19 Investigation
This is the shortest chapter till now.
I've been having trouble managing time to write. I just can't manage my schedule that well… Not to mention I've had like a gigantic writer's block on an original project I've been working on and that seems to have spread to this one as well.
That was the reason there wasn't a chapter for so long. Anyway, I'll try my best to upload at least one chapter every week.
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The sun shone down upon the ground like the wrath of the sun god. The eternal blazing existence hung high up in the middle of the blue sky, illuminating a part of the world covering the entirety of Japan.
At the time of noon, the sun always shines with utmost ferocity; yet the streets of Tokyo, or any other highly populated city for that matter was always full. The people went about their work, repeating their same monotonous routine of mundane unadventurous activities day after day with few exceptions.
All the stores were brimming with activity, the roads were full of vehicles and the sound of horns and chatter filled the environment.
At a rather secluded corner of the city of Tokyo, a graveyard was built, inside of which hundreds of graves stood tall. Like all other graveyards, this graveyard was also shaped in a grid like fashion; however, there was something that just seemed… off.
While the graves were mostly in place, some of them were that slightest bit off from where they were supposed to be. The ground which held glorious green grass had gone barren at some places, holding scratch marks and deep fissures. The trees seemed scarred, branches were sliced clean off and some had their trunks shattered.
In this eerie place where traces of an unknown battle could be seen, two individuals walked forth. One of them had bright white hair, his face adorning a pair of jet black goggles and a mockingly relaxed smile. This was Gojo Satoru, the special grade sorcerer, the wonder child of the Gojo clan.
Beside him walked a middle aged man. His face did not have any distinguishing features that made him stand out, yet his temperament had a special uncanny feeling to it. This was the window that had accompanied Gojo from the asylum, Kai Hayato.
Hayato looked at Gojo and his smug expression with a sour face, he could not explain why the overpowered young was so relaxed all the time. Even when exorcising a strong curse, his temperament that exuded utmost confidence in himself was hard to understand for Hayato, someone who had seen countless sorcerers meet an early demise simply due to arrogance and overconfidence.
He conscience did not deem it right for a young sorcerer to have such a disastrous nature, but alas, there was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do for that matter. Gojo Satoru is the strongest, is he not? In the current age, the possibility of someone humbling him to have him break out of his shell of pride was next to nil.
Walking around towards a general direction, Gojo spoke.
"It seems that there was a fight here. The residuals seem strange. Somewhat, recognizable…" Gojo spoke, prompting Hayato to express his thoughts.
"Recognizable? Have you seen these types of residuals before?" Hayato asked.
Residuals, outprints of cursed energy left behind due to Jujutsu usage. No matter how advanced a jujutsu sorcerer or their skill was, if they couldn't completely hide their cursed energy or have their energy efficiency reach the point of zero wastage, it was normally impossible to be able to leave no residuals. Although there could be exceptions, they were increasingly rare.
"Residual? Not exactly. Cursed energy? Absolutely." Gojo continued. "I've seen this kind of energy before, I saw something like this in Tokyo I believe, when I was reviewing the amount of unspecified curse users in Tokyo…"
"That means whoever fought here may not be that far from the area." Hayato said.
He didn't receive a response, and the two only continued on their way without saying anything.
As they neared the area with the most amount of cursed energy density, they began to notice some cursed spirits, all of them crowding the area.
Reaching the epicenter of the place, they found a tree upon which a cursed talisman was stuck.
"A talisman?" Gojo asked, wondering how a talisman, something that was used to repel cursed could be in the epicenter of such a gigantic gathering of cursed energy.
"What is this doing here?" The window stepped forward, taking a look at the talisman that was plastered upon the poor tree. The tree had almost shriveled up, a direct result of the cursed energy that had permeated the environment so close to it.
Normally, things like trees or lesser intelligent beings like cockroaches and insects are unable to be affected by cursed energy, the reason being their lesser developed nervous systems and the inability to form complex negative emotions or emotions in general.
If every single conscious being in the world was able to form negative thoughts, one might not even be able to imagine how powerful and catastrophic a cursed spirit might just become. It was truly a relief that emotions were a luxury afforded only by the truly complex life forms capable of self reflectance and self conscience.
And that was also the reason that such things were generally not affected by cursed energy. The key word here, being 'generally'.
Complex and strong emotions, leading to more and more accumulation of cursed energy can lead to a metamorphosis or sorts on the items. That metamorphosis can either lead to a transformation into a power curse or shikigami(an example being the Japanese Youkai, like the live sandals and houses) or it can lead to the degradation of the said thing.
It goes without saying that the amount of collective thoughts and negative energy that needs to be associated with an object needs to be astronomical in magnitude to have any substantial effect on the thing to transform it into a shikigami. One can't just have an absurd amount of cursed energy around an object and expect it to turn into a shikigami, thoughts and intents of thousands of people need be associated with it, with each individual thought leading to a different result in the formation of the shikigami.
The tree in this case seemed to have suffered through degradation, a result of having cursed energy seeping through it, yet not enough to trigger a metamorphosis.
Gojo stepped forth, his crystal sky blue eyes gazing intently at the talisman.
Suddenly, his face mocked a smile, "Heh, the talisman looks weak~"
His voice held unconcealed mockery, holding obvious contempt for the maker of the peculiar tool.
"The curse is all over the place. It seems crude." Gojo said, taking the talisman off of the tree.
"Who could have done this?" Hayato asked.
"Who knows~"
Gojo studied the crude piece of paper intently, the words on the parchment seemed to come off into the air, the ink permeating the air.
'Peculiar little thing…' Gojo thought looking at the thing.
'What could be the reason someone made this. If they have enough skill to make such talismans that trigger attraction, surely they may have more than enough proficiency to make good talismans. This one looks like it's been made by an amateur.
'If anything, they seem to be trying their hardest to appear like some newbie sorcerer that doesn't know what they're doing. Do they honestly believe someone will fall for that?' Gojo thought with a toothy grin.
"We must report this as soon as possible, Gojo-san." Hayato said from the side.
"Yeah, you do that…" Gojo said without any interest, handing him the paper without thinking too much about it.
"Wait, you're not coming with me?"
"Why would I? I have to get my daily sugar intake at this time." He continued. "Besides, you have the talisman, all you need to do is talk to Yaga-sensei about everything."
Having said that, Gojo began walking away, holding his hand above his head.
"See ya Mr. Hay!"
"Respect your elders!" Hayato yelled back and ran behind him, the talisman in his hands.
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Before long, Hayato was driving the car, Gojo sitting in the back seats while he drove towards Tokyo Jujutsu High.
The seriousness of the things they had discovered was daunting. The sheer possibility of someone making those talismans and spreading them all around Japan was something that could lead to catastrophic changes in the country and the future of Jujutsu in its entirety.
Hayato theorized that all this was some elaborate plan of some mastermind who had some grudge against the higher ups. The strange situation of the talisman was too eerie to overlook.
Then again, it might just be his childish side acting up, but the fact was, it was indeed a gigantic issue. And the higher ups would not be pleased to hear it.
Such facts made it all the more troublesome for Hayato to deal with the teen that was sitting in the back seats of his car. The utter nonchalance he had shown when dealing with the talisman was enviable.
It made him contemplate if all special grades were as nonchalant about such things as he was.
Sigh**
'I'm going to need to do a lot of paperwork for this…'
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A/N: Random quote of the day:
"The most dangerous people are the ones that stay quiet, observe, analyze, and act upon their observations."
