The men at the top have always been hypersensitive about their own survival.
Personal safety comes before any hunger for political power.
That is why—despite Gojo Satoru raising hell, despite an unknown outsider strutting across Japan in broad daylight—they chose to look the other way.
Measured against cold, objective force, even with the Special-Grade Cursed Spirit they were colluding with, they still didn't have enough muscle.
Yes, they were cutting deals with a Curse—an unforgivable sin for a Jujutsu Sorcerer. But they were no sorcerers. They were decrepit politicians in love with authority and self-preservation. Monsters, really.
So they clasped a Curse's hand without flinching and waited for an opening.
Thanks to Muta Kokichi's wide-area communication Technique that blanketed all of Japan, contacting one another was easy.
A fixed place, a fixed hour—simple enough. They regretted not finding the enemy's hideout, but arranging the rendezvous was trivial.
Then, a few weeks ago, something inside them shifted.
They began to believe that unless they eliminated at least one pillar of the opposition, everything would collapse. That fear spread through the entire upper echelon like a slow rot, each man reinforcing the next until panic ballooned far larger than any one mind could contain.
Every time they put their heads together they asked the same question: How do we kill them?
The answer they arrived at was assassination by Technique—poison set off by a trigger.
They laid plans, recruited sorcerers sympathetic to the establishment—plenty of them from the ultraconservative Kamo clan.
With that manpower they flooded the venue, their own Cursed Energy masking the faint residue inside the poisoned food so it looked harmless.
They even managed to make the target swallow a single, innocuous-looking dumpling.
They hadn't expected him to taste the tampering, but they had braced for the possibility.
The white-haired stranger's maximum number of shikigami—whatever those things were—seemed to be two. Any more had to remain on standby. One alone was absurdly strong and fully autonomous; the Cursed Energy drain must have been brutal. Unless he'd forged some Binding Vow to lighten the cost… impossible to tell when no energy signature could be felt.
Instead of accepting the impossibility of "zero Cursed Energy," they twisted reality in their own minds: he wasn't empty, he was hiding it.
A Technique with no Cursed Energy? Logically absurd—unless you allowed for an entirely different system. But they couldn't imagine that he hailed from another world with a power structure beyond Jujutsu. Their good sense was already fogged by the allure that clung to him—that was the biggest reason they failed.
"Haa—"
Raikō's eyes flashed and she unleashed a surge of Magical Energy.
Crackle! Violet lightning, reeking of demonic allure, spread through the air like a spiderweb.
"Gaaah!"
The charging sorcerers convulsed and dropped, electrocuted on the spot. Those closest took a direct hit; the ones farther back had just enough time to throw up a Cursed Energy guard or dodge.
She wasn't trying to kill—only to break their morale—so she kept the voltage low.
The instant the lightning struck, Elders Two, Three, and Four bolted for the rear exit.
They never made it. A woman in a scarlet cheongsam materialized from nowhere—Ushi-gozen, wearing a wicked grin.
"K-kghk—"
In one blur she drew the obsidian blade [Dojigiri Yasutsuna] and sliced each elder's throat with surgical precision. Blood geysered in every direction; their choking rattles were the very sound of death.
Raikō had purposely let Elder One, who stood right in front of her, escape the lightning's main arc—she needed a witness.
"We'll bind him so he physically cannot lie," she announced for all to hear. "The payment will be his life if he breaks the vow."
Only one discharge, and thirty percent of her Magical Energy was already gone. Meanwhile Ushi-gozen held the rear gate, while Ibuki-douji and Foreigner herded stragglers around the perimeter.
"Good idea," Koyanskaya of Light—Assassin—said beside Kadoc, smiling as she cast a sleep spell on Elder One.
"Urgh…"
The old man swayed, then collapsed. With his mind shattered and his Cursed Energy muddled by the earlier shock, his resistance to Magecraft was pitiful.
"Anyone who wishes to live, face-down on the floor. Now," Ibuki-douji and Foreigner shouted, herding the remaining fighters with casual pressure. "Three-count. Three… two—"
It was the single rope of hope left to them. The upper brass was dead, the battle already lost; no sorcerer had reason to die here, and certainly not for fools who had misjudged everything.
Every sorcerer who plastered themselves to the floor thought the same thing: This was impossible from the start. The elders had been idiots—no, warped into idiocy by something none of them could perceive.
"I expected the place to be painted red," Assassin muttered beside Kadoc, her indifference plain. Dead or alive, it was all the same to her. Foreigner lazily twirled her whip, a little disappointed to have missed out on proper torment; she consoled herself by slowly licking her lips. The Master's wishes came first.
"The rest have surrendered. The upper echelon is effectively annihilated. A tidy result," Assassin said just as Ushi-gozen, guarding the rear, flicked her sword.
