiting for the best moment."
Only by striking at that best moment could he pull off this assassination flawlessly. So he thought.
But right then, a thread of cold suddenly swept across his spine.
He went still. His back felt cold.
…There was a sense of… danger?
This feeling was familiar to him.
The Heavenly Tyrant was born with keen instincts.
Whenever he sensed danger, he always got this feeling.
As if he were about to be ambushed… as if he'd already been marked.
Toji Fushiguro furrowed his brow and mulled it over for a couple more seconds, but he honestly couldn't think of anywhere he'd be vulnerable to an ambush. Probably just his imagination.
He was the hunter now—how could he possibly be the one getting marked by something? That was impossible.
Toji Fushiguro stood up. "Right, there's something I need to trouble you to look into for me."
"Please, go ahead." The man responded at once with a smile. "What is it?"
"My two kids went missing recently." Toji Fushiguro's tone was flat. "Look into where they went for me. See if the Zenin estate carried them off."
Honestly, when he'd discovered the two children were gone, a flicker of the briefest panic had crossed Toji Fushiguro's mind. He'd even gone looking. He just hadn't found them.
The inertia of his life told him again and again that he'd long since stopped caring about those two kids. But in truth, deep down there was always a voice urging him to go find them.
He'd searched high and low—the underworld, the criminal underground—and found not the slightest trace of anyone having abducted the two children.
Which left the Zenin estate as pretty much the number one suspect.
After all, Megumi Fushiguro had Zenin blood in his veins and jujutsu talent, so it was very possible he'd been carried back to be raised as a promising seedling.
"The Zenin estate, huh…" The man blanked for a moment, then bobbed his head and agreed obligingly. "Sure, I'll do you that favor. Give me a moment, I'll call over to their side right now."
With that, he pulled out his phone and dialed.
But the call had barely connected, and before more than a couple of words had been exchanged, the man's brow abruptly knit tight, the smile froze on his face, and his expression turned grave.
Toji Fushiguro caught this look of his. "What's wrong? Something happen?"
The man didn't answer, only lowered his voice and rushed out one more instruction to the other end.
Then he slowly lowered the phone.
He stared at Toji Fushiguro somewhat dazedly, and it was a long while before he managed, with difficulty, to speak—
"Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto… it seems they were both gravely wounded and sent back to Jujutsu High."
"Huh?"
"And Riko Amanai… it seems she's already been killed."
The air fell silent for a beat.
It took Toji Fushiguro a long moment to recover, to grasp what those words meant.
"…What did you say?"
No, hold on…
You said… who got killed, and who got gravely wounded???
____
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