28 Chapter 28

"What do you think about him?"

A soft voice called out from behind. He didn't bother to turn back, knowing with unparalleled certainty who was behind him.

"It's still too early to say," he replied while his hands moved automatically. A splash of green, blue, and white paint adorned his canvas already, and his brush moved like something alive, spreading the colors.

He could already visualize the endgame of the painting; now all it took was the process. Half-lidded eyes drifted up to follow the movements of the spar happening a few meters away—well, calling it a spar was a bit of an understatement. Maki pounded the slim boy into the ground with unparalleled ferocity and glee.

Every strike she made was a guaranteed hit, and whatever attempt the black-haired teen made at a rebuttal was ignored or dodged before he was hit with another kick that sent him tumbling head over heels to end up belly up.

With another splash of white paint on the canvas, he was halfway done with Yuta's position in the painting, and it was not a glamorous one.

They had started light, simple hand-to-hand combat for now, in a bid to see where the teenager stood.

"He's a fast learner though," Satoru said as he moved to sit beside him, and Jiki had to agree. It's been a week, and Yuta had already forced Maki to parry a blow.

"Special grade?" Jiki asked.

"That obvious?" Satoru replied with a grin in his voice.

"Judging from the sheer malevolence the apparition bound to him is giving off, I don't think the higher-ups had much of a choice."

Maki's hair hung unbound in paint. In losing herself to the fight, her ponytail had loosened, and the amber-eyed girl had not bothered to fix it.

"Yet they fought me for it," Satoru replied, and Jiki glanced upwards to see the frown on his older cousin's face. "They've never fought any of my decisions as much as they did this."

Yuta's already big eyes somehow found a way to widen more in surprise at the ferocity the slim girl seemed to wield with familiarity.

"I doubt they're happy about another chess piece they can't control, especially if it's one that's aligned with you."

The spar ended when Yuta overplayed his hand with a wide haymaker that Maki took advantage of. She stepped past the blow and slipped into his guard before grabbing the overextended arm and spinning on the spot, flipping him over her shoulder in a perfect judo throw.

She stepped on the slim teenager's chest and grinned down at him with a feral smile.

A smile that was mirrored in his painting, down to the way her hair shifted in the wind and the way Yuta stared up at her, black hair splayed across the sea of green grass with wide eyes that showed a mixture of embarrassment and shame.

She had changed.

"You've gotten really good at this," Satoru spoke up, inching closer to peer at the painting better. "You even predicted the way it would end."

"I was always good at it," he replied easily. Pride was not a sin he was overly familiar with, but he also knew he was good at his craft. Be it murder, combat, parricide, or something as simple as painting. They all came easy to him, was it really arrogance if he could back it up?

Satoru said nothing in reply, other than a light poke at his forehead and a soft smile.

In another life, they would've been at a real high school; with no real worries or fears for their life. He would've been painting his friends and classmates doing something as banal as playing a game of soccer or basketball instead of forging themselves into weapons.

But this was not that life, so instead they basked in comfortable silence for long minutes. The white-haired duo watched the others spar in a rotating fashion. Maki still proved herself to be the strongest in pure combat, with Panda coming closely behind, if only because he refused to reveal his third transformation.

Toge was something of an anomaly. He lacked the sheer anger that fueled Maki and the uncaring whimsical ferocity that Panda could get going. He was a wildcard in a way that Jiki would've disliked if he was an opponent.

The cursed speech user was a competent enough junior sorcerer in his own right, and the flexibility of his technique made him a veritable powerhouse. He was also a grade-two sorcerer already, compared to the rest. But there was something he lacked.

A certain degree of hunger. In a way, the Inumaki scion seemed a lot like him.

Before he was forced to lay his innocence for the second time on the altar of sacrifice.

Emi, on the other hand, had all the hunger the Inumaki scion lacked but none of the talent or ability. So far, she had come along with just relentless effort.

"You gave Maki his sword," Satoru noted with a smile. The fur-hilted blade remained strapped to her back, unsheathed and unused still. "The higher-ups are not too happy about that. Removing a special grade cursed tool and gifting it to a grade four sorcerer that they they see ass barely human reeks of madness to them."

"It was mine to give out. Plus, she needed the support." If the higher-ups had any disagreement with his decision, they would need to meet him and talk to him about it.

"I heard about your last mission, an encounter with the Hei, was it? I suppose it was that bad?"

"Did you know about how badly she was treated back there?" Jiki asked in rebuttal, his tone low.

"Not exactly, but I could infer," Satoru replied, his tone dipping just as low. "That's the reason I sponsored her attendance even though she lacks the prerequisite amount of cursed energy." Jiki was forced to remember what Satoru talked about one day while deep in his cups.

'Slaughter the entire Higher-ups and change the way things were done, restructure the whole system from the top to the bottom.'

It was an ideal goal, even if it was flawed.

For it reminded him too much of his own failings and hubris.

"We also fought against a vessel. Seemed like the Zenin made an effort at weaponizing one."

"Huh… That was not in the official reports," Satoru turned to face him with a serious face.

