(Tsukihito's POV)
Mom's hair kept tickling my nose as she carried me in the soft carrier, my cheek pressed against her collarbone. I tried turning my head, but every movement just made another strand brush under my chin, which was somehow worse.
She smelled like laundry soap and citrus shampoo… and something metallic, like silver scraping over stone.
Anxiety.
Negative emotions always had a taste: bitter, sour, sometimes faintly fishy.
Mom finally brushed her hair back, sparing me the torment. Then she slipped on her red sunglasses and glanced toward the living room.
I glanced toward the aquarium.
The watercolor goldfish drifted lazily through the tank. I scanned for the black one and found him wedged beside the stone lantern—trembling.
I didn't even know goldfish could tremble.
Witlock chose that moment to chime in.
{Congrats, Tsuki! Your first premonition~}
'…'
A tremor rolled through my tiny body, tightening every nerve. It felt like a thread had snapped somewhere far away—like something grave had just happened, but I wasn't close enough to know what.
A curse?
…No. Didn't feel like a curse.
Mom was probably a jujutsu sorcerer. Dad had mentioned she worked in some "dangerous division" of the government, and she personally knew Yuki Tsukumo, the special-grade soul expert—second only to Kenjaku.
So maybe… a presence?
Witlock insisted ghosts existed.
Or maybe my brain was having a baby-sized panic attack.
He kept yammering, but I tuned him out. The feeling faded quickly, like a spark winking out.
Mom patted my head, adjusted my blanket, and whispered, "We'll be quick, sweetheart."
Her voice was soft. Her hands were not. Her hands were bracing-for-impact tense.
{Isn't it lovely? Me, the unpaid divine babysitter; a useless baby; and an anxious mother—off to meet the honorable lord of a branch of the world's shadiest hotel chain.}
I buried my face in her neck.
'Can't you shut up?'
{Not as long as you breathe, boring guy!}
Mom slipped on her coat, stepped into the hallway, locked the door, and we left the apartment—her humming an old song under her breath.
The bus surprised me. Japan's buses were weirdly futuristic. Reading lights. USB ports. It felt like public transport sponsored by a tech company.
We were headed to Kanazawa, which, according to Witlock, had "the greatest seafood in all of Tokyo."
When I told him I didn't even like seafood in my past life, he called me an uncultured peasant.
Screw him.
{I heard that!}
I ignored him and stared outside—then my eyes widened a fraction.
I could see them.
Curses.
Most looked like oversized flies with teeth, glowing in sickly neon colours. They clung to people, biting and sucking at… something. A residue coating their bodies. One curse looked like a scorpion with a grinning face and two snail-like eyes, perched on a woman's shoulders. At the same time, she chatted pleasantly with another woman who was unlucky enough to be swarmed by trumpet-mouthed fly curses latching onto her cheeks.
'That's… kinda disgusting.'
{I know, right?}
I looked up at Mom.
She was staring grimly at a man sitting near the front.
His curse was different.
A small woman-shaped thing—if women were green, hunched, and covered in too many eyes. It hovered inches from his face, muttering:
"…LoOk aT MeE… LoOk aT MeE…"
So I was right.
Mom was definitely a sorcerer.
The trip took forty-five minutes. Then another five to reach the restaurant, tucked behind bamboo fences and mossy stones. A red torii gate stood at the entrance, a wooden plaque reading The Sunlit Restaurant.
Mom stepped through.
The air changed.
Old cedar.
Fresh tatami.
A faint curl of incense—subtle, intentional.
Witlock hummed, the sound vibrating at the edge of my mind like a tuning fork.
{…Interesting. Magic, not sorcery.}
'Wait—did you just say magic?'
{Hmm? Oh, yeah. Magic. Only one mortal per hundred million can use the proper kind, but it's handy.}
'Can I learn it?'
{Of course. All Fists of Khonshu can. But, uh… you need certain special specifications.}
A pause.
A dramatic one.
{For now, you can only learn Fading. Maybe Sliding, if you don't botch it.}
'Sliding? Fading? What the hell does any of that mean!?'
A warm, smug glow pulsed in the back of my mind.
{Don't worry, I'll teach you. Magic is just… complicated. Like taxes. Or your mother's extended family.}
'That doesn't help at all.'
He chuckled—dry, papery, far too pleased.
{Hush, my wittle baby… Daddy's here.}
And he was.
Inside the private room, Dad sat up straight, tie perfect, face stoic. When Mom entered, he turned just enough to give her a tiny nod.
Small. Subtle. But her anxiety eased immediately.
She sat beside him and rested her hand on his knee.
Footsteps muffled against tatami.
A man with a goatee and glasses entered, wearing a dark blue haori. His face, like everyone else's, was blurred. But his presence wasn't.
