Choso
Nobody understood the bond of blood like one of the Death Paintings. And among the Death Paintings, none understood it as deeply as he did. Choso was the older brother, the first of a mutated group, not quite human, yet not quite cursed spirits. They were a mixture of the two.
They were a result of Noritoshi Kamo's twisted and unforgivable experiments with their mother. To think he had hated the wicked man with every fiber of his being, and yet, he had sat in the same room as him, drank together, laughed together, joked, and conspired together.
It had taken too long to click. Even back then, there had been something familiar in those dark eyes, some twisted sense of humor, like he knew a joke or secret Choso had not known. It had taken Choso almost beating his brother to death before he realized the cosmic joke of his existence.
Brother pitted against brother.
Noritoshi Kamo might have been the one to create them; he might have supplied them their inherited yet various twisted forms of the same cursed technique, but not even he understood the true bonds of blood, not the way they did.
Itadori had ducked a jab, only to be folded by a kick to his chest that cracked ribs. Choso had felt a pang of pain he did not understand. However, the boy was stubborn. He juked back, then shot forward into his guard to launch rapid blows at him that he easily weathered with Flowing Scale. He had remained still like a tortoise slinking into its shell to weather his blows, until all of a sudden, he spotted it. An opening.
He rushed in, deflecting an overextended blow and burying two sharp haymakers into the same spot he had buried his feet a few seconds ago, and this time the surprisingly strong ribs had no choice but to break inwardly with a sickening crack. Itadori Yuji was flung back immediately, vomiting a mouthful of blood, and for the second time in their fight, Choso froze at the sensation of sympathetic pain.
Then he stood still, watching as Itadori Yuji lay bleeding out and injured before him, and he suddenly understood. The understanding was a sharp, revealing sensation of enlightenment. The only time he had felt sympathetic pain was when one of his brothers was about to die, and looking at Itadori bleed out before him, he finally recognized him, finally recognized the blood that lay splattered on the ground, the crimson liquid that stained his fist red.
Choso looked at Itadori Yuji and realized he was looking at his brother.
He sat hunched beneath the staircase and rocked in place as everything suddenly became clear. The snide remarks, the funny looks, the dark eyes that held so much amusement, the utterly intelligent mind, and aged wisdom hidden behind young features, that startling sense of familiarity.
Kenjaku was Noritoshi Kamo.
Noritoshi Kamo was Kenjaku.
He had been such a fool. It was startlingly obvious in hindsight. How Kenjaku had known so well about them, about their creation, and the optimal method to incarnate them once more in this modern era. Kenjaku had sent his younger brothers on a crash course to face Itadori Yuji and the rest of Jujutsu High on purpose, so he could watch with sick joy as brothers killed brothers.
He had been surprised that Choso had been able to tell when his brothers were dead, even with the distance of miles separating them, but he had taken it easily, recovering from it like it was not far fetched.
Kenjaku was Noritoshi Kamo.
Choso stopped his rocking as he remained in place, as that insidious thought and realization continued to hammer at his head. They had promised each other, the three of them, Choso, Eso, and Kechizu. They were the only three with actual sentience, enough to truly understand and communicate even while in the jars. The rest of their six brothers were aware, but their awareness was a dim existence.
They had all promised themselves that if, for any reason, they managed to come back, they would take revenge on the man who did this to them, to their mother. They would take their revenge on Noritoshi Kamo, and yet, when they had been incarnated, it was too late. A whole hundred and fifty years later, Noritoshi Kamo's name had been struck out of the Kamo clan's history. He had been erased for his crimes and atrocities, leaving only a blank space and a whispered name.
Choso, Eso, and Kechizu had been too late to take their revenge. That was what Kenjaku told them, an amused look in his dark eyes, and a soft smile to soften the blow.
Kenjaku was Noritoshi Kamo.
Choso gritted his teeth as grief quickly transitioned into anger and rage. His jaws flexed, and his enamel cracked from the force he was using to bite down in his rage. Kenjaku must have looked at them like fools, manipulating them right from their birth until their death. But Kenjaku had made a mistake. He had underestimated Choso, underestimated the love he had for his brothers.
His brothers were dead now, Eso and Kechizu, but as Choso sat hunched under the stairway in the destroyed Shibuya train station, he began to hallucinate better times.
They were in a park. The sun was bright, slipping through the branches of the tree the whole group was seated under and having a picnic. Kechizu had happily opened the picnic basket with childlike wonder and happiness, and Eso simply stood in the background, a chef's apron across his chest. Eso had taken up the culinary arts shortly after his incarnation, with the vague hope of cooking professionally, one of the occupations where he would not have to turn his back to people.
Kechizu quickly spread the food on the ten plates available, even though only three people could eat. The remaining six were more symbolic for their brothers in the jars. Even if they did not quite share their awareness, they had enough awareness to know what was happening.
Then the final plate.
A voice called out, and they all turned to see Itadori Yuji walking up to them with a nylon bag in hand. "I got drinks!" their brother called with a smile as he sank into his own seat. Choso smiled at a family made whole.
A rough shake of his shoulders jerked him out of his delusions.
"Who, what?" he asked in confusion as he turned and viewed a strange man.
"Are you alright? I'm with the emergency services. Do you feel any pain, any discomfort?"
Choso simply looked at the man with confusion. Then he looked past him to see dozens of men and women dressed like him. They were lifting dead bodies and putting them on stretchers before walking away with them.
