Chapter 58

This day was long overdue.

In the two months since I had arrived at Jujutsu High, making waves with every passing day, I had been mulling over this meeting in my head for quite some time.

I considered things like what tone I should take, what my presentation would be, and how much blood I would shed before my point was fully received.

Then, over time, the prospect of bloodshed became less and less… attractive.

It was a long time ago since I was eight years old. A long time since I had been able to freely and without reservations shit on everything I once was, fully embracing the villain role to a degree that I never had before.

In doing so, I had managed to make the leap that every villain that held leadership positions could only dream of. I had made the leap to become a legitimate power.

The difference between a villainous warlord going to war, claiming hundreds of lives in the process, and a sovereign leader doing the same, was an issue of legitimacy and legitimacy alone. As long as the world believed that my station allowed for these kinds of actions, nothing about them would truly ring as ‘villainous’, or else every state in the world could be considered villainous.

And perhaps there was a degree of truth in that statement. From where I stood, I couldn’t tell the difference between my actions, and the actions of the three great unifiers of the Warring States period of Japan four hundred years ago.

Except, of course, that they didn’t eat people alive with insects. To me, that was an immaterial difference. Death was death, whether it came from the fire of an early rifle, the blade of a sword, the head of an arrow, or the mandibles of my Juchū.

All states had sordid beginnings.

Mine was no different.

The important thing was to set aside that readiness for violence, and use words when the time was right. Having scoped out my competition—and anticipated how they had no doubt scoped me out during my time in school—I had come to the conclusion that the time was right for words.

The time was right to finally speak with Naobito. Zen'in Naobito, twenty-sixth clan head. The fastest sorcerer of the modern era, if you excluded Gojo, I, Toji, and a few other rookies in Kyoto fortunate enough to be born with Special Grade potential.

In a way, the title still held true, if you were using the art history definition of ‘modern era’, a period of time that took place in the mid twentieth century.

This was all to say that he was very washed up.

I soared over the clouds of Kyoto, Arthropodal Aspect lending me two pairs of dragonfly wings. I also used the technique to encase myself in a cone-shaped shell of pitch black chitin to become more aerodynamic.

I had requested an audience with Naobito, a concession on my own part. He had no doubt waited long for this, but we both knew that I’d be the first to crack. I was younger, I was newer, and he had far more to lose than I did if he made this concession. I didn’t, which made it politer for me to take this first step.

They would expect a procession of Hibana sorcerers arriving with me to protect me should the meeting take a turn towards the negative. It was common sense to bring back-up when entering enemy territory.

I’d be arriving alone, however.

Alone, but not really… alone.

I had enough Special Grade Juchū to slaughter every Zen'in footsoldier in minutes. The remaining ones from their more specialized units, I could take out with my own body. The best part: I didn’t care about my own casualties. For every Zen'in soldier I took out, I would be permanently weakening them, while the Juchū they killed, I could just replenish through more Reproduction, or use the Reverse Cursed Technique in some cases.

Their best case scenario was being able to take out just me. One person, compared to their own losses, which would no doubt be in the hundreds, and would leave them weak enough for my clan to finish off the rest of them.

It wouldn’t be my preferred outcome by any means, but the Hibana clan could survive without me. I had made sure of that much, at least. I didn’t expect to die, of course, but it would have been irresponsible of me to not make preparations just in case.

Coming alone was also a loud statement that would aid me in our talks. There was no better evidence of my supremacy than arriving without backup, no better way to demonstrate that I was a Special Grade on par with none other.

On my way, I spent a comparatively small amount of my attention on imagining a big fight. This was only on account of Toji having vouched for Naobito, leaving me with something of a certainty that no violence would occur today.

Knowing where Toji had come from, his word meant enough that they practically had me convinced. Naobito could be talked to.

Rather than arrive in the middle of the Zen'in estate, I extended Naobito yet another courtesy by landing in front of the gate.

My chitin shell dissolved into cursed energy, sacrificed Juchū disappearing from my arsenal. I could return them with the Reverse Cursed Technique as I hadn’t sworn a Binding Vow to permanently sacrifice them.

I could have done that, and I wouldn’t have noticed a difference either way. With seven billion Juchū to my name, I now had more bugs than there were people on this planet, and my numbers only grew the more cursed spirits I culled.

The two Zen'in clan assistants at the gate were, as expected, barely even sorcerers. They were dressed in ornate kimonos, but their eyes were downcast and deferent, an attitude beaten into them from early life. These people were always the pillars of any Jujutsu clan, and yet they were treated like nothing more than slaves.

Theoretically, the clans of Jujutsu Society weren’t so draconic that they would kill or imprison anyone that tried to leave, but modern policies rarely ever affected the old ways of an institution as old as the Big Three clans. If they weren’t being physically forced to remain in the clan, then they were likely brainwashed into thinking that the mundane world had no place for them, or that even the highest existence as a non-sorcerer paled in comparison to the lowest existence in a big clan.

