The report from the Iwate hospital acted like a precisely cast lure, sending ripples through the stagnant ponds of power. A Cursed Spirit with a time-altering barrier? To the uninformed, it was a curious anomaly. To those with ancient knowledge, it was a beacon.
The news snaked its way through hidden channels: a Bansei Cult bishop had flagged it; a dispatched sorcerer had returned, aged in soul from seconds trapped inside; the target was upgraded to Grade 1. And then, the crucial update: Geto Suguru was moving to handle it personally.
In a dim, non-descript room, Kenjaku—inhabiting the body of a man with telltale stitching across his brow—received the final piece of intelligence. His lips curved into a thin, satisfied smile.
"How fortuitous," he murmured to the empty air, his voice a dry rustle. "The Prison Realm resurfaces, fused with some lowly spirit… and the keyholder walks willingly into the same room. One trip to claim two prizes. The threads of fate are weaving themselves quite conveniently."
He traveled not with fanfare, but with the silence of a creeping shadow, arriving at the Iwate hospital where a veil of Geto's making already shimmered in the perceptual field of any sorcerer.
"Clearing the path for me. How thoughtful," Kenjaku mused. He didn't breach the veil. Instead, he layered his own over it, a more subtle, complex binding. It was a one-way lock: nothing inside could get out without his permission, but he could enter at will. A perfect trap within a trap.
He stepped through both barriers as if passing through a curtain. The hospital corridor stretched before him, haunted by listless, low-grade curses that shied away from his presence. His focus was absolute, fixed on the spiritual pressure ahead—the clashing auras of a powerful curse and a Special Grade sorcerer.
This era, he thought, a wave of cold exhilaration rising within him. It is a gift. The convergence of Tengen's evolution, the emergence of a perfect vessel for Cursed Spirit Manipulation, and now the lost Prison Realm… it cannot be coincidence. It is providence for my design.
The Prison Realm was the linchpin. With it, he could solve the single greatest obstacle: the Infinity of Gojo Satoru. Seal the Six Eyes, and the path would be clear. The so-called "divine child" of the Kamo Clan? Kenjaku's memory held the intimate secrets of Blood Manipulation from his time as Noritoshi. An unknown variable, but a manageable one.
As for Geto Suguru ahead… a talented youth, certainly. But Cursed Spirit Manipulation was a technique of accumulation and variety, unpredictable but not insurmountable. Its true potential was realized over decades of collection. The boy hadn't had that time.
Kenjaku moved down the sterile hallway, his footsteps silent. The chaotic energy ahead was reaching a crescendo. The exorcism was reaching its climax. Perfect timing. He would let Geto expend his energy subduing the troublesome spirit, then step in to collect both the prize and the exhausted prize-winner.
The grand plan, a millennium in the plotting, was entering its most delicate and active phase. And it began here, in this nondescript hospital, with the claiming of a cage and the key that could unlock everything.
The illusion of control shattered the moment the many-eyed Cursed Spirit manifested. Kenjaku's analytical calm faltered for a fraction of a second. This pressure… this stasis… It is the Prison Realm's signature, but it's… active. Aggressive. Before he could fully process it, the environment itself turned against him—walls, floor, ceiling blooming with accusatory eyes, their collective gaze a tangible weight seeking to root him in place.
"A crude attempt," Kenjaku scoffed, masking his unease with contempt. "Using a freshly subdued curse as your opening move? How unimaginative."
He didn't dodge. He redefined the battlefield. With a casual gesture, he invoked his Cursed Technique: Gravity Maximization.
The world compressed. The groaning hospital structure gave one final shriek of stressed concrete and steel before collapsing inward, crushed into a pancake of rubble under impossible weight. The low-grade curses populating it vanished into puffs of extinguished energy. The many-eyed Prison Realm Cursed Spirit strained, its eyes bulging, before it too was violently exorcised, flattened into nothingness.
As the dust settled on the ruins, Kenjaku's triumph curdled into confusion. There was no residual artifact, no gleaming prize. Nothing. Had Geto already retrieved the core of the Prison Realm before his arrival?
His answer stepped through the settling haze of plaster and cursed energy.
Geto Suguru stood amid the wreckage, his monastic robes untouched by dust, his expression a placid lake over a deep, cold current. "You owe me a Cursed Spirit," he said, his voice calm yet carrying an edge of steel. "That one took considerable effort to subdue."
Kenjaku's smile was thin and razor-sharp. "You set a watchdog on me first. Consider it a greeting."
The air between them grew thick, charged with hostile intent. The flickering emergency lights of the destroyed hospital cast long, dancing shadows, transforming the rubble into a surreal arena.
Geto didn't waste time on more words. His hands formed a series of seals, and names spilled from his lips in a rapid, fluid chant. The space around him distorted as Cursed Spirits answered his call.
The first to strike was a blazing avian curse, a comet of furious flame streaking toward Kenjaku, its maw opening to unleash a torrent of incinerating fire.
Kenjaku's disdain remained. "Gravity," he intoned, his voice flat. With a sweeping gesture, he didn't just deflect the attack—he reversed its vector.
The roaring pillar of flame halted mid-air, shuddered, and then hurtled back toward its originator with doubled, malicious force, as if the very concept of 'forward' had been inverted. The rebounded inferno illuminated Geto's stern face, testing his defenses in the opening move of a duel between a master of spirits and a master of fundamental forces. The true fight had begun, not for a mythical artifact, but for survival and a far greater prize.
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