A finger snapped before him, and when he turned to look, a light was shone into his eyes. His reflex came to life, and he slapped the torch hard enough to send it flying. The man jerked back in response, scrambling back at the sudden violence.
How long had he been here, Choso wondered. Hours? Days? He did not know. He did not know what to do anymore. His brothers were dead, the others were safely stored, but he was alone. He blinked in realization. No, he was not alone. He still had a brother left, a brother that needed his protection and guidance.
His job was not done yet, and like a fire that had been lit in his gut, Choso shot up to his feet, and without sparing the still shocked man a glance, he began to walk, his feet taking him forward, past confused and surprised men and women as blood once more called to blood.
__
It was not often they met in this particular chamber. The elders of the Jujutsu society preferred the ritual formality that hid their identity behind wooden slides. It was a simple formality because in truth, they knew the identity of each other.
Today, that formality was discarded due to the seriousness of the issue at hand. The door opened up to a simple room at the heart of Jujutsu High, revealing a table lacquered black, long enough to seat fourteen, and tonight every seat was to be filled.
They had no formal leader; instead, they simply sat as they cared to. The moment they had all arranged themselves, doors were sealed, and for a short moment, silence was all that remained.
Yoshinobu Gakuganji was the only one standing. He held a strange position. He was not quite an official elder, but he was respected and honored enough to stand among them.
To his left sat the representatives of the great clans. The Zen'in elder, Ougi Zen'in, the father of Naobito Zen'in. He was a wrinkled old man whose eyes had the flat quality of someone that lacked basic human decency. Beside him, the Kamo elder, straight backed and correct in the formal robes that the clan had worn to council proceedings for four hundred years. The Gojo clan seat was occupied by a man named Arata, silver haired, in his late seventies. The former clan head had held the position for eleven years since Satoru had taken his position, and he spent most of those years being the most feared person at this table until today.
Gojo Arata had brought documents tonight. He had placed them before him, and in clear view of everyone. Gakuganji was not sure how useful it would be, but it was not his place to speak, so he simply shifted his weight to lean more on the reinforced case of his guitar.
The Shinto priestess, Shizuru Mori, sat with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes slightly lowered. Her posture was one of subjugation, but not a single person thought the near ancient woman was submissive to them. The Divine Maiden beside her was younger, perhaps fifty, which would mark her as the youngest person here. The Buddhist elder, a bald man built like a mountain despite his age, was called Daishin and occupied his chair, his form near spilling out while his prayer beads moved between his fingers in a slow, continuous circuit that had not stopped since he entered the room.
The remaining seats held the aged leadership of organizations whose names appeared in no public record, but with influence nonetheless.
Ougi Zen'in spoke first.
"Shibuya."
He let the word sit there alone for a moment, because it deserved to, then he continued.
"The casualty figures have been compiled. The cursed spirit activity has unfortunately gone out of hand. The curtains did not hold long enough to limit civilian awareness to a level that our standard suppression protocols can address. To say nothing of this ritual Master Tengen has warned about." He unfolded a single sheet of paper before him, glanced at it once, then set it aside. "The Shibuya incident was not a natural occurrence. It was orchestrated. The evidence for this has been reviewed by three independent assessors, and their conclusions are in agreement."
"Geto Suguru," said the Zen'in elder, without inflection.
"The individual presenting as Geto Suguru," Arata Gojo said in response. "Given the confirmed death of Geto Suguru six years prior, the question of identity is not yet resolved."
"However, the question of culpability is," Ougi replied as he looked around the table. "The Shibuya Incident and aftermath bears the same signature as the events at Shizuoka Village and the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. The same methodology and the same disregard for civilians with the same end point of releasing thousands of stored curses on Japan." A pause. Ougi turned to Arata. "Whether the body is Geto's or not, the mind directing it has done this before."
"And Gojo Satoru," said the Kamo elder, without turning to look at anybody. He did not need to. The effect on the room was felt at once. Gakuganji almost felt pity for Arata. This was a farce. He knew it, they knew it, even Arata knew it, and yet he tried to fight it regardless.
"Gojo Satoru," Ougi confirmed, "had encounters with Geto Suguru on multiple occasions, and finally led us to believe he had been killed by the hands of his student."
A smile slipped into his voice as his attention remained focused on Arata. The two men had been at loggerheads since they were children. Age did nothing to change those feelings.
"Unfortunately, the same individual is now confirmed to have been operating freely, coordinating the largest single act of terrorism, utilizing rogue curse users, transfigured humans, and the greatest cursed spirit mobilization in recorded modern history against a city of thousands. The question before this council is whether Gojo Satoru's repeated failure to provide a permanent conclusion constitutes negligence, or something more deliberate."
Arata set his hand flat on his documents.
"I will speak to this," he said.
Several faces turned toward him with the specific expression of people who had already decided not to be moved by what he was about to say. Gakuganji shook his head at the futility of it all, at the script being played out before him.
"The framing of those encounters as failures requires selective reading of the operational reports, which I have here." He tapped the documents before passing them around. "On the first occasion, Gojo Satoru was operating under standing orders that explicitly precluded unilateral termination of a former Jujutsu High student without council authorization." A creative usage of the laws on rogue executions. The authorization had been given hours later, of course, but that did not change the fact that when Gojo Satoru met his erstwhile friend, the higher ups had not finalized a decision. Gakuganji almost clapped.
"On the second, the encounter occurred with multiple students in play. On the third..." He paused. "The third encounter was more complex, and regardless of actions, they led to Suguru Geto's death, which shows that using negligence as intent is flawed."
