[The chaos of moving finally wound down by evening.]
["Ahh, I'm dead! Completely dead!"]
[Gojo collapsed onto the couch like a puddle of melted white mochi, sunglasses sliding to the tip of his nose, dignity nowhere in sight.]
["To celebrate the start of a new life, tonight calls for a feast! Sukiyaki! Top-grade wagyu sukiyaki! Hayase already maxed out my card, and right now the fridge contains nothing but air!"]
[Tsumiki poked her head out of the kitchen, where she'd been sorting through newly purchased bowls and plates. She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, caught between hesitation and excitement.]
["Um... I can cook, probably, but we haven't bought any ingredients yet..."]
["Then let's go buy some right now!"]
[Gojo launched off the couch in a single fluid motion, his long arm sweeping out to scoop up Megumi, who'd been sitting on the carpet staring at nothing.]
["Come on, Megumi! As the only man of this house, you've got to help carry bags!"]
["Huh? Why do I have to go for something like..."]
[The protest died mid-sentence. Gojo tucked him under one arm like a kitten being hauled by the scruff.]
[You caught the look in Gojo's eyes. Casual on the surface. Deliberate underneath. You understood.]
[You turned to Tsumiki, keeping your voice gentle.]
["Tsumiki, stay here and finish unpacking. Maybe boil some water while you're at it. The heavy lifting is grunt work. Leave it to us and Megumi."]
["Then I'll leave it to you, Mr. Hayase and Mr. Gojo!"]
[She nodded, and the smile that spread across her face was the first genuine one she'd worn since arriving at the new apartment.]
["Megumi too, don't cause trouble for the grown-ups, okay?"]
[Pinned under Gojo's arm, Megumi stopped struggling. He saw the relief on his sister's face and swallowed the complaint sitting on his tongue. He turned away with a muffled "Mm."]
[Once outside the building, they didn't head for the nearest supermarket. Gojo led you further and further off course.]
[Past several streets, through increasingly empty blocks, until you stopped at an undeveloped stretch of wasteland along a riverbank.]
[Weeds choked the ground. No one around for hundreds of meters. The only sound was the occasional muffled rumble of cars crossing the elevated highway in the distance.]
[Megumi sensed the shift immediately. The white-haired man who'd been whining about wagyu still wore that teasing grin, but something behind it had changed.]
["Aren't we buying groceries?"]
[He edged back half a step, every hair on his body standing on end, the instinct of prey that had caught a predator's scent.]
["We'll get to that. But first, there's a more important 'unboxing' to take care of."]
[Gojo stood with his hands in his pockets, pale blue eyes impossibly deep in the fading light.]
[His chin tilted toward you.]
["Go ahead, Hayase. Drop a Curtain. It's remote out here, but if some civilian sees what's about to happen, Yaga's going to lecture us for a week."]
[You nodded. Your right hand rose, two fingers pressed together before your chest.]
[Cursed Energy surged. The familiar incantation rolled from your lips, steady and low.]
[The barrier spilled down from the sky like overturned ink, cascading in a black curtain that severed the riverbank from the outside world and its dying sunset. The amber light vanished. Suffocating darkness swallowed everything.]
[Megumi had never witnessed barrier work on this scale. His eyes went wide as the light warped around him, and a primal tremor ran through his body, hands twitching toward a defensive stance he didn't know he had.]
["Relax, kid."]
[Gojo had materialized in a crouch right in front of him, grinning, one finger poking his forehead.]
["This is just so your new teacher here can give you a little 'check-up.' Making sure I didn't misjudge things."]
["Check-up?"]
[Megumi rubbed his forehead, bewildered.]
["Hayase, quit stalling."]
[Gojo rose, a thread of impatience lacing his voice.]
["This kid's Cursed Energy is raw, but the way it flows... it's different. Use your eyes and confirm it for me."]
[Waiting for Megumi to understand and use his own technique on his own would take far too long.]
[You drew a deep breath and recalibrated the Cursed Energy circuits inside your body. For the first time in what felt like an age, you released the Cursed Spirit Manipulation you'd been maintaining for so long and reactivated Phantom Night Parade.]
