Chapter 6

  One of the first things I had ascertained after gaining my Juchū was what my new range was. At the start, it had been prohibitively short, barely enough to have them stretch to the edges of an average living room.

  After Hirotada’s ill-fated primer, and some self-study, I had seen a disproportionate rise in my range, one that seemed to extend almost every week. That was because I had figured out what my range was governed by: my spiritual perception.

  My ability to sense distant signatures of cursed energy correlated to how far I could send my Juchū. According to Iemon, most full-fledged experts at the Bear or Tiger level could send theirs out to an excess of a hundred meters in any direction. That was a respectable range, and gave you room to hide and hunker down in many places even if you were bugging a sky-scraper.

  Some Tigers and most Demons could go even farther: twice to thrice that distance. They could be several streets away while bugging an entire building, and with mastery would come an ability to hide the ‘radio signals’ that tethered the Juchū to us. Those could be sensed by sufficiently advanced sorcerers.

  On my seventh birthday, May fifteenth—the same day that Leviathan had made landfall on Brockton Bay in 2011—I had determined that my range was three-hundred and sixty meters.

  Just north of a thousand feet. Five city blocks thereabouts. And growing every day.

  Michiko, my caretaker, presented me with a slice of a birthday cake, pink and white. It had a candle showing the number seven in Western digits, and I had blown it out without much fanfare or celebration. It was with a distinct amount of melancholy that I did it, in fact.

  A song was playing on my record player, by Perry Como and the Fontaine Sisters: It’s A Lovely Day Today. Michiko had selected it at random—she didn’t understand English.

  “It’s a lovely day today. So whatever you’ve got to do, you’ve got a lovely day to do it in, that’s true.”

  She passed me the cake on a paper plate, a fork on one side of it.

  “And I hope, whatever you’ve got to do, is something that can be done by two. For I’d really liiiike to stay.”

  I looked at Michiko’s face, and remembered why I usually didn’t do that. Why I tried to ignore her existence.

  Her expression was bent into this perennial sulk. She was a woman approaching fifty. Or maybe she was younger. One thing was certain: life in the Hibana clan had broken her utterly.

  This… birthday party was something I had off-handedly suggested weeks ago, to Iemon once he reminded me that it was coming up. I had been sarcastic—I had no interest in celebrating the day I had inadvertently killed a woman.

  She’d even brought the cone-shaped hats, for goodness’ sake.

  They were lying on the side of the room unused, along with some other toys and wrapped-up presents, probably from Iemon.

  I wasn’t hungry.

  But I forced myself to nibble on the cake, and not think too hard about Michiko. I felt guilt, even though I had done nothing to cause her to be in this situation. All I could do… was save her.

  She retreated from me and stuck to the walls, where she thought she belonged, and I kept nibbling at my cake.

  “You can… have some,” I murmured. “If you want. You should distribute it as well to others. It shouldn’t go to waste. I’m fine with this one slice.”

  She nodded.

  I snuck a glance at her face.

  Still the same saddened expression and lidded, downcast eyes.

  000

  Tengen had the best texts for when it came to ‘Jujutsu Sorcery’, apparently. They were in the forbidden archive, but with Iemon’s permission, I had unrestricted access to every bit of information that the Hibana clan held.

  Including information on Tengen, apparently some kind of sanctified figure of Jujutsu, though he wasn’t actually a god.

  He was an ancient sorcerer, whose lifespan stretched back all the way to the Asuka period. His technique turned him immortal, but in order to stay immortal and not turn into some kind of monster—because his technique apparently didn’t halt ‘aging’ in the sense of continuous development—he required young female sacrifices every five-hundred years to keep himself vital.

  And Tengen was a pillar of the so-called Jujutsu Society. As in, he was one of the ‘good guys’.

  I hated that my mind immediately ran the cost-benefit analysis of keeping him alive versus not doing so. His contributions included maintaining barriers all across the strongholds of Jujutsu Society, the two schools located in Tokyo and Kyoto, and he also enabled even middling Jujutsu Sorcerers to be able to cast barrier techniques. These were ‘veils’ that essentially obscured the activities of Jujutsu Sorcerers while they were mid-exorcism, in order to prevent the non-sighted from observing.