"The outcome is the same regardless of intent," the Shinto priestess said, not unkindly. "Shibuya happened."
"Shibuya happened because someone with Geto Suguru's cursed technique and years of preparation chose to make it happen," Arata said. "Assigning primary culpability to the man who was sealed inside a prison cube for the duration of the incident requires a degree of creative interpretation, don't you think?"
"He was sealed," said the Divine Maiden, "because he arrived. Because the entity calling itself Geto lured him there specifically, which suggests a familiarity with his movements and a confidence in the outcome that is itself worth examining."
"That is speculation," Arata said.
"Most of what we do is speculation rendered into policy," she replied. "That has never stopped this council before. To say nothing of Sukuna's actions in Shibuya, actions that should have been impossible if Gojo Satoru had followed our will by executing the boy."
The room was quiet for a moment.
Ougi chuckled, then spoke again. "The council's position, reached by majority in pre-session, is as follows." He did not look at Arata. "Gojo Satoru is to be considered exiled from the jujutsu world, effective from the date of his sealing, which is hereby recognized as a consequence of his own actions and associations rather than an act of aggression against him. His status as a special grade sorcerer is suspended indefinitely. Any attempt to remove the seal currently containing him is to be classified as a criminal act and treated accordingly."
Arata was very still. They all knew he had the words to make his case, but unfortunately not the power to enforce them.
"Furthermore," Ougi continued, "any resources, personnel, or affiliated institutions that move toward removal of the seal will be considered in violation of council authority and subject to appropriate response."
Arata looked at his documents for a long moment. Then he gathered them, slowly and with great care, and placed them inside the leather folder he had brought them in. He closed the folder. He set it aside. He pushed his chair back from the table and stood, and the sound of the chair legs on the old floor was very clear in the silence. He smoothed his kimono.
"I will note," he said, to no one in particular, "that I have served on this council for eleven years, and that in those eleven years I have watched it make multiple decisions that I considered to be mistakes." He picked up his folder. "This is the last." He looked at Ougi briefly. "I am dismissing my position. Whatever comes next, the Gojo clan will not be lending it legitimacy through my presence here. You have won, old friend. Now you deal with the repercussions of your decision."
"Arata!" the Shinto maiden called, but the Gojo was deaf to her words. He simply walked out the door, and no one spoke until the door had closed behind him, and even then, the silence held for another moment. No one had ever exited the council before. No one had ever even considered it. Gakuganji looked at the others and spotted the worry on their faces. Not even Ougi Zen'in was free of it, even if he masked it quicker than the others.
Then the Kamo elder said, "Yaga Masamichi," and the council moved on.
"The question of Yaga is complicated," said an older man from a fringe organization called Tenketsu. "He might have trained Suguru Geto. He also trained Satoru Gojo. The argument for culpability in instruction is not without merit."
Gakuganji frowned.
"The argument would have more merit," the Divine Maiden said, with the careful precision of someone who realized what her words had aided in doing earlier, "if the instruction itself could be demonstrated as negligent. Geto's divergence was not a product of poor training. If anything, it was a product of training that was too successful, applied to a mind that drew conclusions the instructor did not intend."
"The distinction between negligent instruction and instruction that produces dangerous outcomes may be philosophically interesting," the Zen'in elder said, "but it does not change what Geto Suguru did, nor the fact that Yaga Masamichi was his teacher."
"No," she agreed. "It doesn't."
"Yaga also led the response coordination for the northern sector of Shibuya," Daishin said, his prayer beads continuing their slow circuit. "The casualty figures for that sector are the lowest of the four. His intervention is documented." He did not elaborate. He did not need to.
"Which is precisely why an immediate execution would be imprudent," Gakuganji finally said. It was not his place to speak, but he made a token effort of it regardless. "There are those who would frame it as punishing a man for saving lives during the crisis that is being used as the pretext to charge him." This was simply another play. Gakuganji knew they wanted Yaga dead, but it was not simply because his fellow principal had trained Geto.
There was a brief silence before the shrine maiden spoke. "The death penalty is formally recorded as pending. Its implementation is to be deferred pending full investigation. This gives us the time to manage the context appropriately."
No one objected, and so they moved on to the next topic.
"Itadori Yuji," Ougi said with an uncharacteristic grunt.
"The vessel is still alive," the Kamo elder said.
"Confirmed."
"Then the execution order stands."
"The question," said the man from Tenketsu, "is one of timing and possibility of success, not of the order itself." He folded his hands. "The Fushiguro boy."
"Megumi Fushiguro's position is irregular," Daishin said. "He is technically a Fushiguro by name, but his bloodline and cursed technique make him a Zen'in. A Zen'in with a shikigami powerful enough to stall Ryomen Sukuna for a period of time and even win." They all looked at Ougi at once.
The Zen'in elder's expression did not change, but something in the set of his jaw did. "Megumi Fushiguro is a Zen'in matter."
"Not simply, no," Shizuru Mori disagreed. "Megumi Fushiguro is currently attached to the vessel through sustained operational partnership," the Divine Maiden said, "which makes him a council matter when the vessel's execution is under discussion. Megumi Fushiguro and his shikigami have shown the power to be a deterrent to whatever decision we make on Itadori Yuji, do you see?"
"So we simply need to know where he stands before we make a decision," Tenketsu finished.
The room considered the words. Gakuganji looked at them as they slowly came to the realization that Megumi Fushiguro was shaping up to be a threat and deterrent to them in the same way Gojo Satoru was. He imagined Satoru would be laughing in amusement at this scene if he could observe, and for the first time, that thought did not fill Gakuganji with annoyance.
