Chapter 32

"Something came up as soon as I said it." Satoru Gojo sighed. He stood up to leave, but his steps faltered.

A moment later, he turned to Masamichi Yaga.

"Yaga-sensei, what's today's date?"

"June 29. Have you stopped paying attention to the date, too?" Masamichi Yaga looked at him.

"No, I just thought..." Satoru Gojo frowned. He recalled the prophecy Kamiki Yūhaku had given him: Cursed Womb Must Die would occur in West Tokyo City in July.

Wasn't the timing a little tight?

Of course, even so, Satoru Gojo wouldn't turn down this mission. Not only was he skeptical of Kamiki Yūhaku's prophecy to begin with, but even if it did come true, he couldn't stay in Tokyo to deal with a Cursed Womb whose only specified time was sometime in July.

He wasn't free enough to wait around for a month.

"Yaga-sensei, keep an eye on those three for me," Satoru Gojo said. "I'll come back as soon as I've dealt with things in Hokkaido."

"You don't have to tell me. I'm their principal." Masamichi Yaga looked at the wooden puppet head he had carved. "Don't worry. Unless the higher-ups have been kicked in the head by a donkey, they won't openly give them missions first-years can't handle just to make things difficult for them."

Satoru Gojo clicked his tongue. "I'd say they're long past having been kicked in the head by a donkey."

Satoru Gojo left Jujutsu High on assignment and probably wouldn't return for three to five days. Masamichi Yaga was the principal, but he was also a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer. Though he usually stayed at the school, he occasionally went elsewhere to provide support, meaning he wouldn't remain at Jujutsu High the whole time either.

Jujutsu Sorcerers were few in number, but Cursed Spirits appeared one after another, so during busy periods, Jujutsu High could even be left completely empty.

Kamiki Yūhaku stood at the doorway, looking at the door ahead of him, his dark green eyes fixed on the air before him.

A moment later, he smiled. His fingers toyed with the chain around his wrist, winding it around again and again before unwinding it.

"It's time to leave, too."

And so, while Satoru Gojo was exorcising a Cursed Spirit far away in Hokkaido, he received a call from Jujutsu High.

"What? Kamiki Yūhaku ran away?" Satoru Gojo clicked his tongue. "I knew he had to be lying when he said he'd behave himself and stay put. Sure enough, he ran off while Yaga-sensei and I were away."

"Anyway, leave him alone for now." Satoru Gojo looked at the Cursed Spirit before him. "I'll deal with him when I get back."

"Why?"

Satoru Gojo sighed. "Are you sure you can actually find him when he's deliberately hiding?"

Kamiki Yūhaku had a Cursed Technique for prophecy and even possessed the ability to foresee the future. He could foresee a person's future over a certain period of time. In other words, as long as there were people around him, he could exist infinitely in the future. As long as he knew the future, he could escape everyone pursuing him.

For a Cursed Spirit, five minutes was enough for him to escape anywhere.

There was only one way to deal with Kamiki Yūhaku: his pursuer had to be powerful enough to disregard his foresight and break through his escape routes even when he knew the future.

Only Satoru Gojo could do that.

Meanwhile, Kamiki Yūhaku was walking down the road, watching the people around him as he went. Pale red symbols glimmered in his dark green eyes.

Just then, he heard a bit of commotion.

Kamiki Yūhaku looked into an alley and saw someone surrounded by a group of delinquent youths. He seemed to be getting bullied. Kamiki Yūhaku tilted his head, and the future ten minutes from now began to appear before his eyes.

The person surrounded would merely fail to fight back and get beaten up.

He looked away, not particularly interested, but at that very instant, an image suddenly appeared before his eyes.

It was a prophecy.

In the prophecy, Kamiki Yūhaku saw the boy and the person before him.

He wore strange clothes and looked like a refined person, but there were stitches on his face that made him look inhuman at first glance. Countless grotesque monsters surrounded them.

Cursed Spirits.

The closer a Cursed Spirit was to a human, the stronger it was. A Special Grade Cursed Spirit with a human appearance like this...

"He'll meet a Special Grade Cursed Spirit? And this Special Grade won't kill him right away? How unusual." Kamiki Yūhaku watched him.

"This is the first Special Grade Cursed Spirit I've seen besides myself."

Chapter 32

It rained often in Japan, and natural disasters such as typhoons were also quite common. As a result, a series of drainage facilities had been built throughout Japan, and the underground pipes formed a world of their own.

Kamiki Yūhaku entered the sewers from beneath a bridge. There wasn't much wastewater inside, since there was little rain at this time of year.

"Excuse me for intruding," Kamiki Yūhaku said politely.

