The village had no name on any map.
It existed in the margins of rural Japan—one of those places that survived through collective stubbornness and the refusal to admit the world had moved on. Sixty-three residents, according to the most recent census. Now there were fifty-eight.
Five disappearances in three weeks. All women. All mothers.
"This feels wrong," Suguru said as their car approached the village outskirts. His cursed energy was cycling faster than normal, agitated by something he couldn't quite name. "The cursed energy signature is too... dense. Too emotional."
"Special Grade?" Gojo asked from the passenger seat, his Six Eyes already analyzing the village through the windshield.
"Definitely. Maybe worse." Suguru's hands clenched in his lap. "I can feel it from here. Grief. Rage. Despair. It's like someone concentrated every negative emotion a person can feel and weaponized it."
Kage sat in the back, his enhanced senses cataloguing every detail. The village's cursed energy signature was indeed strange—not aggressive like most curses, but heavy. Like drowning in deep water, pressure increasing with every moment, crushing slowly instead of killing quickly.
"What about the survivors?" Shoko asked, checking her medical supplies. "Any witnesses?"
"None that are coherent," Yaga had said during the briefing. "The families of the disappeared keep talking about a woman in white who appears at night. Calls to mothers. Promises them rest. Then they follow and never come back."
A curse that targeted mothers specifically. That was unusual. Most curses were opportunistic, attacking whoever was weakest or most fearful. This one had a type. A preference.
That meant intelligence. Purpose. Something worse than mindless hunger.
"We stick together," Gojo said as they parked near the village center. "No splitting up, no heroics, no trying to solo a Special Grade curse. Agreed?"
"Agreed," they chorused, though Kage noticed Gojo's fingers were already sparking with cursed energy. The strongest sorcerer in their generation was excited, not scared.
That should probably worry him more than it did.
The village. Early evening.
The locals wouldn't speak to them at first.
Kage felt their fear as the team walked through narrow streets—the way cursed energy signatures spiked when they approached, the whispered conversations that stopped mid-sentence, the children being ushered inside with hurried explanations.
Jujutsu sorcerers meant acknowledgment. Acknowledgment meant the curse was real. And reality was harder to face than comfortable denial.
"There." Suguru pointed to an elderly woman sitting outside what might have been a general store. "She's not afraid. Just... resigned."
They approached carefully. The woman looked up, her eyes ancient and knowing.
"You're here about the disappearances," she said. Not a question.
"Yes, ma'am," Suguru replied with perfect politeness. "We're investigating—"
"It's the Despondent Mother." The woman's voice was flat, reciting something she'd said too many times. "She appears at night, calls to women who've recently given birth. Promises them peace. Rest. An end to the crying and the feeding and the endless exhaustion." Her hands trembled. "My daughter followed her three days ago. Left her baby crying in the crib and just... walked into the forest."
"I'm sorry," Suguru said, and meant it.
"Don't be sorry. Find her." The woman's eyes were fierce despite her age. "Find them all. Bring them back or kill the thing that took them. Just... end this."
"We will," Gojo promised with absolute confidence.
The woman studied him—this white-haired boy with sunglasses and casual arrogance—and seemed to find something reassuring in his certainty. "The forest. North of the village. That's where they go. Where it takes them."
"Thank you." Suguru bowed, and they left her sitting in the fading light, hope and despair fighting for space in her cursed energy signature.
"Postpartum depression," Shoko said quietly as they walked toward the forest. "Combined with the isolation of rural life, the pressure to be perfect mothers, the exhaustion. That's fertile ground for curse formation."
"A curse born from maternal suffering," Kage observed. "That's... sad."
"Most curses are sad," Geto replied. "They're born from human suffering. We just don't usually think about it because we're too busy killing them."
There was something in his voice—a questioning tone, doubt creeping in—that made Kage glance at him. Suguru's cursed energy signature had been unstable since the Riko mission, cycling between determination and despair. The weight of absorbed curses seemed heavier every day.
But before Kage could comment, they reached the forest.
And the cursed energy hit them like a physical blow.
The Forest. Cradle of Endless Night.
"Oh," Gojo said softly. "That's a domain."
Not fully manifested—not yet. But the forest was saturated with cursed energy, the trees twisted by malevolent intent, the air thick with grief so concentrated it was almost tangible.
A partial domain. The curse was close to manifesting its full power.
