[Heavy, frantic bell strikes tore through the stillness of the Zenin estate.]
[This was the clan's highest-level alarm. In all the decades this ancient, rotting compound had stood, that sound had never once rung out.]
[Ogi Zenin threw open the sliding door of his private courtyard.]
[That face, perpetually cold, rigid as an iron mask, was now draped in a layer of profound displeasure.]
[He reached back and snatched his katana from its rack, locked his grip around the hilt, and strode out of the garden with long, purposeful steps.]
[The moment he crossed the threshold, chaos greeted him. Corridors and courtyards had dissolved into a scramble of bodies.]
[His eyes narrowed. One large hand shot out and seized the collar of a squad member sprinting past with panic smeared across his face.]
["What happened? You serve the Zenin Clan. Why are you stumbling around like headless flies?"]
["R-Reporting, Lord Ogi! It's Young Master Naoya! He was critically wounded in the main residence, and the perpetrator is currently fleeing the estate! The entire Zenin compound has been placed on maximum emergency alert!"]
[Ogi's already furrowed brow crushed itself into deep creases.]
[That arrogant, insufferable waste of space Naoya, beaten badly enough to trigger this?]
[Had it happened outside these walls, Ogi would have sneered inwardly and called it unsurprising.]
[But the problem was where. This was the Zenin estate. The stronghold of one of the Big Three Sorcerer Families.]
[Inside a compound crawling with elite Jujutsu Sorcerers and guards, in the clan head's own residence, someone had waltzed in and put Naoya, a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer and the legitimate heir, into critical condition.]
[And afterward, not only had the attacker avoided being seized on the spot, they'd forced the entire Zenin household into a state of emergency severe enough to ring bells that had been silent for decades.]
[In all his years, across every corner of the jujutsu world, Ogi had never encountered anyone brazen enough, reckless enough, to grind the Zenin Clan's supreme dignity beneath their heel so openly.]
["Who are they? How many broke in?"]
[The squad member swallowed hard.]
["Lord Ogi... there were no others. It was one person. Alone."]
[Silence.]
[Ogi blinked. Then his gaze dropped, and that gravelly voice repeated the words as though tasting something that refused to make sense.]
["One person..."]
[Absurd. Though Ogi held nothing but contempt for Naoya's swaggering arrogance, he was forced to concede, as an elder, that the boy's Projection Sorcery was genuinely formidable.]
[Across all of Japan's jujutsu world, the number of people who could overpower Naoya in a straight one-on-one fight could be counted on two hands.]
[What kind of monster had charged into the Zenin estate alone and caused this level of havoc?]
[Ogi cycled through every name he could think of while pinning the squad member with a stare sharp enough to cut.]
["If there was combat, then you've identified them. Who is it?"]
[The man's head sank lower still. His voice quavered as though the words themselves were cursed, and he answered with the gravity of someone who'd seen a ghost.]
["It's... it's Toji. Toji Zenin's child."]
[Silence.]
[Ogi's pupils contracted to points.]
[Across that mask-like face, a crack of genuine shock flickered. The name left his own lips before he could stop it, repeated like a forbidden word.]
["Toji's child... wait. What did you say? Toji's child?"]
[Toji Fushiguro. The man born without a drop of Cursed Energy, who had left the Zenin Clan like a stray dog and yet loomed over every member of the household like an immovable mountain. That man.]
[A dim memory surfaced. The clan head, Naobito, had struck some kind of deal with Toji involving money. Something about buying back the child Toji had abandoned to the outside world.]
[But... this was a joke. How old was the child? Six? Seven at the absolute most? A toddler barely into elementary school had wounded a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer on Zenin territory? The idea was more outlandish than a fairy tale.]
[The squad member felt the warped, enormous pressure that erupted from Ogi's body and understood the reaction perfectly. When he'd first received the report, he'd been convinced the messenger had lost his mind.]
[Terrified of catching the edge of Ogi's fury, he rushed to add more.]
["Lord Ogi! This is confirmed! Furthermore, the clan head has personally issued an absolute order: we are to keep the child within the estate at any cost, but we are forbidden from harming so much as a hair on his body!"]
[Silence.]
[The killing intent radiating from Ogi stuttered to a halt.]
[He knew his older brother. Hearing those words, "forbidden from harming," delivered as an absolute command from Naobito's own mouth, was all the confirmation Ogi needed. The man before him wasn't lying.]
[If this were an ordinary intruder, Naobito would have ordered them butchered on sight. Only when dealing with something of extraordinary value, a piece of property worth protecting, would Naobito issue that kind of directive.]
[But the situation was too bizarre, too far outside every established norm of the jujutsu world.]
[Veins bulged along Ogi's sword arm. His fingers crushed the hilt until his nails bit into his own palm.]
[A fierce compulsion surged through him. He had to go see this himself. He had to witness, with his own eyes, what kind of terrifying ability Toji's child possessed to have reduced Naoya to such a pathetic state.]
["Tell me. A child that young. What did he use to accomplish this?"]
[The squad member swallowed and answered with fearful reverence.]
["Lord Ogi... it was Shikigami."]
[Ogi's clenched jaw loosened a fraction. He gave a small nod.]
[If it was Shikigami, the absurdity at least found a foothold in logic.]
[Common knowledge in the jujutsu world held that summoning-type Cursed Techniques had a much higher floor than standard physical reinforcement or emission techniques.]
[Once a Shikigami was successfully subjugated, the first summon arrived at full combat capability.]
[If the child had inherited a sufficiently powerful Cursed Technique, then summoning a Shikigami strong enough to catch a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer off guard was at least theoretically plausible.]
[So the brat relied on his Shikigami to steal an opening. Ogi's internal sneer carried cold dismissal, and that irrational wariness from moments ago receded.]
[He was mid-stride, heading toward the epicenter of the chaos, when the squad member, having barely caught his breath, forced out one final addition.]
["The members of the Hei who arrived on the scene have confirmed it. The Shikigami that child summoned... appears to match the records of the Ten Shadows Technique in the family archives."]
[Time stopped.]
[Ogi's sandaled foot froze in midair.]
[Then this man, who had maintained composure and absolute authority for decades, who would not flinch if a mountain crumbled before him, felt something slam into his skull.]
["What did you say?!"]
[Ogi's hand seized the squad member's shoulder. Every trace of composure had evaporated. What remained on his face was something raw and ugly, jealousy braided with venom, twisted into a snarl.]
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