Not long after entering, Kamiki Yūhaku saw something like a monstrous creature. Huge and motionless, it squatted on the ground.

"Ah." Kamiki Yūhaku looked at it. "Did I bet right?"

Though he had seen another Special Grade Cursed Spirit in the prophecy concerning that boy and roughly judged that it should be in a nearby sewer, sewers ran all through Tokyo, and the passages all looked much the same. He couldn't determine the location by sight alone, so Kamiki Yūhaku had picked a passage at random and entered.

He hadn't expected to find it on the first try.

Or rather, was the other party not hiding at all? Was it to attract Jujutsu Sorcerers?

Kamiki Yūhaku went around the huge creature on the ground and continued inward. Soon, he saw more twisted creatures on display in the underground pipes. Not far away were several things that looked like finger-sized dolls. They bore no strong traces of Cursed Energy, so they probably weren't Cursed Spirits.

Humans?

Just as Kamiki Yūhaku crouched down for a closer look, the scene before his eyes suddenly began to change. His foresight activated, and the little finger-sized person in front of him crumbled apart. Kamiki Yūhaku looked up, and the next moment, he saw a young man with stitches on his face standing before him, just as in the prophecy he had seen earlier.

"Welcome." Just then, a voice sounded behind Kamiki Yūhaku.

"Huh? Not a Jujutsu Sorcerer?" Mahito tilted his head and looked at Kamiki Yūhaku with a smile.

But the visitor didn't turn around. Mahito noticed that he was staring at the dolls in front of him. They were his experimental specimens, used to test how small humans could be made. Unfortunately, humans died once they were shrunk beyond a certain point, and these probably didn't have long to live either.

Is he interested in this?

Thinking this, Mahito walked in front of the visitor. Only then did the man finally shift his gaze, but he still didn't look at Mahito. Instead, he looked to the side.

"Hello?" Mahito spoke again.

The visitor seemed to finally notice him. He blinked, then looked at Mahito. "Ah, there you are!"

Is there something wrong with this guy's head?

"Nice to meet you. Hello." Kamiki Yūhaku held out his hand to Mahito.

"A Cursed Spirit?" Mahito looked at his outstretched hand. "And one that looks a lot like a human?"

Seeing that Mahito had no intention of shaking hands, Kamiki Yūhaku withdrew his hand without the slightest concern. He smiled and said, "What's your name? My name is Kamiki Yūhaku. This is my first time meeting another Special Grade. I've never met any of the others before."

"Really?" Mahito answered with a beaming smile. "I'm Mahito. I didn't expect there to be another one of us. I'm so happy."

Kamiki Yūhaku looked at the things around them. "What are these?"

"They're experiments." Mahito picked up a little figure beside him. "This one, for example, was to test how much a human can be compressed. And that one over there..."

Mahito pointed to the huge creature squatting on the ground not far away. "That was to test how much a human can be inflated."

"A Cursed Technique that changes human shapes?" Kamiki Yūhaku tilted his head, surprise in his dark green eyes.

"Would you like a tour of my specimens?" Mahito held the doll in his hand. He squeezed slightly, and with a crack, it crumbled in his grasp. After Kamiki Yūhaku nodded, Mahito walked to the side. Kamiki Yūhaku turned his head with his movement, looking off to the side.

Mahito didn't notice that he shifted his gaze through exactly the same arc as last time.

Following Mahito, Kamiki Yūhaku eventually came to a huge water transfer station. Above it was an observation platform, scattered with all manner of grotesque monsters. They looked much like Cursed Spirits, but their twisted forms were even less harmonious.

Because the one who had turned them into this didn't care in the least about harmony or beauty.

They climbed the steps, and Mahito leaned against the wall, showing Kamiki Yūhaku his collection. "What do you think?"

"It's spectacular." Kamiki Yūhaku gazed at everything around him. "Why do you do this?"

"I suppose I want to explore the relationship between the soul and the body." Mahito smiled gently. If not for his perverse behavior, he might really have seemed like a kind older brother next door. "Kamiki, can I call you that? Tell me, which came first in life, the soul or the body?"

Kamiki Yūhaku didn't answer. He merely looked at the people. "How did you turn them into this?"

"It's simple. Change the shape of their souls, and their bodies change accordingly," Mahito answered. "So I think the soul comes before the body."

Kamiki Yūhaku smiled. "Really? But I don't like this kind of experiment at all."

"What does it matter?" Mahito lay in a hammock. "There are far too many humans, just like rats. What's the difference between experimenting on humans and humans experimenting on rats? Or are you the kind of curse that's close to humans?"

Kamiki Yūhaku looked at him. A moment later, he spoke. "Are you a Special Grade who was born only recently?"