The pride of being a part of the Big Three was compelling to many. This was why, predictably, declining clans rarely had any low-powered sorcerers that bothered to stay.

The two servants walked up to me gently and bowed their heads. “Greetings and salutations, Hibana-sama.”

“I’ve come alone,” I said. “Just take me to your clan leader.”

The clan leader, in question, was currently inside a room entertaining his other elders, though I couldn’t hear anything that went on in there. All I had in terms of senses was my cursed energy perception, letting me tell that they were in there at all.

If Naobito, or his elders, planned on making me wait, I would be rather irritated, especially after all of my own friendly gestures, like coming alone, or requesting this audience to him in the first place.

Both men bowed, and then one darted away as quickly as he could to summon Naobito. The time was ten minutes to three. Ten minutes to our agreed-upon meeting time.

“Please allow me to guide you, Hibana-sama,” the remaining servant said.

I smelled fear in him as well. Short-cropped hair, angular features, the man was handsome. His tar-lined lungs and slight difficulty in breathing suggested a rather nasty tobacco habit as well. He tried to control his breathing as well as he could, but I could easily smell his stress.

I didn’t see any point in trying to appear more human for his sake. He should be used to grotesque sights as an inhabitant of this world of Jujutsu. I also had a feeling that my attempts to mask myself wouldn’t matter to him. A Special Grade was a Special Grade, no matter how cute or outwardly harmless they looked.

I followed after him up the path to the clan estate gate. Nature dominated much of this area, a mainstay in most big-time sorcerer clans. It almost reminded me of ‘home’, though the Aramata Gorge was much wilder and far more forested. There was also a sense of darkness to my clan’s forest that was absent in this place. Perhaps it was the lack of painful memories in this place that gave me that impression.

Once we arrived through the gate, I made sure to train my senses on every threat in my environment; the sorcerers, the hidden rooms, their pit of cursed spirits. Naoya wasn’t here of course, though I had my doubts that he would have made much of a difference either way. The only thing he was good for was exposing every secret there was to Projection Sorcery.

Naobito must have told him to be cagier about the technique, considering they shared many similarities. Still, Naoya had allowed his own childish sensibilities to shoot both himself and his father in both feet. I wondered what the draw of having children was if there was a chance that one would turn out to be an idiot of such monumental proportions.

Or perhaps, it was simply that Naobito was a terrible father, even by sorcerer standards.

I sensed Naobito, as a source of cursed energy, suddenly explode. His energy flared, and then he moved.

Out of the room, so that I could finally make him out with my physical senses.

Then, towards me.

The room he was in had been about three to four hundred meters into the wide clan estate.

In roughly two and a half seconds, he stopped right before me, startling the servant to the point that he jumped an entire foot into the air.

Zen'in Naobito was a large man for the standards of this country. He was heavily muscled despite his advanced age of fifty. His neck-length hair, combed backwards, was only beginning to gray at the roots, and he had a most ostentatious mustache on his face, sharp and outwardly pointed.

He wore a wide grin, and his arms were folded as he sized me up.

From this range, he could likely get the first hit in without any issue. Unfortunately for him, my cursed energy manipulation far outstripped my body’s physical reactions in my base form. I could swallow his first barrage of hits and then overwhelm him with numbers.

It would be even better if he touched me with his technique. Then I’d be able to use it against him. I’d seen Haruta do it enough times now that I wasn’t worried one bit about that technique’s more direct combat application.

It bore repeating, but Naoya was truly a liability to Naobito, and the clan as a whole. The very concept that he would one day become my colleague alongside Gojo was ridiculous to me.

“Hibana Teira in the flesh,” Naobito said. “A pleasure to finally speak with you.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” I said, returning his clichéd greeting with a cliché of my own.

An impetuous man with a queer sense of style, and an unexpected degree of boisterousness. For a man from a faction that concerned itself to such a degree with the importance of the old fashion, Naobito was a glaring exception. Indeed, he wore a black kimono and a gray haori on top, so his fashion sense was suitably formal and old fashioned. Yet, his attitude, and his technique, suggested almost the opposite.

He was a walking credit to the ethos that in the world of Jujutsu, strength mattered more than anything else, even a strange personality.

If you were a man.

The same could likely have been said about the old Hibana clan. If I had been born a boy, my crippling of Sosuke’s son wouldn’t have shaken the man to the extent that it did. He would simply have adopted me as his new son and disposed of the old one, relegating him to the position of a faceless enforcer trained to die for the likes of me. My taking over of the Hibana clan would have come later, and it wouldn’t have involved nearly as many dead bodies, even if my main agenda would have been to rejoin Jujutsu Society.

“I see you’ve come alone,” Naobito continued. “You certainly know how to make a statement.”

“I’m never alone,” I said, summoning a few tiny Juchū to prove my point. “Though I’d advise you not to try and check the validity of that statement. I come here in peace.”

