Masamichi Yaga looked at the obedient Utahime before him, then thought of the flippant, grinning Satoru Gojo. How could two people be so different?
"Ah, if only Satoru were half as obedient as you." Masamichi Yaga interlaced his fingers in front of his mouth and sighed in frustration.
Satoru Gojo was the most difficult student he had ever taught, and also the most gifted. Masamichi Yaga had known Satoru Gojo since his own student days and was one of the few people who understood him.
But Satoru Gojo was so rebellious that even as his homeroom teacher, he sometimes found himself helpless against this problem student.
"To think even you can't do anything about that bastard, Mr. Yaga." A strange expression appeared on Utahime Iori's face.
Masamichi Yaga saw through what Utahime Iori was thinking at a glance.
"Utahime, you're thinking something rude, aren't you? You're their senior. Don't let those first-year brats lead you astray." Utahime Iori meekly kept silent.
Masamichi Yaga smiled.
"Never mind. You've been working hard lately, Utahime. Take a day off and relax." "Also, call Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto over. I have a mission for them." A short while later.
"Mr. Yaga, I only just got a little sleep. Is something urgent?" Satoru Gojo yawned, his eyes bleary.
This guy!!!
A large vein bulged on Masamichi Yaga's forehead. "Mr. Yaga, please give us our assignment."
The speaker was a handsome boy with his hair in a bun, slender eyebrows, and a lock of bangs hanging to one side of his forehead. Standing beside Satoru Gojo, his identity was obvious.
He was Satoru Gojo's closest friend at Jujutsu High, Suguru Geto.
Suguru Geto was supporting the drowsy Satoru Gojo, his helpless tone carrying a trace of indulgence. "Satoru, you're going to make our teacher angry."
"Mm, it's fine, Geto. Mr. Yaga is so kind. How could he get angry with me?" Suguru Geto: "..."
"Satoru Gojo, you bastard, at least show some manners in front of our teacher!" The sight of Satoru Gojo infuriated Utahime Iori, and she could not help lecturing him.
Had Masamichi Yaga not been there, she would have punched Satoru Gojo in the head and shown him the authority of a senior.
"Come on, Utahime. It's not as if Satoru only started acting like this today." Suguru Geto stepped in to smooth things over.
Masamichi Yaga rubbed his forehead. This was far from the first time he had seen a scene like this. "All right, settle down."
"Business first. This is the information for your mission." Masamichi Yaga handed over a photograph.
Suguru Geto took the photograph and examined it closely.
It had been taken around dawn. The sun had only just risen, and the sky was still dim.
Perhaps because of the poor lighting, the image was somewhat blurry, but he could just make out that it was a hospital.
In the landscaped strip beside the hospital, five people hung at odd angles from thick shrubs. Judging by their builds, they were all adult men.
The sharp branches had pierced their skulls. Their dead faces were twisted and horrifying, their eyes filled with immense terror. There was no telling what horrors they had experienced before dying.
"An investigator took this photograph the day before yesterday. The hospital has already been sealed off, and I need you to investigate. These five people died in extremely strange circumstances. A cursed spirit was most likely responsible."
Masamichi Yaga paused, then continued.
"If you find a cursed spirit and it's within your capabilities, exorcise it on the spot!"
? -
Chapter 17: The Q Organization's secret
Satoru Gojo and the others at Jujutsu High were preparing for their mission. Meanwhile.
Inside an abandoned cemetery in Sendai City.
"The cursed spirits our branch used for surveillance have been exorcised. We've also lost contact with the person in charge there." Beneath the pitch-black cemetery, a middle-aged man dressed as an ascetic monk slowly opened his eyes.
The middle-aged man's face showed neither sorrow nor joy, but his gradually reddening eyes made it clear that their owner was not in a good mood.
"Was it those jujutsu sorcerers?"
"No, those so-called orthodox jujutsu sorcerers generally don't go out of their way to provoke curse users." The middle-aged man dressed as an ascetic monk gazed into the pitch-black underground space and murmured to himself. "We've spent far too long in these sunless sewers. Soon, very soon..." With a whoosh, a ghostly blue flame rose in the dark underground chamber. A second followed, then a third.
The ghostly blue firelight instantly filled the entire underground chamber. It gave off no warmth; instead, a bone-deep chill spread through the air. The middle-aged man rose and slowly walked to the center of the chamber, looking fanatically at the giant egg at its very heart. "Soon, very soon..."
"With just a little more nourishment, the special grade cursed spirit Hannya will be born..."
"All it takes is a direct descendant of any one of the three great families to fully awaken Hannya..."
The ghostly blue flames flickered, illuminating the piles of bones on the ground around the giant egg. His figure concealed in darkness, the middle-aged man's face now resembled an evil spirit's.
Clearly, the nourishment the middle-aged man spoke of was the unfortunate people who had gone missing over the years.
Now, however, they had all become what he called nourishment, sacrificed to the giant egg before him.
The blood-red egg radiated an ominous aura. Countless curses and grudges intertwined, densely covering its shell.
Yet the middle-aged man seemed not to see any of it. He paid it no mind, instead stroking the egg's surface with fascination. This giant egg was the Q Organization's greatest secret, the vessel nurturing the special grade cursed spirit Hannya.
