"Radish, cabbage, beef, eggs..." Reji flipped through the assorted receipts in his hand, smacking his lips. "Damn, isn't this all garbage? What the hell does that guy even want me to do? Have me chuck radishes and cabbages at the sorcerers across the way?"
Is he out of his mind?
Reji sighed, poked his head out of the crate again to look around, and only after confirming that the sorcerers who'd grown wary of him and tailed him over had all left did he stand up, patting an iron crate beside him. "They're all gone."
From behind the iron crate, someone stepped out.
It was Choso.
Come to think of it, Reji was also a sorcerer who had signed a contract with Kenjaku and been revived in the modern age.
But unlike powerhouses like Ishiryuu and Urogi, Reji wasn't particularly strong—probably only about the level of a Grade 1 sorcerer.
The reason Kenjaku had signed a contract with him back in ancient times was that he possessed a rather interesting Technique with a fairly high ceiling—Contract Recreation.
Simply put: "recreating the contents of a contract."
A monetary transaction is the most common kind of "contract."
For instance, if he held a receipt for "buying a cabbage," he could summon a cabbage out of thin air; or, if he clutched a gym membership receipt, he could give his body a full workout in an instant.
So in theory, if he could get hold of a "rent-a-boyfriend" receipt for Satoru Gojo, he could even summon a Satoru Gojo to fight on his behalf—of course, that was only in theory; whether it would actually work, no one had ever tested.
But there was no doubt that the strength of his Technique depended in large part on just how many contracts he held—that is, how many receipts.
And having only just been revived, he had jack squat; his current combat power was no different from that of that super-soldier.
And yet, in this state, Kenjaku had still sent him out to work, so he was positively brimming with resentment.
"Let's go, there are still a few more spots to plant these," Reji said to Choso, weighing the small cursed object in his hand.
Still, he was rather lucky: the mission was merely to secretly place a few things, with no major conflict involved. And if a small-scale skirmish did break out, this Choso beside him could protect him—Choso was far stronger than he currently was.
"But say, buddy, why the long face this whole time?"
Choso's expression had been gloomy throughout.
Reji sidled up and slung an arm around his shoulder.
"You're fed up with that guy too, aren't you?" Reji grinned.
"That guy" referred to Kenjaku.
"...I don't have any particular feelings about him." Choso shot him a glance. "He's just someone who can provide a place for me and my brothers to belong, that's all."
"Oh-ho, truly the eldest brother is like a father, huh." Reji patted his shoulder. "But you keeping that sour face all the time isn't doing you any good."
He fished a receipt out of his pocket, a sleazy look on his face. "When we get back, wanna give this a try? It's a great little thing I just discovered."
A great thing?
Hearing "great thing," Choso curiously glanced sideways, only to find Reji holding a gaudy, colorful receipt that read something like... uh, bubble bath?
Choso: ...
This guy—he even uses receipts from that kind of establishment?
"Why the face?" Reji smirked sleazily, waving the receipt. "These service-type receipts are the most useful of all. Whether for entertaining yourself or making an opponent lose their composure mid-battle, they're incredibly handy."
"...Just get moving, let's work." Choso sighed, not bothering to deal with him. "There are still sorcerers patrolling out there."
Choso walked out of the alley, only for a flyer to come drifting straight at his face.
He caught it casually, glanced at it, and his eyes trembled—his gaze locked onto the flyer, unable to tear away.
"What is this?!..."
"Mahiru, what on earth is this?!" In the car, Yuji Itadori held up the flyer in his hand and shouted. "Why is there a search-for-lost-relatives notice for me?!"
The girl giggled beside him.
"Don't get worked up. Let me tell you, I went and specially had a master do a divination beforehand—and right now, you've got several half-brothers from different fathers and mothers." Mahiru waggled her fingers at him. "Really, you've gotta believe me."
"How could I possibly believe that? This is obviously a prank!"
Yuji wasn't buying it.
In the eyes of the public Mahiru had a pretty high trust rating, but most of the sorcerers at Jujutsu High had been burned by her pranks, so Yuji didn't believe a word of her spiel.
But in fact, this time Mahiru wasn't lying.
The brother of Yuji's she spoke of was none other than the Choso trio.
Throughout history Kenjaku had played many different people, and Choso and the others were the Cursed Spirit-human hybrids Kenjaku had created after hijacking the body of the head of the Kamo family.
Kenjaku was Yuji's mother, and also Choso and his brothers' father.
