On Mount Kōya, shrouded in a constant mist and the heavy silence of centuries of devotion and death, something impossible happened. Amid ancient rocks and twisted roots, an irregular hole opened in the mountainside — not like a natural cave, but like a wound violently torn into the mountain itself.
From within it, a child slowly emerged.
He was a frail-looking boy, with disheveled brown hair falling unevenly over his gaunt face. His feet were bare, stained with dirt and dried blood, and the rags he wore barely covered his body, torn and worn as if they had endured countless trials. At first glance, he could be mistaken for just another lost child… if not for the detail that destroyed any trace of innocence.
[Image]
A thick smear of blood covered the entire left side of his face, running from his forehead down to his jaw, already darkened and partially dried. Even so, the boy showed no pain, fear, or even discomfort. His eyes were empty, indifferent, as if this were merely a natural part of his existence.
The wind swept through the trees, but soon something else moved.
From the hole behind him, blood began to flow.
It did not drip — it spread.
The red liquid crawled across the ground like living serpents, branching out in multiple directions, forming grotesque veins that pulsed faintly, as if the earth itself had acquired a circulatory system. The air grew heavy, laden with a metallic, suffocating stench.
Then, a sound escaped from the darkness.
"Ahhh…"
A deep, distorted sigh — almost satisfied.
From within the cave, a creature began to emerge, forcing its way through the narrow opening. Its arms were long and far too slender for such a gaunt body, its skin stretched unnaturally tight over visible bones. Parts of its flesh appeared exposed, as if it were incomplete or eternally in the process of decay. From its hands hung sharp, elongated claws that tore into the rock with the slightest movement.
From its mouth dripped a thick, repulsive liquid — similar to human blood, yet wrong in essence, darker, denser, pulsing with a malignant energy. When the creature opened its mouth, its jagged teeth multiplied, emerging in layers as its jaw expanded beyond any possible limit, forming an impossible grin, far too wide for any living being.
All of its nails were long, curved, and blade-sharp. Every detail of its form screamed a single truth: it should not exist.
It was a creature born from accumulated negativity — hatred, resentment, despair. Its presence warped the surroundings. Its form… its very existence… was the definition of a Curse.
The creature took a step forward.
Before it could make another sound, a calm voice echoed.
"You're making too much noise…"
The boy stopped.
Slowly, he turned his face over his shoulder, staring at the thing behind him. The instant his eyes met the Curse's, a dangerous purple gleam flashed across his pupils.
There was no anger in his expression.
Nor fear.
Only indifference.
"Disappear."
Boom!
There was no visible impact, no dramatic movement. The Curse simply exploded. Its body was disintegrated in the very same instant, completely evaporated, as if it had been erased from reality itself. The cursed blood was hurled in every direction, spreading through the air like a crimson rain.
For a brief moment, it seemed the liquid would reach the boy.
But as it drew near, the blood evaporated.
A thin barrier of violet energy surrounded his body, almost invisible, vibrating faintly as it nullified every remnant of the Curse. Within seconds, nothing remained — no body, no blood, no spiritual presence.
The existence of that Curse had been completely erased.
Without looking back, the boy turned away once more. His steps were calm, unhurried. He began descending the mountain, leaving behind the hole, the evaporated blood, and the restored silence of Mount Kōya.
As if nothing had happened.
...
Fujiwara Family Headquarters — Current Base of Jujutsu Society.
The main hall remained steeped in solemn quiet. At the center, seated with impeccable posture behind a low table of dark wood, Kamikake Fujiwara flipped through the newly delivered reports.
His eyes scanned the lines swiftly, until a specific detail made him stop.
One eyebrow lifted slightly.
"A child with four arms, two mouths, and two faces?" Kamikake's voice was low, but laden with disbelief. He raised his gaze toward the assistants kneeling before him. "Are you messing with me?"
The assistant responsible for the report swallowed hard, yet kept his posture firm.
"No, sir," he replied with restrained respect. "The existence was documented by four Jujutsu Sorcerers dispatched to Hida Province, as well as by a local midwife and the child's own mother. The birth was… abnormal. The baby was born with extra limbs, two faces, and two functional mouths. Officially, it was recorded as a congenital deformity."
Kamikake let out a slow sigh, running his fingers along his temple. His gaze drifted momentarily toward the outer garden, where dry leaves were being carried away by the wind.
"A deformity…" he murmured, clearly dissatisfied with the explanation.
He turned his eyes back to the report.
"And the Cursed Energy levels?" he asked, his tone now more serious. "Far too high for a newborn, right?"
The assistant nodded.
"Yes. Extremely high. Well above normal, even for descendants of ancient bloodlines. There was discussion about the possibility of a Heavenly Restriction."
