Fushiguro Toji's hand twitched toward the empty space on his belt where the Inverted Spear of Heaven had rested. A cold fury, sharp and clean, cut through his weariness. That blade was more than a tool; it was an equalizer, the key that had unlocked the strongest sorcerer's defense. Its loss was a tangible amputation of his capability.
"You…" he began, the word a low growl.
"Is a fact," Kamo finished for him, unmoved. "Consider it a tuition fee. You attempted to assassinate a ward under the protection of Jujutsu High and inflicted grave injury upon one of its prized assets. Your life is the principal debt. The spear is merely interest." His tone left no room for negotiation. It was the voice of a collector who had already cataloged the item in his mental vault.
Toji forced his breathing to steady. Arguing was pointless. The spear was gone. He filed the loss away, another piece of data in the ledger of this encounter. "And the second?" he asked, his voice flat.
"The second," Kamo said, his gaze sharpening, "concerns your son. Megumi, was it? The one you plan to sell to the Zen'in."
A different kind of tension seized Toji—colder, deeper than the anger over the spear. This was a line he had not expected to be crossed.
"He is not your concern."
"He became my concern the moment you spoke his name with your dying breath," Kamo countered. "The Zen'in Clan is a relic. Its methods are obsolete, its mindset a poison. A child with the potential to inherit the Ten Shadows Technique should not be ground into paste by their antique machinery." He paused, letting the implication hang. "I will intercept the sale. The boy will be given a different path. One where his value is recognized, but not as a clan's blunt instrument."
Toji stared, his mind racing. This wasn't an attack; it was a reshaping of his own failed contingencies. He had offered Megumi to the Zen'in as a final, cynical act of providing some future, however bleak. Now, this sorcerer was casually dismantling even that.
"Why?" The question was stripped bare.
"Because waste offends me," Kamo stated simply. "And the Zen'in represent a profound waste of potential. Consider it a… side project. You need not be involved."
Toji had no response. The world was bending around this young man's will, and he was powerless to stop it.
"And the third?" Toji finally asked, the fight utterly drained from him.
"The third is a warning, and an offer." Kamo took a final step closer, his presence filling the passage not with menace, but with undeniable gravity. "The people who hired you—the Time Vessel Association, the Bansei Cult, the anonymous backers on the dark web—they failed. They will look for someone to blame. That someone will be you. A rogue agent, a convenient scapegoat. You will have a price on your head far heavier than the one you placed on Amanai Riko."
He let that sink in. Toji was a realist; he knew it was true. Failure in this business was always punished.
"My offer is this," Kamo continued. "Disappear. But do not simply hide. Watch. When I begin to change the landscape of the jujutsu world—and I will—there will be chaos. Old structures will crack. In those cracks, opportunities will arise for someone with your… unique skillset. Not as a hired knife, but as a free agent. When that time comes, I may have use for you. And you may find that the new order has a place for a weapon that exists outside the old rules."
He was not offering employment. He was offering a future position in a paradigm he hadn't yet built. It was audacious to the point of insanity.
Toji looked at Kamo Itsuki—at the calm certainty in his eyes, at the blood drying on his clothes that was as much a part of him as his own skin. This was not a sorcerer playing the game. This was someone rewriting the rules mid-match.
"You're insane," Toji said, but it was an observation, not a rejection.
"Perhaps," Kamo acknowledged. "But I am also correct. Now go. Heal. Stay alive. And watch."
He turned then, presenting his back—an ultimate gesture of dismissal, or perhaps of supreme confidence that Toji was no longer a threat. The conversation was over.
Fushiguro Toji stood for a long moment in the ruined passage, the weight of the lost spear, the redirected fate of his son, and the staggering, open-ended offer settling upon him. Then, without a word, he turned and walked into the darkness, not as a defeated assassin, but as a man released into a stranger, more uncertain future than he had ever imagined. Kamo Itsuki did not watch him go. He had already begun mentally composing the report for Yaga, and integrating the priceless data on Heavenly Restriction he had just acquired. The first move of his long game was complete.
Kamo's words struck a nerve far deeper than any physical blow. Toji's defiance, which had been a reflex of his fierce independence, flickered. He had discarded everything—his name, his clan, his place in any world. He was a weapon for hire, a ghost existing only in the spaces between orders. What was he holding onto? Pride? In a man who sold his own son's future for a price? Dignity? In a killer who ambushed teenagers?
The silence that followed was thick and heavy. The hostility in Toji's eyes didn't vanish, but it dimmed, replaced by a hollow, weary understanding. He wasn't being threatened with death; he was being confronted with the bleak arithmetic of his own existence.
Kamo observed the shift. He didn't press the advantage with more words. The point had been made. The curse in Toji's bloodstream was not just a shackle; it was a mirror, forcing him to look at the man he had become.
"You understand now," Kamo said, his voice losing its playful edge, becoming matter-of-fact. "This isn't about trust. It's about alignment. Your interests and mine currently converge on one point: your continued survival and operational freedom. The curse ensures that if our interests diverge in a way that threatens me, I can correct the course. It's an insurance policy, not a leash. Do your job—stay alive, watch the horizon, avoid Gojo Satoru—and you'll never feel it twitch."
He turned fully now, beginning to walk back toward the main hall, the conversation clearly concluded. "The side exit is fifty meters down, on your left. It leads to the forest. Go."
Toji stood rooted for another moment, watching Kamo's retreating back. The urge to lunge, to try and tear out the sorcerer's throat and reclaim some shred of agency, warred with the cold, logical part of his brain that knew it was futile. The fight was over. He had lost more than a battle; he had lost the right to his own narrative.
With a final, silent exhale that was neither a sigh nor a growl, Fushiguro Toji turned on his heel. He did not look back. He walked the fifty meters, found the rough-hewn stone door disguised as part of the wall, and pushed it open. Sunlight, fresh and alien after the blood-soaked dimness of the passage, streamed in.
He stepped out into the cool air of the forest, the door sealing shut behind him with a soft thud of finality. He was free. And he was more trapped than he had ever been.
Back in the passage, Kamo Itsuki reached the junction leading to the main hall. He paused, not out of doubt, but to perform a final internal check. The sample of Toji's blood and cells was integrating, his technique already beginning the slow, complex process of deciphering the blueprint of Heavenly Restriction. The Inverted Spear of Heaven was a tangible prize. And he had secured a dangerous, unpredictable asset for the turbulent future he knew was coming.
He thought of Gojo, likely already stirring back to a furious, transcendent consciousness. He thought of Geto and Shoko, guarding a girl who now had a future. He thought of Tengen, awaiting a merger that would preserve the old world just long enough for Kamo to build a new one.
A faint, genuine smile touched his lips. The pieces were moving. The board was set. And he was no longer merely a player. He was becoming the game itself.
He adjusted his uniform, smoothed a wrinkle, and walked into the light of the main hall to rejoin his friends.
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