001 - Father and Son
The Big Three Families.
In a world ruled by cursed energy and haunted by cursed spirits, the Big Three Families stood at the pinnacle of jujutsu society. Their prestige had endured for more than a thousand years.
The Gojo Clan.
The Kamo Clan.
And the Zenin Clan.
December 12, 2006.
1:00 a.m.
Night.
Heavy clouds hung like ink across the sky, swallowing most of the moonlight.
The Zenin estate stood silent beneath them.
A boy around ten years old walked down one of its corridors in a plain black robe. The collar hung open, revealing his bare torso and the dense web of scars crossing it.
His hair was black and cut short. His features were still young, but a sharpness had already begun to show, the kind age would only refine.
His eyes, however, were what made him unsettling.
Deep. Calm. Black.
Half of his robe was stained dark red with blood.
Unhurried, the boy stopped before a wooden sliding door. He eased it open just wide enough to pass through, stepped lightly onto the tatami, and closed the door behind him without a sound.
Inside, a man slept.
The boy looked down at him with cold eyes and slowly formed a hand sign.
"Divine Dog: Totality."
From his shadow, the canine shikigami shot forward.
Its jaws opened, baring two rows of razor-sharp fangs, and clamped down on the man's throat.
"Ghh... ghh!"
The man jolted awake, his face contorting in agony. He tried to scream for help, but only a mouthful of blood burst from his lips.
His windpipe had already been torn open. Thick blood filled his throat.
Sensing that its prey was awake, the Divine Dog shook its head and bit down harder.
Flesh tore. Blood vessels split. Blood splattered across the floor, the window frame, the wooden trim, and the boy's black robe until the room was painted scarlet.
The Zenin estate was one of the safest places in the world.
'That was what I always believed.'
'How could I die here?'
In the final moments before he stopped breathing, his terrified gaze swept over the shikigami tearing into him, then landed on the expressionless boy standing a short distance away.
The instant he recognized him, the terror in his eyes turned into disbelief.
'Itsuki Zenin?'
'The failure Ogi treated as a stain on his name?'
'Since when could that failure use the Ten Shadows Technique?'
'And why had he come in the dead of night to kill me?'
Those questions swallowed even his fear of death.
Then darkness took him.
"Nine."
Itsuki looked at the man lying in the spreading pool of blood. A thin smile of satisfaction touched his mouth, then vanished just as quickly.
"Let's go. Next one."
At Itsuki's command, the Divine Dog released the corpse and sank back into his shadow.
He kept his cursed energy tight and low as he moved down the corridor without a sound.
He repeated the ritual from room to room.
Itsuki Zenin moved through the silent rooms like death in the shape of a child, claiming the lives of his own clansmen under cover of night.
"Divine Dog: Totality."
"Toad."
"Great Serpent."
A blood-red rose seemed to bloom in the shadows.
With every life that ended, the curve of the boy's smile grew a little wider.
Half an hour later, under the faint moonlight, his plain black robe had been dyed entirely red. Even his pale face was streaked with blood.
Itsuki wiped the still-warm blood from his cheek with one sleeve and turned toward his father's nearby quarters.
"Twenty-seven," he murmured. "That should be enough. Time to see Father."
He started toward his father's room.
Memories of the past ten years sharpened his killing intent until it felt almost tangible.
The truth was, Itsuki had come from another world.
In his previous life, he had been at home on Earth reading Jujutsu Kaisen. When the infamous "2.5 Gojo" chapter dropped, rage got the better of him. He hammered on his keyboard, cursed at the screen, and punched his computer hard enough to crack the casing.
The electric shock killed him.
Then he opened his eyes in the world of jujutsu.
The good news: he had been reborn into a powerful family, the renowned Zenin Clan.
The bad news: his cursed energy was pitifully low.
Back when he was still in the womb, Ogi Zenin was competing for the position of clan head. He chose the name Itsuki because he imagined his son as a great tree, a pillar that would anchor the Zenin Clan's future.
He dreamed of another genius on the level of Satoru Gojo, a child whose birth would strengthen his own claim to leadership.
Then Itsuki was born.
For Ogi, the collapse of those expectations had been devastating.
The same cruelty Maki Zenin suffered in the original story had begun years earlier here, with Itsuki.
For most sorcerers, an innate technique was engraved into the body at birth and manifested around age five or six.
Some innate techniques were unique to the individual; others were inherited techniques passed down through a bloodline.
An innate technique could not normally be learned or imitated by another sorcerer.
That was why talent mattered far more than effort in jujutsu society.
But he had been born with such low cursed energy that, even if he possessed a technique, no one expected him to awaken one of the Zenin Clan's powerful inherited techniques.
Mai Zenin was one example. Her Construction technique was innate, but it was not one of the clan's inherited techniques.
"If you are not a Zenin, you are not a jujutsu sorcerer. If you are not a jujutsu sorcerer, you are not human."
That was the philosophy the clan had upheld for a thousand years.
The way he and his mother were treated after his birth, and how quickly Ogi cast them aside and remarried, laid that cruelty bare.
The Zenin worshiped strength above all else. Any family member without talent was stripped of value entirely.
Toji had been one.
Maki had been another.
And until tonight, so had Itsuki.
The wooden door slid open silently.
Itsuki stepped inside, then stopped.
For the first time that night, something like shock crossed his face.
The killing intent that followed burned far hotter.
Ogi was already dressed, a cursed tool in hand. The smell of blood had woken him, but he had not expected to find his son at the door.
"Failure," Ogi snapped, the insult coming automatically. "This is not a place for you."
Then he noticed the blood soaking the boy's robe and the metallic stench growing thicker in the air.
His expression shifted.
Ogi met his son's murderous stare. Whatever shock he felt vanished almost at once.
"Looks like you're not as useless as I thought," he said. "At least you've got nerve."
"Yes, Father."
At that scrap of praise, a bloodstained smile spread across the ten-year-old's face, twisted with delight.
"Then let me pay my respects one last time."
His voice was soft.
"Make sure you remember it."
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