Chapter 46
The enigma sat comfortably under a sparse tree with a low seating table in front of it that held two cups of tea; one in front of it and the second in front of Emi. It gestured to the seat opposite it as it gently lifted its cup to its lips once more and closed its four eyes, seemingly savoring the tea.
"Even after a thousand years, you'd think I've gotten bored of the taste." The cylindrical-headed creature finally broke the silence. Yet Emi remained frozen and cautious, ignoring the gesture to sit down opposite it.
"Who are you? Where are we?" She asked rapidly as she glanced behind and discovered the door she had come in through was missing. All that was left of the entrance was hexagonal panels that seemed to define the boundary of the barrier she had found herself in.
It blinked its four eyes in an eerie fashion then ignored her first question, instead skipping to the second.
"We're in a barrier… but you already knew that didn't you." It acquiesced with a small smile.
Yes, she knew, but it was a simplistic explanation. She knew there was more to it. She had just stepped through a regular door and appeared somewhere else. Seeing that the creature still seemed comfortable in the silence as it took another sip of the tea, Emi grew the confidence to speak again.
"What am I doing here?" This time she asked with steel in her spine, forcing the creature to halt its movement and stare at her before it slowly dropped its cup to the saucer on the table.
Suddenly she felt the change, the major reason she had been on her guard from the very moment she had set her sights on the creature. It had nothing to do with the creature itself, but in the way it had been acting.
Now it had let the human mask and mannerisms fade as it stared back at her once more. It lost the smile, the slouch, the soft cadence in its tone, and its effort to mimic human expressions and it spoke once more. "I had hoped to put you at ease with something familiar, but it seems like it was a waste." It noted in an androgynous tone.
"I'm one of the three most proficient barrier users this world has seen in the past ten centuries and my experience has strengthened that. Did you truly think I would not sense what you have done? Especially when you placed so much of the burden on one of my pure barriers."
"I don't know what you're talking about." She deflected with a lie, but it saw through her with a smile.
"I must admit, it was quite a novel sight," the creature continued, shifting its attention to the cup in its hand. "A specialized mobile barrier that hangs off one of the pure barriers I've maintained across Japan. How did you manage it? I'm guessing a binding vow with numerous rules and a significant sacrifice in cursed energy," it mused.
"How did I get into this barrier?" Emi deflected again, like a broken record, her heart racing as the creature analyzed her carefully crafted technique. She took a step back, searching for an exit, but found none. Slowly, she realized she was truly trapped in this empty barrier with a strange creature that knew too much.
The enigmatic creature waited for her to speak, perhaps to validate its theory, but Emi remained silent. Eventually, it let out a sigh, contemplating for a moment before gesturing to her with a hand. "You asked how you got in? You merely walked in, crossing a threshold that brought you here. Have you forgotten what I said? All of Japan falls within my domain, and no place resonates more with my power than this area."
That was when it clicked in her head, and her eyes widened at the implication. The creature had repeatedly claimed that the school and all of Japan were its domain. It had hinted at being ancient, centuries old at least. There could only be one other person who fit this description: the one who rested at the heart of the Jujutsu society, the sole pillar and security.
Yet, she found it hard to believe. Even Jiki had admitted to never seeing the reclusive sorcerer. What could she be doing in front of a being that didn't even acknowledge one of the most powerful sorcerers of recent times?
"Tengen-sama?" She asked even though she knew deep in her soul.
The creature twitched its alien features into what she guessed was another smile before finally replying to her.
"Depends on how this conversation goes, you might have to refer to me as Master Tengen soon, now come. Tell me about this novelty you've brought forth. The creat- Tengen-sama finally said as he gestured at the ground before him.
"Tengen, sir-"
Tengen raised up a hand in the universal gesture of halt, and she snapped her mouth shut in response.
"Ma."
She blinked in confusion at the interruption. The creature in front of her was a female. it waved off her confusion once more as it spoke. "If you're going to use pronouns, let's clear this up: it's a lengthy and convoluted tale, and it's yet to be decided if you'll ever hear it. Now, sit down and tell me everything. I haven't had the pleasure of discussing novel barrier techniques since Kenjaku."
Instead of complying with Tengen's request, she chose to voice a question that had plagued her for months—a curiosity that she finally had the chance to resolve.
"They say you meet with everyone granted the special grade rank at least once, yet Jiki has always denied ever meeting you. Why is that?" she asked, blurting out the question before she had a chance to second-guess herself.
Tengen stilled once more, shifting back to that state that she was coming to realize was the woman's natural state as she contemplated on if she should truly speak. The four eyes blinked in unison as motion returned to Tengen, signifying she had made a decision.
"I had anticipated countless questions from you, but I had not predicted this. You inquiring about another person, but I guess I should have. He has been a major sponsor in your time here. I suppose your question is very… human."
