Arriving at Your Doorstep

Higuruma lunged forward, the longsword in his hand scraping across the floor. As cursed energy erupted, the floor Xuan had just stepped on shattered instantly.

Xuan leaped high into the air, formed a hand seal with both hands, and pointed downward. The burst of cursed energy instantly tore apart the spot where Higuruma stood. When the dust settled, Higuruma, having evaded the attack, stood not far from Xuan.

"Have you ever seen those people who committed crimes and needed lawyers?"

"What are you talking about? I'm an ancient person, you know!"

"Ah, I suppose so."

Higuruma drove his sword hard into the floor. With another burst of cursed energy, the already devastated battlefield was kicked up in another cloud of dust.

"As a lawyer... the most important thing is understanding people's hearts, right? Have you managed that?"

As Xuan spoke, the light sword slashed out through the dust, leaving a trail across the air as it cut toward him.

As if he were merely playing around, Xuan took two steps back and dodged Higuruma's slash, then raised a hand and curled his fingers in a beckoning gesture.

"Day after day, I'm almost sick of seeing it... Those people, whether victims or perpetrators, are all unbelievably weak..."

Higuruma stayed on Xuan's heels, the Executioner's Sword in his hand constantly closing in on Xuan's body. The blade swung again and again, but it was always just a fraction short—while the man before him made no counterattack at all.

"Isn't that what lawyers are like? Nobody likes them. Defense attorneys, especially, have to psychoanalyze defendants who refuse to tell the truth."

Xuan jumped off the ground and landed atop the roof of a small house, then beckoned toward the ground below.

Seeing such blatant provocation, Higuruma sprang up and followed Xuan onto the rooftops, where they began a chase.

Xuan casually tore off half a building and hurled it at Higuruma. Higuruma raised the Executioner's Sword and sliced open a passage through the building, and amid the rubble and broken bricks, he saw Xuan leap into the air once more.

"Destroying public property, huh?"

"Not like anyone will be living here anytime soon, right?"

As his feet touched the ground, Nue's wings unfolded behind Xuan. With the gavel gone, Higuruma had essentially lost his means of attacking airborne targets. Yet amid this "playful" battle, he continued developing his abilities.

Higuruma's technique, "Judgment," condensed cursed energy into a gavel. The gavel was both a "cursed tool" and the core of his technique.

Once the gavel became the "Executioner's Sword," it gained a sure-kill effect, but lost its extendability.

But perhaps it had not lost that extendability at all?

Higuruma tossed the Executioner's Sword upward. The golden light sword changed direction in midair, while what landed in Higuruma's hand was the blade of the Executioner's Sword.

Though it was called a blade, it would not actually harm Higuruma himself.

"With a technique at that level, if you throw it, it'll probably lose its effect before it even reaches half the range of your domain."

Higuruma hurled the Executioner's Sword from his hand. As it flew, the sword's radiance grew dimmer and dimmer. At around twenty-five meters, the Executioner's Sword completely shed the appearance of a light sword and reverted to a gavel.

Bang!

With an explosive crack, Higuruma's figure abruptly appeared where the gavel was.

"Oh?"

"Hold one part of the gavel in your hand—then throw the other part to achieve rapid short-range movement."

Higuruma explained what he had done. Just as the words left his mouth, he suddenly sensed a fluctuation in cursed energy.

After explaining his ability, his cursed energy had grown stronger?

It was only slight, but Higuruma had felt that fluctuation.

"Not a bad idea."

As Higuruma clenched his hand around the gavel, it was once again covered in the light of the Executioner's Sword.

"My technique, Judgment, uses cursed energy to condense a gavel. Striking the gavel activates my domain, and the technique conducts a 'trial' according to a certain law. The domain, Deadly Sentencing, can hold a three-stage trial. A guilty verdict from the trial produces the effects of 'confiscation' and 'the death penalty.' The death penalty transforms the gavel into the sure-kill Executioner's Sword."

"Hey! You're just spilling all your secrets?"

The cursed energy around Higuruma suddenly surged by another degree, and he successfully confirmed his understanding.

Explaining his technique could strengthen his cursed energy during battle.

But why was that?

Interpreting a technique, strengthening cursed energy—how exactly did something like that work?