“Hah!” His eyes widened to a near manic degree as he grinned. “You’re a riot. Why don’t we get started on the meeting right now? I’m sure we have much to discuss.”

“Go right ahead to whatever place you had in mind,” I told him. “I’ll follow you there.”

He activated his Projection Sorcery and all but disappeared, leaving behind discrete after-images like frames on an animation. Seconds later, he arrived at a room on the far side of the clan estate from his elders, who were now currently split up, one half still in the old room, likely discussing their plans to capitalize on my lone arrival to kill me, and the other half trying to find and reinforce Naobito.

I released an ambassador Juchū and had it fly towards the room with the elders, and then I asked Michiko to open a portal to where Naobito was.

I stepped through it.

The room was open on one wall to reveal a beautiful grassy garden outside, dominated by a wide banyan tree that cast a fat shadow across the courtyard. The gajumaru tree in Japanese, though it was a famous species of tree all over the East and South Asia, appearing in many mythologies.

As I ‘stared’ at the tree, I spoke. “I’ve sent a Juchū to address some of your clan elders. I only felt that it was appropriate to give them the respect they are due, as secondary authorities of the Zen'in clan.”

Naobito, who was seated on one end of a low table, pouring sake down his gullet straight from his gourd despite the cup right in front of him, didn’t shift or look discomfited by the news. He wasn’t planning on any foul play at all, then. Through my ambassador Juchū, I sensed almost the opposite from the elders. They were agitated by my presence. Scandalized by my insistence on having a shikigami address them instead of myself.

Most importantly, they seemed to be teetering between action and inaction, from what I could read of their bodies.

“They don’t really merit that courtesy, but go right ahead,” Naobito chuckled. “Have a seat, Teira. Let’s talk.”

He didn’t seem curious in the slightest about the portals. The higher-ups already knew about Michiko, so I supposed that he did, too.

Taming cursed spirits wasn’t a forbidden art in the world of Jujutsu, but it was risky, and never as seamless as the connection that I had with Michiko. Still, it hadn’t won me many points with the conservatives, no matter my own reassurances.

I took a seat opposite to him, sitting on my knees in the seiza position.

Then, I summoned some of my own social lubricant, and a kiseru pipe that an artisan in my clan had handcrafted for me. Then a pouch of loose tobacco, purchased from an artisanal tobacco shop in Tokyo.

Supposedly, this leaf was grown in-country, which was what made it as absurdly expensive as it was. Since Japan wasn’t capable of exporting on a mass scale due to its limited arable land, all the things that were grown here, or made here, from cattle to whisky, focused on quality.

I sprinkled some of the tobacco inside the pipe while using a Juchū to pour myself a drink from my own gourd.

“I would have shared if you had asked,” Naobito said.

“I prefer my own brew,” I said. “No offense meant, but the stuff meant for human consumption doesn’t really suit me.”

Naobito laughed. “Then what is that in your cup? Poison?”

While holding the pipe with my mouth, Michiko summoned a portal over my hand, letting a match stick drop down on it. I then used Arthropodal Aspect on my other hand to summon a shell of rough carapace over my finger, which I used to strike the match.

I could create fire by purely and cleverly using Jujutsu, but that ran the risk of trying too hard. This way was easier.

“In a sense,” I said as I stuck the match into the pipe bowl, taking a drag to light it up properly. I used cursed energy to push the burning leaves around, getting a better and more consistent burn. “Alcohol is, by all accounts, poison. This particular brew was made from my Juchū technique’s extension ability, which I’m sure you’re familiar with: Production.”

“How do you turn insect products into alcohol?”

“Are you familiar with the food known as ‘honey’?”

He closed his eyes and grinned. “Ah. Good one.”

“It’s more involved than just that, of course. I refine the finished product in a kodoku jar, mixing it with a soul poison in a way that transmutes the alcohol into a… spirit of the spirit.”

“A spirit of the spirit?”

“As you may already know, I possess the Reverse Cursed Technique. Drinking is never a true commitment when I can simply sober up at will,” I said. “This drink impairs me to the point that I very much can’t do that.”

He grinned. “There is posturing, and then there is stupidity.”

I took a sip of the cup. “This is necessary. I don’t very much go in for chatting with old-fashioned clan leaders. I prefer more direct approaches. This,” I tapped at the porcelain bottle, “keeps me friendly. Deceptively so”

“You think you have cause to not be friendly,” Naobito said.

“You can ask the former clan head about my cause to be friendly,” I said. “Though I’m afraid you’ll have to take a trip to the afterlife to do that.” I put the pipe on the table, satisfied with my head rush. “Ah, there I go being unfriendly. My apologies.” I took a deeper swig of my sake, while sizing Naobito’s reaction up.

He grinned, like he was witnessing something particularly funny. “It’s easy to forget that you’re only fifteen years old. Though, I must ask: is that truly the case? Or perhaps, it is just your vessel that is fifteen years old?”