Tegen allowed her to think on the words as she took another sip of the tea before she continued.
"The simple answer is, I reject him."
She felt her eyebrows rise in surprise and confusion at the statement, and she found her lips moving once again to respond before she could think.
"And the complicated one?"
Tengen answered her after another deliberate sip, moving with such measured calm that it might have frustrated someone less patient. Yet Emi recognized this as a reflection of a being accustomed to the slow passage of time.
"That child is a catalyst for change. His existence is unpredictable. His presence shifts the balance of things and disrupts the natural order. It is not as it should be, and the changes he has made are felt in every corner, altering the course of events in ways you won't understand." Those four eyes stared pointedly at Emi, but the younger girl had lost focus and had begun to think.
"Are you afraid of him?" Emi asked in apprehension.
Tegen looked at her with a mixture of surprise and contemplation in her eyes. "Fear is a strong word and an exaggeration," Tengen said slowly. "It's not just fear, but a recognition and a keen awareness of the power he wields. It's a healthy dose of caution for the unpredictable variable that is Gojo Jiki."
Seeing the confusion on her face, Tegen continued.
"There is nothing truly new in this world, child. Not heavenly restrictions, not powerful curses or sorcerers, not even the six eyes, and limitless being wielded by a single person even if they rarely happen all at once. Everything under the sun has happened before.
At least that was true till Gojo Jiki. Do you understand now? He is an impossibility, an anomaly among anomalies."
Emi took in the revelation with a mix of understanding and disappointment. The way Tengen reacted to Jiki's presence—a reaction she'd witnessed firsthand in that morgue—now painted a clearer picture of the sorcerer's fears. Yet it was disappointing to see that someone with such power and history was so afraid of change that they preferred to live in self-imposed isolation. Like burying her head in the sand would shield her from the inevitable changes Jiki's presence would bring.
She had always yearned to break free from constraints and truly live, whereas Tengen seemed content to remain ensconced in a protective shell, wary of the outside world. Emi refused to accept that this was all the ancient sorcerer amounted to; surely there had to be more to Tengen than fear and reluctance.
"I see you do not understand, that is fine. Now I have asked one time too many already. Speak."
Was there any other response to that beyond giving a bow and doing as she was told?
Emi took a sip of the tea, only to realize with a start that it was not tea but sake. She stifled a grimace, gently setting the cup down before beginning her story.
"Well, it all started the first time I created a curtain."
…
He threw himself forward with a wordless scream, for few understood the weight and gravity that lay in words as the Inumaki did.
The Inumaki clan, both cursed and blessed, was as old as any of the great clans, though they lacked the prominence of the three greats. The first Inumaki was wise and ancient, and with that wisdom came an understanding of the profound power that words could wield. Their unique ability, their Innate technique, was born from this first enlightenment, embodying the power of spoken words.
Each utterance they brought forth held the potential to heal or harm, to build up or tear down. For them, words were not just simple sounds strung together, but vessels of meaning, intention, and power. Toge Inumaki knew that even better than most, for he had been taught the weight of his words even harsher than most, right from the moment he was born.
Few were more dangerous than children of the Inumaki clan, marked by the snake and fangs of their progenitor. They learned the profound knowledge early that words, once spoken, could never be taken back. This awareness made them exceptionally cautious, choosing silence and metonymy over direct speech, and contemplation over haste.
His first words had crippled his father. It was the first and last time he ever spoke out of turn; not even grief could make him lose that silence. Yet he wished more than anything to scream.
Bereft of that outlet, he hurled himself forward with a furious intensity. The older man deftly redirected his attack to the side, dodging an elbow strike with practiced ease. Toge dropped to his hands and lashed out with a kick at the man's ankle. The older man fell to the ground without a sound, rolling quickly to dodge the next set of blows. He sprang back to his feet and fixed the boy he called his son with a resolute frown.
Already his father found it hard to match his physical prowess in a fight, he had been slipping past the older man's guard more and more over the past few months, and with his anger and self-deprecation fueling him, he found himself hitting harder and faster.
His newfound physical prowess could only be attributed to one person: Gojo Jiki. Yet, where was he when it mattered? What good was the ability to hit better in the face of the walking calamities that were special grades?
Already, Toge could see the rapidly forming bruise on his father's shin, yet his father had taken the strike without a sound. In the house of snakes and fangs, they all understood the gravity of their words. The cost they paid was not merely internal. Their silence created a barrier between them and others, a chasm that he had bridged with the aid of the same Gojo scion.
The new communication hand signs Jiki had taught him were easier to use, and smoother, with a wider range of expressions and a speedier signal. It functioned like a system that had been meticulously refined, with all the kinks ironed out. While it had been invaluable to Toge and his family, it hadn't changed the ultimate outcome of that day. Despite this, Toge found it hard to blame the boy. The white-haired scion had already taught them so much. It wasn't Jiki's fault that Toge had lost his first friend due to sheer misfortune and something more sinister.
