Lord Fujiwara gazed pensively at Alluka's small, childish face, considering the connections between her requests.
After Genkai had asked only questions about her ability, this child's request to the next person had been for Huixiang to dance.
Yet when Huixiang wished to become a jujutsu sorcerer, the child's request to the next person making a wish had changed to a kneecap, a body part unique to humans.
In principle, when people prayed to the legendary eight million gods, they offered their devotion and sacrifices.
But when someone made a wish to this child, the price they paid was merely granting her three requests. That did not follow the principle of equivalent exchange. So what powered the cursed technique used by this child and the thing inside her?
"Try refusing her."
Fujiwara's voice rang through the room, brooking no argument.
To him, the monks in this room and all those warrior monks were pawns of the Fujiwara Family, expendable at a whim.
He glanced at the reluctance on the monk's face, his black eyes filled with lofty indifference.
The monk with stitches across his forehead had stiffened as soon as Alluka spoke.
This was the second time today that this child had made a request of him.
And this time, it was no simple task like a kiss or a hug.
Just as before, the moment the child spoke, an intense sense of dread enveloped his entire body. That elusive sensation felt like a binding vow, yet not quite.
Others might not have noticed the difference, but he, with his extensive research into souls, was very familiar with that feeling.
His mind raced as he tried to find a way out of his predicament.
The right patella was his right kneecap. It was important, certainly, but losing it would not be a particularly serious problem.
He had a strong premonition that refusing this child would lead to an irreversible outcome, yet granting this request did not quite fit his plans.
Just as he considered staying silent and brushing it off, he looked up and met Fujiwara's cold gaze. The jujutsu sorcerer wearing Genkai's shell sighed softly.
Fine. This child's cursed technique clearly used names as its activation condition, and Genkai wasn't his name. There was no harm in trying.
"You can't have that~"
He bent down slightly, a faint smile in his narrow eyes, hoping to bring himself closer to the child with a friendly tone.
Alluka tilted her head, her long black hair tumbling loosely around her. Her baby-blue eyes blinked as she held out her hand again, seemingly oblivious to the refusal.
"Then, Genkai, can you give me your hip bone?"
The black-haired child's smile was pure and gentle, the polar opposite of the horrifying request she voiced.
Uncertainty and alarm surfaced in the stitched monk's narrow eyes.
This child's requests were actually escalating.
In a flash, he rapidly analyzed everything he knew about Alluka.
This set of requests was far more difficult than the previous two. He did not know whether that had anything to do with Huixiang's wish.
The hip bone was located in the human pelvis and was even more important than the kneecap. His instincts told him these cruel requests might have something to do with the child's own will.
He weighed what the child wanted against the importance of his current identity.
Losing a few body parts was nothing to fear. He could simply repair them with Reverse Cursed Technique.
Reconstructing missing body parts might be difficult for a low-level practitioner of Reverse Cursed Technique, but it was easy for him.
But...
He raised his eyes to meet Fujiwara's gaze, exhaled deeply, and said, "You can't have that either."
"Then, Brother Genkai, can you give me your liver?"
Sure enough, it was just as they had expected.
After two refusals, Alluka's request escalated again, and Genkai still chose to refuse.
This was the child's third request, matching the three requests required to make a wish.
The atmosphere in the room had not changed, and that monster-like being with hollow features had not appeared.
The black-haired child spread her small hands, her eyes curved in a smile. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"No."
He made his third refusal, letting his guard down a little.
That should be the end, right? It matched the three requests from before.
But just as his expression relaxed slightly, the child made a fourth request.
"Genkai, can you give me your brain matter?"
Unlike the other three organs, hearing this word made the young man in monk's robes go completely rigid.
"I refuse."
He reached up to touch his forehead, where the binding vow he had made lay.
The moment those words left his mouth, endless cold spilled through his body. Even cursed energy could not dispel it.
A spine-chilling, shrill laugh arose from nowhere in the silent room.
A clammy sensation wound around his entire body, while twisted, horrifying images flickered beneath the candlelight.
Agony shot down from the nerves in his brain, as though his entire body would explode the next second.
"No..."
The Black-Haired Boy tilted his head, staring unblinkingly as the person before him exploded into a cloud of blood in an instant.
All that blood splashed over her white clothes like scarlet ink.
The pungent smell reached her a moment later.
The child remained seated amid the bloody froth, her long black hair hanging loose. A few strands fell across her forehead, casting a shadow in her clear blue eyes.
Amid all that blood, only her expression remained utterly pure and innocent.
Lord Sugawara opened his mouth, but his voice seemed blocked, churning in his throat.
"You..."
So this was how those rope people had been created... Then how many would there be this time...?
"Go and check..."
He turned to give instructions to Huixiang, who had just become a jujutsu sorcerer, only to see the little monk collapse in agony, his face contorted as he clutched his chest.
Then, before his very eyes, an unknown, unstoppable force stretched and twisted a jujutsu sorcerer's body with terrifying speed, until he became a heap of foul-smelling Rope Person.
Lord Fujiwara tried to take a step back in terror, but his feet felt pinned beneath an immense weight. He could not lift them at all.
He stared fixedly at the Black-Haired Boy kneeling there, desperately trying to discern something in that innocent face.
The atmosphere grew tense. Afraid their lord might be harmed, the warrior monks and samurai beside Lord Fujiwara rushed to surround him, fearing that even a second's delay might let Alluka injure their noble lord.
Inside the room, three other little monks had been twisted into rope people along with Huixiang.
"Lord Fujiwara! There are so many in the temple..."
Into that frozen silence, a young novice in ocher Monk's Robe came trembling through the doors.
But when he entered the hall and saw the scene before him, he was struck speechless.
"Lock her up first, then count the dead."
Only after leaving that cold, sinister Main Hall did Lord Fujiwara wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, still shaken.
As one of the figures who held power in the Fujiwara Clan, he had witnessed the deaths of all manner of subordinates and political enemies. Yet none of those scenes had affected him as deeply as what he had just seen.
That power was neither jujutsu nor physical force. It seemed to exist out of nowhere, like a rule.
He could tell that the child herself was an ordinary person. The power belonged to the thing inside her, something that resembled a cursed spirit yet was not one.
The previous Rope Person incident had killed more than two hundred people. There was no telling how many had died this time.
Granting the child's requests allowed someone to make a wish. Refusing her meant dying on the spot.
They had yet to work out the pattern behind the number of deaths.
This child's ability truly was a double-edged sword. Used well, it might indeed kill without a trace.
After everyone left, Alluka leaned gently against the bed and began talking to herself in the room filled with solemn sandalwood incense.
"Nanika, did you say something got away?"
When Master Genkai died, she thought she had seen a white light flash past. By the time she tried to look closely, all she could see was a cloud of blood.
"I wonder where my brother is. Will he come get me?"
"Do you think he'll come too, Nanika?"
"I'll see my brother in my dreams! And Little Ume!"
After talking to herself for a while, Alluka curled into a ball. With soft, slow breaths, she hugged the thin quilt and drifted into a sweet sleep.