Is "it" truly dead as if sleeping, or sleeping as if dead?
Special Grade Cursed Objects: Cursed Womb: Death Paintings.
Number One: Choso
Number Two: Eso
Number Three: Kechizu
Number Four: Nuran
Number Five: Osho
Number Six: Kansho
Number Seven: Sanso
Number Eight: Koso
Number Nine: Sho-o
A group of nine cursed objects. Even after becoming cursed objects, Choso, Eso, and Kechizu remain "alive"—a genuine mass of curses.
"They shall not harm their surroundings, and in exchange, they shall not be destroyed." Under this Binding Vow, they were supposed to spend eternity in the warehouse of Jujutsu High, where they had remained silent since the Meiji era. However, just moments ago, they suddenly underwent an unexplained activation.
Due to a flaw in the Binding Vow placed upon them, their consciousnesses were forcibly awakened from their slumber.
'Eso! Kechizu! Are you safe? Big Brother is here!'
'I am safe, Brother... but what was that sensation...?'
'Brother! I thought you both died! ...But why?'
The ones exchanging these thoughts were the three of the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings who were clearly "alive": Choso, Eso, and Kechizu. Capable of communicating with each other no matter the distance by following the bond of their blood, they had been jolted awake by a powerful sensation: the death of a relative.
This also meant that the Binding Vow—the agreement that they would not be destroyed so long as they did not harm their surroundings—had been broken.
However, the "curse" resulting from breaking the vow manifested this time by strengthening the curses of the Death Paintings themselves.
This occurred because the breaking of the vow happened in an extremely exceptional manner, and Choso and the others naturally sensed the abnormality of the situation due to their unique traits.
'Big... Brother...?'
'Nuran!? Osho and Kansho too! Even Sanso, Koso, and Sho-o!? You've all returned to life!?'
'...Fa...ther...'
'That's right! It's Big Brother, Sho-o!'
'This is... wonderful, but what on earth is happening? Not only are we all intact, but even our brothers who were dead seem to have been revived...'
'You guys felt it too, right? That feeling like two people died.'
'Yeah. I felt it too... A powerful sensation of death, and something like a flow of information coming in...'
So said Choso, the eldest of the nine brothers, as he tried to dig through his own memories.
Immediately after he began searching his mind...
Suddenly, memories that didn't exist began to overflow into the minds of all the Death Paintings.
A memory of a man with stitches on his forehead taking a fetus from a woman, also with stitches on her forehead, who was submerged in culture fluid.
A memory of that fetus growing into a boy in the blink of an eye, being forged into a weapon without knowing anything.
And a memory of him reaching his end at the conclusion of a battle, passing on his memories, while the man with stitches laughed without even mourning the death.
They had almost no knowledge of the scenes passing through their minds. They lacked too much information to know that this was a cross-wiring of the memory inheritance mechanism that the man once known as Noritoshi Kamo—now calling himself Wessen—had installed in Bitz.
However, one thing was certain.
The man calling himself Wessen and the birth mother of Bitz... those stitches on their foreheads were symbols of hatred and disgust that Choso could never forget.
'Noritoshi Kamo!? I see, you're still alive, Noritoshi Kamo...!'
'Noritoshi Kamo? You mean our creator, the one you hate so much, Brother? If he's your enemy, then he's naturally ours too. But... even though we were slumbering, I feel like over a hundred years have passed.'
'Maybe Noritoshi Kamo became a cursed object and incarnated too!'
'That's it! Kechizu, you're smart!'
'Ehehe! I'm not that great, Brother!'
'That sensation... there's no doubt Noritoshi Kamo created more brothers of ours and killed them! It seems he let the jujutsu sorcerers kill them on purpose, but he's the one who sent our new brothers to their deaths! I won't forgive him!'
'Big Brother.'
'Hm? What is it, Nuran?'
'The numbers don't match. I feel like there is one too many. Brother, how many siblings do you sense right now?'
'I can't feel the two brothers who died... Wait? Nuran is right. I feel eleven! What about the rest of you?'
'...If I focus intensely, I feel eleven as well. The presence of our fellow Death Paintings is the strongest, followed by the new brother Noritoshi Kamo created. Much further away than that, there is definitely one more brother I don't recognize.'
'I feel the same! Why is one of them so far away, Brother?'
'This is just my guess, but those two dead brothers must have had Noritoshi Kamo as both parents. That woman who looked like the birth mother had stitches too. That means they share two-thirds of the same blood as us. Which means... there's likely another poor brother of ours out there who has Noritoshi Kamo as a single parent...!'
'...Save... him.'
'Exactly! Koso is right! We have to save him before Noritoshi Kamo gets his hands on him! I'm worried about the youngest too, but that child is in Noritoshi Kamo's hands... We can't save him while we're just cursed objects! Damn it!!!!'
'Noritoshi Kamo... we'll eventually beat him to death...'
'That's right, that's right! Let's beat him to death, Brother! ...But hey? How do we save the tenth one?'
'...We'll think about that from now on. We still have time. Based on the sensation, the tenth brother is a bit to the north. Since the youngest feels like he's far to the west, we're still closer to the tenth than Noritoshi Kamo is. We'll use this distance to our advantage and contact him before Noritoshi Kamo does...!'
Choso declared this, but sadly, even though the Death Paintings were now able to interfere with their surroundings due to the broken vow, they were currently nothing more than cursed objects locked away in the High School's warehouse.
There was very little they could do on their own.
However, there was certainly something they could do. For starters...
'Anyway, nothing starts until we talk to the tenth! Send out your thoughts with everything you've got!'
'Understood. If he can communicate like we can, the situation should change.'
'What about the youngest, Brother?'
'We can't. It's sad, but Noritoshi Kamo would notice... Dammit!!!!'
'Calm... down...'
'...You're right. Just as Sanso says. Let's stay calm. ...Now, let's all work together to reach our tenth brother! Cursed Womb Brothers, Fire!'
'Ooh!!'
"Hm?"
"What is it, Yuji?"
"Nothing, I just felt like someone called me. Gramps, did you say something?"
"Like hell I'd call you from this distance."
"Hmm. I wonder why. I still feel like someone's calling me..."
"You didn't leave something behind at kindergarten, did you?"
"I don't think so... Hmm."
"Don't worry about it. It'll go away eventually."
"I guess you're right!"
Since that day, when such a conversation between a young boy and his grandfather took place somewhere in Miyagi...
The young boy, Yuji Itadori, would continue to feel the presence of someone calling out to him.
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