Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 39 - Megumi's First Battle and Toji's Big Cleanup

The black shadows on the floor seethed. Two shikigami, each already the size of an adult wolf, burst out of the darkness.

One black, one white. Low growls rolled from their throats as they locked onto the Cursed Spirit lunging through the air.

Megumi didn't flinch.

All those weighted squats that idiot old man made him do every day — they weren't for nothing.

His thigh muscles exploded. His small body rolled sideways like a cannonball, barely, perilously clearing the Cursed Spirit's reeking pounce.

BOOM!

The Cursed Spirit slammed into the floor where Megumi had just been standing, smashing a crater into the wood, splinters spraying in every direction.

"White, go for its eyes!"

"Black, flank from the side!"

Megumi's voice was clear and sharp, carrying a command that left no room for argument.

That was what idiot big brother Gojo Satoru had drilled into him.

"Don't just rely on instinct when you activate your technique. Your brain works better than those beasts."

"Cursed Energy is your reins. Choke them with it."

Gojo Satoru had said all that while eating daifuku, naturally.

Megumi pushed his Cursed Energy out evenly, feeding it into both Divine Dogs.

The White Dog sprang high, claws shredding the air, swiping straight at the biggest red eye on top of the Cursed Spirit's body.

The Cursed Spirit let out a piercing shriek. Gray acidic fluid sprayed from the wound.

The Black Dog seized the opening, clamping its jaws into the Cursed Spirit's bloated torso from the side and refusing to let go.

Megumi crouched behind the sofa, pulling in ragged breaths.

A thin line of blood ran down his small cheek where a shard of broken glass had caught him.

He was exhausted.

The Cursed Energy was draining far faster than he'd expected.

The Cursed Spirit thrashed in a frenzy. Its sludge-like body shot out two tentacles and whipped them viciously at the Black Dog.

The Black Dog took the hit. It slammed into the wall with a yelp and dissolved into a mass of black shadow.

"Can't retreat."

Megumi bit down on his teeth.

If he retreated now, his sister in the cupboard would die.

He thought of that green-spandex silhouette. That man who always threw himself in front with the most reckless stance imaginable.

"Black, get up!"

Megumi's hands slammed together. Every last scrap of Cursed Energy inside him came pouring out.

The dissolving shadow snapped back together instantly.

The Black Dog wrenched itself around in midair and fell into position alongside the White Dog, one on each side, both clamping down on the Cursed Spirit's neck and holding.

RIIIP!

The sound of muscle tearing set every tooth on edge.

The Grade 4 Cursed Spirit's bloated body was ripped clean in two.

Purple-black filth splattered across the floor. The body started breaking apart into black residual cursed filth, drifting slowly into the air.

They'd won.

Megumi's legs gave out. He dropped straight down onto the floor.

Both Divine Dogs, their Cursed Energy spent, dissolved back into black shadow and sank into the ground beneath his feet.

The living room was a disaster. Shattered glass, splintered wood, and that sharp acidic stench that wouldn't go away.

"Megumi..."

The kitchen cupboard door crept open a crack. Tsumiki Fushiguro's trembling voice came through.

"Watch out. There's broken glass everywhere."

Megumi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and tried to look like he had it together.

His fingers were shaking. He just didn't let it show.

Then the sound of a key in the lock came from the entryway.

The door opened.

"Megumi!"

"Tsumiki!"

"Look what your old man scored!"

"Snowflake wagyu!"

"Half off! Half off!"

"This is the battlefield where housewives burn their youth..."

Toji came through the door with two big plastic bags, grinning ear to ear as he kicked off his shoes.

When he looked up and saw the demolished living room, the carpet of glass, the Cursed Energy residue still hanging in the air, and Fushiguro Megumi sitting slumped on the floor with blood on his cheek, the grin on his face froze solid.

PLOP!

The bags full of premium wagyu and vegetables hit the floor. A few tomatoes rolled out.

The silence was suffocating.

Megumi looked up at Toji. He always gave his old man a hard time. But right now, what he felt was something closer to the edge of tears.

"Old man..."

WHOOSH!

Not even an afterimage.

Toji had already crossed 10 meters and was down on one knee in front of Megumi.

Those eyes, always half-lazy, half-feverish, were scanning now. Cold. Methodical. Like a machine running diagnostics. They swept over every inch of Megumi in an instant, then shifted to Tsumiki crammed in the cupboard.

No fatal injuries. Just a small scratch on the cheek.

The residual cursed filth in the air was faint. Very faint.

Grade 4.

"You exorcised it alone?"

Toji's voice was quiet. Quiet enough that you couldn't read a single thing in it.

Megumi nodded.

"Had the Divine Dogs tear it apart."

A beat of silence.

Then Toji grabbed Megumi off the floor and hoisted him straight up over his head.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The laughter that came out of him was wild and deafening, loud enough to nearly shake the ceiling off.

Tears of pure excitement burst from the corners of his eyes.

"A genius!"

"That's my kid, alright!"

"Four years old and already soloing a Cursed Spirit!"

He pulled Megumi in and rubbed his face against the boy's cheek, stubble scratching everywhere, until Megumi was twisting away in every direction trying to escape.

"Let go!"

"You stink!"

"Get off me!"

Megumi fought him with everything he had.

"This is a wound of honor!"

"The first magnificent flower of youth, in full bloom!"

Toji was so worked up he spun around 3 times on the spot.

"Those upper-echelon old fossils were still wetting their beds at four!"