Rounded off, Yuji and Choso were brothers.
In the original work, it was precisely after Choso had knocked Yuji out that he caught the scent of his blood and realized the boy was his brother, and thus began to betray Kenjaku.
But in this worldline, Choso likely wouldn't get a one-on-one chance with Yuji.
If things continued like this, he'd have no way of discovering that Yuji was his brother—and that wouldn't do.
Mahiru had to win Choso over to their side as soon as possible.
And so, the lost-relative notice came to be.
It looked like nothing more than a simple lost-relative notice, but when mass-producing the flyers, Mahiru had sent the advertising company a large quantity of special printing material carrying the scent of Yuji's blood, used specifically to print one small section of each flyer.
Distributed everywhere, airdropped everywhere.
The airdrop locations covered every major city, as well as every smaller city where Kenjaku and his group might be.
Here's hoping it works.
As long as Choso received a flyer and caught that scent of Yuji's blood, then perhaps he could be won over with ease.
The success rate wasn't a hundred percent. But for a job like this, you just had to pay a printing factory—no need to waste the manpower of jujutsu workers; it merely required Gojo to foot the bill.
Gojo's money wasn't Mahiru's money—if she didn't spend it, it'd just go to waste, wouldn't it?
Clang!
Under Reji's astonished gaze, Choso, his face contorted in agony and his head splitting with pain, toppled to the ground.
"Hey, what's the matter with you?"
It was as if a seed were sprouting, about to bore through his skull.
His consciousness seemed to plunge into a quagmire—stagnant, chaotic.
"Big brother...!"
Memories that did not exist surfaced.
Choso and Yuji had crossed paths only twice in total. Once was a distant glimpse back when they rescued Hajime Kashimo; the other was just now.
Even though... even though he had only just gotten a clear look at this boy's face—
why, then, at this moment, did all manner of the boy's smiling faces float up in his mind?
"Big brother—!"
In the bright sunshine, he and Yuji walked arm over shoulder.
"Big brother... boo-hoo..."
When Yuji was still little, bullied by delinquents from the upper grades, he came running to him in tears.
"Bro! Let's go eat out today!"
Having earned a scholarship for his excellent grades, the first thing Yuji did when he got home was treat him, his big brother, to a meal.
"Bro, even though I've gotten married, you'll always be the person closest to me..."
At the wedding, Choso gazed at Yuji before him—dashing and striking in his formal attire—and a mist of tears suddenly welled up in his eyes.
"Boo-hoo... boo-hoo-aaaahh—!" Choso collapsed to the ground, bawling his eyes out.
Reji was dumbfounded beside him.
He looked left and right, warily suspecting—had some sorcerer launched a long-range attack?
"But that's not right either?"
Where was any sorcerer's attack?
Reji's stats weren't high, and he hadn't yet stockpiled many receipts... but at his core, he was a keen-nosed, seasoned sorcerer.
He hadn't sensed any sign of an attack.
So what on earth was wrong with Choso?
"Married... even if you've gotten married..." Choso wept, his face covered in snot.
Reji heard it, and his pupils quaked.
Holy crap! What do you mean, married?!
So you've got this kind of melodramatic soap-opera plot going on over here too?!
Reji looked down at that lost-relative notice for Yuji, and the first thing he saw was Yuji's headshot.
Huh? Isn't this Sukuna's vessel?
Sukuna's vessel got married? How come I didn't know? And besides, why are you bawling over someone else's wedding? Don't tell me you're some kind of repressed pervert?
Reji was shocked for a good while before he realized something was off.
"Hold on..."
This is a lost-relative notice?
Doesn't that just mean Yuji lost a brother?
Huh? Over such a piddling little thing, what the hell are you crying for?
Does Yuji have anything to do with you at all?
"Hey, you okay?" Reji nudged Choso's backside with his foot. "What's the matter with you?"
Choso was still crying while his head throbbed, sprawled on the ground in a sorry state.
At a loss, Reji rummaged through his pockets for any hospital receipt he could use on Choso, but flip as he might, it was all bubble baths.
"Tsk."
He couldn't very well force Choso to take a dozen-odd bubble baths to perk himself up, could he? At that rate, it'd be a miracle if his spirit didn't burn out entirely.
With no other choice, Reji took out a receipt for an iPhone, activated his ability, and as the receipt burned away, the phone materialized in his palm.
Reji dialed Kenjaku's number.
"What?" After hearing him out, Kenjaku, too, was utterly bewildered.
