Juchū Kaisen (Worm Post-GM/Jujutsu Kaisen)

[TheEpicLotfi]

Chapter 1

It was over. Finally.

And I was so, so tired.

I could feel her, still in the back of my mind, plotting to take control over me. Nesting plots within plots. The Administrator, desperate to reach her puppet strings to everything.

I heard Contessa drone on behind me as I sat, kneeling, staring up at the vast sky and all its stars. I ignored her words. I didn't think they mattered.

Just… get it over with. I'm tired.

That was wrong. According to many. Right now, what she was doing, was 'going gently'.

Do not go gently into that good night.

That was… the cliché, at least. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I found it a ridiculous notion even as I considered it. I had no attachment to life, not anymore.

No.

I wouldn't go gently, but that wouldn't be because I was resisting.

I wouldn't go gently. I would go full throttle.

"I despise everything I am," I whispered, interrupting Contessa. "Every choice, every word, every action. Everything… cursed. Kill me."

I would not go gently into that good night. I didn't deserve to.

"Kill me!"

Instead, I would spend my last moments cursing my entire existence, hoping that what awaited me was not an afterlife, but oblivion.

"Kill m—"

I heard a gunshot.

Felt my body tilt.

And then? That promised oblivion.

000

…Not quite.

Whether due to some quirk of fortune, or the fact that I had cursed myself, I now existed in a truly accursed state of affairs.

A birth through a tight canal, pressing my limbs close to my arms—I resisted, only to find that in doing so, I had killed a woman.

And her last words…

"すべてを呪いなさい、我が子よ。我が美しい帝良。帝良。"

And the adults standing around me…

"五つ子は不吉な兆しなので、ランダムに4人の子供を殺して何が起こるか見てみましょう。その人の名は帝良."

Barely able to see, foreign words filled my ears ad nauseum, rewriting my brain, my way of thinking.

It took me hours until I recognized the cadence: Japanese.

Radically different from anything I had ever known of before. Somehow even more eldritch than my past experiences. A mere language, and yet I feared it so.

I spent months under these circumstances, feeling a bone-deep dread at the single-minded recitation of words in one foreign language. Months.

My incandescent rage at my past life stopped mattering within days of this. After that, all I had left to me were fresh indignities, new and inventive tortures, haunting me day by day.

Evacuating myself, and a stranger cleaning up after me.

Subsisting via breastfeeding.

Having to cry for attention.

Throughout it all, the only way I kept myself sane was to remind myself of who I was, forcing myself to remember that very same life that I had cursed in my final moments.

In the process, I found that… it hadn't been all that bad. Terrible, yes, but… it could have been worse.

It could have been this.

I regretted, very much, the words I had spared for my past life. I wished that the circumstances would have been different, that my mentality hadn't frayed to such an extent.

One of the first things that I had noticed—adding to my growing well of grievances with this new life—was my living situation.

I spent most of my hours either in a nursery filled with dozens upon dozens of cribs—I had counted thirty-seven filled ones out of fifty at some point—or an open-air grass field crawling with other babies, also crawling about.

And all of us were naked. Mostly. We wore diapers, but that was pretty much it. And there were bugs in the grass. So many bugs.

Some of the infants cried at how their skin reacted to the grass. I, thankfully, had a better dermis than them.

At a certain point, I idly imagined, my eyes would deteriorate drastically and I would need to wear glasses once again.

Though, that obviously presupposed that this life would be the same as the last one.

And how could it be?

This…

I couldn't keep hold of many memories. I counted that as a blessing: an antithesis to the curse that was this new life.

The days spent frolicking in the fields, and confined to a crib, having to cry for attention every time I needed something, were mercifully brief. I couldn't recall too many details, other than the constant misery I was under.

I could walk at some point. Even then, as I was cared for by strangers that kept filling my ears with a language that I couldn't help but internalize.

I learned my name.

Teira.

Hibana Teira.

My given name: emperor.

Or… a version of it. It wasn't clear. Nothing was.

My last name, or my family name, Hibana, was my clan's name. Sparkle, signifying the sparks of fireflies.

As I aged, the more I could observe this theme: this insectile theme.

The Hibana clan were all about bugs, apparently.

And I could sense none of them.