"Come on — your old man is grilling you ten plates of wagyu tonight!"

Watching the old man laughing like a two-hundred-pound idiot, Megumi felt the tight wire inside him finally go slack.

He thought the word "moron." But the corner of his mouth pulled up anyway.

Tsumiki crawled out of the cupboard. The moment she saw her little brother was in one piece, she burst into ugly, full-volume tears.

Toji held Megumi in one arm and pulled Tsumiki in with the other, patting both kids on the back.

"It's okay. It's all over."

"Your old man's here."

His voice had gone somewhere it almost never went, genuinely gentle.

He coaxed them both into the bath. Then he went back to the wrecked living room alone and started picking up broken glass.

When he picked up a shard with Megumi's blood on it, he stopped.

The smile left his face. Slow, like a tide going out. Gone completely.

What replaced it was the cold that belonged to the Sorcerer Killer, the kind of cold that had nothing warm underneath it.

Dread.

It coiled around his heart like a snake.

What if it hadn't been a Grade 4? What if it had been a Grade 3? A Grade 1?

What if the Cursed Spirit had been just a little bit faster?

What if Megumi's Cursed Energy had run dry a few seconds sooner?

He couldn't follow that line of thinking to the end.

10 more minutes. One farther supermarket. And what he would have walked into was two chewed-up corpses.

That could not happen. Ever.

Toji stood up. His knuckles cracked.

Bright green chakra aura began bleeding off his skin, slow and steady, like a volcano waking up.

"These sewer roaches actually crawled onto my turf looking to die."

He spat on the ground.

"Gate of Rest!"

"Open!"

BOOM!

The last surviving window frame blew out of the wall.

Toji called back over his shoulder, "Your old man's going out to buy scallions", and shot off the balcony like a green bolt of lightning, punching straight up into the night sky.

That night, the underworld of Saitama Prefecture received an unannounced, one-sided massacre.

An abandoned factory in southern Saitama.

5 Grade 3 Cursed Spirits were huddled together, tearing apart a stray dog.

Before any of them could turn around, a green storm punched straight through the corrugated iron roof.

BAM!

One Cursed Spirit's skull was stomped flat under a large foot.

"One."

Toji's voice rang cold through the factory.

The other 4 let out furious shrieks and charged.

"Leaf Whirlwind!"

A spinning kick so fast it left nothing but a blur. Raw physical force tore the air apart.

Not one of the 4 managed a scream. They were kicked into scattered chunks of flesh before the sound could even form.

Ten minutes later.

Under the arch of a cross-sea bridge.

A Grade 2 Cursed Spirit lurking in the shadows was lining up its approach on a homeless man passing through.

Toji appeared out of nowhere directly in front of it.

The Cursed Spirit felt the killing intent hit it like a wall. Instinct screamed at it to open its Innate Domain.

"Too late."

Toji threw the punch. Compressed air formed a visible white column of force that punched clean through the Cursed Spirit's chest and blasted its entire upper body into nothing.

"Thirty."

7 in the evening to 10 at night.

3 solid hours.

With the Fushiguro household at the center, every street, every sewer, every abandoned building within 10 kilometers got plowed through by that raging green whirlwind.

Grade 4 Fly Heads. Grade 2s buried deep in the shadows.

Anything carrying even a trace of Cursed Energy. Anything with even a chance of threatening those two kids.

All of it, obliterated.

No survivors.

Several arrogant yakuza gangs operating in the area got their legs broken and got thrown in dumpsters as a bonus.

By the time it was over, the Cursed Energy concentration across all of Saitama Prefecture had been beaten into a dead vacuum.

Tokyo Jujutsu High. Principal's office.

Yaga Masamichi stared at the radar monitoring report the assistant supervisor had just handed him. His teacup was trembling slightly.

"You're sure this instrument isn't broken?"

Yaga jabbed a finger at the completely blank patch on the report where Saitama Prefecture should have been, his eyelid twitching.

"It's — it's not broken."

The assistant supervisor wiped cold sweat from his forehead.

"Within 3 hours, every Cursed Spirit reading in southern Saitama Prefecture disappeared."

"The sites show severe physical destruction. It looks like the entire area was carpet-bombed by a meteor shower."

Yaga breathed in slowly and pressed 2 fingers to the bridge of his nose.

He didn't need to guess. In all of Japan, there was exactly one muscle-brained lunatic capable of something this insane.

"What set him off this time."

Yaga slumped back into his chair with a headache.

Meanwhile. Saitama Prefecture.

Toji walked home carrying a bunch of scallions he'd bought at the supermarket, humming a children's song that was completely off-key, in no particular hurry at all.

Every trace of killing intent had bled off him. He'd turned back into that reckless, hot-blooded idiot like nothing had happened.

He pushed open the front door. The living room had been mostly cleaned up by Tsumiki and Megumi.

"Old man, does buying scallions take 3 hours?"

"We're starving!"

Megumi sat cross-legged on the sofa with a scowl.

"HAHAHAHA!"

"Sorry about that! Got held up helping an old lady cross the street!"

Toji laughed loud as he walked into the kitchen and tied on his apron like he'd done it a thousand times.

He looked through at the two kids in the living room, safe and whole, and let out a long breath.

The garbage within 10 kilometers had been cleaned up.

If any more death-wishers showed up later, he'd clean them up again.

Nobody touches my home.

"Tonight!"

"We celebrate my incredible son's first victory — with wagyu and rice!"

➤ Next: Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer, Yuki Tsukumo