Takuto Yasuwaki was an ordinary man. He had none of the ferocious vitality or regenerative capacity of a Cursed Child, and under the sustained grinding pressure of that Cursed Energy, his life drained out of him fast.
A few minutes, and it ended.
What remained of his body dropped to the floor like a dead dog and didn't move again. His eyes stayed open, the last of the pain and terror still fixed on his face.
His two subordinates went rigid at the sight, then lost control of their bladders. Urine ran down their trouser legs and spread across the floor, adding another stench to the air.
Fear had hollowed them out entirely. They shook like leaves and couldn't summon the strength to beg anymore. They knew who came next.
Blood, dust, and piss thickened together into something that turned stomachs, and nobody dared move. They watched him and waited.
Satoru glanced down at the corpse, smile unchanged, the expression of a man who'd disposed of something minor. Cursed Energy gathered again at his fingertips and drifted toward the remaining two.
Both had already fainted, spared even the courage to endure it. Neither would ever have imagined that a few weeks of swagger would end like this.
Kikunojou watched with his face like a shut door.
From today, whatever pride the leadership had carried lay in pieces.
In front of this man they would never again have the standing to lift their heads, never again invoke rules or authority.
Not unless they found something that could hold him in check.
Satoru raised his head and let his gaze pass over the officials, those pale blue eyes still cold and still bored, and still carrying something that permitted no argument.
Bone snapped.
The sharp crack of it filled the room.
The two unconscious men were dragged back into wakefulness by the pain, fully aware for every second of what followed, and died inside it.
"I'm reasonable, generally speaking. I'd like everyone here to take this as instruction."
"So stop doing things that upset me. Things like what these three did to the Cursed Children."
His voice never rose, and it reached every corner of the chamber. Each word landed like a hammer.
Heads went down around the table. Nobody argued. Nobody questioned. They nodded.
Nobody wanted to be the one who tested him.
Nobody wanted to die.
Betty yawned and tugged at his sleeve. "Satoru, are you finished? This is dull. Let's go home, I suppose."
He turned, and the cold slid off his face, replaced by something warm as he ruffled her hair. "Almost. Give it another minute."
Then back to Kikunojou, flat again. "Run Tokyo properly from now on. Keep your people in line. I don't want to hear about anyone hunting children, and I don't want to hear about anyone betraying Seitenshi."
"Because if I have to come back, I won't be this polite."
A jolt went through the old man, and he nodded fast, voice scraped raw. "Yes. Mr. Gojo, I've heard you. I'll manage Tokyo, I'll manage my people, and nothing of this kind will happen again."
He didn't dare hedge and he didn't dare refuse. The man meant every word, and would follow through on every word.
Satisfied, Satoru stopped looking at him, stopped looking at any of them, and lifted a hand to release the binding.
Officials collapsed where they were, boneless, sucking down air in great gulps. The fear stayed on their faces, but something loosened underneath it. They'd survived.
He turned toward Seitenshi with Betty and Sumire in tow.
"One more thing."
"Since I'm here."
He kept walking as he spoke. "I'm aware that in your minds, Seitenshi ranks somewhere around a mascot."
"That's over now."
"I happen to be this girl's teacher. The way you've been treating her makes me look bad."
The words carried, quiet and perfectly clear, and his eyes rested on Kikunojou while he said them.
The old man's face darkened toward the color of raw liver. A national treasure of Tokyo, the man who held the real reins of the region, humiliated by some upstart in front of everyone who mattered.
And he could do nothing. Couldn't even risk a reply. He hadn't tasted anything this suffocating in decades.
Under that stare he managed a stiff nod.
Satoru smiled.
"Good."
"Then we understand each other."
"I hope the rest of you show the same good judgment as Vice Minister Tendo."
He looked to Seitenshi. "Come on. Let's see what you've learned these past two days."
She nodded, her eyes moving across the wrecked and filthy officials once before she followed him out.
They were gone in moments, leaving the ruin, the blood, and a room full of shaken men behind them.
Only when the doorway had emptied did anyone dare raise his head.
They took in the corpses and the pockmarked walls, relief and terror crowding each other on their faces.
Death had brushed past them.
Cold sweat had soaked through every shirt in the room.
Fabric clung to backs, clammy and unpleasant, and not one man lifted a hand to peel it away.
For people who had spent their lives at the top, the experience had no precedent.
They'd weathered plenty. Political knife-work, sieges by Gastrea, crises that decided who lived. All of it routine by now.
But never once had death arrived like that, without even a shape to it, an irresistible force pinning them against the edge before they could look.
Nobody wanted a second helping.
A few pairs of hands still trembled at the fingertips.
