Alone in the quiet after Kamo Itsuki's departure, a thread of doubt unspooled in Geto's mind. If Itsuki has already mastered my technique—and he must have, given the myriad of abilities he's displayed—why would he need me to test that puppet curse?
He turned the question over, finding no clean edge to grasp. Itsuki's methods were often layered, his true objectives hidden beneath plausible explanations. But one truth remained absolute, a bedrock beneath all uncertainty: Itsuki would not harm me. With that, Geto let the question go, filing it away as another of his friend's inscrutable precautions. Trust, in this case, was simpler than understanding.
Meanwhile, in his secluded workshop, Kamo Itsuki was far from rest. Just as exhaustion threatened to pull him under, a bolt of strategic clarity struck—so sharp it felt physical.
The enemy is hidden, and I am exposed? he thought, then immediately corrected himself. No. The opposite is also true. Kenjaku doesn't know I'm hunting him.
His mind raced, aligning timelines. According to the derailed plot, Itadori Yuji would be a child now. Yet Itadori Kaori—the vessel Kenjaku had once worn like a suit—had vanished without a trace years ago. The ancient curse user was out there, a ghost in the machinery of the jujutsu world, patiently weaving his next scheme.
A new, aggressive plan crystallized. No more passive defense, waiting for Kenjaku to make his move. I will draw him out. I will set the trap.
His gaze hardened. The fight ahead would be a shadow war, demanding flawless execution. He had once been too weak to confront Kenjaku directly, even when he knew the monster wore a familiar face. Now, as a solidified Special Grade, that suppressed resolve roared to the surface, relentless and sharp.
Kenjaku will be searching for the Prison Realm, Itsuki reasoned, staring out his window as if he could see the threads of the conspiracy spanning Japan. It's the perfect key to control Tengen. So, I will dangle the key.
He contemplated Kenjaku's greatest asset: the vast, corroded intelligence network built over centuries, woven through the jujutsu higher-ups themselves during his time as Kamo Noritoshi. I won't just lure him. I'll use his own network as the bait, and in doing so, expose the rot within our own ranks. One stone, two birds.
The plan solidified, its success hinging on one critical artifact: a flawless forgery. The Prison Realm wasn't just a powerful cursed object; it was a concept given form, a domain of absolute stasis. Replicating its essence would be his greatest challenge.
He packed his essentials and retreated to his most secure workshop, a vault lined with stolen scrolls and cursed artifacts. For three days, he pored over ancient texts on barrier techniques and conceptual binding, but hit a wall. His knowledge was vast, his talent in puppet curses and barrier creation unparalleled, but this… this was different. The Prison Realm was unique. He couldn't learn it from a book; he had to reverse-engineer its fundamental principle.
Then, the breakthrough came not from a text, but from a memory—the inert, perfectly integrated puppet curse now resting within Geto Suguru.
Stasis. Not imprisonment, but perfect, suspended integration. The puppet curse didn't fight Geto's technique; it became a seamless, dormant part of it. That's the core. Not a cage of barriers, but a state of cursed neutralization.
A slow, focused smile touched his lips. He wouldn't recreate the Prison Realm's walls. He would replicate its effect: a perfect, beckoning void. A trap that didn't look like a trap, but like the one thing in the world Kenjaku desperately needed—a silent, hungry key.
The real work began now. Not just craftsmanship, but artistry. A forgery so convincing it would tempt a millennium of patience.
The realization was a cold splash of water. He had mastered techniques, deconstructed barriers, and pioneered puppet curses—but creating a Cursed Object, a physical artifact with its own innate rules, was an entirely different craft. He had no blueprint, no foundation to build upon.
So, he pivoted. The goal wasn't a perfect replica, but a perfect deception. "The Prison Realm's core function is an isolated sealing space with a distorted temporal flow," he muttered, the concept crystallizing into a new directive. He wouldn't forge the key; he would forge a lock that mimicked the key's unique shape.
His target: a Prison Realm Puppet Cursed Spirit. A being that could simulate the realm's effects—creating a sealed domain and warping time within it—so convincingly that any observer, especially one desperate for the real thing, would be fooled.
Inspiration struck from memory: the curse that had once trapped Utahime Iori and Mei Mei, warping their perception of time. Its mechanism was crude, but the principle was there. I don't need to slow perception for the victim, he reasoned. I need to accelerate it for the observer. Make a single second inside feel like an eternity from the outside, mimicking the Prison Realm's infamous temporal stasis in reverse.
For three months, his workshop became a crucible of focused obsession. Scrolls on spatial theory lay piled beside diagrams of biological curses. He wasn't just building a tool; he was performing forbidden synthesis, weaving barrier principles into a cursed spirit's very existence. The initial goal—the trap for Kenjaku—slowly receded into the background, replaced by the sheer, maddening challenge of the craft itself. He was no longer just a strategist; he was an artisan confronting the limits of his art.
Now, deep within a self-erected barrier humming with controlled chaos, Kamo Itsuki stood at the culmination. The air crackled with condensed cursed energy, and fleeting, ghostly runes spiraled around him. His face was pale with strain, sweat tracing lines through the dust on his skin, but his eyes burned with singular intensity.
"Prison Realm Puppet Cursed Spirit," he whispered, the words less a name and more an incantation. "This time, you will be born."
His hands moved in a fluid, precise dance, seals forming faster than the eye could follow. The vortex of energy around him tightened, whining like stressed metal. This was the core integration, the moment where spatial-binding barrier met temporal-warping curse, where concept had to be forced into compliant flesh.
Every muscle trembled with the effort of containment and control. This was not a technique of destruction, but one of impossibly delicate creation—holding two opposing realities in balance long enough to stitch them together.
With a final, gritted exhale that was part groan, part vow, he drove his will forward.
"Manifest!"
The barrier flashed a blinding, silent white. For a heartbeat, nothing existed but that light and the roaring pressure in his skull.
Then, the light collapsed inward, the runes shattered into fading motes, and the vortex dissolved. Floating in the center of the now-still room was a single, unassuming black orb. It pulsed once with a deep, slow light, like a dormant heart. No grand aura, no terrifying presence—just a profound, unsettling stillness radiating from it.
Kamo Itsuki slumped forward, bracing himself on the worktable, breath coming in ragged gasps. Exhaustion hollowed him out. But as he lifted his gaze to the orb, a faint, triumphant smile touched his bloodless lips.
It was done. The bait was forged. Not a copy, but a masterpiece of mimicry. A prison, shaped like a key.