A peculiar situation

I had to put off the novel due to exams.

But after that, I started reading Lord of Mysteries and I've gotta say, the story deserves all the love and hype that it gets.

But it was also because of that, that I completely forgot to upload chapters.

Anyway, I'm back now, enjoy the chapter!

***

Turns out, "Boss Ryouta" was not that big of a deal.

"We apologize for trying to threaten you." said the big intimidating man as he sat in a dogeza position in front of Shuichi.

Behind the man were all of his gang members, all looking severely beaten up and barely conscious. Several parts of their faces had various shades of blue and black, along with blood running down their noses and mouths.

The one in the front, the presumed leader, looked to be the most roughed up among everyone.

"So tell me, why did you come here to make trouble?" Shuichi asked in a monotonous voice.

"It is as we said, to take protection money." He continued, "When we heard there was a new shop in the area, we didn't pay much attention at first. But then the shop started to gain popularity… so Boss Ryouta told us to come here and show you your place."

"Hmm. So this "Ryouta guy", he's some big deal in the underworld I'm assuming?"

The man in the front lowered his head, as if embarrassed.

"Actually… Boss Ryouta is only a minor gang leader. He's a newcomer in the matters of the national Yakuza."

"Hoh?" Shuichi rubbed his chin, amused. "Tell me more about the underworld. I want to know about the power dynamics."

The man hesitated for a moment, but then continued, "The national mafia operates on several levels. There's a strict hierarchy among all the bosses of different areas. The top of the Yakuza is operated by three traditional clans; the Yamada family, the Douma family and the Kamado family.

"The current leader of the Douma family rose to power not too long ago after the death of the previous leader. The other two families used this to their advantage to gain more land under their control.

"Boss Ryouta was friends with the nephew of the current head of the Yamada family, which aided his rise to power." He finished.

"So your boss is related to the Yamada family… Does he hold any special place in the power dynamic."

"No. Boss Ryouta only became the head of the region about 2 weeks ago. Although many fields of business like drug distribution and smuggling to firearms have been handed to him, he has not yet been trusted with the more important parts of the business."

"Hmm, interesting." Shuichi mused.

"Um… if I may ask…"

"What?"

"What are you… planning to do with us?" The man asked while shaking a bit.

"Well… I want you to arrange a meeting with this boss of yours." Shuichi said

'If I can take these guys under me, I can permanently solve the money problem. Not to mention having the Yakuza under your control ought to have some benefits later down the line.' Shuichi finalized. Although he doubted the Yakuza could help him in the matters concerning the Jujutsu Society, they could still help him in his normal life.

'There might also be a connection with the three clans in the Yakuza.' He concluded.

"You… want to meet boss Ryouta?"

"Is that a problem?" Shuichi asked with a bit of a glare.

"hiii! No! Not at all! I will arrange a meeting as soon as possible!" He said while nodding his head repeatedly. The sweat that poured down his temples seemed awfully telling of the beating that they had received from Shuichi prior to this conversation.

"That's fine then!" Shuichi said with a smile.

Then taking his contact info and the location of their base of operation, he let them go for now. He was feeling a bit lazy today and wasn't in the mood to go outside. That being said, he would leave the matters of the Yakuza to his future self.

As he finally sent the people off, Shuichi rested his back on the ground and began to contemplate.

'I'll be able to solve my money problem with this. Now all that would be left would be to get stronger and stronger.' He thought.

'I've still yet to decided what my end goal is going to be. If I was still in the clan, I would try to 'cleanse' the clan of those old geezers. But as I am now, I don't have any end goal.' He thought getting up from his position and sitting upright.

Crossing his legs, he began to meditate again.

'I should strive to find a suitable goal for myself. Getting power without a significant goal in mind is always bound to end in disaster. I keep gaining power at a rapid pace; and as things are looking, that pace won't be slowing down any time soon.'

Circulating his cursed energy in a closed loop circulation, something that his heart had already been doing, Shuichi started to arrange the microscopic 'strings' into an extremely thin line.

As the energy started to get concentrated by the minute, the previously cold energy started to turn hotter. More and more energy started to gather in a clustered form, stimulating heat to escape as per the second law of thermodynamics.

As enigmatic as cursed energy was, it was not exempt from the laws of physics. Sure, the cursed techniques sometimes broke the laws of physics, but even that was within the bounds of certain rules. If such a thing was possible, it simply meant that the laws of physics were still not advanced enough to explain the phenomenon made possible by sorcerers.

Concentrating his mind on this extremely thin stream of cursed energy, Shuichi began to try and minimize the heat loss. This was the way he trained his cursed energy manipulation. Minimizing any access energy being used, he could exponentially increase his cursed energy efficiency.

