START OF VOLUME 2 : RISING
Narrator
Morning arrived, bringing with it the promise of true justice for some… and a slow agony for others.
Zoro stood in front of the main Inagaki property, gaze settled into something close to gentle nostalgia.
Beside him, Toji looked at it the same way — but underneath the nostalgia, something heavier sat in his eyes. Reluctance.
"Zoro, do we really have to leave?"
Zoro turned toward him.
"What — you want to stay?"
"…"
The silence said everything.
"Weren't you the one crying last time because you didn't want to leave the cabin?"
A flush moved across Toji's face immediately.
"I was a kid, and you know that. The cabin was the only thing we had back then. This is different."
Zoro nodded. The reasoning wasn't wrong.
"I understand that. But it's not the main reason we're going back to Tokyo."
"What do you mean?" Toji turned, the look on his face genuinely puzzled.
"Don't you want revenge?"
The voice dropped. The face followed. Both went cold.
Toji felt the unease arrive instantly — a wave of it, mixed with something that looked a lot like hesitation.
"Y-You're really sure about this? It's one of the three great clans…"
The excuse was transparent, but Zoro engaged with it anyway.
"Don't worry about that. Since the honored one was born, their influence has been declining steadily. The Gojo clan keeps rising while the Zen'in stagnates. And beyond that — we're strong enough now that their name alone means nothing."
Not arrogance. A genuine assessment. There was no one left in the Jujutsu world — except Kenjaku — who could actually threaten them.
'At the rate we're going, we'll clear through this without breaking a sweat.'
"By the way — how is the Haki training coming along?"
The sudden shift in topic gave Toji's composure room to recover. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly.
"Solid overall. Armament Haki is strong — mastered infusion six months ago. Observation Haki is still the sticking point. It doesn't flow as naturally as the rest of my senses. I keep reaching for it instead of letting it happen."
Toji's Haki journey had started late by design. After he stabilized following the escape, training had resumed in earnest. Kentaro had been asked to source martial artists and experienced assassins to fill in what couldn't be taught from memory alone.
The Haki work had been delayed deliberately — held until the day Toji first managed to perceive cursed energy with his own eyes. That was the benchmark. Once it was cleared, the real training could begin.
What followed had been interesting to observe. Awakening Haki had come easier for Toji than it had for Zoro. Developing it had proven considerably harder.
Observation Haki took three months to unlock — with the roadmap already established from Zoro's own experience, the process was far more direct. But that was where the advantage ended. Toji had been born with senses that already exceeded what most humans were capable of. Relying on them was instinct. Reaching past them to use something external required rewiring habits that ran deep, and the progress reflected that resistance.
Armament Haki was a different story entirely. Nine months to unlock — which sounded slow on paper, but Toji was a child, and the willpower and sustained focus required weren't trivial. He'd been twelve when it came. Three years had been spent improving since.
"Think about what that means. Physically stronger than any cursed energy user you'll face. Completely undetectable. And capable of nullifying innate techniques on contact. What exactly is there to be afraid of?"
"You…"
He caught himself immediately. Mouth closed. He'd walked straight into it.
"Ahh… you're right. But I still think it's a bad—"
"Toji." The tone cut through cleanly. "Don't think I haven't noticed what they did to you."
Silence.
"Every other night, waking up in a panic. Your Haki results don't match your effort, and they don't match your potential. There's something sitting on top of you and it's not going away on its own."
Gaze lifted toward the sky.
"Taking revenge isn't just about resentment. Part of it is so you can actually move forward."
The words landed and sat there. Neither of them filled the space immediately.
Then a different voice arrived.
"Good morning, my lords."
Zoro turned.
"Ah. Kentaro."
The man was bowing deeply, as expected.
"Yes, my lord. I came to see you off."
The tone underneath those words was obvious. The expression even more so. Zoro sighed.
"Stop carrying on like we're never coming back. This isn't a final departure."
Something lit up in Kentaro's face and voice immediately.