I could do nothing except be cared for, and as each day passed, I understood more and more that… it wasn't practical for me to try and understand my surroundings beyond passive observations. Infantile amnesia, according to the memories I had of my past life—the clearest memories that I possessed. My brain simply wasn't mature enough to record new memories. Thus, all I had were glimpses of my days since birth, and a mocking tapestry of my time as Taylor Hebert.

Hibana Teira, now. Another mockery of my past. Another curse meant to cause me pain and misery.

I wouldn't let it. I let these days pass me by. I suckled when I had to. I shat and pissed into my diapers without shame. I didn't lift a finger to try and understand my environs.

Not until finally, at the tender age of four, something changed. Something drastic, yet comfortable.

The infantile amnesia disappeared.

I could remember now. So much easier than before. With each day that passed, I felt my new life finally filling in the blanks of who I was.

And once again, I remembered my name: Hibana Teira.

I remembered the names of my deceased parents: Hibana Seiji and Hibana Himeko. My mother had died in childbirth after giving birth to quintuplets.

All four of my siblings had been murdered.

Hibana Seiji had died… at work, or something. That was what my caretakers had told me.

That told me some few important things: I now lived in a world where it was permissible to murder infants post-birth, and that our chosen line of work was apparently lethal.

I inquired upon the latter nugget of information, rather than trying to dwell on the former.

"Our job is… quite dangerous, Teira-chan," she said. There was a suffix affixed to my name, as usual. 'Chan', apparently. A cutesy version of the more normal 'San'. "When we get paid to gather information on our client's rivals, it isn't always that we escape with our lives. After all, those Jujutsu witches and warlocks would want nothing else but for us to die!"

My caretaker, Hanako, and I were seated on a bench overlooking a meadow downhill with a thin river separating us from the opposite mountain.

"Why?" I asked.

"They want control. They want to stop us from exercising our rights, as per the ancient agreement. Teira-chan, always remember: we were the original Jujutsu Sorcerers. The ones that had established this so-called 'society' are nothing but usurpers. No matter what they tell you, always remember: we are of a noble blood. We are the Hibana clan. Whether or not you awaken a Cursed Technique, always remember that. Though, in any case," she chuckled, "as a girl, you should still always remember to bow before your male superiors."

If it hadn't been for the fact that I could already spy several power-lines down the meadow, not to mention having seen a few TV sets and telephones while inside the main compound, I would have assumed that this was an entirely different era.

Fortunately, it likely wasn't.

Still, this would be my reality for the time being. At least until I found a way to escape, and live on my own terms.

"Why did they kill my siblings?"

"Don't talk about them," Hanako hugged me tightly. "Forget they ever existed."

Her words sent a chill down my spine.

"They cursed you. From birth."

Superstition?

It tracked. This… family of mine, well. They believed in curses. Malevolent entities seeking to destroy humanity by any means necessary.

And to combat them, they fought fire with fire by using… their own curses. Cursed Techniques. Insects, apparently. Hanako had taken me to an exhibit fight between two users of said 'Cursed Technique' and…

…I had simply watched as two men within a traditionally Japanese room, floored with Tatami mats, and surrounded by thin rice-paper walls, stood across from one another and glared at each other intently, for the entire twenty minutes.

Nothing else had happened.a

After that, a winner had been declared. The loser had walked away, head and shoulders slumped forwards in shame.

According to Hanako, I hadn't seen anything because I hadn't been old enough.

That was then, but now… I suspected that things would change.

"Hanako-san," I said. "Can you bring me to another duel?"

Hanako rubbed my head fondly. "Of course, little one. I will bring you to the next Juchū battle."

000

The next Juchū battle?

Truly a spectacle.

Hanako hugged around my body while we sat on our knees on pillows, many people sitting similarly and surrounding a 'battlegrounds' that was one wide tatami-matted floor. On each side stood two figures, clad in more ornate kimonos than the rest of us. While ours were mostly black and white, with some gray in it, theirs were patterned with butterflies and moths.

Not for the first time in this life did I question the fact that all this seemed… far too on the nose.

A new life, in a family that concerned itself with powers relating to insects? Cursed insects?

