Jujutsu Kaisen: Naoya Zenin Wants to Live! Chapter 33: Those Who Want To Win Have No Smiles On Their Fa

"Oda! I need every scrap of information in the taboo storehouse on [Ryon Sukuna's Fingers]! Right now! Imdiately!"

Naoya Zenin rushed back to the Zenin household and, without stopping for a mont, ordered the servant Oda to gather the information.

Oda, who was good at reading the room, quickly realized sothing was very wrong.

From his usual observations of Naoya Zenin, this young master, normally elegant and arrogant to the extre, rarely lost his composure like this. And now his face was actually pale.

So the middle-aged man did not hesitate for even a second, nor did he ask why. He imdiately collected all the records on [Ryon Sukuna's Fingers] for Naoya Zenin.

Ryon Sukuna was the King of Curses from a thousand years ago. After his death, the terrifying cursed power he left behind was split into twenty fingers, true [Special Grade Cursed Objects] that had been sealed away in the taboo storehouses of the jujutsu world.

"Damn it..."

After quickly reading through the records, Naoya Zenin imdiately realized that the worst-case scenario he had been dreading was becoming reality.

At present, the taboo storehouse holding the largest number of [Sukuna Fingers] was Jujutsu High, which according to the records possessed six.

The Zenin family's taboo storehouse, anwhile, only held one, kept as a display piece to show off the heritage of one of the Big Three Clans.

If he followed that line of reasoning, then the number of [Sukuna Fingers] the jujutsu world could still get its hands on could not possibly exceed ten.

Which ant the other ten had probably already been lost among the common people long ago.

After all, no sorcerer could wield the power of the King of Curses.

So [Sukuna Fingers] were more like status symbols than anything with practical value, and over the course of that thousand-year span, they had been scattered by war and turmoil.

And once they had fallen into the hands of the public, they might as well have fallen into Kenjaku's hands.

In other words, if Kenjaku wanted to, he could use Yuji Itadori right now to create a Ryon Sukuna with the power of ten fingers on the spot.

A ten-finger Sukuna definitely would not be a match for Gojo, but for Naoya himself, that would be a full-on dinsionality reduction strike.

Which ant that if Kenjaku wanted to, he could reclaim Suguru Geto's corpse anyti, anywhere.

Maybe he really should just cremate it as soon as possible.

But if he actually dared to cremate Suguru Geto's corpse, then wouldn't what awaited him be a tag-team beating from Kenjaku and Gojo Satoru?

Naoya Zenin felt his vision go dark.

His life had already been hard enough as it was, and now it had to get even worse and jump straight to hell difficulty?

Ahead of him were two corpse-loving freaks sharpening their knives and heading his way.

Behind him was his ultra-violent little cousin getting ready to send him to the chopping block.

What can I say?

Now Naoya Zenin not only had to figure out how to deal with the Zenin family, he also had to dig out the Kenjaku lurking in the shadows.

He had thought he was just riding a tiger, but who the hell would have guessed the tiger had two heads?

If even one step went wrong, then the mont that balance collapsed, he would be completely finished.

"...What exactly happened?"

Oda did not even dare to breathe at the side.

The pressure coming off Naoya Zenin right now was too terrifying.

This servant had never seen this villainous young master pushed to the edge of life and death like this. The sheer volu of thought racing through him was enough to make Oda break out in goosebumps just from standing nearby and watching.

The pressure of being a teacher was actually this intense?!

Oda had already heard through the grapevine what had happened to Naoya Zenin at school.

The young master had actually dared to stand alone against all the conservatives in the jujutsu world and deliver a speech that arrogant.

Honestly, Oda had never expected that.

Because of the relationship between the Zenin family and the higher-ups of the jujutsu world, he had heard bits and pieces here and there.

The Big Three Clans were deeply tied to the jujutsu higher-ups to begin with. The conservatives were backed by those old monsters of the jujutsu world, and to them, the reformists who supported modern jujutsu were enemies trying to divide up the cake all over again.

There was no room for reconciliation at all.

As the next heir of the Zenin family, Naoya Zenin should, by all rights, have been one of the conservatives too.

So how had it co to this?

He actually supported modern jujutsu?

Could it really be as Ranta had said?

Was Naoya Zenin actually so deeply hidden good person?

Anonymous donations. Fearless in the face of authority. Willing to risk offending the jujutsu higher-ups just to protect sorcerers with no backing?

No, no, no...

Oda quickly shook his head and rejected that horrifying idea.

This was definitely just Naoya Zenin having so twisted hobby far beyond normal people.

Just like he had said before.

This evil aristocrat was definitely playing so bizarre new ga.

