Chapter 165 - Preparations to Enter the Game

In the temporarily commandeered classroom at Tokyo Jujutsu High, the atmosphere had set like concrete. Toji Fushiguro kicked a desk apart.

"Stay calm? How the hell am I supposed to stay calm!" He grabbed Suguru Geto by the collar, eyes shot through with red. That unhinged, hot-blooded fury was a hundred times more terrifying than anything he'd shown fighting Sukuna.

"That's Tsumiki! That's my daughter! That damn brain in a jar actually had the nerve to go after her! This stopped being some test of youth a long time ago, this is a declaration of war against me!"

"Dad, let go of Geto-sensei first!" Megumi shoved forward and tried to drag his rampaging father back. "You're not solving anything like this!"

"Can't solve the problem? Then I'll solve the person who made it!" Toji released Geto and drove his fist into the load-bearing wall.

BOOM!

The wall spiderwebbed with cracks. Yuji Itadori and Yuta Okkotsu stood in the corner, barely breathing. Neither of them had ever seen Toji like this. Every trace of the usual hot-blooded, lovable idiot of a teacher was gone. What stood in that man's place was a beast on the edge of breaking free from its cage.

The news about Tsumiki had been a lit fuse dropped into a powder keg. The powder keg had one label: father.

"Fushiguro-sensei." Yuta gathered his nerve and spoke. "We're all just as anxious as you are. But throwing us into chaos is exactly what Kenjaku wants."

"That's right." Geto straightened the collar that had been wrenched sideways, his face grave.

"We know nothing about the technique Kenjaku activated, it operates at the level of the soul. Tsumiki is just one of the chosen players. Right now, there are almost certainly large numbers of ordinary people all across the country lying comatose in the exact same state. What we're facing is a conspiracy that covers the entire nation."

The soul. That word landed in Megumi's chest like a stone. This was the domain where he was most powerless. Even now that he had the Reverse Cursed Technique, he could only heal the body. How do you treat a wound of the soul? He stared at his father's raging back, and for the first time felt something close to despair.

"There has to be a way." Yuji spoke through clenched teeth. "If it's a technique, there has to be a way to break it!"

Easy enough to say. But no one could think of a single lead. Their enemy was an ancient monster who had been scheming for a thousand years, and it held Satoru Gojo as its trump card. Right now, they were headless flies bumping around in the dark. Then the classroom door swung open.

A tall, golden-haired figure leaned against the doorframe, chewing gum, sizing up the charged atmosphere inside with unhurried interest.

"Hey. Looks like I came at a bad time. What's wrong, family meeting falling apart?"

Yuki Tsukumo. One of the Special Grade Sorcerers. Geto's brow instinctively tightened at the sight. This was the person who, at his most lost, had floated the extreme solution of wiping out all non-sorcerers, and had nearly sent him down the wrong path. Knowing it had only been a thought experiment didn't make the memory any more pleasant.

"What are you doing here?" Geto asked.

"With Shibuya kicking up this much noise, it'd be hard not to know." Yuki stepped into the room, gaze sweeping over the raging Toji and the grim faces of everyone else. "I heard, Kenjaku, Prison Realm, and some massive technique blanketing the entire country. Smashing tables and bumbling around without a plan isn't going to get you anywhere."

Toji snapped his head around and fixed a killing stare on Yuki. "You have a way?"

"I don't."

Yuki shook her head without hesitation. "But there's one being who might know something."

Yuki spat out the gum and spoke the name.

"Tengen."

At the deepest level of Tokyo Jujutsu High, the elevator shaft leading to the Tomb of the Star was perfectly silent. The group passed through a long approach corridor and finally arrived at the main hall, a space severed from time and the outside world alike. Ancient. Vast. Saturated with a presence that wasn't human.

Seated cross-legged at the center of the hall was the cornerstone of the jujutsu world itself. Tengen.

"...That is the situation." Geto laid it out with concise efficiency.

"Kenjaku used that barrier-user to seal Gojo, then activated a ritual called the Culling Game, forcibly dragging Toji-sensei's daughter into it."

"We need a way to unseal Prison Realm and rescue Tsumiki."

Tengen was silent for a long time. All four eyes seemed to be tracing the threads of cause and effect running through each person present.

"Kenjaku... has finally come to this."

Tengen's voice rang directly inside everyone's minds, ancient and without gender.

"The purpose of the Culling Game is to merge all of humanity in Japan with me. Through Cursed Energy optimization, forcing all of humanity to evolve to the next stage. To accomplish this, Kenjaku needs a Cursed Energy ritual sufficiently brutal and sufficiently grand to shatter the Binding Vows that confine me."

"As for a method of rescue..." Tengen's gaze settled on Toji. "That girl. Satoru Gojo. To save both of them, you need to find one person."

"Who?" Toji's voice came out hoarse, fury barely caged behind it.

"A player. Codename: Angel."

Tengen continued: "This player's technique can eliminate any technique whatsoever, regardless of target, regardless of type. It is the natural counter to Kenjaku's technique, and the key that can open Prison Realm: Back."

"Wait, Tengen."

Beside him, Geto's brow pulled tight. He'd already found the hole in the plan.

