I Sealed Sukuna’s Finger#443+444: Someone's Losing It, Founder of Onmyōji? One Kick to Death

Like a distress flare in Monster Hunter, the pillar of light was so massive and reached so high into the sky that it wasn't just visible from the mountain—even people as far away as the Keikain estate and downtown Kyoto could see it crystal clear.

Meanwhile, inside a certain tea house on Kyoto's food street—

"What is that?"

"Did a nuke just go off?"

"No way. If a nuke exploded, we'd at least see a plane fly over and drop a bomb, right? Besides, who'd be bored enough to randomly drop a nuke on Kyoto? I'm betting it's fireworks."

"Fireworks can get that big?"

"Still more plausible than your nuke theory."

After yesterday's grueling day-long tour of Kyoto sweets—dragged around by a certain overgrown white-haired sugar addict—Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, and Nobara Kugisaki had made up their minds today: cleanse the system.

They'd been drinking tea at this tea house all morning.

And dragged along with them was the very culprit who'd nearly turned them into the fastest diabetes legends yesterday.

Though operating on the principle of "don't do unto others what you wouldn't want done to you," Yuji and the others hadn't been too cruel—they'd allowed Gojo Satoru to buy sweets from the surrounding food stalls to eat at the tea house, just only for himself.

Like right now—seated at a window booth on the tea house's second floor, Gojo occupied one entire side by himself. Half the table was covered with sweets he'd bought, while the other half held tea for Yuji and the others.

Thus, the scene described above unfolded.

On one side, one man aggressively demolished the sweets before him. On the other side, three people leisurely sipped tea while admiring the heaven-piercing pillar of light rising from the distant mountains through the window.

Their relaxed attitude wasn't entirely surprising. Mainly because since the light pillar had appeared, it hadn't spread or exploded—completely unlike a nuclear detonation where a mushroom cloud rises followed by temperatures in the thousands sweeping across the land.

Finally, after quite a while, Gojo Satoru—who'd been buried in his battle against various sweets—seemed to sense something. He pulled his head from the dessert pile and turned toward the window, a bit of red bean paste still stuck to the corner of his mouth.

"That's..."

"Hmm? You know something, Gojo-sensei?"

Yuji immediately asked.

"Well... how should I put this? I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but that light pillar's direction seems to be where Yasaka Shrine is located here in Kyoto."

Gojo furrowed his brow slightly.

"Plus, that light pillar gives me a weird feeling. I can't shake this sense of foreboding..."

THUD-THUD!

Like war drums being struck, everyone within Kyoto's territory felt their hearts tighten in that moment, the earth beneath their feet seeming to tremble.

The easygoing Yuji Itadori seemed to sense something, making a sound of surprise as he looked back and forth between Megumi and Nobara on either side of him.

"Hey hey, did you guys just feel your heart skip a beat?"

"Yeah... I did. Wait, you felt it too?"

"Yup. What about you, Fushiguro?"

"I felt it. Why?"

"No reason, just asking..."

Listening to the comedy routine-like conversation from the three students on the other side of the table, Gojo—who'd been aggressively eating sweets until just now—uncharacteristically set down the daifuku in his hand. He turned his head away, staring motionlessly at the distant light pillar through his blindfold.

This might sound strange, but he'd definitely felt his heartbeat skip.

What the hell is...

THUD-THUD!

The drumming sound came again. This time it wasn't an illusion. Whether Gojo Satoru, Yuji Itadori, Megumi, or anyone else—everyone's faces showed unusual expressions in that moment.

Once could be coincidence. But twice?

THUD-THUD!

Before the three Jujutsu High students could compare notes a second time, the third drumbeat came again.

This time, Gojo heard it clearly.

That wasn't a drum at all—it was... a heartbeat!?

This... ??

The conclusion was so absurd that even Gojo himself found it hard to believe.

According to science, humans could hear their own heartbeat in quiet environments, sure. But for others to hear your heartbeat, they'd need to press their ear against you or use a stethoscope.

But broadcasting a heartbeat externally for everyone to hear like this... at least humans couldn't do that.

And even if some other creature could manage it, that would require an organism of unimaginably massive proportions.

But where was such a thing now?

Standing abruptly to scan the surroundings and finding nothing, Gojo turned back toward the window, locking onto that massive pillar of light shooting into the sky.

"Uh, Gojo-sensei?"

