"For I am a jujutsu sorcerer."
Utsugi’s answer sliced through the chill of the night air—a response so hollow, so utterly devoid of artifice, it carried an almost clinical dryness.
In the instant those words were uttered, the movements of the elderly specter of vengeance—a man who had survived for nine years by chewing on his own resentment—ceased as if by some sorcerous command.
"......."
Yorimitsu’s eyes widened ever so slightly.
He stared vacantly at the young blood before him, this pariah of the Sugawara. He was a man who had not flinched before the concentrated, horrific bloodlust of ten thousand vengeful spirits. Yet now, Yorimitsu’s lips began to tremble violently until, at last, an uncontrollable, thunderous roar of laughter erupted, echoing throughout the cavern.
"Khahaha! Kuhahahaha!!"
It was not mockery. It was a profound, boiling mirth that rose from the deepest pits of his gut—a grimly pleasant, soul-cleansing catharsis.
"A jujutsu sorcerer! Truly, a sorcerer! Hahaha! What a nostalgic term! It has been an age since I last heard it used so plainly!"
Yorimitsu clutched his stomach, collapsing into a seated position upon the stone floor as he wheezed with laughter.
It was a fit of hysterics that brought pinpricks of tears to his eyes. Utsugi merely looked down at him with indifferent, dispassionate eyes, seemingly unable to comprehend the humor.
"What is it you find so amusing?"
"How could I not? In the grand, silken estates of Heian-kyo, those elderly ghouls who sit upon their tatami mats, weaving conspiracies and gluttonously pursuing power, they too style themselves 'jujutsu sorcerers.' I was just becoming nauseated by the stench of that disgusting hypocrisy."
Yorimitsu’s laughter died down, replaced by a bared-teeth, grotesque grin.
"And yet, here you are. Oppressed and hunted by the High Authorities, you do not seek to pay them back in kind. You simply declare your essence as one who 'slashes through calamities' and take up the mantle of a sorcerer. I took you for a mere fledgling, but you are a true warrior to the marrow, are you not?"
The deep ennui and the hollow emptiness of the ronin that had clouded Yorimitsu’s gaze vanished. In its place flickered the dazzling, predatory radiance of a legendary hero of demon-slaying who had once carved his name into the era.
"Very well. I shall watch with my own eyes to see if those arrogant pupils of yours remain unbroken even before the absolute death that is Ryomen Sukuna."
At that same hour, far to the south, where the gazes of Utsugi and Yorimitsu were fixed.
The Imperial Capital, Heian-kyo, lay held in a stifling grip, suffocating under an unprecedented pall of dread and oppression.
The night streets, which would usually resonate with the sounds of aristocratic banquets and the plucking of stringed instruments, were as silent as a tomb. Though no clouds marred the sky, the moon’s light could not penetrate the thick, crimson-black miasma of cursed malice that choked the air. A scent drifted on the wind from the Hida Mountains to the west.
It was more than just the copper tang of blood; it was a putrid 'stench of death' that seemed to negate life itself.
"Has it come? At last... the Calamity arrives."
Upon a massive pavilion within the Northern Fujiwara estate.
Fujiwara no Tokisada, the preeminent power-broker and schemer of the age, unfurled his fan and gazed toward the western horizon. Behind him, the captains of the 'Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad'—the elite jujutsu unit that was the pride of the Fujiwara clan—knelt in wait.
"Milord. The barrier masters defending the western lines have been annihilated. The enemy is but a single entity. It is confirmed to be Ryomen Sukuna."
"His speed of advancement?"
"He walks, Milord. Very slowly... as if he were merely enjoying a stroll. However, every village in the path of his wake has been reduced to a wasteland of rubble and meat."
While the reports turned the captains' faces a pale, ghostly white, a greedy, predatory smile spread across Tokisada’s lips.
"Exquisite. That is what perfect violence looks like."
Tokisada snapped his fan shut and rose from his seat.
"The elders of the Sugawara must be shivering in their robes. But crisis is merely opportunity in disguise. What if this Calamity were to be subjugated by the combined might of our Fujiwara Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad and the Five Void Generals? Even the Emperor himself would be forced to prostrate before the Fujiwara. Strike down Sukuna. We shall rewrite the history of the jujutsu world in the name of the Fujiwara."
It was a fatal miscalculation of a man blinded by ambition.
Tokisada did not yet know that his arrogance—his mistake of viewing Sukuna as a mere political tool or a wild beast to be tamed—would soon result in the horrific extermination of the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad.
Conversely, within a tatami room in the Sugawara main estate.
