Past (3k)

Perhaps Xuan's reputation as a god of slaughter had already resounded throughout the Sendai Colony, or perhaps no players had simply come to this place. In any case, Xuan slept soundly on the soft bed.

Boom!

"Sukuna!!!"

Boom!!

As the clash between their open domains ended, Xuan and Sukuna battled each other. Slashes, lightning, and torrents of water—moves collided endlessly between them. Finally—

BOOM!!!!!

Amid a cacophony of violent tremors, Xuan opened his eyes.

"You're too damn loud!!!"

Xuan sprang out of bed, having just been locked in an intense battle with Sukuna in his dream. The dull footsteps outside were clearly not sounds any normal creature could make. As he sat up, a stench carrying a trace of human scent—the smell of shikigami—flooded his nostrils.

Xuan gritted his teeth and recalled the resting Nue and Divine Dog into his shadow. Then he pushed open the door and spread his wings.

With a flash of lightning, Xuan was already several thousand meters in the air, looking down below.

Nue's technique was very simple: strengthen the body, enhance vision, and control lightning.

Empowered by Nue's technique, Xuan swept his gaze across the ground. Like an ultra-precise drone, he soon spotted the two enormous shikigami circling the gymnasium beside where he had been resting.

The shikigami were nearly a dozen stories tall, but more than their immense size, Xuan cared about their movements.

And after they moved, cursed energy condensed along their path, forming something akin to a domain barrier. Xuan stared toward the gymnasium and locked onto an area whose cursed energy was distinctly abnormal.

An unlucky bird had approached the shikigami's route and instantly seemed to crash into a meat grinder, leaving behind only scattered feathers and spraying blood. Xuan could infer this guy's technique from that alone.

A technique that deployed an innate domain along a shikigami's movement path.

Is this guy in Sendai? I don't remember him.

Xuan lowered his head in thought.

The Sendai Four should have all gathered by now, right? Yuta Okkotsu, Uro Takako, Ryu Ishigori, Kurourushi.

Digging desperately through the memories buried deep within him, Xuan unearthed the name of the shikigami's owner.

Dhruv Lakdawalla, 91 points.

This guy seemed to be on his second incarnation, right?

For someone without any direct combat ability to choose the body of an old man, it was hard not to call it the author's twisted sense of humor.

Maybe it had been Kenjaku's idea?

Xuan yawned, then shot into the gymnasium like a bolt of thunder.

Purple lightning flickered before the ancient sorcerer who had once ruled over Japan, and the other man raised a hand toward Xuan as well.

"...The strongest of the Muromachi era."

"Oh? You know me?"

"I've long admired your name."

Xuan removed the handle hanging from his waist and held it in his palm. Surging cursed energy formed shadows at both ends and extended outward, becoming a short blade.

"Merchant God's Scepter."

"You recognize this too? Looks like you know quite a lot about me."

"Of course... I heard of your name during my first incarnation... Unfortunately, before I ever met you in person, I heard news of your death from Kenjaku."

Xuan toyed with his cursed tool. What erupted from the old man before him was not hostile cursed energy, but something that felt like a plea for mercy.

"I don't know how I offended you, young man. I was merely following our binding vow and maintaining the balance Kenjaku required in this Sendai Colony, where powerful fighters gather."

Xuan raised his head and considered the man before him.

A score of 91 meant that this person had not only killed sorcerers. Still, given the nature of his technique, there really was no way to stop ordinary people from running into his invisible barrier.

"Old man."

"My name is Dhruv."

"Old Dhruv."

"Then just call me old man..."

"Why did you choose to incarnate in a body as withered as dead wood?"

"Don't you have a binding vow with Kenjaku?"

"Unfortunately, I do have a binding vow with Kenjaku."

Dhruv wore an expression as if that were only natural. His unnaturally positioned eyes also returned to normal as he looked directly at Xuan.

"My binding vow with Kenjaku requires me to maintain this withered body in order to undergo a third incarnation."

"So in the end, you still have to start all over again. Boring."

Xuan sat down beside Dhruv. Dhruv also canceled his hand sign and looked toward Xuan.

"So... how have I offended you?"

"There's a saying from our neighboring country across the ocean: 'Don't hit a smiling face.' Originally, I was going to—like this—"

Xuan flicked the short blade in his hand. As cursed energy surged, a slash shot out violently, carving a long, straight scar into the far side of the gymnasium.

"But you seem like a decent sort... so I can spare your life for now."

"What's the price?"

"Don't harm ordinary people."

"...I'll do my best."

"What I mean is, before I establish a new rule that removes ordinary people from the barrier, do not use your shikigami to deploy a Domain Expansion."

"My cursed technique... requires a great deal of startup time."

Dhruv revealed a troubled expression and fell silent for a moment.

"I need compensation."

"What kind of compensation?"

