Kyandi: Greetings, all!
Inari: I wonder how many people have held on this long.
Kyandi: Eh. As long as someone enjoys my work, I'll keep going.
Inari: This chapter is short, though.
Kyandi: Yeah, but I'm revealing more about you and setting up for the Shibuya incident to come.
Inari: The revelation of this chapter makes me feel...odd.
Kyandi: Totally valid, but let's not spoil it.
Inari: Right.
Kyandi: Everyone, please enjoy and review.
Inari: Kyandi-sama does not own Jujutsu Kaisen.
Chapter 9 Bloodlines
After the events at Yasohachi Bridge, Inari went to Gojou about the eerie similarities she had found in the brothers' scent and her own. He hadn't been able to give her an answer right then and there, but promised to look into it for her. A few days after she called him about that, he called her back.
"Hey, Kit!"
"I will disconnect this call."
Gojou's laughter rang through the phone. "Do you even know how to hang up a call?"
"I do not know. Shall we see?"Inari hit the end call button that Maki had shown her, hanging up the call.
Gojou instantly called back. "Alright, alright, joking aside...How're you doing, Kit?"
Inari sat on her bed, glancing out her window. "No worse for wear. Why are you calling me, Gojou-sensei? Are you not on a business trip?"
"Yeah, but that's all handled. We need to talk."
That surprised her. Usually, Gojou never wanted to talk to her about anything serious. She had a good idea on what it was. "Did you find an answer?"
"I did some digging on your family background and something caught my attention."
"What was it?"
"Your grandmother, the last host of Kyuubi...she never married."
Inari frowned. She had seriously thought it was going to be something huge, not common knowledge. "No, she did not. This is important, why?"
"Put that thing down, Little One." Kyuubi appeared in his mini form beside her on the bed. "Do not listen to that fool!"
Inari blinked at the fox. He had never spoken to her like that before. He sounded angry, on edge, and she could never remember a time when he had even been cross with her. Gojou heard him over the phone and laughed again.
"Somebody sounds angry! Did I hit a sore spot?" Gojou taunted.
Kyuubi snarled at the phone. "Be silent, human! Little One, get rid of that device this instant."
Inari pulled her phone back when Kyuubi reached a paw for it. "No. I want to hear what he has to say."
Kyuubi snapped his fangs, growling. "All that man spews is nonsense!"
"Except this time you know what I'm about to tell her and you know it's the truth," Gojou pointed out.
Inari looked between the curse and her phone, now curious to hear what Gojou was talking about. "Explain this, please."
Kyuubi's ears fell back on his head, but he couldn't override Inari's will. She wanted to hear this and he couldn't stop her.
"Have you heard the history of the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings?"Gojou asked.
"I have heard of the objects, but not of their history. They are special grade cursed objects."
"Exactly, but how they came to be is actually an interesting story. At the beginning of the Meiji Era, there was a woman born with a special genetic composition that allowed her to get pregnant with the child of a cursed spirit. She had nine pregnancies and nine abortions. There are no records of what became of her, but those nine children became the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings."
"This pertains to me how?"
By this point, Kyuubi was furiously pacing back and forth on the bed.
"There is a record, from much later, that gives us a hint as to what might have happened...your grandmother never married and when she gave birth to your father...she was supposedly a virgin."
Inari's brain started ticking, connecting some of the dots that Gojou had supplied. "My grandmother was a descendant of that woman from the Meiji Era?"
"Bingo" Gojou cheered. "Who's a smart kit?"
Inari ignored that comment. "So my father was the child of a cursed spirit?"
"From the results of all of Ieiri's blood work on you, that seems to be the case. But it's not just any cursed spirit." She could hear the grin in Gojou's voice. "Isn't that right, Kyuubi?"
Her eyes going wide as the implications, Inari turned to Kyuubi. The fox refused to look at her. "Kyui? Is he right?" Kyuubi didn't answer. "Kyui, answer me."
With the order, Kyuubi had to answer. He sighed, hanging his head. "Yes, he is."
Inari stared at the fox in disbelief. She couldn't believe what she had just been told. It took her a moment to rationalize and process it. "Kyui is...my grandfather?"
"Whoa, how weird, right? Having your own grandpa living inside you!" Gojou laughed, though Inari didn't find it very funny. "There's more, Kit. Those two brothers you encountered the other day at Yasohachi Bridge...they were two of the three stolen Cursed Womb: Death Paintings."
Horror filled her as she realized the meaning behind his words. She had helped in the killing of her own relatives. She had been fine, only a little remorseful for the tears the two brothers had shed for each other, but this made the whole thing hit her In a worse way. Inari covered her mouth with a hand, feeling sick to her stomach.
"You still there, Kit?" Gojou called.
"Yes...do you delight in causing me an existential crises?"
