Chapter 2.2: Resurrection Puppet

“Never mind, I get it.”

Gojou lightly waved his hands.

In this summarized conversation, he has already understood the case to a point that it could not be any clearer.

“Even if it’s most likely, even if there’s a ninety nine percent chance that it’s a scam….but if by the slightest minute chance it’s real, we can’t leave it alone. That’s what you wanted to express, right?”

In this world, there are several truths that do not need to be doubted.

Such as: The sky will turn bright after the night has passed, ice is cold and apples will fall from trees.

Because of the existence of these laws which were so simple that they brought smiles to people’s faces, this world could function.

On the other hand, if these laws got flipped on their head, this world would fall into chaos.

One plus one did not equal to two, all the concepts of mathematics will be crushed in a go; just the absence of light after night had passed was enough to destroy this planet.

If there were changes to this matters that were simple to the point that it made people smile, no one would be able to smile.

Time could not turn back. That was one of those laws of truth.

Just as how one cannot put split water back in a basin, it was the same logic that there was no treatment for regret. Once time had passed, it could not come back.

The easiest to understand representative phenomenon would be “death”.

“No wonder the upper echelons did not want me to know. After all, they intend to completely bring the life of Sukuna’s vessel to an end.”

“Seems like you figured things out.”

“Aren’t they looking down on me? They actually believe I will use such unorthodox methods?”

“Even though it’s less than a one percent chance, those individuals with power are still cautious and fearful and plan to eliminate all possibilities. No wonder they can still hold onto their absolute power and stay on their ivory towers.”

“Though I feel that this is hundred percent a scam.”

“I think so too. After all, if the dead can return to life—”

“If the dead can really return to life, this world would have been doomed.”

The dead could not return to life. Because resurrection was not possible, people could give up on the past. Because resurrection was not possible, they would at least want a meaningful death.

If the dead could come back to life, then to this world, that would probably be a curse that is so large that it had no equal.

It probably can be called the King of Curses, a curse that stood above all others.

“However, this suspicious product seems to be limited to “reviving infants”….If it’s like that, that raises another vague possibility.”

“Only for reviving infants? Now what’s this about?”

“Right now, I only know that’s how the website limits its clientele. My job this time also involves investigating this matter.”

“We can’t even be sure if the dead will really get revived and you still have to investigate this matter?”

“It’s not as if I can leave it alone. I still have to do my job after all.”

Gojou raised his head and bit the sweet waffle of his soft serve with a crunch.

After licking off the soft serve that had melted and dripped onto his thumb, an expression of complete exhaustion appeared as he looked at Nanami through his sunglasses.

“Nanami, do you think the job of a salaryman is lousier than being a Jujutsu Sorcerer?”

“Putting aside the suitability for the job, I feel that this is just a pot calling a kettle black.”

“Looks like this society is going to get cursed.”

“It can’t be helped that something like that is said.”

“Nanami….that person who’s selling the puppets……let’s just call him the “Puppeteer”. You should have an idea of where that guy is already, right? Where should we go from here?”

“We already went past our destination because a certain someone decided to lead the way wrongly.”

“Eh? It’s my fault?”

“Please do not make me think that because a salaryman like you doesn’t exist, the world is in a slightly better place.”

For a while, Nanami quietly thought about whether he wanted to stay in this profession in future.

*

A city was not something that only expanded horizontally.

In a city where the density of development on its surface had been pushed to the limit, it will basically stop expanding horizontally and start expanding vertically.

All in all, the heights of buildings would keep growing or more spaces would keep getting dug out.

“I see, an underground street.”

“There are a lot of entrances on the surface that lead to underground so it’s pretty convenient to come down here but we have already gone in a huge circle.”

The completeness of the underground transport network that held various railway lines was one sign whether a place could be considered a city.

In comparison, the underground passageway in front of Sapporo station was more modern and so, the tunnels were also wider. From there, one could access almost all the major facilities between the front of the station to Susukino.

