Chapter 154 (Patreon)

The Fushiguro Residence.

“Where did everyone go?”

Tsumiki Fushiguro slowly pushed herself up from the sofa and shook her foggy head.

“My head... Why am I so dizzy? What happened?”

The room suddenly tilted beneath her feet. Tsumiki nearly collapsed, barely managing to catch herself against the edge of the table.

“What... is this?”

She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Strange black markings had appeared across her cheeks.

“They won’t come off?”

“What are these? They look so strange.”

Tsumiki splashed water over her face and tried washing the markings away.

“Ngh—!”

Without warning, a flood of unfamiliar memories surged into her mind.

“Reincarnation... Kenjaku... the Fallen... resurrection...”

“What does any of that mean...? Yorozu? Jujutsu sorcerers? The Niiname Festival?”

Tsumiki clutched her head as the foreign memories continued pouring into her like a raging tide.

At the same time, cold, sinister cursed energy flooded her body.

The world around her suddenly felt wrong. The temperature inside the room plummeted, and a woman’s faint whisper brushed against her ears.

Bang!

The door suddenly burst inward beneath an inhuman force. A pitch-black hand curled around the shattered doorframe.

“W-What is that...?”

An ugly head emerged from the darkness beyond the doorway. Its face looked as though it had been eaten away by acid, while an unknown black liquid streamed down its body.

“N-No... Stay away!”

Tsumiki pressed herself against the wall beside the bathroom. Her body felt as heavy as lead, while her limbs turned deathly cold.

The thunderous pounding of her own heart drowned out everything else.

“Hee-hee... Human... delicious... Want more...”

Under the dim light, its pitch-black body resembled that of a crocodile. Thick fluid dripped from its long, dark-red tongue, sizzling against the floor and releasing trails of white smoke.

“Delicious!”

The cursed spirit sprang forward, opening its enormous jaws around Tsumiki’s head.

“Huh?”

Tsumiki’s body suddenly moved on its own.

One hand shot out and seized the cursed spirit by the neck before violently slamming it into the floor.

Boom!

“Gah!”

The sudden reversal caught the cursed spirit completely off guard. Its body crashed against the ground, and its eyes immediately rolled back.

“Trash.”

Black liquid metal poured from Tsumiki’s hand. It flowed through the air before reshaping itself into a long sword that pierced straight through the cursed spirit.

Yet every movement had taken place without Tsumiki’s conscious control.

By the time she regained her senses, all she could see was the bloodstained black sword remaining in her hand.

“Who... are you?”

Tsumiki leaned against the wall and stared into the mirror.

A woman who closely resembled her stood within the reflection, yet the aura she radiated was completely different.

“You already know the answer to that, don’t you?”

Thud.

Tsumiki’s vision went black, and she collapsed to the floor.

“Damn it... Kenjaku, what did you do? I can’t even take control of an ordinary human’s body.”

Yorozu could curse Kenjaku’s name all she wanted, but she remained unable to seize complete control of Tsumiki’s body.

The most she could manage was briefly controlling individual parts of it, just as she had done while killing the cursed spirit.

A short while later...

“Ngh... It’s so cold. Why am I...? Oh, right! There’s an ancient sorcerer inside my body?”

While unconscious, Tsumiki had witnessed Yorozu’s entire life from a third-person perspective.

“Ahem... Miss Yorozu?”

Tsumiki cautiously attempted to communicate with her.

“What do you want?”

“Eep! N-Nothing! I was just wondering... Why are you inside my body?”

“...”

Huh?

No answer?

Why?

Tsumiki could only try again.

“Miss Yorozu, is there something you can’t bring yourself to talk about? If you’d like, you can tell me—”

“Shut up. You’re irritating me. Can’t you stay quiet for even a moment?”

The impatient Yorozu cut her off before she could finish.

“Oh, okay. I just—”

“I told you to shut up. You’re unbearably noisy.”

Yorozu was already in a foul mood.

Her incarnation had not proceeded nearly as smoothly as she had expected. Now she needed to find some way to erase the consciousness of this body’s original owner.

Until then, she could do little more than watch from the sidelines.

“I... I wanted to thank you. Thank you for saving me!”

It didn’t take much thought to understand what had happened. If Yorozu had not intervened when the cursed spirit attacked, Tsumiki would already be dead.

“If that makes you happy.”

Yorozu’s response was completely dismissive.

To her, Tsumiki was nothing more than a consciousness marked for death. Sooner or later, Yorozu would overwrite her and claim the body completely.

Meanwhile, Tsumiki continued thanking her in complete sincerity.

From Yorozu’s perspective, she looked like a hopeless fool.

“Whatever. Even if I seize this body now, I still have no way of finding Sukuna... I suppose I can let you live for a few more days.”

Having made that decision, Yorozu stopped interfering with Tsumiki.

Unless Tsumiki encountered something that threatened the life of this body, Yorozu had no intention of helping her.

“Miss Yorozu? Oh, right... Is it all right if I call you that?”

Within her innate domain, Yorozu rested her cheek against one hand and answered with a helpless expression.

“Call me whatever you want.”

“Great! Miss Yorozu, do you know what’s happening right now?”

“How would I know? I only just woke up myself.”

“I see... Then should we go outside and take a look?”

“Do whatever you want.”

“Okay, then it’s settled.”

As far as Tsumiki understood, whenever Yorozu told her to do whatever she wanted, that probably meant she had no objections...

Probably.

“I hope there’s still a signal... I wonder if Megumi is all right.”

One month earlier, Tsumiki had awakened from her long sleep.

Her final clear memory was of Yasohachi Bridge. Everything that came afterward had been nothing more than a vague dream filled with cold and darkness.

She only remembered drifting through that darkness for what felt like an eternity.

Then, a figure bathed in brilliant golden light suddenly appeared.

When Tsumiki opened her eyes again, she found herself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling while life-support machines beeped steadily around her.

Out on the street...

“It’s so empty... Was there a war?”

Bloodstains covered the streets, and collapsed houses surrounded her in every direction. In the distance, thick black smoke rose above a city consumed by flames.

“Excuse me! Could you tell me what happened here...?”

Tsumiki spotted a lone figure standing in the distance with its back turned toward her.

Without thinking much of it, she approached the figure to ask what had happened.

“Um...?”

The figure’s head suddenly twisted around a full hundred and eighty degrees.

Two pairs of hollow, pitch-black eye sockets streamed blood as they stared directly at Tsumiki.

Deep within Tsumiki’s innate domain, Yorozu spat in disgust.

She truly couldn’t understand how this woman had managed to survive for so long in a world like this.

“Idiot.”