Chapter 79: Cutting Off the Curse's Flame, An Unexpected Redemption
"What kind of nonsense are you talking about?"
Nobara's eyes went wide as she stared at Yami like he had suddenly grown a second head.
The hammer in her hand was still trembling from the strike he had stopped.
"They killed people."
Her voice rose with every word.
"They're Cursed Womb: Death Paintings. They're curses."
She jabbed a finger at the brothers, then at him.
"And you're standing here feeling sorry for them? What are you, some kind of saint?"
Yami did not answer right away.
He only looked past her.
At the two brothers.
At the way Kechizu, despite his own injuries, was still forcing his ruined body in front of Eso. At the way his back had split open, exposing that hideous face he hated so much to the cold night air. At the way he still refused to step aside.
And behind him, Eso was shaking.
His consciousness was obviously slipping, but even then, his fingers were still clutching weakly at the torn edge of his brother's clothes.
"Brother…"
His voice was slurred and faint.
"It doesn't hurt…"
That was clearly a lie.
Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. His breathing came ragged and broken. Even so, he kept trying to inch closer, like a child seeking shelter from a storm.
Kechizu's face twisted. Blood mixed with tears as they ran down his cheeks.
"Don't be scared, little brother."
His voice was hoarse, but he forced the words out anyway.
"Brother's here. Brother will protect you…"
Yuji, who had just been preparing to charge forward again, stopped.
His fists remained clenched, cursed energy still restless around his arms, but he did not move.
That scene did not fit.
It did not match what he had been taught a curse should be.
Curses were supposed to hate, to consume, to stain everything they touched with malice.
But what was this?
What was the thing tightening in his chest while he watched those two cling to each other like family at the edge of death?
Yami stepped forward.
The pressure around him shifted with him.
It was no longer the cold, suffocating sharpness of a swordsman about to kill. Instead, something warmer spread through the forest, subtle at first, then clearer with every step.
It felt like dawn.
Like the first light of morning pushing back damp darkness.
"I'm not a saint," Yami said quietly.
His voice was calm, steady as still water.
"I've killed more curses than I can count."
He came to a stop in front of Kechizu.
The Death Painting flinched. His instincts screamed at him to resist, to lash out, to run. But his body was already spent. All he could do was bare his teeth and watch as Yami raised the black blade in his hand.
"But my blade has never been meant for beings with a human heart."
Kechizu's whole body shook.
He thought he understood.
He thought this was it.
He threw himself forward with the last of his strength, trying to cover Eso completely.
"Don't kill my little brother!"
His voice cracked halfway through the shout.
"If someone has to die, then kill me!"
But the strike never came.
Instead of a killing edge splitting him apart, he felt only the lightest touch on his shoulder.
The flat of the blade.
Not even the edge.
A faint vibration spread through his body from that single point of contact, and in that same instant, a cold chime rang inside Yami's mind.
[Guardian intent detected. Temporary ability unlocked: Breathing Technique Reversal 1/1.]
[Description: By reversing the lethal properties produced by Breathing Techniques, destructive force is converted into purifying life force.]
Yami's eyes narrowed slightly.
Breathing Technique Reversal.
A strange term.
And yet the meaning came to him immediately.
His grip on Shiranui did not change. His stance did not shift. Only the rhythm of his breathing reversed in a way that felt both alien and natural at once.
Until now, Sun Breathing had always been heat, destruction, a radiance fierce enough to cut through curses and burn them away.
But if that flow were reversed…
Then perhaps what emerged would not be annihilation.
It would be purification.
Yami drew in a slow breath.
Then spoke softly.
"[Sun Breathing, Seventh Form: Sunflower Thrust: Reversal.]"
Hum.
Golden light bloomed from the tip of the black blade.
Not fire.
Not really.
It looked like fire, but there was no burning heat in it. It was a winter sunrise made visible, soft and pure, carrying none of the brutality Sun Breathing usually held. The gentle glow spread outward in an instant, swallowing both Kechizu and Eso in a sea of gold.
The two brothers screamed.
Not from pain.
From shock.
From the unbearable sensation of something deeply rooted in their existence being torn free.
The curse in their bodies began to peel away.
The malice woven into their flesh. The murderous impulses planted in them. The twisted commands left behind by Kenjaku. The inhuman structures that made them what they were. All of it began to melt under that light like frost under the sun.
Nobara stared.
Yuji stared.
They watched the grotesque face on Kechizu's back dissolve little by little inside the glow, the swollen features breaking apart into drifting particles before vanishing entirely.
Beneath it, fresh skin appeared.
Unscarred.
Whole.
On the other side, Eso's frog like body convulsed violently. The twisted bulk shrank, reformed, reorganized. Limbs straightened. Bone and flesh shifted into a shape that finally resembled a human teenager, thin and slightly hunched, but unmistakably human.
