Frieren: — Chapter 90 - iGojo TV — Words Unspoken
In the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, humans naturally produce Cursed Energy.
Cursed Energy is born from negative emotions.
But,
Cursed Energy being born from negative emotions ≠ having negative emotions will definitely produce Cursed Energy.
That was the fundamental conclusion Himmel had reached after nine years of discussion with Frieren.
Cursed Energy is the result of multiple factors working together. It could even be called a "special energy source not yet recognized by mankind."
If properly utilized, it could theoretically be collected and used as clean energy.
Take Geto Suguru's Cursed Spirit Manipulation, for instance. He seemed idle enough now, rotting in prison, but think about it seriously. All the cursed spirits that Gojo Satoru, Himmel, and countless other jujutsu sorcerers had spent nine years collecting and delivering to him, what if every single one of them were put to work in national production?
Even a Grade 3 cursed spirit has physical capabilities far beyond any normal human.
They don't get injured.
They don't get tired.
Loading and unloading cargo. Clearing sewers. Tilling farmland. Quarrying stone. Compacting foundations. Purifying wastewater. Short-distance transport. Handling hazardous waste. Deep-sea exploration...
Just thinking about it was terrifying.
But.
The cost required to actually control cursed spirits, to control an energy source like Cursed Energy, was simply too great.
Every year, people died to cursed spirits. And even if, down the line, they followed Frieren's original plan to grant Cursed Spirit Manipulation immortality and consolidate all cursed spirits under one hand, that immense power would still be a Pandora's box.
Would someone covet it?
Would it slip out in an accident?
Ultimately, Cursed Energy might be "clean energy," but that only meant it fell outside conventional judgment criteria. It did not mean using it came without cost.
The moment anyone tried to truly utilize it, they would be artificially pushing humanity to collectively generate negative emotions.
Nearly impossible to manage. The risks were far too great.
Until human civilization matured enough to handle that kind of energy source, Himmel had no intention of recommending that the concept of Cursed Energy be made public.
The ability to kill directly, that was the optimal solution.
"Ah, so that's why—"
Gojo Satoru snapped his fingers.
"—that's why you deliberately let that Special Grade cursed spirit go, huh?"
"What do you mean?" Nanami, standing nearby, picked up the thread with a puzzled look.
Tsk tsk tsk.
Gojo spread his hands, shrugged, and shook his head all at once, speaking in that particular tone of his that was specifically engineered to be irritating.
"That's why I keep telling you, Nanamin~ you really should read more Jump manga."
"Hah?"
Nanami's reaction was ice-cold.
"It's a classic manga trope, you know, the protagonist's ridiculously overpowered teacher deliberately lets the enemy escape, but the whole point is to make the enemy stronger, so it forces the students to grow!" Gojo raised a finger and leaned toward Nanami, who stepped back with obvious disgust. "Cursed Spirit Manipulation locks in a cursed spirit's technique grade at the moment of absorption. Which means, if we'd killed that guy Mahito right there on the spot, Idle Transfiguration might never reach the level we actually want."
"I don't believe Himmel would do something like that," Nanami said.
"Agreed~" Shoko raised her hand from the side, and without a shred of mercy, added, "Gojo, on the other hand, might get so wrapped up in having fun that he lets an enemy slip right through his fingers."
"Hey, Shoko! Don't go making things up!"
Gojo protested.
"Well, if it were the all-knowing, all-powerful, dashingly handsome Gojo-sensei, he would of course protect every last student perfectly in every single engagement and annihilate his enemies without leaving a single one behind."
The few of them turned the meeting room into pure noise. The other Grade 1 jujutsu sorcerers exchanged glances that all said the same thing: Oh no, there's absolutely no getting into this conversation.
It couldn't be helped. Those people over there were the legendary Jujutsu High clique.
Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Ieiri Shoko, Himmel, Nanami Kento.
Two graduating classes, and somehow both were notorious. During their school years, they had collectively caused an enormous amount of trouble for the entire jujutsu world, well, Nanami Kento hadn't caused much trouble himself, but since he was always the one cleaning up after everyone else, he'd ended up famous in the jujutsu world without quite meaning to.
