Chapter 23

It was a tranquil town. A hidden gem within Japan, and one of the few places protected under the heritage law. Shirakawa-go was a great tourist destination, a quite place to reflect, visit and spend time in.

At least it was.

Within 24 hours, word as given to the Jujutsu commission of an attack on this little village, they were quick to send their best investigators to see what happened.

No one was prepared for it.

When they arrived, there was nothing that remained. Not a single house or soul to be found. "How… just… how…" one investigator whispered. The attack was too precise to say the least, taking out merely the village but not the woods and forest around it. The land had been cleared nearly 200 meters to say the least.

Whoever did this, knew what they were doing.

"Why here… this place is quite, only tourists come here!" one said aloud. "This doesn't make sense!"

As they looked over the area, there was something that appeared to be out of place. One of the women who took in the scene paused. "Does this not remind you of something?" she said aloud. "This land has been perfectly cleansed… as if a domain went up and erased everything." She stated.

Everyone paused to her discovery, looking about they found she was right, the area was too perfectly cleared, the earth as been flattened under foot as there was nothing remaining of the quite village.

"It's like the…"

Many nodded their heads in agreement. That day is still fresh in their minds as a city was taken out by Sukuna's domain. "So… that demon vessel lied…" She said offhandedly.

"We can't say it was him for certain…"

"Of course it was him! Look at this place!"

There was little to argue that someone with such power is the only one capable of doing this kind of devastation. Yet as they determined the cause, something caught their attention. Waiting within the woods they felt a strange aura. "You sense that?"

Everyone began to stand, stopping their observations and search when the strange aura began to move… and then split into two… then four… then eight…

The observers suddenly found themselves back to back, armed with what curse tools they possessed when they started coming out of the woods.

"Oh God!" one whispered.

An army of 30 finger bearers appeared, smiling their sickening grins towards the ten observers.

"They are… they are all special grade… Oh God, we got to get out we got to…"

His head was gone before he could utter another word.

No one made it back to report the incident…

#

"What was that?"

Suiryu paused to it as well as they sat for dinner. They looked about but what they felt quickly disappeared.

"I am not liking this at all…" Suiryu muttered as he took a quick mouthful of food. "I'll return shortly…"

"Suiryu!" Yuuji called, but he was already gone.

Yuuji sighed aloud until he noticed the look on the other brothers. "Something happened, didn't it?" asked Eso.

He nodded his head. "I'm just starting to feel it now… It was a massive burst of energy, but it was very fast and very brief…" he shuttered to it. "Brings back bad memories to me." He was about to eat again until he realized why it brought back something so vivid in his mind. Yuuji froze as he dropped his chop sticks. "Oh God…" he whispered.

"Yuuji?" Junpei asked.

He began to tear up, he couldn't stop himself from crying realizing what he just sensed. "I… I couldn't stop it?" he whispered.

"Brother? Brother please, tell us what's wrong!" Choso pleaded.

He peered up to them. "Someone just erased a whole town… killing everyone within it…"

The room went silent. Junpei covered his mouth in shock. "You felt that, all the way here?"

His head simply nodded to him. "It's a few… a few hundred miles away at least, I don't quite know the location but it's far from here… but the fact that it happened… I… I couldn't stop something like that?"

The room went silent, until Tanso approached Yuuji. He bared his left arm as the word appeared etched in his skin. 'How could you have known? This isn't your doing brother, and it isn't your fault.'

He cleared the tears away. "Thank Tanso, it's just that… since I have become so powerful. I should have felt this coming a mile away right? I should have sensed this before it happened… how come I couldn't?"

"You are not capable of knowing everything," stated Sho. "Brother, don't believe just because you are strong, that you can solve everything on your own and do it on your own either"

"Still…"

"Sho is right," Junpei stated. "You cannot be everywhere at once."

He calmed down, but the feeling within him was still unsettling. "I don't understand why they do this… why do they have to kill so many people and for what?"

The table fell silent. Eso sighed aloud. "It's many things little brother," he decreed. "We did it the first time around so we could be a family and live in a world where we could do what we wanted… But the intention of the others, they wanted to be the humans who ran the world in their own image to say the least."

He nodded, he was more than aware of the work of some curses. But he paused to Eso statement. "What do you want to do now?" he asked.

He smiled. "Remain a family, I don't want to be separated from them again,"

"Same here brother," said Choso. "I see now too that you are looking out for us, we are not pawns in this war that is coming, you truly need our help and have been assisting us in preparing."

Yuuji nodded. "I won't abandon you when we go to war, I will fight at your side and have your backs, I promise!" he vowed.

"As brothers should." Stated Sho. "For now, we should rest up while we can, if this incident just happened. It maybe a warning for what is coming…"