Yuki Tsukumo frowned deeply, staring at the dilapidated junk shop in front of her.
She pulled out her phone, dialed a number, and listened in silence for a few seconds. Before the person on the other end could even greet her, she spoke urgently: "We're one step too late."
After a moment, a voice echoed from the speaker: "Does this mean the King of Curses' master truly was Ashiya Sadatsuna?"
Yuki replied coldly, "This is your failure."
"I have been monitoring all millennial Sorcerers residing in Japan. Ashiya Sadatsuna was merely one of them. He wasn't even the strongest. On the contrary, he was incredibly docile. He was the only millennial Sorcerer who voluntarily exposed his entire daily life to me to prove his harmlessness. I was absolutely certain his only goal was to simply stay alive. As long as Jujutsu society didn't implode, he would never make a move," the voice explained slowly.
"Well, things have imploded," Yuki sighed. "The King of Curses emerged from nowhere, and his debut battle was the complete eradication of the Zen'in clan."
"Indeed," the voice replied softly. "Which is why I immediately instructed you to seek him out."
Yuki snapped in frustration. "But it was still too late! The very second a highly intelligent Special Grade Cursed Spirit surfaced, you should have instantly cross-referenced all the millennial Sorcerers you monitor! You should have sent Satoru Gojo to kick down every single one of their doors! That is what actual crisis management looks like!"
"I could not do that," the voice sighed again.
"Why not?!" Yuki demanded, her anger flaring.
"Because I am Tengen," the voice replied.
Yuki Tsukumo fell silent. After a long pause, she let out a deeply resigned sigh.
"Right. Because you are Tengen. Unless an apocalyptic, irresistible force threatens you directly, you are strictly forbidden from interfering in Jujutsu society. You must maintain your absolute neutrality and act as a blissful, omniscient puppet! I've told you countless times: if you genuinely cared about Jujutsu society, you wouldn't let those decrepit fools at Headquarters run rampant."
"I am over a thousand years old, child," Tengen said gently. "My ideology and my methods are entirely incompatible with this era. You currently view the Jujutsu Headquarters as archaic fossils, but if I were to actually replace them and enforce my will, you would quickly realize that the Headquarters was doing a relatively decent job."
"Your policy of 'stepping aside for the wise' is exactly why Headquarters has degenerated into this corrupt mess," Yuki said coldly.
"Did that not result in the birth of Satoru Gojo?" Tengen smiled faintly. "I firmly believe he will eventually overhaul the Jujutsu Headquarters, just as the Headquarters of the past invoked 'righteousness' to confine me here. Satoru Gojo will always carve out a new path... Such is the nature of humanity."
*Right. So profoundly self-righteous. I have nothing to say to that.* Yuki rubbed her temples, sighing helplessly.
After a moment, Yuki asked, "So what's the plan now? We've lost our only lead."
It was true. The moment Tengen learned that Mahito had an ancient master, she immediately locked onto Ashiya Sadatsuna.
It wasn't that Tengen hadn't considered Kenjaku. But Kenjaku and Ashiya Sadatsuna were fundamentally different entities. There was absolutely zero trace of Kenjaku's vile, venomous treachery in Mahito's public actions. Instead, Mahito's behavior practically radiated the pristine, hyper-honorable code of a samurai. Because Tengen possessed the dossiers of every immortal residing in Japan, after thoroughly cross-referencing intel from Yuki Tsukumo and Satoru Gojo, she immediately pinpointed Ashiya.
Only Ashiya Sadatsuna would be so pathologically obsessed with "honor." It had to be him.
If any other immortal had trained Mahito, the King of Curses would never have spared the women, children, and weaklings of the Zen'in clan. He wouldn't have stood at the front gates and loudly proclaimed his name and title before attacking. That behavior was straight out of an old samurai flick. Only Ashiya could have instilled that.
As for the possibility that this was simply the intelligent Cursed Spirit's own innate personality? Neither Tengen, Yuki Tsukumo, nor Satoru Gojo had even entertained the thought.
Are you kidding?! By their very definition as Curses, it was biologically impossible for them to harbor mercy or tolerance toward humans!