Toji had asked me the same thing, if I was some kind of reincarnated sorcerer. As far as I understood it, there were barely any precedents for reincarnation in sorcery, but one high-profile example was Ryomen Sukuna, and his twenty cursed fingers. Occasionally, a cursed spirit would ingest one of his fingers and gain a measure of his power, becoming Special Grade right off the bat—which said a lot about his total power—but the man himself had yet to truly incarnate into a host.

The pre-requisite for that would be a human being ingesting his finger, and that human being somehow surviving the deadly poison that was a Cursed Object left by Ryomen Sukuna. The chances of that were slim to almost none.

Legends in the past did speak of reincarnation. One particular reincarnated sorcerer from overseas had conquered the Japanese archipelago back when the country had been known as Wa, but those accounts were quite spotty at best. He didn’t even appear in any mundane history books for one.

“Why do you say that?” I asked him.

“You took over your clan at eight years old,” he said. “Presumably, you ran it yourself. You claimed as much. Seven years later, and your clan continues to grow in power and influence. Strength is one thing, but strength does not a sorcerer clan make. More is required. Wisdom is required.”

“You shouldn’t underestimate eight-year-olds,” I said. “They may surprise you. Especially the ones that grew up in the conditions that I grew up in. Or in the third world. Difficulty and strife takes from you, but in return, it grants you the wisdom to survive independently.”

“And what did that eight-year-old want?” Naobito tilted his head. “What drove her to such lengths?”

“Justice,” I said.

Nothing more needed to be said on that subject. Justice was all I had sought. Justice was what I had seized with my two tiny fists. And justice was what I continued to enforce without rest.

“Justice,” he repeated. “Hence your clan’s… rebrand.”

“Righteousness is important to me,” I said. “It drives me, quite deeply. There is very little else to it than that.”

“Do you admire heroes?” he asked. “Superheroes?”

The question threw me off.

Superheroes?

Was he talking down to me?

“I quite admire them,” he said. “I grew up during the dawn of Tokusatsu. The values, the action sequences, all of it quite appealed to me. Of course, I preferred the animations to the live actions for obvious reasons.”

“Your technique?”

He blinked. “Because they simply looked better. My technique and my obsessions are a coincidence. Or perhaps not. I want to believe that my likes and dislikes weren’t inspired by something as innate as my technique, but I could be wrong.”

I could understand why. Powers affecting your thoughts wasn’t an easy thing to swallow. Especially not for me.

“I have a contentious relationship with the concept of superheroes,” I said. “Ultimately, in the real world, things ride on governance and leadership, not heroics. Allow me to ask you a question: what barriers prevent you from accepting me as a colleague on par with the heads of Kamo and Gojo?”

He laughed.

He took a long drink of his sake, likely to silence that inhibiting voice in his head. Honest, straightforward talk was a precious commodity in Japanese society, and it could usually be found at the bottom of a glass of beer—or in this case, a sake bottle.

He put the gourd down with a satisfied sigh. “I already do,” he said.

“Then all this is just the rules of the game,” I surmised. “A bit of hazing to welcome the newest kid in the block.”

“If it had been Gojo or Kamo, I would have behaved the same way,” Naobito said. “Their strength is my weakness. This is the reality of politics.”

“Why not set that aside in favor of just helping people?” I asked.

He sighed. “You labor under a common misconception, mostly held by the likes of those you brought into our world. They believe that Jujutsu Society exists for mundane society. That simply isn’t true. Not to many of us.”

“We’re aristocrats,” I concluded.

He nodded. “No different from the families that own big conglomerates, the people of this world whose blood is speckled with gold dust and expensive wine. While mundane society puts pressure on us to act within a certain capacity, we pressure them back equally to grant us a way of life that we believe fits us.”

And the only thing holding us back from just taking over would be the fact that if the general populace knew about us, our jobs would become ten times harder.

We were held back by the fact that the world of curses had to be kept secret. It had nothing to do with altruism.

And the government likely knew this, which was what gave them the gall to even negotiate with us in the first place, rather than just roll over and serve us in every capacity.

That and the magnetic draw of the Emperor of Japan, whose presence gave Jujutsu Society a reason to behave out of national pride, if nothing else.

“Then, I suppose, it comes down to a matter of personal taste for myself,” I said. “As a person who isn’t a man, I lack the upbringing to properly appreciate the idea of oppression.” He chuckled at that. “I, myself, am far more goal-oriented. I wish to end the era of cursed spirits once and for all. I have no idea how I’ll achieve that, but unlike the rest of you, that is my goal.”

Naobito grinned. “You do that, and you may as well give the rest of us a carte blanche to take over the entire world, you know.”

I knew, which was why I also wanted all sorcerers to give up their powers in the process, including myself if it came to it.

It was the most ideal outcome in my mind, even though I knew that roughly no one shared that notion. But when had that ever stopped me, taking an unpopular road and dragging my people along it kicking and screaming?