It was because of these underground pedestrian paths that led to the roads on the surfaces having very few pedestrians. This space that was affected by traffic signals or weather had become a city beneath a city.

“The space here is pretty modern. It’s underground but there are still skylights.”

“Whether it’s supermarkets, bookstores, terraces or library teller windows, they are all available here. You can even find beauticians and fortune tellers. Many kinds of occupations are gathered in this place so most likely the “Puppeteer” is among them as well.”

“By the way, why didn’t we just come directly to the underground street from the start?”

“I had intended to come here immediately. But someone did not listen to me and went to eat potatoes with butter on a whim.”

“Are you serious? If I see that person, I’m gonna tell him off for you.”

“If you want to look at a mirror, they’re available in the toilets.”

“Anyway…this place really is trendy. Not only is there an exhibition area, but there are also events and even performances. The liveliness is even more vigorous than that on the surface. But because that is the case, I have a bad feeling.”

Gojou had reason to cause deeper creases to form on his brow.

Sapporo is a unique city.

Humans are living creatures where ten people have ten different manners. Different kinds of personalities existed in this world.

For places like Tokyo, Shibuya, Asakusa, Shinjuku, Akihabara and so on, each district has their own distinct traits and people would gather at these different districts based on their own personalities. Once a person was referred to with vocabulary such as the Shibuya-type or Akihabara-type, it was clear what their personality trait was.

However, they were all jumbled together in Sapporo.

Trendy shopping areas where youths gathered at, anime and manga merchandise stores where nerds navigated towards, shopping streets that contained old brand stores with long histories and areas that held the desires of adults.

These districts were probably only separated by a distance of one street and were all mixed into one.

Of course, all the “thoughts” that gathered in these areas also get thrown together.

Resentment, jealousy, anger, partiality, stubbornness, envy, disgust, selfishness.

The negative feelings of humans were supposed to drift apart naturally based on the area’s specialty, but this city was not divided based on special characteristics.

After that, it would be the space that became an underground pedestrian pathway.

The underground street that had wide paths and took up a lot of space.

Various kinds of people go through these round tunnels that were carefully designed for convenience and connected almost all the city’s major facilities and head for the stations. At the same time, all the negative feelings they were carrying were brought into the same space with the people who held them.

At the first glance, this underground artery was magnificent and lively, but in the eyes of a Jujutsu sorcerer, this was a huge cauldron of human thoughts.

“Because of somewhere like this, we can easily stiff out where the stink comes from.”

“Yeah, I can feel some sort of evil aura just from looking.”

In the first place, the air in this underground street where large groups of people came and went was stagnant

However, there was definitely some sort of peculiar air of gloom in this kind of environment.

For Jujutsu sorcerers who could find cursed spirits based on the remnants of the cursed technique, finding the source of this aura was easier than finding the source of a gas leak.

Nanami and Gojou followed the source of the aura, weaving through the crowds of people who were coming and going and continued to move south down the underground space.

After walking for about ten minutes, the two came to the end of district that had been replanned and refurbished and entered the older district that had a distinctly different atmosphere.

Compared to the refurbished area, the old district’s structure was more complex, with more branching paths or roads that went towards the metro.

Even so, the amount of human traffic did not decrease and instead became even more congested.

The flow of humans was like a river that was close to breaking its embankment.

However in this kind bustling crowd of people….two people felt a kind of “stagnancy”.

“Nanami.”

“Yes—–that should be a clue.”

At the end of the line of sight of these two Jujutsu sorcerers was a mother with children.

The mother carried an infant while a boy of about five or six years old stood next to her.

Gojou and Nanami pricked up their ears to listen to the conversation between the mother and child as they carefully got closer.

“—Akito, why aren’t you listening to me?”

“No! Mommy, don’t carry that kind of thing and walk around! I hate it! I hate it!”

“You are the big brother, so stop being willful for no reason. Look….Natsuki is crying again.”

“I hate it! I hate it! I’m not an older brother!”

After the mother shifted the position of the baby called Natsuki in her arms, she made a face like she was at a loss of what to do.