"Nah! You wanted the answer and there is a third brother out there still." Gojou fell silent as Inari processed it all. "You good?"
Inari heaved a sigh, her eyes shifting to Kyuubi who at least had the decentecy to look ashamed for not telling her something so important. "I will be once I have processed this. I just require a little time."
"Listen, Kit," Gojou's tone grew serious. "Whatever is going on in the cursed spirit world, I need you to stick to Yuuji, got it?"
"I know. I have to be there to use my seals should Sukuna gain control over Yuuji's body."
"It's not just that, Kit. I put you two together to be each others' life line. You need him just as much as he needs you. There might come a time when I can't be there for you."
Inari stared at the phone in surprise. "Is the great, almighty Gojou-sensei...worried?"
"Aw, come on, Kit! Daddy Satoru will always worry about you!" Gojou joked.
Inari winced. "Please do not ever call yourself that again. It sound incredibly wrong. You are my legal guardian, I will concede that, but I will never call you "daddy". Ever."
Gojou whined into the phone, going on about her at least calling him "dad". It made her roll her eyes, but it also had the bad feeling in her chest subsiding. Gojou acted like an idiot, but sometimes it actually helped.
"Is there anything else you needed to say, Gojou-sensei?" she asked finally.
"Hmm...nope! I'll be back in a few day and I'll bring you a treat! Keep Yuuji out of trouble!"
Inari wasn't sure, but there had been a brief moment where it sounded like there was something else, but he decided against telling her.
She should have listened to that instinct.
The day after Gojou's call, the man sent Inari and her classmates to meet up with Utahime. They met her at an underground parking garage. Their mission...confront a mole who had been feeding information to Mahito and his group.
"Gojou has informed you all about the mole, right?" Utahime asked once they were alone.
"Yes," the four answered.
"We think there're two or more people feeding intel to the curse users. One has to be highly ranked, even higher than the principals. I can't do anything about that," Utahime informed them. "The other is someone feeding information to that higher-up. Today's target. They're still only under suspicion, so after apprehending the suspect, we need to conduct an interrogation."
"The fact that it is you here with us...it's someone from the Kyoto school," Inari stated. "I mean...we are all here."
Utahime's expression was regretful and dark. "The mole is...Mechamaru."
Inari wished she could say she believed it one way or the other, but she simply didn't know him well. During the whole sister school exchange, she'd had next to nothing to do with the Kyoto student. Without more information, she couldn't make an accurate judgment. Inari thought back on what she did know of Mechamaru as Utahime led them down a flight of stairs to a door that led into a basement level of storage rooms.
"The real Mechamaru, Kokichi Muta, is down here," Utahime whispered as they walked. "We don't suspect him because he's suspicious...we came to that conclusion by process of elimination." They followed Utahime down a hallway. "Puppet manipulation...its range, thanks to his Heavenly Restriction, reaches the entire nation. Using unregistered puppets that act as moles to steal information would be easy for him."
Yuuji drew even with Utahime. "Really? But it'd draw a lot of attention if you ask me."
"Not entirely," Inari replied. "If it was small, like that of an insect, most would over look it."
"Oh, yeah. That's possible," Yuuji agreed.
Utahime came to a stop in front of a door then. "Here."
All of them stepped back, ready to rush in as Yuuji stepped up to break through the door. The door shattered upon impact, but Inari knew, even before looking inside, that Mechamaru wasn't there. The stale air that rushed out of the room, was Indicator enough.
Glancing around the door frame, she found she was right. The only thing that stood in the crumbling, old room was a single, weathered chair.
"He got us," Utahime said with a sigh.
"From the smell of the room...no one has been here in a very long while," Inari informed her. "I highly doubt he was ever here."
"So this means..."
"It's confirmed," Nobara finished Fushiguro's sentence. "Mechamaru's the mole."
Staring into the room, Inari had a sense of foreboding that she couldn't ignore. She reached deep into that forest inside her where Kyuubi resided. What do you think, Kyui?
I agree, Little One...something is very wrong here.
If Kyuubi agreed then Inari had a very bad feeling for the future.
At least Gojou would be bringing her home a treat.
END
Kyandi: I don't want to even imagine what it would feel like to find out that my grandfather was living inside me.
Inari: But you did. How else would you write this?
Kyandi:...Huh. You have a point.
Inari: So this was your version of that "your own grandfather" plot device?
Kyandi: Eh...not quite, but close. But I did say you weren't related to Kengaku.
Inari: No, I am just related to Choso and his brothers.
Kyandi: Yep. I'll let all of you process this because I need to finish up the next chapter. It's making laugh.
Inari: I do not see what is so funny.
Kyandi: You wouldn't. Anyway, everyone, please enjoy and review.
Inari: We shall return as soon as possible.
Kyandi: Bye-bye!