"Really?"
"I have a criminal empire standing by to fulfill my every requirement, and you think I'd walk away from that without intention to return?"
"Then that means — you accept being my successor?"
Zoro frowned. "When was it ever any other way?"
Kentaro laughed fully at that, the kind that came without restraint.
"It's nothing, my lord. Please forget I asked. I wish you both a safe journey."
"Goodbye, old man. Keep the clan in order until I'm back — and ease off the drug trafficking a little."
"It will be done, my lord."
A small wave over the shoulder, already walking. Toji fell in step alongside.
The residence gate eventually gave way to the street. Parked beyond it, connected to a loaded trailer, sat the motorcycles.
"Everything's already packed. No reason to linger."
Zoro moved to his — black and gold, a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R. Toji stepped up to his own — the same model, black and silver. Both mounted.
Zoro turned the key. The engine came to life, loud and clear.
Toji did the same, then paused before the throttle.
"Hey, bruh… you really meant what you said? About coming back?"
A teasing expression settled in.
"You think I'd give up all this luxury voluntarily?"
Toji smiled. The kind that arrived without effort.
"Good. That's all I needed. Let's go."
VROOOOM!
"Gas, gas, gas. I'm gonna run in the flash."
---
Naobito
Ten years. Already.
Ten years since the twins walked out.
The fallout from that incident hit the clan's reputation harder than anyone wanted to admit at the time. The Kamo moved quickly to take advantage, pressing on every weakness they could find. Two full years of work went into stabilizing the damage and recovering the standing that had been lost. The Kamo's efforts were eventually dismantled, but it wasn't clean.
Just when the recovery felt complete — just when the title of strongest among the three great clans felt secure again — something else arrived.
Three years after the Kamo situation closed, the Gojo clan made their challenge clear.
And there was nothing to counter it with.
Because of him. Because of his birth.
The child born carrying the Six Eyes and the Limitless.
Gojo Satoru.
Everything shifted the moment he arrived. The Gojo clan — once the most limited of the three, weaker in some assessments than clans that didn't even carry a great clan designation — had become the most powerful force in the Jujutsu world. Because of an infant who couldn't walk or speak.
Assassination had been discussed. Seriously discussed, in the early years, while there was still a window. Finding someone with the actual capability to close that window proved impossible. Every contractor sent died before reaching within ten meters. Every one of them.
The years had passed that way. Contractor after contractor, each confirming what the last had already demonstrated. And the Gojo clan's position only kept rising.
Thinking through all of it, the sigh arrived on its own.
"Hey!"
A subordinate entered immediately.
"Yes, Naobito-sama."
"Were you able to reach Fear and Terror?"
"Yes, Naobito-sama… they declined the contract."
'It keeps compounding. Mercenaries — common contractors — refusing us openly now. Though coming from those two specifically, it's difficult to call it surprising.'
The information about them had surfaced about a year ago. A pair spreading a particular kind of disruption through Kyoto's jujutsu underworld — the kind that earned a reputation fast. Under normal circumstances, the report would have passed without holding attention for more than a moment.
Except for one detail.
No cursed energy. Either of them.
That detail had held attention completely. The immediate association was obvious: the twins. The ones who had caused damage on their way out years ago.
When the names came through, the question disappeared.
Roronoa Zoro. Roronoa Toji.
Too many points of overlap to be coincidence. There was no longer any doubt.
The two children this clan had mistreated had grown into something genuinely threatening.
'The Gojo situation wasn't enough. Now there are two more pointed directly at us.'
An attempt to reestablish contact had been made — framed as a standard mission request, nothing that would signal what it actually was. No response had come back. Not even acknowledgment.
'There's no recovering this. It's already gone too far.'
A beer can in one hand, the brooding continuing, when a sound arrived from nearby.
Clop!
The head turned immediately toward where the subordinate had been standing.
He was on the floor. Unconscious.
And in front of him stood a teenager.
"It's been a while, old man." A pause. "As you can see — we're back home."