[Everything moved forward in precise, measured steps beneath the framework of your meticulous plan.]
[On the secular legal front, Hiromi Higuruma himself was overseeing every detail. For the first time in a long while, you felt genuinely at ease.]
[In your brief encounters with the man, you'd sensed it clearly: that stubborn core running through him like iron rebar, and those eyes that still burned bright with absolute faith in justice, even while wading through society's filth.]
[Handing those scum over to him to deal with had been the right call. No question.]
[On the home front, the new apartment was slowly coming to life.]
[Nanako, Mimiko, and Tsumiki had hit it off far better than expected. All three were close in age and shared the kind of rough beginnings that didn't need explaining. Tsumiki radiated that gentle, unassuming big sister warmth, the kind that seemed to embrace everything it touched, and bit by bit, it was thawing the ice the twins had built around their hearts.]
[For Megumi Fushiguro, though, things weren't quite so rosy.]
[Two more girls had materialized in the apartment overnight, both a year older than him, and the place now buzzed with a constant stream of chatter and girlish commotion. For someone who prized silence the way Megumi did, the adjustment was painful.]
[Through that perpetually cold little face of his, the slight downturn of his lips, the arms folded tight across his chest without him even realizing it, you could practically read the unspoken subtitle scrolling behind his eyes: What a pain.]
[And during this quiet transitional stretch, you hadn't been idle.]
[Late one night, when the world had gone still, you activated Phantom Night Parade and silently parsed the faint traces of Residual Cursed Energy you'd extracted from Nanako and Mimiko. You now understood the full architecture of their still-dormant Innate Techniques: Photography Technique and Noose Technique.]
[Studying the information that surfaced in your mind, your gaze darkened a shade.]
[Nanako's Photography Technique was a distinctly modern ability, built around two pillars: coordinate capture and spatial manipulation.]
[She could use a phone screen as a medium, forming a minuscule but surgically precise barrier.]
[The instant she framed a target through the camera lens and hit the shutter, she had already seized that target's spatial coordinates on a causal level.]
[From there, she could interfere with the real-world original by manipulating the photo in her phone's gallery.]
[Dragging the image into a specific folder, for instance, would trigger a short-range teleportation of herself or whatever she'd photographed.]
[As an offensive tool, the method was brutally simple: filters and edits.]
[Forcibly modifying a captured photo would slam the effects back onto the original body with zero negotiation.]
[Apply a smudge or delete command to the photo, and the real-world target would suffer an instantaneous burst of Cursed Energy detonation or physical destruction across a small area.]
[Mimiko's Noose Technique was something else entirely.]
[It carried a suffocating, gloomy aura, a textbook example of sympathetic cursing, not unlike black magic or traditional witchcraft.]
[The technique specialized in remote strangulation. Once Mimiko obtained a sample of the target's Residual Cursed Energy or bodily tissue and used it to establish a link between the target and her ritual medium, typically that battered old teddy bear, killing became trivially easy.]
[All she had to do was loop a cord around the bear's neck and pull. Wherever the target stood, an invisible noose of Cursed Energy would clamp around their throat and squeeze until the cervical spine snapped and breath ceased.]
[Of course, the technique carried a lethal restriction. The ritual medium had a damage threshold. Against opponents with extreme physical durability or enough raw Cursed Energy to resist the binding, a special grade for instance, forcing the strangulation wouldn't kill the target. Instead, the backlash would snap the medium's neck, and the technique would collapse entirely.]
[After reviewing both analyses in full, it clicked.]
[You finally understood what the ignorant villagers had meant.]
[Those incidents had likely been incomplete, unconscious activations of their techniques, triggered by spikes of terror and rage.]
[Objectively, neither ability ranked particularly high in the jujutsu world's hierarchy of power.]
[The Photography Technique especially, as a clearly modern-era ability, depended heavily on the user's operational proficiency, the condition of the device, and their total reserves of Cursed Energy.]
[But one realization sent a thread of cold absurdity coiling through your chest.]
[You didn't want to admit it, but these two techniques weren't built for head-on combat against thick-skinned Cursed Spirits or dueling elite Jujutsu Sorcerers. Where they truly excelled, with terrifying efficiency, was in killing ordinary people without a sound.]
