The afternoon sun that shone across the Tokyo Jujutsu High courtyard would have been scorching if Jiki had never experienced the fiery dunes of Suna. As he had, he only mildly noted its inconvenience as he rounded the corner of the main building.
He paused mid-step when he spotted Toge Inumaki sitting alone on a wooden bench, methodically checking and rechecking his throat medication bottles. He stood in the shadow of the main building for a few seconds with the odd feeling that there was something different about the platinum blonde teen.
Toge's shoulders were tight, and held a tension that spoke of barely contained purpose, and his violet eyes carried a focus that made Jiki's instincts prickle with unease.
"Toge," Jiki called out, approaching carefully. "You look like you're preparing for war."
Inumaki looked up, his face partially obscured by the high collar that always covered the cursed marks around his mouth. For a moment, his expression was unreadable. Then he pulled down his collar slightly, revealing the snake-eye and fang tattoos that marked him as a cursed speech user.
"Yes" Toge signaled with a rapid hand sign, then he gestured to the space beside him on the bench.
Jiki settled down, studying his classmate's profile. He had assumed the other teen's war against the higher-ups was over. He had thought wrong, apparently.
"The medication stockpiling is new. If whatever you're planning is dangerous enough to demand it, perhaps you would need some help?" Jiki had grown tired of the wait. Of the wasted hours filled with routine training and anticipation of news from Toji. He could do with some distraction.
Toge's hands stilled on the bottles. He turned to face Jiki fully, and in his eyes was a resolve that made Jiki's brows rise in concern.
"Tell me about it," Jiki demanded in a calm voice.
Toge hesitated for half a second before he reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to Jiki with steady fingers.
Jiki unfolded the paper, and if he had not raised a brow already, he would be raising it now. It was a detailed list of names, locations, and schedules. All members of the jujutsu higher-ups. Multiple names were crossed out. Jiki easily understood the gravity of what he was looking at.
This was Toge's assassination list, most likely of the conservative elders that he knew had a hand in Panda's death. He would not have blinked an eye about it previously, and even less so after knowing the elders were most likely compromised now; however, the danger of things had skyrocketed a fair amount.
That was not even taking into consideration how Toge had gotten such a well-planned list. He already had a good idea of the how, but there was no need to voice it out. Instead, he looked back at the list, the next name on it was no random higher-up. No, from what he knew, if there was an actual hierarchy to the higher-ups, then Takahashi Sato would be high up there.
"You realize that even if the higher-ups were not fully compromised by Kenjaku, then the people protecting Takahashi would not be small fries. There is even the probability of facing former principal Gakuganji," he said, tone low in consideration.
The cursed speech user's jaw set with determination. He shrugged, then pointed to himself, then, with a fast-paced series of hand signs, he made himself clear. He was more than a match for the former principal. Jiki let out a small smile at that. Toge was most likely right in that regard. The teen, with his refined usage of his cursed speech, as well as his usage of mundane weapons, could easily handle most grade one sorcerers that lacked the reverse cursed technique, especially if he put the training that Toji had put him through to work, and struck from an ambush.
Jiki let out a sigh as he rested back, using his hand to prop himself up. He looked up before speaking once more. "I don't suppose I can convince you to allow me to tag along, can I?"
"Fish flakes."
Jiki smiled at the sound of Toge's voice. He had not heard those words in a long time, but he remembered it meant no. Toge stood up, and waved to him, his half smile hidden as he zipped up his high collar jacket before walking off into the sunset.
"Good luck," Jiki whispered, as the wind ruffled his hair and sent leaves drifting about.
_
Three hours later, Toge crouched at the top of a high-rise, just outside a high-end restaurant in Tokyo's financial district. He blamed Toji for his newfound preference for height advantageous positions, but he could not ignore the tactical benefits. The position afforded him a wider range of view, and easily allowed him to observe his target even from a fair distance away.
He was not oblivious to Gojo Jiki's worries. Satoru sensei had walked up to him hours prior to the younger Jiki, and he had assured the older Gojo the same thing. He could take care of himself. With Toji missing and him working solo, he was determined to at least keep his distance, in case of anything. His technique could not work over such a massive range, but he didn't need it to. There were other alternatives.
He looked through his binoculars and watched the two black unmarked cars pull up to the front of the restaurant. The doors opened, and out walked the elderly, hunched over figure of Takahashi Sato. If Toge's source was right, the older man was probably going to be his last target before things got too dangerous, but Toge was okay with that.
