Chapter 133 - Speed-Clear Special Grade! The Curtain Falls!

Saitama Prefecture, beneath the Eighty-Eight Bridge. In the bridge hollow that never saw sunlight all year round, a thick stench of rot hung in the air. Megumi Fushiguro stepped across the damp concrete, drawing the short blade from his waist. He looked up toward the bridge deck.

By the railing, Toji Fushiguro wore that signature green spandex, squatting brazenly on a stone pillar, holding a red bean popsicle that was already half-melted.

"Old man, are you really not coming down?" Megumi Fushiguro was speechless. "The intel says there's an incarnated Special Grade cursed object down here."

"Cut the crap." Toji took a huge bite of the popsicle and shouted through a mouthful, "Can't even handle two small-fry? You think you deserve the green battle robes I issued?"

"Consider this a Youth Trial for all the special training you've been through! Screw it up, and you're running fifty laps around Tokyo when you get back!"

Nobara Kugisaki curled her lip in disgust.

"Who'd want to wear those gross clothes anyway!"

She turned toward the depths of the bridge hollow, three long nails already pinched between her fingers.

"Though honestly, it's better if that muscle-head doesn't come down. Saves him from stealing our kills. I didn't even put on that new high-end face mask I bought last night just so I could make it here for this assessment."

Yuji Itadori rolled his neck, his joints emitting a rapid series of pops. He lowered his center of gravity, his gaze locked onto the twisted darkness ahead.

"They're here."

From deep within the bridge hollow, two eerie dark silhouettes,one fat, one thin—slowly emerged. The tall, slender one wore extremely revealing, bizarre clothing, the muscles on his back writhing irregularly, his face a hideously twisted mask. This was the incarnated second son of the Death Painting Wombs, Eso. Beside him lumbered a bloated mountain of flesh, a monster with a gaping, blood-filled maw.

The third son, Kechizu.

"Oh my?" Eso stopped, swept back his hair, and looked down on the three from a lofty height. "I thought the higher-ups would send a few decent fighters. Turns out it's just three brats still wet behind the ears."

"Kechizu, make it quick. Don't dirty these clothes I just found. Your big brother cares a great deal about aesthetics."

Kechizu let out a garbled roar, toxic blood dripping from its mouth onto the ground. With a violent sizzle, the concrete was corroded into a black hole, white smoke rising.

"Die, brats!"

Kechizu struck first, its abyssal maw gaping wide. A fan-shaped spray of foul, toxic blood shot out like a high-pressure water cannon, covering every possible escape route the three could take. Almost simultaneously, the wings on Eso's back unfurled, blood churning at high speed, as a grotesque human-face pattern surfaced on his back.

"Decay!"

Two invisible blood trajectories silently bypassed the frontal cover of the toxic blood, shooting toward Yuji and Nobara respectively.

"Scatter!"

Megumi Fushiguro barked, his hands forming seals.

"Nue!"

A massive avian shikigami burst upward from the shadow behind him, its electrified wings slamming precisely into the flank of the surging toxic blood. The impact forcefully deflected it, the corrosive blood melting gaping craters into the bridge pillars. But Eso's attack was faster! Yuji dodged sideways on pure beast-like instinct, but the blood trajectory still grazed his arm, leaving a wound that rapidly blackened.

On the other side, Nobara reacted a half-beat slower. The blood trajectory bloomed directly on her calf into an eerie, blood-red rose pattern. Agonizing pain and paralyzing numbness struck instantly!

"Tsk!" Nobara stumbled half a step, feeling the muscles in her calf dissolving.

"Once you're hit by big brother's 'Decay,' you'll rot from the inside out into a puddle of pus in under five minutes." Eso wore a delighted smile.

"Don't underestimate us, you freak!"

Gritting through the searing pain, her eyes fierce, Nobara drove a long nail into a drop of Kechizu's toxic blood that had splattered onto the ground.

"Straw Doll Technique: Resonance!"

BANG!

The hammer struck! A surge of violent Cursed Energy, traveling along the connection of souls, detonated simultaneously inside both Kechizu and Eso!

"Gwaaah!"