  Because doing so could cause a leak that would lead to widespread panic and anxiety, which would then lead to more curses springing forth.

  Tengen was the most important factor for keeping the world of curses a secret. And if only one young girl had to die every five-hundred years in order to prevent the literal end of the world…

  I despised that calculus with all my might.

  Thirty-seven of my Juchū were reading the texts—on scrolls unfurled all over my bedroom, on the floors, taped to the walls, and even on the ceiling—and with each second, I felt less and less confident in my own world view.

  This was Cauldron all over again, and despite myself, I could see their point. How could I not? After what Scion had done, how could I not understand why a group of people wouldn’t try to avert that horrible fate by any means necessary?

  Fear was human. And fear led humans to do the most awful things imaginable, as long as it was for a ‘good cause’.

  Once upon a time, I had felt this pull, this reason to do wrong for a good cause. To protect my hometown. To help people. All I had ever wanted to do was help.

  Was Tengen wrong?

  What kind of person allowed such a sacrifice in the first place?

  It wasn’t that the harm was minimal, given the vast intervals of time that separated each instance that a Star Plasma Vessel—his name for his sacrifices—had to be… subsumed by him.

  The harm was minimal, but it was still substantial. This person had murdered young women just to keep himself alive.

  And it explained, all too much, why all of this accursed world had such an intense disregard for the lives of girls. Tengen had provided the template for Jujutsu Society. That was in the text.

  In doing so, he had provided all of his colleagues a carte blanche to treat women as slaves.

  I finished reading in minutes.

  Upon my signal, Michiko, and a fleet of other servants, began to detach the scrolls upon my word, and they replaced them with new ones. I wasn’t done studying by a long-shot.

  000

  Iemon had come to dread the weekly meetings with the clan elders and the head.

  This could have been a letter.

  When he was twenty-five and had been recruited to become an elder based on his immaculate track-record—owing to his ability to discern his chances of success in any given mission, leading to a 100% completion record that yet remained unbroken—he had seen these meetings as utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. He had seen them as things that could have encompassed a singular letter.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Gojo Satoru’s birth had led to a slow decline in the criminal underworld, which led to a decline on their profits. Sosuke-sama, to his credit, had found a way to profit nonetheless. The Hibana clan were information brokers above all else. They didn’t need to take on excessive risk to profit. They just needed to egg on their clients into paying them for whatever ill-fated desire that they had. Most of the time, that meant stealing from Jujutsu Society, or killing their most promising candidates.

  Gojo Satoru’s information inquiries had kept them afloat, paradoxically. Though soon, the Society would chip the underground down to a nub, and those that remained would lose their nerves.

  In Iemon’s opinion, Sosuke should be focusing on turning their image around. Making entreaties with the Jujutsu Society. Sending some of their best to their schools.

  Unfortunately, generational rivalry prevented Sosuke, the other elders, and the clan as a whole, from simply swallowing the indignity of giving in, and joining the Society.

  After all, the Hibana clan’s history preceded the Society. And those bastards would rather bite into a rotting corpse than to seek the Hibana out, for their incredible information-gathering ability.

  In the end, as per the ancient edicts: money talked.

  And the so-called Jujutsu Society were so reluctant to loosen their purse-strings that even Iemon felt that it was a waste to reach out to them.

  Still, that was what most of the clan elders wanted: a simple apology. An apology and a reassurance of funds in exchange for a long-term contract.

  And then horses will grow wings and we can ride off with them into the sunset.

  No. Jujutsu Society was intransigent. The only way that the Hibana clan could make a comeback would be by extending the first hand. And that, too, was a futile gesture.

  He doubted that even Teira would stoop so low, given her own disposition towards the clan. She probably viewed herself as some kind of singular entity, incapable of ceding control.

  Disregarding her curious case, Iemon had, eventually, understood the necessity of meetings.

  The whispers were important. The comments. Without showing up, he would be at the mercy of whosoever wanted to take his Juchū from him on the grounds that they were peeping. He had lost a handful of Juchū in the past, trying the same stunt.

