South China Sea, amidst the waves.
A strangely formed "creature" was cutting through the deep blue water at astonishing speed, desperately fleeing in the opposite direction from the destructive light cluster. The creature roughly maintained a human form, but its skin was covered in fine, watery gray-blue scales, with wide webbing between its fingers and toes, and gill slits on both sides of its neck that opened and closed as it breathed.
This was Mahito transforming himself to adapt to the marine environment. The usual madness and curiosity in his heterochromatic eyes were now completely replaced by an almost instinctive, horrifying terror, leaving only the obsession with fleeing, trying to save his own life.
Several strong tentacles on his back tightly gripped a pale, sluggish Kenjaku.
Both were in extremely bad shape, having sustained numerous injuries from the temple's collapse and the subsequent blast.
"Hey, hey, hey... you've got to be kidding..." Mahito's voice was full of tremors as he glanced back at the distant horizon where the light was fading, but he could still see the rising massive steam plume and strange lights. "That kind of output... that kind of power... How did the Japanese archipelago survive when he was back there?!"
He remembered a few minutes ago, even though he was dozens of kilometers away, even with the island and the "curtain" in between, he could still clearly feel that terrifying energy explosion, which seemed to tear the soul and reshape the heavens and earth. At that moment, he even thought that he, a special-grade cursed spirit, was about to evaporate like dew in the sun.
"That thing... it's not sorcery at all, is it?! It's a natural disaster! It's divine punishment!" Mahito licked his lips, dry from seawater or fear. His heterochromatic pupils reflected the mushroom-like steam plume that hadn't fully dissipated in the distance. He subconsciously blurted out a morbid joke: "No way... Has Japan actually been hit by several nuclear bombs without even realizing it?"
Lying on his back, Kenjaku didn't answer. The stitches on his forehead seemed a bit dim under the seawater, his face paler after blood loss. He had his eyes closed, seemingly resting, but his slightly trembling eyelashes and pressed lips showed he felt no peace at all.
Mahito's morbid joke seemed especially harsh and pale on the empty sea.
Kenjaku slowly opened his eyes. In the depths of his amber eyes, there was no smile, only a heaviness, a weariness that seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and a certain... purity. He looked at the outline of the slowly sinking island in the distance and the still chaotic energy aftereffects, and after a long silence, he whispered a sentence in a slightly hoarse voice, as if answering Mahito, as if summarizing his long life:
"And to have to live in the same era as such a monster..."
He paused, his voice so low it was almost drowned out by the sound of the waves:
"It's really exhausting."
The emotions contained in this sentence are far too complex. There are traces of fear, a sliver of luck, perhaps a fear of Genji's inhuman power... There are also traces of powerlessness and insignificance that even he himself is unwilling to admit, rising from the depths of his soul.
No matter how many years of planning and calculation you make, in the face of pure violence enough to redraw the map, you will be this ridiculous and fragile.
Mahito sensed the strangeness in Kenjaku's tone and wisely shut his mouth, but strengthened his strokes, swimming away from the sea of death.
---
The sea breeze blew, carrying a faint smell of ozone and sea salt, and a slight chill from the disaster.
---
Tokyo Jujutsu High, Principal's Office.
The heavy solid wood door was tightly closed, a soundproof barrier quietly operating. There was only one lamp in the room, its dim light illuminating the face of Principal Masamichi Yaga, who was always serious, but at this moment, his brows were deeply furrowed, even showing a hint of absurdity.
He gripped the encrypted satellite phone tightly in his hand, his knuckles slightly white from the pressure.
On the other end of the phone was a male voice, usually calm, but at this moment also carrying a strong sense of helplessness and anxiety, apparently a senior bureaucrat responsible for "damage control" and "intelligence management" in the Jujutsu Headquarters.
"Principal Yaga, in the South China Sea's third district, near the crash site of the passenger plane 'Future Light,' an anomalous high-energy reaction was detected. Its equivalent was initially estimated as... extremely astonishing. Subsequently, a small island in that area disappeared from satellite maps. Now, the seismic and ocean monitoring agencies of various countries, as well as the spy satellites of at least three major nations, are probably all watching this! The 'window' on our side just returned the imagery..."
Yaga took a deep breath, rubbed his temples, interrupted the other party's words, and his voice was calm, almost self-destructively calm:
"Listen, no matter what surveillance shows, what the imagery reveals. To the outside world, the unified statement is—" He paused, as if suppressing the urge to complain, and enunciated word by word:
"Say it's... an extremely rare, superimposed and powerful 'gas explosion' caused by a large-scale rupture of a gas pipeline. Yes, a gas explosion. The shockwave coincidentally triggered geological changes on the seabed, causing the island to submerge."
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, as if gasping at this outrageous excuse for covering up. After a moment, a dry voice came: "...Principal Yaga, I'm afraid even a three-year-old child wouldn't believe this reason..."