When the ceiling came down, they hadn't had time to close their eyes.
If the man had wanted them dead, they'd be mixed into the pulverized concrete now, indistinguishable from it.
Kikunojou stood with his face black, looking at the rest of them.
His fist stayed clenched, knuckles bloodless.
The deep lines of his face pulled tight around the anger, and behind the anger in those old political eyes sat wariness he couldn't hide, and a thread of fear he refused to name.
In the end he said nothing. A cold snort, and he turned and left.
That snort carried more helpless humiliation than he'd swallowed in his entire life.
The others exchanged glances.
Every one of them commanded real authority in the Tokyo Area, absolute in his own domain, and they stood there like schoolboys after a scolding, nobody willing to speak first.
The scene had hit them too hard.
The careless white-haired man wasn't something they could handle through any of their usual instruments.
They weren't even qualified to provoke him.
So they filed out.
One or two started to complain and choked the words off before they cleared their teeth.
If he heard, that would be the end of them.
Sighs, lowered heads, and a quick shuffling retreat down the corridor.
In the top-floor office.
Unlike the chamber outside, this room had come through mostly intact. The shockwave had rattled it, but the furnishings still stood.
Faint calming incense hung in the air, worlds away from the dust and pulverized concrete beyond the door.
Afternoon light poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows and spread across the polished hardwood, lending a little warmth to a room that still felt heavy.
"Forgive me, teacher. Allow me a moment to clean up."
Seitenshi stood in front of him, her white formal dress powdered with grey, loose strands of hair stuck against her cheeks.
Smudges marked her face. Whatever composed and untouchable image she usually presented had taken damage.
Her spine remained straight, and her voice carried apology and embarrassment she couldn't disguise.
The dust hadn't spared her any more than it had spared Kikunojou and the rest.
When he'd caught the collapsing structure, the wave of grit had blanketed the entire chamber.
Even she hadn't escaped it.
She had never in her life looked like this.
Not facing Gastrea, not standing through high-risk public appearances. Through all of it she'd held the dignity the position demanded.
Only today, in her own council chamber, coated in dust down to the roots of her hair.
"Sure. Go ahead."
Satoru had draped himself across the sofa, one arm along the back, the other waving her off, that easy smile in place.
His glasses had slipped to the bridge of his nose, uncovering those startlingly beautiful blue eyes, and nothing in his voice suggested he'd given it a thought.
The near-demolition of the Holy Residence registered with him about as much as flicking lint off a cuff.
He nodded, unconcerned.
Watching her fidget, something soft moved behind his eyes.
He'd seen plenty of people crushed under power and duty.
This girl held almost no real authority and still wanted to protect Initiator children the world despised and used as tools.
That put her well ahead of the sanctimonious old men outside.
She disappeared into the adjoining room.
The door clicked shut behind her.
"After this, those creatures should behave themselves for a while, I suppose."
Betty had claimed a seat on the sofa and reached for the juice on the table, legs swinging.
Her black dress was immaculate, her small frame sunk deep in the cushions, feet nowhere near the floor, swinging anyway.
A pale hand lifted the chilled bottle, and the straw punched through with a small pop.
Her cheeks rounded as she pulled a long mouthful, then she spoke again, unhurried, with a little contempt and a lot of practiced calm.
She'd watched this play out beside him too many times.
Rulers who thought highly of themselves didn't even rate as clowns once absolute strength walked into the room.
She'd catalogued every face those old men had made.
All of them talking about the security of the Tokyo Area while their heads were full of private arithmetic, willing to feed ten-year-olds into the grinder without hesitating.
Terrified now. That should buy some quiet.
"Assuming they aren't idiots."
Another pull on the straw, and she left it there.
Satoru tossed a can to Sumire.
A flick of his fingers sent the chilled canned coffee in a clean arc onto the low table in front of her, landing with a soft knock.
Then he settled in himself.
He cracked a cold cola, and the fizz hissed up out of the opening.
A long swallow, cold running down his throat, eyes narrowing in satisfaction.
He leaned back until the sofa swallowed him, long legs crossed, the picture of a man off duty.
"They're nothing like the ones back home. These are ordinary people, and everyone under them is ordinary too."
The ones back home meant the Higher-ups of the Jujutsu Society.
Rotten as those old men were, they carried Cursed Energy, and a good number of Jujutsu Sorcerers answered to them.
The leadership here didn't have a scrap of Cursed Energy. They ruled on paperwork and nothing else.
To him, roughly equivalent to ants on a footpath.
"So if they try anything again, it means they've decided their lives aren't worth much."
The tone stayed lazy, and the threat inside it left no room to argue.