  He had recovered, and gained dozens, once he had shown up to said meetings.

  The whispers were of paramount importance. It was important to know what people were feeling about each of Sosuke’s proclamations.

  Now more than ever.

  One of his Juchū were currently stationed on Teira’s shoulder, by her permission. It was a channel of communication between them. One was on his shoulder as well.

  He had taken to allowing this arrangement after she had expressed an intense curiosity to what the people inside this room were discussing.

  Every expression of hers was intense, truly. This particular curiosity, however? Iemon had seen no other recourse but to obey. Even if it broke the rules.

  Thankfully, Teira had become adept at veiling the signature of her individual Juchū. Every single skill of this Cursed Technique came all too easily for her.

  Iemon cursed his ability to read a room.

  He couldn’t ignore it. He couldn’t look away from it. Her rise was imminent, and it was all too impossible to ignore. And it was going to elevate him. He just had to keep betting every last chip in his side until it paid off.

  It was a good gamble. And moreover? It was a gamble that only he knew the pay-off of. He had subsumed or chased off the Juchū watching over her for months. To the point that he now had forty-three new Juchū to his name.

  The elders had lost theirs to his, and they had sent their underlings after him, and Teira. He had subsumed them all anyhow.

  “The Association Summit is upon us,” Sosuke-sama addressed the room. This was a meeting that, while superfluously straightforward, could never just be a letter. “And we have yet to select a young talent to represent us.”

  Sosuke spared Iemon a glare, pre-empting him from nominating Teira—not that he had any intention of doing something so monumentally stupid. It would humiliate the Hibana clan to have a girl fight their battles. And it would humiliate their rivals to have that same girl beat them.

  There was a fine line between projecting strength and causing humiliation, and in these trying times, maintaining good relations with their fellow curse expert clans was of the utmost importance.

  Iemon listened to the chatter. People referenced Teira obliquely, but never by name. She had become something of a political poison as of late, and Iemon felt that poison coursing through his blood every time he showed up to these meetings.

  At times, he couldn’t help but wonder if his days weren’t… truly numbered.

  None of the elders spoke or whispered to him anymore. They whispered about him, but not to him.

  In defending Teira, and respecting her wishes, he had left his little power bloc weaker than ever.

  Something would give in time.

  “I’m guessing that I’m not on the shortlist,” Teira said to his Juchū.

  Iemon suppressed a snort and responded in morse by pulsing cursed energy through his bug.

  ‘Ideally, you would never even be present, but unfortunately, it’s our turn to host this Association Summit.’

  On the bright side, it was good for the young heir to learn about potential rivals and allies.

  000

  To my surprise, the clan archives were painfully scarce with information on how the multiplication of Juchū actually worked. By now, I had already scoured through every single tome and scroll of consequence. As I walked besides Iemon—Michiko as always trailing behind me—, towards the big hall that we would be hosting the summit in, walking up a mountain trail, I pondered this gap in knowledge.

  Everyone had told me that positive energy would square my number of Juchū, but not how.

  I asked Iemon the question. He snorted, shaking his head as he chuckled ruefully. “It’s an oral tradition, passed down from clan head to clan head for generations. Nothing that has been written down. Once you achieve the Reverse Cursed Technique, Sosuke-sama will have to inform you.”

  “Wait, what?” my eyes widened. “What if he just dies? What happens then?”

  “There are failsafes for this. Many possess this truth, but those that have it are bound by vow to never disclose it to anyone but the clan head.”

  Ah. That was good. In that case, even if there was a succession battle, as long as I could demonstrate that I was the more legitimate ‘clan head’, I could gain this information.

  And then destroy the clan afterwards.

  “Also, I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said. “But Kenzo was said to have fifteen thousand Juchū. You’re saying he stopped there because he was hitting his human limit. But you’ve also stated that this limit is ordinarily closer to a hundred.”

  “With the Reverse Cursed Technique, your human limit is far higher. After all, this is a restorative power. It may restore your brain even when you overuse the Juchū technique.”

  Huh. “Also, if he had fifteen thousand Juchū, how come we only have two-thousand now? Didn’t he give them away? Or isn’t it possible to give away multiplied Juchū?”

