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Chapter 17: Kyoto
2 years later
Far from the base of the Hida Mountains, and far from the quiet town where the Yuki clan trained, lived, and raised their children in relative peace, there existed a city that operated on an entirely different scale.
Kyoto.
The imperial capital of Japan and the beating heart of the nation. A city where power wasn't just exercised but performed, where every building and every street and every carefully maintained garden existed as a statement of dominance by whoever had the wealth and influence to claim it.
The imperial court resided here. So did the noble families, the merchant houses that controlled trade across the provinces, and the religious institutions that shaped the spiritual life of millions.
But above all, hidden in plain sight among the estates of the powerful and the palaces of the privileged, the headquarters of the organizations that governed the world most people didn't know existed.
The jujutsu sorcerer society.
The three great clans each maintained estates in Kyoto. It was expected.. or a better word would be, required. If you wanted a seat at the table where decisions were made, you needed a presence in the capital. The Kamo clan held their compound in the eastern districts. The Zenin clan occupied a fortress-like estate near the northern edge, and in the heart of the city, occupying a stretch of land that made the surrounding noble estates look like servant quarters, stood the Gojo clan compound.
It was massive.
Not in the way the Yuki estate was large, spread across a mountain valley with room to breathe and grow. The Gojo compound was massive, the way a statement is massive. Every wall was deliberately made tall. Every gate was deliberately wide. Every garden was deliberately spotless.
The architecture was perfected to the point of intimidation, each building constructed with the kind of precision and expense that showed them as the best.
The estate dwarfed the Yuki compound several times over for obvious reasons. The Gojo clan had centuries of accumulated wealth, political capital, and bloodline prestige backing every stone and every beam. They were one of the three pillars of sorcerer society.
And unlike the Yuki clan, which opened its doors to outsiders, adopted orphans like Obito, and integrated non-bloodline members into its ranks, the Gojo clan operated on a single, uncompromising principle.
Blood.
Only those who carried the Gojo surname walked these grounds as members. Only those born into the bloodline held status. Everyone else, servants, attendants, guards, existed to serve.
Walking through the estate on any given day, the uniformity was striking. White hair, with blue eyes. Generation after generation of carefully maintained lineage produces the same features.
The same snow-white hair that Yuki Fuyomi, born Gojo Fuyomi, once wore as a daughter of this house.
The same blue eyes.
But normal blue eyes. Clear and pale and sharp, but nothing like the crystal blue of Yuki Reizan's.
The honke of the Gojo estate sat at the center of the compound like a spider at the center of its web.
This was where the clan leader conducted their business. Where alliances were negotiated, and threats were assessed.
Along with where the future of one of the most powerful families in the history of jujutsu sorcery was decided.
Inside the office, behind a desk sat a man in his late sixties.
Gojo Masanori.
Current head of the Gojo clan. The eldest surviving son of the previous clan leader.
He was the administrator, politician, strategist, and, at this particular moment, a man who was really irritated by paperwork.
He was not an imposing figure in the way that warriors were imposing. He was lean rather than broad, with the sharp, angular features common to the Gojo bloodline and white hair pulled back in a formal topknot.
I really wish I were born with 6 eyes like my father.
His father had. His grandfather had not. The gift skipped and appeared randomly, indifferent to the desires of the men who spent their lives waiting for it.
Masanori had spent his entire career compensating for its absence with cunning, discipline, and an administrative ruthlessness that had kept the Gojo clan functioning smoothly through two succession crises.
He was good at his job even though he hated it.
Specifically, he hated this part of it. The endless scrolls, the reports from regional operatives, the financial summaries from the clan's merchant networks, and the diplomatic correspondence from allied families who wanted favors disguised as pleasantries.
He sighed as he set down his brush and stared at the stack of documents that seemed to grow every time he looked away.
How did Father manage this for decades? He thought. The man had the Six Eyes and still chose to spend his days buried in paper. Perhaps that was the true madness of the bloodline.
He pulled another document from the stack.
Revenue reports from the western territories. Tedious as always, but necessary.
KNOCK-KNOCK
A knock at the door interrupted him.
"Enter."
The door slid open, and a man walked in. Middle-aged, broad-shouldered, and weathered. A scar ran from his left temple to his jawline, old and faded, the kind that came from a blade rather than a curse.
This was Gojo Hirito. Commander of the Gojo clan's sorcerer forces. The man responsible for every combat-ready sorcerer the clan had.
He was one of the strongest members of the clan. A Grade One sorcerer who had earned his rank through decades of field work rather than privilege.
