"That's way too indulgent." Satoru Gojo hung up his phone and flicked a pebble off the roadside with his toe, sending it straight into the campus's ornamental pond. Ripples broke up the sky's reflection on the water.
"That's what Lord Tengen ordered?"
"Be reasonable, Satoru." Suguru Geto kept both hands in the pockets of his loose trousers. "Principal Yaga passed on Lord Tengen's exact words: fulfill her every request. Think of it as one last chance to indulge herself."
Suguru Geto looked toward the corridor windows of the classroom building. "The countdown has already begun, after all. Once she undergoes the Purification Process and merges with Tengen, she'll become a cornerstone of the barrier, bound forever to the Tombs of the Star Corridor at the very bottom of Jujutsu High. She'll never see her family or friends again. Every choice she should have had in life will be taken away."
Kuroi stood beside them with her head lowered, gripping the leather strap of her handbag tightly. Her spirits sank.
"Letting her do everything she wants is the most dignified farewell we can give her." Suguru Geto tried to make this cruel process sound a little more reasonable.
Yang Jian, who had remained silent beside them, gave a short, cold laugh. In the somber atmosphere, it grated on their ears.
"What a fine speech. Body possession is body possession. Why dress it up as 'merging'? What, are you brainwashing yourselves too?"
Yang Jian swept his gaze over them as though looking at idiots, his voice flat. "You're coaxing and deceiving a little girl into going to her death. Don't use a veneer of holiness to cover up the bloody reality. This so-called merging is nothing more than that thousand-year-old monster hiding underground erasing her independent consciousness. Once the ritual is complete, she'll become part of Tengen. Tengen will never become her."
In a few blunt sentences, he tore away the religious fig leaf so carefully woven by the higher-ups of Jujutsu Society.
His words left the air dead silent for a full half minute. Satoru Gojo kept his hands in his pockets and offered no rebuttal. Kuroi buried her face even deeper, her shoulders trembling slightly.
Satoru Gojo rolled his neck and broke the deadlock first, throwing an arm casually over Suguru Geto's shoulders. "Forget the higher-ups' rotten business. Any word from that network of Cursed Spirits you sent out to keep watch?"
"My Cursed Spirits can't share their vision perfectly like Miss Mei's crows. I can only work out locations when I lose contact with them." Suguru Geto frowned. Just as he was about to tap into his senses, his expression darkened.
"Two have been exorcised. Third floor of the classroom building on the left."
Suguru Geto's words abruptly quickened as his professional instincts snapped him into combat mode. "Satoru, hurry and get Riko. I'll stay here and clear out the remaining rats."
"There's no need."
Yang Jian spoke without warning.
Both of them turned to look at him.
Before his words had faded, the natural light around them was forcibly seized. The campus beneath its blue sky and white clouds seemed to have its outer skin peeled away, replaced by a thick crimson that made their eyes ache. Red light sealed off the entire school complex. The physical laws of the real world ceased to apply here.
Then the twisted shadow clinging to the ground behind Yang Jian defied gravity and stood straight up.
The featureless black silhouette extended two arms that looked as though they had been smeared together from ink, then casually grabbed at empty space a dozen meters away.
Within the red light, distance was forcibly erased.
In the blink of an eye, two living men appeared suspended above their heads, like rags yanked out of a washing machine. They were the hidden assassins: one a shriveled old man, the other a burly man with a ridiculous rectangular paper bag over his head.
Both were still suffering from the severe disorientation of spatial displacement. They hadn't even managed the most basic opening stance for their Cursed Techniques, let alone mustered Cursed Energy to defend themselves.
There were no elaborate probing attacks. The pitch-black shadow invaded their bodies directly.
A numbing, icy supernatural presence brutally shut down every bodily function and neural reflex. It was an overwhelming suppression from beyond their dimension.
The man instinctively tried to struggle, but Ghost Shadow had already seized control of his limbs. The shadow's palms closed slightly inward.
Crack.
Bones shattered with the muffled sound of internal organs being crushed. Even their last breath of oxygen was squeezed out. The two assassins who had been planning to collect the bounty mere seconds earlier became two mangled, breathless specimens on the spot.
Ghost Shadow withdrew his hands once the deed was done. His black, mudlike outline spilled onto the ground and settled beneath Yang Jian's feet again.
With two wet smacks, the corpses struck the concrete curb bordering the greenery.
The red light receded in an instant, and brilliant sunlight shone down once more.
"Do you still want to leave her some time to hold a farewell ceremony at school?" Yang Jian barely raised his eyelids, as though he had merely stepped on two troublesome ants.
Kuroi came back to her senses with a sharp gasp and bowed repeatedly in thanks.
Yang Jian stared at a concealed spot by a utility pole outside the school gates and continued, "There are plenty more underlings prowling the surrounding streets. They're all ordinary people. Looks like peripheral small fry hired by Tengen's fanatical followers. Since they dared to put up a hefty bounty on the black market, they'll keep watching us like a pack of hyenas. Want me to kill them all while I'm at it?"
He directed the question at Suguru Geto.
The words "ordinary people" struck squarely at the bottom line of Suguru Geto's defenses.
Geto glanced at the head on the ground, still covered by its paper bag, and his heartbeat faltered. Yang Jian's killing efficiency, that icy disregard for human life, went far beyond the ethical limits any Special Grade Sorcerer ought to observe.
"Leave it." Suguru Geto's Adam's apple bobbed as he suppressed his surging emotions. "There's no point."
He had to hold fast to his doctrine that sorcerers existed to protect non-sorcerers, even though witnessing Yang Jian's methods had already begun to loosen the soil around that seed.
A faint scoff slipped from Yang Jian's throat, and he said no more. Good advice couldn't save someone determined to die. Suguru Geto would have to hit that wall himself.
Satoru Gojo stepped over the bodies in two strides and approached Yang Jian, even trying to reach out and examine the patch of ground where Ghost Shadow had stood.
"Hey. How'd you pull those two guys over out of nowhere? Some kind of spatial folding Cursed Technique?"
"Everything inside my Ghost Domain is under my control." Yang Jian glanced at him and explained, "Distance, direction, the medium-it's all defined by me. If I want to send someone straight into a magma layer deep underground to be cremated, it takes nothing more than a thought."
Satoru Gojo lifted one side of his sunglasses. His Six Eyes worked rapidly, trying to piece together and analyze the residual fluctuations from a moment earlier. It was useless.
Yang Jian turned toward the school's rear gate. "You're on your own from here. I've acted once, so I've done my part. Besides, weren't you complaining about getting rusty, itching for a fight with nowhere to let loose? You can handle all the work from here. Perfect."
"Tch." Satoru Gojo pushed his sunglasses back into place. "I could wipe out this whole pack of worthless scum with one finger."
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