"We need to find the core," Suguru said, releasing several cursed spirits for reconnaissance. "The source of the cursed energy. Kill that, the domain collapses."
"Easier said than done." Gojo's Infinity was already active, rippling around him. "This isn't a normal curse. It's—"
A woman appeared.
Not walked into view. Just appeared, as if she'd always been standing there and they'd only just noticed. She wore white—a burial shroud, Kage realized—and her face was a blur, features obscured by grief so intense it distorted reality itself.
"You came," the Despondent Mother said, her voice a chorus of women crying and laughing and screaming simultaneously. "More children to save me. More little soldiers to die trying."
"We're not here to save you," Gojo said. "We're here to exorcise you."
"Save. Exorcise. Kill. Is there a difference?" The curse's form rippled, unstable. "I was human once. Did you know that? A mother who couldn't stop crying. Who looked at her baby and felt nothing but exhaustion. Who wanted to sleep and never wake up."
"And now you take other mothers," Suguru said quietly. "Make them suffer the way you suffered."
"I free them." The curse's voice rose, defensive and desperate. "I give them the rest they deserve. The peace they're denied. No more crying babies, no more judgmental relatives, no more pretending to be happy when you're drowning—"
Gojo attacked.
His cursed energy compressed into a point and released, tearing through the space where the curse stood. But the Despondent Mother was already gone, her form dissipating into the domain itself.
"It's not fully manifested," Gojo reported, his Six Eyes processing information rapidly. "It exists partially in physical space, partially in its domain. We can't kill it unless it fully manifests or we enter the domain."
"Then we enter the domain," Kage said.
"Are you insane?" Shoko grabbed his arm. "Entering an enemy's domain is suicide!"
"For most people. But my technique is darkness manipulation." Kage gestured to the forest, where shadows were deepening unnaturally. "That curse's domain is called Cradle of Endless Night. It's made of darkness. That's my home territory."
"Kage's right," Gojo said reluctantly. "His Abyss technique should be able to navigate a darkness-based domain better than anyone else. But—" he fixed Kage with a serious look, "—you're not going alone."
"I have to. The domain's not fully manifested yet, so it's unstable. Sending more than one person in might cause it to collapse completely, killing whoever's inside." Kage's voice was steady despite his racing heart. "I go in, find the core, stabilize the domain long enough for you to hit it with maximum power from outside. It's the only way."
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken fears.
"I don't like this," Suguru said finally. "Domains are psychological warfare. They attack your mind as much as your body. And this one is specifically designed to prey on emotional vulnerability."
"Then it's a good thing I'm dead inside," Kage joked weakly.
"You're not." Shoko's grip on his arm tightened. "That's the problem. You pretend to be, but you're not."
Kage gently removed her hand. "I'm the best option. We all know it."
Gojo's cursed energy flared with frustration. "Fine. But if you die in there, I'm bringing you back just to kill you again for being stupid."
"Deal."
Kage walked forward, into the deepening shadows where the Despondent Mother's domain waited like an open mouth. Behind him, he felt his friends' cursed energy signatures—worried, angry, helpless.
Protecting them meant walking into nightmares.
So he walked.
Inside the domain. Cradle of Endless Night.
Darkness.
Complete, absolute darkness that went beyond the absence of light. This was conceptual darkness—the kind that existed before creation, before thought, before hope.
For anyone else, it would be disorienting. Terrifying.
For Kage, it was almost comfortable.
His Abyss technique responded immediately, shadows recognizing shadows, darkness welcoming darkness home. He could feel the domain's structure—not see it, not even perceive it through normal cursed energy mapping, but understand it on an instinctive level.
The domain was a maze. Corridors of grief leading to rooms of despair, all of it designed to trap and break anyone who entered. Mothers wandered these halls eternally, their suffering feeding the curse, their despair sustaining the domain.
He needed to find the core. The center where the Despondent Mother's true form waited.
Kage moved through the darkness like a ghost, his enhanced senses cataloguing every detail. The domain was recent—weeks old at most, born from one woman's suffering and fed by the collective grief of an entire village. But it was growing, expanding, becoming stronger with each mother it consumed.
"You walk well in darkness."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. The Despondent Mother's presence saturated the domain like humidity before a storm.
"I was born in it," Kage replied to the empty air.
