For a brief moment, they shared the joy of reunion, and then Megumi quietly brought up the main point among the four people seated around the table.
"Now that we’re all here, let’s get to the point."
Hana Kurusu was a key figure in the old-school side’s plan.
She had an appearance that suited the nickname "Angel," as if pure white had been shaped into human form.
Yuji had said she was someone they could trust, but they still hadn’t heard her side’s demands yet, so they couldn’t let their guard down.
"First, I’ll ask directly. Kurusu, you really are the Angel, right?"
"Hmm... to be exact, I’m not the Angel. The one incarnated in my body is, though."
As she said that, a small mouth formed beneath Kurusu’s eye.
The others swallowed hard at the sight, similar to the one created by the forced "symbiosis" of Yuji and Sukuna, and the Angel chuckled before taking over Kurusu’s words.
"I’ll speak from here on. It seems the matter at hand concerns me, not Kurusu."
"Fine by me."
"Itadori filled me in roughly. You need my technique to bring an end to the Culling Game, correct? Explain the plan in detail."
".....?"
If she’d heard the explanation, shouldn’t she already know everything?
Megumi looked at Yuji in confusion, and Yuji broke into a cold sweat and averted his eyes.
'Damn it. This idiot really is stupid.'
He’d told him so clearly before they left, and yet he’d forgotten it.
He hadn’t expected much from that single-celled fool anyway, but it was still a pain.
Megumi let out a long sigh and began explaining the outline of the plan in his own words.
"For now... our goal is to use your technique to erase the barriers of the Culling Game."
"I would have tried if I could. I can come and go freely, but erasing a barrier of this scale is impossible."
Nullification of a technique.
Barrier techniques, including seals, were no exception, so the Angel could freely move in and out of the colonies.
If she could reach the source, she might be able to erase the barrier itself, but considering the scale of the Culling Game, it was impossible.
"Hear me out to the end. We have a plan too. You’ve seen Article 8 of the Culling Game, right?"
"You mean the game master’s authority?"
"One of our allies is going to collect 1,000 points. Once he does and gains the game master’s authority, we’ll hand it over to you immediately. Then you can apply your technique to the barrier."
"In that case, it should be possible. But how will you deal with Article 0? If the barrier itself is erased, it could interfere with the Culling Game’s continuity."
"According to Master Tengen, the system of the Culling Game will remain, but it’ll lose its coercive force and become nonfunctional. It won’t go against the theme of continuity."
"Using a loophole in the system itself, then. So there was a way... If Tengen said it, it’s trustworthy."
The Angel seemed convinced.
From the fact that she had chosen symbiosis with a host in the first place, and from the way she had gone around saving people, she seemed rather humane for an ancient sorcerer.
Judging the mood to be good, Megumi moved on to the second request.
"And there’s one more thing I’d like to ask. I want you to release the seal on the special-grade cursed object called the Prison Realm."
"That’s possible. That much is easy."
If they had asked her to restore the incarnated body to its original state, that would have been difficult, but merely lifting the seal on a cursed object was something she could do without issue.
When the Angel readily accepted the request, the three of them clenched their fists.
It was a relief that the Angel was someone they could talk to. It looked like they might be able to solve both problems smoothly: Gojo’s release and the pacification of the Culling Game.
'There’s no need to worry about Yoshino’s side. Collecting 1,000 points is only a matter of time. Then all that’s left is... what the Angel wants in return.'
There’s no taking without giving.
They had no idea what the Angel would demand in exchange for her help.
Quickly wiping the joy from their faces, the three of them tensed up and listened closely.
"But first, I’d like you to cooperate with this side. I don’t know about ending the Culling Game, but releasing the seal on the Prison Realm comes after that."
"What do you want?"
"My goal is to eliminate the incarnated players."
At that, the three of them looked dumbfounded.
There were only a tiny number of incarnated-type players left inside this vast barrier. Most of the cursed objects had been destroyed by Kenjaku during the Shibuya Incident.
The very few survivors were now being called rankers, and this Angel, who claimed her goal was to wipe them out, had been hiding from them all this time.
"There should only be five incarnated players left, including you, right?"
"Then why were you sneaking around in Nakano Ward? You could have just charged into their territory."
"When I made my contract with Kenjaku, the number of incarnated players was equal to the number of awakened players. I joined the Culling Game to stop that, but... he changed his mind. The incarnated players left, excluding me, were all stronger than I was. My technique is fatal to them, but it isn’t suited for combat."
So she wasn’t avoiding fights because she disliked them?
It was just that she lacked the power to do it.
Well, that wasn’t a problem anymore.
"I can agree to the goal. An ally of ours is collecting 1,000 points and hunting those guys down. You should know that two of them died just today."
"So the ally you’re talking about was the new number two. Can you guarantee that he’ll really collect 1,000 points?"
"At the very least, he’s in the top three among everyone I know. No matter how strong the current number one is, there’s no way he can beat Yoshino. No problem."
"If you say so, I’ll believe you."
It was going smoothly.
So smoothly, in fact, that it was starting to feel suspicious.
Relieved, Nobara and Yuji slumped comfortably into their chairs, but Megumi couldn’t shake the sense that something was off.
His innate sense, inherited from his father by blood, was sounding the alarm, but he forced himself to ignore it.
'It’ll be fine. Everything’s going well, so there’s no need to worry for no reason.'
Just as the negotiation seemed about to wrap up, the Angel dropped a bombshell.
"There’s still one final condition. Since it seems you’ve misunderstood, I should tell you..."
-There is one more incarnated player.
"....!"