“I don’t ask for much out of you,” I said to Naobito, “other than an understanding of professionalism. I’m not here to take anything from you, if you don’t consider position and rank to be something inherently yours. All of that is external. I wish to change this society, because it makes perfect sense for someone like me to want these changes to happen. You can’t relate to my desires, but you can certainly relate to the concept of self-interest, can you not?”

“Eeeeeh,” he nodded unsurely, tilting his head this way and that. “Honestly, if you’re asking me, I don’t get what all the fuss is about. You girls get an easy life being protected by us men, and all that’s expected of you is to manage a house. That’s not an undignified lifestyle in my opinion. And it didn’t just sprout from a lack of logic,” Naobito said. “What do you think happens when an army filled with men and women march out to a war and then gets wiped out? A society crumbles. At least with the women waiting at home, some with their bellies full of babies, and others just caring for theirs, there’s a chance that the society would bounce back. Same thing with Jujutsu Sorcery. The men march out to die while the women stay behind and make more men for the slaughter, and more girls to fuel the machine. Both sides are undignified, or equally dignified, if you ask me.”

“It’s a logical set-up,” I said, “if we assume that deaths are inevitable, which they usually are. Ultimately, the fact remains that we weren’t asked properly to participate in this system. Neither do we have a voice to represent us should things get unequal, which they have gotten already. For your clan and for mine. And every other clan out there, and society as a whole.”

Naobito snorted. “A lot of our women would agree with the system. It wouldn’t make any difference if I named any of them elders.”

“Other than that it would piss off your current roster of elders,” I pointed out. “Because they hate women.”

“They don’t hate women. They’re simply too weak to earn such a position.”

“And why do you think that’s the case?”

“It’s more like…” he narrowed his brows, trying to think. “Well, it’s not hate. I don’t hate women. Why would I? I’m married to one.”

“That has not stopped every husband that ended up killing their wife,” I said, “of which there are many such cases.”

“Criminals.”

“Men,” I corrected. “Their gender doesn’t disappear just because they committed a crime. And indeed, a lot of my clan’s women agreed with the old system as well. As a way to take back stolen agency. If resisting means death, then active participation is the only real option, and the act of participation is a gratifying thing on its own.” I blew out a plume of smoke and thought for a moment about my clan, and then continued. “To no one’s surprise, the new generation of girls in my clan are more than happy with the new arrangement that I established. Some of them chose to become sorcerers, yes, and indeed, most of them chose to resume their lives in their old stations, as homemakers and supporters.” Then I grinned. “Some of the men gave up on the path of becoming a sorcerer, too. They chose to support the rest of us instead. You spoke of a society crumbling because a mixed army getting decimated would lead to a permanent reduction of the population, but did you ever consider how willing all those men were to fight and die? At least now, I’ve ensured that every individual of both genders are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about fighting, as opposed to being forced into that position due to the obligations of their gender.”

Naobito took a deeper swig of his sake and chuckled. “To me, all this just seems to be your idea of what justice looks like.”

“Consent is a universal marker of justice,” I said. “Being given the freedom to choose. Many men and women share this opinion, even if they wouldn’t put it in those exact terms. Even in this country. Not that I care one bit whether I’m popular or not. That hasn’t stopped me before. And it won’t stop me now, Naobito. Of that, you can be absolutely certain.”

“This would be easier on all our parts if you just slowed things down a little bit,” Naobito said.

He was referring to my own efforts to dilute Jujutsu Society’s culture, no doubt. It was my biggest blow to the Big Three thus far, even bigger than my defeating Gojo Satoru right in front of their faces.

Being stronger was one thing. Changing a culture was a far harsher insult, especially to those that clung to the old ways to the extent that the Big Three did.

“No,” I said. “It would be easier on your part alone. But I’m selfish, and I don’t care what makes things easier for everyone else, as long as I get what I want. And do you know what that is?”

He shrugged. “What?”

“Justice.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Justice. Let’s drink to that. Hand me some of that poison of yours, too.”

“That’s ballsy of you,” I said, using my Juchū to fly the bottle over to him. “It could very well be poisoned, and it wouldn’t affect me one bit.”

“The Reverse Cursed Technique does have its limitations, Teira-chan. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

I snorted, grinning as I did. I had all but told him that that weakness didn’t apply to me, and he just flat-out refused to believe me. Mind games were such fun.

“And besides,” Naobito said as he took the bottle and poured himself a measure in his cup—that had hitherto gone entirely unused as he had drunk straight from his gourd. “You’re a woman, but you think like a man. You wouldn’t resort to poisoning food and drink to get to me. That wouldn’t satisfy you.”

“A lot of men have poisoned people’s food.”

“Rats,” he said. “Not men.”

“Then it’s a matter of strength, not gender. You do a disservice to women, thinking that to be strong and dignified is to be manly.”

He took a large gulp of his cup and scrunched his nose up the instant the liquid hit his tongue. He swallowed numbly, taking a moment to regain feeling in his mouth, and using his cursed energy to aid his speech. “This is utterly unenjoyable.”