"I know. I've seen your past. Your memories bleed into my domain like wounds that never healed." The darkness rippled, and suddenly Kage was standing in a hospital room.
Not real. A memory. His memory.
A woman lay on a bed, blood pooling beneath her, face pale and peaceful. Dead. His mother, dying in childbirth, and Ogi standing in the corner with an expression that wasn't quite grief.
More like... satisfaction?
"No," Kage said. "This isn't real."
"Isn't it?" The Despondent Mother's voice was almost gentle. "You've always wondered, haven't you? How a healthy woman dies in childbirth. How convenient it was for your father to have an excuse for his cruelty. How suspicious that the midwives all refused to speak about it afterward."
The scene shifted. The midwife's hands on his mother's throat. Brief pressure. Then release. Ogi nodding approval from the shadows.
Murder disguised as complication.
"You're lying," Kage said, but his voice shook.
"I'm showing you truth you refused to see. Your father killed your mother because you were born defective. Blind. Worthless. She died because you lived."
The guilt hit like a physical blow. Kage's knees buckled, his cursed energy wavering. If this was true—if Ogi had murdered his mother because of Kage's birth—then everything was his fault. Every moment of abuse, every training pit, every scar was deserved.
"No." The word was barely a whisper.
"Yes." The domain pressed closer, suffocating. "You're cursed, Kage Zenin. Born wrong. Raised broken. Destined to hurt everyone who cares about you. Your mother died. Your sisters suffer. Your friends will follow. Because that's what you are—a void that consumes everything it touches."
Kage's shadow flickered, unstable.
The Despondent Mother was right. He was broken. Damaged. A weapon that pretended to be human but would always revert to what he was made to be.
His mother had died because of him.
His sisters suffered because he existed.
His friends would be better off without—
Stop.
The thought cut through the despair like light through darkness.
That's not true.
Kage's hands clenched, fingernails digging into palms. The pain was real. The blood was real.
The vision was manipulation.
"You're good," he said, his voice steadier now. "Using my own guilt against me. Showing me possibilities I've feared. But you made a mistake."
"What mistake?" The Despondent Mother's voice was wary now.
"You showed me my mother dying. But I never saw her alive." Kage's shadow expanded, Abyss technique responding to his will. "I was born blind. I have no visual memories. Everything you just showed me was fabricated."
The domain shuddered.
"You're lying—"
"I'm stating facts." Kage stood, his cursed energy stabilizing. "My mother might have died because of me. My father might have killed her. But showing me images I could never have seen just proves you're guessing. Making up stories to break me."
The darkness writhed, angry now.
"It doesn't matter if the details are wrong! The core truth remains—you're cursed! Born wrong! Everyone you touch suffers!"
"Maybe," Kage admitted. "But that's my choice to carry, not yours to weaponize."
His Abyss technique erupted.
Shadows expanded from Kage's body, consuming the domain's darkness. Not destroying it—absorbing it, making the Despondent Mother's cursed energy part of his own technique. The domain screamed, its structure destabilizing as Kage devoured it from within.
"What are you doing—"
"What I do best," Kage said coldly. "Surviving. Adapting. Becoming the void you tried to use against me."
The domain's structure became visible now, its walls and corridors mapped in Kage's mind. And at the center, he felt it—the core. The Despondent Mother's true form, vulnerable now that her domain was being consumed.
He stabilized the domain with his shadow, holding it together through sheer force of will. Creating a target.
Outside, he felt Gojo's cursed energy spike. His friend had been waiting for this exact moment.
"I'm sorry," Kage said to the Despondent Mother, and meant it. "For whatever suffering created you. For the mothers you were trying to save. But this ends now."
Gojo's attack hit like the fist of an angry god.
The domain shattered. The Despondent Mother's scream cut off mid-note. And Kage found himself standing in a normal forest clearing, surrounded by five unconscious women and the rapidly dissipating cursed energy of an exorcised Special Grade curse.
His friends appeared moments later—Gojo first, his Infinity still active, then Suguru with his cursed spirits, then Shoko with medical supplies already in hand.
"You're alive," Gojo said, and the relief in his voice was palpable.
"Barely," Kage replied, then his legs gave out.
Shoko caught him before he hit the ground. "Cursed energy depletion, psychological shock, and probably mild hypothermia. You're an idiot."
"But a successful idiot."