Takahashi Sato was one of the conservatives who fought so hard against the cursed corpses, and Panda's existence. The man and his entourage of suited sorcerers sat at a window-side seat, his preferred position at the corner of the restaurant. Toge frowned at the sight.
Attacking him here meant the possibility of collateral damage, but this was the most vulnerable the older man was going to be in a long time. All Toge had to do was limit it as best as he could. A server walked up to the men and took their order. The moment she walked away to attend to the other people in the restaurant, Toge acted.
He slipped his phone out of his pocket, and without even looking at it, his attention firmly on observing through the binoculars, he dialed Takahashi's phone, then put it to his ear. He knew the moment the phone began to ring, the old man's phone had been placed on the table, and the vibration drew his attention, yet a single glance must have shown the number as an unknown caller.
The old man waved the phone away to one of the suited men who stood around him, an assistant. Toge frowned. He had not anticipated the older man not picking up the phone himself, still, he could work with it. He immediately took a sip of his throat medicine, knowing what he was about to do, then he used his cursed energy to further reinforce his throat.
The moment the assistant picked up, Toge screamed out loud, pumping as much cursed energy as his output allowed into the phone, but still limiting it to ensure other people in the restaurant didn't get hit by the attack.
"Explode!"
The assistant had only a split second for the word to register, for the phone to heat up in his hand, then he knew nothing more. Toge watched through his spot on the high rise as a section of the restaurant, the same corner edge exploded violently, as dust suddenly filled the restaurant, to the surprised screaming and shock of the witnesses.
Toge stayed there for a minute, waiting to confirm the attack, and to see if there would be any survivors. He stood up straight, allowing himself a better view, then he froze the moment he felt it. The sudden appearance of a cursed energy signature behind him. He moved to turn around when he heard the incantation.
"Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."
Toge spun around in full as the inky blot in the sky spread, trapping him in a dome and dampening the sunlight that passed through it. He ignored the sudden curtain that had been raised; instead, his attention was turned to the man before him.
The dark haired man was slim, his figure hidden behind a matching pair of black kimonos and hakama, in a similar pattern to Jiki. His dark hair was oiled and slicked back, with only a single stubborn strand framing his face. His eyes were thin and barely visible as he looked back at Toge, and his features were ice cold.
"I did not expect the assassin that had worried the higher-ups for so long was an Inumaki, more so, a student of Tokyo Jujutsu High."
Toge remained silent, body tense and ready to move into action, unlike the still unknown and unnamed man. He racked his head, trying to put a name to the face, but no matter how he tried, he just couldn't place it. He had never met the man before.
"I wonder, is Gojo Satoru aware of this? Is he using you to finally..."
"Twist!"
Toge screamed a second later, his aim was the man's throat. A surprise attack that was supposed to catch him off guard. The man's neck spun to the side violently as his cursed technique latched onto him. The man let out a surprised grunt as the bones twisted and shattered. His body hung in the air for a second, like it didn't realize he was dead, before it slowly began to drop.
A split second later, that fall was arrested as his leg shot out behind him, holding him up. Toge's eyes widened in surprise as the man forced himself up and at once, his neck untwisted, and he stood up straight once more, speaking like nothing had happened.
"...do his dirty work, and make do on his threat?" The man looked around, like he was expecting a sudden white haired man to appear. When the Gojo did not appear from thin air, the man's brows furrowed.
"If he is not here, then I suppose you're acting on your own, then."
Toge tuned out those words, his focus on the man's throat. That was not the reverse cursed technique. He had not sensed the man's cursed energy switch from negative to positive, nor had the wound healed. It just disappeared. The man had not even bothered to use his cursed energy to block his ears, even knowing he must have been a wielder of the snake and fangs.
"Surrender at once, and I would not have to beat a child still in school."
Toge's response was to shift into a combat stance, and the man frowned.
"Stubborn, I see." Then he straightened his arms, revealing his hands that had been previously hidden in the depths of his kimono and the figurines that were clasped in both hands. In one hand was a figurine with a horse head and a man's body, in the other was a figurine with an ox head and a man's body. Shikigami.
The still unnamed man pumped cursed energy into the figurines and called out.
"Gozu and Mezu. Rise."
The air around the figurines shimmered blue as cursed energy was pumped into them. He dropped them a second later as they shifted and immediately coalesced into solid forms that manifested with heavy thuds as the ground beneath their feet cracked.
