Chapter 28

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With everyone instinctively holding their breath, the room had fallen so quiet that even the sound of a pin dropping could have been heard. Against that silence, the tapping of fingernails against a screen became startlingly clear.

The eerie atmosphere was broken just like that.

Suguru Geto’s voice drifted over. “Fyodor, what are you doing?”

The black-haired boy, head bowed as he worked on his phone, replied innocently, “Adjusting a program I recently wrote.”

Geto had known from the beginning that Fyodor could write programs. His phone still contained a little game Fyodor had made himself. After numerous suggestions from Geto and Satoru Gojo, the single-player game—which had originally featured only adventure elements—now supported multiplayer, along with new features such as housing, pets, and support characters.

At their insistence, Fyodor had even added a leaderboard, making it much easier to see who ranked first and who ranked second.

It was worth mentioning that, in their struggle for first place, Geto and Gojo had gone out of their way to sabotage each other. They had practically created an entirely new mode of play within the multiplayer function. Only Shoko Ieiri, who joined later, had calmly played the game in peace—and somehow ended up in first place.

Geto withdrew his gaze helplessly. Of course he could tell that the dark, green-and-black interface, filled with numbers and English letters, was being used for programming. The point was that he had been reminding Fyodor that this was hardly the time for it.

Apparently, however, Fyodor had not understood the implication hidden beneath his tactful words.

Never mind, Geto thought.

They did not need Fyodor to fight. Still, if he could provide some support and help bring the battle to an end more quickly, that would naturally be ideal.

Geto turned back to continue exchanging information with the homeowner, whose expression suggested he wanted to say something yet could not seem to find the words. Together, they began formulating a plan. Their first priority was to get the old woman out and bring her somewhere safe.

Meanwhile, countless green characters flashed through Fyodor’s amethyst eyes. An outsider would never have been able to discern the concrete image conveyed by the program, but in Fyodor’s mind, the data had already come together to form the shape of a room.

Fyodor was attempting to develop a scientific “weapon”—one that could be used against cursed spirits.

After all, turning all of humanity into jujutsu sorcerers was unrealistic, as was stripping all of humanity of its cursed energy. Science was humanity’s foremost productive force. The fact that no existing physical method could harm cursed spirits was merely a technological problem. If he could understand the underlying principles, he could completely break the jujutsu world’s monopoly.

And next summer would bring the Star Plasma Vessel incident.

That was his only opportunity to meet Tengen with any certainty, and time was extremely tight—

When all was said and done, only Japan was plagued by cursed spirits on such a scale. Other countries saw at most two or three special-grade cursed spirits a year, while Japan considered ten the bare minimum. In other countries, the number of unnatural deaths each year—that is, cases in which people were injured or killed by cursed spirits—could be counted on two hands. In Japan, despite the deployment of so many jujutsu sorcerers, there was still an acute shortage of personnel. Japan had more than ten times as many sorcerers as other countries, yet still faced several hundred such cases every year.

Was Japan naturally special?

Were cursed spirits simply their particular favorites?

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Of course not.

At the root of it all was Tengen. Although Tengen’s barrier kept cursed spirits from invading, without it, the number of cursed spirits in Japan could be reduced by the overwhelming majority. Weighing the advantages against the disadvantages, the latter far outweighed the former. The reason the jujutsu world still refused to abandon it came down to one thing: profit.

Admittedly, the Six Eyes played a part in the explosive increase in the number and grades of cursed spirits. But the Six Eyes had merely added fuel to the fire. The fundamental problem had always been Tengen.

If Tengen could be dealt with, Fyodor would save himself ninety percent of his trouble.

“All right. That’s the general plan. If there are no objections, let’s get moving.” Geto rose to his feet.

The homeowner stood as well and nodded at Geto. He walked to the door of the room he had glanced at earlier, took a deep breath, and raised his hand to knock.

“Mom, open the door.”

“...”

There was no response.

The homeowner frowned and called louder, “Mom!”

“...”

Still no response.

Now growing anxious, the homeowner reached for the handle, only to discover that the door was locked from the inside.

“I’ll get the key!” he said hurriedly to Geto.

He strode over to the television cabinet, blindly groped around in the uppermost compartment, and found the room key. Then he hurried back to the door and inserted the key into the lock.

Click.

The lock should have been open.

The homeowner immediately turned the handle again, but the door still would not open.

Geto seemed to realize something. His expression grew solemn. “It’s blocked from the inside too. Do you know if there’s anything heavy in the room that could be used to barricade the door?”

Fine beads of sweat appeared on the homeowner’s forehead. After thinking carefully, he murmured, “There’s only a wardrobe and a bed. My mother also took a Buddha statue and an incense burner inside. That’s all.”

As he spoke, the homeowner suddenly thought of something. His face turned deathly pale as he looked at Geto. He forced a smile, but his voice trembled with tears.

“My mother couldn’t have moved the wardrobe and the bed, right?”

It was not Geto who answered him, but Fyodor, whose voice was clear and smooth despite its low tone:

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“Things don’t look very good.”

After speaking, the black-haired boy rose with his phone and walked over to Geto, holding it out for him to see.

Geto’s eyes fell on the screen. The instant he understood what it showed, his pupils contracted sharply. He was secretly grateful that he had not broken down the door by force. In truth, he had come within a hair of doing so.

The black-and-white image on the phone showed a human figure nailed to the door. All four limbs were spread wide. If they forced their way inside, they would inevitably tear the figure’s arms and legs apart.

Geto did not announce what he had discovered. He raised a hand to partially cover the screen, placing Fyodor behind him.

He naturally had many questions to ask—such as how Fyodor had obtained an image of the inside of the room—but this was not the time to dwell on them.

After a moment’s thought, Geto released a fourth-grade cursed spirit known as a Fly Head. Such cursed spirits were extremely common and could be found all over the streets. Their destructive power, however, was inversely proportional to their numbers. Geto had exorcised and absorbed Fly Heads in the past simply because he had had no other choice. At the time, they were the only sort of cursed spirit he could handle. Fly Heads had been a great help to him in his early days, and despite their weakness, they remained useful even now.

He ordered the Fly Head to enter through another window and relay what was happening inside the room. Then Geto said quietly to Fyodor, “Take Mr. Utsu and leave. I suspect—”

Before he could finish, Geto’s expression suddenly darkened.

At the same moment, the sky abruptly grew dim. Eerie red light replaced the warmth of the sun and flooded the room.

“This is bad... A special-grade cursed spirit capable of forming a domain,” Geto murmured.

Even among special-grade cursed spirits, there were differences.

Geto currently had two special-grade cursed spirits under his command: the Eight-Foot Woman and Hanami, whom he had absorbed not long ago. The former could unfold an innate domain. Although an innate domain was still a domain, it was essentially the outward manifestation of an inner world, creating the environment most advantageous to its master. It was not a complete domain.

A complete domain could unleash a sure-hit technique.

Hanami, needless to say, did not even possess an innate domain.

What worried Geto most at that moment was the possibility that the special-grade cursed spirit they had encountered could unfold a complete domain.

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