Selfish desires

The black-haired boy lay on the ground with her eyes closed, her head drooping slightly. Her steady breathing made it clear that she was merely asleep.

A glance was enough for Kenjaku to tell that Alluka had simply collapsed into sleep from exhaustion and was in no real danger. He then examined Tengen's regrown ear cartilage and little finger.

For an instant, a trace of fervor and astonishment shone in his eyes.

"She can actually use positive energy similar to Reverse Cursed Technique. How fascinating."

He reached out to lift Alluka, only for another hand to stop him.

"Are you using me as a test subject?"

Tengen crouched down, holding her fingers just in front of Alluka's neck. Her voice was flat, betraying little emotion.

"I wouldn't quite put it that way."

Kenjaku spread his hands in a seemingly helpless gesture.

"She once turned an ordinary person into a jujutsu sorcerer in a matter of seconds, and she can twist people in different locations into rope people in an extremely short time. I can't observe that curse's cursed energy flow, so I figured she must be able to reverse it and use a power opposite to destruction."

Even now, Kenjaku vividly remembered the instant Huixiang had been infused with cursed energy and become a jujutsu sorcerer, as well as the warning signals his brain had sent after he refused four of Alluka's demands.

That terror, which had left his hands and feet trembling, was branded deep into Kenjaku's soul. Had he not reacted quickly, that invisible power might have long since twisted him into a limp rope person.

When ordinary jujutsu sorcerers used jujutsu, some amount of cursed energy would leak from their bodies. He could not identify precisely which cursed technique someone intended to activate the way Sugawara Satoru's Six Eyes could, but he could still sense the flow of cursed energy to some extent.

The curse inside this child's body made no preliminary movements to activate a cursed technique. It simply killed people out of thin air, with effortless ease.

That was why Kenjaku suspected Alluka's cursed technique was not powered by cursed energy formed from negative emotions. Such a claim might overturn the common understanding of jujutsu sorcerers, yet for some inexplicable reason, he believed it.

Besides, she had called it wish-granting herself.

How could wishes only bring destruction? If they could destroy, why couldn't they heal as well?

Kenjaku's intrigued gaze settled on the soundly sleeping black-haired boy.

Just when he thought he already understood Alluka thoroughly, she had given him another surprise. It really would be a shame to let Tengen kill this child.

"Say, if all cursed spirits were like her, wouldn't that usher in another golden age of cursed energy?"

Kenjaku rubbed his chin, suddenly finding the idea rather appealing.

If other cursed spirits could also use positive energy similar to Reverse Cursed Technique, just as that curse did, could cursed energy be optimized to an unprecedented degree?

If he extracted that cursed spirit capable of using Reverse Cursed Technique from Alluka's body, then had it produce offspring with a human, surely his research would achieve an unprecedented breakthrough.

At that thought, a plan began taking shape in Kenjaku's mind.

"Don't bring your disgusting schemes here."

Tengen frowned slightly, then said, "It looks like things are nearly over on Ryomen Sukuna's end."

Long before today, she had set up a Barrier Technique around the battlefield. Thus, even without being there, she could know in advance what was happening where Ryomen Sukuna was.

There was a measure of selfish desire mixed into it, too.

To extend her Barrier Technique over the entire country, the first thing she would have to do was kill a seemingly innocent child.

To save people, she first had to kill someone.

It made all of this feel utterly unreasonable and absurd to Tengen.

"Is that so? Those jujutsu sorcerers really are useless." Kenjaku sighed.

"In that case..."

With a flick of the folding fan in his hand, he moved to attack Tengen.

Their goals had always been diametrically opposed.

If Ryomen Sukuna had died, Kenjaku might have gone through the motions and kept up the act with Tengen a while longer. But now...

He reached out and snatched Alluka away, only to see an exceedingly thin line of blood appear across the child's neck.

Only once she was in his hands did that bloody line split open.

Amid the sound of rushing blood, Alluka opened her eyes. But the omnipresent chill intensified to its utmost, and her dilated pupils gradually lost their color. Without support, her head drooped helplessly backward.

Her frail chest shuddered a few times, unable to bear the strain. Blood dripped down her throat, and she coughed violently several times, her breathing all but gone.

"Just as you understand me, I understand you very well."

As Kenjaku tried to turn against her, Tengen's lips curled slightly upward.

She had known Kenjaku for a hundred years. How could she not know what he intended?

She had merely wanted to see whether this child could free her from the shackles of the Star Plasma Vessel. She had never expected to come so close to being maimed.

Fortunately, there was still time to put everything right.

As long as she killed this child before Ryomen Sukuna returned, there would still be time.

To kill Alluka while she was under Kenjaku's protection, Tengen had specifically borrowed a strand of cursed energy from Sugawara Satoru and sealed it inside a talisman.

That way, even if Ryomen Sukuna survived, he would not be able to trace the cursed residue back to her.

Moreover, she had deliberately targeted the vocal cords so the child could no longer speak and make demands.

"Is that so?" Kenjaku replied noncommittally.

His gaze shifted to Alluka, and he felt it was something of a waste. Although this child had killed him several times, that cursed spirit really did seem useful. Just as he lowered his head, considering whether to save her with Reverse Cursed Technique-

Strange shapes kept bulging beneath Alluka's skin, as though something had infested her body, roaming within it and about to burst out.

Wisps of murky black vapor drifted around her body as if alive. Through that frail frame, a huge, translucent, distorted shape gradually emerged.

Through its outline, which resembled strands of blood, a shrill wail faintly rang out.

It wept softly, as though the entire world had abandoned it.

That sound pierced the body and fell upon the soul.

Kenjaku felt as though someone had seized his heart and dragged it downward. Every negative emotion reached its peak in that instant.

It was as though countless hands were reaching out from that distorted shape, trying to drag him into a churning swamp of filth, slime, and malice.