Enthusiasm

--The conversation between the man and Kinji Hakari has been omitted. Please see Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, Episode 5, at 15:25.--

After hiding in the shadows and eavesdropping on the conversation between the man and Kinji Hakari, Xuan and Fushiguro—no, Xuan grabbed Fushiguro and vanished into the darkness.

"Let me explain—"

As they stepped out of the shadows, Fushiguro raised a hand first, while Xuan waved him off.

"Don't explain yet. While Itadori's still on a hot streak with his punches, Master will give you some extra tutoring."

Xuan patted Fushiguro on the back.

A cube appeared in his hand. As his cursed energy shifted, a sphere formed in Xuan's palm.

"Tell me, what part didn't you learn?"

"...I... probably..."

Fushiguro raised his hand, and a black cube appeared in his palm—

"Stop."

Xuan placed his hand over the cube.

"Didn't Itadori teach you anything?"

"No."

"What barrier have you ever seen that starts solid and then becomes hollow?"

"Ah."

"If you can't even manage such a basic transformation of barrier techniques—have you always set up Curtains by making them solid first, then hollowing them out?"

"I—I always had the assistant supervisors do that."

"...Finish this attempt first. Let me see."

Xuan watched cold sweat form on Fushiguro's face as the black spherical barrier in his palm finally became a sphere—Fushiguro closed his eyes, and the solid sphere in his hand let out a piercing shriek before exploding with a boom into cursed energy residue.

That confirmed it.

The kid didn't understand, but the kid had plenty of power.

"Didn't Satoru Gojo teach you?"

Xuan held his palm beneath Fushiguro's as cursed energy seeped into Fushiguro's own.

"No. Sensei only taught cursed energy control, practical combat, and how to use cursed tools."

"...In all honesty, I'm not a good teacher either, but yours barely even sounds like one."

Guided by Xuan, blue cursed energy appeared in Fushiguro's palm. Following that guidance, Fushiguro spread open the rudimentary black cubic barrier.

"Then, begin..."

As the cursed energy changed, the black cube in Fushiguro's palm slowly shifted from a cube into a polyhedron, and then—a black sphere appeared.

"Good. The next step is like a Curtain: expand it in an instant until it's large enough to hold you and your opponent in battle."

Xuan withdrew his hand, and the cursed energy he had poured in lost its guidance.

With the guidance gone, Fushiguro took a deep breath—then withdrew the black barrier in his hand.

Establish the barrier, reveal the innate domain, set the sure-hit technique, determine the target.

Megumi Fushiguro brought his hands together, locking them tightly into the Medicine Buddha mudra.

"Domain Expansion... Chimera Shadow Garden."

In an incredibly brief instant, dark blue cursed energy enveloped the two of them before forming into a sphere. As a sphere that was "fragile outside, sturdy within" took shape, Fushiguro began feeding in his innate domain.

The innate domain produced through the barrier was a stretch of shadow. The moment he stepped onto the sea of shadows, Xuan condensed cursed energy beneath his feet to keep himself from sinking into it. Though he had no idea whether a bird's wings could flap and fly in a frictionless sea of shadows.

Set the sure-hit technique—Fushiguro stopped. His hand sign opened, and the domain shattered immediately afterward.

"Ha..."

Xuan looked at the scattered cursed energy residue, roughly assessed the domain's size, then patted Fushiguro's shoulder and pulled him upright.

"For the sure-hit technique, with your current setup, you could have Toad restrain them, then summon Divine Dog to tear them apart. If your opponent deploys Hollow Wicker Basket or something else, then consider countering with shadow techniques. Of course, once you've tuned Mahoraga properly, all of that becomes secondary. You could just summon ten Mahoragas and slap your opponent to death."

"?"

Megumi Fushiguro, whose cursed energy was already drained from experimenting with barrier techniques these past few days, looked up at Xuan. After realizing the person before him was serious, Megumi Fushiguro silently broke out in nonexistent sweat.

Ten of them? That was pretty powerful.

"Of course, judging by how you are now..."

Xuan looked at the somewhat listless cursed energy around Fushiguro and shook his head.

"You could probably summon three, but you could keep outputting them."

"Seriously...?"