"Then change it to something more 'plausible'!" Yaga suddenly raised his voice, a green vein bulging on his forehead. "Just blame it on a passing US Pacific Fleet! Say they were secretly conducting live-fire tests of new tactical nuclear weapons or high-energy laser weapons! An operational error—they accidentally bombed an island! Anyway, they've got plenty of dark history, so don't worry about adding more!"
"…" There was complete silence on the other end of the phone.
Yaga realized he was out of line, wiped his face hard, and forced himself to calm down.
Yes, this was no longer ancient times, when news could be blocked. An island, no matter how small, couldn't hide its sudden disappearance in the modern era, with satellites, radar, and sonar monitoring around the clock. This was beyond the usual capabilities of the jujutsu world's "concealment."
"...Just do your best," Yaga finally sighed, his voice full of fatigue. "Mobilize all available resources to interfere, confuse, and create contradictory information at the public opinion and information level. Muddy the waters. At the same time, warn all known sorcerers and related personnel to keep their mouths shut. As for whether the international community believes it... that's no longer within our control."
---
Hanging up the phone, Yaga leaned back in his large chair, staring at the ceiling, speechless for a long time.
He could imagine that at this very moment, the higher-ups at the Jujutsu Headquarters, those old men, were probably not "busy" anymore—they were probably numb in the scalp and terrified. Zen'in Genji's very existence was a "strategic, humanoid natural disaster" that walked, uncontrollable and far more powerful than nuclear bombs. Every move he made challenged the fragile and hidden foundation of survival in the modern jujutsu world.
---
Kyoto Jujutsu High.
Inside a simple Japanese-style room, incense smoke filled the air with a greenish haze. Yoshinobu Gakuganji, the conservative pillar and principal of the Kyoto Jujutsu High, slowly wiped a purchased guitar. The guitar was not cheap.
He listened to the whispered report from an assistant supervisor beside him about the "disappearance of an island" in the South China Sea and the situation at the Headquarters, his wrinkled face showing no reaction.
"Why panic?" Gakuganji's old voice was calm. He put down the cloth, gently plucked a string, and commented in a dull tone. "It won't affect Japan."
He raised his drooping eyelids, his cloudy yet sharp eyes sweeping over the nervous assistant supervisor:
"A small island in the South China Sea, either no man's land or a disputed territory between some small countries. Disappeared, so be it. A natural or man-made disaster. It could be related to military experiments of other countries... It's plausible. Let the countries of the world, let those big powers, investigate, quarrel, and suspect each other."
"I just need to ensure that this matter does not affect the homeland and does not spread the existence of jujutsu. As for Zen'in Genji..." Gakuganji's fingers plucked the strings again, his tone cold. "It's better for him to 'stretch his muscles' abroad than to 'move' in Tokyo and Kyoto. As long as he doesn't return and interfere in domestic affairs, let him tear up the sky outside, it's none of this old man's business."
His attitude was so calm it was almost ruthless, a typical conservative style of "keep oneself out of trouble."
---
Somewhere, in an unknown cave.
Deep in the damp, sunless cave, the only light source was a central stone groove. The groove was filled with a viscous, pitch-black, slowly bubbling sinister solution, radiating a strong, strange aura of decay and rebirth.
In the center of the solution lay a fist-sized mass of flesh, slightly pulsing, intertwined with dark red, gray, and white hues. The shape of the flesh was distorted, barely recognizable as once belonging to a certain torso. It was covered in fine blood vessels and nerve-like tissues, slowly, extremely slowly, absorbing nutrients from the fluid and regenerating in a way indistinguishable to the naked eye.
At the cave entrance, the air rippled slightly. Fujiwara, dressed in magnificent twelve-layered ceremonial robes, seemed to step out of the shadows and quietly appear beside the groove.
Her deep eyes looked at the ugly, fragile, yet tenacious lump of flesh in the solution, and the perfect corners of her lips slowly curled into a cold, sarcastic arc.
"Heh…" She let out a very light, ambiguous chuckle.
"The arrogant god who thought she controlled life and death, above the rules…" Fujiwara's voice echoed in the empty cave with understanding and a hint of mockery. "In the end, in front of a true 'god,' she was just struck down and reduced to hiding in such filth… a mere remnant."
"But it's fine…" She stretched out her slender fingers, a wisp of dark cursed energy appearing at her fingertips like a thread, gently penetrating the solution and wrapping around the flesh, as if she could feel something. "After this disaster, that ridiculous self-confidence of yours should be completely shattered, right? Recognize your position, understand whom you can rely on."
The lump of flesh seemed to react to Fujiwara's cursed energy, twitching slightly, but it was too weak to respond further.
Fujiwara withdrew her fingers, looked at the traces of black fluid staining her fingertips, and carefully flicked them off, as if stained by something dirty. She cast one last glance at the lump of flesh in the solution, turned, and her figure dissolved back into the cave's shadows, leaving only an ominous whisper that slowly dissipated in the damp air:
"Survive, Naraku…"
"Then use your 'death' to pave the way for us… into a new world."
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