Both brothers screamed in agony. The Cursed Technique pattern on Eso's back instantly collapsed, and Kechizu collapsed to its knees, clutching its heart. An opening!

"Eight Gates Released Formation, Second Gate: Gate of Rest — Open!"

BOOM!

Deep-green, high-density energy erupted violently from Yuji's pores, coalescing into a tangible suit of armor. Ignoring the searing corrosive pain spreading from his arm, his entire body became a green afterimage, instantly breaking the sound barrier. Eso's pupils contracted to pinpricks. He couldn't track Yuji's movements at all!

BANG!

Yuji's roundhouse kick slammed viciously into Eso's flank. The terrifying force sent him flying sideways, crashing deep into the bridge hollow's wall and kicking up a sky full of dust and debris.

"Nice one, Yuji!" Nobara shouted.

"Not done yet!"

Megumi Fushiguro's voice was cold and composed. His hands had already formed a completely different seal.

"In a narrow, dark environment like this, this is my home turf."

Black liquid spread out from beneath his feet, devouring the light and turning the entire bridge hollow into a viscous ocean of shadow.

"Domain Expansion: Chimera Shadow Garden!"

Eso had just pulled himself from the rubble when he found himself already trapped within an endless nation of shadows.

"This is... a Domain?!" He was horrified beyond measure.

Countless pitch-black serpents shot out from the shadows, coiling tightly around his limbs.

"Divine Dogs: Totality!"

A black-and-white wolfhound leapt from Eso's own shadow, its jaws snapping straight for his throat.

"Kechizu!" Eso screamed desperately for help.

On the other side, Kechizu had barely recovered from the searing pain of "Resonance" when it was swarmed by toad shikigami surging in from every direction.

The battle was decided. Yuji's figure emerged soundlessly from the shadow behind Eso, his fist, compressed to the absolute limit by the green steam, aimed squarely at his back.

"Divergent Fist."

The first impact, the physical destructive force of the Gate of Rest, pulverized Eso's spine. The second impact, the Cursed Energy burst that followed, blasted his chest cavity and the incarnated heart within into a pulp of mangled flesh. At the other end, Nobara drove the final nail, infused with all her remaining Cursed Energy, brutally into the straw doll.

"Explode!"

The power of "Resonance" detonated inside Kechizu without reservation, blasting its already bloated body into scattered pieces.

The Domain dissipated, and the bridge hollow returned to its original state. Yuji released the Gate of Rest. He looked at the black wound on his arm that had stopped spreading, and at the two mangled corpses on the ground, and let out a long breath.

Nobara, meanwhile, plopped down onto the ground, checking the rose pattern on her calf that was gradually fading, cursing under her breath. "Dammit! My new shoes got corroded!"

Megumi Fushiguro recalled his shikigami, sliding his short blade back into his waist sheath. On the bridge railing, Toji Fushiguro swallowed the last bite of his popsicle and casually tossed the wooden stick into a trash can. He looked down at the three students below, their teamwork seamless, and the corner of his mouth hooked into a satisfied arc.

The next second, his face hardened, and he roared down at the bridge hollow. "Too slow! It took you almost five minutes to deal with two small-fry! Is your Youth rusting over?!"

"Get your asses up here right now and run back to the high school!"

Two hours later. Tokyo Jujutsu High, the principal's office. Satoru Gojo sprawled in the office chair, legs propped up on the mahogany desk, holding the mission report that had just been faxed over, laughing so hard his whole body shook. Shoko Ieiri sat on the sofa across from him, frowning as she lit a cigarette.

"Can you stop shaking your leg?" Shoko was getting dizzy from the motion. "The desk is about to fall apart."

"Oh, Shoko, take a look at this."

Satoru Gojo slapped the report sheet onto the desk, pointing at a small line of text.

"The Eighty-Eight Bridge incident. Two Special Grade incarnated Death Painting Wombs. Cleared by Yuji and the others, flawless, speed-run." Satoru Gojo adjusted the small round sunglasses on his face. "Flawless! They didn't even use a single band-aid!"

Shoko glanced at the report, the hand holding her cigarette freezing mid-air. A flawless speed-run clear against Special Grade incarnations? The growth rate of those kids could no longer be judged by common sense.

