Free Web NovelChapter 348: 348 Jujutsu Kaisen 13
The winter season Taijin-kyo gathering ended well, and when spring came, the original story’s Gojo’s Past Arc (Hidden Inventory / Premature Death) was finally about to begin. Uraume, Satoru, Suguru, and Ieiri had become second years, and Nanami Kento and Haibara Yu had entered as first-year new students. Naturally, I wanted to see Nanami, so I used the excuse that Uraume had become a second year to visit the school.
’Can’t miss Nanami.’
Of course, Tsukumo, who had been lazing around the mansion, also came along, saying she was bored. We rode our bikes, bought presents and bouquets for the kids, and headed to the school. Upon arriving, we spotted Satoru loitering in the hallway.
"Hey~ Satoru."
"Oh~ Head Priest, long time no see. Tsukumo too, long time no see."
"Congratulations on becoming second years."
"Congratulations."
I handed over the presents I’d brought, and Tsukumo handed over the bouquets.
"Huh? A laptop. This is really expensive, isn’t it?"
"Not that expensive. Around 300,000 yen, I think?"
"That’s expensive. Well, you’re rich, Head Priest. Anyway, I’ll use it well."
"Where are the others?"
"Not sure? We got new students. They might have gone to see them."
"Is that so?"
Guided by Satoru, we moved to the outdoor field at the school. There, second years and new students were gathered, chatting. Seeing that, Satoru called out.
"Uraume, your brother’s here!"
"Ah, brother."
When Uraume ran over to me, I gave her a present again.
"Congratulations on becoming a second year."
"Congratulations, Uraume."
"It’s a new laptop. The old one’s keyboard was starting to break because it was flimsy, so this is good. Thank you. And thanks for the bouquet too, Tsukumo."
Just how much had she been gaming that a laptop keyboard broke in under a year?
Anyway, we also gave presents and bouquets to Suguru and Ieiri. They also thanked us.
"A laptop... I’m not good with these things."
"Suguru, the world is changing fast. You should at least know how to use a computer."
"Really? Okay, I’ll give it a try."
Then Haibara Yu recognized me and came over to greet me.
"Oh~ to see the Head Priest in person... Nice to meet you. I’m Haibara Yu, who just entered the school this year."
Haibara had black hair cut in a two-block style. He was very energetic and had a kind-looking face that seemed to have ’I’m a good person’ written all over it.
"So you’re the new first years. Nice to meet you. This is Tsukumo Yuki, a special grade sorcerer. As for me, I don’t think I need to introduce myself."
"Cute new students. What’s your type of woman?"
When Tsukumo asked, Haibara confidently replied.
"I like someone who eats a lot!"
Then Tsukumo looked at Nanami. Unlike Haibara, Nanami looked troubled.
"Is this some kind of initiation? I like a kind woman who cooks well."
Despite being troubled, Nanami dutifully answered about his ideal type.
Nanami had blond hair styled with a side part, influenced by his Danish grandfather. He was tall, with a handsome and sharp-featured appearance.
"The new students entering the school aren’t bad, are they? Not arrogant like Satoru."
When Tsukumo said that, Satoru frowned, and the others giggled.
"But are you really special grade?"
"Yes, I’m special grade. But there are a lot of special grades here. The Head Priest next to me is one, and the Head Priest’s younger sister Uraume is also special grade."
"Eh? Is special grade something you can become easily?"
Haibara, hearing that there were three special grades here, asked if it was something easy to achieve.
"No, it’s not. The condition for being a special grade sorcerer is ’one who possesses the power to single-handedly shake a nation.’ And currently, there are only three special grades in the Japanese sorcery world. All three are gathered right here."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. And there are also kids here who have a high chance of reaching special grade."
Tsukumo patted Satoru and Suguru’s shoulders as she said that.
"Oh~ I see. I’ll try my best too."
"Yeah, do your best."
While Tsukumo was doing that, I was secretly taking photos of Nanami. Because Nanami is my favorite character in Jujutsu Kaisen, and photos of him from his student days are rare. I’ll give some to Itadori later too.
Tsukumo and I chatted with the kids a while longer, then returned to the mansion.