  “It certainly is,” he said. “And Kenzo did give his Juchū to his sons, and their Juchū trickled down over the generations. But the thing about having plenty is that you become more frivolous with your spending. Kenzo’s descendants took more risks, pushed their techniques, because they could afford to lose a few dozen Juchū here and there. But over the decades, this does add up.”

  “So, we’re just idiots.”

  Iemon barked out a harsh laugh at that. “Indeed. Now, I trust that you’ve done your homework on our guests.”

  That, I had. In fact, I was looking at them right now.

  The Shiba clan were dressed in red and white kimonos, and they were about thirty in number. They occupied one corner of the large hall, talking amongst one another or otherwise staying quiet. Feature-wise, nothing distinguished them from the other clans, or even ourselves. We all shared the same ethnicity.

  The Shiba clan’s specialization was assassination. Their inherited technique was invisibility. According to our clan histories, this invisibility was next to worthless against anyone with keen senses, and they were directly countered by the Juchū technique. Also, unlike our Juchū, a scant few had actually inherited this technique.

  The Ogura clan was on the adjacent corner of the room. Fifty-five in number, and they wore brown kimono. Their men were all bald as well. Their inherited technique was the ‘Iron Fist’, which gave their striking power lots of weight at the moment of contact. Like a built-in Black Flash or something. They made rent by acting as hired muscle, lending their expertise to the criminal underground.

  On the opposite corner to the Shiba clan were the Kagae clan. They had only brought ten with them. Their kimonos were stark white, which contradicted their inherited technique, Shadow Manipulation. Ostensibly, they shared a common ancestor with the Zen’in clan of the so-called Jujutsu Society, whose inherited technique was known as the ‘Ten Shadows’.

  Next to the Kagae were the only people dressed in non-traditional wear: the Mori clan. They were, to put it bluntly, filthy rich. It showed in their elaborate suits and dresses, and their smug grins that they cast towards the other clans.

  They had a lot of reason to be smug. Everyone in the Association owed their freedom and ability to continue their businesses to the Mori clan. Their inherited technique didn’t mean nearly as much as what they knew about barriers. Barriers were not innate techniques—which was the technical term for what our Juchū were. Instead, they were general and could be learned by anyone.

  And the barriers that the Mori provided to Association members were the sort that allowed us to elude the Jujutsu Society for centuries. They were basically our Lord Tengen—and probably ten times as morally bankrupt.

  I gave Iemon a run-down of the actors and what I expected would be the topic of conversation: “Killing Gojo Satoru is going to be the highest priority topic, I imagine.”

  Iemon snorted. “I don’t see us coming to a consensus on that anytime soon. Attacking the Gojo heir would mean going to war against Jujutsu Society, and even then, our chances of success are slim. The cost is too high to justify.”

  “Then why discuss it?”

  “Pride, Teira-chan. We may be weak, but we still have our pride.”

  Pride? I’d imagine that the proud thing to do would be to ignore the blue-eyed, white-haired elephant in the room and trying to navigate the new status quo without rocking the boat too much. Pride would mean not balking in the face of adversity. Getting over it.

  Maybe rattling swords and spears ineffectually before calming down was necessary for these hormonal man-children?

  “So we’re just here to listen to them vent,” I scoffed.

  “Just because you know the outcome doesn’t mean that letting others go through that process is for naught.”

  While that was true, I did despise everyone involved on general principle. I couldn’t be faulted for being impatient with them.

  Whatever. I’ll just focus on synthesizing positive energy.

  I was beginning to make real progress. If I had to use an analogy, I was… getting better at darts.

  Hitting an infinitessimally tiny dart-board with an equally infinitesimal dart at extremely high speeds so that the dart board inverts on itself and becomes the opposite of what it once was—

  I was bad at analogies.

  In any case, I could sense that I was approaching the right ‘velocity’ and the right ‘angle’ for which the cursed energy should collide, and in the process, was beginning to gain an even deeper understanding of cursed energy’s many properties. I wondered if my writing this down would help someone else figure the technique out.

  We were still ten to twenty minutes away from the hall up the mountain. Ample time to steep my focus into this task.