"We bring him in then," Ougi said finally. "Send someone to summon Megumi Fushiguro. He is to be assessed. His loyalties, his capabilities, and his current state of mind following Shibuya. We will make our determination about the vessel once we have a clearer picture of the variable that complicates it." He looked around the table. "In the meantime, send Usami Kento to investigate and draw more information from live witnesses on the actions of the... Divine General."
The rest of them had not noticed it, perhaps other than the shrine maiden, but Gakuganji had. There was a surprising emotion in Ougi's voice when he had finished his statement. If Gakuganji did not know better, he would think it was fear, which would make sense. More than any other person on the council, he was the most familiar with the Ten Shadows Technique and the feared Shikigami it held.
224Megumi
Megumi walked along the empty streets of Tokyo, dark eyes glancing at darker corners as the sun slowly began to set on the horizon. The sound of waves splashing against the concrete pillars that held up the bridge he walked on was the only sound that could be heard for meters around him.
It was the 2nd of November 2018, and the world as they had known it for years had changed irrevocably after Shibuya.
A sound broke the silence of his walk. A low chittering, the scramble of multi-jointed limbs and claws scratching stone. Megumi looked over the railing of the bridge and spotted the curse. It was a weak one, even if it looked the size of an SUV. Or perhaps Megumi was the one who had grown strong, even if he did not feel like it.
The curse's chameleon-like ringed eyes rolled in its socket and spun to face him, and at the sight of him, it froze, giving Megumi a better look at it. It was shaped like a mixture between a chameleon and an octopus, and looked just as disgusting as any other cursed spirit. It flickered, turning invisible, and Megumi frowned in annoyance.
"Tch," he let out before giving the spot the curse had been one last look as he began to walk off once again.
Cursed spirits had grown bolder overnight, which was due to the sudden influx of what looked like a million cursed spirits that suddenly flooded the heart of Japan, Tokyo. While they had been busy celebrating Itadori's survival, Kenjaku had been just as busy.
A great whoomp sounded somewhere above him, forcing him to lift his head to the sight of a giant bird with reptilian features. Fortunately, it kept its gaze focused on the horizon, so Megumi turned away from it.
Thousands of curses, just like it had been released into Japan overnight. Coincidentally, multiple barriers Master Tengen had spent the past centuries putting up had been pulled down, an act that allowed the thousands of curses to spread and propagate at such a level that their existence was no longer a secret, and their reveal showed why the elders had decided to keep the existence of curses a secret in the first place.
Fear.
Cursed spirits were born of negative emotions, and with the sudden outpouring of fear, worry, and other negative emotions that had followed the sudden reveal of cursed spirits to the rest of humanity, what should have been manageable thousands that sorcerers could still deal with ballooned into what was estimated to be a million curses that were slowly rendering Tokyo into a wasteland.
Megumi gave it a few days before the city was completely evacuated. It had only been days, and already the call came in shortly after. He slipped his hand into his pocket and answered it without looking at the caller ID.
"Fushiguro here?"
"Ah, Fushiguro-san. There's a letter here for you. It's important."
"On my way," he replied to the familiar voice of Kiyotaka Ijichi. There went his quiet time alone.
__
The summons had come through official channels, which meant it had arrived as a formal document in an aged envelope surrounded by a red seal and language so carefully constructed it somehow managed to sound both polite and threatening in equal measure. Megumi had read it once, set it down on the desk in the temporary housing Jujutsu High had arranged for students displaced by Shibuya, and then read it again to confirm he had understood it correctly the first time.
He had. They had finally come for him. He knew they were going to. Ijichi had warned him about it after Nanami was interrogated shortly after waking up. They had known he was going to be next, so it was hardly surprising. His first meeting with the higher-ups who controlled Jujutsu society.
He looked at the school uniform that had been carefully spread on the bed. The proper thing was to put it on. It lent an air of formality; it would have eased the wheels of the show they were about to go and put on, but Megumi Fushiguro was coming to realize that he did not care all that much for it. Not now, so he asked himself a question he had never asked before.
What would Gojo-sensei do?
He looked at himself in the mirror at the far edge of the room. His hair was messy as usual. He looked a bit pale from his already recovered injuries. He was dressed in jeans, a pair of sneakers, and a black hoodie. Satoru would go and see them just like that, and just for today, he was going to act just like his sensei.
He nodded and walked out the door, only taking the extra second to snag something off the floor. His trip to the meeting room was quick, and by the time he got there, there were a few people around the door.
The wheel he carried at his side drew looks the moment he entered the building, but it did not last, not with the scowl on his face.
He walked to the assigned room and stopped before the sliding doors, the wheel resting against the floor and the side of his knee with ease. A man stood in front of the sliding doors. Megumi did not know him, but if he was to go by the descriptions, he assumed the man was Usami Kento.
"Fushiguro Megumi, I believe?"
"Yes."
Thin eyes nodded, then turned to stare at the wheel in confusion before looking back at him with a question on his raised brow, but Megumi simply ignored it and stood still, arms folded. After what felt like an hour but was most likely minutes, he heard a whisper from the other side of the door, and Usami nodded with a thin smile before opening the door and gesturing. "The higher-ups await you."
Megumi walked in, and the first thing he noticed was that it was dark, which was a far cry from what he expected. He glanced back once to see the sliding door begin to close as Usami gave him a grotesque grin. Then all was darkness. Megumi took in a deep breath and waited for a second, then suddenly there was light.