"I'm not surprised." He continued, "Naoya said his father would deal with the backlash if it ever came to light. Censoring that part of our report should not be particularly hard for them."

"Weaponizing vessels used to be a more common thing, but that was centuries past. It was outlawed after a rogue vessel sunk one of the smaller islands off the coast. Waving away something like that is not something Naobito can make the higher-ups do, unless…" Satoru trailed off.

Jiki mused on that statement for long seconds. This world's similarities with his were starting to verge on uncanny, with the major difference being time and the progression that came with it.

Inherited Cursed techniques and Kenkei Genkai.

Jinchuriki and vessels.

Sorcerers and shinobi.

Competing clans under a single banner yet with opposing levels of subterfuge applied in the background, and higher-ups that were just as bad as the enemies—was this just the human element or something else? He banished the thoughts and continued the conversation.

"The vessel mentioned someone. A man he made a deal with, someone who was preparing for something that would shake the world. I could not get more out of it before the Zenin appeared."

"Hmmm, the sudden rise and organization in rogue curse users, the increase in the caliber of causes, a strange curse putting random people into a coma, two powerful unregistered special-grade curses appearing from nowhere enlisting other special grades, and now this? Do you think they're connected?"

Jiki thought on it for a second before something Satoru said rang in his ears again. "Random people falling into a coma?"

"Yeah, it's been happening more frequently. We suspect it's a curse; we're not just certain. There is something… strange about it," Satoru finished before shrugging.

Jiki nodded and thought back on the original question asked before replying once more. "I doubt. It feels more like things have been in motion for a while, and we're just becoming aware of it. You said you had a suspicion on what was behind the sudden increase in curse users?"

He replied, sending a glance back at Satoru and managing to catch the pensive look on his face before it was wiped off and replaced with a confident grin.

"Maybe, I hope I'm wrong. But if I'm not, you have the chance to do what I wasn't."

Jiki felt the change in Satoru's tone, the dark atmosphere the topic had seemed to touch on but held off on poking that particular wound, instead doing what he had grown familiar with in recent times: he changed the topic.

"He's going to need a weapon."

"H-Huh?" Satoru replied, broken out of his fudge.

"Yuta. For all his talent, his physique is too weak. Curse energy reinforcement will give him a leg up, especially with the amount he has, but you can only reinforce a body so much, and it would take time to build his own into something worthwhile."

He felt Satoru's hand fall on his head, messing it up before the older man replied to him. "It's also going to help him control his immense curse energy but you're right. At this rate, you're going to take my job. You're a better teacher than most, Jiki."

Those words forced him to remember another life, another brother. Was he truly?

"Or he's just smarter than the average sorcerer we see passing through these halls," a familiar voice interjected, one he had not heard in a while. He turned with a smile at the shadow that blotted the sun standing behind them.

"Nanami-san."

"Jiki, Satoru."

"Maa Maa, is that my favorite nine-to-five salary man, my blindfolded eyes are seeing?"

"You do not see the ridiculousness in that statement, and it scares me," Nanami replied bluntly, his voice reverberating as he spoke, sliding into easy banter with Satoru.

Jiki could understand Satoru's surprise because the last he heard, the blonde-haired man had retired and gone straight. Even his attire reflected that change.

A straight-fitted cream suit, with matching pants and a blue inner shirt and spotted tie. The older man could've been mistaken for a regular salary man if not for the air around him.

Even with his eyes hidden behind his frameless glasses, Jiki could tell there was an edge in his eyes, something in his posture and his bearings screamed danger to the primitive part of the brain that forced a human to flinch at the sight of fire.

His short forage into a regular lifestyle had not killed that spark.

It was sad in a way. There was no true escape from this life; the only escape was death or, in rare cases like Old man Tatsumi, retirement. Alone and never truly loved.

"You're back then," Jiki asked rhetorically, even though he knew the answer to that question already. His eyes picked up the slight bulge in the underarms and shoulders that indicated a holster for a weapon.

His intrusion broke the banter that was brewing, and the older man forced his attention away from Satoru and to him.

"Unfortunately," he replied before nodding towards the still sparing teenagers. "These are the new crop of first years then."

"What do you think about them?" Satoru asked.

Nanami's reply was swift and straightforward like he had been expecting the question. "There are no obvious problem kids like Hakari, so this should be easy. The Inumaki shouldn't be a major problem. The cursed puppet seems to lack the feral characteristics you'd expect from his kind.

The girl though…" he trailed off for a long moment watching Maki weave and spin between the combined assault of Panda and Emi with supernatural grace.

"She is like him, isn't she." It was not truly a question, so he and Satoru stayed silent.

"Yes," Jiki was the one to finally reply.

"And the Zenin clan?"

Satoru replied this time. "Not happy about it, but they don't think she matters enough to make an issue out of it."

"That is stupid," Nanami noted. "But also in line with what I would expect from the clans. They don't seem to handle the unconventional very well."

The three veterans of the incident that changed the world watched the first years spar and enjoy themselves, and hoped it would last even though they knew they wouldn't be that fortunate. There was a storm coming.

....

"Alright o, it's time for me to unleash my cute little students upon this poor world."