“I don’t enjoy drinks,” I said. “I get drunk.”

“Hahahah!” He held his forehead as he laughed. “What a brutish, dare I say childlike attitude,” he said, “but I was a young man once. I even went to university. Art school. You better believe I drank myself into a stupor every damn weekend. I barely remember my first year, other than that I passed with flying colors,” he said smugly, itching the tip of his nose as he recalled the fond memory. He looked down at the cup, still half-full, and then shrugged.

He downed the rest of it, and hissed even louder. I spoke after he calmed down.

“Would you have been happier as an artist?” I asked him.

He blinked. “I am an artist. But art is something you pursue in tandem with life. And my life is a sorcerer’s.”

Although I really hadn’t meant to ask Naobito for life advice, I still felt compelled to tuck that tidbit away for later perusal. Outside of sorcery and managing the clan, I led a woefully empty life. This might help me.

I didn’t expect Naobito and I to become friends after this talk ended, but I could see us coming to a contentious agreement that most importantly included a pact of non-aggression.

For now, I’d take that as a win.

000

Ever since the year of 1990, one year into the Heiseki era, Hibana Iemon had somewhat expected that the Hibana clan would meet its end in this generation.

Theirs had been a declining family of sorcerers, and the so-called Jujutsu Society had only gotten stronger and stronger. The clan archives detailing the sheer damage that the last Six Eyes and Limitless user did to the ecosystem of curse experts convinced him that it would only take one more such detonation for all his clan’s history to become naught but ashes in the wind.

And then he had met Hibana Teira.

The rest was, as they said, history. The Hibana clan had changed, the ‘so-called’ Jujutsu Society was now just the Jujutsu Society, and the Hibana clan had earned its membership into it ten times over.

Everything had changed. The old generation of curse experts, many of his best friends and family, were all dead at the hands of that girl. Then, an era of unbridled social changes had followed, culminating in a culture that was almost entirely alien to him. It had affected his family as well—his wife and children, especially his youngest daughter who now went to school in Kanazawa. She was barely a sorcerer, and his wife had insisted they give her a more normal life, in line with Teira’s wishes to modernize the clan.

To Iemon’s surprise, all this was rather easy for him to stomach. As long as his wife was safe, his children happy, and his clan flush with money, he could accept these changes with calmness and dignity.

Even if it killed him, really. He didn’t mind that eventuality one bit.

Which was why he hadn’t even batted an eye when Teira’s Juchū had commanded him to take a retinue of sorcerers and meet with the Kamo head in his home in Kyoto.

Teira was also meeting with Naobito, speaking with the Zen'in head.

She had no plans to speak with the Gojo head.

In her words, the only Gojo worth noting was already cooperating admirably. Nothing more needed to be said or done about that clan whose military prowess was so concentrated into that one golden child of theirs. 

The Gojo clan had blundered sorely by allowing Gojo Satoru his whims and exposing him to Teira.

Then again, who in the world would have expected that Teira would be able to charm him so thoroughly? Teira and charm were not things that went hand-in-hand, not in the Hibana clan where she ruled without reservation and killed all those who dissented, punishing those who chafed under her rule. Perhaps a domineering woman was precisely Gojo Satoru’s type?

If Teira could secure a marriage with Gojo Satoru, then all of the Hibana clan’s political troubles would be far behind them. An intermarriage with the Gojo clan may mean that the Hibana clan would be forced to discard its name, but it would still mean an assurance of survival for everyone involved.

Normally, Iemon wouldn’t deign to imagine the marriage prospects of a child below the age of eighteen as that had been one of the things that Teira had punished very harshly. Arranged marriages and the meddling of the old in the romantic lives of the young was something that Teira especially detested, for obvious reasons.

In Iemon’s mind, Teira was a singular exception to this. She was not merely a girl child. She was Hibana Teira, the one-hundred and third clan leader, and a Special Grade. A political entity more than a human.

Still, just to be safe, Iemon would continue to observe Teira and keep his opinions on political marriages entirely to himself. He’d been lucky avoiding Teira’s wrath for so many years, but he had no illusions that she wouldn’t turn on him at the drop of a hat if his words began to rhyme with those of the old guard.

Iemon tapped his fingers on the arm-rest of his beetle-chair. He covered it in a most comfortable set of quilts made of Juchū silk and regular materials underneath as a sign of opulence and, of course, for comfort.

In doing this, he also managed to pass off his mobility tool as a strange electric wheelchair, allowing him to occasionally go out into the world of non-sorcerers when the need arose.

He did have an actual electric wheelchair, but the beetle-chair was better because it could also climb surfaces and fly very quickly, not to mention its arsenal of other combat options that Teira had packed into it.

He remembered the day she had gifted him the chair with much fondness.

He wished to speak with her, face to face. See how she was doing. How school was treating her. He hoped that her experiences with peers her own age had humanized him. It must have been surreal for her to get to know Gojo Satoru. He wanted to know.