Forget Curses—just looking at the depravity of some regular humans was enough to demonstrate how unimaginably wicked and arrogant an unrestricted monster could be. Therefore, everyone in Jujutsu society operated under the absolute assumption that the King of Curses' "honorable" personality was the result of meticulous, post-birth grooming by a human master.
"Don't you have the contact information of Gojo's student?" Tengen asked slowly. "I recall you mentioning that you called him before contacting me. Has he called you back?"
"No. I called him about half an hour before I reached out to you." Yuki frowned. "He just said he would 'keep an eye out' for him."
"Did he confirm whether he had seen the King of Curses or not?" Tengen asked.
"He didn't explicitly say yes or no. He just deflected by saying he'd keep an eye out," Yuki noted thoughtfully.
"Then he has absolutely met him, and he has almost certainly been bound by a 'Binding Vow'," Tengen stated flatly. "Although Ashiya Sadatsuna is a samurai to his core, he does not lack paranoia. In fact, it is precisely his extreme paranoia that convinced me to let him live this long. If he was genuinely mentoring the King of Curses, he would have undoubtedly imparted that exact same paranoia to his student. Anyone who crosses paths with the King of Curses will be immediately shackled by a Binding Vow."
Yuki's eyes narrowed sharply. "Which means, if I just keep a tight leash on Hakari, I am guaranteed to track down the King of Curses?"
"Theoretically," Tengen replied cautiously.
"Theoretically?!" Yuki's voice spiked. "Do you have any idea how terrifyingly fast the King of Curses is evolving? Gojo and I surveyed the wreckage of the Zen'in estate. We mutually concluded that it took him less than three hours to annihilate them. And in those three hours, he evolved at least three separate times! He is actively mutating once an hour on average!"
"He is growing stronger every single second, without pause! He can already wipe out the Zen'in clan. I cannot even begin to fathom what monstrous heights he'll reach by his next appearance."
"What did Satoru Gojo say?" Tengen asked.
"That bastard told me to 'do whatever I want'," Yuki gritted her teeth.
"If he still retains his confidence, then the situation has not yet spiraled into the worst-case scenario," Tengen comforted. "I know Ashiya. He is not a grand, Machiavellian schemer. Even if he intends to wage war, he will do so openly and honorably. Just as the King of Curses did at the Zen'in estate—he formally announced his name, granted the clan ample time to prepare their defenses, and only engaged them afterward."
This was exactly why Tengen remained so unbothered.
If this had been Kenjaku's plot, Tengen would have been terrified. In the original timeline, upon learning that Kenjaku had appeared and successfully sealed Satoru Gojo, Tengen immediately provided the method to unseal him and strictly requested bodyguards. Tengen knew Kenjaku's ultimate target was her, and she absolutely could not die. If she died, the entire infrastructure of Japan would collapse.
History proved that Tengen understood Kenjaku intimately. She saw through all of his operational patterns.
But history also proved that Kenjaku understood Tengen just as flawlessly. He saw through every single countermeasure she deployed.
In this millennia-long chess match between nemeses, Kenjaku ultimately proved superior. Tengen had locked herself away, completely isolated from the outside world, her mindset frozen a thousand years in the past. She could only glimpse the changing eras during the brief windows of merging with a Star Plasma Vessel. Meanwhile, Kenjaku was actively living through history, intimately experiencing the evolution of Jujutsu society every single day. That was the unbridgeable gap in practical experience.
"So you're saying we just sit on our hands and do nothing?" Yuki asked. "As I recall, the only reason you even agreed to speak with me was because the Jujutsu Headquarters formally authorized it, right? Because the Higher-ups finally felt genuine, visceral terror. That's why they unlocked the doors and let me meet you."
It was true. That was exactly why Yuki Tsukumo had successfully contacted Tengen.
Since Hakari was Gojo's student, his words naturally carried less weight than Tengen's omniscient intelligence. Thus, Yuki had fully prepared to aggressively harass the Jujutsu Headquarters into letting her speak with Tengen, assuming it would be a prolonged political battle. While she waited, she continuously called Hakari.
