[That evening, the setting sun stretched every shadow on the street into long, amber-soaked silhouettes as the witching hour crept in.]
[The final bell had barely finished ringing before Megumi Fushiguro had his bag packed and was out the door.]
[The reason was simple. Ever since Nanako and Mimiko joined the household, the walk home from school had become an ordeal. Tsumiki plus the twins meant three girls who never ran out of things to say, their chatter escalating at an exponential rate.]
[For someone who'd loved quiet since birth and carried himself with a maturity that didn't match his age, being trapped at the center of that noise was a headache he didn't need.]
[So he did what he always did: slipped away. Bag slung over one shoulder, hands buried in his pockets, he cut through the gaps in the crowd and took the empty sidewalk home alone.]
[He hadn't gotten far when a low, steady engine note drifted up from behind. A black luxury sedan, absurdly out of place in this working-class neighborhood, glided forward like a phantom. It crept along the curb with a deliberate, suffocating slowness until it matched his pace exactly, rolling alongside him step for step.]
[A faint electric whir. The tinted rear window slid down, inch by inch. Dim interior light bled into the orange glow of sunset, revealing the figures inside. Someone in the backseat had turned to stare directly at him.]
[Megumi's young face, sharp and cold beyond his years, didn't flinch. His stride never broke. But those senses of his, honed far past anything a child his age should possess, had clocked the trailing car long ago.]
[He tilted his head slightly..]
[The first thing he noticed was the young man leaning back against the rear leather seat.]
[Handsome, almost unnervingly so, with gold-brown tips in his hair and features that bordered on pretty. But whatever beauty the face might have held was gutted by the arrogance etched into every line of it, by the contempt sitting in those half-lidded eyes, by the casual cruelty of someone who'd never once looked at another person as an equal.]
[Megumi also caught a jarring detail. Every man in that car wore traditional Japanese garments, formal kimono and haori, tailored with obvious expense.]
[On a modern Tokyo street, the whole scene looked like some obsessive period-drama director had hijacked a city block for a location shoot.]
[He held the man's gaze.]
[At his age, Megumi couldn't fully decode what swirled behind those eyes as they studied him. It was something layered and shifting: raw curiosity tangled with appraising doubt, naked disappointment, and beneath it all, a warped thread of jealousy.]
[The man in the car was Naoya Zenin, legitimate son of the Zenin Clan. And the reason for that storm of contradictions on his face was simple: in this simulated world whose trajectory Touma Hayase had altered, the god-like man known as Toji Fushiguro had never died.]
[Since Toji still lived, Naoya had jumped at the chance to run this errand for the clan head, Naobito Zenin. His motives were deeply personal.]
[Somewhere in the feverish depths of his obsession, he hoped that getting close to Toji's flesh and blood might create an opening, a chance to stand once more before the man he worshipped as perfection incarnate.]
[So Naoya had arrived brimming with curiosity about the child called "Megumi Fushiguro."]
[He was desperate to know what kind of extraordinary creature could carry that tyrant's blood.]
[And coiled beneath that curiosity lay Naoya's twisted envy.]
[He resented this snot-nosed brat for commanding Toji's attention, or what he imagined to be Toji's attention, through nothing more than an accident of birth.]
[He resented even more that this kid, a bastard who'd never set foot inside the Zenin estate, had somehow become important enough for the current clan head to spend billions of yen dragging him back.]
[The Zenin Clan already has me. That should be more than enough.]
[But the instant Naoya got a clear look at the small, backpack-carrying figure on the sidewalk, a wave of crushing disappointment hit.]
[Too weak.]
[No suffocating physical pressure. Not even a hint of dominance.]
[He could barely believe it. This fragile child, indistinguishable from any random elementary schooler on the street, was supposed to be the bloodline of that godlike man.]
[A silent sneer curled through his thoughts. This mediocre thing was an insult to perfection itself.]
[Because in this simulation, Touma Hayase had been meticulous. Not a whisper had leaked about Megumi's awakening of the Zenin Clan's supreme hereditary technique, the Ten Shadows Technique. All that had reached Naobito was a deliberately vague report: "The child possesses Cursed Energy and some unremarkable Cursed Technique."]
[Just as boredom was settling in, Naoya studied that guarded, cold little face more closely, traced the lines of it, and felt recognition slam into him like a wall. Every contour looked as though it had been carved straight from Toji's own features. The resemblance was beyond doubt. This was absolutely Toji's son.]
[And that certainty sparked a new feeling: a twisted relief.]
[He sneered inwardly, savoring the thought that this brat was nothing more than an empty shell wearing Toji's face, with none of the substance beneath.]
[Trash like this could never threaten my position as heir. Not in a thousand years.]
[Even if he's that man's child. Trash is still trash.]
[The car eased to a stop at the curb with a soft hiss of brakes. Naoya extended one hand through the open window and beckoned, the gesture dripping with condescension, as though summoning a stray dog from the gutter.]
[Megumi stopped walking. He stood three paces from the car door, a safe distance, and stared at that dangling hand with the flat expression of someone watching a lunatic, making absolutely no move to approach.]
[Naoya withdrew the hand. A cold, amused smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth before he deigned to speak.]