He bowed to Mom with slow, polite warmth.
She bowed back.
Then his stare shifted to me.
Recognition.
"Is this your child, Kensuke?" he asked.
"Yes, Shimazu-sama," Dad replied.
Shimazu lowered himself onto the cushion.
"Please, Kensuke-san. We are all friends here."
Dad's lips twitched into a faint smile.
"That may be true," he said quietly, "but you gave me purpose at my lowest. And besides—"
He tapped his watch.
"We're still on company hours."
Shimazu sighed faintly.
"…Very well."
He turned to Mom.
"Yumi-san, could you please describe your unwanted visitor?"
"Certainly." She cleared her throat. "Female. Early twenties. About five-foot-four. Long black hair. Red eyes—with a star in the iris of the left one."
"A star?" Shimazu leaned forward. "What color? And how many points?"
"White. Six."
Shimazu snapped his fingers.
Two maids appeared.
One carried a tray with a teapot and small cups.
The other carried a large binder.
The binder was placed in front of Shimazu, who flipped through it with practiced ease while the other maid whisked matcha into a green foam and poured it into ceramic cups.
"Will the little one also have tea, or—?"
"Tsuki has eaten everything I give him," Mom said lightly. "So why not?"
The maid nodded and left briefly, returning with a small baby bottle. She filled it with a bit of tea and handed it over.
"It should be cool enough for him to drink."Top of FormBottom of Form
Mom gave me the bottle, and I started drinking the tea. It was herby, with a faint sweet undertone that only emerged after gulping the drink down.
Shimazu stopped flipping and pushed the binder towards Mom.
Shimazu pushed the binder toward Mom.
"Is this her?"
Mom stared. Her throat tightened.
"Yes. I could never forget that smile."
I looked at the photograph.
The face wasn't glitching like before. In the image, she looked… normal.
Almost.
"Kawamishi Mashiro," Shimazu said. "Four confirmed murders. Declared deceased twelve months ago."
His eyes flicked toward me again.
Something unreadable crossed his expression.
"Yet she visited your apartment."
Mom swallowed.
"Yes."
And the room grew noticeably colder.
Shimazu took a slow sip of his tea, eyes half-lidded as if tasting more than the drink.
"Did she have any tattoos?"
Mom blinked. "Not that I saw. Why?"
He didn't answer right away. He finished the sip, set the cup down with a soft ceramic click, and exhaled through his nose—a quiet, measured breath that somehow felt like a warning.
"It is not uncommon," he said at last, "for the High Table to 'employ' talented inmates for undercover work. Assassins. Informants. Disposable specialists."
Dad's shoulders tightened immediately.
Mom frowned. "…Inmates? You mean prisoners?"
"They are not called that," Shimazu replied. "But yes. Each branch marks their subjects. Tattoos. The location varies by handler."
The maid silently refilled his cup. The rising steam curled between them like thin white curtains.
"But," Shimazu continued, voice dropping to something cooler, heavier, "the Elder has made it abundantly clear: such assets are permitted only for information gathering during their first two years."
He lifted his cup again.
"In other words," he said softly, "they are sent to taste the waters."
A quiet pause.
His eyes cut toward me—sharp, assessing, as if measuring the room's smallest anomaly.
"And sending such a person to the private residence of a Continental employee…"
He lowered his cup.
"…is not merely a breach of protocol."
The air chilled. Subtly. Enough that even my baby skin prickled.
"It is an act of aggression."
Mom's fingers tightened on Dad's knee.
Dad's jaw locked, a muscle jumping near his temple.
Witlock hummed in my skull, delighted.
{Oooooh~, political drama. My favorite mortal pastime. Please continue. Spill more tea—preferably on someone important.}
I ignored him. Barely.
My gaze drifted from the binder photo to Shimazu, who now radiated a quiet, lethal promise.
"Do not worry," Shimazu said, voice returning to polite neutrality but carrying a current of steel beneath it. "Such an insult will not stand—not in my country, and certainly not against my people. Whoever committed this will answer for it."
The anger vanished as quickly as it came, smoothed away like a blade sheathed.
"Now," he said, turning to Mom with a mild smile, "Yumi-san… what would you like to eat?"
---------------
After dinner, when the attendants began clearing the dishes, and Yumi stepped away carrying a drowsy Tsukihito, Shimazu rose from his seat.
"Kensuke-san," he said lightly. "Walk with me for a moment."
Kensuke hesitated only long enough to glance toward the doorway Yumi had left through, then bowed.
"Of course."
Shimazu led him down a short tatami hallway and slid open a small side room. The moment Kensuke stepped inside, Shimazu slid the door shut with a soft snap and moved with a quiet precision born from decades of necessary paranoia.