'That being said, it's not like the Jujutsu world can stay calm for too long. There's bound to be some storms. The birth of the wonder child of the Gojo clan is testament to that fact. Perhaps I'll have something to look forward to in the future.'

***

***

***

Among the towering buildings of Tokyo, the lights shone all across the roads. The night sky appeared especially dark as the light of the stars failed to make itself known, dwarfed by the incomparably dimmer sources of light.

People filled the roads and sidewalks, some of them going to work, some going back home, while some roamed the streets in pure wonder and adventure.

Tokyo was always awake. Even though after 1 am most of the shops would be closed, you could still see some open; and there were always people roaming about even at that hour.

But with the large crowd, came large magnitudes of negativity. Homeless people, depressed people, sad people, stressed people, broken people, angry people, all kinds of people.

All of them contributed to the large amount of curses that Tokyo had all year round.

Distorted sounds**

Such creatures roamed among the citizens who were completely unaware of the greater evil that lived among them all the time.

Distorted sounds**

A disfigured creature made its way over one of the buildings, away from the turmoil of the crowd. It had the head of a crow with 7 eyes. The torso of a man with tentacles for arms that ended in human palms an innumerable number of human legs attached to its lower abdomen.

It's entire body emitted an invisible momentum, an aura of negativity that repulsed all living beings. That was the nature of curses. Born of negativity and made of negativity.

They simply reduced everything before them to death.

"Caw!*" The curse made the sound akin to a crow as it strode forth on the top of the skyscraper.

Suddenly, all of its eyes widened as it quickly turned around.

"Oh? Look at this, a grade 2 spirit." A white haired teen said as he landed on the roof with his hands in his pockets. He wore sunglasses on his face, even though it was night which was a bit weird; but it was not like the curse was going to judge it.

"Sure enough, large population leads to stronger curses." Another voice came, and with it, a giant bat like curse flew up the building. Another teen, this one with short black hair was upon it.

The teen jumped off the curse and landed on the rooftop beside the white haired teen. These two were of course Gojo and Geto.

"So what? That's nothing to be surprised about you know?" Gojo mocked with a smile.

"It should be. Yaga sensei was pretty serious about the strange changes that were occurring you know." Geto eyed his best friend in annoyance.

"It's nothing we can't handle. No matter how strong or numerous the curses become, we'll always win." Gojo lowered his glasses, peering at Geto with his deep blue eyes.

"After all, we're the strongest."

"Caw!" Geto was about to reply to Gojo, but it seemed like the rogue curses before them had other ideas.

All of its legs impacted the ground as it broke into a mad dash towards them; its beak spread wide open like it wanted to devour the two of them.

But just as it approached, Gojo punched the top of its head, making it slide onto the ground before Geto.

Then without a moment to resist, Geto turned the curse into a ball and swallowed it soon after.

"Though uou have to admit, I'll always be the stronger one among us."

"You keep telling yourself that."

Geto replied with a side eye and walked towards the edge of the building.

"Then, shall we start?" He asked Gojo.

The without waiting for a reply, hundreds or perhaps even thousands of curses started to appear out of his body, all of them spreading out in all directions, slowly making their way to cover all of Tokyo.

Some curses were able to fly, some hurried across the streets and some stuck to the buildings as they travelled.

To any normal sorcerers, such a sight would be overwhelming. Thousands of curses, ranging from grade 4 to grade 2 were dispatched in an instant.

"Heh. Showoff." Gojo said as he levitated a bit above the rooftop.

Then, removing his glasses as he floated in the air his crystal blue eyes that reflected the patterns of the sky gazed at the entirety of Tokyo's cursed signatures.

"Hmm. I don't see anything unusual."

"Just keep observing, we might find something soon. It's not like we're obligated to produce results or anything."

Gojo's six eyes were something unique even in the Jujutsu World. The most powerful trump card of the Gojo clan. Any child born with these eyes had unreasonable benefits that dwarfed the benefits that any other normal person might receive.

The ability to perceive things and cursed energy at the atomic level was what the six eyes provided. Right now, Gojo was using the six eyes to track all of the cursed spirits that Geto had released, and using each of their relative position as a template, he rounded off the entirety of the cursed energy signatures in the vicinity.

It wasn't something that had any logic in the traditional sense, but it was made possible due to the absurd computing capability and great observation power that the six eyes provided Gojo.

Were they going to find anything?

Only time would tell…

***

***

A/N: An additional quote to go with the chapter:

"The Echoes of a man's fear sometimes whisper louder than the mighty roar of death..."