"Even if we go through hell to track down this 'Angel', Kenjaku has already hidden the Prison Realm itself somewhere. If we don't have the sealed object in hand, what good is the key?"

Tengen didn't answer immediately. Instead, Tengen slowly raised one hand. The tree roots threading through the Tomb of the Star shifted and writhed. A square black box, radiating an eerie presence, descended gradually and came to rest before them. It was identical in appearance to the Special Grade Cursed Object that had sealed Satoru Gojo. Every pupil in the room shrank.

"This is... Prison Realm?!"

Geto couldn't keep the shock off his face.

"To be precise — Prison Realm: Back."

Tengen regarded the black box and presented everyone with a stunning fact.

"Prison Realm has two gates: Front and Back.

Kenjaku does not know the Back exists.

"The sealing channels of the two gates are shared. Apply an unsealing technique to this Back gate, and the sealing channel of the Front gate opens simultaneously."

Toji frowned.

"Then why do we still need to go through all that trouble?"

He produced the Inverted Spear of Heaven. "This blade forcibly cancels any technique. The object is right here in front of us, can't I just drive the Inverted Spear of Heaven straight through it and be done?"

He gripped the blade and made to thrust it into the black box.

"Wait!" Tengen's voice, unusually, carried real weight. Tengen shook its head. "Before, your approach would have worked. But not this time, because Chiya is involved."

"Chiya?" Megumi paused, thrown by the unfamiliar name.

"The one you've been calling the barrier-user sorcerer. A barrier master from one thousand years ago."

A shadow of gravity moved through Tengen's clouded eyes as Tengen slowly laid out this hidden figure.

"By seniority, Chiya is my junior, but Chiya's mastery of sealing and barrier techniques has reached an absolute peak. Since Kenjaku brought Chiya into this sealing, Kenjaku will certainly have prepared a contingency."

Tengen's gaze moved to the short blade in Toji's hand. "The Inverted Spear of Heaven's ability to forcibly cancel techniques is overwhelmingly dominant, and that is precisely the problem. If you use it to violently destroy the sealing channel, the barrier interference Chiya has built into the structure will instantly collapse."

"The result: before the channel can open, the sealed space inside will collapse first. You wouldn't rescue anyone. You would cause Satoru Gojo to be shredded apart in the spatial collapse on the spot."

Toji's hand went still. He clicked his tongue, face full of displeasure, but he put the Inverted Spear of Heaven away.

"So we need Angel."

Tengen steered things back on track. "Compared to the Inverted Spear of Heaven's violent destruction, Angel's technique is far more... precise."

"Then where exactly is this Angel right now?"

Megumi's fists clenched at his sides. The urgency bled through every word.

"I don't know."

Tengen shook its head. "After the Culling Game begins, Angel will appear in one of the ten barriers. You must enter the game and find Angel."

Tengen then laid out the rules of the Culling Game in full. One: a player must, within nineteen days of taking the oath, go to any barrier and compete. Two: a player who violates the preceding rule will have their technique stripped away. Three: the moment a non-player enters a barrier, that person is treated as a player and must swear to compete.

Four: players earn points by taking the lives of other players. Five: points are determined by the general rules, five points for a sorcerer, one point for a non-sorcerer. Six: a player may spend one hundred of their own points to negotiate with the general rules and add one new rule. By the time Tengen finished, every face in the room had gone grim.

This wasn't a game. It was an enormous slaughterhouse with a rulebook.

"So not only do we have to enter this garbage game, we have to kill people inside it to rack up points while hunting for this so-called Angel?" Toji's voice came out cold as bare metal.

"It is the only way." Tengen answered without hesitation. "And you must move quickly. There is a certain connection between Kenjaku and me. Kenjaku could act against me at any moment."

"So, save the people you need to save. And agree to one condition of mine. The Tomb of the Star needs someone here to protect it."

The shape of things was clear now. Everyone began working out the plan.

"I'll stay." Yuki was first. "Protecting Tengen is a responsibility that comes with being a Special Grade. And honestly, I'm very interested in what Kenjaku is actually after."

"I'll stay as well." Choso stepped forward.

Geto gave a nod. "My Cursed Spirit Manipulation is suited for defense. I'll stay here with you both and guard Tengen."

The stay-behind group was settled. That left the assault team going into the game.

"Yuji, Megumi, Panda." Geto looked at the three of them. "You three go ahead first and find some backup."

"Backup?" Yuji blinked.

"Your third-year senior — Kinji Hakari."

"Hakari's technique is highly particular," Geto said. "At a critical moment, it can unleash power that blows well past Special Grade. Find Hakari. Convince Hakari to join us."

"On it!" Yuji answered without missing a beat.

Toji got to his feet and made his declaration at full volume.

"The Culling Game, huh? Perfect! Let every cursed thing hiding in the dark corners of this world see what real youth looks like! What it means to set your life on fire with hot-blooded passion!"

"I'm going into that game myself, and I'm going to drag that brain-in-a-jar called Kenjaku out by the scruff! And then with these two fists — packed full of love and sweat — I'm going to smash that brain of his, along with every last scrap of his thousand-year garbage plan, into dust!"

"Move out! The objective is, punch through this boring game with the iron fist of youth!"

➤ Next: Kinji Hakari