Mission

[Record: Gregorian calendar, April XX, 2006, 14:23. Weather: clear

Incident summary:

* A large-scale disturbance occurred underground at Nagamachi-Minami subway station in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture. An investigation by [Window] discovered three traces of unregistered cursed energy residue at the scene.

* A large quantity of banknotes of unknown origin appeared out of thin air, causing widespread traffic paralysis. The incident left 76 dead and 132 injured. Of the fatalities, 42 died in a stampede, 6 in resulting traffic accidents, 2 of suffocation, and 26 were killed by curses from one of the three sources of cursed energy.

* The incident is believed to have involved a three-way battle between curse users/cursed spirits. One of them killed 26 civilians with curses.

* No bodies of curse users were found at the scene. The individuals are presumed to be at large and pose an extreme danger.

* Jujutsu Headquarters intends to dispatch Jujutsu High sorcerers Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto to investigate this incident.]

Tokyo · Jujutsu High, second-year classroom

Masamichi Yaga, a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer and teacher at Jujutsu High, stood at the lectern. He turned his laptop around and displayed unreleased photographs of the scene one by one.

The incident had happened too suddenly. Although the police had reached Nagamachi-Minami subway station as quickly as possible and cordoned off the scene, they had already been too late. Many civilians had been caught up in the resulting stampede.

After the police department mobilized officers from across the city to evacuate all the survivors, a vast amount of cash still remained at the scene. It took them a long time to clear the station, which had been clogged with banknotes from some unknown source. On the second basement level, they discovered many more people who had been murdered.

The police retrieved the station's surveillance footage, only to find that some unidentified signal seemed to have interfered with the cameras, reducing the images to static.

[Window] and the jujutsu sorcerers who arrived to assist took over the subsequent investigation.

"Huh? A curse user went all the way to a subway station just to throw money around?"

A white-haired boy in a black school uniform stared in astonishment at the photographs of bodies piled amid banknotes. He gently lowered the small, vintage round sunglasses perched on his nose, revealing azure eyes of extraordinary beauty, as though the sky stretched within them.

"Satoru, shouldn't money be the least of our concerns right now?"

Beside him, a black-haired boy with his hair tied in a bun and an odd lock of bangs hanging over his forehead gazed at the dead bodies in the photographs with a conflicted expression.

None of the photographs they had seen were censored. Compared with those who had died in the stampede, the wounds on the people tortured to death by the curse user were far more horrifying.

"...The source of the money is still under investigation. In any case, the higher-ups are sending you to Sendai to investigate this incident and apprehend the culprits. If you can't capture them alive, eliminate them on the spot."

Masamichi Yaga slapped the lectern hard enough to make the cup sitting on it shake twice.

"Huh? This many people died, and those higher-ups are actually ordering us to prioritize taking them alive?"

Satoru Gojo dug at his ear in disbelief, as though he had heard something he shouldn't have.

"Mr. Yaga, doesn't that go against jujutsu sorcerer regulations?"

Suguru Geto frowned, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his eyes. He couldn't understand why they had specifically ordered such vicious curse users to be taken alive.

"I'm not entirely clear on that myself. In any case, go carry out your mission!" Masamichi Yaga said with a deep frown.

"Yeah, yeah, we got it."

The two boys waved and walked out with their arms slung over each other's shoulders.

Behind them, Masamichi Yaga could faintly hear their conversation.

"Geto, do you think the curse user conjured all that money out of thin air? Using the Construction Technique would take a ton of cursed energy, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know. So many lives, just gone like that..."

Sendai

"Are you idiots?!"

Kenjaku finally lost his patience and roared at Uraume over the phone. He could no longer maintain the composure he had cultivated over a thousand years.

Only a few days had passed, and they had already made headlines this big.

With such an enormous amount of money involved, not to mention the stampede, the news had already spread beyond Japan. Even American television stations were reporting on the incident in Sendai.

Had Uraume grown older all these years without getting any smarter? Did Ryomen Sukuna choose his subordinates based on looks rather than intelligence?

Kenjaku was truly speechless.

"What else can we do? It's already happened!"

Uraume rolled his eyes on the other end of the line, having given up on salvaging the situation.

Who knew how Toji Fushiguro, a man from the Three Great Families, could be so greedy? Just thinking about the next person Alluka would make demands of gave Uraume a headache. How steep would the price be? The thought left him feeling awful.

"The higher-ups have already sent Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto to Sendai. Go somewhere else and lie low."

Like Uraume, Kenjaku had also thought of the price the next person would have to pay.

The first reason Kenjaku had kept Alluka around was that he couldn't kill the child.

If he killed Alluka, the thing inside her would go berserk. Kenjaku had already suffered for that once and had no intention of suffering a second time.

The second reason was that some of his goals might require Alluka's help to achieve. Who could have imagined that the child would be a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at the slightest misstep? There was simply no way to keep her hidden.

"Yeah, got it."

With that reply, Uraume hung up.

Alluka and Yuji were sitting in the living room looking at picture books. Wasuke Itadori had clearly noticed something. Every time he looked at Uraume over the past two days, he seemed about to say something, then stopped himself. Uraume coldly ignored him.

"This is a dinosaur~ A Tyrannosaurus rex. It could grow over ten meters long..."

Wasuke Itadori pointed to the illustration in the picture book in his hands, patiently teaching the children.

"Grandpa, can my little sister make a dinosaur appear?"

Yuji chewed on his finger as he asked the rather silly question.

Boys naturally took an interest in things like dinosaurs, Ultraman, and Superman. They already had a few little toys at home that they had bought on trips to the supermarket.

Little Yuji Itadori was curious about what a real dinosaur looked like.

"No, you don't want to see a real dinosaur."

Wasuke Itadori blanched at Yuji's dangerous remark. He cautiously checked Alluka and only relaxed a little when he saw that she hadn't changed.

Other people's children were satisfied with toys when they wanted to see dinosaurs. Why did his little troublemaker want to see a real one?

Wasuke Itadori still felt terribly guilty whenever he thought of those people who had died so inexplicably.

He didn't dare imagine the danger if a real dinosaur appeared, burst through his house, and charged into the street.

At that moment, Wasuke Itadori genuinely wanted to slap himself. He shouldn't have shown them a dinosaur picture book. He should have picked a Flower Fairy or Sailor Moon book instead.

"Do you really like dinosaurs, Brother?"

Alluka set down the colorful ball in her hands and looked curiously at Yuji Itadori with her round eyes.

"N-not really."

Yuji Itadori sneaked a glance at his grandfather. Seeing the cold sweat on his forehead, Yuji decided it would be better not to say what he really thought.

Grandpa doesn't seem to want to see a real dinosaur!

Then I don't want to see one either!

The man who had died that day had left a deep impression on Yuji, but after they returned home, his grandfather had told him they had been playing a game. Yuji had nodded without quite understanding.

Children always had plenty of energy. By the time Uraume finished the call and spoke, Yuji's attention had already wandered away from the picture book.