["You go by the married-in woman's name now, right? Fushiguro? I'm a relative on your father's side. Came to see you."]
[At the words "father's relative," something flickered behind Megumi's eyes.]
[That sharp little mind churned through the possibilities at speed. The profile matched what Touma Hayase had warned him about: the Zenin Clan. Confirming that much, he let the tension in his calves ease a fraction and drifted closer to the window, bag still on his shoulder, taking his time.]
["What do you want?"]
[The blunt, clipped indifference in those three words made Naoya's pulse skip.]
[That dismissive, couldn't-care-less cadence sparked an eerie sense of déjà vu, a ghost of the feeling he'd had standing before Toji years ago.]
[Rather than answer, Naoya looked Megumi up and down with open fascination, probing further.]
["You're alone? Your father... where is that man?"]
[Not a second of hesitation. Megumi's response came flat and instant.]
["No idea."]
[He meant it. He didn't know, and he didn't care.]
[The clean finality of it didn't make Naoya suspicious. If anything, a flash of fervent approval lit his eyes.]
[Yes. That's right.]
[That's exactly the correct answer.]
[In Naoya's mind, a lone wolf standing at the apex like Toji could never be shackled by something as mundane as family or children.]
[Why else would the man have walked out of the Zenin Clan without looking back?]
[Naoya closed his eyes and extended his senses.]
[He could feel it: the flow of Cursed Energy circulating through Megumi's body, the unmistakable signature of a Jujutsu Sorcerer. The pattern suggested some kind of awakened Cursed Technique.]
[But Touma Hayase's daily training had taught Megumi to mask his output. To Naoya's perception, the boy's reserves barely registered, a negligible flicker that a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer like himself wouldn't bother acknowledging.]
[Confirmed. The kid's a weakling. The contempt Naoya felt surfaced openly on his face, undisguised and absolute.]
[He propped his chin on the back of his hand, eyes glinting with mockery, and murmured at a volume meant only for himself.]
["So in the end... all he inherited was the face. What a pitiful defect."]
["What do you actually want? If you've got nothing to say, I'm leaving."]
["Listen up, brat. Your father, the man who made you, threw you away because you're weak and worthless. He sold you to our Zenin Clan a long time ago, for money. And I'm here today to collect the merchandise that even his own father didn't want, and put it back in its cage where it belongs."]
[As those words left his mouth, something vicious gleamed in Naoya's eyes.]
[He didn't particularly care how much an elementary schooler could grasp about concepts like abandonment and being sold. What drove him was something far uglier: a sadistic hunger to see devastation bloom across that face, so much like Toji's, the moment the boy learned he'd been cast aside for being too weak. He wanted tears. He wanted begging. He wanted the sky to fall behind those green eyes.]
[One second passed. Two.]
[The devastation never came.]
[Instead, after absorbing every word of Naoya's calculated cruelty, Megumi did something that defied all expectation. He grew calm. Visibly, completely calm.]
[The coiled tension drained from his body. The readiness to bolt or fight dissolved. Even the last trace of wariness behind his eyes simply... switched off.]
[He looked at Naoya with the same expression he'd wear if someone told him dinner was curry tonight, and asked a single, perfectly flat question.]
["Oh. Are we leaving now?"]
[The smirk froze on Naoya's face.]
[His eyes went wide. His jaw hung open. He could not process what had just happened.]
[Why?]
[Why would a kid who'd been bristling like a feral cat one second ago suddenly go slack the moment he heard something that should've gutted him?]
[The energy coming off Megumi now was no different from any random, unbothered child on the street.]
["..."]
[Naoya's mind went blank. His throat locked up. Every venomous follow-up he'd prepared, every humiliation he'd been loading into the chamber, had been stuffed back down his throat by four weightless syllables. He had no idea how to play the next beat of this scene.]
[What Naoya could never have known was that in that moment, Megumi wasn't thinking about the deadbeat father he'd never met, the one who only ever showed up to borrow money. He wasn't drowning in any sense of abandonment.]
[The only thing in his mind was Touma Hayase's voice, carried across countless nights after grueling training sessions, one hand resting on his head, delivering a solemn warning.]
[Hayase had told him the truth long ago, plainly and without softening a thing.]
["Megumi, you were sold to the Zenin Clan by that bastard father of yours, Toji. That debt exists. Someday, the Zenin Clan's people are going to pull up in a car, wearing weird clothes, and try to take you away."]
[And the response Hayase had taught him wasn't to run. It wasn't to cry.]
["What you're going to do is walk right back with them. Stand on Zenin Clan ground, look the clan head in the eye, and say your answer yourself. This is something you have to refuse on your own."]
[So in Megumi's eyes, Naoya's grand, venomous proclamation had done nothing more than confirm that the scripted NPC Hayase had always told him about had finally shown up.]
[Watching Naoya sit there with his mouth hanging open like an idiot, frozen mid-thought for what felt like an eternity, Megumi let his real feelings surface without a shred of restraint: impatience laced with open contempt.]
[He sighed, looked at Naoya the way someone might look at garbage, and spoke.]
["Hey... mister, you said you were taking me with you, but now you're just sitting there spacing out. You're not actually some creep who kidnaps kids off the street, are you?"]
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