I was still too young to make my own formal investigations, besides getting the cliff-notes of my situation: born 1989, in the Aramata Gorge, in the Ishikawa Prefecture, to the Hibana clan.

A clan of curse experts.

Not curse users. Hanako had told me that that was what they would refer to me as. The ever-present them. The evil villains, the Satans of our modern age: the so-called 'Jujutsu Society'.

The 'so-called' part was a necessary prefix. The one time I hadn't repeated the full litany of phrases that included the prefix, Hanako had hit me.

She hit me a lot, in fact. Not enough to bruise, but enough to truly irritate me. Still, I submitted to her corporal punishment. After all, despite the injustice of it, she was still my most valuable font of information regarding my situation.

I had been reluctant to believe any of her stories, really: especially regarding the notion of hereditary powers, cursed spirits, cursed techniques, the whole works.

I had been convinced, for too long, that powers weren't just… natural. And yet, from everything Hanako had told me, cursed energy had been a reality of Japan for millennia. And I was reluctant to doubt that fact at this point.

Given that I had somehow reincarnated into a new world, going against all conventional wisdom, it still remained a difficult thing for me to process: that this was not a world like Earth Bet. Not a world akin to what Scion had afflicted it with.

This was something else, surely.

Something worse.

The two men standing across from one another glared at each other like they were fated enemies.

Then, they gaped, eyes wide and fists balled, as though—

Were they about to projectile vomit at each other?

In fact, yes.

Though it wasn't chewed-up food or bile that they vomited.

Instead, it was insects. Around thirty of them, all in all, each the size of a thumb nail.

Flies, with dark insectile bodies and shimmering blue wings, flew towards each other in swarms. Both people had slightly differing shades of wings on their vomited-up flies. And both made no other moves than to… manipulate their flies against one another.

Their flies fought in the air between themselves, trying to get one up over the other.

This reminded me of the last battle that I had sat witness to. In that one, I hadn't seen the insects. Just their masters standing across from one another, gaping and glaring.

"I can see them," I whispered to Hanako.

Hanako grinned. It was…

Hanako was a pretty woman, in my opinion. She kept her face constantly in a layer of make-up, and she had a manner to her that made her rather 'attractive' in my opinion—in the obvious way. She tried to look good constantly, which spoke volumes about her values, and the values of the other women in this clan. They valued a pretty woman. Hanako wasn't precisely that, but she certainly tried in any way possible.

I tried to ignore my concerns that this was my future. After all, I had no desire to stay in this 'Hibana' clan for as long as strictly necessary.

Until then? I would simply have to play ball.

Hanako hugged me tighter, and I hated that contact. Something about it felt… violating. Not that she was anywhere near to touching me, in that sense—simply the fact that she could if she wanted to? That was scary. And I didn't trust Hanako nearly enough to think that she wouldn't. Even despite our years together. Something was just off with her. "Excellent, young one. Excellent. Soon, your own juchū will awaken as well."

Juchū. Cursed insect.

It never escaped me, how this life seeked to mock my former one. Hibana Teira. In Western convention, I would be Teira Hibana. Teira was the Romanization of Taylor, but this Teira was something else. It actually meant something in this culture: emperor, apparently. In my mother's last, feeble moments, she had apparently assigned a child of hers with this masculine name, not thinking that I, the sole female infant, would survive the brutal culling that had occurred subsequently to her own death.

At my hands, no doubt: the last-born.

"Because I'm a superhero?" I asked, trying to get to the bottom of what, exactly, it meant to be a 'curse expert' in this place.

"You are better: you are a curse expert."

Wow, Hanako. Thank you.

"What's a curse expert?"

Hanako gasped, and I looked at the fight. One was getting the upper hand as his bugs ate the other bugs faster. And with each bug that the winner ate, he would apparently create more of his own, magnifying his advantage over the other. Ten to twenty now.

With that, the advantage magnified. Five to twenty-five, and then zero to thirty.

And the winner was announced.

"Hibana Aki gets the fifteen Juchū wagered!"

Ah.

That was the game, then. People wagered their cursed insects in battles. Winner takes all—at least, what was wagered. I assumed they held back a certain amount.

"What were you saying, Teira-chan?"

I considered asking again, but I thought against it.

Ignorance was bliss.