[One could detonate from a distance. The other could strangle from across the world.]
[If the twins ever fell completely, that mountain village would become a graveyard sooner or later.]
[Because you saw this clearly, even though Phantom Night Parade had given you perfect mastery of both techniques, you had no intention whatsoever of teaching the twins how to wield them.]
[If it were up to you, they would never set foot on the blood-soaked road of a Jujutsu Sorcerer.]
[Even with your intervention steering them away from the doomed path they'd walked in their original fate, the one marked Curse User, the weight of a sorcerer's destiny was still too crushing.]
[You wanted them to live like ordinary girls. Go shopping. Eat cake. Feel the sun on their faces.]
[But you wouldn't play god with their lives, either. If someday, after seeing enough of the world, they still chose to grip this power and walk this path with clear eyes and steady hands, you wouldn't stop them.]
[You'd respect that choice. And only then would you pass on every combat technique tied to their abilities, holding nothing back.]
[To preserve the fragile peace of these days, you'd pulled Megumi and Tsumiki aside and spoken to them seriously.]
[Tsumiki, perceptive and gentle, would watch over the twins' emotional state in daily life, offering the comfort they needed. Megumi, with his sharp senses, would monitor them from the shadows, ready to intervene if a surge of emotion triggered an accidental discharge of Cursed Energy or their techniques.]
[After spending this much time with them since leaving the village, though, you didn't expect major problems.]
[It wasn't that the twins were twisted at their core. It was more that a hellish environment had hammered survival instincts into them, the feral wariness of cornered animals.]
[Given enough safety, they weren't so different from stray kittens.]
---
[Some time later, in a quiet café in Tokyo, you met with Hiromi Higuruma again.]
[He looked thinner than when you'd first met. Faint bruises of sleeplessness shadowed his eyes. But his spine was ramrod straight, and that gaze of his burned with startling clarity.]
[He took a sip of bitter black coffee, slid a thick stack of documents across the table, and laid out the results.]
[Every loose end had been tied off. Every villager involved in the abuse and unlawful confinement had buckled under his relentless pressure and the mountain of evidence he'd assembled. Without exception, they faced lengthy prison sentences. The custody transfer for Nanako and Mimiko had been finalized through proper legal channels. Their legal guardian was now Masamichi Yaga.]
[Starting next week, they could officially enroll alongside Tsumiki at a regular elementary school.]
["This moved faster than I expected. Thank you, Mr. Higuruma."]
[You leafed through the sentencing documents, the gratitude in your voice genuine.]
[Privately, you suspected that some of the jujutsu establishment's behind-the-scenes influence in the secular world had greased the wheels.]
[As you spoke, you produced a prepared envelope from your pocket, conspicuously thick, and slid it toward him as additional compensation.]
[Higuruma's eyes flicked to the envelope once. He pushed it back without hesitation.]
["I took this case to fulfill my duty as a lawyer, and to bring the protection of the law to the people who need it most. Not for this. Take it back. It goes against my principles."]
[His voice was quiet, but carried the weight of something immovable.]
[Watching the conviction etched into his expression, gratitude gave way to something deeper.]
[If even half the people in the jujutsu world's rotting upper echelons... no, even a tenth... were as upright as the man sitting across from you, someone who genuinely believed in maintaining order, things might look so different.]
[At the very least, it could have prevented countless sorcerers like Suguru Geto from shattering under the weight of despair. Could have saved untold numbers of innocent non-sorcerers from meaningless deaths.]
[But the thought flickered and passed. You raised your coffee cup, letting it mask the sharp edge surfacing in your eyes.]
[You had never counted on others to change things for you, and you certainly weren't going to wait around hoping the people at the top would grow a conscience.]
[If the system needed to change, you'd do it your way. Piece by piece, root by root, you'd tear this deformed jujutsu world apart.]
[You set the cup down and turned toward the window, watching Tokyo's bustling streets flow past.]
[By your count, the day was approaching fast. That ancient, decaying behemoth, the Zenin Clan, would soon come searching for Megumi Fushiguro and his Ten Shadows Technique.]
[The time to test every preparation you'd made for this moment was almost here.]