Juchu Kaisen - 46

Chapter 46

“Something’s growing in her brain,” Shoko said, eyes closed. “Not good. It’s wrong. Feels entirely different from the rest of her brain. Putting too much pressure on… important things.”

I nodded. “Do you think the limits to your anatomy knowledge will hinder you?”

“I can feel the difference,” she said. “Words and meaning don’t matter. The R-ray tells me everything I need.”

Like Panacea.

“Well,” she tilted her head. “It lets me differentiate the good from the bad. This is… cancer, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Stage four. Inoperable.”

“I can’t…” she bared her teeth. “The Reverse Cursed Technique won’t let me destroy. Teira… I don’t think I can fix this.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

She would have to use raw cursed energy to burn the tumor out from her brain and then heal the resultant damage with the Reverse Cursed Technique. Without perfect control, such a thing would just kill the patient.

Gojo could approach the level of control necessary to do this, but his Six Eyes wouldn’t let him locate the cancer cells. He’d be flying blind, and would have to rely on Shoko’s energy signature to know the way.

I summoned a fly-sized Juchū and had it fly into Yumeko’s nose.

“Teira, what are you doing?”

“Testing out a technique,” I said. “Don’t worry, Shoko. I’ll help out. Together, we might stand a chance.”

I took a deep breath. “Cursed Technique Reversal: Totality—Microphage Swarm.”

The little fly-sized Juchū disintegrated into millions upon millions of tiny, microscopic versions of itself.

They then seeped into her bloodstream through her nasal wall.

I grinned. “It worked.”

“Your energy is… inside her.”

“I’m going to break up the cancer cells,” I said. “I’ll eat the diseased, and you need to reinforce and heal the surrounding brain tissue. Right now, communication is vital. Are you ready?”

The Juchū did a round around Yumeko’s vascular system before alighting at the brain.

She nodded.

Then, she gasped.

I looked to her.

“Teira.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s… pregnant.”

One of the first things I had noticed about her, though I hadn’t seen fit to share that information. It was just a distraction after all. Adding unnecessary stakes, and thus stress, to an already stressful scenario.

“And?” I asked, my voice completely neutral as I refused to feed into her panic. This situation demanded stability above all else.

“…We can’t fail.”

I nodded.

I pointedly chose not to say what was on my mind at the time: it’s up to you.

000

Megumi was sleeping soundly. That was good. Though he usually did just sleep every time he saw his father’s face. Like the kid didn’t know the first thing about laughing or gurgling or doing all the normal baby things. All he needed to know was that his father was there, and then he could lower his guard. He was a pragmatist. Toji approved.

…Although it was a little weak for a man to rely so much on another man. Toji hoped that this wouldn’t set a precedent for his future behavior. Megumi had time to grow, of course, but…

No one should ever take their father’s presence in their life as a given. Such a thing would only lead to disappointment down the line. Men were fallible creatures, and Toji was a worse man than most.

The waiting room of the oncology wing was thankfully deserted of all non-sorcerers, leaving him alone with Teira’s two male friends.

And wasn’t that just a riddle and a half? Hibana had made friends with the Six Eyes. A promised rivalry-turned-friendship. It was heartening to think of what the higher-ups must have been thinking. A former criminal and their golden boy together.

“My name is Geto Suguru,” the less noteworthy of the two said. “Nice to… meet you,” he said.

“Really?” Gojo looked at his friend. “After what you just heard Teira say?”

“Fushiguro Toji,” Toji nodded.

“And your child?” Geto asked.

“Don’t worry about him,” Toji said neutrally.

“I don’t… understand,” Geto said to Toji. “Was what she said true?”

Toji flashed a grin. “There’s only one scar in my body that Teira didn’t give me.” He pointed to the one on his lip. “This one. The rest?” He then dragged up both sleeves while holding his son, and hiked up his shirt to reveal his abs. “All her.”

“And she was eight,” Gojo said, eyes wide. He then chuckled, kicking his feet in excitement. “You sure picked the wrong one, didn’t ya?”