Crackle! A bolt of Raikō-colored violet shot across the room and speared Elder Five.
"Guuuaaargh!"
His body spasmed, then hit the floor, smoking with the acrid stench of charred meat.
"Our witnesses are the ones groveling there—and that unconscious geezer. That should suffice," Ushi-gozen offered, meeting Kadoc's eyes. She swallowed the words I just wanted to kill him.
"Fine by me." Kadoc understood her instinct, but let it slide. The man was as good as dead anyway.
Fewer casualties than expected—small mercy. The chaos was mostly under control; now came cleanup, and Kadoc finally allowed himself to relax a fraction.
Assassin immediately informed the Prime Minister that the Supervisory Bureau had been wiped out and that the sole survivor would be interrogated. The news must have sounded insane, yet the PM accepted it with surprising calm—Assassin had primed him well.
On the night of what should have been a massacre but turned into a comparatively polite bloodletting, they moved without rest to Tokyo Metropolitan Technical College.
"S-sweet merciful— the entire upper echelon, gone…?" Ijichi Kiyotaka, their driver, trembled as he muttered. Small wonder he was shaken: the elders were dead, they were ferrying a lone survivor, and Tokyo College awaited.
"We've arrived." By the time they pulled up, Ijichi's voice had steadied; the first wave of shock had ebbed.
"Thank you," Kadoc said as they climbed out and started up the steps. The other Servants clung invisibly to the roof; midway up they manifested, six Servants in full view as they entered the grounds.
"Welcome," Yaga Masamichi greeted them from the terrace, sunglasses hiding exhausted eyes.
"Sorry for calling so late," Kadoc said.
"Forget it. I just never imagined you'd actually take the elders apart."
"They came after me first. If I'd swallowed that poison without purging the Cursed Energy, I could be dead right now." One wrong second and the toxin would have raced through vital organs—once a viscera fails, repair is never guaranteed. Yaga exhaled; he had no rebuttal, but his sigh said he saw through the excuse and chose silence—an ally's courtesy, not fear.
"I hear the Kamo clan head left Kyoto the moment he got the news. He'll be last to arrive—keep that in mind."
"Of course. Where's Gojo?"
"Right here."
Gojo dropped out of the sky the instant his name was spoken—never one for polite entrances.
"Man, you call me out at this hour and this is what's waiting? Talk about entertainment." He strode over grinning, the blackout visor familiar as ever—no bandages this timeline, another ripple of the butterfly effect.
Kadoc nodded toward the old man. "Didn't see poison coming. I was careful, but it was close."
"Poison, huh? Old-school."
"And they made sure I saw them eat the same Cursed-Energy-laced dumplings to lower my guard."
"Probably sealed it with a Binding Vow—something like, 'the Technique won't affect us elders.'"
Kadoc agreed; without such a safeguard they'd never have risked the same toxin.
"Anyway, who'd've thought the fogeys would get swept off the board in one night? I'll sleep well tonight—what little shut-eye I can afford." Gojo laughed.
"Luckily the Shinkansen's still running. He should be here in a few hours," Kadoc said.
"Good. I might grab a catnap while we wait."
"Our Servants can stand watch. Speaking of which, where do we set up?"
"Follow me," Yaga said, turning on his heel.
They ended up in an old-fashioned dojo at the heart of the campus.
"Whoa… they actually brought him," came a weary female voice. Inside stood Shoko Ieiri, white coat over scrubs, dark circles like bruises under her eyes—the College's resident medic, who had traded cigarettes for hard liquor.
"Ms. Ieiri, long time no see," Kadoc said.
"Yeah, been months, huh? I've caught glimpses of you, but not like this."
"You still look exhausted. You could skip the interrogation and rest."
She nodded. "That's the plan. I only came to gawk at one of our dear elders. Feels surreal." Her tone dripped sarcasm. Elder One, mind vacant, didn't respond.
"Anyway, looks like he's a vegetable. Just keep things locked down, okay?"
"Understood."
"I'm off, then. Gojo, keep an eye on him just in case."
"Roger." Gojo dismissed her with a lazy wave.
The presence of six Servants made the room feel secure.
"Master, we'll handle the watch. You're perpetually sleepy as it is," Foreigner scolded gently, expression worried.
"Can I really?" Kadoc asked. Physical intimacy pumped enough dopamine through his system to pull an all-nighter, but tonight fatigue gnawed at him. Dawn hours had always been brutal since childhood—some things never changed.
"Then I'll rest. I'm counting on all of you."
"Allow me," Foreigner said, slipping under his arm to steady him.
"Thanks."
She guided him to a corner of the dojo. The floor was cold, but a quick spell warmed the air; the chill faded, and with it the shivers.
Peace, at last. Kadoc closed his eyes—slowly, languidly—and slipped into sleep.