"The worst kind."
They carried him out of the forest while Suguru's cursed spirits transported the unconscious mothers. Behind them, the trees were already returning to normal, the domain's influence fading like a nightmare after waking.
But Kage's hands were still shaking.
And the Despondent Mother's words echoed in his mind like a curse he couldn't exorcise.
Everyone you touch suffers.
The village. Post-mission.
The mothers were reunited with their families. Tears, apologies, relief—the normal aftermath of a successful exorcism. The elderly woman who'd hired them wept openly, clutching her daughter like she might disappear again.
"Thank you," she said to the team. "Thank you for bringing them back."
Gojo accepted the gratitude with his usual charm. Shoko provided medical care with professional efficiency. And Suguru spoke with the families, gentle and reassuring, promising the curse wouldn't return.
Kage stood apart, his enhanced senses cataloguing their joy while his mind remained trapped in the domain's darkness.
Your mother died because you lived.
It might not be true. Probably wasn't true. But the possibility—that his birth had caused someone's death, that he was fundamentally cursed from the beginning—wouldn't let go.
"You're quiet."
Suguru appeared beside him, his cursed energy signature concerned. "More than usual, I mean."
"Tired."
"Liar." Suguru's voice was gentle but firm. "What happened in the domain? What did it show you?"
Kage could deflect. Make a joke. Shut down the conversation like he'd been trained to do.
Instead, he found himself answering honestly.
"It showed me my mother dying. Said my father killed her because I was born defective. Said everyone I care about suffers because of what I am." He paused. "And I can't prove any of it wrong."
"That's because you can't prove a negative," Suguru said quietly. "Domains attack psychological vulnerabilities. They find the fears you won't admit and make them seem like truth. But fears aren't facts."
"Aren't they?" Kage turned to face him. "Look at my life, Suguru. Everyone connected to me suffers. My mother's dead. My sisters are being abused. Even you guys—being my friend puts targets on your backs."
"That's not—"
"It is." Kage's voice was flat. "The Zen'in Clan will come after anyone close to me. The higher-ups already watch me because I can potentially counter Gojo's Infinity. I'm a liability wrapped in darkness, and pretending otherwise just gets people hurt."
Suguru grabbed his shoulders, forcing eye contact despite the blindfold. "Listen to me. You are not cursed. You're not responsible for every bad thing that's ever happened near you. And you're sure as hell not a liability."
"How can you know—"
"Because you went into that domain alone to protect us!" Suguru's voice rose with uncharacteristic passion. "You faced your worst fears and survived. You stabilized a collapsing domain so Satoru could make the kill. You saved five mothers and their families from an eternity of suffering. That's not a curse, Kage. That's a hero."
The word felt wrong in Kage's mouth. "I'm not—"
"You are. Even if you don't want to be." Suguru released him, his expression softer now. "I know what it's like to question your purpose. To wonder if the suffering we cause—absorbing curses, killing cursed spirits that were once human—is worth it. But seeing you in action, watching you choose to suffer so others don't have to? That reminds me why we do this."
"To protect people?"
"To remain human despite everything trying to turn us into weapons." Suguru smiled, tired but genuine. "You're more human than you think, Kage. And that's your greatest strength."
Kage didn't know what to say to that. The emotional vulnerability was uncomfortable, foreign, everything the Zen'in Clan had beaten out of him.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe being uncomfortable meant growing. Maybe vulnerability was its own kind of strength.
"Thanks," he said finally. "For... understanding."
"That's what friends do." Suguru turned back toward the village. "Now come on. Shoko's threatening to leave without us if we don't get food in the next ten minutes, and I'm not walking back to Tokyo."
They rejoined the others, and the drive back to Jujutsu High was quiet but not uncomfortable. Gojo dozed in the passenger seat, exhausted despite his confident facade. Shoko drove with steady competence, occasionally glancing in the rearview mirror to check on Kage. And Suguru sat beside him, a solid presence that said I understand, you're not alone.
But as the city lights appeared on the horizon, Kage couldn't shake the feeling that something had shifted.
The Despondent Mother's domain had shown him fears he couldn't fully deny.
And Suguru's passionate defense had revealed doubts the curse manipulator couldn't fully hide.
They were all breaking, little by little.
The question was whether they'd shatter completely or forge themselves into something stronger.