“You think?” Toji muttered dryly.

“Still, you must be weak as hell, if an eight-year-old got the better of you,” he said.

“In my defense, I did slice her throat open, stab her in the chest, rip her heart out from her chest, and then cart her cooling body back to her clan—all the while I still judged her to be very, very dead.”

For the longest time, he had thought her to be some kind of vengeful cursed spirit, which didn’t explain why she wasn’t wreaking havoc all across the country. No, she was no such thing.

She was a human curse. Different, but almost the same where it counted.

“It didn’t take, obviously,” Toji continued. “Should have cut her head off—saved myself all that trouble. Then again, maybe that, too, wouldn’t have worked.”

“Why?” Geto asked, horror etched in his features. “Was it really just for money?”

Yes? What was taking him so long? Was he slow?

Or maybe he was just… wired differently. A do-gooder. Right. I forgot those existed.

Toji clicked his tongue. “There’s no answer to your question that will ever actually satisfy you. And that’s good for you—you only need to leave it at that. Keep wondering. If you ever find out the answer for yourself, maybe I’ll meet you in hell when I pass.”

Geto scowled more deeply.

“What cracks my skull,” Gojo said, “is that she didn’t just kill you. The black sheep of the Zen'in clan. Hmm… I’m guessing there’s politics involved. Ugh, boring. Forget I asked.”

A shikigami appeared before them, in their midst. It was a beetle with a human mouth. “Toji. We’re currently working on your wife.”

Toji’s heart swelled. “Is it… possible? Can you save her?”

“It all depends on Shoko,” she explained. “Cancer isn’t exactly her strong suit as of yet.”

“Cancer?” Gojo asked, shocked. “Also—what do you mean by that? Have you been training her in…?” he cast a glance at Toji.

“In output?” she explained easily, and Toji’s eyes widened. Output. Was that was the girl was there for? Some kind of cursed technique output? “Of course. My body, of course—I’m not crazy. But yes, we’ve made good progress on that skill of hers.”

“But the technique can’t destroy, only create.”

“I’m helping,” Teira said. “But Toji. Listen. The only problem here is that Shoko is a newbie. Her Cursed Energy Manipulation is still quite unrefined. We’re banking on her being able to get to a certain point in time to buy your wife some more time. Only a few more days. Today would have been her last if we hadn’t intervened. I don’t foresee us finishing up in just a single day, however. And… anything may happen in the meantime. I’m not trying to scare you here. This… could go either way.”

Toji nodded. Of course.

Of course.

“All because Shoko is a newbie,” Gojo clicked his tongue. “And the Reverse Cursed Technique is crazy inefficient.”

The Reverse Cursed Technique. Teira had pulled out all the stops for him!

“How so?” Geto asked.

“You know how negative one times negative one is positive one?”

“Think I learned that in the first grade,” Geto responded sarcastically. “What of it?”

“The Reverse Cursed Technique produces positive energy, which in itself is a product of two equal units of cursed energy. That means that one ‘unit’ of positive energy is equal to the square of one unit of negative energy. So for each bit of work she wants to do with one unit of positive energy, she has to expend a squared amount of negative energy. In short: it’s a lot.”

“And this Shoko,” Toji said. “Is the one with the Reverse Cursed Technique’s output. Not you, Teira?”

Gojo chuckled. The shikigami made a sound akin to clicking its tongue. Shit—that sounded like a sore spot.

“I’ll forgive you for that one, Toji,” Teira said. “But yes. We’re working within her limits.”

“Alright,” Toji said. “Then… thank you.”

The Juchū disappeared.

000

Shoko had almost drained half her capacity just to deal with the consequences of the glioblastoma and not the tumor itself. I was in charge of that, of course, carefully consuming cancer cells, breaking them down, and depositing all of the waste matter into Yumeko’s bloodstream where her liver and kidneys would filter it all out.