He had arrived at the school friendless and alone, his admission based solely on his lineage. He came with little concern for making connections, harboring no true hopes of getting to know anyone. The barrier imposed by his inability to speak only deepened the distance between him and others. Then, amidst the isolation, came a figure with a mane of black and white and the brightest smile he had ever seen, breaking through the wall of silence and offering a connection he hadn't thought possible.
"Would you like to be friends?"
The cursed puppet asked, and he stared back at it in surprise before drawing his Shaw down and pointing at the mark that sat on the side of his cheeks.
He was barely ten, merely going through the motions in preparation for what was to come in a few years. Meeting this cheerful, fluffy ball of fur hadn't been part of his plans.
"Oh, an Inumaki. Big sister taught me all about you guys. Don't worry, I'll speak enough for both of us. My name is Panda," the cursed puppet—Panda—declared with pure and innocent enthusiasm. For the first time that day, Toge smiled.
Yet that smile was snatched away by the capricious hand of fate. A precisely aimed strike had shattered his friend's first core. The second core was annihilated when Panda sacrificed himself to shield him from the falling meteor. Despite the attack being labeled as restrained, a glancing blow from it was more than sufficient to destroy the second core—yet that had not have been enough to kill the cursed puppet.
Alive and barely conscious he had known his first friend was still alive. He had felt the third core burning and pumping power and had known safety. Even when that man and the curse dug themselves out of the ground and stumbled past him. They had barely paid him and panda any attention, even knowing they were alive.
No, the person who delivered the final blow that killed his best friend and destroyed his third core was not an enemy. Toge could barely remember, but he felt the moment Panda died, the instant the last strike shattered his third core. He knew it hadn't come from an enemy but from one of their own— a sorcerer stationed at the school under the command of the higher-ups.
The blow that sent him crashing to the floor came from out of nowhere, lost in his thoughts and memories as he was. His head bounced off the well-matted ground, and he rolled away just as the older man had done a few minutes earlier.
Struggling to his knees, he looked up at the scrutinizing face of his father. The older man stared down at him for a brief moment before rapidly firing off hand-signs.
"Strength fueled by anger and negative emotions is powerful but makes you unfocused and erratic. Lose yourself in those emotions you shall, yet it can sharpen your focus and give strength. A paradox, yet so it is."
He shrugged off the reproach as he forced himself back to his feet and got into his combat stance once more. His father kept up that reproachful stare before shaking his head and firing out another rapid set of words via hand signs.
"Spar does not help you, feeds your negative feelings. Enough."
He wanted to argue, but before he could, the door to the clan's private dojo slid open, and his mother stepped inside. He turned his head away from her, staring at the floor as if he could burn holes into it with his anger. She walked up to him, clasped her hands over his, and pressed a letter into his grip.
With a gentle kiss on the crown of his head, she turned away from him and walked over to his father, gently pulling the older man out of the dojo. Relationships strained, understanding faltered, and loneliness seeped in, a reality well-understood by the Inumaki. Even though his mother lacked the snake and fangs that marked a true Inumaki, she had learned to help bear their burdens in her own way.
knowing when he needed her comfort and when he needed to be alone.
He sank to the floor, clutching the letter in his trembling hands. It was from Satoru, informing him of Panda's burial. As he read the words, Toge's knees buckled, and he fell to the ground, his silent sobs shaking his body as tears streamed down his face. Minutes passed, and the tears gradually ceased, leaving his face set in a mask.
Someone had killed Panda, and the killer had not been a curse or one of the rogue curse users. He would find out what happened and why, and when he was satisfied, he was going to avenge his friend. Even if it was the last thing he did. "I promise you." He whispered into the stillness of the dojo, curled up with the letter clutched tightly in his hand, his mind drifting to happier memories as he lay in the darkness.
The world listened.
…
She stormed out of the room with annoyance, each step a heavy stomp that cracked the wooden floor beneath her feet.
"Come back here, Maki!" the old drunk roared behind her, but she didn't flinch. She had withheld even the bare minimum of what they wanted, for the moment he consented to let her go, he lost his grip on her. Now, they would have to fight, bleed and sacrifice for every piece of ground they aimed to gain when it came to learning the gates.
Considering the blood spill she saw leaking from one of the training rooms she walked past a few minutes ago, they had already started. And that thought brought a very dark smile to her face.
Any other time, if she had been any younger or weaker, he might have come after her. Old man Naobito was generally a drunk, uncaring mess who wouldn't have given her the time of day. But beneath that façade of indifference lay a lethality that had earned him his special first-grade rating.
The gates were that important—a literal game changer—and that alone would have been enough to motivate him. In the past, he might have blurred his way to her front and struck her so hard she'd be vomiting blood for days.