Tokyo Jujutsu High. Late evening.
Yaga debriefed them in his office, taking notes as they recounted the mission. When they mentioned Kage entering the domain alone, his expression hardened.
"That was incredibly reckless."
"That was incredibly necessary," Gojo countered. "Kage's the only one who could navigate a darkness-domain without getting lost. His plan worked."
"This time. But domains are psychological warfare. They break people from the inside out." Yaga fixed Kage with a meaningful look. "What did it show you?"
"Personal fears. Family trauma. The usual domain tricks."
"And are you psychologically stable?"
"Define stable."
"Can you complete another mission without imploding?"
Kage considered lying. Considered saying he was fine, he could handle it, nothing affected him because he was strong.
Instead, he said: "I don't know."
The honesty surprised everyone, including himself.
Yaga nodded slowly. "Good answer. Most sorcerers would lie. The fact that you're aware of your limits means you haven't fully broken yet." He closed his notebook. "You're all on light duty for the next week. Training only, no missions. Kage, I want you in counseling sessions with—"
"I'm not doing therapy."
"You're doing therapy, or you're suspended from field work. Your choice."
Kage wanted to argue. Wanted to insist he was fine, he didn't need help, weakness was unacceptable.
But the Despondent Mother's words still echoed.
And maybe—just maybe—asking for help was stronger than pretending he didn't need it.
"Fine. Therapy."
"Good." Yaga's expression softened. "You did well today, all of you. Five lives saved, a Special Grade curse exorcised, and everyone came back alive. That's a win in our world."
They were dismissed. Stumbled back to the dorms with the exhaustion that came after every intense mission—physical, emotional, spiritual depletion that required sleep and food and time to process.
Kage made it to his room, closed the door, and finally let the facade drop.
His hands were still shaking. His cursed energy was still unstable. And the vision of his mother's death—fabricated or not—played on repeat behind his closed eyes.
Everyone you touch suffers.
Was it true? Would his friends eventually pay the price for caring about him? Would Maki and Mai's lives be worse because he existed?
He didn't know.
Couldn't know.
All he could do was keep moving forward, keep trying to be better than his trauma, keep choosing connection over isolation even when isolation felt safer.
Kage lay on his futon, blindfold removed, and let his shadow pool on the ceiling. Abyss technique responding to his emotional state, darkness swirling and rippling like water disturbed by stones.
The void welcomed him home.
But for the first time, he wondered if maybe he didn't want to live in the void forever.
Maybe light—fragile, painful, honest light—was worth reaching for.
Even if it burned.
Even if it cost everything.
Even if he was terrified it would prove the Despondent Mother right.
Three days later. Counseling session.
"Tell me about your mother."
The school counselor—an older woman with kind eyes and cursed energy that felt like warm tea—sat across from Kage with a notepad and patience that felt foreign.
"I never knew her. She died in childbirth."
"And how does that make you feel?"
"Like a walking cliche from a therapy textbook."
"Deflection noted. Try again."
Kage shifted uncomfortably. This felt worse than fighting curses. At least with curses, you could hit them until they stopped being a problem.
"I feel... responsible," he admitted finally. "Like my birth caused her death. Like I'm inherently cursed because existing killed someone."
"That's a heavy burden for a ten-year-old."
"I've carried heavier."
"I know. Your file is... extensive." She set down the notepad. "Kage, I can't tell you whether your mother's death was natural or caused by your father. But I can tell you that regardless of the circumstances, it wasn't your fault. You didn't choose to be born. You didn't choose your Heavenly Restriction. You were an infant, completely innocent."
"Innocence doesn't matter. Results matter."
"Who taught you that?"
"My father. The Zen'in Clan. Every person who measured my worth by what I could do instead of who I was."
The counselor's expression softened. "And who are you, Kage? Not what you can do—who you are as a person."
The question hung in the air like smoke.
Who was he?
A weapon? A survivor? A friend? A brother? A curse wrapped in human skin?
"I don't know," he admitted. "I've spent so long being what other people needed me to be that I don't know who I am underneath."
"Then maybe," the counselor said gently, "that's what we work on discovering. Not fixing you—you're not broken. Just... finding out who Kage Zenin is when he's not performing for survival."
It sounded impossible.
It sounded terrifying.
It sounded exactly like something worth attempting.
"Okay," Kage said. "Where do we start?"