Bewildered both because he had no idea why Choso would suddenly fall ill like this, and because that missing-person notice actually claimed Yuji had a long-lost brother.
No, what kind of nonsense was this?
I'm literally Yuji's mother—how many did I give birth to back then? You think I wouldn't know myself?
Where did this fabrication come from?
"...No idea." For the moment Kenjaku couldn't make sense of it either. "Then call off your mission for now; the scale's about enough as it is."
For the moment, Kenjaku really hadn't realized that the brother mentioned in Yuji's missing-person notice was in fact Choso.
She knew, of course, that both Choso and Yuji were born of her, but she was certain that no one could know about this connection between Choso and Yuji.
Kenjaku assumed that no one at all knew about him having given birth to Yuji.
He didn't know that Kaori Itadori had long since been revived by Mahiru, and likewise, he didn't know that Choso needed only to catch the faintest trace of Yuji's blood to determine that the other was his brother.
Kenjaku merely took those flyers to be Mahiru's prank and trap, with some special curse attached to them.
"Be careful—don't let Choso see that kind of flyer again."
After all, traps devised by that Cursed Spirit had always been frighteningly insidious.
With the critical juncture of Sukuna's bathing nearing its end, Kenjaku felt it was best to play it safe and simply pulled the team back.
"Tsk." Reji found it a hassle.
On the ground, Choso's agonized state was visibly improving.
"Can you still move?"
"...Yeah."
He could move. He could move all too well.
At this moment, a blazing fury burned in Choso's heart, but he forced it down, not letting the slightest hint of emotion show.
He now understood that Yuji was his brother, and he now understood that Kenjaku had been deceiving him all along.
Many who'd read the original work said Choso was a "brother-obsessed nutcase," willing to give up anything for a brother with whom he had no shared history and no emotional foundation whatsoever.
But this was actually because, in Choso's eyes, his sole anchor of identity in this world was being "the big brother of his little brothers."
There was no way he could ever fight Yuji to the death.
But at the same time, he still had two younger brothers in Kenjaku's hands.
He couldn't openly turn his coat right now; he had to bide his time and first rescue those two brothers from Kenjaku's grasp as well.
He had already made his decision.
"Eh? You sure you're really okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm sure."
Choso appeared to have eased out of and broken free from that "cursed state." But Reji couldn't shake the feeling that the other's demeanor was somewhat different from before.
As if... he had resolved upon something.
Whatever—Reji couldn't be bothered to care.
Compared to the others, the contractual bond between him and Kenjaku was rather weak.
Not bothering to ask further, Reji pulled another receipt from his pocket and drove his ability.
A little electric scooter appeared out of thin air before him, along with two helmets.
Reji put helmets on both himself and Choso, and putt-putt-putt, rode the little electric scooter, carrying Choso, toward the pair's temporary base.
The sorcerers patrolling the roadside paid no mind at all to Reji and Choso puttering past on their little electric scooter.
After all, what dangerous sorcerer would ride a dinky electric scooter to go carry out terrorist activities?
And so Reji's journey went off without a hitch.
Far away, Kenjaku set down the phone.
"What a strange tactic." Kenjaku had even seen Yuji's lost-relative notice and that headshot on the news page of the phone.
Mahiru's thinking was hard to fathom.
Looking up, Kenjaku saw Hajime Kashimo walking toward him.
The youth carried a brand-new long staff weapon in his hand, and strode straight up to Kenjaku.
"Where's Sukuna?" he cut to the chase. "Didn't you say you'd let me meet Sukuna today?"
Kenjaku gave a smile and raised a hand to point at the inner room.
"Sukuna is still bathing."
"...Bathing?"
"Yes." Kenjaku's smile deepened. "You'll probably... get to meet him very soon."
Soon?
Hajime Kashimo looked toward the door.
Then he smiled. "Good. Thank you..."
Yes—this time he knew Kenjaku hadn't lied.
Because he had already sensed the terrifying presence behind that door.
...Strong, so strong, so very strong!
Compared to everyone Hajime Kashimo had ever met, it was a presence in an absolute league of its own! This time, Kenjaku was telling the truth.
Sukuna was real!
I've finally awaited you, Sukuna!
Behind that tightly shut door, it was as if countless treasures lay hidden, making his heart race despite himself.
Thump, thump...
It was a barely perceptible heartbeat, coming from within.
"Ha..." Hajime Kashimo's eyes lit up, his gaze already at the height of exhilaration.
