Chapter 35

"Who?" Jogo asked.

"Something that's neither human nor a Cursed Spirit." Mahito repeated what Kamiki Yūhaku had said earlier. "Do you know what it is, Jogo?"

Jogo rubbed his chin and thought for a moment. "Tengen?"

"No, no, no. Tengen is still human, ultimately. Part of the reason I stayed in Jujutsu Society for so long was to investigate Tengen, and in the end I confirmed that Tengen wasn't the one I was looking for." Kamiki Yūhaku took another crunchy bite of his apple. "It's something else."

Jogo thought this was a real hassle. This Cursed Spirit had ideas of his own.

At first, he had simply thought that having him join would make things easier. After all, this Cursed Spirit had spent thirty years in Jujutsu Society. He had to know its higher-ups inside and out, and with that intelligence, they could deal Jujutsu Society a devastating blow. The ordinary people left over would be easy enough to kill.

Then a world belonging solely to Cursed Spirits could be born.

Suguru Geto was human, after all. Maybe it would be a good thing if they could kick him out of the plan.

But now, this Cursed Spirit didn't seem prepared to work toward humanity's destruction. He had his own goals and ideas.

"What exactly are you trying to do?" Jogo asked.

"Nothing." Kamiki Yūhaku tilted his head and murmured in an innocent tone, "I just want to do something I should do."

[Recognition decreased to 50%]

Chapter 35

"Does that thing you're looking for, the one that's neither human nor a Cursed Spirit, have any distinguishing features?" Jogo asked again.

"Hm?" Kamiki Yūhaku thought for a moment before speaking. "Probably, possibly, maybe, he's fairly afraid of me and wants to kill me."

Jogo was somewhat surprised. "Huh?"

"Because I almost killed him thirty years ago." Kamiki Yūhaku left the apple core where he was. "But that thing was very cunning. Once he realized he couldn't beat me, he abandoned his body and fled. So, in the eyes of the other Jujutsu Sorcerers, I killed someone, but in reality, that was just an empty shell."

"...How is that a distinguishing feature?"

"Is that so? So it doesn't count as a distinguishing feature." Kamiki Yūhaku nodded. "Anyway, that's about it. If all else fails, you can look for a Jujutsu Sorcerer or Curse User whose personality has changed drastically recently. We'll find him eventually."

Mahito looked at Kamiki Yūhaku, then smiled after a moment. "What an interesting personality."

"I don't find it interesting at all." Jogo turned around. "Since you don't intend to join us, I hope you won't get in our way either."

Kamiki Yūhaku watched Jogo's retreating back, then frowned slightly.

"Hey." He called out to Jogo. "Are you going to find Gojo?"

"Who's Gojo?"

"Satoru Gojo."

"Of course." Jogo snorted. "Killing him will take care of most things, so I'm going to kill him now. What? Do you like him?"

"No, I just don't think you can do it." Kamiki Yūhaku sat on the overpass, watching him, a faint red glow in his deep green eyes. "I foresaw your end. If you go after Gojo as you are now, you'll die."

Jogo frowned. He remembered that when he told Suguru Geto he was going to kill Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto had given him the same answer.

He had said, "You can try, but you'll die."

"It's not certain who'll die."

Watching Jogo leave, Mahito spread his hands, then smiled and said goodbye to Kamiki Yūhaku. He soon disappeared from Kamiki Yūhaku's sight, and Kamiki Yūhaku turned to look at the sky.

"It doesn't really matter. Halloween is already close."

"I'll find him eventually."

With that, Kamiki Yūhaku opened the system and took a look. Earlier, he seemed to have noticed a notification from the system.

Looking at the notification that his Recognition had decreased, Kamiki Yūhaku leaned against a tree.

"It went down again, as expected."

Meanwhile, Satoru Gojo returned to Jujutsu High carrying a stack of files in one hand. In a secret room at Jujutsu High, Yuji Itadori was watching a movie.

Hearing him, Yuji Itadori turned around. "Huh? You're back, Gojo-sensei?"

"Stop watching the movie for now and help me find something." Satoru Gojo piled all the files in his hand on the table. "Look through these with me. Pick out anything about Kamiki."

"Huh?"

Hugging the puppet, Yuji Itadori came over to the pile of files. He picked one at random and flipped through it, finding that some of the writing was blurry. He quickly checked the year and saw that it was 1980.

"Wow, files from over thirty years ago. What are you looking for, Gojo-sensei?"

"Some secrets hidden in history." Satoru Gojo opened a file. "Hurry up and look."

"Okay." Yuji Itadori hurriedly began searching.

Although the files had been sitting around for over thirty years and some of the writing was a little blurry, they had been protected by special Jujutsu, so they were still fairly sturdy and hadn't suffered the damage ordinary books would have. But the files were so dull that Yuji Itadori fell asleep as he read.

Then the special puppet punched him awake.

