The boy looked at the woman before him. She was the same as ever, so earnest and stern, yet an unspoken love shone through everything she did.
It was a mother's quiet love for her child...
Kamo Xu composed himself and scrambled awkwardly to his feet. Once he stood straight, he brushed off the dirt and carefully straightened his disheveled clothes before answering Kamo Kimie with a smile.
"Mom, what brings you here... It's cold out. Let's talk inside..."
It was like a dream. The boy within it was still at an age free of worries, while the person outside it hung his head, his gaze vacant.
His exposed black eye stared blankly at himself beneath the water, hollow and lifeless.
A gentle smile touched Kamo Xu's lips, but his reflection wore a vicious expression. Even the blindfold could not conceal his blood-red eyes. Bulging veins covered the skin around his eyelids, and he gritted his teeth as he glared at his other self.
His hatred became a crimson aura, constantly rising from his body. Like the cold air spilling out of an open refrigerator, it steadily ate away at the surface of the water where Kamo Xu stood.
But that resentment could not awaken someone who had willingly surrendered himself, nor could it break through the barrier of his descent. It could only stop on the other side of that thin divide, futilely staining its own world red...
The reflection kept corrupting and defiling the boundary between them. His lips moved incessantly, but his words were impossible to make out...
Yet as Kamo Xu remained utterly unresponsive, that figure grew ever angrier. His cursed energy became an ocean tide, relentlessly battering the other side of the water's surface.
Until the clouds and mist on [Kamo Xu]'s side were stained scarlet too... [Yang Xu] would never let this hatred end!
I curse you... I curse your incompetence!
Ah... I'm so sleepy...
Kamo Xu sat in the Kamo Clan's seat of honor, bored out of his mind. In this world, he had successfully become the clan head. One day, that old bastard Kamo had ignored everyone's objections and forcibly handed Kamo Xu the position he had occupied for so long.
That way, his mother could have an easier life, without having to endure that endless torment anymore...
Kamo Xu used the clan's assets to successfully cure his mother. Seeing her healthy again, no longer forced to suffer through illness and pain, the boy smiled from the heart.
With a grand wave of his hand, he spared no expense in throwing a banquet.
When his friends at Jujutsu High heard that Kamo Xu's mother had recovered, they all came to Kyoto to celebrate.
Shoko Ieiri and Riko Amanai, those two close friends, seemed to be inseparable. Riko Amanai greeted them enthusiastically before running off to the banquet, vowing to try every dessert the Kamo Clan had to offer...
Satoru Gojo was the same as ever, arrogant and conceited. Brimming with youthful confidence, he slung an arm around Suguru Geto's shoulders, and they greeted Kamo Kimie together.
Kamo Xu seemed to have very few bonds, so few that only the handful of people before him truly cared for him.
Yet he also had so many bonds... So many that those few people alone could fill every defining part of his life.
Seeing Kamo Xu standing there in a daze, Satoru Gojo joined Suguru Geto in hauling him off into the distance. He muttered that it had been ages since they had sparred and that he wanted to see what Kamo Xu could do.
Riko Amanai told them not to go overboard through a mouthful of food, while Shoko Ieiri covered her mouth and laughed.
The setting sun shone on their figures, bathing the young people in golden light, yet casting a shadow over Kamo Xu alone...
When it was all over, Kamo Xu collapsed onto the lawn, panting with exhaustion.
Kamo Kimie, his mother, sat quietly beside him...
"Asahi, how do you feel?"
Hearing the soft murmur beside his ear, Kamo Xu laughed freely and looked at the clouds the sunset had painted gold.
"Relaxed... It's been so long since I laughed without holding anything back."
"...You don't belong here." In the end, [Kamo Kimie] betrayed her creator and told this child who was not hers the truth.
"I know." Kamo Xu answered naturally, as though he had known all along that his [mother] would say those words.
Because he had always known that everything here was false, so false that he could recognize it without even looking closely.
Still, the woman could not help smiling at his answer. Together, they watched the sun slowly sink, quietly savoring their final moments.
When the sun had set and its last glow no longer enveloped them, Kamo Kimie stood up.
"It's time for you to go, my child."
"At the end... isn't there anything you want to say?" Kamo Xu turned his face toward his mother, looking at her familiar stern expression softened by a smile. "I'll never see you again..."
But Kamo Kimie said nothing else, only the few things the boy knew so well that he could recite them backward.
She told him to eat properly...
Find a good woman to marry...
Become an outstanding jujutsu sorcerer...
Kamo Xu smiled and turned his head away. His mother was the same as ever. She never knew what to say; all she could do was worry about his future.
Suddenly, warmth enveloped his whole body...
[Kimie] held her own flesh and blood in her arms. Her hands were icy, and her body temperature was low as well.
Yet her embrace was warm.
"You've suffered so much all this time, my child."
"You don't have to push yourself so hard. I can feel how tired you are. This isn't something a child should have to bear..."
He wanted to answer that he understood, only to find he could not speak.
He had already been crying, so helplessly that his sobs choked off every word.
Ah... I remember now.
Kamo Xu remembered. His mother had said those words to him so long ago...
His mother had left him more than a curse before she died...
The happiness his mother had left him had been there all along...
All of it... had always been in his memories, in the deepest recesses of his mind.
Kamo Xu's tears fell onto his mother's long sleeves, igniting a crimson flame...
The flames swelled in the wind, spreading along their bodies and across the entire fabricated world, burning away every illusion.
Everything collapsed, burning along with that golden light. Yet amid the sea of flames, Kamo Xu embraced his mother.
"Thank you, Mother..."
"I have to go exorcise cursed spirits now. It'll probably be a long time before we meet again, so please hurry and attain Buddhahood..."
Looking at the woman who still stroked his cheek even amid the flames, facing death with a smile, Kamo Xu uttered one final murmur...
[May we meet again in heaven]
Boom!
The first thing to stir was not his cursed energy, but his soul.
The blood throughout his body pierced his skin like blades. Indescribable pain instantly jolted Kamo Xu back to consciousness.
He slowly opened his eyes and placed a hand against his chest, where his heart kept beating.
Strong, powerful, beating without fail.
His chest felt full, heavy with everything it held.
"It's been so long since I laughed that happily. I really ought to thank you properly, you damned cursed spirit!"
Kamo Xu smiled and shifted his gaze to the fellow beneath his feet, the curse born alongside him, bound to him as his counterpart.
"All right, stop cursing at me." He stretched his limbs, then, once he had confirmed that his body had suffered no other effects, addressed the furious figure. "You're just a curse, yet you dare mouth off like that... It's time to get to work, Yang Xu."
The man in the world on the other side scoffed, closed his mouth, and increased his cursed energy output without being told.
In response, a terrifying blast of air erupted around Kamo Xu as well, the pressure created as vast amounts of cursed energy were forced out of his body.
[Answer me!]
At last, his cursed energy met no resistance. Under the pressure of their simultaneous eruptions, ripples spread ceaselessly across the water's mirror-clear surface.
Then, with a crack, the mirror shattered!
Kamo Xu became whole once more and looked toward the nearby monster, its naked body dripping with a disgusting, oil-like fluid.
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