Hopefully, without having to ask.

Behind him were fifteen of the Hibana clan’s strongest sorcerers, with the exception of Haruta and Teira. Both internally and externally, they were Semi-Grade One at best, and Grade Two at worst. This was according to Teira’s judgment, of course.

For this meeting, however, she had given all of them access to enough powerful Juchū that they could easily bridge the gap to Grade One, and deal with a Special Grade cursed spirit with barely any issue. This was a temporary dispensation, but it would be enough should things come to blows.

Six Kamo sorcerers were leading their way ahead of them, all of them armed and trying their best to play off the bloodlust that radiated off them. To the eyes of any normal sorcerer, they barely looked ready for a fight, but Iemon knew better. He was a Hibana. His clan’s power of discernment was second to none in the world of Jujutsu, which was what had allowed the Association of Curse Experts to exist for as long as it had.

Rather than enter any of the buildings, the Kamo sorcerers led them towards a garden deeper into the clan estate, giving the Kamo sorcerers the ability to plug their exit points at the drop of a hat. Every exit point except the one in the sky, of course.

Teira had commanded that he and the rest of the sorcerers fly away should things come to blows. She would want to deal with the belligerents herself. Teira’s taste for blood knew no limits.

Soon, the sorcerers parted before a pavilion built next to a lush garden and a pond where colorful koi fish swam. They looked quite old as well. Everything about this garden was skillfully maintained, from the flower arrangements to the stones that lined the pond, and the grass itself, all carefully manicured to a consistent height. It was a feast for the senses, but Iemon refused to give the lone man inside the pavilion the satisfaction of ogling the scene.

He used his Juchū to ogle instead, noting down all the ways that the Hibana clan’s compound could receive similar aesthetic upgrades.

Kamo Akihito didn’t stand up as Iemon approached him. One of the Kamo servants quickly removed one of the chairs blocking Iemon’s way.

“Hibana Iemon. Greetings,” Akihito said. “I’m glad to finally be able to speak with the architect of the Hibana clan’s recent rise to fame.”

Teira-sama had predicted this turn of events, which was why Iemon didn’t hesitate to raise two fingers and cast a veil over the pavilion, blocking the hearing of all those who stood outside of it. “Emerge from darkness, blacker than black. Purify that which is impure.”

The world outside the pavilion took on an amber sheen, and Akihito grinned.

“I do not know what you’re referring to, Kamo Akihito. I am a servant of Teira-sama.”

“Of course,” he grinned. “Tell me, doesn’t it chafe you raw that your Special Grade sorcerer had to be a woman?”

Everything Kamo Akihito said, Iemon repeated through a Juchū that was currently stationed far outside the Kamo clan compound. The beetle-chair was the thing that granted him this increase in range. He wasn’t usually able to make the best of it as his human limits prevented him from properly processing all the sensory input, but for his current purposes, it was more than enough for him.

The veil also prevented the beetle from picking up too much noise from the outside world, something that greatly aided his focus.

“It did at first,” Iemon said, carefully toeing the line between lies and truth. Teira-sama didn’t mind this act, nor did she mind Akihito’s misconception. All the things that the family’s enemies got wrong was to their advantage after all. “But change comes for us all, and Teira-sama is the strongest sorcerer of our clan since our founder. And as you already know, she defeated Gojo Satoru.”

“He’s still just a boy,” Akihito scoffed. “He hasn’t fully come into his power yet. The Six Eyes force him to become a singular manipulator of cursed energy, meaning that in time, no technique will be beyond him. Not even the Domain Expansion, or the Black Flash.”

“Teira-sama’s womanhood doesn’t bother me,” Iemon said. “In fact, I find it eminently childish that it would bother anyone. Strength is strength, whether it manifests in a man, woman or even a mouse. Anyone that would allow this simple fact to attack their sensibilities is bound to be outcompeted by those that can adapt.”

Can you adapt? Iemon doubted that he could.

“I am simply teasing,” Akihito chuckled. “I understand the implications of Teira-chan better than anyone else. She is a girl, but ultimately, she is powerful. My question is: why indulge her so? Allowing her to act out and have her tantrums every other day. Do you truly stand to lose so much from simply giving her a stern word?”

Iemon tried his best not to burst out into laughter.

Give Teira a stern word?

“More importantly,” Akihito continued. “How serious are you about making her the true clan head, should you pass one day? Have you made a Binding Vow with her, or can I expect that in the event of your death, she will rule unopposed even by your sons?”

None of Iemon’s sons were even in this retinue, which said everything about how relevant they were in the clan. Iemon loved them more than words could describe, but they were not leadership material.

“I have more in common with Teira-sama than I have with you,” Iemon said. “There is no use trying to drive a wedge between us. She is my niece. The daughter of my dearly departed brother. I love her as though she is one of my own daughters.”

To Iemon’s silent and controlled shock, this was the first time he had ever said this.