And it didn't matter any longer. I had seen my path to independence already: absorbing as many Juchū as possible before defecting. Before then? I would act natural.

000

I had ten Juchū.

As I aged, I learned more about the Hibana clan. The sole reason why I had gained a caretaker compared to my vast amount of cousins in the nursery?

I had detectable cursed energy from a young age.

Most of those cousins had been 'exiled' from the clan, or been groomed into servants or wives. Either gender would serve until they had reached the age of minority, after which the useless ones would be 'spent'. The girls? Wives. The boys…

They never told me what would happen with the boys. The ones without Juchū, at least.

All I could observe was that the ones without the Cursed Technique had simply disappeared.

And in the far horizon of my six-year-old perspective, I could make out the sides clearly: the 'evil' so-called Jujutsu Society, and us. The 'virtuous' curse experts.

It was obvious, where we stood.

Hanako gripped my shoulders painfully as she led me through the hallways of our main clan house, still wearing that insidious grin of hers. "Remember what you are to do, Teira."

"And what's that?"

She slapped my head. Softly, but annoyingly.

"Don't fight. Let the clan heir take your Juchū."

"Right."

She led me through some paper-covered sliding doors, into a wide, expansive floor surrounded by other clansmen. My opponent? A ten-year-old boy looking at me in naked anticipation.

The brat wanted my Juchū.

According to Hanako, I was to simply give them to him. That was my lot as a girl with a cursed technique. Then, due to my blessing as a curse expert, I could gain the privilege of being wedded to him.

Right.

The boy's name was Hibana Sadakuno.

His kimono was black, white, gray and patterned with spiders. Mine was black, white, gray and entirely unpatterned.

I was too young for patterns.

Hanako pushed me into the floor, and I stood still, as Sadakuno grinned at me. The boy was already five feet tall. Tall for his age, certainly. I was barely cresting four feet. Three feet and eleven inches, in fact.

With ten Juchū to my name.

"Hark, opponent! I have fifteen Juchū to my name! How many do you have?!"

"Ten," I muttered.

"How many will you wager?"

"Ten."

"Hah. Then I will wager fifteen, if you accept. If not, I can wager ten."

According to Hanako, I was supposed to accept this handicap to make it easier for Sadakuno to win.

"Wager all fifteen," I said. "I'll take every single one from you."

The room was silent.

Of course, they were.

I had gone off-script.

Sadakuno grew red on his face as he glared at me. "How… how…?! Fine! All fifteen against your measly ten!"

He gaped at me. His Juchū crawled out from his mouth.

Mine slipped out from my skin.

It was simple, controlling each of them, having them burrow out through me. They were ethereal, untouchable to physical matter, and yet it tickled as they moved out from me. They didn't make holes or anything. Rather, it felt like they slid out of me.

And all ten of them floated around me in an aura of bugs. Sadakuni looked at me wide-eyed. His mouth opened once more, not to release more Juchū, but to simply roar at me. "Attack!"

His Juchū swarmed towards me. Mine attacked them each, two against one. My bugs bit his over the head and thorax. In mere moments, he had lost five.

Once I had subsumed his, I had them in my thrall. Now, I had fifteen Juchū.

I sent all fifteen towards his remaining ten. Two to five, and one to his remaining five. The two-on-one fights were trivial, but the one-on-ones took longer than I was expecting.

With my swarm on the two-on-one scrimmage, I won, once again, within two to three seconds. I had twenty now.

Rather than swarm them to his remaining five, I had them, circle about, waiting to see the outcome in our fairer one-on-one.

He lost four. Won one.

I won his two moments later.

Twenty-five.

This clan had far more than just twenty-five.

Soon, before leaving, I would take every single one of them.

Then, I would decide my own fate.

 

[TheEpicLotfi]

Chapter 2

"Hey!" Sadakuno shouted. "Hey! She cheated! That disgusting whore cheated!"

I shrugged.

I turned to the rest of the crowd, about to speak to them, before Hanako grabbed me by my hair and dragged me out of the room.

000

"How!" She slapped me. "Dare you?!"

She slapped me again.

"That was Sadakuno-sama! That you humiliated!"

I didn't care. The slaps were soft. At worst, they would bruise me. They wouldn't dislodge my teeth, however. They were far too weak. In a few weeks, the bruising would reduce. And that was fine.

