Tokyo, the Jujutsu Higher-Ups' conference room.
It was a room without windows.
One of the old men spoke first.
"It's confirmed."
"Riko Amanai has indeed been resurrected."
"And Yu Haibara, the first-year Jujutsu High student who died on a mission five years ago, has also been resurrected."
He lifted his gaze from the documents spread across the table and swept it over the others present.
"The source is reliable."
"The supervisor responsible for postwar accounting inside Tokyo Jujutsu High personally confirmed both their identities at the scene."
"They were beside Satoru Gojo at the time."
His words had barely fallen.
The second old man on the left frowned slightly, his voice carrying obvious unease.
"Resurrection."
"How could something like that... possibly be done?"
"A domain our Jujutsu Society has spent over a thousand years researching without ever reaching... and that fellow Wangchuan accomplished it so easily?"
"Could he really know magic, just as the earlier rumors claimed?"
The old man opposite him spoke slowly.
"That's the only possibility."
"We all know something of his cursed technique."
"It couldn't accomplish a miracle like this."
"Yes..."
"It could only be."
"Magic."
The old man leaning back in his chair picked up the thread, his lips curving in something that was hard to distinguish as mockery or wariness.
"He calls it magic."
"Not cursed energy, not a cursed technique, but something else."
"It sounds utterly absurd, but the facts are before us."
The old man at the head of the table tapped the tabletop lightly.
He cut off everyone's voices.
"What matters most right now isn't discussing what method he used."
"It's what this means for us."
"Resurrection."
"I believe everyone here understands what it means for someone to possess that ability."
Silence fell around the long table for a moment.
Everyone's gaze