The dust cleared, revealing the two towering shikigami that had materialized beside their summoner. Gozu, the horse-headed shikigami, stood imposing with its equine features and muscled human torso, while Mezu, the ox-headed shikigami, snorted clouds of steam from its nostrils as it pawed the ground with hooved feet.
Toge looked at the duo with wide eyes as he suddenly realized where he had heard those names from. Gozu and Mezu, two guardians of the underworld.
Without warning, Mezu charged forward. Every stomp of its feet shook the building they stood on, and as its massive fists swung toward Toge's position, it took him almost everything he had in him to barely roll aside as the rooftop cracked under the impact, concrete and rebar exploding outward in a shower of debris.
He rolled and came up running, turning and aiming for the shikigami's blindspot, but the ox-headed shikigami was already pivoting, its hooves scraping against the rooftop as it launched into another attack.
Toge drew down his chin high jacket, revealing two thin blades strapped to his underarm, and in one smooth move he unsheathed one of the knives Toji had trained him with. The blade gleamed in the filtered light of the curtain. He pumped as much cursed energy into the blade as it could hold, then he feinted left before diving right, slashing at Mezu's exposed flank. The knife bit deep into spiritual flesh, and the shikigami let out a bellow of rage and pain.
It staggered as it lost strength in its left leg, and Toge moved to press the advantage. Then something strange happened. A matching wound appeared across the man's ribs, blood seeping through the black fabric of his kimono. But the man didn't even flinch.
Before Toge could do more than blink in surprise, Mezu lunged forward on the previously injured leg, and this time Toge wasn't fast enough. Knowing he couldn't dodge the blow, he pumped his cursed energy into reinforcement, and a split second later, the massive fist clipped his shoulder, sending him tumbling across the rooftop. He rolled with the impact, body skidding along the ground before he finally regained his balance and came up in a crouch with his knife ready, but now his left arm hung slightly loose. The hit had dislocated something.
"Don't look so confused," the man said calmly, watching as Toge's eyes darted between him and the wounded Mezu. "Pain is just information. And I've learned to ignore information that isn't useful. It is a skill any sorcerer worth their salt should posses."
Toge's eyes drifted to the spot that was leaking blood a few seconds ago, but it was gone. Mezu's injury was gone, and the strange man's injury didn't seem to be bleeding anymore. Mezu let out a snort of air from its massive nostrils, steam rising, and Toge was forced to accept what his eyes and senses were telling him.
Mezu and Gozu were not normal shikigami.
They were instead proof of the rumors that something had happened in the past that made deity-grade curse spirits, who were believed to be Gods disappear. Yet not all of them disappeared; some of them were instead hollowed out, and once in a while, they popped up as shikigami, and the two before him were one of those rare few.
Shikigami did not have official classifications, but if they did, Toge knew that the duo would be special grade, which meant that the man in front of him was either a first-grade sorcerer with a strength that was reserved for the top two, or a special grade. Toge was not certain yet. One, he could survive; the second was certain death.
The ground exploding as Mezu shot forward was the only warning Toge got, but he didn't move. He didn't flinch. He stared at the barreling shikigami filled with obscene muscles rushing towards him like a deer in headlights, and it was only when he could almost feel its hot breath on him as it swung its boulder sized arm back once more to slam him into the ground that he spoke.
Pumping as much cursed energy into his words without sparing the cursed energy to reinforce his throat, he roared out.
"Blast Away!"
The shikigami halted instantly. The force of its momentum fighting against the force of Toge's cursed energy acting upon the world. The shikigami's eyes exploded in its socket as the two opposing forces wreaked havoc on its body. Toge had used the shikigami's momentum against it in a reckless gamble that risked his own life as well. A maneuver he would not have tried against a human.
If his cursed energy was not enough to blow it back, it meant the shikigami would only slow for a bit before it barreled into him, crushing him under its feet. If it wasn't...
Mezu was hurled back with such force that the building shook as its foundation cracked. The ox head shikigami was flung back so hard that the sound barrier broke in the face of its body, tearing its way past the curtain the stranger had pulled up a second ago and disappearing into the noisy and busy Tokyo street.
Toge turned to the surprised man and let out a grin. Then he staggered as he was forced to cough out a mouthful of blood that splattered the ground. His hand immediately went searching in his coat pocket, and he immediately took a mouthful of the throat medicine before letting out a bloodstained grin at the man.
The man clapped respectfully before speaking, and Toge noted with a frown - He only looked slightly worried at the loss of his shikigami.
"I underestimated you, Toge Inumaki. It seems you've been hiding just how much cursed energy you can actually output. You're not semi-first grade like your reports state, but a full fledged first grade sorcerer."