Nobara's hammer slipped from her fingers and hit the ground with a dull thud.
"What…"
She could barely get the word out.
"What kind of technique is that?"
Even Reverse Cursed Technique should not have been able to do this.
Healing was one thing.
This was something else entirely.
This was rewriting the essence of a being.
Yami did not answer.
But something clicked in him as the light moved through the brothers.
Although the system had only granted it once, the sensation of reversal, the shift from destructive force to purifying force, carved itself deep into his body like a mark pressed into steel.
Muscle memory.
Instinct.
A road that had not existed before was now faintly visible.
Several minutes later, the golden light began to fade.
The forest fell quiet again.
The grotesque Death Paintings were gone.
In their place sat two trembling figures in torn clothing. Their bodies were still marked by exhaustion and battle, but they were human now. Entirely, undeniably human.
Kechizu touched his own back with shaking fingers.
Smooth.
No face.
No bulging, hateful growth.
The constant buzzing malice that had gnawed at his nerves for as long as he could remember was gone too, leaving behind an emptiness so vast it almost scared him.
Then he turned toward Eso.
His little brother was no longer warped into a monster. His face, though bruised and dazed, was human. His eyes were still simple, still a little dull, but the bloodthirsty madness inside them had disappeared.
"Brother…"
Eso called softly.
This time, the word was clear.
Utterly clear.
Kechizu's throat tightened.
Then, without even a second of hesitation, he dropped to his knees in front of Yami and slammed his forehead into the ground.
Thud.
The sound was heavy.
His whole body shook, whether from fear, gratitude, or the shock of still being alive, not even he could tell anymore.
Yami had already sheathed his sword.
His movements were smooth, almost absentminded, as if the miracle that had just happened was nothing more than a small task finished in passing.
He turned away and gave the two brothers only his back.
Moonlight fell over him, stretching his shadow long across the forest floor.
In the brothers' eyes, he no longer looked like an ordinary sorcerer.
He looked like the sun itself.
A being who had reached into hell and dragged them back.
"Let's go," Yami said to Yuji and Nobara.
His tone had returned to its usual calm.
"We're heading back to Tokyo Jujutsu High."
He paused, then added,
"As for them, I'll explain it to Gojo sensei myself."
Neither Yuji nor Nobara spoke right away.
Yuji was still trying to sort through what he had just seen.
Nobara looked down at her own injured arm, then at the brothers, then at Yami's back, and for once found herself without an immediate insult.
The forest had changed.
Or maybe they had.
Far away from them, beneath Tokyo, inside an abandoned underground chamber soaked in darkness and old formalin, another reaction was taking place.
A violent tremor passed through the sealed consciousness of the eldest Death Painting.
Choso.
Inside the container, his suspended body twitched.
A resonance carried by blood had reached him.
Something had happened.
Something huge.
The curse shackles wrapped around his younger brothers, the things that had bound them to Kenjaku's will, had vanished.
Not weakened.
Vanished.
His awareness shuddered violently.
"Brothers…"
Even sealed, even half formed, that thought rose with frightening clarity.
What happened?
Were they exorcised?
No.
It did not feel like death.
The connection was still there, but it had changed. It had become faint, distant, as if another force had wrapped around it and cut him off. A warm force. A clean force. Something utterly incompatible with curses.
"What happened to you…?"
The unease inside him deepened into something close to panic.
"Kechizu. Eso."
His consciousness thrashed against the limits of his confinement.
"Answer me."
But only silence came back.
And then footsteps sounded in the corridor beyond the chamber.
Light.
Casual.
Almost playful.
The door opened.
Mahito stepped inside with his usual lazy smile, stitches crossing his face like a mockery of human form. In one hand he held a photo.
The image showed Yami during battle, sword in hand, moonlight falling across his figure.
Mahito lifted it slightly and smiled wider.
"Well, well."
His voice was bright with malice.
"Looks like the little cutie finally woke up."
Choso's presence flared in response, unstable and furious.
Mahito didn't care.
He strolled closer, gaze drifting from the photo to the sealed Death Painting.
"No need to panic. Your brothers aren't dead."
His smile sharpened.
"They were just… saved."
He let the word linger like poison.
"Saved by a human named Yami."
The basement seemed colder all at once.
Mahito tilted his head, studying Choso's reaction with open amusement.
"Do you know what happens to a curse that gets saved by a human?"
He chuckled softly.
The sound slithered through the darkness.
"It stops belonging anywhere."
That was all he needed.
A seed of doubt.
A twist of pain.
A little misunderstanding wrapped in just enough truth to fester.
And in that instant, the fate of the Death Painting brothers, far from being resolved, was pulled even deeper into a whirlpool far more complicated than simple life or death.
.....
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