"You want this one, or should I?" Satoru Gojo asked, eyeing the fused curse before them with a look of pure, unadulterated physical pain.
"Uh... you take it," Hasegumo replied. He got the distinct feeling that this "Fusion" was a botched job.
Standing before them was a man who seemed to have synthesized every possible aesthetic drawback of both Little Boy and Fat Man. He was about five feet tall and... roughly five feet wide. His face was a landscape of excessive adipose tissue, burying his features so deeply they were barely recognizable. His limbs looked like lotus roots—reminiscent of Nezha's reconstructed body—haphazardly stuck onto a torso that sported a nonsensical red scarf around the neck. It was impossible to tell which of the two curses was in the driver's seat.
"Did someone's water tank attain enlightenment and sprout legs?" Gojo muttered.
The "Little Meatball"—as it was now more accurately described—had been feeling a bit intimidated by the two Special Grade sorcerers. However, hearing Gojo's comment, its rage boiled over. It clenched its right fist with a violent jerk.
BOOM!
An explosion with a radius of over twenty meters erupted instantly between the two men. Purple-black lightning crackled as a mushroom cloud billowed upward.
"Stop looking down on me!" the Meatball shrieked, its arms flailing. High-yield explosions began popping off around the duo in rapid succession. "Taste the reality of a nuclear blast!"
Mushroom clouds choked the battlefield, obscuring Hasegumo and Gojo. Ignoring the lack of visibility, the Meatball acted on pure instinct, detonating blast after blast within the smog like a creature possessed.
"There..." A sliver of a smirk touched its bloated lips.
While the triggers for these explosions were almost instantaneous, they weren't a lethal threat to two Special Grade sorcerers of their caliber. However, Hasegumo's movement speed was slightly lacking in comparison to Gojo's; the staggered chain of explosions forced him to leap into the air to find breathing room.
This was exactly what the Meatball wanted.
The moment it saw Hasegumo break through the smoke and take flight, it curled its right thumb in and gripped its four fingers with its left hand.
"Domain Expansion: Atomic—"
A hand rested gently on its shoulder.
A sudden, icy chill washed over the curse. It realized, far too late, that it had lost track of someone.
"Hey. Where exactly are you looking?"
February 26, 2018.
"On this day, Special Grade Sorcerers Hasegumo and Satoru Gojo were tasked with the exorcism of the Special Grade Curses: 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man.'"
"Due to various factors, the mission was not completed within the confines of the Curtain, resulting in the leakage of radioactive Cursed Energy."
"The result: over twenty thousand civilians in Hiroshima City sustained severe radiation injuries."
"In Nagasaki City, all 870,000 residents—and the land itself—have been confirmed lost."
"Losses in surrounding prefectures and cities due to the resulting tsunamis are still being calculated."
Masamichi Yaga held a clipboard, reading the report with a stony, expressionless face. "Satoru Gojo: For failing to maintain the Curtain, leading to its destruction, you bear primary responsibility. Therefore, all additional income and resources of the Gojo clan—excluding basic living expenses—will be seized and redistributed by the Jujutsu Association for the next ten years to compensate for the damages. The remaining costs will be shared by the Association and the government."
"Satoru Gojo is further ordered to undergo serious self-reflection. From this day forward, his range of movement is restricted to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sendai, and Fukuoka."
"Furthermore, all rights, privileges, and benefits associated with the rank of Special Grade Sorcerer are revoked for a period of three years."
Hasegumo, with his feet propped up on the table, turned to glance at Gojo. The man looked completely unbothered, currently occupied with stuffing a large white daifuku into his mouth.
"Hasegumo: For failing to timely contain the spread of Cursed Energy, you bear secondary responsibility. However, given that you maintained your Curtain throughout the battle and provided immediate medical aid to radiation victims, mitigating further losses, your punishment is limited to one year of suspended pay."
"Could you try not to look like a starving ghost for five seconds?" Hasegumo snapped. Hearing his own pay was being docked while Gojo noisily chewed next to him was doing wonders for his irritation levels.
"It's so gud..." Gojo mumbled. Instead of stopping, he began eating even faster. "If I'm gonna be a broke loser, I won't be able to afford stuff this tasty anymore. Gotta get it in while I can."
"Valid point." Hasegumo was instantly convinced. He reached over, grabbed a premium Kikufuku from the tray, and took a bite.
A wave of cloying sweetness hit his brain. "Ugh. I can't handle this much sugar."
"Sugar... give me that glucose..." Gojo, channeling his inner Gintoki, inhaled the rest of the tray.
Yaga, choosing to ignore the blatant disrespect, continued: "The disciplinary measures for this incident have been read. Do the parties have any objections?"
He glanced up. Neither replied. Yaga's tone shifted. "Now, for the other matter."
"Due to the fact that the two Cursed Spirits possessed the power to cause a world-ending crisis, your success in exorcising them warrants a reward."
"Hasegumo and Satoru Gojo are permitted to enter the Cursed Warehouse and select up to five Cursed Tools each. No grade restrictions."
"Oh?" Hasegumo nudged Gojo with his elbow. "Did you hear that? Free pickings."
"Who cares?" Gojo said, still chasing his sugar high. "A third of the stuff in that warehouse belongs to the Gojo family anyway. Besides, the actually useful tools are already assigned to high-ranking sorcerers."
"What's left is either impossible to use or incredibly inconvenient. Plus, don't you have a Binding Vow that prevents you from using weapons?"