A single light bulb placed above him gave the sensation of a spotlight in an interrogation room. It lent the atmosphere a look that spoke of judgment, revealing the tightness of his brow, his set features, and the wheel in his grip. Yet it also partially revealed the room he found himself in.
He had anticipated a long table and arranged faces set in withered old scowls and frowns. What he did not anticipate was the dozen sliding doors scattered around him. A squint told him that they were made of dark lacquered wood, each one etched with seals that he barely recognized as obscuration work, old and layered and maintained with the kind of consistent care that suggested they had been in regular use for a very long time. He wondered if they worked on Gojo-sensei's Six Eyes. He was half certain they were the reason they were there.
He could not see the faces behind each door, but he could see their shapes. Shapes that suggested the presence of people. He tried to sense for cursed energy residuals or output, but the seals did their work thoroughly, stripping away all cursed energy signatures other than his own and blurring the silhouettes of the people into something generic and unreadable.
He turned his head slowly to confirm that yes, they were all like that. Arranged in a loose arc around him, and the arc was complete enough that there was no direction he could face that did not have at least one door in his peripheral vision.
That done, he remained in place and waited. He was more patient than they were in the end.
The first voice came from the second door to his left. The voice was barely recognizable. He was certain he had heard it somewhere before, but could hardly say where.
"Fushiguro Megumi."
"Yes."
"Do you know where you are?"
"I do."
"And do you know why you're here?"
He turned to the speaker. He had expected the formality, but there was formality, and then there was this. No wonder Gojo-sensei always came out with an annoyed scowl after one of these meetings.
"It was made known in the letter I received."
There was a brief pause as they collectively considered his words and the way he said them to see if there was reason for reprimand. There was none, so they continued. "You participated in the response efforts during the Shibuya Incident."
"Yes."
"You were operating under the direct instruction of Gojo Satoru at the time of the incident's initiation."
Megumi frowned before speaking. "No. Instructions were more flexible. I worked under and alongside multiple senior sorcerers."
There was a brief silence, and before the voice could speak, a second voice came from somewhere behind him and to the right. This one was completely unrecognizable, but distinctly noted as female. "What is that?"
He did not turn toward it.
"A wheel."
The silence that followed had a specific texture to it, one that he found himself enjoying. Behind the doors, the shapes shifted in small ways that the seals could obscure the identity of, but could not entirely suppress the fact of.
"You will elaborate," a third voice said from a door directly ahead.
"I'm holding a wheel that belongs to a Shikigami," Megumi said, and paused for a few seconds before adding, "I'm keeping it safe."
The shapes behind the doors went still again, and seal or no seal, their annoyance was clear. Megumi smiled internally. He was starting to see the part in all this that Gojo-sensei enjoyed.
He could feel them looking at the wheel without being able to see them do it, which was its own kind of information. They did not know what it was. They recognized that not knowing was a problem, and they had no immediate solution to that problem; this particular collection of people was not physically capable of admitting that openly, so they let it go and moved on, which was exactly what he had expected them to do. Instead, he expected them to go after something else.
"You are aware that you are not Gojo Satoru, correct? You should do well not to forget that." That was the warning he expected, so he nodded noncommittally.
This time, they started in truth with proper questions. His presence in Shibuya. His actions during the incident. The students he had been coordinating with. The cursed spirits engaged. The transfigured humans fought, and the man known as Kenjaku.
Then they reached Gojo Satoru.
"Are you aware," the first voice spoke once again, "of the council's determination regarding Gojo Satoru's status?"
"I received the documentation."
"Then you understand that any action taken toward the removal of his seal is a criminal act under the authority of this council."
Megumi looked at the door the voice had come from. The seals meant he could not see through it, but the looking was its own response.
"I understand that this is what has been decided."
"And are you going to follow that ruling?" another voice asked. This one was just as unfamiliar and deeper.
"I'm yet to make a decision."
There was silence as the group took in his words.
"You understand," a new voice finally said from a door he had not yet heard from, somewhere in the arc to his right, "what you are saying."
"Yes."
"You understand the consequences that this council is empowered to impose on anyone who breaks such orders."
"Yes."
The sounds that followed were small. The tap of fingers against wood, the ruffle of beads hitting each other as they were moved, the echo of fingers scratching a jaw. He had made his decision clear, but they could not act on any of it yet. They needed him to actually disobey before they had cause that would hold under the scrutiny that external pressure had suddenly made it inconvenient to ignore.
A crime needed to be committed for them to hold him to it. They knew that he knew that. Which made the fact that they had come to such a decision regarding Gojo Satoru in the first place surprisingly... stupid and sufficient only to hold back the people terrified of them in the first place, because the moment the crime was committed, then Gojo Satoru would be free once more, and they would not have to contend with the person who released him.
They would have to contend with a pissed-off Gojo Satoru. He wondered how they would fare.
The sounds came to a slow stop, and then came the pivot in the discussion, a pivot so smooth it made it clear the preceding conversation had only ever been the prologue to what they actually wanted.
"We will move," the voice from directly ahead said, "to the matter of your Shikigami."
Megumi kept his face still, as his hands tightened around the wheel. This had been the goal from the beginning.
"The Ten Shadows Technique," the first voice began, the one that was oddly familiar, "is a hereditary ability of some renown. Its upper limits have historically been a subject of considerable interest to this council." A pause that had been rehearsed. "Shibuya provided data that significantly revised our understanding of those limits."