Sugawara no Enju bit his lip until it bled, sensing the overwhelming presence surging from the west.
'It is different. That... is not something that can be stopped by the strength of men.'
Enju’s instincts were screaming a warning. This was an absolute existence that would not suffer even a scratch from the likes of Tokisada’s troops. In Enju's mind, only one face surfaced.
'Utsugi...!!'
Enju glared toward the north with bloodshot eyes.
'You must return alive. Only you... only you can save the Sugawara, no, this entire world.'
All of Heian-kyo had begun its countdown to ruin, keeping pace with the approaching footsteps of the Calamity.
The following morning, in the Ou Mountains of Mutsu.
"Ugh... Damn it. It feels as if every bone in my body has been ground to dust."
Hideto groaned as he pushed himself up from the straw bedding. The jagged wounds on his abdomen and thighs had miraculously closed, but a splitting headache lingered—the psychic aftereffect of the death-visions forced into his brain.
"So, you have returned to the living."
Utsugi tossed a hunk of fire-roasted meat into Hideto’s lap.
"This... You? Don't tell me you actually carried me all the way to this cave?"
Hideto caught the meat, staring at Utsugi in disbelief.
"The cold-blooded bastard who claimed he'd use me as a meat shield actually deployed a Simple Domain inside a burnt-out Domain Expansion to save me? Since when did you become a saint?"
Utsugi gave no reply, merely pulling his worn wicker hat low over his brow.
His gaze was already fixed beyond the cave’s mouth, toward the distant southern horizon where Heian-kyo lay.
At the cave’s entrance stood Yorimitsu, a long, cloth-wrapped Special Grade cursed tool slung across his shoulder. A blade forged for a single stroke, condensed with nine years of curses.
"Will you depart?"
At Yorimitsu’s question, Utsugi gave a sharp, brief nod.
"I go."
"Good grief. The monsters seem to be in perfect accord."
Hideto grumbled, picking up his own hat and donning it.
"You need not come," Utsugi said flatly.
"Hey, I have to collect my ten-percent share of the bounty. But tell me something..."
Hideto stepped up beside Utsugi as they prepared to move, his voice turning dry and somber.
"Do you truly hold no resentment? That city is filled with the very clan that exiled you to this wasteland and sent you to your death. And now you're heading back to take Sukuna's head just to protect them? No matter how you dress it up as the 'essence of a sorcerer,' an altruistic motive like that doesn't fit your miserable temperament."
Utsugi stopped in his tracks.
A cool breeze swept through the clear skies of Mutsu, now cleansed by the rain, fluttering the hem of his robes.
Resentment. Revenge. Altruism.
Utsugi looked down at his calloused palms. These two hands possessed the absolute power to tear apart Special Grades and manifest the Black Flash.
Yet even with these hands, a single memory of something he had failed to protect remained etched into the depths of his mind like a jagged scar.
"It is not to protect them."
Utsugi’s cold voice dispersed into the wind.
"I simply... do not wish to see anything 'taken' from before my eyes ever again. Even if what remains are merely the maggots of a rotting capital."
Utsugi’s Six Eyes briefly lost their luster, reflecting a vision of the distant past.
Not the current blood-soaked sky of Heian-kyo, but the sky of a spring day so vibrantly blue it made the eyes ache.
A memory from his youth—a time when he was the arrogant boy who looked down upon the world with indifference, known as the pariah of the Sugawara.
"...So, something was taken, then?"
Hideto smirked but pressed no further. He had sensed that even within the chest of that arrogant, frost-bitten man, there existed a burn mark that must never be touched.
"Let us move."
Yorimitsu took the lead, stepping forward into the light.
Utsugi and Hideto followed. A legendary hero of demon-slaying, a heretic of the New Shadow Style, and the discarded Six Eyes of the Sugawara. These three monsters, who should never have walked the same path, began their long march toward the capital of Heian-kyo, where the end of the world awaited.
However, before this epic of calamity could reach its crescendo...
Time was about to turn back its needles, unfolding the memory of the 'Lost Spring' buried in Utsugi's heart.
Why was the genius gifted with the Six Eyes abandoned by his clan?
Why was he, despite possessing such absolute martial prowess, forced to have 'something' taken from him?
The tale returns to a time years before the arrival of the Calamity.
Back to the brilliant yet tragic season of scattering cherry blossoms, when Utsugi first met the Star Plasma Vessel, 'Kiyo.'
[ Jujutsu Kaisen Heian Era: Part 1 Ou Mountains Arc - FIN ]
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