Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 60 - Youth Special Training and the Awakening Calamity

5:30 a.m.

The sun hadn't fully risen yet. The winding mountain road behind Tokyo Jujutsu High was torn apart by an earth-shaking roar.

"Step ten thousand! The sweat of youth never lies!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Heavy footfalls thundered through the forest like a minor earthquake.

Megumi Fushiguro dragged a sandbag weighing thirty jin, both hands locked on his knees, lungs wheezing like a broken bellows.

His perpetually expressionless face had gone bright red. Sweat poured off his forehead, ran down his chin, and spattered across the gravel path below.

This was absolute murder.

Megumi cursed through gritted teeth.

Ever since that idiot senpai named Yu Haibara came back, the old man's "Youth Special Training" had spiraled completely out of control.

Before, it was just running ten kilometers and striking wooden dummies.

Now? Weighted mountain runs. Upside-down tree climbing. Bare-handed brick breaking with zero Cursed Energy.

This wasn't training Jujutsu Sorcerers. This was manufacturing human tyrannosaurs.

"Fushiguro-kouhai! Don't stop!"

A dark figure vaulted clean over Megumi's head.

Yu Haibara had a granite boulder half his own height strapped to his back. He was soaked through, but his eyes blazed like searchlights. Not a trace of fatigue anywhere on him. If anything, he was picking up speed, the grin splitting his face identical to the green-spandex lunatic running the mountain road upside-down up ahead.

This guy was seriously out of his mind.

Megumi watched Yu Haibara's dust-trailing back without expression.

He had figured that with a student finally returning to the school, at least some of the insane training pressure would get redistributed. Some buffer. Some relief.

Instead, this single-celled organism surnamed Haibara got completely brainwashed by the old man's Will of Fire nonsense on day one. Now the two of them gathered every morning, hollering about youth this and sweat that, so loud the birds in the trees were starting to lose feathers.

Two hot-blooded idiots together. Disaster, doubled.

"Yo yo yo — giving up already, Megumi? Teacher Gojo, whose sunglasses got bitten to pieces by a wolf, is very much looking forward to your performance, you know."

Midair, Satoru Gojo floated cross-legged, utterly shameless.

He had a freshly opened box of Sendai Kikufuku in one hand, stuffing his face while delivering commentary in the most punchable tone imaginable.

Megumi glared at the grudge-holding cheapskate.

"Shut up. You trash adult who won't even spare his own students."

The man hadn't taught a single proper Jujutsu class in his life. He just floated around eating sweets and watching the show.

Satoru Gojo was completely unbothered. He laughed louder.

Toji flipped back down the road upside-down, planted one hand on the ground, tucked into a somersault, and landed squarely in front of Megumi.

"Son! Youth has no limits! Look at Haibara — just a few days in, and his physical vitality has already climbed a full 30 percent!"

Yu Haibara immediately hurled the boulder down. It hit the ground with a concussive BOOM.

He snapped to attention and shouted back, "All thanks to Fushiguro-sensei's guidance! As long as I don't stop moving forward, I will definitely grow stronger! Even if I face a Special Grade Cursed Spirit again, I will absolutely never hold anyone back!"

"Magnificent! Haibara! You have finally found youth's true home! Your teacher is so proud!"

Toji burst into tears.

Watching these two idiots on the verge of throwing their arms around each other and sobbing, Megumi felt nothing but bone-deep exhaustion.

He was even starting to miss the old scumbag who reeked of cigarettes and booze.

---

At the same time.

An abandoned underground parking garage.

Empty beer cans scattered across the floor went flying with a kick, clanging off the concrete wall.

"Fuck!"

The scar-faced man slammed his fist into a junked car's hood. The sheet metal caved instantly.

He panted hard, eyes cold and venomous as a viper's.

The bone fracture in his knee had been healed by a Curse User. But the humiliation of being crushed to his knees in that great hall, pressed down by Suguru Geto's raw Cursed Energy until his forehead touched the floor, was still lodged in his chest like a splinter. And it had happened in front of all his men. He hadn't been able to lift his head.

"What bullshit Supreme Evil Cult Leader!" He cracked open another beer and chugged it. "No killing, no robbing — did I join him to live this kind of pathetic life?"

In the corner, several equally vicious-looking Curse Users exchanged uneasy glances.

"Boss, keep it down." One underling swallowed hard. "The Cult Leader is Special Grade. If his people catch wind of this..."

"Special Grade, so what?" The scar-faced man crushed the can in his fist. Beer foam sprayed across the floor. "When I was out making my name, he didn't even know where to find a milk bottle!"

