Greed

"What is your relationship?"

Ryomen Sukuna lowered his gaze slightly. His scarlet eyes swept over the headband on the Black-Haired Boy's forehead before settling on those gray-blue eyes.

Ryomen Sukuna had seen those rope people more than once-rotting or fresh, fragments of limbs knotted together, muscle, fascia, and fat entwined. He could easily do the same if he wanted, but there was no need.

There was no cursed energy in Alluka's body. She was as frail as a lamb awaiting slaughter, but that thing was different.

Sure enough, siblings or not, they were all monsters.

"Nanika is my little sister~ We both love Brother~"

Alluka drew out the soft ending of her words, answering in a wheedling tone. She tilted her head up slightly and looked over with her round, catlike eyes.

"Little sister?"

As though something had occurred to him, Ryomen Sukuna scoffed and said noncommittally, "Then let's meet her."

Alluka cheered, pressed her palms together, and closed her eyes. Her consciousness sank deep within her, and Nanika emerged in her place.

Thick black cursed energy, almost solid, enveloped her entire body. When she opened her eyes again, her features had become bottomless black holes, and churning, murky air flowed slowly around her.

She turned her head stiffly and stared toward Ryomen Sukuna, motionless and unblinking.

Uraume felt physically unwell the instant Nanika appeared.

That cold, sinister resentment made his hair stand on end, even though he was a jujutsu sorcerer whose cursed technique manipulated ice. An endless chill welled up from the depths of his soul, yet Ryomen Sukuna seemed not to feel it at all as he rested a hand against his neck and bent down.

"So this was the cursed energy that twisted those idiots into those shapes."

Scarlet eyes met black, cavernous ones for several breaths. Throughout it, Nanika simply stared blankly at Ryomen Sukuna. Her features were stiff, incapable of much expression.

She was different from Alluka.

Nanika could clearly sense the negative emotions around her. Those emotions, laden with desire, became nourishment that sustained her body. She sensed no genuine negative emotion from Sukuna. She knew he neither disliked nor hated her.

She held out both hands expectantly, looking at Ryomen Sukuna, eager to grant his wish.

Contrary to her expectations, Ryomen Sukuna merely raised an eyebrow and gave an unrestrained laugh.

"Keep up."

He turned, tossed the casual order at Uraume, and left.

They had planned to leave today anyway. The appearance of Uraume and the Fujiwara Clan Elites had already delayed them considerably.

After he left, Uraume and Nanika were left staring at each other.

At that point, Uraume could no longer spare any thought for the cloying sensation that unsettled him. He hoisted Nanika onto his back and hurried after Sukuna.

Lying on Uraume's back, Nanika slowly broke into a grin. Amid her eerie laughter, she reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck.

In just the time it took Uraume to get Nanika onto his back, Ryomen Sukuna had already left them far behind.

They had barely left Heian-kyō when another group from the Fujiwara Clan arrived at the abandoned residence.

The sight of bloody water and severed limbs everywhere did not surprise them. But when they submitted their report, Fujiwara Michimitsu smashed several precious enamel vases in a fury.

When Alluka opened her eyes again, Uraume had already brought her to another residence.

Ryomen Sukuna disliked the surroundings in Heian-kyō. This residence had been offered to him as tribute. Unlike the young girls sent as sacrifices, food and lodging were clearly much more to his liking.

Nanika had fallen asleep on Uraume's back, and Alluka, who shared her soul's sensations, had no idea what happened afterward either.

She picked up the kimono and haori beside the bedding and threw them on haphazardly. When she went outside, her tabi-clad feet pattered cheerfully along the wooden veranda.

"The jujutsu sorcerers have gathered. It seems they intend to join forces to subjugate you this time."

From far away, Alluka heard a gentle, mellow voice. She poked her head out and met a stranger's gaze.

The man was peerlessly beautiful. He slowly waved a folding fan, his long hair cascading like a waterfall to his waist. But upon seeing Alluka, the confident, calculating smile on his face froze for a moment.

"So this is the one you snatched from the Fujiwara Clan. Word has already spread everywhere."

He waved his folding fan and looked at Alluka with an ambiguous smile, but Alluka noticed only the uneven, cross-shaped suture on his forehead.

"Where are you looking?"

Ryomen Sukuna raised an eyebrow impatiently, his voice distinctly displeased.

"My apologies, my apologies."

Kenjaku gave a wry laugh and withdrew his gaze from Alluka.

After Ryomen Sukuna left the capital, news that he had a girl capable of granting any wish at his side spread through all of Heian-kyō like lightning.

Seeing no hope of reclaiming Alluka, the Fujiwara Clan threw caution to the wind and decided to eliminate her. Their first step was to reveal her ability.

If Sukuna used Alluka to do something irreversible, the entire country would be destroyed.

The Fujiwara Clan selectively concealed part of the information. The others knew nothing of the equivalent exchange involved in Alluka's wish granting. Merely hearing that she could even increase someone's cursed energy set every heart stirring.

If they could eliminate Ryomen Sukuna, couldn't they even become emperor themselves?

Once the black box of desire was opened, it would never close again.

When they learned that someone's cursed technique could grant wishes without demanding a price, they fixated on her like hyenas, consumed by greed. Even the existence of a monster like Ryomen Sukuna could not stop their ever-growing desires.

Others might not understand how Alluka's wish granting worked, but Kenjaku knew everything and was happy to see this happen.

His cursed technique allowed him to possess other people's corpses by transferring his brain.

This was already the fifth corpse he had switched to in the past few years.

Because of the collective punishment principle governing that equivalent exchange, his bodies always somehow became entangled in it, caught up in the reckoning dealt by the cursed spirit within Alluka.

Commoners, nobles, monks, samurai...

In the hundreds of years he had lived, Kenjaku had never faced hardship like this.

Except for the first time, whenever he found a promising vessel, the original owner's inexplicable personal connections would drag him into the abyss.

After this happened several times, Kenjaku finally unraveled the Fujiwara Clan's plot. He infiltrated the clan intending to eliminate Alluka, but before he could act, Ryomen Sukuna unexpectedly intervened and snatched her away.

Kenjaku did not know what relationship Alluka had with Sukuna.

When he saw Sukuna tacitly allow the girl to sit down, he felt that some unpredictable development had slipped beyond his expectations.