She probably treasured that child who was called Akito as well.

Of course, people who were parents would not be able win against babies. That mother’s attention did not leave her youngest and she carried his tiny body while swaying continuously. From her expression , one could tell that the love she had for her youngest was close to insanity.

The woman, on one side, was feeling troubled by the boy who was throwing a tantrum while on the other side, she was coaxing the small baby in her arms.

In the eyes of normal people, this was a heartwarming scene that was extremely normal.

When a younger sibling was born, children who became older siblings would lose their temper once in a while because they feel that their mother suddenly got snatched away. Adults could only say “This happens all the time” and smile to brush it off.

However, from the degree of protests from this boy by the name of Akito, it was too fierce to say that the child was just throwing a tantrum.

He was indeed unwilling to let his mother get snatched away by his younger brother.

However, the amount of animosity he felt towards his brother was far too intense.

The woman, as a mother, should have realized it as well. Her expression that started off as a wry smile slowly morphed into one of being bothered and finally it became languish and anger.

“Why do you say such a thing?!”

“Because, because!”

“He is your little brother, isn’t he? Don’t you feel bad for him?”

“That thing is not my little brother!”

“Aki, Akito!”

The furious mother lost her sense of reason and raised her palm up high.

But when she swung her hand down, there was no heart wrenching sound of the boy’s face getting slapped.

Because Nanami had grabbed the woman’s arm.

“This…wh, why did you grab my arm for?!”

Obviously, the mother became panicked.

After all, to her, Nanami and Gojou were suspicious strangers who have barged into the daily lives of her family.

Even though the mother understood that she ought to get chided for using violence, she still had to properly discipline the boy who made harsh remarks towards her baby. Therefore, she found it hard to accept that outsiders were sticking their nose into her domestic affairs.

However, Nanami and Gojou had sufficient reason to reproach this mother.

Aside from being adults like her, they were Jujutsu sorcerers.

“Please let go of me! This is a problem between me and my child!”

“Sorry, I cannot allow that. May I ask if you know what is it that you are holding?”

“What are you saying….”

“I see, so this is that so called puppet.”

“Eh!”

Gojou stuck his face closer from opposite Nanami, looking up and down at the baby that the woman held.

“And there I was thinking what kind of object the so-called puppet was….so it’s only this. Taking out such a thing to sell and saying something like reviving the dead, a scam which has no qualms about ruining people’s lives!”

“Pl, please don’t be like this! Don’t touch Natsuki!”

“Oh, you care about “that thing” that much? More than that child who is crying and screaming next to you?”

“What nonsense are you spouting! For the sake of this child, I endured intense pain to—”

“Buy it?”

After the woman heard Nanami’s words, her movements stopped as though she had frozen.

She felt a sense of chill and despair run up her body, as though someone had directly stuck their arm into her intestine and squeezed her spine.

The woman understood that only the people who understood the inner workings of the matter would be able to say such a thing.

*

“—Cursed corpse?”

This mother ruminated, repeating the noun that Nanami said.

Perhaps she was not familiar with such a noun so it sounded forced when she pronounced it.

“Yes, simply put….let me think….It should be easy to understand if I say it’s a puppet that was made with curses.”

From the way Nanami explained it, one would realise that he had considered that normal people know absolutely nothing about curses.

Gojou had actually secretly praised Nanami by saying “Nanami used to be part of the workforce, so he can communicate with others better on such matters.”

“You say that this is a puppet….but this child looks like a real person.”

“This puppet is so intricately made that it leaves people in awe. If a normal person sees it, they probably can’t tell whether it’s a real baby or not.”

“This child is real.”

“That child is not real. You made the purchase so you should be clear about this more than anyone else, right?”

“…..”

“Reasonably speaking, the number of Jujutsu sorcerers who can make cursed corpses so human-like are few and far between….If I deduce from there, when you requested for this puppet to be made, the other party should have asked for something else other than money, am I correct?”

“Yes….”

The baby in the woman’s arms was really wondrous.