"The Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga," the female voice read out from somewhere behind him with careful pronunciation, "was summoned during the Shibuya Incident and engaged in combat with the Special Grade incarnated sorcerer designated Ryomen Sukuna, during the period in which Sukuna had assumed full control of the vessel Itadori Yuji."
"Yes," Megumi said, turning to the new woman.
"The engagement resulted in significant structural damage to the surrounding area," another voice said, coming from a different door now. They were rotating the speakers deliberately, he realized a second later, to prevent him from orienting toward any single fixed point of authority. "Damages that our assessors have categorized as, in part, attributable to the Shikigami's actions."
"Shibuya was half destroyed already by the time my Shikigami stepped in," Megumi said.
"Of course, however, the question of proportionality remains," a new voice said, "and it is one this council takes seriously. The Ten Shadows Technique in your hands produced a Shikigami capable of causing damage on a scale comparable to a natural disaster. The question of whether the summoner bears responsibility for the actions of the summoned is not a new question in jujutsu law, and the answer has historically been yes."
Megumi looked at the door directly ahead.
"You are suggesting," he said, "that I am responsible for damage caused by a Shikigami that was fighting Sukuna, during an incident that your council failed to prevent, in a city that was already being destroyed by cursed spirits your council also failed to prevent."
"We are suggesting," a new voice said, carrying careful neutrality, "that the power demonstrated raises questions about oversight. About the appropriate framework for monitoring a technique of that magnitude. About whether a student operating without adequate supervision should be allowed to wander about unrestrained and unchecked."
Megumi let out a breath and moved to speak, but before he could, another voice continued smoothly after.
"It has been decided, Megumi Fushiguro. On the basis of the danger of your curse technique, to yourself and to the general public, restrictions shall be placed on you on acts such as the summoning of the Divine General, henceforth-"
"I object," a gravelly voice called out, in a tone that shook the entire room, putting an end to the farce at once.
The sudden silence in the room was loud, and Megumi could almost feel the hidden men and women rotate their heads in search of the speaker. Only Megumi had an idea of where the voice came from, and he was just as surprised.
The voice had come from the shadows at his feet, which was not a direction that voices usually came from, and it was deep enough that the single light above Megumi had flickered in response to the bass of it before steadying again.
It took them a few seconds to realize where the voice came from, and when they did, Megumi could almost feel them freeze on the spot because from Megumi's shadow, a hand reached out, then another. The two pale hands gripped the edges of his shadow, and with what he knew was a monumental flex, Mahoraga pulled himself out of his shadow. The flickering light obscured him for a second, but when it stabilized, it revealed the Divine General in his full glory as Mahoraga rose to his full height behind him.
The top of his head crested the roof of the building to the sudden gasps of everyone present. The single light focused on Mahoraga and revealed he was wearing a black suit, a white inner shirt, and a tie. The pale Shikigami cracked his neck to the side as he readjusted his black tie, his winged appendages flaring to show he was looking at everyone before giving a wide and terrifying grin, and Megumi suddenly realized the wheel, which had been vibrating every few seconds earlier, was no longer in his hand.
KLNK.
Now it rested above Mahoraga's head.
A/N: Yes. The Meme is real. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:Racka, gaouw, Sukuna Ryomen and 1,515 others
The room was quiet. It was a quiet that lasted long seconds, as everyone present, in their own way, tried to comprehend my sudden appearance. While they were shocked and dumbfounded, I was left to listen to the echo of my own voice.
I did not think it would work. This harebrained plan of mine.
Adapt to any phenomenon.
Heh. Gege did not realize what he did for me with that simple sentence. I had been waiting for Megumi to return from his stroll when the letter came. I was the one to pick it up at the door, and the sight of me had been enough to send Ijichi scurrying away. Then I waited and waited, knowing the Culling Game ritual had already begun, judging by the pulse of cursed energy I had felt shortly before Yuki rode away.
Another thing I had to take care of if I wanted to live long enough to meet the Alien magic punching sorcerers.
Listening to Megumi read the summons aloud had been amusing. The boy was slowly getting used to my presence, but by the sheer virtue of my existence, he would always be left thinking, left wondering when I was going to resume the ritual. I did not have the capability to tell him never.
Until now.
Instead, I had come up with a plan, the bare bones of one at least. Leaving my wheel with Megumi and entering his shadow. It was a gamble, hiding my presence and leaving him to bear the brunt of the adaptation, much like Megkuna had, but the difference was that Megkuna had done it on purpose while in control of Mahoraga.
Mine had been a risk, yet a risk that had come out well enough. After all, I was gambling on the higher-ups triggering my adaptation, and they did. With every lie, every twist of words to push an agenda, my wheel had vibrated in Megumi's hands, even if he was unaware of everything that was happening, unaware of the reason I had suddenly dipped into his shadow and gestured at my wheel.
I had been adapting because false allegations were an attack. Not a physical one, of course, but it was an attack on my person regardless, and my adaptation had responded in the perfect way by giving me a chance to fight back.
The sound of a gulp drew my attention as I focused back on the present. My lips tilted up as I smiled, then I took my time adjusting my tie.
It was a small gesture, but I was aware of the effect it produced, which was the specific discomfort of watching something that should not be capable of small gestures perform one with complete composure. I straightend my suit, marinating in their fear and silence as the wheel above my head turned once in its slow revolution before settling. The light caught it and threw eight shadows outward across the floor, highlighting the multiple people present.
My wings twitched, and I looked through the doors.
