Chapter 92: Onii-chan's Decision
"Yami!"
The roar split the night over Tokyo Jujutsu High like a thunderclap.
It came wrapped in grief, rage, and a killing intent so thick it felt almost tangible. At the same instant, a scarlet beam tore through the darkness and shot straight toward the figure who had just landed in the center of the playground.
[Blood Manipulation: Piercing Blood.]
Compressed to the limit, the blood projectile cut through the air faster than sound itself. Its path was straight, merciless, and aimed squarely at Yami's heart.
Inside the boys' dormitory, Yuji Itadori jolted awake.
His chest tightened before his mind even caught up. It was not fear exactly, but a strange pounding from somewhere deeper, something instinctive that made every nerve in his body scream that something serious had just arrived.
"What the hell…"
He sat up abruptly, breathing hard.
"Who is that?"
Outside, on the playground, Yami did not draw his blade.
He only shifted half a step.
Swish.
Piercing Blood screamed past the ends of his hair and detonated against the school building behind him.
Boom.
Concrete erupted. A crater several meters wide burst open in the wall, sending shattered stone and dust cascading across the courtyard.
Yami brushed a fleck of dust from his shoulder and looked up.
"Good aim."
Choso stood in midair for a brief second before landing with a heavy crash. The earth beneath his feet cracked outward in jagged lines, unable to bear the pressure of the cursed energy rolling off him.
His crimson eyes were fixed on Yami with frightening intensity.
Every part of him was soaked in blood scented cursed energy. This was not the cold efficiency of a hunter. This was the frenzy of an older brother who had convinced himself he had already lost everything.
"Give them back."
His voice was low, but it shook with restrained violence.
"Kechizu. Eso."
He took one step forward, teeth grinding together.
"If they're dead, I'll make you pay with your life."
Yami sighed softly.
"Don't be so impatient."
He rested one hand on Shiranui, but he still did not draw it.
"Threatening to kill someone the moment you meet them. Is that how an onii-chan introduces himself?"
Choso's expression darkened.
Yami continued, calm as ever.
"And besides…"
He tilted his head slightly.
"Are you really that sure I'm your enemy?"
"Shut up!"
Choso did not want explanations. He did not want reason.
Mahito's words had reeked of lies, yes, but one thing he could not deny was the scent. Yami carried traces of Kechizu and Eso on him, faint but unmistakable. The lingering connection of cursed energy. Proof that his brothers had crossed paths with this man.
That was enough.
He brought his hands together.
Countless small spheres of blood appeared around him all at once, compressed and shimmering in the night.
[Blood Manipulation: Supernova.]
The spheres exploded outward in every direction.
A storm of blood bullets screamed across the playground, sealing every possible escape route around Yami.
If Piercing Blood was a spear, this was a shotgun blast on a battlefield scale.
"Since you won't listen," Yami said, almost wearily, "I'll just have to calm you down first."
His gaze sharpened.
The air changed.
[Total Concentration Breathing: Water Breathing.]
The pressure around him softened, then settled.
[Eleventh Form: Dead Calm.]
Hum.
The space around Yami, only a few meters wide, seemed to become an utterly still lake.
The blood bullets that had been roaring toward him lost all violence the moment they entered that range. Their speed vanished. Their heat vanished. Their killing intent vanished.
One by one, they slipped into that invisible stillness and died there, as though sinking into a bottomless, silent sea.
No clash.
No spectacle.
Just absolute nullification.
Choso's pupils tightened.
He had never seen anything like it.
This was not brute force.
Not evasion.
Not defense in the normal sense.
It was erasure.
"Not enough!"
Choso roared and gathered blood again, abandoning distance for close quarters. If long range attacks could be dissolved, then he would crush his way through with sheer pressure.
But Yami was already gone.
[Total Concentration Breathing: Constant.]
The next instant, something changed in the air itself.
A violent pressure detonated behind Choso's senses, not hot like the sun and not cold like the moon, but a terrible union of both. Yami forced the explosive acceleration of Thunder Breathing into the heavy crushing force of Sun Breathing, overlaying movement and impact into a single unnatural step.
Hekishin.
Then the moon arrived.
A crooked crescent of purple black flickered into being over the dark field.
[Moon Breathing, Sixth Form: Perpetual Night, Lonely Moon, Incessant.]
Boom.
What struck Choso was not a simple slash.
It was impact.
Weight.
Space collapsing inward beneath a storm of tiny, frenzied crescent blades.
His whole body sank as though a mountain had dropped on top of him. Before he could even react, the force drove him straight into the center of the playground. The ground exploded, and a crater opened beneath him as countless fine moon blades tore shallow lines across his skin.