And to Teira and Teira alone, he added a simple ‘this is the truth’ through the Juchū that fed all the information of this meeting to her.

He didn’t expect that it would do him much good, but as the words had already come out, he felt that he had to set the record straight on that.

“Tell me,” Akihito said. “How did you lose the use of your legs?”

“The old clan head. Teira-sama avenged me. I owe her a debt.”

“Perhaps if that old clan head hadn’t become aware of your scheming behind his back, he wouldn’t have punished you to this extent,” Akihito smirked.

It occurred to Iemon, just then, that he could just tell the decrepit fuck that Teira ruled entirely alone, and he would simply refuse to believe him.

Akihito then poured both himself and Iemon a drink. “Onto more important matters. My long-lost scion and your unruly child have come to blows in the past.”

“Ah, you mean the sociopath you picked up from the streets who just happens to share your cursed technique,” Iemon said.

Akihito smirked. “Don’t throw stones at a glass house, Iemon-san. That never ends well.”

“We are not the same,” Iemon grinned.

“The difference is only that I’ve had less time to train my attack dog. But they shame us both equally, don’t you think?”

Iemon clenched his jaw.

Teira was many things. Terrifying for one.

Mostly terrifying, actually.

Hmm… Teira wasn’t really ‘many things’ at all.

She was few things, and shameful was not among them.

“On the contrary, I’m more than happy with Teira-sama,” Iemon said. “And I don’t believe your boy to be even half the threat he thinks he is. He was beaten by Haruta, who is as far away from being Teira-sama as a non-sorcerer is from being a sorcerer.” Akihito’s expression twisted and became ugly to behold. “But make no mistake—should that boy act out and cause my clan an irreparable loss...” Iemon smirked. “Teira-sama is very fond of Haruta. Very fond.”

You will all die. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Akihito swallowed, likely reprioritizing the boy’s conditioning to emphasize that particular point, one that Teira-sama had in turn emphasized to Iemon.

“Joichi is my problem and my problem alone,” she had told him. “No one else’s.”

“But ultimately, none of this should matter,” Iemon said. “We are at peace, are we not? There is money to be made!”

“The eternal concern of curse users everywhere,” Akihito scoffed, as if he and his ilk didn’t beg the government for money at every opportunity.

“Clan pride is a fool’s game, Akihito,” Iemon continued, intertwining his fingers and grinning smugly at the Kamo head. “We can explode into violence and deprive one another of our best for the dubious honor of being the last people standing, only for the other two of the Big Four to destroy us while we’re weak. And no, I don’t buy for a second that any of you would join hands to stomp us out. The Gojo clan will not, and we hold more sway with the minor clans than you do. And do remember: we are not just the Hibana clan. Among our ranks are four other clans: the Shiba, the Ogura, the Mori and the Kagae. Our military prowess is nothing to sneeze at. As the Americans say, the juice simply isn’t worth the squeeze.”

Men loved to boast about pride, but pride quailed before material realities. Even in Akihito’s most optimistic estimates, could he genuinely imagine that there would be a clan left for him to rule after the dust settled? Could he genuinely imagine surviving such a mess as well?

“But none of this matters,” Iemon repeated. “We’re at peace, and money is sweeter than blood, don’t you think?”

A veiled insult of the clan’s attachment to the concept of blood, owing to their inherited technique, but Iemon didn’t care. The guy had spent the first few minutes of this conversation just pissing him off anyhow. He was allowed to be a little shit in turn.

“What are you suggesting?” Akihito asked.

“Teira-sama is singular in her power,” Iemon said. “Will Gojo Satoru outstrip her in time? Interesting question and impossible to answer. The answer is irrelevant to you, however, whether it’s yes or no. If it’s no, then nothing will stop her from exacting vengeance should you provoke her by, say, killing me, or any other member of our clan. If it’s yes, then how invested do you think Gojo Satoru will be in saving your lives? He hardly listens to his own clan head. Why would he play the hero for your sake?”

Akihito paled. “Kamo Joichi—”

Iemon threw his hands in the air. “Okay! Kamo Joichi, your boy. Let’s see how he does in the Exchange Event. Or you can jump the gun at your leisure and see what happens. Five hundred years of history, Akihito-san. Imagine if all that disappeared in a blink. It’d be entirely on you if it did. Teira-sama isn’t interested in jockeying for position for the sake of position alone. As a woman, she lacks that illogical instinct of ours. Strange, isn’t it?” Iemon chuckled. The unknown was always a scary thing. That was why people preferred to communicate with those who thought alike, and not those who were alien to them.

“Hm,” Akihito nodded. “You’ve bought time. Shrewd. Very well. Let us be at peace. And we shall speak again after the Exchange Event.”

The worst few months of Kamo Joichi’s life no doubt awaited him. A part of Iemon hoped that they would push the child far enough that he would lash out against the hand that fed him.

Resorting to taming a savage dog just to stand a chance against the Hibana clan. The mighty had truly fallen.

Iemon would never have imagined that this day would come.