Kamikake closed his eyes for a moment, reflecting.
"But it wasn't that," he stated on his own. "A Heavenly Restriction requires loss. A trade."
He tapped his fingers lightly against the table.
"The child didn't lose anything." On the contrary. "He gained Cursed Energy… and a completely different body."
The head of the Fujiwara Family fell silent for several seconds, lost in thought. In his mind, images began to take shape — possibilities.
Two arms for offense.
Two arms for defense.
Two mouths… capable of reciting incantations simultaneously, perhaps even overlapping.
A body that transcended the limits imposed on ordinary sorcerers.
"A perfect body…" Kamikake murmured, almost to himself.
"An apex."
His eyes gleamed subtly — not with excitement, but with cold calculation. That child, if trained, if developed… could redefine the standards of Jujutsu Sorcery. Or worse.
He could challenge the established order.
He could threaten the absolute sovereignty of the Fujiwara Clan.
He raised his gaze once more.
"What was done with the boy?"
The assistant hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering.
"Execution."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Not even the sound of the wind seemed to dare cross that hall. Kamikake remained motionless, his expression unreadable. His fingers stopped moving. His gaze, fixed on nothingness, weighed the matter.
A few seconds passed.
Then he slowly nodded.
"Excellent."
The word fell heavily into the air. There was no emotion in it — only approval.
Kamikake closed the report and pushed it aside.
"That child," he said, his voice firm and final, "could have become a real threat. Something beyond control. Outside the hierarchy."
He stood up, his traditional robes rippling softly.
"The Jujutsu world has no need for a new apex that does not belong to the Fujiwara."
...
Kii Province was known within Jujutsu Society as an unstable, yet manageable territory. In total, there were thirty-five active sorcerers stationed there, ranging from Grade 3 to Grade 1 — a considerably high number for an isolated region. The reason was simple: the concentration of curses was constant.
Even so, none of them posed a real threat — almost all were classified between Grade 4 and Grade 3, weak creatures, easily exorcised.
That day, the forest was far too quiet.
Amid ancient trees and exposed roots, three men moved along a narrow trail, covered in dry leaves and moss. They were experienced sorcerers, well accustomed to that territory. The air was heavy, but there were no clear signs of immediate danger.
One of them walked at the front, carrying a Three-Section Staff, the segmented weapon swaying lightly with each step. His gaze swept across the surroundings with trained focus.
"The number of curses has dropped over the past few days…" he commented, breaking the silence. "Any idea why?"
He turned his head slightly, expecting an answer.
"No—"
The sentence was never finished.
In an instant, his head simply vanished.
There was no visible impact. No sound. Only the body, which remained standing for a fraction of a second… before collapsing, as a brutal jet of blood erupted upward, splashing the ground and nearby trees in vivid red.
"Wha—?!"
The other two recoiled instinctively, shock freezing their bodies in place. Their wide eyes struggled to comprehend what had happened when, then, they saw it.
From the darkness between the trees, something gleamed.
An intense, unnatural purple flash cut through the forest like an all-judging gaze. In that same instant, the sky above them changed. The clouds were violently swept away, as if something had torn the very atmosphere from the area.
The blue vanished.
The sky turned black.
Purple energy began to drift through the air — dense, suffocating — spreading like a living fog, crushing the lungs and overwhelming the senses. The Cursed Energy was so intense that it warped the perception of space itself.
Then came the lightning.
Black bolts, traced with violet veins, descended from the sky and slithered across the ground, tearing through trees, pulverizing stone, piercing bodies as if they were made of paper. The ground shook. The forest screamed.
The two remaining sorcerers had no time to react.
One was slammed into the ground, his bones shattering with a dry crack before he could even activate a single technique. The other tried to run — only to be shredded midair, his body torn apart in multiple directions by invisible forces.
And that was only the beginning.
The Cursed Energy spread across Kii Province like a tide of destruction. Houses collapsed. Ordinary people died without ever understanding what was happening. Sorcerers tried to resist — some fought, some fled, others simply vanished.
No effort was enough.
Bodies were found crushed, torn apart, twisted in impossible ways. Ancient trees were ripped out by the roots. The land itself was scarred with deep craters, as if the earth had been punished.
When it was all over, silence returned.
But it was not the silence of peace.
It was the silence of extinction.
That day would be etched into the history of Jujutsu Society as:
The Kii Province Massacre.
More than 157,000 people died.
...
At the summit of an isolated mountain, where the wind blew cold and unceasing, the brown-haired youth stood motionless, as if he were part of the landscape itself. Below him, the world seemed distant — small, irrelevant. In his right hand, black electrical sparks crackled silently, wrapped in violet outlines that warped the air around them, as though reality itself were being forced to bow to his presence.