As long as they didn't kill me, it was fine.

And they wouldn't kill me. That was why they needed the Juchū battle ritual in the first place: because to get stronger in the Hibana clan, one had to absorb a rival's Juchū.

Hanako didn't stop me until one of her slaps cut the inner lining of my cheek, causing me to spit out the blood that I was reluctant to swallow.

Clearly, she just wanted to see me bleed.

The morning after, the caretaker that awoke me was not Hanako-san, but someone else.

The old, wizened lady grinned at me widely. "I am Mezuko. Nice to meet you." She grinned as she sat in seiza next to my floor-bed.

I sat kneeled opposite from her, hands on my laps, and nodded. "I am Teira. Nice to meet you, too."

She nodded.

"Now, Teira. You did… a bad thing."

The Juchū, no doubt.

She seemed to wait for me to answer. Rather than do that, I just stared into her eyes, hooded as they were from heavy eyelids threatening to smother her orbs.

She broke first. "A woman's place is not beside a curse expert, young one. Don't you already know that? We stay three steps behind our husbands. We obey our fathers in childhood, our husbands in marriage, and our sons should we become widows."

I didn't say anything to that.

She raised her hand up high.

And brought it down on my skull.

The heel of her palm struck me hard enough on my crown that I saw stars.

I looked back up at her. "Answer me when I speak to you, Teira-chan." She grinned in that witchy way.

I grinned, nodded, and said, "I will surrender my Juchū when someone has taken them from me, in rightful combat."

She hit me again.

And then again.

The second hit to my crown brought the wind out of my chest, and made me wonder if this wouldn't actually give me brain damage.

The time she tried to hit me for the third time, I sent my Juchū at her.

"Aaaaah!"

She immediately started batting the air, but it was for naught. I swarmed her head.

And I could do nothing else but just crawl around on her head as she smacked her face, trying to get rid of the bugs.

Her own Juchū came out to defend her. She had seven.

Big mistake, you old hag.

I diverted my focus to them, and started turning them, one after another.

In a handful of seconds, they were mine.

She laid on her back, batting away bugs that she couldn't even touch—that couldn't even hurt her—and I stood up. "Those are mine now, too."

She kept hitting her face to no avail.

I kept tormenting her.

000

Thirty-two Juchū now.

According to my third caretaker assigned to me, a younger lady, aged only twenty-five, I was now a rather high-tier member of the clan.

Hibana Taniko hugged me closely as we sat in my floor-mattress, trying to rock me to sleep. In the meanwhile, I tried to grill her. "So, the only way for us to gain more Juchū is to take them?"

"Precisely, baby-darling."

"Can't you kill people for them?"

"No, of course not! It's strictly prohibited to kill another clansman."

"But for their Juchū? Would anyone kill me in my sleep for mine?"

"That's not how it works, baby-dear. If it was, we would simply breed clansmen for their Juchū and harvest them while they were defenseless!"

This particular caretaker was infuriatingly handsy, in how she tickled my stomach and rubbed at my head. It made my skin crawl. I wanted her to leave as soon as possible.

And yet, the information she was giving me made all too much sense. It… squared perfectly with my own deductions.

They couldn't just take the Juchū. They needed them manifested first.

The reason why the Hibana clan kept such a massive nursery in the first place was because they needed as many Juchū-users alive in the first place, in order for their more promising curse experts to take them.

"How many Juchū are there?"

"At any given time, there's close to two-thousand."

Oh…

What the hell was I going to do with two-thousand bugs?

"So few?" I asked.

Taniko giggled. "Our Juchū are capable of many things, young one. Do you know what?"

I didn't, in fact.

All I knew, from the moment I had first manifested them, was that I could sense each and every one of them as though they were my right hand.

The first time I had summoned them, in my bare tatami-floored room, I had tried to control them the same way that I could control my normal bugs.

I could.

Each and every single one of them were as easily controllable as trying to straighten or tense my right hand. And I had that control completely in tandem with each and every one of my bugs. Even with my recent influx.

I was clearly tapping into something beyond just talent. The way the others controlled their Juchū looked far more human, like they were manually focusing on each individual's actions, and were thus exceedingly clumsy in how they controlled them.