Did explaining the technique serve as the price paid in exchange for stronger cursed energy, or...

Why not test it?

Higuruma cautiously tried manipulating the cursed energy within his body according to his own thoughts.

As he flickered before Xuan's eyes, the Executioner's Sword abruptly shot out in a blaze of sword light. Xuan instantly dodged the incoming blade and raised a hand, firing a Dismantle at Higuruma.

"Looks like you've grasped it—the core of cursed energy."

"So that's how it is..."

Watching the blade suddenly extend like Ichimaru Gin's Zanpakuto, cold sweat involuntarily formed at Xuan's temple.

What the hell? Had he fed him too much? How had he suddenly turned a sure-kill weapon into a Zanpakuto?

That nearly killed him. He needed to get serious.

"Whew... What is this ability called?"

"We call it a binding vow. By weakening one aspect of your abilities, you strengthen another."

"I see."

Just now, Hiromi Higuruma had removed the sure-kill property of Executioner's Sword in exchange for a massive surge of cursed energy during the execution phase.

However, this binding vow was incomplete and could only take effect within this domain.

Having lost its sure-kill property, Executioner's Sword regained the possibility of "shape alteration," while its power had increased due to Hiromi Higuruma's surge in cursed energy.

Moreover, this binding vow... was one that could be violated.

Xuan had probably already nearly figured that out.

"Dragon Scales, Recoil, Twin Meteors."

With a flip, Xuan dodged the whip-like longsword Higuruma swung at him, his mouth never stopping as he recited the chant.

The "Dog • Dismantle" he cast by borrowing Divine Dog's cursed energy was an imitation of Malevolent Shrine's technique, and its chant likewise imitated Malevolent Shrine's. As long as he completed the chant, the technique would be strengthened.

Higuruma's gaze locked onto that transparent blade in an instant—then the blade struck Executioner's Sword.

He could see it?

The change in his cursed energy was so great... could it be?

Xuan's mind raced. Though his technique was not the original Malevolent Shrine, the trajectories of its slashes still could not be perceived by ordinary sorcerers. To see the path of a slash required extraordinarily powerful cursed energy and control. Based on that alone, the number of people who could not only perceive it but evade it could probably be counted on both hands.

Seeing this, Xuan's heart tightened once more, and the carefree grin on his face gradually turned serious.

The slender blade extended again. This time, black cursed energy surfaced around Xuan's body. Just before the blade struck him, he twisted aside to evade the thrust, then pressed one hand against the floor and ducked beneath the horizontal sweep.

Eight!

The transparent edge instantly sliced the building apart. Xuan stood in midair, forming hand signs with both hands.

"Rebirth."

"Abyss."

"Bottom of Lightlessness."

"Technique Lapse: Shadow."

Not one, but several spheres of shadow bombarded the places where Higuruma might be. The spheres burst apart the instant they hit, wrapping the rubble within them. But when they truly struck Higuruma, Executioner's Sword flashed in his hand, and the shadow spheres were shattered with a single blow. Immediately afterward, Higuruma, covered in blood, leaped out from within the shadow spheres.

Its power had weakened. That blade from before should have been able to break through the shadows. Was that because he had sacrificed its power?

Xuan flapped his wings and formed a hand seal. Several thick bolts of lightning instantly crashed down upon Higuruma's position.

Crack!

Just as the lightning was about to touch Higuruma, an explosive bang sounded behind Xuan. Higuruma vanished from where he stood and appeared in a building behind Xuan, raising a hand toward him.

"Sit."

Clang!

With the sound of a gavel striking, Xuan felt his body grow heavy—golden light appeared around him, binding his ability to move.

Seizing the chance, Higuruma leaped up, and Executioner's Sword stabbed fiercely toward Xuan's body.

"So that's it... A binding vow that sacrificed the sure-kill effect in exchange for enhanced cursed energy."

As the blade pierced Xuan's shoulder, he saw the relaxed expression on Hiromi Higuruma's face and understood both his intentions and the binding vow he had made.

"You really scared me... For a moment there, I thought I was going to die, Hiromi Higuruma!!!"

Xuan smiled, then beat his wings violently. A heavy fist wrapped in cursed energy slammed into Higuruma's abdomen. Black lightning-like cursed energy flashed as, with an explosive force of two and a half times, Hiromi Higuruma was hurled into the building behind him.