On account of my natural gifts, I could work with far more intensity. I had millions of microscopic Juchū working in tandem to wear down the mass of cancer cells. The ones intertwined too closely with healthy tissue, I left for later, waiting for Shoko to finish her rounds.

And Shoko worked with a feverish, almost maddened intensity. Her eyes were wide, empty, and her mouth was slightly open. Pooling saliva had overflowed from the corner of her lips. She looked like a vegetable to the world as she held her hands towards Yumeko.

Inside of Yumeko, Shoko had never been more active. Dying cells became healthier, vital processes revitalized, Yumeko’s entire body regained its strength as she became more and more capable of fighting off the sickness on its own.

Yumeko was a sorcerer. That much was clear. The child in her belly would grow up to become a sorcerer as well. But something about Yumeko was… entirely too foreign to me. It must have had to do with her cursed technique. I needed to bring Gojo into this once I was done, and then ask Toji some very pointed questions.

When Shoko finally started running empty, we had managed to clear away a whooping one tenth of the tumor.

She grabbed onto the railing of the hospital bed in exhaustion. Yumeko looked healthier now. Her skin was glowing due to her improved circulation. We definitely had more time now.

“That was… hard,” Shoko said, her voice almost hoarse despite her having not said a word to me in all this time.

Our communication hadn’t been in words. I doubted it would have helped anyhow, as Shoko knew nothing about medicine or anatomy. Instead, we spoke to each other by ‘pointing fingers’, directing our energy here and there, having miniature arguments at times, all in energy form.

At a certain point, Shoko had wrested the lead from me, and demanded that I go at her pace. I had hurried to obey. In my mind, she had taken on an almost tyrannical aspect, of a seasoned surgeon with decades of experience dragging around a talented, albeit inexperienced junior that was me.

“It felt like everything that could have gone wrong… did go wrong,” she said. “Do you… did you feel that, too?”

“Not really,” I shook my head. “Though I felt indecision in many of your choices.”

“That wasn’t indecision,” she said. “That was me realizing that she might die if I did this or… that. Teira, we were cutting it close. She barely had minutes left by the time we started.”

Minutes?! “Surely, that’s—“

Shoko laughed tonelessly. “No. I’m serious. We had minutes. And now… we have days. Weeks, maybe. But I would like to see her again the moment my capacity replenishes.”

I only wished I could give her some cursed energy. She was in the zone. It was a sight to see.

“Tomorrow morning,” she said. She looked up at a clock on the wall. It was already ten o’ clock. We had missed both registrations. Damn. “Let’s do this instead of morning exercise. We can get most of it done before first period—and then we can come back after school.”

“Sounds like a plan!” I said, giggling a little in surprise at her assertiveness. “You might want to talk to Mukai-senpai about this, though.”

“Why won’t you do it?”

“She might think I’m trying to get special treatment,” I said. “Better you do it.” Then, I grabbed Shoko by her shoulders, and pulled her in for a hug. “Good job, Shoko. I’m super-duper proud of you.”

Shoko sputtered, before leaning into it. “Super-duper, huh? I must have been very impressive.”

“Super-duper impressive.”

She returned the hug. “Thanks, Teira.”

000

“She’ll live,” Shoko said to Toji, who was currently cradling his whimpering son. Gojo and Geto were also in the room, upon my recommendation. “It was… touch and go for a while. We came just in time, but we’ll need a few more sessions to be fully done with her. The hard part is over, however. I think… no, I believe we can save her.”

Toji nodded stoically. “Alright.”

“But,” I said. “We do need to get to the bottom of something. Does your wife have a cursed technique?”

Toji furrowed his eyebrows. “She has cursed energy, though she controls it well enough. She learned that pretty naturally, I think. You’d barely think she was one unless you tried to focus directly on her.”

My thoughts exactly. “And her technique?”

“Never heard her say anything about it,” Toji said. “We didn’t think she even had one. But… there is something about her. She’s… cursed with misfortune. Not by any cursed spirit, however. I always thought it was just fate dicking her around, but… could it be connected?”

Gojo snapped his fingers. “A-hah! I have it now!”