That was another thing I had adapted to. Whatever the seal work that covered them and stripped cursed energy signatures cleanly and blurred the silhouettes into something unreadable was, it could no longer block my sight.
Another twitch of my wings, and I was able to read the room the way they always read everything, without permission and without preference, translating everything into information that I could understand. There were fourteen of them, arranged in an arc, the scattered geometry of people who had designed the room to throw off anyone invited into it.
It was clever.
I filed the positions away and looked at Megumi instead.
He was still standing in his hooded sweatshirt with his hands in his pockets, and while he tried to hide it, he was just as surprised as the rest of them. The only difference was that, at this point, he was used to my surprises. So he simply shook his head in exasperation and turned away from me and back to them.
I followed his gaze and spoke once more.
"Is this an attack, Fushiguro?" one voice rang out, near shrill in tone, before another spoke after, more measured.
"You should know that activating your cursed technique in this meeting is in violation of rule 348, under section 57 of the Jujutsu regulations, and the penalty for such an occurrence is-"
"I object," I stated again, silencing the speaking man while using the opportunity to savor the thrum of my voice as it rang out, the sheer bass shaking the sliding doors before they finally settled again.
The silence stretched as those who had assumed my first words were a fluke realized it was not, while those who had heard me the first time stiffened their spines. I could feel their cursed energy come to life as everyone present prepared themselves for a fight, but stupid as they were, they were wary enough to know a fight was not for the best, for their continued living at least. I also did not have any particular interest in killing them. Why deprive Gojo of what he wished to do from the first time he walked past these doors?
"A shikigami that can talk. Ha!" a voice called out, this one a woman in shrine maiden attire.
Then the annoying voice, the one from the man who looked and dressed vaguely like a Zenin, called out. Unlike earlier, his tone had acquired a quality it had not possessed before my arrival, a careful and very controlled version that told me he was still deciding on how to engage with something he had not prepared for.
"This is," the man began, then stopped, then began again. "The shikigami is..."
"Eight-Handled-"
I cleared my throat cutting him off, then stared at him. It took him a second to get it, to interpret what i was passing through the thin link we shared, and he blinked in confusion before shrugging."
"I present to you, the Eight-Handled Sword, Divergent Sila Divine General, Barrister Mahoraga," Megumi said, gesturing towards me and taking a step back. I took a step forward in response, and the men and women scrambled an inch backward in fright.
Oh, I was enjoying this.
"This is deeply irregular," a different voice said from somewhere to my right. An older man with a full beard, monk robes, and beads around his neck.
"It is not. Article 37 of the Constitution of Japan permits my... client to an attorney in a criminal dispute. This is a criminal dispute."
Everyone blinked.
"You claim my... client is responsible for the destruction of Shibuya," I began in that room-shaking baritone.
"P-partially," a slim man in a suit called out from behind his own screen.
"Semantics," I replied in a tone that made him swallow. Prior to now, I knew little about defending people in general. I could argue as much as anyone else, but words were coming to life in my brain in ways they had not before. Suddenly, I knew words, terms, grammatical structures, and phrases that I had been oblivious to a day ago.
"You were making an argument about proportionality."
There was no response, so I continued.
"I want to be clear about that. Your argument about proportionality is flawed on the basis of heavily biased investigators, afterall, you were not there and cannot bear witness to the occurrence at Shibuya. To say nothing of the framework for oversight, and the question of whether a summoner bears responsibility for the actions of the summoned." I paused. My lips had been moving, I had been saying the words in that same gravelly tone, but it was like my brain was working faster than I knew. "I would address those points directly if the council has no objection."
It was almost like a courtroom. Was that what my adaptation had based this on? I had been expecting to be judged. In fact, I had been thinking about Higuruma's domain right before the adaptation. Was that what influenced this? Could I influence my adaptations? A question for another day when i was not raking the highest authority in Jujutsu society over hot coals.
The higher-ups, who were serving as the council in this particular facade, apparently had no objection. Or if they did, no one was brave or ready to voice it in the current circumstances, which amounted to the same thing.
My mouth began moving once more, drawing my attention back. "My client," I started, gesturing at Megumi, "did not direct my actions in Shibuya. He summoned me. The distinction is not a minor one. A sorcerer who summons a shikigami and then directs each of its actions bears a different relationship to the outcome than a sorcerer who summons a shikigami that then acts on its own judgment. Fushiguro Megumi belongs to the second category."
I let that sit for a moment, waiting for someone to fall into my trap, and it took only a second before someone was stupid enough to.
"S-so, Fushiguro san, summoned a rogue shikigami and set it loose. That is j-just as worse." The man stuttered out in a rush, and scrambled back the moment i bared my teeth.
"Ah, but according to Jujutsu regulations 587 under subsection 7 and coexisting beside subsection 92 of the Shikigami accords, signed by the Fujiwara, Abe, and Sugawara clans, a shikigami that acts of its own accord is no longer considered a simple technique. I am not just an extension of Megumi Fushiguro's will. I am a separate entity with my own capacity for decision and action, which means the question of his responsibility depends on whether he wants to bear that burden or not."
If my presence had not been enough to stun them, then my rebuttal and quotation of regulations that predated the clan of every single person here was more than enough. I had read no law books, but I was slowly coming to the realization that I knew everything, every loophole, every obscure regulation and amendment made over the centuries. I knew it. I knew the convoluted regulations more than any single person here.
The prayer beads that had been moving somewhere by the will of the monk stopped as even he opened his eyes to stare in shock, while the man that had spoken early turned paler than his wrinkled skin already was.