"No."
Himmel spoke up.
He said it simply, without hesitation.
"I just wasn't able to catch everyone. I gave it everything I had, but in the end, all I managed to keep was the one called Hanami."
The truth was, Himmel wasn't as strong as those in the room imagined. In his previous life, even among the Seven Sages of Destruction, there had been enemies he genuinely struggled against.
And in this life, without rotating the Celestial Crosswheel for 956 seconds, his raw power still fell short of Gojo Satoru's.
The reason he came across as reliable, as a capable fighter, it was because his stats were high and he never hesitated. Never stalled. The moment a decision was made, he acted on it, and that decisiveness consistently produced results.
As for this particular reality, the modern era's strongest sorcerer's assessment was...
"HAHAHAHAHAHA Himmel is so LAME! Absolutely lame!"
Tears actually sprayed out. Gojo Satoru jabbed a finger in his direction and bent double laughing.
"Himmel~~ sir~~ maybe consider learning a thing or two about being a role model from Gojo Satoru-sensei, hm~"
This guy...
Every single person in the room turned looks on him that defied description.
On a normal day, Himmel might have argued back a little.
But.
"Right. Because what I actually need to discuss is something else about Mahito."
Himmel stepped around Gojo and caught Shoko's eye. She nodded and fished a USB drive from the pocket of her white coat.
Thank goodness the meeting room had a projector.
Thank goodness the meeting room had Shoko, because without her, no one would have the faintest idea how to operate it.
WHIRRING...
A few flickers of white light, and the large screen at the front of the room filled with a grid of frames that looked like employee ID profiles: headshots of ordinary men and women, each accompanied by a brief description.
"These are?"
Kusakabe scanned across all of them. Nothing in his memory matched.
"These are the 'humans' who showed up when I fought Mahito." Himmel studied the screen, his tone unreadable.
"Humans? Are you saying there were traitors?"
"No, I mean it literally. They didn't betray anyone. They were controlled by his ability."
Himmel didn't beat around the bush. "Mahito's ability can alter the soul to transform humans into transfigured humans. In that state, a person's existence functions closer to that of a cursed spirit, they can reshape their own body drastically, and they possess both powerful aggression and functional utility."
"...What sick taste." Kusakabe covered his mouth. He had the general picture.
"And because Mahito's ability requires extensive training to develop, based on my observations, there may already be several hundred victims."
The room went quiet for a moment.
Several hundred. Triple digits.
Death.
Children who had lost their fathers. Husbands who had lost their wives...
In a daze, she was still right there beside him, close enough to touch, but when he reached out there was only cold air. The gap between the living and the dead, splitting those you loved into separate worlds. The mornings they had walked side by side. The small, quiet words of everyday life. All of it locked away inside the faded dreams of another time...
As for that.
(Oh.)
(I see.)
(Got it~)
Every jujutsu sorcerer in the room was wearing a completely flat expression that said: Is that it?
At the end of the day, jujutsu sorcerers were not the people's police.
They'd become sorcerers for reasons like "money," "protecting their own kind," or "basic moral obligation." The person with the highest moral standards in the room was probably Yaga Masamichi, Nanami, and Utahime, and even those three only felt a passing regret for the deaths.
So when they caught sight of Himmel on stage, genuinely low-spirited in a way they had almost never seen before, the rest of the room quietly looked away.
Right.
How to put this.
It was certainly a serious matter, but... haha... um...
Feels like someone's moral standards are on a completely different plane from the rest of us.jpg
Awkward. Hesitant. No one knowing what to say.
And then,
"That really is terrible."
A voice as handsome and magnetic as it was heavy. Nakamura Yuichi levels of resonance.
Huh?!
Ha?!
You're serious?!
Almost everyone in the room turned at the same moment,,
Gojo Satoru.
Gojo Satoru, arguably the strongest contender for least moral bottom line in the entire room.