Amid the dust and smoke of the explosion, Xuan reached the hole that had been blasted open in an instant. Aside from the cuts in his clothes, there was not even any sign that he had been injured.

But Hiromi Higuruma, standing opposite him, was in far worse condition. He was covered in wounds, and because he had not mastered the reverse cursed technique, his injuries were healing at an extremely slow pace. Though he had developed a new ability, there was no trace of ease on Higuruma's face.

Naturally. None of the players in Tokyo No. 1 Colony had been experts, and Hiromi Higuruma had been an ordinary person only three days ago. Even though he now possessed immense cursed energy, the pain coursing through every limb and bone left this former ordinary man unable to stand.

"Hey, can you still fight?"

Xuan crouched before Higuruma. Hiromi Higuruma was sitting on a sofa that had been torn open, drawing deep breaths as the Executioner's Sword in his hand slowly dissipated and returned to its compact gavel form.

"...I did it, right?"

"Yeah. You did well."

Compared to the spectacular battle just now, Xuan felt as though the passion it had ignited in him had been forcibly extinguished. He walked over and placed a hand on Higuruma's chest. Round Deer's technique—the complete external output of the reverse cursed technique—was unlike ordinary external reverse output. Round Deer's was at "full power."

After a flash of light, the bored Xuan plopped down beside Higuruma. Higuruma exhaled and lay back on the sofa, pondering something through the pain.

"Ugh?!"

Somewhere underground in Shibuya.

Itadori abruptly sat up as if he had just awoken from a nightmare, then looked at his hands—and his chest.

No... wounds?

Still shaken, Itadori looked to the left. Beyond the burning campfire stood Okkotsu himself, poised and ready.

Those gloomy eyes stared straight at Itadori—as if they wanted to carve him open from head to toe.

Only after confirming that Itadori was alive and well did Okkotsu finally reveal a smile utterly at odds with his face.

"Thaaank gooodness!!"

"Huh?"

Okkotsu first let out a breath.

"Around September... Gojo-sensei found me while I was still overseas... and asked me to look after you."

"Look after me?"

"Rather than have someone else carry out your execution, I figured it was better for me to do it myself, right? So I had no choice but to put on an act."

"An act?"

"Yeah... Since I'd also been secretly executed, just like you, I made a binding vow with the higher-ups to kill you once. Then I really did kill you—"

An apologetic expression appeared on Okkotsu's face.

"Sorry."

"...Then... why am I still alive?"

"Because hardly anyone knows that my Reverse Cursed Technique can be projected outward to heal others."

"So this was the second time your death was faked."

Just as Okkotsu was about to continue—Itadori's Kogane suddenly appeared between them with a bang.

"Ding dong, ding dong! A player has added a new rule!!! A player has added a new rule!!"

"General Rule Eleven!! Players who have already added a rule may freely enter and leave the barriers!!"

"General Rule Eleven...?"

Jujutsu High's intelligence network naturally included players who, after awakening, were willing to help Jujutsu High. Jujutsu High's first batch of information on the Culling Game had come from them.

But Okkotsu only knew the first eight general rules. The sudden appearance of Kogane, along with its announcement of General Rule Eleven, instantly piqued his interest.

"Itadori, what are General Rules Nine and Ten?"

After learning about General Rules Nine and Ten, Okkotsu scratched his cheek.

"...Can you check who added the rule?"

"Kogane, who added Rule Eleven?"

"Please see!"

Xuan, score: 0, rules added: 2, current location: "Outside the barrier"

"He's already out... He added two rules after the Culling Game began—which means he's killed at least forty people."

Okkotsu bit his finger, looking somewhat uneasy.

"Kogane, do you know what era he's from?"

"He's a sorcerer from the Muromachi period."

Okkotsu felt a little troubled—Muromachi, huh? It was somewhat recent, yet also somewhat distant. At the very least, they had not learned about such things in Jujutsu High's history classes.

This was going to be difficult...

"Can you determine his exact current location?"

"...His exact current location can be determined. Would you like it displayed by another method?"

"...Please, Kogane."

The display on Kogane's body suddenly changed, showing Xuan's location alongside constantly shifting numbers.

Northeast, 1.3 km.