That taijutsu maniac who shouted "Youth" all day long had forcibly pushed the upper limits of these kids to an unknown dimension.

Satoru Gojo stood up, spreading his arms wide.

"See that? This is the result of my magnificent educational achievements!"

Shoko rolled her eyes, too lazy to engage him.

"I, Satoru Gojo, am destined to have students spread across the world!" Satoru Gojo laughed wildly. "Those old fossils in the higher-ups spend every day scheming to put Yuji down. Well, look at this! The students I taught just ground their faces into the dirt."

"I can already picture old man Gakuganji's beard bristling straight up in fury when he sees this report."

BANG!

The office door was kicked open. Toji Fushiguro, wearing that eye-catching green spandex, strode in with large, sweeping steps. Yuji, Megumi Fushiguro, and Nobara filed in behind him in a row, drenched in sweat.

"Missions turned in, people brought back." Toji let out a huge yawn, his eyes instantly reverting to fanaticism. "If there's nothing else, I'm taking them to the back mountain for five hundred laps to loosen up their muscles."

Hearing the word "loosen up," Yuji's and Nobara's faces literally turned green.

"Wait wait wait!" Satoru Gojo jumped out to cut Toji off. "What laps! Today we've got a huge celebration!"

Satoru Gojo pulled out three envelopes embossed with the high school's secret crest, one for each, and stuffed them into their hands.

"What's this?" Nobara opened her envelope, confused.

"Congratulations!" Satoru Gojo snapped his fingers. "Following review and confirmation by the higher-ups, Nobara Kugisaki and Yuji Itadori are officially promoted to Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerers! Megumi Fushiguro is officially promoted to Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer!"

The office fell silent for a second.

"Yesss!"

Nobara jumped straight up in joy, yanking Yuji into a headlock and shaking him violently. "You hear that?! I'm Grade 2 now! A pay raise! I can buy that new bag in Ginza!"

Yuji, choked, rolled his eyes, grinning like an idiot. Megumi Fushiguro looked down at the envelope in his hand, his expression calm. Grade 1 Sorcerer. Compared to his old man, this title meant nothing.

"To celebrate this monumental occasion!" Satoru Gojo pulled out a confetti popper and fired it off with a bang. "Tonight, my treat! We're throwing a massive victory party on the high school training grounds! All-you-can-eat top-grade wagyu barbecue!"

"Awesome! Long live Gojo-sensei!" Yuji and Nobara cheered excitedly.

Toji Fushiguro stood off to the side, his eyes suddenly lighting up. He clamped a hand down on Yuji's shoulder.

"Well said! Barbecue is the ultimate protein supplement!" Toji pumped his fist in the air. "Once we're stuffed with meat, tomorrow's special training volume doubles! Use sweat to evaporate the fat! This is the victory banquet of Youth!"

The cheering stopped abruptly. The smiles on Yuji's and Nobara's faces vanished instantly. Shoko, who had just lit her second cigarette, simply sighed.

At the same time. Deep beneath Tokyo, in an abandoned, long-forgotten tunnel. Drip. A water droplet struck the rust-caked pipes. The man sitting cross-legged atop a pile of junk opened his eyes. A peculiar blood mark ran across the bridge of his nose, especially menacing in the dim light.

Just moments ago, he had clearly felt it—those two presences deep within his soul, connected to him by blood, had completely vanished. The bond of shared blood, forcibly torn apart by some kind of violence. Choso clutched the fabric over his chest, veins bulging on the back of his hand, the whites of his eyes rapidly flooding with blood. His breathing grew ragged and heavy.

"Eso... Kechizu..."

Choso slowly rose to his feet.

"Unforgivable..."

He stared into the darkness at the end of the tunnel.

"I will absolutely... kill every last one of you."

Underground drainage pipes. Water droplets struck the rust-covered railings. Choso slammed the monk hard against the wall.

"It's been a week." Choso's voice was hoarse. "You told me it would be soon. When exactly?"