The conclusion I drew from that, was that I was getting help. From it.

And yet, I couldn't hear the administrator in the back of my head. The voice was absolutely quiet. The influence had stopped, somehow.

Yet the power remained. The multitasking, at least.

"Our Juchū can extend our senses. They can even parasitize cursed energy from spirits, turning them into remote batteries for our jujutsu." That was what they labeled our power: Jujutsu. And similarly, our sworn enemies were the 'Jujutsu Society'. "Though it is a wasteful expenditure, we can even use our Juchū to take control over cursed spirits via the mechanism of 'Control'."

I hummed. "Then… Parasitization, Senses, and Control. Those are our powers?"

"Yes, Teira," she said as she reached lower on my stomach. I grabbed her hand, stopping the descent in a fit of panic. She pulled her hand away and rested it on a nearby pillow instead. Meanwhile, I tried to not pant in horror and disgust at what I had felt. "Parasitization, Sense expansion, and Control. These are our three primary powers as Juchū Users. But hear me, Teira. The only safe method to use this cursed technique is via Sense Expansion. If we use our power conspicuously, there is a great chance that our rivals may destroy our Juchū. And if even a single one of your Juchū is destroyed, it can never be recovered. Unless…" I waited patiently for her to continue. Evidently, she had expected me to prompt her, but I had next to nothing to say to her at this point. I really just wanted her out of my room. "Unless you develop the skill of 'reverse cursed technique'."

She refused to elaborate. And I was truly, intensely curious. Thus, after almost twenty seconds, I finally acquiesced. "What's that?"

"The Reverse Cursed Technique is a mythical power, Teira. It will allow our Juchū to not only regenerate from destruction, but it may also allow our Juchū to replicate. It will square your total amount of Juchū. And it will allow you to reproduce destroyed Juchū by simply expending your cursed energy!"

Ah! "And… there are how many Juchū in the clan?"

"Uh… there's two-thousand, darling. Why do you ask?"

"…No reason."

That was… four million Juchū then. A decent enough swarm, especially given those other powers, but still…

…Not nearly enough, honestly.

And that was only if I could learn this 'Reverse Cursed Technique'. "Why is it mythical?"

"Why? Because not a single member of the Hibana clan has been able to learn it in over two hundred years."

"How do you learn it?"

Her hand started reaching again.

I grabbed it harder, pushing it away.

"Hmm… go to sleep, my dear."

She sat in seiza next to me as she watched me go to sleep.

I didn't actually sleep until she left the room. Even then, I doubted that I had been able to steal away more than a scant few hours.

000

Inside the meeting room that hosted all the highest figures of the clan, Hibana Iemon watched surreptitiously as the clan-head surreptitiously picked at his hair-sticks—the Swarm Queen's Antennae. They were the prized Cursed Tool of the Hibana clan—a pair of black needle-sharp sticks with silver engraving of butterflies and flowers.

Of course, the Tools were useless atop Sosuke-sama's head, inactive as they were. Given that no one in the clan really knew the Reverse Cursed Technique, that would remain a fact for many generations to come.

The sight, to Iemon, felt like a microcosm of the clan's greater situation. All pomp and pageantry. Their art was kept in remembrance of a past generation, one that dared to keep their heads high in spite of the threat from the Jujutsu Society.

Now, all Iemon could see were bitter old men, fighting over bugs for no other reason than to simply have them. Few would ever risk them doing actual work for the clan. Those with fewer than ten tended to use theirs more often, while those that hoarder scores only wanted them for their numbers.

It was silly.

As the servant women poured a measure of sake to waiting wooden box cups before each elder, Iemon focused on his Juchū, reaching his senses through the dozen or so shikigami spread around the room invisibly.

It was a funny joke that the elders in this room even bothered to whisper in the first place, given the fact that everyone in the room likely had it thoroughly bugged already.

"You've gained weight, Sosa-san. Are you using your Juchū to sneak bites of food from the kitchen while no one's looking," Iemon muttered quietly underneath his breath while he looked straight at the elder in question, Sosa, who was across the table, eight seats away.

Sosa glared at him.

While he privately enjoyed tormenting the foolish old man, Iemon focused on more important things as well, like the whispers between Mitsuzuka and Tabito.

