Weakness

"Are you... someone with a heavenly restriction?"

Uraume spat out a mouthful of blood. By the time he straightened fully, reverse cursed technique had already healed the wound from the ambush.

He sensed that Alluka and the others had come down. Deliberately keeping himself from looking their way, he glared at the man before him instead.

While passing the subway station earlier, he had sensed something amiss inside. When he entered, he saw a curse user attacking ordinary people.

Ordinary people normally had nothing to do with him, but they needed to take this subway to get home. Uraume hadn't thought much of dealing with a mere curse user. Who knew someone without any cursed energy would suddenly appear and ambush him?

"Reverse cursed technique? Since when did curse users have someone like you among them?"

The man named Toji Fushiguro raised an eyebrow, his expression growing guarded. His earlier languor was gone.

Reverse cursed technique was an advanced form of cursed energy manipulation. It multiplied the cursed energy produced by negative emotions-a negative times a negative made a positive-to generate positive energy for healing.

Compared to Heian-kyō a thousand years ago, today's Jujutsu Society had declined far too much. So far, only two people in Jujutsu Society could use reverse cursed technique: Shoko Ieiri of Tokyo Jujutsu High, and Yuki Tsukumo, the sole Special Grade.

Toji Fushiguro hadn't expected some random curse user he encountered to be capable of reverse cursed technique. It genuinely surprised him.

"Enough talk. If you want to fight, then fight."

Out of the corner of his eye, Uraume caught sight of Wasuke Itadori pulling the two children into a corner. He stopped holding back and raised his palm to his lips. As he breathed out, a freezing wind blew from beneath his hand.

Ice Condensation Cursed Technique-Frost Calm activated.

The frosty vapor stretched into a bone-chilling wind, carrying cursed energy as it formed an enormous iceberg that came crashing down toward Toji Fushiguro.

If the iceberg struck Toji Fushiguro, his body would freeze solid, leaving him unable to move.

But the instant Uraume attacked, a black figure swept forward like a gale, lunging toward him before the iceberg could hit the ground.

An invisible blade gust sliced through a gap, sending debris and broken stones flying off the ground.

Uraume leaned backward, arching his back. Just before he hit the ground, he planted both hands and flipped backward onto his feet.

Once he had put some distance between them, cold air appeared in Uraume's hand again. An ice cone formed from cursed energy gradually grew larger. Toji Fushiguro moved with incredible speed, and the two figures became so tangled together that Alluka and Yuji couldn't make out their movements.

As the two fighters repeatedly closed in and broke apart, the man who had initially been lying on the ground, his fate unknown, got to his feet at some point.

He was so ordinary-looking that he would be impossible to pick out of a crowd. Noticing the rapidly shifting battle before him, he didn't even dare look back. Holding his breath, he sprinted several meters away.

But just as he ran in front of Alluka, a cold steel blade tore through the air and plunged straight into his back, piercing his heart.

"Zen...in Toji..."

Blood trickled down in winding streams. As the curse user collapsed, he murmured that name in broken fragments.

An overwhelming killing intent swept past.

Alluka blinked her innocent eyes and looked over curiously. Beside her, Yuji froze in fright for several seconds, then opened his mouth to cry. Wasuke Itadori swiftly clapped a hand over his mouth.

After that thrown blade, the two combatants slowed, their movements gradually becoming visible to the naked eye.

"Tch. I married into my wife's family. My surname isn't Zenin anymore."

Toji Fushiguro glanced at Uraume and spat a brown worm out of his mouth. The worm-shaped cursed spirit gradually grew larger and coiled around his neck.

He drew another cursed tool that suited his hand from the worm's mouth.

Two days earlier, Toji Fushiguro had accepted a job on the Curse User Website to hunt down this curse user.

He had investigated the curse user's itinerary. After learning that the man had bought flowers and planned to meet his girlfriend for a tryst, he had intended to lie in wait and deliver a fatal blow at the end.

Everything had been going according to plan, but while eating, Toji Fushiguro discovered that the curse user had deviated from his itinerary and stopped at the subway station. When he arrived, he found another curse user beating up his target. This development did not fit Toji Fushiguro's plans.

Curse users generally weren't very stable mentally. Their emotions fluctuated wildly, often carrying a streak of utter madness.

Toji Fushiguro didn't know what had set his target off and made him start lashing out at society. When he shifted his gaze to the man, he happened to spot two little brats about his own son's age.

The pink-haired child was nothing unusual, but the black-haired one...

With a casual glance, Toji Fushiguro detected Nanika's presence.

The extraordinary body granted by his heavenly restriction made his five senses exceptionally keen. He sensed that the cursed energy within the black-haired child's body was remarkably powerful.

Behind the child, something black and alive seemed to writhe in a swirling vortex. Whatever was hiding there looked ready to burst out of that body at any moment and descend into this space.

While Toji Fushiguro was studying Alluka, Uraume's pupils contracted, and he moved to attack again. But Toji Fushiguro was faster. Before Uraume's ice cone could strike, he had already darted forward and snatched up the black-haired child.

"So this is your weakness?"

Toji Fushiguro's senses were extraordinarily sharp. He noticed even the slightest change in Uraume's expression.

"Put Alluka down!"

Seeing Alluka get grabbed brought a scene Uraume had experienced before rushing back before his eyes. Furious and frantic, he raised the ice cone in his hand to strike Toji Fushiguro, but fear of hurting Alluka kept him from attacking.

"Hah? Go on, attack."

Toji Fushiguro's lips curled in a malicious smile.

Once he saw that this child really was the white-haired curse user's weakness, he began to find things interesting.

Curse users who could hold their own against him were rare, and this one had brought children to the subway station, too. Had they really only met by chance?

As the two faced off, Yuji struggled and squirmed desperately in Wasuke Itadori's arms. The instant his grandfather lowered his hand, he burst into loud sobs.

"You bad guy! Waaah... Alluka, Nanika, put my little sibling down!!"

Rain fell from his misty, pale-gold eyes, tears spilling in fat drops. Through his sobs, Yuji Itadori glared at Toji Fushiguro like a little beast.

"Brother Yuji..."

At Yuji Itadori's cries, the child dangling from Toji Fushiguro's hand instantly took on a different appearance.

Sinister and uncanny, like a monster straight out of a horror film, the child slowly turned a stiff neck to look at him.

The hand Toji Fushiguro held the child with grew unnaturally cold. Just looking over brought a horrifying chill, like insects crawling across his skin, leaving him deeply unsettled.