Dust and debris burst high into the air.
When it settled, Choso was on one knee in the crater, blood running down his face and arms.
The wounds were not deep enough to kill, but they were everywhere. Worse, something lingered inside them. A burning, unstable power that refused to let his flesh recover properly.
The scorching quality of Sun Breathing.
The chaotic bite of Moon Breathing.
Twisted together.
"The gap…"
Choso clenched his teeth and tried to force cursed energy through his body, but every pulse of regeneration met resistance.
"Is it really this wide?"
Footsteps sounded above him.
Yami stepped to the edge of the crater and looked down.
"Feeling calmer now?"
His tone was mild, almost conversational.
"If I wanted you dead, that attack would have taken your head."
Choso said nothing.
His breathing was ragged.
Yami's gaze remained steady.
"Just like if I'd wanted Kechizu and Eso dead…"
He paused, then said quietly,
"They would have turned to ash a long time ago."
Choso froze.
His head snapped up.
The despair in his eyes shattered all at once, replaced by something rawer. Something far more dangerous.
Hope.
"…What?"
His voice cracked.
"What did you say?"
His hands trembled against the broken ground.
"They…"
His throat tightened.
"They're alive?"
Yami did not answer with words.
He simply raised one hand and snapped his fingers.
The sharp sound rang through the silent playground.
A second later, two figures stepped out from the line of trees beside the field.
They wore ill fitting Tokyo Jujutsu High uniforms and looked like they had been interrupted in the middle of snacking.
Kechizu.
Eso.
Alive.
For one heartbeat, Choso could only stare.
Then the world rushed back into him all at once.
"Big Brother?!"
Kechizu's voice broke first.
Then Eso's came a second later, bright and disbelieving.
"It really is Big Brother!"
They ran toward him without hesitation.
Their faces were more human now. Their bodies were cleaner, steadier, stripped of the grotesque curse-twisted shapes they had once borne. But there was no mistaking the blood bond between them.
Not for even a second.
"Kechizu… Eso…"
Choso's vision blurred.
All the fury drained from him at once, leaving behind a flood of relief so violent it hurt.
He had prepared himself for corpses.
For ashes.
For vengeance.
Instead, his brothers were alive. Breathing. Looking at him with exactly the same instinctive trust they'd had from the moment they awakened.
His shoulders shook.
Then the tears came.
Not restrained.
Not hidden.
He cried like someone who had just been pulled back from the edge of a cliff.
"Thank goodness…"
His voice was barely audible.
"Thank goodness…"
Kechizu knelt beside him at once. Eso followed awkwardly, hugging against his side like a child making sure something precious was real.
For a while, no one spoke.
Even Maki and Panda, who had arrived ready to fight, remained silent at the edge of the scene, too stunned to interrupt.
At last, Choso lifted his head.
His tears had stopped, but the softness in his expression had not erased the fury underneath. It had only redirected it.
"That stitched face bastard lied to me."
His voice was cold now.
Not at Yami.
At Mahito.
At Kenjaku.
At everything that had twisted his brothers' fate into a weapon.
"Noritoshi Kamo…"
The name came out like a curse.
"That bastard who toyed with our lives."
Blood tinged cursed energy flickered around him again.
"I'm going to kill him."
"Not just him."
Yami rested a hand on Shiranui's hilt and looked at the reunited brothers with a faint smile.
"Kenjaku too. And everything backing him."
His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it.
"We'll settle each of those debts one by one."
He stepped forward and extended his hand toward Choso.
"Welcome aboard, onii-chan."
The title made Kechizu and Eso grin helplessly through their tears.
Yami went on, deadpan as ever.
"Jujutsu High has too many rules, but at least the food is decent."
He glanced toward the dorms.
"And the pizza isn't bad."
Choso stared at the offered hand.
For a second, he said nothing.
Then he looked at his brothers, one on each side of him, both very much alive because of the man standing in front of him.
He drew in a long breath.
Then he took Yami's hand and gripped it firmly.
"Yeah."
His answer was quiet, but unwavering.
"As long as I can stay with my brothers, I don't care where I go."
He stood slowly, still battered, still bleeding, but no longer lost.
Then he met Yami's eyes directly.
"And…"
The gratitude in his face was plain.
"This life was given back to us by you."
He tightened his grip once.
"From this day on…"
"Our three brothers…"
He stopped there, and a complicated smile passed over Yami's face, as if he already knew what was coming.
Choso finished anyway.
"We'll stand with you."
.....
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