"Hm?" Kenjaku reacted a beat too slow.
The next second—
BOOM!!
Without warning, yet entirely as it should be. That sense of oppression aimed at the very instinct of all living things descended ahead of the Cursed Energy.
A wicked aura surged toward the heavens!
An endless, abyss-like surge of Cursed Energy followed close behind!
He's out!
Kenjaku's heart jolted. Sukuna was out!
"?!" Far away in Tokyo, Masamichi Yaga and a host of other sorcerers instinctively felt a chill run down their spines, and as one turned to look toward the direction the dominating pressure came from.
"..." In the car, the several boys and girls shuddered in unison.
Mahiru, too, abruptly whipped her head around to look toward Sukuna's direction, then broke into a smile as well. "So he's finally out?"
Sukuna!
At this very moment, everyone in all of Japan was enveloped in a terrifying sense of palpitation.
Everyone was looking toward Sukuna's direction, and a great many ordinary people near Sukuna's location went weak in the knees from this palpitation and dropped to the ground.
Flocks of birds were migrating, but the moment they took to the air, they plummeted down in swathes.
Insects and rats, struck with terror, fled the forest like a flood; just like the terrified humans, in the face of an absolute superior they had no choice but to run.
Rumble, rumble—
An earthquake once again erupted, centered on Sukuna's location, and the mountains crumbled.
A demonic oppression blanketed the entire firmament, and the trees and flowers all around instantly withered.
Hajime Kashimo, the closest of all, felt as though he were being crushed down by a great mass of black cloud; looking up, he could even seem to see that black cloud grinning ferociously, baring its fangs at him, and then dismissing him with disdain.
The next second, all the illusions dispersed entirely.
All that remained was that door, which had quietly opened a crack.
"...Hahahahaha," Hajime Kashimo threw back his head and laughed uproariously, like a man gone mad. "Hahaha—"
Here it comes, here it comes!
Sukuna, you've come!
Lightning burst forth, his Cursed Energy running at full throttle.
"Sukuna!" he shouted amid his wild laughter. "I've finally found you—!!"
He could restrain himself no longer; his whole body transformed into a bolt of lightning and charged fiercely through the doorway. In the dim space, as he rushed forward, he roared out Sukuna's name.
But what met him was a bone-piercing chill.
Dense ice spikes came tearing through the air, forcibly halting that bolt of lightning. Hajime Kashimo's feet stuttered, and he barely managed to brake his momentum.
Only then did he see clearly that the one blocking his way was a person with short white hair.
"Where did this bastard come from... daring to disturb Lord Sukuna."
It was Rime.
But Hajime Kashimo paid her no heed whatsoever.
His gaze swept past Rime and fell straight to the depths of the room, where there was a pool of black liquid.
And in that pool, a figure was slowly rising up out of the thick liquid.
Hajime Kashimo's smile grew even more elated. "Sukuna," he said, splitting into a grin, "let's have a fight."
"I said! Do not disturb Lord Sukuna!" Ignored, Rime flushed with sudden rage and raised a hand, about to gather an attack.
But the next moment, a crisp and pleasant girl's voice came from the far side of the pool.
"No need to stop him, Rime."
Casual. Contemptuous.
The sound of water drew nearer, and the voice approached along with it.
A slender girl with two wings sprouting from her back rose slowly from the pool. Her outspread wings happened to cover the parts of her body not meant to be shown.
Long golden hair, an impeccable figure, a mocking and contemptuous smile, and eyes that only the strongest of superiors could possess...
"?!" Hajime Kashimo was stunned.
He didn't know Sukuna. He had only heard that Sukuna was a man. So now, try as he might, he couldn't connect the girl before him with the name "Sukuna."
Wait, isn't this Angel...
Hajime Kashimo remained dumbstruck.
But in the next instant, the utterly terrifying pressure and danger radiating from the girl made him understand her identity at once.
Sukuna. That was Sukuna.
Only... this body was, of all things, Angel's body.
So the body she'd taken as her vessel was Hana Kurusu's?
But in that case, the agreement he'd previously signed with Kenjaku—the one forbidding "infighting with others in Kenjaku's camp"—wouldn't that... apply equally between him and Sukuna as well?!
"That's right, I am Sukuna."
The golden-haired Angel girl crossed her arms before Hajime Kashimo, looking down on him from on high, sneering. "Only realizing now that you've been fooled? Idiot."
____
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