He lowered the bamboo blinds.
Pressed a hidden switch beneath the table.
A faint electromagnetic hum filled the chamber—soundproofing, discreet but unmistakable.
The room seemed to tighten around them, sealing the conversation away from the world.
"Forgive the precaution," Shimazu said as he turned, "but this matter concerns your family. And potentially the stability of my branch."
Kensuke straightened. "I understand, Shimazu-sama."
The older man studied him for a long, unreadable moment before speaking again.
"Tell me, Kensuke-san… is your little one always so quiet?"
Kensuke blinked. "Quiet? He's… a calm baby, yes."
"Calm," Shimazu echoed softly, as if testing the word on his tongue. "And observant."
Kensuke's composure tightened by a fraction—too slight for normal eyes but never lost on Shimazu.
"I watched him," Shimazu continued. "He wasn't simply staring at lights or movement. He was following the conversations. Tracking people. Evaluating them."
He stepped closer, the air sharpening.
"Babies do not focus with that kind of intention."
Kensuke inhaled slowly, the first sign of unease slipping through his professional mask.
"Shimazu-sama," he said carefully, "he is only a few months old."
"Mm." Shimazu's expression did not waver. "And yet his eyes… moved like those of a man far older."
Silence followed—heavy as a blade resting on a throat.
Finally:
"Tell me honestly," Shimazu said quietly. "Has he always been like this?"
Kensuke looked away—only for a heartbeat, toward the hall where Yumi was settling their child—before he exhaled.
"…Yes."
Shimazu closed his eyes, thinking. When he opened them, their warmth had cooled into clarity.
"I believe," he said, "that Kawamishi Mashiro came because of your son."
Kensuke's breath caught.
Shimazu continued before he could speak.
"Because of his eyes."
"…His eyes?" Kensuke echoed, disbelief cracking through his voice for the first time that evening.
Shimazu nodded once, slow and grave.
"He sees too well."
He reached toward the table, lifting a Continental gold coin between two fingers—letting it catch the faint lamplight before slipping it into his sleeve.
"And children who see like that," he said quietly, "rarely escape notice. Nor are they left alone."
Kensuke's pulse hammered.
Shimazu's final words were soft, almost reverent:
"Mark my words, Kensuke-san… great things will claim your son. Whether they bring fortune or tragedy—only Kami-sama knows.
--------------
Tsukihito was deep in the kind of nap reserved for overworked dads after 8 pm - warm, limp, and spiritually detached. Which, of course, did not last for long.
(Tsukihito POV)
{Wakey, Wakey corpse- child}
Witlock nudged me in my mind.
-Groan-
'Go away'
{You've been asleep for 40 minutes. That's irresponsible for someone destined for greatness. Tragic, even.}
I snuggled deeper into Mom's neck, grabbing fistfuls of her sweater in protest. She was just the right temperature, and I was not giving that up.
Mom shifted me to her other arm as she checked her phone.
"Hm? A message from Yuki-chan… looks like she'll be thirty minutes late."
That, apparently, was the signal for Witlock to escalate.
{Thirty minutes? Excellent. Ample time to rehearse your charming baby persona. Right now you look like a half-melted mochi.}
'Good,' I mumbled internally. 'Maybe she'll forget to come.'
Mom laughed at something on her screen as she walked toward the street, completely unaware that her infant son was plotting an anti-social agenda.
We were going to the Cat's Eye Café to meet the oh so great Yuki Tsukumo, but right now I couldn't care less. It was afternoon, I was tired, and it was the time I usually slept.
She might have been my 3rd favourite character in JJK, but the intrigue disappeared when I realised that she was real and that I lived in a place where dying was as commonplace as breathing.
{Sit up. Activate charisma. Do something adorable.}
'No.'
{At least open an eye.}
'No.'
{You can't meet a Special Grade while drooling.}
'I absolutely can.'
Mom chuckled and patted my back. "Still sleepy, Tsuki? You were out like a light after lunch."
{Tell her the truth—your soul left your body and refuses to re-enter.}
I ignored him.
Mom turned a corner, humming gently as the café's sign came into view.
--------------
On the rooftop of the building across the street, a woman leaned lazily against the railing.
Her hair lifted slightly in the breeze. Her eyes—sharp, amused—tracked the mother and her baby as they approached the café.
"…So that's him," she murmured to herself.
A soft smile curled her lips.
Not warm. Not cold.
But delighted.
"Well, well. My little experiment is going better than expected."
She stepped back, hands in her pockets.
"I wonder…" she said quietly, head tilting with curiosity that bordered on dangerous, "how much he'll grow before he realizes what he is."
Her presence flickered—like a candle snuffed out—and the rooftop was empty again.