The next day, I had somewhere to go. So I got up early, washed up, prepared, and left. Tsukumo seemed to still be asleep in her room. I drove my Wrangler to the Zenin clan. The Zenin clan members recognized me immediately and opened the gate right away. The Zenin clan, which values tradition, maintained traditional Japanese architecture—it felt like visiting a famous hot spring.
They guided me directly to the clan head’s room. The current head of the Zenin clan was Zenin Naobito. Thinking about it, it was fortunate I got to meet the clan head directly. Among the Zenin clan members, who are full of all sorts of problems, he is relatively reasonable and open to dialogue.
"A celebrity has come. So, what brings you to the Zenin clan?"
Naobito had his hair slicked all the way back, giving him the look of a yakuza boss, with a distinctive mustache that stuck out sharply on both sides. He had been drinking since morning, his face flushed red.
"I’ve come to take the Zenin twin sisters."
"You mean Mai and Maki. Why those kids?"
"Our family also needs more sorcerers. I want to raise them properly. After all, if they stay here, they’ll just be treated as failures."
I had sent shadow soldiers ahead to scout the Zenin clan, so I already knew that Maki and Mai had manifested their techniques.
"Hmm... I don’t know how you got that information, but knowing Ougi’s personality, you’re probably right. Still, I can’t just give away another family’s children."
Zenin Ougi is the father of Maki and Mai, and the worst kind of person—abusive and neglectful toward his children. He constantly insults his daughters, dismissing their techniques and cursed energy as worthless. Among readers of the original story, he’s considered one of the worst fathers, often called ’trash among trash.’
Anyway, anticipating that response, I opened a bag I had prepared in advance so its contents were visible and held it out to Naobito. Inside were stacks of cash totaling around one billion yen.
"This should be enough to satisfy the clan and make it easy to persuade Ougi. Don’t you think?"
Naobito laughed heartily.
"Hahaha, the Hisakawa family really is rich. Spending this much money on kids with questionable techniques and cursed energy. Fine, I’ll go talk to Ougi right now."
After Naobito left the room, I waited for a while. Then a man who appeared to be Ougi came in, roughly shoved his two daughters into the room as if they were objects, and left. Then Naobito came back in and said.
"The father has agreed. You may take the daughters."
After saying that to me, Naobito spoke to Maki and Mai, who were trembling in fear.
"You two go with this person. It will be much better than staying here."
Naobito’s attitude suggested that he too recognized that the Zenin clan was an abnormal group. But even as clan head, he couldn’t overturn the thousand-year-old traditions of the clan, and knowing the harsh reality of the sorcery world where only the strong survive, he seemed to have chosen to abandon everything.
I slowly approached Maki and Mai, trying not to startle them, and said.
"Come with me. Then you can eat lots of delicious food and do whatever you want to do."
"Is that true?" Maki asked.
"Yes."
"Then we’ll go."
At that age, most children would be crying and clinging, looking for their mother, but these twins showed no sign of that. Seeing that, I could understand just how cold and harsh their father Ougi had been toward his own daughters.
I took the children in the car and returned to the mansion. I assigned two kind maids to the children and got them the necessary items. Then Tsukumo, who had just woken up, came out and said, seeing the children.
"Ah, these are the Zenin kids you mentioned before?"
"Yeah. They’ll be living here with us from now on. And their names will now be Hisakawa, not Zenin. And there are more kids coming."
"What? There are more?"
"Yes."
I didn’t stop there. I also planned to bring the Hasaba sisters, whom Suguru originally took in. And if possible, I wanted to bring Megumi and his sister Tsumiki too, but I wasn’t sure about them yet. Besides them, there was one more person I wanted to bring.
The next day, I took Maki and Mai to a toy store and a bookstore and let them buy whatever they wanted.
"Wow~ we can buy whatever we want?"
"Yes. If there’s anything you want, tell me. I’ll buy it all for you."
At that, Maki and Mai excitedly picked out various things they wanted. I bought them all, plus some study supplies, and returned to the mansion. Maki and Mai went to their rooms with bright faces and started playing with their toys.
I also hired a tutor for the children, asking that they only be taught at a level similar to other children their age. However, if the children themselves showed interest in studying, I said they could teach them more. I made sure to hire a tutor with a good personality, so I trusted she would handle things well.