He talked big. Inside, he knew the truth.

He was a fringe Grade 1 Curse User at best. Against Suguru Geto, he had nothing. That absolute gap in power sat in his gut like a stone, equal parts despair and rage.

"Truly regrettable."

A gentle, almost jarringly soft voice drifted through the empty parking garage.

The scar-faced man spun around, blade already out. "Who's playing ghost? Show yourself!"

The underlings raised their Cursed Tools, every one of them on edge.

From the shadows, a man in a plain dark suit walked out slowly.

Hands in his pockets. A warm smile on his face. The most striking thing about him was the gruesome suture line stitched horizontally across his forehead.

"Relax, gentlemen." His voice was quiet, but it reached every ear without effort. "I am merely a passerby. I saw a pack of beasts who truly desire freedom being penned in by a hypocritical cult leader, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for them."

"Who the hell are you?" The scar-faced man kept his blade up. But he could feel it, no killing intent. None at all.

The man didn't answer. He reached into his pocket and produced an old wooden box.

"Who I am doesn't matter. What matters is that I can give you what you want."

His fingers lightly flicked the sealing talisman on the lid.

Click.

The box opened.

Ancient. Evil. The Cursed Energy that rolled out was vast enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck, hitting the garage like a tsunami. Temperature plummeted. The few already-flickering fluorescent bulbs overhead went haywire, strobing and buzzing with a sharp electric crackle.

The scar-faced man's breath stopped dead.

His eyes locked onto the object inside. A dark crimson finger, dried and twisted, its tip ending in a razor-sharp black nail.

Just looking at it, he could feel what was packed inside, power enough to unmake everything.

Pure calamity.

"Special Grade Cursed Object." The sutured man's smile didn't waver. His voice curled like smoke. "Sukuna's Finger. The ultimate curse that not even the so-called strongest, Satoru Gojo himself, can destroy."

The scar-faced man swallowed. Greed and terror fought across his face.

"You... what do you want?"

"To give it to you." The man extended the box forward.

"Swallow it, and your Cursed Energy will change beyond recognition. Special Grade — that word will stop being out of reach. When that happens, you won't need to grovel before Suguru Geto anymore. You could build your own world. With your own hands."

Gulp.

The scar-faced man swallowed again.

His reason screamed at him. This thing was lethal. An ordinary person, an incompatible sorcerer, contact meant death. No exceptions.

But he wanted power too badly.

The humiliation of being ground under Suguru Geto's heel. The suffocating frustration of being able to do nothing but mutter in dark corners. It drowned the last spark of reason he had left.

With this, he could flip the board. He could make that hypocritical bastard pay.

"Give it here!"

He snatched the box. His hands were already shaking.

"Friendly reminder." The man's smile deepened. "The toxicity is extremely potent. Without compatibility, swallowing it directly may result in instant death."

The scar-faced man heard none of it.

The pure Cursed Energy radiating off Sukuna's Finger had already swallowed him whole. His eyes were a red web of burst vessels. Like a beast starved for ten days, he grabbed the withered finger without hesitation and shoved it into his mouth.

Silence.

Dead silence.

Then, a few seconds later.

"AAAAARGH!"

He clapped both hands to his throat and screamed, raw and animal. His body hit the floor. He convulsed. He thrashed. Beneath his skin, something writhed, countless things crawling, tunneling. His veins surged to the surface. His bones cracked with a sound that made teeth ache.

"B-Boss!"

The underlings scrambled backward, too terrified to move in.

His body began to swell.

His clothes split apart. His already-ugly face warped into something from a nightmare. On his forehead, his cheeks, his shoulders, eyeballs cracked open one after another, each one threaded through with red.

Then the Cursed Energy hit. Black-red, massive, ominous, it erupted from his body like a geyser. The pressure was almost physical. The concrete pillars around him crumbled.

"S-Save... save me!"

The nearest underling caught the edge of the shockwave. He didn't even get a scream out. The twisted Cursed Energy shredded him into a red mist.

The remaining two bolted, scrambling over each other to get to the exit.

The monster, no reason left, nothing left but a vessel for the Cursed Object, raised one hand casually.

BOOM!

Several headless bodies hit the floor. Blood painted the walls.

The sutured man watched from a safe distance. The Special Grade monster roared, punched through the ceiling, and surged up toward the surface. He brought his hands together in a slow, satisfied clap.

"Off you go."

He turned and stepped back into the darkness. A quiet, meaningful laugh followed him in.

"Stir up some waves in this stagnant pond."

➤ Next: Shinjuku Massacre, Bloodstained Kasaya