Each spark appeared and vanished in irregular cycles, carrying an invisible pressure, far too heavy for any ordinary being to endure.
"Weak…" the young man murmured, the word steeped in absolute disinterest.
The sparks dissipated, drawn back into his hand as if they had never existed. The wind resumed its normal flow for a brief moment. Then, something changed.
His eyes gleamed faintly.
Not with immediate hostility, but with awareness.
"Who are you?"
His voice echoed across the mountain peak, firm and direct.
Out of nowhere — or perhaps from a space protected by layers of invisible barriers — a female figure revealed herself a few steps behind him. Her long white hair, unkempt and loose, swayed gently in the wind. Her red eyes, deep and weary, carried the weight of centuries of existence. She wore a simple white kimono, slightly disheveled, as though the concept of appearance had long since lost its importance.
"My name is Tengen," she replied, her voice serene yet laced with caution. "And you?"
The young man took his time before answering.
For a few seconds, he continued staring at the sky, as if searching for something beyond the clouds, beyond the world itself.
"I've never thought about it," he finally said. There was sincerity in his voice — a raw, almost childlike honesty that clashed violently with the power emanating from him. "Would it make a difference?"
Tengen studied him in silence before responding.
"Yes," she said calmly. "You would have an identity. A name. And many things can be born from a choice like that."
She took a step forward, feeling the pressure rise almost imperceptibly.
"I can give you a name… if you can't think of one yourself."
In that instant, something truly changed.
The young man turned his face over his shoulder.
It was the first time he looked away from the sky.
The first time he focused his attention entirely on a human.
Tengen felt it.
It was not ordinary fear.
It was not mere spiritual pressure.
It was like standing before an absolute pillar — something that rose up to confront the heavens, supporting an existence that should not have fit within that world. Compared to that presence, she — and every living being of that era — were ants.
If Tengen had not been the greatest living master of Barrier Techniques, if she had not been wrapped in countless layers of protection and adaptation, her body would have been crushed simply by existing there.
Even so, she maintained her composure.
"That energy…" she murmured, carefully analyzing every fluctuation around him. "Is that why you live in the mountains?"
The young man looked away once more, returning his gaze to the endless sky.
"It's very difficult for me to step on ants…" he replied with frightening simplicity. "…without crushing them."
For a moment, the wind grew heavier.
"Look at what happened in Kii Province," he continued. "I only released a little."
A little.
"And that was the result."
Tengen closed her eyes briefly, recalling the reports, the deaths, the devastation. When she opened them again, her gaze was more severe.
"The same applies to you," she said bluntly. "If it weren't for the capsule surrounding your body… you would have been destroyed the moment I looked at you."
Silence fell between them.
At the summit of that mountain, facing one another, stood two existences that should never have met—
"Come with me." Tengen's voice broke the silence softly, unlike the rigidity she used when dealing with the world. She approached without haste and sat beside the young man, ignoring the crushing pressure that still lingered in the air. "I can teach you to control that power."
She kept her gaze fixed on the horizon, following the same vastness he was staring at.
"Do you want to live alongside them?"
The young man did not answer right away. The sky was reflected in his eyes — infinite, distant, indifferent. His face remained calm.
"No," he finally replied, without hesitation. "Just by looking from above, you can tell."
He lifted his chin slightly.
"They're weak. Fragile. Too human."
The wind passed between them, stirring Tengen's white hair.
"I want to stand at the top," he continued, his voice still neutral. "But occupying the throne that exists above everyone…"
A brief pause.
"…seems boring, too."
Tengen turned her face to observe him more closely. There was something there she recognized — not arrogance, nor cruelty, but a deep solitude, shaped by an existence that fit nowhere.
She sighed slowly.
"So that's how it is…"
For a moment, only the sound of the wind answered.
"Akoto Kisaragi."
The young man blinked, surprised.
"Hm?"
Tengen smiled. Not a political or distant smile — but a genuine one, rare.
"That will be your name," she declared. "And I will be your master."
Akoto turned his face toward her, now truly paying attention.
"If you don't want to live on the same level as them…" Tengen continued. "But you also don't wish to claim the throne that stands above everyone…"
She rose slightly, supporting herself with one hand on the ground.
"…then I can only reach one conclusion."
Akoto frowned faintly.
"And what would that be?"
Tengen shrugged, turning her gaze back to the sky.
"That you'll have to figure that out on your own."
Silence fell between the two once more — lighter this time.
The wind blew.
A few seconds passed.
"…Idiot." The word slipped from Akoto's lips almost as a mutter, dry and blunt — but without any real contempt.
"Hehehe…" Tengen chuckled softly.