Toge shrugged in response before wiping his lips.
"Do you know, holding back your official grade, and refusing to be promoted is a crime?" The man said with a raised brow. Toge glanced behind him to the still smoking section of the building that once housed the elder.
The man got the hint because he smiled thinly. "I suppose you would not care about that, considering what you're already doing." He didn't care for the compliments of the still unnamed man, until the man continued, and his words froze him.
"Fine, I suppose you deserve to know your enemy at least," he mused to himself as he slicked back his black hair and smoothed his kimono that had been ruffled by the explosion of air that had accompanied Mezu's sudden flight.
"My name is Usami. First grade sorcerer, Usami Kato. It's nice to meet you."
_
Kilometers away, across the city, Megumi Fushiguro was climbing the stairs to Satoru Gojo's office, a phone held tightly in his grip. The message had been delivered by the purple baby faced segmented curse spirit that had found itself wrapped around him.
He could not tell how it found him, but he didn't need to. He knocked once and entered without waiting for permission, finding his teacher lounging in his chair with his feet up on the desk. Gojo Jiki on the opposite side of him. The duo stopped their conversation at his entrance, even if neither seemed surprised to see him.
He only caught a single word before they had shut up, a name: "Toge." It seemed that even if they were not surprised to see him, they were surprised he had barged in without waiting.
"Megumi!" Gojo's blindfolded face turned toward him with its typical cheerful expression. "What's got you looking so serious?"
"My father is dead." Megumi said, with all the emotion of a dead fish.
Satoru's demeanor shifted immediately, his relaxed posture straightening as he nearly shot off from his seat. Jiki didn't seem as moved. Those red eyes of his simply stared back, placid as they observed the curse wrapped around his chest.
"Toji Fushiguro is many things, but weak is not one of them," Satoru said, face tight. Instead of speaking, Megumi flung the phone in his hand at the duo in the space between them, and Jiki's hand snapped out first to catch it.
Jiki glanced through the phone and the message that had been written on it, dried blood streak still clear on the screen from the haste at which the keypad was typed and the state of the user. Megumi could recite the sharply written words even without looking at it.
"33 degrees 51 minutes N, 133 degrees 52 minutes E. Suspicion confirmed. Sukuna is back, wearing the body of Itadori Yuji. A binding vow. Forced to fight Kenjaku, Sukuna, and a strange woman who distorts her surroundings. Managed to kill her which means you're adding another million dollars as a bonus. If I don't make it..."
The message was curt and ended with his father's signature greed, yet there had been something more to be said in it. Jiki passed the phone to Satoru, and Megumi watched as his teacher's expression grew increasingly grim behind his blindfold.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Jiki said, moving to his feet to give a curt bow. Megumi waved him off and lied through his teeth.
"Don't be. He was a shitty father."
The way the two Gojos looked at him told him that he was not fooling anybody.
"Our worst fears. We've truly lost Yuji. We've failed him." Gojo finally said, his voice unusually quiet.
"So it begins," Jiki noted as Satoru stood up and headed for the door, his usual playful energy replaced by something much more dangerous.
"Megumi," Satoru said without turning around, "you might want to stay close to the school tonight. Things are about to get very interesting in the jujutsu world."
"I can't. I have to inform Tsumiki."
Satoru stared at him from behind his blindfold for a second before nodding in response. Then he turned to Jiki, and the duo shared words without speaking. Megumi felt like he was in the middle of an argument, one that Jiki won because Satoru slumped and shrugged his shoulders.
"Fine, recon only. If Fushiguro is still alive, I'll find him. If he's not... I'll bring back his body."
Satoru finished before he disappeared in a blur of movement. Megumi turned his attention to Jiki, and the other teen replied his question without him voicing it.
"The odds of them still there is low. If we both leave at the same time, we'll leave the school open to attack."
Megumi grunted a reply as Jiki continued.
"If Sukuna is back, he is not back to his full strength. He would need to return here to get back the fingers that I took from Mahito. One of us has to stay behind at all times, unless we're certain."
Megumi nodded in understanding, then he turned around, hands in pocket as he began to stalk off. The moment the door to the office closed behind him, his eyes blurred, and it took him a second to realize why... tears. He was crying because, as shitty, irresponsible, gambling addicted, spendthrift as his father was, the hulking monkey was still his father.
His eyes narrowed, and his cursed energy bubbled beneath his skin as he stalked forward even with blurry eyes. Revenge was the least he could do for the old man.