"Sadakuno has been crippled. That's the fact now. Without even a single Juchū to his name, he can never win another."

"Just when we managed to land on the least offensive choice for heirship, this happens. What a bother."

In Iemon's opinion, this was probably for the best. Controversy was the lifeblood of any collection of sorcerers and experts. This might lead the clan to do something actually interesting for once.

Doubtful. With the birth of the Six Eyes and Limitless user in the Gojo clan, things were looking darker than ever for their modest little clan that clung so tightly to past glory.

"I have more sons," Sosuke-sama said loudly. Infants. Even Sadakuno had been a less-than-ideal choice for heirship, given his young age. Ideally, the heir should be someone ready to take on the burden of leadership at a moment's notice. The life of a curse expert was fraught with danger from all sides: society, the underground, and the very curses that they occasionally did battle against.

And it was worse for those born with the Cursed Insect Technique, for when a Juchū was lost, it could never be recovered.

Unless, of course, one used the Reverse Cursed Technique of legend.

"In the meanwhile," Sosuke said through gritted teeth. "We can consider Mitsuzuka as the interim-heir." He didn't meet the old man's eyes as he announced that. But the old man grinned widely at the news that he no doubt already expected to hear. Mitsuzuka, like Sadakuno, was in the category of 'least offensive' as picks for leadership. "However, should I die to unexplainable causes, then the interim-heir will be Iemon."

Iemon had… not expected that.

"That's random."

"Not bad, however. Iemon's only thirty. And he has many children."

"And he is Teira-chan's uncle as well."

Unfortunately.

Iemon's life had been nothing but a bad circus act for the past six years. His beloved brother, whose seed was so powerful that it managed to split a child into five parts, had then inadvertently killed his own wife by afflicting her with that accursed burden.

Then days later, he let himself get killed by some Jujutsu Sorcerers while doing a job for the Yamaguchi group, botching it severely in the process. Their close relationship with the Yakuza had frayed since then, and Iemon had been sent to job after job, cleaning up after that man's messes.

And yet that foolish man's legacy persisted in troubling the clan, in the form of that mutant spawn of his.

Iemon sighed. What a bother.

"And what do we do about Teira anyway?" Someone whispered. It was hardly worth keeping track of the identities of the whisperers. The clan respected this form of opinion-sharing as nominally anonymous, at least until the whispers crossed a certain line. "She has thirty-two Juchū now. The uppity harlot stole seven more from her second caretaker!"

And the council would have been up in arms about that if it wasn't so damn funny. Mezuko was an old hag, anyhow, with one foot in the grave. Her Juchū were wasted on her.

"Teira will begin her education in curse use," Sosuke announced. "She will learn alongside the clan's young boys until she is crippled."

"What if that doesn't come to pass?" someone whispered. "What if she just keeps winning?"

"That's a silly thing to assume."

"Based on her track record—"

"Against an old hag and a wastrel son—"

Sosuke reached into his bun, ripped out one of the Swarm Queen's Antennae, and threw it towards the whisperer, narrowly missing him before the needle lodged into a wooden frame on the wall. "My son was not a wastrel."

Was. In Sosuke's mind, the young boy was probably already dead. He might as well be. He would be relegated to a position as an enforcer. While he no longer had the technique, he did still have cursed energy that he could use to strengthen his body. It was a menial and lowly position, but it was better for the clan if the Juchū users received good protection.

"This little girl will be crippled during her education. Then she will marry and support Sadakuno," Sosuke explained patiently. "That is all."

Iemon flew one of her Juchū inside Teira's room. He couldn't see very well through only a single one—usually, he'd need five to ten for a high fidelity view—but he could sense cursed energy quite easily through the bug.

Teira had summoned her Juchū. She was playing with them. Thirty one were in the air..

They were moving in a dizzying circular pattern, forming stars and elaborate shapes with their paths. She controlled them—

His view was gone.

Iemon gasped.

Iemon's total number of Juchū had dropped. From eighty-seven to eighty-six.

Without even realizing it, his Juchū had been captured.

Iemon slapped a hand over his mouth to prevent others from seeing his grin.

This would surely not go as Sosuke was expecting.