To her shock, Tengen agreed to the meeting immediately. Using Yuki's intel, Tengen instantly zeroed in on the King of Curses' master: Ashiya Sadatsuna, founder of the New Shadow Style.
The Higher-ups were genuinely panicking!
When the King of Curses first debuted, Headquarters treated it seriously, but only as a standard hazard. They didn't genuinely view this once-in-a-millennium intelligent Cursed Spirit as an existential threat. Their primary target of paranoia remained the uncontrollable Satoru Gojo. They never believed a mere Cursed Spirit could upend their regime.
But the annihilation of the Zen'in clan violently woke them up. The blade had sliced directly into their arteries!
What was the Jujutsu Headquarters comprised of? Eighty percent of the board was controlled by the Three Great Families! By slaughtering the Zen'in, the King of Curses had effectively eradicated nearly a quarter of the Jujutsu Headquarters' political power in a single night.
How could they not be terrified?
That absolute, bone-deep fear was the sole reason they bypassed all protocols and immediately granted Yuki an audience with Tengen.
Armed with Tengen's intel, Yuki had rushed to the hideout without resting—only to find an empty building.
Suddenly, Tengen spoke. "Just be direct with him."
Yuki paused. "Direct?"
"If it were anyone else, I am certain your bluntness would go in one ear and out the other. They would pretend you didn't exist, or they would mock you as a fool," Tengen stated confidently. "But Ashiya is different. He is shackled by an antiquated code of honor. If you formally request an audience, he is fundamentally bound to meet you—even if it puts his life at extreme risk. And the disciple he trained will behave exactly the same way. The Zen'in clan insulted the King of Curses, so he marched into their stronghold alone to exterminate them. It is a matter of pride."
Yuki's mouth twitched. "But my end goal is to kill him? Would he really be so blind as to walk into such an obvious trap?"
"No, you do not want to kill him," Tengen corrected slowly. "You simply want to... locate him."
Yuki's eyes widened in sudden realization. She had Tengen backing her!
Tengen maintained the colossal barrier covering the entirety of Japan. Her daily duty was maintaining this barrier; if she neglected it for even a single day, catastrophic disasters would sweep the nation.
In the original canon, when Kenjaku finally absorbed Tengen, the barriers collapsed, and Cursed Spirits flooded the country uncontrollably.
Because Tengen controlled this omnipresent barrier network, the moment the King of Curses was locked onto, he could never escape. Unless he instantly teleported outside the borders of Japan, Tengen could track him flawlessly no matter where he ran! Yuki didn't need to kill the King of Curses during their first meeting. She only needed to lay eyes on him once. After that, Tengen could handle the tracking.
Yuki licked her lips, deeply impressed. "I swear, Jujutsu Sorcerers are all scheming bastards. And millennial Sorcerers are thousand-year-old scheming bastards."
"You are including yourself in that insult," Tengen reminded her.
"I'm fully aware I'm an irredeemable bastard, too," Yuki replied, her tone complex. "If it weren't for me, Geto might not have..."
"Suguru Geto was already mentally broken at that point," Tengen consoled her. "You were merely the catalyst. Without you, someone else would have triggered it. He was destined to walk that path eventually. It had nothing to do with you. I assumed you had already accepted that truth."
"I have," Yuki exhaled sharply. "Alright, I know exactly what I need to do. Until we lock onto the King of Curses, let us cooperate properly for the first time in a long while!"
"As you wish." The call disconnected.
Yuki Tsukumo stared blankly at the sliding doors of the abandoned junk shop, rapidly calculating how to bait the King of Curses out. She had already mapped out the strategy: all she needed was a face-to-face meeting. During that meeting, she was even willing to swear a Binding Vow stating, *'I will never raise my hand against you.'*
If she couldn't attack him, didn't they still have Yuta Okkotsu? Didn't they still have Satoru Gojo? Any loophole worked, as long as she could just look at him once.
But the problem remained: how to contact him? Yuki's thoughts returned to Kinji Hakari.
It was an absolute certainty that Hakari had met the King of Curses. But it was equally certain he was bound by a Vow preventing him from leaking intel.