He would move his arms and legs like he was grabbing air and even puff up his tiny cheeks that had a bit of pink, these were all prime textbook examples of standard baby movements that would stimulate maternal instinct.

Even so, these were only superficial.

In the eyes of a Jujutsu sorcerer, it was only spine chilling.

It was only normal for someone to feel like that because—

“I suppose the other party—”

“Wanted you to hand over the corpse of the baby you wanted to revive.”

“….Gojou-san.”

Because a normal person could not possibility move the body of an adult, that’s why he only limited the resurrection to infants.”

Nanami had originally wanted to get the truth out innocuously, however once he heard Gojou reveal his own deduction in a blunt manner, he weakly slumped his shoulders.

Seeing how the woman looked uneasy, Gojou’s deduction was probably spot on.

This cursed corpse that moved like a living person was made using corpses as its material.

If one had a certain degree of understanding of cursed techniques, they would know that how nefarious and profane this cursed technique was and a matter that depraved people.

However, this puppet was enough to let normal people live the sweet dream of “resurrecting the dead”.

To wake people from such a nightmare, they definitely needed the truth to be thrown on them like cold water just like Gojou had done. Gojou might have proactively said such words as a show of consideration to Nanami, but whether he really thought about such a thing was unknown.

No matter what his original intention was, Gojou continued to speak to the woman:

“That thing might look like a living person, but it’s actually no different from a robotic pet that follows pre-programmed actions.”

“You’re lying! I confirmed over and over again….the other party promised that Natsuki would return to my side, that’s why I paid him.”

“A mother should be able to know better than anyone else what kind of small actions, what kind of small expressions that are full of emotions that their own child would have……however, that baby in your arms now does not even have the air of a person with a living soul, right?”

“…….”

“Furthermore—”

Nanami’s eyes which were under his sunglasses threw a glance at the child who was called Akito.

A boy who was only around five years old pressed himself against the woman’s leg as he raised his head to look at his own mother with an uneasy yet determined expression.

“—that child seems to be very clear about what’s happening. He knows that his mother’s mind was about to be taken away by some unknown object.”

“That….”

“Every person has a different definition of what is reality. If what you want is “A reality where you did not lose any of your children”, I have no right to lecture you….”

Nanami used his middle finger to push up his sunglasses and then paused.

Sometimes children were stronger and had more resolve than adults could imagine.

This boy called Akito should know that “I have to hang on to my mother with all I have”. His actions might be touching, but seeing that a child was forced to face a matter because of how cruel the truth was, it only made one inevitably let out a sigh.

So Nanami could only quietly pray while giving a reminder.

“But the matter that you are turning a blind eye to, “The child who worries about you is still alive” is also reality, correct?”

“……Uu….”

This mother’s heart had understood everything.

She understood that what Nanami said was correct; she understood that what she had done was merely an escape from reality.

Even so, Nanami also knew well that he could not end everything by saying “It’s good you understand”.

He could also understand how cruel it was to lose someone you have gotten back once more.

So he did not force this mother to make a decision.

*

“Eliminating a human’s attachment to the past is more difficult than exorcising a curse.”

The mother of the baby was described aptly with the words that Gojou muttered. The two finally retrieved the cursed corpse among her tears and the sound of her sobs.

They were underground so they were not too sure about the situation outside, but at this moment, the sun should already be setting. If they forcefully took away the cursed corpse, the wound in the woman’s heart would never heal for the rest of her life, so the two could only wait till this mother was ready to let go on her own.

Nanami kept telling Gojou “If you aren’t working, at least help to carry this”, Gojou excused himself three times but in the end, he was forced to carry Nanami’s bag.

The bag contained the cursed corpse which they took from the woman.

“Nanami, you placed this object in your hand carry bag, it’s kinda heavy to hold.”

“It’s not as though we can just chuck it somewhere. Furthermore, it’s an important clue. Use the cursed energy that’s placed inside the puppet and then rely on some of the remnants so we can go straight for the other party’s base.”

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***