Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 66 - The Temptation of the Zenin Clan Headship — The Tyrant Descends

Three years passed.

2011, Tokyo.

"Little boy, wouldn't you like endless wealth and supreme power?"

Megumi Fushiguro stopped walking.

He was eight years old, just starting second grade.

He had a dark blue backpack on his back and a lunch box in his hand, the one with the Divine Dogs pattern on it.

Megumi fixed the man with his dead-fish stare. Suit-and-tie, planted right in the middle of his route home.

His brain supplied exactly two words: What an idiot.

Were kidnappers really using lines this outdated these days?

If the gorilla back home, the one who wore green spandex every single day, ever saw this, he'd absolutely kick this guy's front teeth straight into his stomach. Then he'd probably roar something about how "the path of youth has no room for kidnappers."

"Mister, I'm busy. I have math problems to do." Megumi moved to walk around him.

The suited man panicked, sidestepping to cut him off again.

"I'm from the Zenin Clan." He lowered his voice, and his tone carried the unmistakable weight of someone doing a great favor. "All you have to do is nod and come with me. You'll be the future head of the Zenin Clan. The entire foundation of one of the Three Great Families, all of it, yours."

Megumi's steps stopped.

The Zenin Clan.

He knew those words too well. His idiot father had cursed that name more than once.

For a place to disgust even that thick-headed, hot-blooded idiot father of his, a man who wore his grudges on his sleeve, just how rotten did it have to be?

He was genuinely curious.

Megumi's gaze swept over the suited man.

The Cursed Energy fluctuations coming off this guy put him at Grade 3, absolute ceiling.

Megumi ran the numbers in his head.

For the past 3 years, every morning at five, his father had dragged him out of bed, strapped several dozen kilograms of sandbags onto him, and made him run laps around the back mountain.

On top of that, he'd had Gojo and Geto as his two "master teachers."

Between his taijutsu and his now-proficient Ten Shadows Technique, he could put down a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit like it was nothing.

Even if he walked into the Zenin Clan's territory and things went sideways, he could get out clean.

He wanted to see what that garbage heap his father hated so deeply actually looked like.

His father was too lazy to deal with these people. But Megumi had never forgotten.

This trip, he'd just call it settling the score on his father's behalf.

"Sure." Megumi nodded.

The suited man froze.

He'd come prepared with a whole arsenal of threats and bribes. He'd mentally rehearsed forcibly grabbing the kid. He never expected the brat to bite this easily.

As expected. No one can refuse the chance to lead the Zenin Clan.

He sneered inwardly, but his expression shifted to something more respectful as he quickly pulled the car door open.

An hour later, a black sedan pulled up in front of a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Kyoto.

Megumi pushed the door open and stepped out.

A tall rosewood gatehouse. A flagstone path that stretched until it vanished from sight. Pine trees lining both sides, trimmed with obsessive precision.

Big. It was genuinely big.

But it genuinely stank, too.

Megumi wrinkled his nose. Even the air here carried a moldy, stagnant smell, lifeless, oppressive, the kind that made it hard to breathe.

Every servant and Zenin Clan member he passed along the way had their head down, moving like soulless marionettes on strings.

No wonder his father, with his inability to sit still for five seconds, couldn't stand this place.

If his father had to live here, he'd probably pile wood for a bonfire right in the center of the courtyard the very next day and force everyone to do aerobics.

"Young Master Megumi, please follow me. The elders are already waiting in the main hall." The suited man bowed and led the way.

Megumi shoved his hands into his pockets and shuffled along at his own pace.

Then a burst of sharp cursing cut through the air from a side courtyard nearby.

"Worthless! You can barely produce any Cursed Energy, being born into the Zenin Clan is a disgrace!"

The shouting was accompanied by the dull, meaty thud of something heavy striking flesh.

Megumi stopped walking.

"Young Master Megumi, that's Lord Ogi's courtyard. He's disciplining his daughters. We really shouldn't, " The suited man moved quickly to block his line of sight.

Megumi ignored him completely. He turned and walked straight toward the side courtyard.

Inside.

Zenin Ogi stood with a wooden sword in his grip, his face iron-gray.

Two little girls, seven or eight years old, were kneeling on the ground. One had short hair. The other had her hair in small braids. Both of them were covered in angry purple welts. The short-haired girl had her lip bitten white, her body angled to shield her younger sister, making no sound at all.

"No innate technique. Can't even see curses. You're not fit to be servants!" Zenin Ogi raised the wooden sword and brought it slashing down hard toward the short-haired girl's shoulder.

Something ignited in Megumi's chest.

He hated this more than almost anything.

His father was an idiot, sure. His father forced him through humiliating training drills every single day, sure. But his father had never once taken his frustrations out on someone weaker than him.

His father had told him: "The fists of youth exist to smash injustice. Anyone who only raises a blade against the weak is nothing but a rat from the sewer."

Megumi crossed his hands in front of his chest. Index fingers and thumbs moved fast, snapping into a seal.

"Divine Dogs."

AWOOO!

Two massive shadows, one black, one white, erupted from beneath Megumi's feet.

The black dog moved like a lightning strike. Its jaws clamped shut around the wooden sword mid-swing.

CRACK. The hard oak snapped cleanly in two.