He took off his glasses and walked up to Toji’s wife, still in her bed. Toji instantly warped in front of him, causing Gojo to take a step back in surprise. He hadn’t even stirred his child as he had done that.

“Don’t be slick,” Toji said. “Ask permission before you walk up to my wife, you punk.”

“Punk?” Gojo grinned. “Alright, then. May I get to the bottom of what’s going on with your wife, pretty please with sugar on top?”

Toji sighed, and stepped aside.

“Thank you!” Gojo walked on by him until he was next to Yumeko’s bed, bent over and brought his face close to Yumeko’s. “Yup. There’s an innate technique in her frontal lobe, alright. And… it’s active. Even right now. Or maybe it’s just passively active—those exist, too. So what I’m seeing is… cursed energy goes in into her in droves, from her surroundings mind you, and then… gets converted into some phenomenon which I can’t actually perceive.”

“Misfortune,” Toji breathed. “It… it makes sense. She’s never even been attacked by cursed spirits, but she’s always been unlucky.”

“The lack of cursed spirits is possibly because they see her as a sinkhole of energy,” Gojo explained. “A danger zone. Cursed to even curses. Hah. Never seen that one before.”

“Gojo,” Shoko said icily. “There’s a sick woman in front of you. Have some respect.”

Gojo tensed, and he gulped. “Right. Sorry. Won’t do it again.”

I patted Shoko’s shoulder in thanks.

“The hell do I do?” Toji muttered. “If it’s not cancer, then it’ll just be something else. Over and over.”

“Not… necessarily,” Gojo said. “Misfortune, right? That’s the technique. But it can be directed. Maybe your wife was too nice to ever consider directing it? Makes sense. Lots of these techniques work subconsciously, after all. One easy fix: teaching her how to direct the curses to something external to her. A tool would be best, but failing that, we might need… a human sacrifice.”

Toji stepped forward. “Then I’ll do it.”

I clenched my jaw at the sight. Look at him go. Good, upstanding Toji.

The same Toji that had almost killed me.

Almost killed Michiko.

I regretted not killing him. I regretted it like a knife in my stomach. After all, I had let him live, and now things were complicated.

Now, the wretched bastard had grown a heart.

And there was nothing I could do any longer.

Nothing that wouldn’t label me a true monster.

“The least you can do,” I said to Toji. “Don’t act like you’re making some grand sacrifice.”

“It is the least I can do,” Toji agreed without missing a beat. All the while, his eyes were glued to the unconscious Yumeko. “I just want her to live. That’s all I want.”

“I’ll do everything I can, Fushiguro-san,” Shoko said.

“That’s all I ask. But… if you truly have bought me extra days with her, that’s already plenty. Thank you. I’m in your debt, too, Shoko. Your name?”

“Ieiri Shoko.”

He nodded. “I’m in your debt. Ieiri-kun.”

000

Toji and I sat across from each other in a pavilion in a garden next to the hospital. Shoko was taking care of the child, which gave us some time to talk business.

“Provided this goes through,” Toji said. “What do you need me for?”

“All up in the air at the moment,” I said as I tapped my fingers on the table. “The Big Three are the only ones in my way at the moment. The remaining two after I befriended Gojo, of course. You, however…”

“Yeah?” Toji asked.

I took a moment to think and hum. Then I nodded at him. “Become the leader of the Zen'in clan.”

He cracked a grin. “Easier said than done.”

“Why? You can’t beat them?”

“I could. In less than an hour, even, if they were all in the same place,” Toji explained. “I’m strong. That’s not the issue. And besides—Naobito is a bastard, but he’s more reasonable than most. You could just work something out with him. I doubt I’d make things easier for you.”

“Why can’t you just be the clan head?” I asked.

“Even if I managed to convince Naobito,” Toji explained, “I’d still have to worry about legitimacy. I’m not… a sorcerer. All my sorcery is from cursed tools and my curse. And sure, my body is strong enough to keep up with the work. Still, that doesn’t make me a sorcerer. And to a lot of people, that matters. So if I do take the throne, my big brother Jinichi might rile up the others and initiate a schism.”