Yuji was somewhat startled by his teacher's sudden reaction. After all, he'd never seen this laid-back instructor react so dramatically.

"Did you discover something, Gojo-sensei...?"

"Shh."

Gojo didn't answer, only turning his head to signal silence with his profile, then directly removed his blindfold to gaze at that pillar of light with his azure Six Eyes.

"Whoa whoa, is the situation really that bad?"

Seeing this, even Megumi couldn't sit still anymore.

He'd known Gojo Satoru far longer than Yuji, so he was also aware of some of the man's legends.

Like how he only removed his blindfold during Domain Expansion.

But Domain Expansion was basically a Jujutsu Sorcerer's ultimate trump card. Normally, sorcerers could only use Domain Expansion once per day. Using it meant the battle had entered a life-or-death phase.

In other words, Gojo only removed his blindfold when fighting for his life.

Yet now he'd taken it off just to see the light pillar clearly.

Could there be something terrifying in there?

Just as this thought emerged in Megumi's mind, the distant light pillar began gradually converging. Like a Kamehameha wave losing momentum, slowly thinning until it dissipated.

As the pillar retracted bit by bit, a massive silhouette began slowly emerging from within.

First hands, feet, and head. Then legs and arms. Finally, even the torso appeared.

"That's...!!"

In this moment, forget Megumi—even Gojo's mouth fell open.

Without question, what appeared in their vision was humanoid, curled into a ball with cute baby fat—just like a little baby still in mommy's belly.

No, more accurately, it was a baby. Just slightly larger in scale—mountain-sized, floating above Kyoto!

THUD-THUD!

This was already the fourth heartbeat, clearer and louder than the previous three.

As the fourth heartbeat sounded, Yuji suddenly felt a gash open on his face, Sukuna's familiar voice reaching his ears.

"This aura is... Abe no Seimei! It's Abe no Seimei!! Brat, give me control of your body right now! I'm going to kill him!! Abe no Seimei, I'll kill you ahhhhhhhhh!!"

"I don't wanna! And can you please calm down..."

Yuji's mouth twitched. He'd never seen Sukuna in such an explosive state.

Had he gone completely berserk?

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Since the earlier massive light pillar had already attracted considerable attention, now that the pillar had dissipated and a mountain-sized baby floated above Kyoto, the entire tea house instantly erupted.

"Hey hey hey, what the hell is that thing?! That shape—is it a baby?!"

"When we looked earlier it was a light pillar, how did it turn into this?!"

"Maybe it's a hot air balloon for some show?"

"What show uses a hot air balloon that big?!"

In fact, not just inside the tea house—from the window booth where Gojo and the others sat, looking out the window and scanning to the horizon, pedestrians on the street below could be seen everywhere pointing at the strange phenomenon in the distant sky, their faces showing shock as they discussed it.

Though their reactions were hardly surprising.

It was like in The Avengers when Loki used the Tesseract atop the tower to summon the Chitauri army.

Before the summoning completed, ordinary people could only see really cool flashing lights at the top of the building, at most muttering to themselves about what new stunt was being pulled.

But once the portal opened and massive waves of Chitauri forces descended through the spatial rift—anyone whose legs didn't tremble at that point was superhuman.

And right now, the giant baby floating above Kyoto was equivalent to the Chitauri army summoned by the Tesseract. In fact, because it had the appearance of a human fetus but was scaled up to an absolutely absurd size, it gave people an eerie, taboo sense of wrongness.

Kyoto had long been called the Demon Capital of a Thousand Years. Plus, with the human and demon worlds having conducted commerce for over forty years, ordinary people were well aware that various monsters and spirits existed in this world. Seeing such a bizarre scene, it was hard not to imagine some terrifying possibilities.

Like horrible experiments that violated human ethics, and so on.

However, at the same time, outside the cave containing the spiritual spring, a certain young man lifted his head. The mountain-sized form of the sky baby reflected in his eyes, and he couldn't help falling into deep thought.

Bokue Keikain knew that hospitals weighed babies at birth, then informed the family of the weight.

Bigger ones might be 5 or 6 kg, smaller ones 3 or 4 kg.

But the one floating in the sky right now? It had to be pushing tens of thousands of tons, right?

"Is this... reasonable?"

So the founder of Onmyōji from a thousand years ago, Abe no Seimei, was originally something this massive...