Jiki looked up just as he finished writing the last answer to the spontaneous quiz that Satoru had started them off with.

The older man had a smile on his face that was downright mischievous. He also always seemed to be in a state of perpetual happiness and glee, so Jiki didn't give it much thought.

"Finally!" Maki replied by slamming her pen and palm down on the table with enough force to crack the wooden desk. "About time. You've had us holed up here for over two weeks."

"Maa Maa, you're paying for that," Satoru replied with a grin.

"What," Maki replied flabbergasted, looking at a way to hide the cracks. "It's just a scratch nothi-"

That was the moment the desk decided to creak as the metal reinforcement groaned and folded inward, collapsing beneath her hands and sending up dust and wood shavings.

She looked around with wide eyes, hoping that nobody observed the disastrous moment.

Unfortunately for her, Satoru was already right up her face with a grin and an arm outstretched, "Pay up, Maki-kun," he called along with a singsong voice to the amber-eyed girl's horror. Jiki decided to spare her from the older man's trolling and spoke up.

"What is the mission, Satoru?"

Satoru straightened up immediately and left Maki behind before walking up to the board. With a dash of chalk on the blackboard, he wrote down their objectives before turning around to face them.

"It's been two weeks since Yuta was transferred over here. So I'm sending you out in paired groups." Satoru pointed to Yuta and Maki first before continuing. "Both of you are heading to Kanto Elementary High School at Shibuya. An exorcism was performed two weeks ago, yet the same issue seems to have cropped up again. The both of you are taking care of that."

Pointing at Panda and Toge, he continued. "We picked up some rogue curse users; according to the intel we have on them, they can't be more than grade 3 or 4 sorcerers, pretty young ones too. Nothing you can't handle, I'm sure."

He finally turned to them before speaking.

"Emi, you're with me. I need to get you started up on barriers considering how far ahead you are theoretically, but Jiki-kun is heading over to Mount Fuji. It has been closed off for the past three months due to the weather, but some overly curious tourists have found their way up somehow and they've ended up missing. Your job is to verify if they're alive and retrieve them. If they're not..." He drifted off for a bit before continuing, "Well, that's up to you. With that out of the way, pair up, and let's get going." With their shared nods of determination, they stood up and moved.

....

The trip to Mount Fuji was short and quiet since he was alone, and he found he had missed the solace that came with his own space.

Ijichi glanced back at him a couple of times, but the older man must've been too worried about the growing reputation Jiki was building up to even bother him with a conversation, so Jiki left it like that.

Despite his closed eyes and relaxed posture, he could tell the moment he got close to the famous mountain, for at the foot of the famous mountain lay a more infamous place; Aokigahara-jukai, or as the foreigners that knew about it like to call it, the suicide forest.

The forest was a terrible font for cursed energy and was the main reason why he was given this task. Few people could be trusted to enter the forest and come back sane. That he was given the job alone spoke of the importance of whoever the supposed tourist was.

It was reported that over two hundred people killed themselves in the forest every year, but the truth was those numbers were easily double or triple that in actual figures if you considered the caliber of curses the forest had become a breeding ground for.

Even this far off, he could almost taste the aura of death, despair, and sorrow that clung to the environment. The duality of Mount Fuji being a sacred place, with the bottom of it; Aokigahara-jukai being a place so desecrated, that no real effort had been put into exorcising it, due to the sheer impossibility of the deed was amusing and drew similarities to the Christian religion of heaven and hell.

"We're here, Jiki-san," Ijichi called out looking back at him through the mirror assuming he was still asleep. His return stare forced the man to flinch back, turning his attention back to the steering wheel.

You would've thought after over six years of knowing him, the older man would've gotten used to his eyes. Or was it his fault for never deactivating his Sharingan? He reflected.

"Thank you, Ijichi-San." With those words, he stepped down from the car, before stretching and cracking his joints in preparation.

"Should I wait?" The man replied, bolstered by something Jiki could not name. He thought about the request for a while. He was not given any time limit and didn't require a barrier. This close to Aokigahara-jukai, the man was at risk of facing off against a wandering curse.

He sent a glance back at the slim, gaunt-faced spectacles spectacles-bearing older man and had to admit his odds were horrible against anything grade two or higher. Yet he had offered to wait behind still. The man had more bravery than his frame seemed to imply.

"Don't worry about me, Ijichi-San. I'll find my way back."

With a furious nod and a whispered, "Good luck, Jiki-san," the man reversed the car and drove off, leaving Jiki staring at the evil forest that called to him like a mother called to her child. A way to entice weak-willed people into the forest no doubt.

Underneath that siren's call that tugged at him, and beneath the rolling malicious fog of despair, fear, and death, he vaguely picked up on a strange cursed signature. One that flitted out of his senses as fast as he picked it out.

A familiar cursed energy signature.

He took off at a slow pace. He was in no rush and he already had a vague idea of what awaited him in there. Crossing special weathered stone columns that bore talismans that were supposed to keep the stronger curses from slipping out and overrunning the countryside, he stepped his feet into the forest, and everything changed.