The blood vessels in his eyeballs looked ready to burst. Every night when he closed his eyes, the dying screams of Kechizu and Eso echoed through his mind. He didn't care about the future of the jujutsu world. He just wanted those brats in the green spandex dead. Kenjaku let him grab his collar, a compassionate smile on his face.

"Revenge is like brewing wine, Choso."

Kenjaku gently patted the back of Choso's hand. "The high school's combat strength is at its peak right now. Charging in alone would just be handing them a punching bag."

Choso gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his hand, but in the end, he let go. He knew very well the monk was telling the truth. That monster who could beat Special Grades like dogs was indeed not someone he could handle right now.

"Patience. The world's emotions need a little time to ferment."

Kenjaku straightened his collar, his gaze shifting toward the deep darkness of the tunnel.

"Soon. The curtain has already risen."

Time advanced by one month. In those thirty days, the entire world fell into a strange, manic frenzy. A magnitude 9 earthquake struck the coast of Chile, a tsunami swallowing three coastal cities. Indonesia's active volcanoes erupted continuously, the sky-blotting ash keeping the sun from the sky for an entire week within a hundred-mile radius. Meanwhile, indiscriminate murder cases in Japan tripled.

The internet brimmed with doomsday theories and bottomless cyber-riots. Man-made panic and natural disasters intertwined, overlapping into a dense, intangible miasma of malice, smothering the skies above this nation. Deep within Mount Fuji, inside an underground lava cavern thick with the acrid stench of sulfur.

"Ha—hahaha!"

Jogo stood at the edge of a seething magma lake, tilting its head back in unhinged laughter. The terror and fear pouring down from the volcanic crater continuously flooded into its body. The volcano atop its head erupted with flames several meters high, the cavern walls glowing red and melting from the searing heat. Exhilarating. Too exhilarating.

Jogo clenched its fist, feeling the colossal Cursed Energy inside it, nearly bursting its body apart. The heat it radiated could directly ignite the surface itself.

"Mankind's fear and awe of nature—this is the purest power!"

Jogo stared intently at its own burning hands, its mouth splitting into an exaggerated grin. It now felt that even if that taijutsu monster named Toji Fushiguro stood before it, it could burn that ridiculous green spandex to ash with a single flame.

What "Sorcerer Killer"? Before absolute natural disaster, he was just a lump of carbon that might take a little longer to burn.

Hanami, meanwhile, stood amid a patch of scorched earth in the Amazon rainforest. The resentment and malice born from illegal logging and forest fires had caused even harder, thicker black vines to sprout from its right arm. The four great Disaster Cursed Spirits had experienced unprecedented, explosive growth over this month. At the same time. Two thousand meters deep in the Pacific Ocean.

In absolute darkness, the immense water pressure could crush a steel submarine flat. An adult great white shark, over five meters in length, was patrolling the deep sea. Suddenly, the great white halted.

In the water diagonally ahead of it, two massive, dark-red "searchlights" flickered on.

The seawater churned violently. A gigantic mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth gaped open, directly swallowing the five-meter great white shark in a single gulp. The sound of crushing bones spread dully through the deep. It was a mutated giant lizard, its body the size of a small mountain. The row of dorsal spines along its back glowed with an eerie, phosphorescent green.

Having swallowed the great white, the giant lizard felt no sense of satiation at all. Its blood-red, vertical-slit pupils were locked dead onto a certain bearing above the ocean's surface. That was the direction of Tokyo.

Shinjuku. Megumi Fushiguro stabbed his blade through a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit with three eyes, black blood splattering onto his pant leg. He pulled the blade out and leaned against a nearby utility pole, his chest heaving violently.

"That's the third one today."

Nobara Kugisaki walked out of an alley, hammer in hand. "Where the hell are all these things even coming from? My newly bought face masks have expired and I haven't even had time to put one on!"

Yuji Itadori sat on the curb, chugging a bottle of mineral water while wiping sweat with his sleeve. Even with his inhuman stamina, this month of back-to-back missions was wearing him down. In front of a convenience store on the street corner, Toji Fushiguro was squatting on the ground, holding a half-eaten box of takoyaki.

He wasn't wearing that eye-catching green spandex, just a plain black tank top. Toji chewed on a piece of octopus, but his eyes were cold as ice.