The middle-aged man was one of the Q Organization's current leaders, a grade-one curse user named Kimura €€suke. Kimura €€suke's duty was to watch over "Hannya" and continually supply it with nourishment until the moment of its birth. After all these years, the nourishment "Hannya" had absorbed was nearing saturation.
Once the final step was complete, "Hannya," a special grade imaginary cursed spirit born from humanity's fear of ghosts and monsters, would emerge from legend into reality.
"Chi, take the cursed tool 'Trace' to the branch."
A dark figure separated from Kimura €€suke's body. In the dim firelight, its face proved to be identical to Kimura €€suke's.
Cursed technique: Chimimōryō. It split off four personalities, each capable of existing independently.
Chimimōryō was the cursed technique Kimura €€suke took such pride in. Possessing it was like having four duplicates. Chi was one of those four duplicates.
Kimura €€suke's main body needed to remain at headquarters, so he could only send Yi to investigate why the organization's branch had been attacked. "Trace," which Chi held, was a projection cursed tool capable of recreating scenes of events that had actually happened.
Elsewhere, Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto had reached the sealed-off hospital that was their mission site. "Ready, Satoru? I'm going to lower the 'Curtain.'"
After sensing the unusual aura coming from inside the hospital, Suguru Geto brought two fingers together and lowered the "Curtain." "Emerge from darkness, darker than darkness; purify every trace of tainted residue."
As the "Curtain" activated.
The previously clear sky slowly darkened. A black spot appeared overhead, followed by darkness that gradually spread down to the ground like ink.
Within a few breaths, the entire hospital was enclosed in a hemispherical "Curtain." A "Curtain" was a barrier that allowed curses to manifest.
The "Curtain" Suguru Geto had lowered served to keep ordinary people outside from entering.
No jujutsu sorcerer wanted ordinary people interfering and distracting them during combat. In battles against cursed
spirits, that was taboo.
Jujutsu sorcerers had lost their lives to cursed spirits because of ordinary people before. To learn from those lessons.
Lowering a "Curtain" before exorcising cursed spirits had become an established convention in Jujutsu Society, just as people closed their eyes before going to sleep.
As someone with Cursed Spirit Manipulation, Suguru Geto was well practiced at this. With the "Curtain" lowered.
The hospital seemed to transform.
The hospital, previously merely quiet, suddenly became deathly still. It was pitch-black inside, and the thick darkness seemed capable of swallowing every trace of light.
Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto exchanged a glance, each seeing the meaning in the other's eyes. There really was something seriously wrong with this hospital!
"I'm so jealous of Utahime. She's probably enjoying a leisurely day off right now." "I wish I could be sitting in a dessert shop, enjoying a relaxing afternoon tea too."
Satoru Gojo pushed up the sunglasses on his nose and looked back at Suguru Geto. "Let's race, Geto. The loser buys the winner afternoon tea."
Chapter 18: An awkward Satoru Gojo
With that, Satoru Gojo stepped through the hospital's entrance. "How sneaky, Satoru."
Suguru Geto gave a wry smile and followed close behind Satoru Gojo.
"What should I have for afternoon tea? Strawberry cake or mango mille crêpe?" Satoru Gojo kept his hands casually tucked into his pockets.
He looked so relaxed and carefree that he seemed to be strolling through a shopping mall rather than heading into battle.
"Satoru, at least be a little more alert. Every time I go on a mission with you, there's absolutely no tension." Suguru Geto surveyed the pitch-black hospital, his tone somewhat helpless.
Satoru Gojo's talent and strength were absurd.
His innate Six Eyes, combined with the Limitless technique passed down through his family, had created the monstrous existence that was Satoru Gojo. At least so far, Suguru Geto had never met another jujutsu sorcerer of their generation who could compare to Satoru Gojo. Satoru Gojo was like a dazzling sun, reducing all the jujutsu sorcerers of his generation to mere backdrops.
Even with his Cursed Spirit Manipulation and potential assessed as special grade, Suguru Geto felt a profound sense of powerlessness when facing Satoru Gojo.
So every time he went on a mission with Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto felt his presence was dispensable. "What's with this inexplicable sense of defeat...?"
Suguru Geto shook his head and pushed those distracting thoughts aside. A mass of black mist shrouded the hospital's interior.
The black mist was incredibly dense, disgustingly thick.
It reminded Suguru Geto of the taste of cursed spirits, sticky like a rag soaked in excrement. In the black mist, the hospital corridor was so dark that he could not see his hand before his face. Visibility was less than a meter.
Click, clack...
A crisp, strange sound came from deep within the hospital corridor, then vanished. Suguru Geto narrowed his elegant, upturned eyes, trying to pinpoint its direction.
Satoru Gojo also stopped, looking into the depths of the black mist.
The clicking and clacking sounded again. The black mist gradually thinned, and Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto finally saw the source of the noise within it.
"Needles... needles..."
Five cursed spirits, their lower halves shaped like high heels and their upper halves resembling women's severed legs, mindlessly muttered as they approached the pair with a click-clack.
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