"Of course not. Mahoragas made from shadows have a hard time adapting to an opponent's techniques, because the extra shikigami formed from shadows aren't very strong. They usually get destroyed before they can adapt, unless the opponent is an exceptionally weak sorcerer—but is there really any need to adapt to the techniques of a sorcerer like that?"

"So... the ten Mahoragas are real?"

"Want to see them? I can adjust them and show you."

Megumi raised a hand and waved it.

"Forget it. I feel like that'd be way too much for me."

Megumi swayed slightly on his weakened legs and opened his mouth.

"Mr. Xuan, could I learn from some of the techniques you developed?"

"What kind of experience are you looking for?"

"Uh... partial manifestation of Divine Dogs, partial manifestation of Nue, partial manifestation of Toad."

Xuan nodded, then raised a hand.

"I made a binding vow. By paying a certain amount of cursed energy, I can fully activate a shikigami's technique through a partial summon without forming the corresponding hand sign."

"Do I need to make one too?"

"No, you don't. Not for now."

Megumi nodded and abandoned the idea of making a binding vow.

"Like this."

Xuan clapped his hands together and formed the wolf hand sign. A pitch-black shadow shaped itself into the head of a Divine Dog and wrapped around his palm. As Xuan spread his hands apart, cursed energy condensed around his fist into the shape of a wolf's head.

"This is Divine Dog Form Fist. After partially summoning Divine Dog, it lets you use Divine Dog's biting technique."

Xuan smashed one hand into the ground. The wolf head formed from shadows slammed into the floor alongside it. First, an impact mark from cursed energy appeared on the ground, followed by a dense scattering of bite marks across it.

"Then."

Xuan raised his hand and aimed at the trees in the distance.

"Just like when summoning it, aim in a direction and fire your cursed energy."

Whoosh!

The wolf head around Xuan's hand shot out as cursed energy surged into it, materializing into the upper half of a shadow wolf in midair—the wolf first snapped its jaws shut, then slashed outward with both claws.

"This is?!"

Megumi's cursed energy perception could not sense everything. All he saw was the wolf head vanish, followed by the trees in the grove suddenly gaining smooth cuts as though they had disappeared along with it.

Creak—

As the small trees toppled over, Xuan looked at the excited Megumi Fushiguro.

"The principle is to have the partially summoned shikigami attack. Its power is far below that of the shikigami's full manifestation, but it makes up for it with flexibility."

"I understand."

Megumi Fushiguro stared at the scene before him. A technique like Sukuna's slashes... was actually Divine Dog's technique?

If he mastered this, then... not only would his combat power greatly improve, but he might even be able to fight for a sliver of survival if Sukuna ever took over Itadori.

"I know what you're thinking."

Xuan waved his empty right hand.

"But this technique can only be used once. To use it again, you need to form the hand sign again—unless, of course..."

Xuan brought his hands together, black shadows writhing in his palms—this time, his target was not a small tree, but a humanoid target formed from shadows.

"Divine Dog."

Black shadows took the shape of Divine Dog and covered Xuan's hand before bursting forth from it.

"Divine Dog, Divine Dog, Divine Dog, Divine Dog."

As he continued chanting, Xuan kept his hand sign unchanged and unleashed ten slashes in an instant, leaving several cleaving marks across the black humanoid target.

"So as long as you maintain the hand sign and channel cursed energy while chanting, you can fire continuously?"

"That's right. You catch on fast!"

Megumi truly deserved his reputation at Jujutsu High as a genius Grade 2 sorcerer. That feeling of teaching someone who understood at a single prompt was something Xuan thoroughly enjoyed.

Megumi immediately formed a hand sign, taking up Divine Dog's gesture.

"Divine Dog!"

Black cursed energy condensed, gathering into a black shadow in midair.

Then, because his technique had burned out, it dissolved into black cursed residue in the air.

"..."

"Sorry... I forgot your technique had burned out."

Xuan covered his face with both hands, his index fingers sliding down from above the bridge of his nose as he finally buried his amusement in silence.

"It's fine, Megumi. You can practice again later."

"...Okay."

"Do the remaining few need any explanation?"

"Next time."

Bzzzt!

"Fushiguro, Mr. Xuan."

Along with the connection tone in their earpieces, Itadori's voice came through Xuan and Fushiguro's earpieces.

"Oh, Itadori. What is it?"

"I've already been invited in. Fushiguro can carry out his plan now."

