The Vanishing Fingers

Breakfast was over.

Satoru Gojo lingered instead of leaving, pulling his chair out and swiveling halfway around.

He held a flip phone, his thumb tapping rapidly over the keypad. The screen's cold light reflected off his black sunglasses.

"Those little old men in Shibuya have been calling nonstop." He tossed the phone onto the table. "You know there's a limit to how many times I can cover for you."

Yang Jian unwrapped his second rice ball, took a bite, and said nothing.

Gojo's tone was casual, but there was something to his words-he wasn't complaining or issuing a warning. It was more like a statement made in advance.

What he meant was: I've helped you. Think carefully about what you do next.

Fair enough.

Three fingers. One had already been openly accounted for through Gojo. As for the other two, Yang Jian had never intended to leave them circulating, even before he entered Shibuya last night.

The question was where to move them.

The easiest option was to keep dumping them on Gojo and let him shoulder everything.

But with Gojo having made his position that clear, piling on more would amount to taking advantage of him.

Swallowing the last mouthful of rice, Yang Jian stood.

"All right. Got it."

Gojo tilted his head at him, a hint of surprise showing in the eyes hidden behind his lenses.

"Nothing else to say?"

"If there's nothing else, you can go," Yang Jian replied, dispensing with unnecessary pleasantries.

Gojo stared at him for two seconds. Apparently, he really hadn't expected him to be so straightforward.

He shrugged, sprang out of his chair, and snagged the half-finished can of soda Yang Jian had left on the bedside table. Then he shuffled to the door in his slippers and left.

Once the door shut, Yang Jian sat on the windowsill.

The fifth-layer ghost domain could make things vanish into thin air-in reality, it imprisoned them inside the ghost domain.

Once the two fingers were sent inside, it would be as though they didn't exist.

If Jujutsu Headquarters investigated, they would find nothing.

If the Six Eyes looked, they would see nothing.

Yang Jian raised his right hand, and the Ghost Eye opened.

He made no great spectacle of it. A beam of red light fell on Sukuna's Fingers, pushing both into the fifth-layer ghost domain. The whole process took less than three seconds, leaving nothing in his palm.

The streetlights outside were still on, their glow mingling with the morning sunlight. An occasional bicycle passed along the road.

It was a perfectly ordinary morning at Jujutsu High, utterly disconnected from the pool of blood on Shibuya's third basement level last night.

Yang Jian put away the Ghost Eye, lowered his head, and rummaged through the black cloth bag beneath the bed.

Inside was what he had recovered from the third basement level-the cursed energy core left behind after the Chopping Knife cut that special grade imaginary vengeful spirit apart. It had congealed into dense lumps, and even through the cloth, he could feel their heavy, sluggish weight.

He had already decided where this would go.

The Infirmary had fluorescent lights so white they looked bluish. Stepping inside felt like the temperature had dropped two degrees.

Shoko Ieiri sat at the lab bench, staring into the eyepiece of a microscope.

The coffee beside her had long since stopped steaming. The writing on her clipboard broke off at the third line.

When she heard the door open, she didn't even turn her head.

"It's not time for your blood draw yet. There's a clock on the wall outside."

"Delivery."

Only then did Shoko turn.

Her attention settled on the black cloth bag in Yang Jian's hand, and her gaze stayed there.

Yang Jian walked over, dropped the bag onto a stainless steel tray beside her, and loosened the drawstring.

Two fist-sized, deep-purple crystals rolled out.

Tiny cracks covered their surfaces. They resembled frozen, low-quality ink, with a dim glow seeping through their edges.

Shoko studied them without touching them.

"What kind of rocks are those?"

"A special grade cursed spirit's cursed energy core. The biological samples you wanted."

"Freshly dead?"

"Cut to pieces. These are the remains."

Shoko opened a drawer, took out a long cotton swab, and scraped its tip along the edge of a crystal.

The cotton tip blackened and began to crumble.

She threw the swab into the yellow medical waste bin, picked up her cold coffee, and took a sip.

"Very concentrated. You don't see quality like this often." She set down the cup, and the way she looked at Yang Jian changed. "Where did you get it?"

Yang Jian didn't take the bait.

"You mentioned wanting to study the biological structure of high-level cursed spirits. It's yours."

It was hush money, and an investment.

Shoko's gaze focused on the two congealed lumps. Her earlier languor vanished, overtaken by pure scientific curiosity.

"Rare material. If the circuits inside the remains aren't completely destroyed, I should still be able to reconstruct the microscopic structure from sections." Muttering to herself, she opened a cabinet and pulled out a pair of thick rubber gloves.

Yang Jian stepped aside, giving her room at the bench.

With the gloves securely on, Shoko picked up a crystal and examined it under the white light overhead. "Give me a risk assessment. Will it cause radioactive contamination? You have your own way of containing those nasty things. I trust your judgment."

"Put it in a pure aluminum or lead box, or a thick-walled sealed container. Its main body has dispersed. It can't spread on its own."

"Okay." Shoko returned it to the tray and resumed writing her report. "Has this thing ever been listed in Jujutsu Headquarters' files?"

"The higher-ups don't know what it looks like."

Shoko's pen paused for half a second.

Then it carried on smoothly.

She didn't ask where it came from.

That was the understanding they had developed during their time in this basement.

With some things, knowing their origins meant serious trouble. Treating them like meteorites that had fallen from the sky was better for everyone.

"That vial of blood I took last time," she said, introducing a new topic without looking up.

"Got results?"

"The decay curve is flattening." Shoko capped her pen. "It's not just slowing down. After this many days outside your body, its activity is starting to rebound."

It defied common sense.

Yang Jian said nothing.

Supernatural corruption had never followed the laws of physiology.

He had known his body would become like this back when he first took control of the Ghost Eye.

He turned to leave and rested his hand on the stainless steel door handle.

"One more thing." Shoko's voice came from deep inside the lab.

"Say it all at once."

"The underground barrier in Shibuya collapsed last night." Shoko mentioned it casually, as though reading the morning news. "The higher-ups at Jujutsu Headquarters were frantic at their meeting this morning. I heard they spent the night scouring the site and came up empty-handed. They lost a lot, both in substance and in face."

"I've heard a little."

"All right. That's everything." Shoko lowered her head and returned to her experimental data.

Only the electrical buzz of the aging fluorescent lights remained in the room.

He opened the door, and cold air from the corridor rushed inside.

Yang Jian slipped his hands into his pockets and headed toward the dormitories.

The two fingers had entered a blind spot in the fifth-layer ghost domain.

Shiu Kong had squared away the falsified accounts.

The deaths of those hidden lookouts in Shibuya had all been blamed on a special grade cursed spirit's rampage.

The Mole, "Crow," had also submitted an airtight report that deflected all responsibility.

There was nothing left to investigate.

The red light on the vending machine at the corridor corner glowed steadily.

He stopped, took out a coin, dropped it in, and pressed a button.

A can rolled into the dispensing slot. He pulled the tab, and bubbles surged up.

Yang Jian tipped his head back and took a mouthful of soda. It was on the sweet side.

The sound of slippers scuffing the floor came from the other end of the passage.

Gojo had his hands tucked into his uniform pockets and a piece of hard candy between his teeth. Under one arm, he carried a bag of strawberry daifuku from a convenience store.

They stopped some distance apart in the middle of the corridor.

Gojo lifted the bag of daifuku and gave it a shake.

He said nothing.

The gesture said he understood, but wouldn't spell it out.

Yang Jian acted as though he hadn't seen it.

He turned and took the side passage toward the dormitories.

Behind him, the sound of slippers headed toward the cafeteria.