The white dog planted itself in front of the two girls, a low warning growl rolling from its throat, fangs bared, eyes locked on Zenin Ogi and not moving.

The courtyard went dead silent.

Maki and Mai stared up at the enormous white dog standing over them. Then they turned to look at the boy with the backpack standing at the courtyard gate.

Zenin Ogi looked at the half-sword still in his hand. Shock first. Then his eyes dragged to the pair of shikigami, black and white, standing in his courtyard.

"Ten Shadows Technique..."

His pupils shrank.

His gaze moved past the Divine Dogs and locked onto Megumi Fushiguro's face.

That face. Those features.

He would never mistake them for anyone else's as long as he lived.

That waste with zero Cursed Energy. That disgrace to the Zenin Clan. The spawn of the man called Toji.

Jealousy and greed ignited and flooded his mind all at once.

Why? Why does that waste's son get to have this kind of talent? While his own children, his, Zenin Ogi's, are all useless garbage with nothing?

If he could just get control of this brat.

If he could just get him in his hands...

"So it's you." Zenin Ogi dropped the broken sword and drew the real blade from his hip in one smooth motion. The edge gleamed cold in the sunlight. "As expected. No one refuses a Zenin invitation."

"When an elder disciplines a junior, a snot-nosed little brat has no business interfering. Since you've come to the Zenin Clan, this old man will personally teach you how things work here."

He walked toward Megumi Fushiguro one step at a time, Cursed Energy pouring into the blade.

Megumi rolled his eyes. Slowly. Thoroughly.

This old man wasn't just an abuser. His brain was also seriously broken.

"Beating your own daughters." Megumi didn't move an inch. His voice was flat and cold, like chips of ice. "What kind of man does that? You're nothing but trash."

"My father was right. This place really is a garbage heap."

"Insolence!"

The words hit the bruise dead-on. Zenin Ogi detonated.

He drove his foot down and shattered the flagstone beneath him, his body blurring into an afterimage. The longsword screamed through the air and drove straight for Megumi Fushiguro's legs.

He would cripple this brat. Lock him in the Zenin Clan's dungeon and never let him out.

Megumi's eyes sharpened. His hands were already moving to form a seal, ready to summon Rabbit Escape and put distance between them.

"STOP!"

A roar detonated from just outside the courtyard gate.

BANG. A sake gourd hit Zenin Ogi's blade with savage force, sending him stumbling back 3 full steps. The skin between his thumb and forefinger split. Blood ran down the hilt.

Zenin Naobito walked in wearing a loose traditional robe, each step wide and deliberate.

His beard was practically vibrating. He leveled a finger at Zenin Ogi's face and unloaded. "Has water seeped into your skull?! You want to die, fine, don't drag the entire Zenin Clan down with you!"

Zenin Ogi caught his footing, teeth grinding. "Big brother! This is the Ten Shadows Technique — the supreme bloodline we lost! If we just lock him up, the Zenin Clan can—"

"Lock him up my ass!" Naobito kicked a stone lantern clean off its base. Spittle hit Zenin Ogi's face. "Have you forgotten who this kid's father is?!"

Zenin Ogi paused.

Then he sneered. "A waste with no Cursed Energy. That's all he is. Even if it's him — if he dares set foot in the Zenin Clan, our foundation is more than enough to—"

Naobito looked at his own blood brother the way a man looks at a complete idiot.

A waste?

3 years ago, the Shinjuku massacre had shaken the entire jujutsu world to its foundations. The higher-ups had been reshuffled top to bottom. Two monsters had burst onto the scene, Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto.

And the man called Toji was the only person alive who could throw an arm around both those monsters like an old friend and put them on the ground when he felt like it.

He had trained his body to the point where he could tear Special Grade Cursed Spirits apart with his bare hands. He was something that simply should not exist.

"Guards—"

Naobito had just drawn breath to order his subordinates to tie up his idiot brother and gag him before this got any worse.

Then.

The wind stopped.

A pressure settled over the courtyard, enormous, suffocating, so dense it had physical weight. It filled every inch of the space.

The pebbles on the ground began to jump without rhythm or pattern.

Maki and Mai clamped their hands over their ears and curled into themselves on the ground.

Even Naobito, a Grade 1 sorcerer, felt it, an invisible hand closing around his heart, squeezing. Each breath came harder than the last.

It wasn't Cursed Energy.

It was killing intent. Pure, undiluted, savage. The kind that only rolls off an apex predator.

BOOM!

The heavy rosewood gate, centuries of Zenin Clan history behind it, and the dozen-plus meters of stone wall on either side, exploded outward like they were made of paper.

Through the cascading dust and debris and smoke.

A tall figure stepped through the wreckage, walking in without hurry.

Toji Fushiguro was wearing his green spandex suit, as blindingly loud as ever. His eyes did not match. They were cold and brutal in a way that had nothing to do with the outfit.

He stopped in the center of the courtyard.

His gaze moved across the twin girls kneeling in the dirt. Moved across Naobito, who was drenched in cold sweat. Then it settled on Zenin Ogi, who was still holding his sword.

Toji's lips pulled back.

The grin that spread across his face made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

"Did I just hear," he said, "that someone wants to lock my son up?"

➤ Next: The Power to Shatter Rules — Maki and Mai Join the Youthful Big Family