"Old man, what are you looking at?" Megumi Fushiguro walked over.

"The sky." Toji tossed the empty paper box into the trash and brushed the crumbs off his hands. "Those old fossils in the higher-ups think this is a natural phenomenon. They believe the rise in curse numbers is just because of all the recent natural disasters."

A mocking sneer curled at the corner of Toji's mouth. Bullshit.

As a former top-tier assassin who took contracts in the underworld, he knew the scent of a "setup" far too well.

Something huge was definitely coming.

"Rested enough?" Toji turned to look at the three exhausted students, the coldness on his face instantly switching to fanatical zeal. "If you're not dead, get up! Night training added!"

"Ahhh—! Give me a break!" Nobara's agonized scream echoed through the alley.

Late at night. Deep in a remote mountain range. In front of a dilapidated, ancient shrine, the weeds had grown waist-high. Kenjaku stood on the moss-covered stone steps. He was very satisfied with the current progress.

Ever since Tengen refused assimilation, her control over the barriers had truly grown weaker and weaker. It had been over a month since he took this thing from the Cursed Warehouse, and Kyoto hadn't even noticed. The bushes behind him rustled. Jogo, pipe clenched in its teeth, swaggered out. Choso followed behind it, hands shoved in his pockets, his eyes still dead and lifeless.

"This is the dump?" Jogo exhaled a thick plume of smoke, surveying the surroundings.

The old, decaying wooden pillars were plastered with yellowed talismans. Just standing here, Jogo felt an intense repelling force aimed directly at Cursed Spirits, making it deeply uncomfortable.

"It's been a few hundred years. Setting this up was a bit troublesome." Kenjaku smiled and walked toward the altar at the shrine's center.

He placed the black cross in his hand at the center of the altar. Jogo flicked a finger.

BOOM!

Blazing flames erupted, instantly engulfing the entire altar. The yellow talismans on the surrounding pillars, exposed to this terrifying heat, writhed violently as if alive. The barrier was forcibly shattered, emitting a piercing, grating hum, like countless people screaming in agony. In mere seconds, every obstructive seal was reduced to black ash. Jogo withdrew its hand, deeply satisfied with its destructive power.

Choso drew the short blade from his lower back and, without hesitation, slashed a deep, bone-visible gash across his left wrist. Blood Manipulation. Crimson blood, saturated with the most extreme cursed poison, flowed out and dripped precisely onto the charred, blackened cross. He made no effort to control the blood loss. His mind was filled entirely with images of his younger brothers dying in despair.

All of that maddening killing intent poured into the blood as it flowed. The instant the cross made contact with the blood, it absorbed Choso's blood completely, like a living thing.

CRACK!

A fissure split across the surface of the cross. Immediately after, a blinding black-red radiance erupted from the crack, illuminating the entire mountain forest as if it were hell itself! Jogo raised an arm to shield itself from the light. Within the void, a strange mark slowly emerged. The surrounding air temperature plummeted wildly at that moment. The light violently contracted, then completely dissipated.

On the altar, a figure had appeared. A woman. Draped in a pure black silk haori, the collar open, revealing a vast expanse of pale skin. Her figure was bewitchingly sensual to the extreme, yet where she stood, the space around her distorted from the sheer, extreme yin chill. So cold.

Alarm bells screamed in Jogo's mind. As a flame Cursed Spirit, it now felt a bone-piercing chill, as if its very soul was trembling. Who the hell was this woman? The woman slowly opened her eyes. She raised a hand, examined the new skin she had been given, and clenched her fist.

"I've slept far too long." The woman stretched her waist languidly.

"Welcome back, old friend." Kenjaku gave a slight bow. "So, how is it? Are you satisfied with this body, molded from a special cursed object and the blood of the Death Painting Wombs?"

The woman's alluring eyes swept over Kenjaku.

"It'll do." Her tone was casual. "So, who do you need me to kill that you'd wake me up for it?"

Kenjaku turned with a smile, gazing toward the dark, heavy night sky in the distance.

"No rush. We still need to go pick up another heavyweight actor to enter the stage."

➤ Next: The Plot Emerges, Society Panics!