12 The Strongest (Part Three)

Chūya Nakahara yawned.

Osamu Dazai turned around and gave him a disbelieving glance, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. “Chūya, have you turned from a little dog into a little pig?!”

Chūya closed his mouth, a little annoyed. “What’s wrong? Is it not okay that I’m used to sleeping?”

“You’ve been sleeping for so long, aren’t you tired of it yet?” Dazai asked disdainfully. “Could the reason you refused to be born before be because you hadn’t slept enough?”

“How would I know…” Chūya replied, knowing he had no good answer. If he could choose, he’d definitely want to wake up earlier than Dazai—that way, he’d have the upper hand!

“That answer doesn’t surprise me at all,” Dazai rolled his eyes and tapped the keyboard to hack into the traffic bureau’s cameras, tracking Satoru Gojo’s movements.

He locked onto the vehicle, and the tracking software ran automatically, eventually generating a complex route map.

Chūya looked at the map and sighed with empathy, “Busy, huh?”

“Yeah, just like you, who spends half the year on business trips,” Dazai sneered sarcastically. “Even the international peacekeeping forces aren’t as busy as you.”

“Otherwise, would you be slacking off all day like you?” Chūya shot back.

Dazai pondered for a moment, then pretended to be profound. “Chūya, I want to eat crab.”

Chūya immediately perked up, ready with a retort, “Didn’t you say you don’t need to eat now?!”

Dazai argued firmly, determined to get Chūya to help him catch crabs. “Not needing to eat doesn’t mean I can’t eat!”

Chūya countered, “Not needing to sleep doesn’t mean I can’t sleep!”

“If you sleep any longer, you’ll turn into a pig!”

“If you eat any more, you’ll turn into a pig!”

“How could my perfect figure ever resemble a pig?!” Dazai desperately danced on Chūya’s sensitive spot. “Only shorties like you turn into pigs when they gain weight! I thought when you were reborn this time and remade your body, you’d at least make yourself a bit taller. Turns out you’re quite satisfied with your height. Are you usually all talk but secretly honest about your body?”

“Who’s all talk but honest? I could never get that fat… Wait! What do you mean by remaking the body?!” Chūya’s eyes widened.

“Chūya, cursed spirits are manifestations of humanity’s negative emotions. Their forms generally follow their own will beyond human imagination,” Dazai paused, adding, “Though most cursed spirits lack self-awareness and look pretty weird.”

“So you...?” Chūya scrutinized Dazai from head to toe, especially his black clothes—familiar yet awkward.

Dazai casually said, “Maybe we’re exceptions. The memories from our human lives are too deeply ingrained, causing subconscious issues.”

“So what negative emotion are you?” Chūya asked curiously. “Jogo is humans’ fear of volcanoes, Hanami is the fear of forests. What about you? Humans’ fear of schemes and conspiracies?”

“You can say it’s humans’ fear of intelligence. I’ll accept that,” Dazai smiled smugly. “Aren’t you more curious about yourself than I am?”

“It’s probably just that,” Chūya shrugged indifferently. “Fear of power or something like that.”

“...Changing the subject won’t work. To compensate me—crab!” Dazai raised his chin, demanding as if it were a given.

Chūya ground his molars, “You’re impossible!”

Dazai smiled triumphantly.

The two left the room. The computer, glowing dark red, twisted into a ball and completely broke down, rolling unattended into the hallway trash bin.

The room fell into darkness, leaving only a humanoid shadow collapsed in the corner.

Two cursed spirits, invisible to ordinary people, swaggered through the unmonitored hotel.

“When do you think that person will be discovered, Chūya?”

“During morning room service tomorrow.”

“I mean discovered by those cave-dwelling primitives.”

“How would I know?”

“Is your brain just decoration?”

“You should know about this kind of thing.”

“...What would I do without you, Chūya?”

“What are you plotting now?”

“Nothing!”

“Another sorcerer’s been killed.” Satoru Gojo glanced at a work email on his phone. “At a hotel, dead for several days before the ‘window’ found them in the police system.”

---

While Dazai and Chūya were keeping an eye on Gojo, Gojo was tracking their traces in return—or rather, having people investigate them.

Gojo himself was too busy to undertake such a prolonged task.

Dazai and Chūya tracked Gojo like ordinary people, while Gojo relied purely on sorcerer methods.

It turned out sorcerer methods were inefficient. They only discovered each time after several days, once the deed was done—but since the victims were all cursed sorcerers, the sorcery world wasn’t too worried.

“A special-grade cursed spirit targeting cursed sorcerers?” The black-haired boy sitting opposite Gojo asked, puzzled.

“Hmm... cursed spirits targeting specific groups? Not impossible, since some curses hate certain groups. But such negative emotions aren’t enough to create a special-grade cursed spirit,” Gojo stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“I see,” the boy nodded, absorbing the lesson.

“You still have a lot to learn, Megumi!” Gojo smiled. “Becoming a sorcerer isn’t easy.”

“I know,” the black-haired boy—Megumi Fushiguro—said seriously. The image of a black-haired girl flashed through his mind. He unconsciously clenched the cup in his hand. “I’ll work hard.”

He didn’t want someone as kind as his sister to suffer the same fate she did.

Gojo said, “If it weren’t for some peculiar aspects of this cursed spirit, this mission would be perfect for you, Megumi.”

“Peculiar aspects?” Megumi looked at Gojo with surprise and curiosity. For Gojo, “peculiar” usually meant sweets.

“There’s something strange,” Gojo smiled with interest. “I found traces of cursed energy residue in the forest that don’t add up.”

Megumi frowned, “Traces of cursed energy residue that don’t add up?”

“I’m very familiar with Geto’s cursed energy residue. The other residue belongs to that special-grade cursed spirit not yet discovered,” Gojo explained. “But the traces left by their battle are odd—as if there was a third party present.”

Maybe that’s why this special-grade cursed spirit has been targeting cursed sorcerers all along? Wow! A cursed sorcerer stole a spirit sealed by Geto and is now controlling it. Even if half of this guess is true, it’s enough for me to tease Geto for a lifetime.