A few days after the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons ended, Jujutsu Headquarters completed its final assessment of the upheaval that had swept through Shinjuku, Tokyo, and Kyoto.
The report was a thick stack of papers, its ink still wet, every word steeped in the winter chill.
All the cursed spirits had been exterminated, including the two special grade cursed spirits Suguru Geto had deployed onto the battlefield, each powerful enough to destroy a city.
The cost, however, had been devastating.
Special Grade Sorcerers Yuki Tsukumo and Satoru Gojo had been gravely wounded by Kashimo in the fierce battle and were still receiving treatment from Shoko Ieiri.
Kashimo himself had escaped Jujutsu High's encirclement with the gravely wounded, dying Suguru Geto. Their whereabouts remained unknown.
The incident was officially classified as a special grade incident.
As for Kashimo's defection from Jujutsu High, the meeting at Jujutsu Headquarters lasted an entire night. Voices rose and fell behind the paper doors. Some slammed the table in fury, some remained silent, and some repeatedly leafed through Kashimo's complete file: his recruitment on Yuki Tsukumo's recommendation, his appointment as a hand-to-hand combat instructor, his repulsion of Snow Woman, his requisition of the Ruyi Staff, and finally, his defeat of two special grades and escape with the wanted fugitive Suguru Geto.
Every entry was perfectly clear, yet none of them added up to a reasonable explanation.
In the end, Jujutsu Headquarters reached a unanimous decision.
A warrant would be issued for Kashimo's arrest.
Effective immediately.
July 2018, at night.
Night had deepened, and the streetlights cast hazy rings of yellow light through the damp air. A man in black Buddhist robes, a faint line of stitches running across his forehead, walked shoulder to shoulder with a tall man whose long turquoise hair was