Tokyo, inside an unknown apartment building.
Within a domain, Kenjaku, currently occupying Geto Suguru's body, was carrying out his final preparations before the coming battle.
Standing before him was a lineup far more formidable than the one present during the Inter-School Exchange Event in the original story.
Aside from the Disaster Curses—Mahito, Jogo, Hanami, and Dagon—there were also the Death Painting Womb: Nine Phases brothers whom Kenjaku had temporarily activated: Choso, Eso, and Kechizu.
The reason he had been able to obtain the three brothers at this point in time was thanks to Kenjaku having deliberately switched to the body of a jujutsu higher-up during this period, thereby gaining access to the three cursed wombs.
In terms of raw strength, the Death Painting brothers were inferior to the Disaster Curses, but each of them was still equivalent to a Special Grade curse.
In other words—
There were now seven Special Grade curses, plus Kenjaku himself.
A total of eight Special Grade–level combatants.
The reason Kenjaku was mobilizing such an overwhelming force for something as seemingly minor as the Inter-School Exchange Event was simple: the pressure he had been under lately was immense.
After all, because An Xora was based in Tokyo, Seele, the newly promoted Special Grade sorcerer, had not behaved like the other Special Grades in the jujutsu world (aside from Gojo Satoru), who were either overseas or constantly difficult to track.
Instead, her area of activity had remained firmly within Tokyo.
This alone was already completely different from the original storyline.
In the original plot, even when Tokyo only had Gojo Satoru as its sole Special Grade sorcerer, Kenjaku had gone through layers of calculation to restrict Gojo's actions. Only then had the curse side succeeded in firmly drawing Gojo's attention to the Inter-School Exchange Event, allowing Mahito to infiltrate the Headquarters and steal a large number of Sukuna's fingers.
And even under those circumstances, Hanami had still nearly died at Gojo's hands during the retreat.
Now, however, the sorcerer side had gained Seele—a Special Grade who was permanently active in Tokyo and possessed a space-movement technique.
Continuing to follow the original plan would clearly no longer work.
Leaving everything else aside, even if Kenjaku set up a barrier as in the original plan—one that only prevented Gojo Satoru from entering—so long as Seele arrived at the scene and entered the barrier, how long could Hanami alone delay her?
Most likely not long at all before being cut down, which would cause the sorcerers at Jujutsu High to shift their attention and expose Mahito's infiltration of the Headquarters.
This was by no means an unlikely scenario.
A Special Grade sorcerer with spatial movement—just how fast their support response could be was beyond imagination.
In the worst-case scenario, Seele might even appear at the exchange event together with Gojo from the very beginning.
After all, the Inter-School Exchange Event was being held at Tokyo Jujutsu High. Inviting a Special Grade sorcerer who was constantly active in Tokyo to attend as a guest was entirely reasonable.
At that point, there would be two Special Grade sorcerers on site.
One of them—Gojo Satoru—was the acknowledged strongest sorcerer in the modern era, a monster even in the eyes of Kenjaku, who had existed for a thousand years.
The other—Seele—was a newly promoted Special Grade with a suspected record of defeating Gojo, wielding unknown techniques that included space movement, attack nullification, and possibly much more.
Facing two such absurdly dangerous enemies on the opposing side—
Kenjaku would have to be brain-dead not to take this seriously.
Thus, in this revised plan, Hanami, who was originally supposed to infiltrate Jujutsu High alone and secretly head toward the exchange venue to cause chaos, would instead infiltrate together with Jogo and the three Death Painting brothers.
With Hanami's abilities, combined with Kenjaku's assistance, infiltrating the barrier—even with four extra people—should not pose too great a problem.
Mahito, meanwhile, would proceed as originally planned, infiltrating the Headquarters to retrieve Sukuna's fingers while everyone else's attention was diverted.
Unfortunately, if not for the sheer number of fingers that needed to be taken—making it impossible to act discreetly through a higher-up's identity, as he had with the Death Paintings—Kenjaku would not have needed to take such a risk.
In addition, Kenjaku himself would secretly head toward the exchange venue to provide support. Along with a group of curse users he had specifically gathered to sow chaos, it should be possible to draw attention away for a short time.
At least… in theory.
To be honest, even with this lineup, Kenjaku still felt uneasy.
But there was nothing more he could arrange.
If even one of the two Special Grade sorcerers currently in Tokyo—Gojo Satoru or Seele—were absent, the situation would not be nearly this troublesome.
A Special Grade sorcerer with spatial movement introduced far too many variables.
And that space movement, along with the ability to evade attacks, might very well be just the tip of the iceberg of Seele's true power.
...
Meanwhile, while Kenjaku was finalizing his battle plans, An Xora was dealing with worries of his own.
In theory, with Seele and Makima at his side, there was nothing left in the jujutsu world that could trouble An Xora in terms of combat power.
And yet—
The source of his current concern was system points.
An Xora had realized that recently, the rate at which he was acquiring system points had slowed down.
It wasn't because Seele or Makima were slacking off.
On the contrary—Makima's appearance had seemingly created a subtle sense of competition with Seele, causing Seele to hunt cursed spirits even more frequently than before.
As for Makima, while beginning to dominate the jujutsu higher-ups in Kyoto, she had also started secretly using the Control Devil's authority to dominate large numbers of cursed spirits.
She then stationed these controlled curses in the Kyoto area, having them hunt other curses while she worked—essentially earning points for An Xora around the clock.
So then—
Why had An Xora's point income slowed down despite their efforts?
The answer was simple.
All the high-quality cursed spirits were basically gone.
Cursed spirits were, in theory, endless—so long as human society continued to generate negative emotions, these monsters would never stop being born.
But while cursed spirits as a whole were inexhaustible, powerful cursed spirits required time to develop.
That was the core of the problem.
When only Seele was active, this hadn't been obvious. But after Makima was manifested and began using dominated curses to hunt other curses, Tokyo and Kyoto were almost completely cleaned out of strong cursed spirits.
What remained were mostly Grade 3 and Grade 4 curses—scattered, weak, and barely worth any points.
To make matters worse, according to the original setting, the highest-quality cursed spirits in the entire jujutsu world were concentrated in Tokyo and Kyoto.
In the original story, even Gojo Satoru had remarked that curses in the countryside were on a completely different level compared to those in major cities.
This meant that even if the hunting range expanded beyond Tokyo and Kyoto, the situation wouldn't improve.
If An Xora wanted to increase his point income, the only option was to wait for Makima to gradually expand her curse army and spread the hunting operations across the entire country.
As a result, aside from the initial period where points had poured in rapidly, the overall rate had now returned to a steady—but unexciting—pace.
Even with Makima's dominated curse army, hunting low-level curses could only provide An Xora with a few hundred points per day.
After experiencing a period of massive daily gains, An Xora found this speed… unsatisfying.
As for Seele—
When even Makima's curse army could only generate a few hundred points a day, Seele's solo hunting results could only be described as miserable.
Thus, Seele had stopped going out to hunt curses altogether and instead stayed by An Xora's side full-time, focusing on protecting his safety.
"So," An Xora said inside the villa, resting his chin on his hands in a commander-like pose as he looked at Seele and Makima,
"given the current situation, I'd really like to find a solution."
"For example… figuring out how to rapidly cultivate large numbers of high-grade cursed spirits in a short period of time."
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