*But I'm not asking for intel, am I? I just want to meet him.*
According to Mei Mei's reports, mundane human politicians could get in touch with him. Why couldn't she? She refused to believe it was impossible.
With her resolve hardened, Yuki dialed Hakari's number once more.
As the phone rang, Yuki's mind raced, fixating on the King of Curses' true ability. The power to force evolution.
The power to evolve normal humans into Sorcerers. The power to elevate Sorcerers to entirely new heights.
And possibly... the power to grant immortality. True immortality.
Yuki exhaled slowly. It was earth-shattering intel. At first, she thought the rumors were just a smokescreen, until she met with Tengen, and Tengen casually confirmed the existence of multiple immortals living in Japan.
*Goddammit.* Yuki had never once considered that there were other methods of immortality in the Jujutsu world aside from Tengen's!
But for Yuki Tsukumo, immortality was completely irrelevant. Her true obsession was the first part—the ability to evolve normal humans into Jujutsu Sorcerers.
She had a dream.
She wanted to permanently eradicate the birth of Cursed Spirits!
She never hid her radical ideology. Back when she was an actively operating Sorcerer, she loudly preached her theories to anyone who would listen. She had conceptualized countless methods to achieve this, but all were ultimately proven unviable, or were far too atrociously cruel to execute. Now, completely unexpectedly, a new path had presented itself.
At its core, the birth of Cursed Spirits was simply the result of normal humans being unable to control the leakage of their Cursed Energy. This leaked negative energy pooled together over time and eventually coalesced into a Cursed Spirit.
Jujutsu Sorcerers were fundamentally different. Even rogue Curse Users perfectly controlled their internal Cursed Energy, leaking essentially nothing into the environment.
In short: all Cursed Spirits were born because of normal humans. Jujutsu Sorcerers did not create Curses.
This led to her ultimate theory: if she could forcibly evolve every single normal human on Earth into a Jujutsu Sorcerer, then all human Cursed Energy would be perfectly contained. The birth of Cursed Spirits would instantly drop to zero!
Unfortunately, when she pitched this idea, the Jujutsu Headquarters immediately banished her from the premises. If it weren't for her status and overwhelming power as a Special Grade, she heavily suspected they would have sent assassins after her.
So, what was the alternative method?
There was indeed one other way, and someone had actually attempted to execute it.
That man was Suguru Geto, the Special Grade Curse User whose corpse was currently hijacked by Kenjaku.
His method: slaughter every single normal human on the planet, leaving only Jujutsu Sorcerers alive. If two Sorcerers had a child who lacked the talent for Jujutsu, kill the child too.
By violently culling the human population over several generations, the 'non-sorcerer' gene would be completely eradicated. Theoretically, this would also permanently end the existence of Cursed Spirits.
The logic was mathematically sound, but Yuki Tsukumo was, relatively speaking, a sane human being. She could never commit global genocide. She had to search for another way. But Suguru Geto had fully embraced the dark mirror of her theory—he genuinely resolved to murder all non-sorcerers on Earth!
That lunatic was eventually killed by Yuta Okkotsu.
And now, the ultimate power to eradicate Curses was ironically held by the King of Curses himself...
Yuki Tsukumo harbored an incredibly dangerous, fanatical ambition: she was going to secretly capture the King of Curses, forge him into a universal Cursed Tool, and use that tool to forcibly mass-mutate the entire global human population into Jujutsu Sorcerers. She would finally realize her dream!
And she legitimately had the skill to do it. The only functional Shikigami-based Cursed Tool in the entire world, Garuda, was her personal creation. She wasn't an Innate Construction Sorcerer, but her theoretical knowledge and practical application of Cursed Tool fabrication were peerless worldwide. Even ancient Sorcerers couldn't match her engineering ingenuity.
As the phone rang, Yuki refined the steps of her plan. First, she had to beat the King of Curses into total submission. After that...
Suddenly, the line connected.
A voice emanated from the speaker. "This is the King of Curses, the curse of humanity born from humanity—Mahito."
Yuki Tsukumo froze in shock.
"Is this Yuki Tsukumo-san?" the voice continued smoothly. "I hear you've been looking for me?"