Xuan was actually relieved. Something to negotiate was better than nothing—Okkotsu had killed this old man without hesitation because of his utterly unscrupulous point farming. If that could be prevented, then as a member of the Sendai Colony, Dhruv might be able to unleash even greater power in battle.

Then he could use Well's Unknown Abyss to watch from the sidelines.

Xuan did not think the old man before him would make any unreasonable demands. Not because Xuan could do anything, but because—Dhruv did not dare.

Watching the mysterious smile appear on Xuan's face, Dhruv raised a hand.

"I have heard of your cursed technique. When I incarnated, the faction I joined described it as that of a heavenly god: a powerful body, incredible vitality, immunity to certain attacks, the Kamo Clan's Piercing Blood, slashing power like Sukuna, the strongest of the Heian era, as well as lightning and flight... even control-type techniques, all in one."

Dhruv spread his hands.

"I want to know what your cursed technique truly is. Is it imitation, or... are you a shikigami user?"

As a shikigami user himself, Dhruv could naturally activate his shikigami's techniques by expending additional cursed energy. Had he incarnated into a younger body, he would likely have been a troublesome opponent even for Okkotsu. But now, he was gaunt as a skeleton and completely incapable of close combat.

"What was that? So that's all you wanted?"

"Yes. After all... I possess curiosity as well. Please rest assured, even if I learn your cursed technique, I could never possibly defeat you."

An expression of "fervor" emerged on Dhruv's face, while Xuan smiled.

"During the Muromachi period, three hundred people joined a campaign to hunt me down... and the people who forced me to get serious, who learned the nature of my cursed technique... none of them should have survived, right?"

"Was that the battle where the Six Eyes of the Gojo Clan fell during the Muromachi period?"

"What, you know quite a lot. You're like some rabid fan."

"Led by the Six Eyes of that generation, the Kamo Clan, Zenin Clan, Gojo Clan, and countless sorcerers lured in by bounties joined forces against you, after you were accused of killing the Star Plasma Vessel."

As Dhruv spoke, Xuan seemed to look back upon the past once more.

The Six Eyes of that generation did not possess the Limitless Technique, but rather a technique of manipulation.

How should he put it? It was similar to the cursed technique of the Q Organization's strongest combatant, who had briefly appeared during the Hidden Inventory arc.

With the Six Eyes' assistance, it could also produce applications similar to Limitless. And it was in that battle that Xuan felt a fighting spirit he had not felt in a long time.

Of course, most of the sorcerers participating in the hunt were not even speed bumps before Xuan. With a single Dismantle, he nearly swept away all the sorcerers who failed to mobilize cursed energy for defense in time, along with the clan heirs who had not reacted quickly enough.

After that first wave had been filtered out, the remaining sorcerers rapidly withdrew in the face of Xuan's terrifying strength.

As though they were fleeing for their lives.

Yet under the joint assault of the Kamo Clan head and the Gojo Clan head, Xuan fell into a difficult position for the first time—the Limitless Technique was simply too troublesome. Even if it was only a similar technique, Xuan had no way to deal with it. In that predicament, Xuan revealed Mahoraga's Dharma wheel before his opponents for the first time.

And then...

The Gojo Clan head and Kamo Clan head present recognized the technique of the person before them, but they never had the chance to tell anyone else. The Zenin Clan head, who had fallen much earlier, had not even seen that scene.

Their ending was easy to imagine. Six shikigami with considerable offensive power moved at once, and without the restrictions Xuan normally placed upon himself, it took barely three minutes for all thirty remaining sorcerers—each possessing Grade 1 strength or above—to perish.

As for who had really killed the Star Plasma Vessel?

That was not important, and Xuan had no way of knowing. It was only that after such a battle, Xuan lost more and more of his desire to fight—having become the strongest in the world, he sat alone amid the mountains and forests, waiting for that "Kenjaku."

The next time news reached him, it was the report released by the Kenjaku of that time: the strongest had committed suicide.

No one suspected that someone had killed him. In the minds of the jujutsu world at the time, the only person who could possibly kill him was perhaps the strongest King of Curses—Sukuna himself.

Some even believed that Sukuna could not kill him.

"In the end, they found out that the Star Plasma Vessel had merely been killed by the Zenin Clan head, who disliked the Gojo Clan head."

Having just emerged from his memories, Xuan heard Dhruv's voice beside him.

"Just as I thought. The rotten and foolish Zenin Clan... no, it would be more accurate to say that all three great clans are the same. They are nothing but foolish, decaying old relics huddling together for warmth."

"Haha... that is indeed true. Those stupid old relics still had to rely on Kenjaku incarnating into me to deal with their so-called war in the end... Speaking of which, what is your cursed technique?"

Dhruv was quite good at playing along, and Xuan truly heard a kind of "respect" for the strong in his words.

There was no harm in telling the man before him, so—

"It really is nice when someone cares about how you feel. Listen carefully. My cursed technique is—"

—Ten Shadows Technique.