Yes, Gojo Satoru had the highest kill count, had saved countless lives. But all of that was on the level of as the strongest, I suppose looking after the weak falls to me, an emotion about as deep as humans should protect pitiful flowers.
His own abnormal strength had carved a gap between him and ordinary people that approached something like reproductive isolation. True empathy didn't come naturally to him.
Innate power. And the loneliness that came with it.
He would protect humanity.
He had a basic moral conscience.
But.
Caring for people is not the same as loving them.
So how had he just said that?
Was he humoring a friend?
"Hm?"
Gojo seemed to notice that every pair of eyes in the room had landed on him. The modern era's strongest sorcerer, bearer of the Six Eyes, looked around in genuine confusion, then paused, something clicking behind his expression, and said carefully, "Wait. You guys didn't notice?"
Notice what?
"Can't really be helped, I suppose." Shoko, arms folded on stage, said it flatly.
What can't be helped?
The two people most familiar with Himmel had both just said something, and that was enough to send the rest of the room into quiet thought. But no answer came. One by one, they looked to the most reliable person in the room, the one best positioned to read what was actually happening.
Nanami Kento met the assembled gazes and slowly adjusted his goggles.
"...Regrettable as it is, the key point of this matter is not that hundreds of people died."
"Look at the photos carefully."
Everyone looked back at the screen. The photos were still perfectly ordinary, men and women, nothing remarkable. If anything could be said about them, it was that all of them seemed to have... rather tired expressions.
Wait. That would mean,
"That's right. Every one of those photos was taken recently." Shoko confirmed what everyone was already thinking.
"But... didn't you say his technique..." Utahime's voice trailed off as she spoke. Her expression shifted from confusion to realization, then to contemplation, and finally, slowly, to horror.
She wasn't alone.
Every face in the room, even Gakuganji's, was turning dark.
The key point was not that they died.
The key point was,
They hadn't died yet.
"My technique, in Monk mode, can Purify the curse itself. In other words, it restores a target's state to before they were cursed. Even damage to the soul — if it was caused by a cursed technique — can be repaired."
Himmel stated the conclusion from the front of the room.
"So — my compatibility with Mahito is at its absolute worst."
He didn't say the next part. He didn't have to. Everyone already knew.
Because.
Himmel would never give up on any life that could possibly be saved.
Which meant: as long as Mahito kept accumulating transfigured humans, he had a leash. A method to threaten Himmel. To pin him down indefinitely.
"After just saying our compatibility is terrible, saying this next part might seem a bit contradictory..." Himmel's expression turned serious. "But I'm sorry, please allow me to take responsibility for his exorcism. I will resolve it as quickly as I can."
Kusakabe's jaw dropped. His pupils went wide.
Even if you say that!
The opponent had hundreds of hostages! For the average jujutsu sorcerer, those transfigured humans were acceptable losses. But Himmel was going to save them one by one, wasn't he!
Please don't! Seriously, please don't! Lower your bottom line just a little! Because if you don't, that means I have to go all out too!
He should have captured Mahito the first time they crossed paths, but the information gap made that impossible. Damn it! This wasn't some minor inconvenience! Exactly like Himmel said, this was a catastrophe! A genuine crisis!
Because with this many super-spec Special Grade cursed spirits suddenly on the board, if the most reliable person in the room was getting leashed by a trick like this, then the only one left to count on was,,!.
"Heh."
From the side of the main seat, the modern era's strongest sorcerer let out a quiet, unhurried laugh.
He stood up. His tall frame was almost absurdly conspicuous in the meeting room.
Arms spread wide, facing the room, deliberately dropping his voice to something low and magnetic and just slightly rough.
"Relax. Even without Himmel, it'll be fine."
Gojo Satoru tilted his mouth into a slow grin.
"Because I'm the stronges, "
"WE'RE DOOMED!"
"Hey! Who said that! I wasn't finished yet! Show some respect for Gojo-san!"
Gojo Satoru was half-annoyed.
➤ Next: Stand Users Are Drawn to One Another