He was not the kind of man who knocked on the clan leader's door in the middle of the evening without a reason.
And his expression was dire.
Not panicked. Hirito didn't panic. But his jaw clenched hard in that particular way that meant he was carrying information he didn't like one bit of.
Masanori set down his brush.
"What's wrong?" he asked, leaning back slightly. "Is the Fujiwara clan acting up again?"
Hirito shook his head as he crossed the room and sat across from Masanori's desk.
"Something of equal importance," Hirito said, then paused. "Maybe even more."
Masanori's eyes narrowed.
He set his brush down fully and pushed the revenue reports aside.
This is going to be trouble.
"What is it?"
Hirito took a breath. Trying to find the best way to deliver the information he had.
"Our reconnaissance teams returned this morning with the annual reports," he began. "Provincial surveys and clan movements. The usual."
"And?"
"Most of it is standard. The Zenin clan is as aggressive as ever. Three new territorial disputes in the eastern provinces, two of which they started deliberately."
Masanori sighed. The Zenin were a permanent headache. If they weren't causing problems, it meant they were planning bigger ones.
"The Kamo clan," Hirito continued, "is quiet as always, nothing to worry there."
"Get to the point, Hirito."
Hirito met his eyes.
"It's about the Yuki clan."
The atmosphere changed.
The air pressure inside Masanori's office increased by a fraction, the guards standing outside the door felt something press against their spines like a cold hand and shivered without knowing why.
Masanori's cursed energy had spiked involuntarily.
Hirito said nothing about it. Instead, he simply waited.
"Continue," Masanori said.
The Yuki clan.
A minor clan with a decently strong cursed technique. Led by a man named Yuki Soran, whose primary qualification for the position was being talented enough to hold it and stubborn enough to keep it.
Irrelevant, by most measures. Beneath the notice of the three great clans.
Except for one thing.
Yuki Soran's wife was Gojo Fuyomi.
Born Gojo Fuyomi. Raised Gojo Fuyomi. Granddaughter of the previous clan head, the last Six Eyes user the Gojo bloodline had produced.
She had been disowned. Stripped of her name and her status and her inheritance for the crime of marrying outside the clan. For choosing a Yuki over a Gojo.
It had been a scandal. A wound that the clan's pride had never fully healed from.
And now Hirito was sitting in his office with a dire expression, saying the words Yuki clan like they were a lit fuse.
"Fuyomi's youngest child," Hirito said carefully, "seems to have…"
He paused.
"Seems to have what?"
"…awakened something."
"Finish the sentence, Hirito. Don't test my patience."
Hirito exhaled and finally said it.
"Her youngest son, Yuki Reizan, has awakened the Six Eyes."
Silence.
Complete silence.
Masanori's cursed energy erupted fully.
The air in the office vibrated violently. The scrolls on his desk scattered as the ink pot cracked. The wooden frame of his chair groaned under pressure that had nothing to do with weight.
Hirito sat perfectly still. He'd braced himself the moment before the outburst, reinforcing his body with cursed energy. He knew something like this was about to happen.
He waited for the clan head to cool down.
Ten seconds later, the pressure was gone.
Masanori calmed his cursed energy as he took deep breaths.
"Clan leader?"
Masanori's hands were flat on the desk as he tried to relax and think calmly.
"Are you sure it's 100% Six Eyes?"
"Confirmed by multiple sources. The boy awakened them approximately one year ago. He is currently six years old."
"Six."
"Yes."
"A Yuki."
"Half Yuki, half Gojo. Through Fuyomi..... Through the woman we cast out."
Hirito said nothing.
Masanori stared at the cracked ink pot. A thin line of black had begun to leak across the wood, spreading slowly, staining the documents beneath it.
That was not important right now.
The Six Eyes, AKA the pride of the Gojo clan. The rarest, most powerful ocular ability in the history of jujutsu sorcery. The trait that had defined their bloodline's supremacy for generations. The gift that appeared once in a century, if they were fortunate, and elevated whoever bore it to a level of power that redefined the balance of the entire sorcerer world.
And it had appeared in a six-year-old boy living at the foot of a mountain, raised by a clan that the Gojo had never considered a threat, born to a woman they had erased from their records.
The irony was too good.
And the implications were catastrophic.
Masanori leaned back in his chair as he closed his eyes. Pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose.
"Well.... That complicates things."
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Yup, here are the Gojo clan!!
Hope I portrayed them in the correct way.
Let me know your thoughts.