[In the perceptual world that unfolded under your technique, the physical layer of reality bleached out and turned translucent. Only the pulsing networks of energy remained sharp and visible.]
[Your gaze settled on Megumi. That thin silhouette standing among the dead weeds transformed utterly under your technique's lens.]
[A mature sorcerer would unconsciously wrap their entire body in Cursed Energy as a defensive shell, making analysis difficult.]
[But Megumi was an open book. No defenses, no obfuscation. He didn't know how to control or conceal his own energy.]
[Dark Cursed Energy, ink-black, seeped from his body in uncontrolled waves.]
[Yet the instant Phantom Night Parade dove deeper, you realized the energy wasn't chaotic at all.]
[It pooled beneath his feet, resonating with the shadows on the ground in a strange, intricate harmony.]
[This wasn't simple Cursed Energy leakage. This was a technique circuit of extraordinary precision, one that used shadows themselves as its medium.]
[The analysis met no resistance. The ease of it startled you.]
[It felt like plunging your hand into a pool of fathomless black water, and when your fingers brushed the core, the ancient technique waiting there didn't resist. It welcomed the contact. As though it had been waiting to be called.]
[Information flooded in along your line of sight.]
[Specific hand formations.]
[Methods of refining Cursed Energy.]
[Shadows as the medium. Shikigami, summoned.]
[Analysis complete.]
["This is... a fascinating technique."]
[You opened your eyes slowly, the decoded information still echoing through your mind.]
[You looked at Megumi's confused face, then at Gojo's expectant one, and instead of explaining, you stepped back.]
["Watch closely, Megumi. This is the technique that belongs to you."]
[Your hands rose. Guided by the freshly extracted data, your ten fingers interlaced and folded before your chest in a fluid, seamless sequence.]
[An ancient gesture. Elegant. Shadow puppetry translated into something sacred, fingertips meeting, palms aligned.]
[The shadow at your feet boiled.]
["Divine Dog."]
[Two jets of black liquid erupted from the roiling shadow, twisting and shaping in midair before slamming down onto the grass. They solidified into a pair of massive canine Shikigami.]
["Woof!"]
[The oppressive atmosphere shattered the moment they appeared.]
[They shook out their fur, then circled you twice with easy affection, acknowledging the one who'd called them.]
["That's... what..."]
[Megumi froze. No matter how early his maturity, no matter how practiced his detachment, he was still a child under seven years old. Two enormous, fluffy dogs materializing from thin air obliterated every wall he'd built.]
[The white Divine Dog seemed to sense something familiar yet different in the boy. It padded over and lowered its massive head, pressing a wet nose into Megumi's palm, then nuzzled his cheek.]
["That tickles..."]
[No fear. Not even close. His eyes lit up.]
[He reached out, tentative, and stroked the Divine Dog's fur. Soft. Faintly cool.]
[The instant his fingers made contact, something resonated. The shared origin between technique and bearer locked into place, and Megumi went rigid.]
[He fought to keep his expression flat, to hold the tough-kid composure, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him, curling upward despite everything. One hand buried itself in the white dog's ears while his eyes kept drifting to the black one.]
["You can summon things like this..."]
[The technique's output had caught you off guard too. These weren't crude Cursed Energy constructs. You could feel it clearly: both Shikigami possessed independent, rudimentary intelligence and serious combat ability. A completely different class from Cursed Spirit Manipulation or Puppet Manipulation.]
["Satoru, is this..."]
[You turned to ask Gojo's assessment and found him, for once, silent.]
[His sunglasses had been pushed up to his forehead. Those pale blue eyes, the eyes of heaven, were locked on the two Divine Dogs fawning over Megumi. His pupils had contracted to pinpoints.]
[As the bearer of the Six Eyes, he saw far more than you ever could.]
[What he saw wasn't two dogs. It was a vast technique architecture, bottomless, connected to an entire dimension of shadow.]
["No way... you're kidding me..."]