The registration of Maki and Mai’s family registry was also completed, and now they were truly Hisakawa Maki and Hisakawa Mai. Whenever Tsukumo was bored, she would play with the children. Fortunately, thanks to the children’s personalities, even after being treated so poorly in the Zenin clan, they brightened up quickly after coming to my mansion.
A few days later, I received a message from Uraume.
The request regarding the Star Plasma Vessel that you mentioned has come in. As you expected, Satoru and Suguru have been assigned the mission.
"Really? Got it."
I had previously told Uraume to contact me if a request regarding the Star Plasma Vessel came in.
Tengen, the key figure in the Jujutsu Kaisen Gojo’s Past Arc, currently holds such immense prestige that he is not just a great elder of the sorcery world but is evaluated as the Japanese sorcery world itself. His existence is so absolute as to be an object of religious worship, and his influence is such that even Satoru addresses him with the honorific ’sama.’
Having lived for hundreds of years, he is the strongest barrier technique user in the universe. He spreads powerful barriers over Jujutsu High, plants barriers across Japan to suppress the birth of cursed spirits, and assists with barrier techniques used by assistant supervisors and sorcerers.
However, Tengen possesses the ’Immortality’ technique, not ’eternal youth,’ so every five hundred years, he must undergo assimilation with a specific young human called a ’Star Plasma Vessel’ to maintain his body. If he does not, the technique’s influence will cause his body to deteriorate into a form suited for immortality, risking a rampage.
What’s interesting is that because Tengen’s role is so absolute, the sorcery world takes it for granted and doesn’t hesitate even to offer up a Star Plasma Vessel. I personally found that completely incomprehensible.
’What, it’s not like he’s a monster that needs a sacrifice...’
Anyway, Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru were assigned the mission to escort the Star Plasma Vessel, Amanai Riko, and safely deliver her to Tengen. But there were several obstacles in this process.
The Time Vessel Association, a group that deifies and worships Tengen, opposed the assimilation, claiming it would defile Tengen’s purity. Another group, the curse user faction ’Q,’ plotted to overthrow the current sorcery world by using Tengen’s rampage.
Fortunately, the curse user faction ’Q’ was no match for Satoru and Suguru, so they weren’t a problem. But the sorcerer killer hired by the Time Vessel Association, Fushiguro Toji, was the real issue. He was from the Zenin clan and, as Tsukumo mentioned earlier, was the only person in the world with exactly zero cursed energy due to a Heavenly Restriction.
Toji had lived a very unfortunate life. Although he was a member of the Zenin clan, one of the prestigious sorcery families, they did not acknowledge him due to his lack of cursed energy. He was subjected to severe bullying, including being confined to a punishment room filled with low-grade cursed spirits.
He eventually left the clan at a young age, met and married his first wife, and had Megumi. It seemed he truly loved his first wife; he softened his personality and lived an ordinary, happy life. But not long after, his first wife died, and he remarried Tsumiki’s mother, becoming a live-in son-in-law of the Fushiguro family.
However, after his first wife’s death, he gave up on everything, deciding to live a life caring for neither others nor himself, and became a sorcerer assassin. Due to the nature of his job, he was often away from home, frequently neglecting Megumi, Tsumiki, and Tsumiki’s mother.
Ironically, the work he chose as a ’sorcerer killer’ suited his characteristics astonishingly well.
Ordinary sorcerers can sense an opponent’s existence to some extent through their cursed energy, but due to Toji’s unique constitution of having zero cursed energy, he was impossible to sense, giving him a great advantage in surprise attacks. Furthermore, due to his Heavenly Restriction granting him superhuman physical abilities, he became so overwhelmingly dominant in that field that he earned the epithet ’Sorcerer Killer.’
Moreover, the cursed tools Toji used were also powerful threats. When he left the Zenin clan, he took with him the excellent cursed tools the clan had accumulated over generations, the most notable being the Inverted Spear of Heaven and the Chain of a Thousand Miles. These two cursed tools, combined with his overwhelming physical abilities, proved deadly against sorcerers.
I want to save Toji. He is a character full of that much charm. But I also can’t pass up the ’Physical Gifted’ ability granted by his Heavenly Restriction. So he is also a person I’m quite conflicted about regarding how to handle.
I called Tsukumo first.
"Tsukumo, let’s take the kids and go on a trip to Okinawa."