"Need my help?"

Xuan held his earpiece, asking in a slightly teasing tone.

Fushiguro shook his head.

"Mr. Xuan, your cursed energy could easily expose you. If you're discovered, it might have a negative effect on the plan. The two of us will handle it ourselves."

"Alright. Then I'll just watch."

Meanwhile, on Itadori's side.

"Yu, you're only a first-year high school student? You're so young."

Itadori looked at Kirara Hoshi in front of him and recalled what had just happened.

After taking down everyone in the arena, the man who had brought Itadori inside told him to wait while he went to report to his superiors. So, while waiting, Itadori turned on his earpiece. After exchanging a few simple words, Kirara Hoshi suddenly appeared beside him. Itadori jumped in fright and hurriedly stopped channeling cursed energy into the earpiece, barely managing to fool her.

"Ah, yes."

"Did you know? Kinji repeated a grade in middle school."

Though she was talking about something rather discouraging, the girl(?) had a smile on her face.

"You seem pretty happy about it?"

"Yeah. After all, it's been a long time since Kinji got this fired up."

Kirara Hoshi led Itadori to the inconspicuous little shack in front of him.

...Ah, it really was this inconspicuous?

As Kirara Hoshi spoke, Itadori examined the building before him. It was such an unremarkable room, yet it was the underground gambling ring boss's office?

"I like Kinji best when he's all fired up."

Kirara Hoshi pushed open the door, and Itadori's gaze fell into the cramped room.

The black room contained several small glowing screens, likely something like a surveillance room. There was also a small glass table inside.

"Come in."

Itadori entered the cramped room. As he did, Kirara Hoshi closed the door behind him—then began carrying out the task Kinji Hakari had assigned her.

Itadori looked around the small room: a glass table, a sofa, a surveillance console, an ashtray, and a refrigerator.

—and Kinji Hakari sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed and propped on the glass table.

"Itadori, if someone told you, 'You only need to do something for one hour a day to earn one million a month,' would you believe them?"

"Huh? That depends on what it is. If it's robbing banks for an hour a day, making one million a month would be pocket change. You'd have to see what kind of thing it was."

Kinji Hakari looked at his phone, seemingly satisfied with that answer, before speaking again.

"If you want to know what kind of thing it is, you'll first have to pay 200,000 for the information."

"How could anyone believe that?"

Itadori's cheek twitched as he looked at Kinji Hakari before him. It's not like I look brainless, and senpai doesn't seem stupid either.

"Hahaha... As you can see, this is a classic scam! Scammers dress themselves up as rich people, then sell the secret to getting rich to those who believe them, making money that way. It's obvious what's going on if you just think about it, yet people keep falling for it."

Kinji Hakari put down his phone, then raised his head to look at Itadori.

"Do you know why?"

"Hm?"

"It's all because of passion."

"Passion?"

"Will taking care of these guys be enough?"

Fushiguro held the earpiece that had grown tiny eyeballs.

Although Xuan could not enter himself, he could still provide assistance.

Still, since they were asking someone for help, they could not deal with those guards too conspicuously. But considering the possibility that negotiations might break down, they still needed to prepare for the chance that Itadori would fail to reach an agreement.

After all, Itadori was someone who could not lie.

"That'll do."

Fushiguro took a breath. The cursed energy around him had only just condensed, barely enough for him to use a few shikigami.

At the same time, Itadori switched on the headphones' external audio function. Fushiguro could now hear Kinji Hakari's words—and Itadori's plan as well.

After dealing with the guards in the underground parking garage, Fushiguro left through the exit—only to run straight into Kirara Hoshi.

"You're—!"

Damn!

"'Gambling' is 'life.'"

"And 'love' is 'control.'"

As Kinji Hakari's voice continued to ring out, Itadori heard Kirara Hoshi's voice through his earpiece.

Oh no, Fushiguro had been spotted.

"In the future, I'll use the Fight Club to control this country's 'passion.'"

Beep beep beep beep beep!

Beep beep beep beep beep!!

As the ringing grew louder, Kinji Hakari's expression changed. He silently rose to his feet and confirmed that the caller was Kirara Hoshi.

"..."

"..."

Just as the atmosphere between them fell silent, a slash tore the door apart.

Then came a shout from outside.

"Kin-chan!!!! They came for you!!!"