An amusing chuckle could be heard in the background, and despite my senses flaring out, my wings feeling the air, I could not pick out where the sound had come from, so I focused on what I could do. I focused on the prey before me.
"The damage assessment," the Zenin man finally said, recovering some of his earlier steadiness. "Your engagement with Sukuna caused significant structural damage to-"
"Sukuna caused structural damage to Shibuya," I noted. "I fought him in Shibuya. According to section 58 of the Japanese Code of Civil Procedure 1962, there is a difference between those two statements, one that your assessor's report appears to have found inconvenient."
I did not give him the grace to turn towards him. Instead, I turned to the others. "The alternative to my presence in Shibuya was Sukuna continuing his activities in Shibuya without opposition," I stretched out my hand in a dramatic flourish, "and I would invite the council to estimate the structural damage assessment for that scenario and compare it to the one they are currently attempting to assign to Fushiguro Megumi."
Another bout of silence. I was slowly growing to enjoy this, judging by the twitch of my lips, perhaps almost as much as fighting Sukuna.
"Furthermore," I continued in the silence, "the argument that a student operating without adequate supervision produced something dangerous implicitly accepts that the supervision structure failed. Under Article 3 of the Japanese School Education Act of 1947, which establishes institutional duty of care toward enrolled students, and Article 715 of the Civil Code, which assigns liability to supervisory bodies for harm caused by those under their supervision, which points, if followed to its origin, in a direction I suspect this council would prefer not to follow."
This time, the chuckle turned into full-blown laughter that rang through the room. If the higher-ups had been shocked before, now they were left utterly dumbfounded, speechless, and looking monumentally stupid with their inability to counter my words.
I basked in the stupefaction from them and the laughter from a voice I was already having a sneaking suspicion as to who it belonged to. I did not know how, but I was going to assume Tengen was viewing this with some barrier or something of the sort.
KLNK.
The wheel above my head turned once. I was not done with them. More Information flooded into my brain. More points to pick on, more angles to fillet them like cold fishes. I cleared my throat and moved to continue.
"As to the question of-"
"That's enough..." someone broke in, a man swathed in such heavy robes I could not even see his actual body. "Please," he added, as if he just realized who he was talking to, and who he had just cut off mid-sentence. I let out a low grow that rattled the bones in their body. My seeming politeness should not be mistaken for weakness.
"I... we apologize," the Zenin said a second later, and his face was twisted in such a way that said he would rather slit his own throat than say those words again. "We were unaware of the depth of the incidents and were about to pronounce a wrong judgment, and for that... we apologize. This case of culpability in the Shibuya Incident against Megumi Fushiguro has been dismissed... Unless anyone disagrees?"
This time, I turned. Tracking everyone and ensuring they knew i was looking at each and everyone of them. If anybody disagreed with the judgement, they were smart enough to keep it to themselves.
Megumi stared in wide-eyed surprise behind me as I did the impossible.
"With that said," the shrine maiden spoke up, clearing her throat after a quick gulp of the glass of water beside her, "there is the question of rank and designation," she noted in a careful tone. "Regardless of the outcome of this discussion, the data from Shibuya requires a formal reassessment of Fushiguro Megumi's grade classification."
I looked at Megumi, then reached out, my hand clapping over his shoulder and pushing him forward.
He glared at me, his previous shock and amazement gone, before turning to frown at the screen the voice had come from.
"The Ten Shadows Technique as demonstrated," the woman continued, "combined with the shikigami's evident capacity for independent action and reasoning, places the summoner in a category that his current grade does not adequately represent. The council's position is that an immediate reclassification to special grade is appropriate."
"I do not want it," Megumi said immediately. "You heard him, he acts by his own will."
"Your preference," the first voice said carefully, "is noted. The designation is not conditional on preference. The fact remains you summoned him. He fought to protect you. He is your problem... and solution."
Megumi frowned and glanced back at me, but I remained silent. I was not going to fight every battle for the brat.
The newfound silence that filled the room had a strange quality to it. The shocking role reversal had not quite been internalized yet. They were still going through the stages. I was certain there was more to be spoken about, but I had thrown them off their game so badly that any further conversation was going to backfire in their faces. They knew it, that as long as I was here, and Megumi was with me, there was no other recourse. They could not argue the case better than I, and they did not have the power to enforce any judgment either.
"The council will take this session under advisement. Your reclassification to special grade is effective immediately. You will receive formal documentation within the week. You are dismissed, Megumi Fushiguro."
Before Megumi could say a word, I lifted him and settled him in the crook of my arms. I had already lost interest in entertaining them, and with the farce concluded, it was time to begin what might be the most important task for my prolonged life.
Operation Potential Man No More.
I turned and walked out, ignoring the quiet relief of the old men and women behind me and Megumi's grumbling protests. He could not remain weak forever.
By the time I was done with him, the potential man allegations would be buried for good. Canon could sort itself out. My priority was simple. Make sure the brat lived a long life, if I could help it.
A/N: A power surge caused me to lose a very big chunk of advanced chapters for WDKY and Allfather. If you're a writer, you'll know it is harder to get yourself to rewrite a chapter you lost than to write a brand new chapter. Anyway, I was in a funk, and it took a few days to get out of it, but I'm back again. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:ClowdKlerk, Quesios, Branade and 856 others
A/N: I generally dislike long chapters without fight scenes to entertain me, but this was to build up and explain things. Like Quote ReplyReport Reactions:MythicalMeow, Mickyboiya, JaddedBlade626 and 1,144 others