"That hurt!" Yuji Itadori stared at the puppet in his arms, then looked at Satoru Gojo reproachfully. "Gojo-sensei, why are we looking into this Kamiki? Who is he?"

"A Special Grade Cursed Spirit," Satoru Gojo answered as he read. "The Special Grade Cursed Spirit I had you look for back then, the one who later escaped from Jujutsu High, is named Kamiki Yūhaku."

"Oh, that's a Japanese name."

"Of course. He kept the name he had when he was human."

"Oh... wait?! Human?" Yuji Itadori looked at Satoru Gojo in surprise. "He used to be human? But aren't Cursed Spirits an accumulation of human negative emotions? Why would someone turn into a Cursed Spirit after dying? And a Special Grade one at that?"

Satoru Gojo's hand stopped turning the pages. After a moment, he spoke.

"There are only two possibilities in a case like this."

"The first is that someone cursed him after he died, and the person who cursed him had extremely strong negative feelings toward him and exceptionally powerful Cursed Energy. Both conditions are necessary. That would make him a Vengeful Cursed Spirit, but the conditions for becoming Special Grade are so stringent that I've only ever seen one."

"What about the second?"

"The second is simpler," Satoru Gojo said. "Just like a Serial Killer, he was himself a source of fear. It's easy for a bad person to become a Cursed Spirit after death, because many people fear him, and the negative emotions that produces will coalesce."

Yuji Itadori understood. "Because lots of people were afraid of him when he was alive, those negative emotions of fear gathered around him after he died and turned him into a Cursed Spirit, right?"

"That's right." Satoru Gojo smiled. "What we're looking for now is why so many people were afraid of him."

"Got it!" Yuji Itadori continued searching.

Satoru Gojo noticed that Yuji Itadori was visibly more enthusiastic than before, so he asked, "Are you fond of that Special Grade Cursed Spirit?"

"Hmm, I don't think so. I feel like I treat him pretty much the same as anyone else." Yuji Itadori blinked.

"That's the problem." Satoru Gojo tapped the paper with his right index finger. "He's a Cursed Spirit, and a Special Grade Cursed Spirit at that, but you treat him the way you would a human. You haven't met any other Special Grade Cursed Spirits, but you have quite the double standard."

Realization dawned on Yuji Itadori. "I guess I do."

"But I feel like he's different from other Cursed Spirits." Yuji Itadori rested his chin on the puppet's head. "You told us before that he wasn't a threat and that the people at the top had kept him locked up for a long time, Gojo-sensei. But even so, he didn't kill anyone."

"No, he has," Satoru Gojo said. "More than once, his incorrect prophecies have led to Jujutsu Sorcerers dying."

"Why do you think those prophecies were incorrect?" Yuji Itadori tilted his head. "It seems like his prophecies can reach far into the future, and you said he once predicted Cursed Womb Must Die, Gojo-sensei. But even though he predicted it, the higher-ups still sent us there. If Jujutsu Sorcerers die under those circumstances, shouldn't the prophecy not be blamed for being wrong?"

Satoru Gojo rubbed his chin. "He made an accurate prophecy, but the higher-ups distorted it, leading to Jujutsu Sorcerers' deaths?"

He actually thought it was quite possible.

To be honest, Satoru Gojo had never thought that the higher-ups of Jujutsu Society were such detestable people.

Stupid old men, arrogant old feudalists, hiding behind the scenes like turtles in their shells and telling those on the front lines what to do. They didn't value a single Jujutsu Sorcerer's life; all they cared about was making themselves safer and more powerful.

Kamiki Yūhaku really was a convenient pretext. They could simply distort a prophecy and send their opponents' supporters to their deaths. It was practically foolproof.

The more Satoru Gojo thought about it, the angrier he became.

If he hadn't known that killing the old men at the top outright would only treat the symptoms and not the root cause, and that he wouldn't have enough subordinates to support him and rebuild Jujutsu Society with him, he would have killed them long ago.

They continued looking through the files. Just then, Satoru Gojo received a call from assistant supervisor Kiyotaka Ijichi.

"Hello?"

"It's time." Kiyotaka Ijichi's voice was a little weak, and he sounded somewhat apprehensive. "If you don't leave now, you'll keep the principal waiting again."

"I know." Satoru Gojo nodded, then looked at Yuji Itadori. "I have something to do, so I'm leaving. Keep looking through these files, and remember to pick out everything about Kamiki."

"No problem!" Yuji Itadori patted his chest. "Leave it to me!"

After Satoru Gojo left, Yuji Itadori continued looking through the files, but before long, he started yawning.

He really wasn't suited to this kind of paperwork, and he didn't much like looking at dull data.

His supply of Cursed Energy cut off, and the next instant, the special puppet punched him. Yuji Itadori snapped awake, knocking the file on top to the floor. He muttered as he picked it up, and the next moment, he spotted several mentions of Kamiki.