"Hehehe, that's just the embryo."

Just as Bokue was muttering to himself, Hagoromo-Gitsune's voice drifted leisurely from the cave behind him.

Turning to look, he saw the pale girl who'd been soaking naked in the spiritual spring earlier had now dressed back into her signature pure black sailor uniform, her legs beneath the skirt hem slightly compressed by black stockings.

Perhaps because Bokue had earlier supplemented some of her consumed power with his own, Hagoromo-Gitsune—having completed the rebirth ritual—didn't show much weakness. She could even walk on her own. Following her out were Yasaka, her daughter, and Kyōkotsu.

"Embryo?"

Bokue raised an eyebrow.

Hagoromo-Gitsune had already walked out of the cave to stand beside the young man. She too looked up at the giant baby in the sky, continuing her explanation.

"The rebirth technique is a resurrection ritual that uses massive demonic power to reconstruct a perfect body and pull the deceased back from the underworld to the mortal world. The giant baby we see in the sky now is the aggregate of all my demonic power. It will reconstruct my child's flesh within the embryo. When the time is right, it will bloom and bear fruit..."

"Oh yeah, speaking of which."

Hearing the words "my child," Bokue suddenly seemed to remember something and made a sound of realization.

"I should probably remove that brain control chip first."

"Brain control? What are you talking about... what are you doing—!"

Before Hagoromo-Gitsune beside him could react, Bokue backhanded her with an Itachi-style finger poke to the forehead.

The soul manipulation techniques learned from Brynhildr penetrated directly into Hagoromo-Gitsune's soul. The thought stamp that Abe no Seimei had repeatedly reinforced over multiple reincarnations shattered like thin ice in an instant.

"I..."

Hagoromo-Gitsune—who'd been about to loudly demand what Bokue was doing—froze in place.

Seeing her elder sister "ambushed," Kyōkotsu could no longer care about the enormous power gap between them. She stepped forward, raising her skull with glaring eyes.

"What did you do to Ane-sama?! Get your hands off Ane-sama!!"

But Bokue didn't even look at her, only turning toward the blonde beauty behind him.

"Alright, Yasaka. This should do it—she should return to normal shortly. There's nothing else for me here, so I'll head up and check on things."

With that, the young man's form shot up from the ground, transforming into a white streak that pierced the sky.

Two seconds later, Bokue had already arrived directly above the sky baby.

He slowly descended, landing on the sky baby's surface. A quite solid sensation came through his feet.

Indeed, just as Hagoromo-Gitsune had said, this sky baby wasn't Abe no Seimei's true body but something like an embryo—more accurately, like an eggshell outside an egg.

Even the texture was identical.

In fact, through the sky baby's thick outer shell—comparable to a city wall—Bokue could clearly sense enormous energy inside converging toward a single point.

The entire process was neither fast nor slow—like pulling the plug after a bath to drain the tub.

Looks like it'll take a bit more time.

After brief consideration, Bokue simply sat down and began waiting patiently.

Moments later, as the "water level" formed by demonic power inside the sky baby kept dropping until it hit bottom, something changed.

CRACK.

Like a newborn chick using its head to break through the eggshell for the first time, a thin crack zigzagged across the sky baby's surface.

Golden light leaked through, as if some sacred object was about to emerge from within.

Then came the second crack. Then the third.

The cracks appeared faster and faster, the golden light leaking out growing increasingly brilliant.

Finally—

The giant baby shell covered in cracks could no longer hold together and shattered with a thunderous crash. The spectacle resembled a mountain collapsing, rumbling tremors cascading from a kilometer above straight down to the ground.

And from that embryo—now just a broken base—a majestic figure more blazing than the midday sun stood up.

Golden wavy hair danced behind him like a torch of divine flame. Golden six-pointed stars slowly rotated in his eyes as he gazed down upon the earth below.

Abe no Seimei—he was the founder of Onmyōji, the Dark Lord from a thousand years ago, the god of the mortal realm.

After a millennium, the first thing he did upon awakening was open his eyes to see if this world remained unchanged.

Amid howling winds at high altitude, Abe no Seimei vaguely heard a young man's voice from directly above his head.

"Ciallo~"

The next second, his perspective rotated ninety degrees.

A size forty-four shoe stomped onto his face, kicking him from a kilometer high like a meteor straight back down to earth.

In an instant, mountains and rivers shook.