"My pay is gone, Satoru. Can't I just take them and sell them to other sorcerers for cash?" Hasegumo waved a hand and stood up to leave, pocketing a Kikufuku on his way out. "Bye-bye, Principal Yaga."
Gojo rolled his eyes but noticed Yaga set down the clipboard and walk slowly toward him. "Satoru, don't take this too—"
"Don't worry, Yaga-sensei." Gojo tossed the last sweet into his mouth and stood up. "The 'resolve' of a jujutsu sorcerer... you taught me that a long time ago, didn't you?"
"Uh... actually, I was going to say don't take it too far. Those Kikufuku weren't for you; they were for guests. You raided my private stash from my cabinet."
"Due to the financial crisis, those were bought in bulk by the school to offset part of my salary," Yaga suddenly bellowed. "You want to pay me back in cash?!"
"I'm broke! If you're that stressed, you should retire early and let me take over as Principal." Gojo dropped the line and immediately initiated his Secret Technique: Ripple Overdrive toward the door.
"Also, old men shouldn't eat too much sugar. You'll get cavities!"
Yaga watched Gojo flash past the doorway and vanish. He stood silently for a long time before slowly walking back to his desk.
"I just hope... you aren't blaming yourself too much."
These days, being a villain is a difficult profession—especially if you want to be a popular one.
Not only do you have to be handsome, but you also need to be a master of all trades, possessing a diverse array of knowledge and skills. A PhD is basically the entry-level requirement; if you only have a Bachelor's, you're too embarrassed to even introduce yourself to your peers.
Furthermore, by some unwritten rule, every villain must have a tragic, hidden past. You need to have been a victim of secret experiments by an evil organization or watched your family get tortured to death. If you try to seek revenge on society just because your parents died of natural causes, your fellow villains will laugh you out of the room.
Only with such a tragic backstory do you have the justification to work hard on the path of opposing the protagonists.
As for Kenjaku... we don't yet know his tragic backstory.
Purely in terms of looks, he met the criteria. Whether it was the original charm of Suguru Geto's face or his current host—a member of the Inumaki clan—that silver-white hair provided plenty of "cool" points.
As for education, as a sorcerer who had survived for a millennium, his knowledge of jujutsu was second to none. If the jujutsu world had academic titles, Kenjaku would be on par with Bohr or Heisenberg, if not Einstein and Newton.
Finally, there was strength. Unlike Tengen, who was a shut-in, Kenjaku had spent a thousand years in the trenches. He had slaughtered countless curses and sorcerers. Executing a Domain Expansion—the pinnacle of jujutsu—was as simple as breathing for him.
All in all, Kenjaku possessed every quality of a final boss. He also had a classic villainous ambition: he wanted to destroy the existing order, upend society, and return the world to the Heian Era—the Golden Age of Jujutsu.
They were in an underground facility, originally built as an air-raid shelter. After the last world war and decades of peace, it had predictably fallen into ruin.
However, the space was currently anything but damp, cold, or infested with vermin.
"Since you've faced them head-on now..."
"Jogo. If your combat power is a 'one,' what would you rank Hasegumo's strength?"
The click of a light switch echoed. In the darkness, Jogo slowly opened his eye. He shook his head, still seemingly dazed by the void he had just returned from. "Am I... not dead?"
"Reviving you lot cost me quite a bit of effort," Kenjaku said, brushing a strand of white hair from his forehead.
Jogo squeezed his eyelid shut and opened it again. It wasn't a hallucination.
"Yo, Senpai."
"Jogo."
A male and female voice reached his ears. He looked around. Lying on slabs similar to his were Hanami and Mahito. Dagon stood beside Kenjaku.
Beside them stood another man with blonde hair, leaning on a cane. However, the man's legs looked perfectly healthy.
"Who is that?" Jogo asked, pointing a finger.
"I am Laplace," the blonde man replied with a slight bow. "A curse born from humanity's fear of mathematics."
"What is going on here?"
"Just some experiments I've been running. Since you didn't leave any residue when you died, reviving you was... complicated."
Kenjaku's wide sleeves fluttered as he gestured toward the plaza below. "Behold my masterpiece: the 'Meteor' device."
It was a colossal ring-shaped apparatus encircling the entire plaza. Its surface was made of various alloy segments welded together, each etched with intricate patterns. Upon closer inspection, those patterns were identical to the ones carved into the 'Doors' of the Star Corridor.
"Things got quite hectic recently. All of Nagasaki was wiped out."
"But fortunately, it provided an opportunity. While everyone's attention was elsewhere..." Kenjaku clapped his hands. "I managed to harvest plenty of 'material' before the area was completely sterilized."
The barrier covering the plaza shifted from opaque to transparent, revealing different partitioned zones.
The people inside were in various states of distress. Some were in rags like beggars, others looked as catatonic as zombies. Some lay on the ground, clearly deceased.
In the center of each group stood a transparent vat, roughly two people tall and half a meter wide. Each vat brimmed with thick, concentrated Cursed Energy.
Deep within that energy, various Cursed Wombs were slowly taking shape.
"I am going to hand-craft the 'Strongest' Cursed Spirit."
"By the way, you haven't answered my question."
Jogo looked down at the vats, then shared a look with Hanami. He was silent for a long moment before finally giving his answer.
"From the perspective of a curse... over a hundred."
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