"Killing the others means nothing if you can’t kill him. Just one person. He’s the one you have to kill no matter what."
"Who is it?"
"The Fallen. If you can kill this one, I promise I won’t spare any effort in cooperating with you."
The Fallen.
The moment the Angel spoke that name,
thump
the scenery surrounding Itadori Yuji changed completely.
A floor soaked with some liquid, whether blood or water he couldn’t tell. A graveyard of bones piled up like a mountain.
It was an innate domain he had visited once before.
And before his eyes stood a man who looked exactly like him, yet felt completely different.
The King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna.
He had summoned his host after a long time.
"What do you want? Just seeing your face makes my stomach turn."
Yuji growled without hiding his hostility, and Sukuna gave a vile smile.
"Heh heh. I figured I should teach the idiot before he says something stupid."
"....?"
The guy who had been dying to devour him was suddenly going to teach him something now?
Yuji couldn’t shake his suspicion, but he figured he should at least hear what Sukuna had to say. Then came the shocking truth.
"The Fallen is me."
"Itadori, what’s wrong?"
"I think... he’s in bad shape."
Kurusu defended Yuji, who was sweating bullets.
"He’s been running around hard for the past few days. Maybe he’s just worn out."
"That tough-as-nails idiot?"
'Kugisaki, please shut up...'
Yuji almost snapped at Nobara in his head, then glanced around and moved to a place out of the Angel’s line of sight.
If he said it here and now, the negotiation they’d worked so hard on would collapse.
He had to somehow tell his allies the truth without the Angel noticing.
"Hana, I want to lie down, so could you give up the sofa?"
"...? Sure."
After sending Kurusu back to her seat, Yuji headed for the sofa in the back and quickly checked her line of sight.
Fortunately, Kurusu seemed too absorbed in Megumi to pay attention to anything else.
Yuji sprang up at once and sent signals to Megumi and Nobara with bizarre gestures.
"....?"
-The Fallen
"...????"
-inside me
"??????"
-Sukuna!
Unfortunately, his efforts didn’t seem to get across very well.
The two of them shot Yuji cold stares as he stood up and performed all kinds of ridiculous motions.
His face burned with embarrassment, but he still couldn’t stop.
'Please get it!'
'What is he trying to say?'
'The fact that he’s going to such lengths means it’s something he doesn’t want Kurusu to know...'
Their deduction was still going nowhere.
Yuji was getting desperate, not knowing when Kurusu might turn her head, so he decided to use his trump card.
The so-called Sukuna-face gag.
'If this doesn’t work, I’m out of options!'
He swept his hair straight back and narrowed his eyes as much as possible.
Then, adding a murderous smile that looked like it could chew a person up, his gentle expression changed in an instant.
Right now, Yuji’s face was exactly the same as Sukuna’s, minus the tattoos and the second pair of eyes.
"....!"
"What is it?"
"Nothing..."
Only then did Megumi and Nobara realize what Yuji was trying to say.
Both of them had seen Yuji make that face before, so they could understand it even without a direct explanation.
Not Kurusu, but the Angel must not hear this.
What he had been trying so desperately to convey was...
'It’s Sukuna. Sukuna is the Fallen!'
'To achieve our goal, the Angel’s cooperation is indispensable. And the Angel’s target, the Fallen, is Sukuna?!'
Which meant,
'The Angel’s target is Itadori.'
That had been close.
Contracts between sorcerers were fundamentally made through [binding vows].
If they’d messed up, they could have ended up making an irreversible contract.
If this had come to light later, they would have been trapped between two options: killing Yuji or bearing the risk of the vow.
'What do we do? We can’t let them kill Itadori!'
They could either persuade the Angel to give up the target or avoid making a [binding vow], but there was no way that would be easy.
Just moments ago, hadn’t she firmly insisted that the Fallen had to be killed no matter what?
The chance of rejection was extremely high.
And the bigger problem was that Yuji might be willing to sacrifice his own life.
'Why did Sukuna deliberately try to shut me up?'
While Megumi and Nobara were lost in thought, Yuji was able to reach one conclusion.
Why Sukuna had called him out and silenced him.
Why he had stayed quiet for two days after meeting Kurusu.
Sukuna was someone who could survive even if his heart were ripped out.
Yuji knew that better than anyone, having died and come back to life himself.
And yet, if he was avoiding a situation where the Angel targeted him, that meant her technique was that dangerous.
'The Angel can kill Sukuna without leaving any chance of resurrection.'
What should I do in this situation?
I’m still scared of dying.
But more than that, he was even more afraid of becoming the reason someone couldn’t be saved.
'I can’t die yet.'
Back then, he had told Principal Gakuganji that.
That he couldn’t die until he found the reason he was born, until he repaid the bonds he had received.
And now, at last, the time had come to take responsibility for those words.
Sukuna was still definitely underestimating him.
He probably thought Yuji didn’t have the guts to kill himself. Had he forgotten that Yuji had already died once?
It wouldn’t be long before Junpei collected 1,000 points.
As for Tsukumo and Kenjaku, the seniors were handling them, so they’d manage. Besides, they’d already moved away from the central mission.
When everything was over,
'If I can end this insane game by dying alone and bring Gojo-sensei back...'
I’ll do it.
If he vanished carrying fourteen fingers’ worth of power, Sukuna would no longer be able to beat Gojo-sensei and Junpei.
Didn’t they say the weak couldn’t even choose how they died?
This was the death he had chosen, and the right thing to do.
Leaving behind his worried friends, a light of resolve rose in Yuji’s eyes.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register