But she was no longer that girl, and she was no longer fully under his thumb. The old man knew that if it came down to it, he wouldn't just be making an enemy of her. She had grown stronger, more formidable, but above that, the real reason the old man did nothing other than to yell as she stomped off was because of the two monsters that were the Gojo brothers.
Even with the gates, she was not sure if her perception was enough to follow through with how fast the old man and his son moved. At least not yet. She remembered the blow Jiki saved her from months ago.
But the Zenin were undergoing something. A change that she did not understand. There had been more tension and she had noticed it from the first step into the clan that she took. Then there were the whispers of he who left it behind returning. Which was a ridiculous pseudonym in her opinion, but she had seen fear in the eyes of the older zenins when it was mentioned. And sometimes, the slightest amount of that fear was directed at her.
Very soon… it would be all her.
She came to a stop outside Mai's room. And rested against the door. Eyes closed and hands folded. She stayed silent and brooded till minutes later, the sound of a gun cocking beside her head forced her to frown.
"Is that any way to greet your twin sister?"
Mai was not half as sneaky as she thought she was. She had heard the other girl coming seconds ago
"They say you killed a thousand curses at Shinjuku."
The voice was so painfully familiar, but she resisted the urge to open her eyes, pivot on the spot, and hug the other girl. The nostalgia of shared memories and lost times washed over her, but she kept her emotions in check.
Instead, she simply opened her eyes and turned to face her with a shrug, her expression stoic. "An exaggeration," she said, her voice steady. "It was closer to a hundred, and most of them were second and third-grade curses."
Despite the casual tone, the weight of her words lingered in the air. She could feel the other girl's eyes studying her, searching for any sign of vulnerability. But she remained composed, refusing to let her guard down.
The gun remained cocked to her head as she stared down her twin. The girl looked eerily similar to her, the major difference being the glasses perched on her face. Unlike her sister, her cursed energy was too low to see curses without increasing her output using the gates.
"Why are you here?" Mai demanded.
"I came to check up on you,"
"Well, you've done so. Now get lost."
Mai's voice was resolute, leaving no room for further discussion. Her tone was as cold as the metal of the gun she held. Despite the clear dismissal, Maki stood her ground, unwilling to leave without addressing the deeper issues.
"Mai—" Maki began, taking a deliberate step forward, but Mei's response was immediate and unforgiving. She jabbed the barrel of the gun sharply against Maki's forehead, her face twisted into a snarl that mirrored her frustration and resentment.
"Did you ever pause to consider what it means for me that you've achieved so much? That you're now being considered for a promotion to second grade, and possibly even first? Did you think about how that affects me?" Mai's words cut through the air, each one punctuated by the pressure of the gun against Maki's skin. "No, of course you didn't. As always, you only thought of yourself, your ambitions, and your achievements. You come here, flaunting your success, while completely disregarding how it impacts those around you."
Mei's frustration was palpable, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and hurt. "You've seen me now. You've made your point. Now, get lost." With a final shove of the gun, she dismissed her sister, her voice a harsh command that left no room for further argument.
The other girl slipped past a still Maki and entered her room, slamming her door behind her with bone-rattling force.
Maki was left outside, short of words and lost in thought as she gripped a piece of paper in her hand—a letter she had received and the true reason she had rushed here in a hurry. A letter supposedly from Mai asking for help. Now she knew it was fake. An excuse to get her back here.
She stayed outside the door, trying her best to ignore the soft sobs she could hear coming from the other side as she glared at the wooden obstruction.
Satoru had said they would try another means, something more subtle, and he hadn't been wrong. She squeezed the letters tighter in her hand as she cursed them with grinding teeths.
"Damn you, Naobito. Damn you."
The clatter of familiar footsteps drew her attention. She recognized them as her mother's, but this time, she resisted the urge to walk away. She was tired of avoiding her. Instead, she spun in the direction the older woman was coming from.
"What?!" she barked as soon as her mother came into view, her frustration boiling over. Whatever words her mother had originally planned to say were stifled by the outburst.
Instead, the older woman stretched out a trembling hand, holding another letter. "This came for you."
Maki snatched the letter from her mother, who turned and began to walk away. She paused for a moment, half turning as if to say something, but thought better of it and continued on her way.
Maki opened the letter on the spot and sped through its contents. A heavy sigh escaped her lips as she rested her back against the door, sliding down into a sitting position. The words on the paper blurred through her tears, the weight of the message sinking into her bones.
"Fuck!" she exclaimed, the word a release of pent-up frustration, sorrow, and helplessness.
Tears rolled down her cheeks, mirrored by her sister's tears on the other side of the door. They sat so close yet so far apart, separated by the wooden barrier, each forced to bear the weight of their sadness alone.
An invitation to a burial was never an easy thing to receive.