“A schism,” I echoed disbelievingly.

“Yep. A schism. He’d divide the Zen'in clan around me and declare himself the head. And the ones deciding which Zen'in clan is the ‘right’ Zen'in clan would be the rest of Jujutsu Society—not to mention the actual government of Japan.”

“So just kill him,” I said. Easy solution right there. “You hate him, too, don’t you?”

“I don’t really… give a damn, so to speak,” Toji grinned slightly. “But yeah. I could just rip his head off and toss it somewhere. Then the next numbskull would hurry up to the chopping block. And it would just continue like that, over and over until it just sort of… ends. With me as the sole survivor and inheritor of the Zen'in clan’s military prowess. But you can’t be a big clan with just one person. I wouldn’t exactly be a good ally to you.”

I had to hold myself back with all my mental strength from just telling him to do exactly that.

Kill them all. Destroy them.

With the Gojos neutralized and the Zen'ins gone, the Kamos would have no more allies.

I would win. I would win so emphatically that I wouldn’t even have to complete my four years in Jujutsu High.

Not that I wouldn’t, of course. The networking opportunities were undeniable. It was more strategic for me to stay, of course.

Still… I could win with just this.

“I’ll do it,” Toji said. “Without question. If that’s what you want.”

Then do it!

All of them. Naobito, even Naoya—that slimy prick—and all the rest of that clan.

“I want you to do it,” I said. “When they truly begin to piss me off. Until then, just lay low. Keep… living the family life or whatever. Call on me for Yumeko’s technique situation. I’ll call you when I need you. As always.”

Toji nodded. “Before any big moves, I suggest you just meet with Naobito. He’s a prick, but he might be more flexible than you’d expect.”

I held my hand out. Michiko opened up a portal over my hand, dropping a gourd of sake into my hand, and two cups, clattering gently on the wooden table, but landing perfectly nonetheless.

“I’ll never forgive you, Toji,” I said as I poured us both a measure of drink. “You almost killed Michiko. And when I tell you that at that point in time, she was the only human being I ever loved in this life…” I swallowed. “You did something unforgivable.”

“Almost took your family,” Toji said. He cracked a small grin. “Wouldn’t have known the meaning of that until… now. I never apologized for it, either. That was good of me. Those would have been empty words before now. But when I picture losing Yumeko. Or Megumi, I…” He took the cup and downed it all in one go. He then put the cup down gently. He no longer smiled. “I feel like shit. Nothing else to it.”

His cold eyes no longer felt cold. As he looked into mine, they bordered on something else entirely. Lukewarm.

I felt a resonance between him and me, just then. An equalization of a sort.

Like looking into a mirror.

I could no longer tell where I ended and he began.

I expected the realization to sicken me, but it didn’t. All it did was just… stand there, on the edge of the pavilion, like an unwanted guest that you were not allowed to chase away.

I took off my glasses, dispelling the illusion over my acrylic eyes. I loosened my soul, allowing the tan on my skin to disappear. As I placed the glasses on the table, allowing myself to feel real—and knowing that no non-sorcerer was watching—I spoke. “What of it?”

“Thank you,” Toji said. “For… keeping me alive for long enough that I could learn to feel regretful, learn to apologize. Thank you for giving me that bit of mercy. It doesn’t always feel like a mercy, but right now, I think it is.” He bowed his head. “Thank you. And I am sorry. I really am. I hurt you deeply, and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

I snorted. “Fine. Raise your head.”

He did.

Rather than do it directly, I had some beetle-sized Juchū pour us some new cups. “Sorry for calling you a monkey,” I said.

Toji chuckled.

“You don’t warrant my descending into slurs of all things to insult you,” I continued. “I’m better than that.”

“Of course, hime-sama.”

“Careful,” I said. “I’m still your boss.”

He chuckled, eyes closed. “Sure thing, boss.”