The kind of disgusting noble ga where, after slaughtering soone's whole family, you deliberately spare one child, raise her as your own daughter, shower her with ticulous care and familial affection, and then on the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, reveal before everyone that you are actually her father's murderer, before kicking the girl, who had only just managed to stand back up, right back out of the house, all so you can enjoy that almost pathological thrill.

Naoya Zenin absolutely had to be thinking along those sa lines, which was why he had deliberately gone to Jujutsu High. He wanted to utterly ruin those two pitiful, stubborn twins, Maki and Mai, from head to toe and down to the bone.

Naoya Zenin had no ti at all to care about what Oda was thinking. The mind of this transmigrator was spinning at full speed.

The more overwhelming the pressure, the more he could feel a near-transcendent calm.

Soone who truly wants to win does not wear a smile.

He had to survive.

Right now, there were two direct threats that could lead him to a death ending.

The protagonist side and the villain side.

Like the hidden role in a social deduction ga, he hadn't really done anything wrong. He was just trying to control the table and play for the win, but he managed to antagonize both sides, so everyone piled on him and took him out first.

If either side found even the slightest opening in him, he would absolutely die on the spot.

Whether that ant being personally stabbed to death by Maki Zenin or secretly dealt with by Kenjaku.

Death is like the wind, always by my side.

Only this ti it was closer than ever. If he tilted his ear just a little, he could practically hear that cold, cutting wind.

Maki Zenin was physically dominant, brutally decisive, and one of the deadliest fighters in Jujutsu Kaisen—an absolute top-tier combatant in the story.

But he understood her personality and background completely. As long as he lowered her guard as much as possible and successfully protected Mai Zenin's life, the threat posed by this ultra-violent little cousin would disappear like smoke.

Kenjaku, however, was completely different.

If Gojo's death had been plot armor in reverse, then Kenjaku's death had been even more blatantly a case of being devoured by fate itself.

Just like how Madara Uchiha was ultimately backstabbed and had his heart ripped out by Black Zetsu.

Just when everyone thought Sukuna was only the surface-level final boss, and that the hidden boss fight would begin only after Sukuna was defeated, Kenjaku died suddenly and on the spot in so unknown corner without anyone even noticing.

This thousand-year-old monster had controlled the pace of the entire ga, only to be hard-countered by a codian who had just beco a sorcerer, forcing this high-IQ villain off the stage then and there.

There was no helping it. In this world, fate really did exist.

If you reach for more than you can hold, disaster usually follows.

Naoya Zenin had originally only ant to use Utahi Iori and Jujutsu High's connections to locate Yuji Itadori.

What he had not expected was for things to spiral this far, turning into a full-blown race across the jujutsu world.

But even if he had gone looking in private, it would not have helped.

At the end of the day, Kenjaku was simply too quick to adapt.

He was not the kind of demon king who sat on a throne waiting for the protagonist group to finish leveling up and co to his door so he could be beaten to death by justice.

He was more the type to camp outside the beginner village while the protagonist group was still level one, lurking by the respawn point.

The mont Kenjaku learned that Suguru Geto's corpse had been taken by him, he had probably already started making plans to cultivate Yuji Itadori all over again.

If this was a contest of lying low and building strength, then Kenjaku, that thousand-year-old monster, was clearly the senior here.

One move behind?

Naoya Zenin did not think so.

If anything, this only proved even more clearly how much [Cursed Spirit Manipulation] mattered to Kenjaku, far more than Itadori ever did.

He had completely seized this thousand-year-old monster's weak point in his hand.

Tiger Emperor might be able to take over the match in the late ga, but unlike Naoya, who had information, Kenjaku had no way of clearly grasping the upper limit of his own son.

Kenjaku would only use Itadori as Sukuna's vessel.

In his eyes, Itadori was nothing more than the trigger that let Ryon Sukuna log in. He would never train Itadori into a genuinely powerful fighter.

And Naoya also understood Itadori's personality. Even if Kenjaku was now Itadori's nominal biological mother, this protagonist, so firmly set on doing good, would never help Kenjaku commit evil.

On the contrary, the one being cornered was Kenjaku himself.

Of course, the only problem was still ti.

With every day that passed, his death crept one step closer.

Whether it was the Zenin family's internal struggle over the heir position, or the people lurking in the shadows coveting Suguru Geto's corpse.

The odds of him being killed were simply too high.

There was no way Naoya Zenin could handle all of this alone.

If he pinned his chances of survival on the idea that all his enemies were idiots, then he really was just tired of living.

He just needed to buy himself a little more ti.

He just needed to carve out a brief gap to catch his breath.

Naoya Zenin had to find soone to work with.

But who?

This villainous noble had no decent allies at all.

He had always been a proud lone wolf.

Should he go to his brothers and sisters in the Zenin family?

For the sake of the clan head position, the siblings had long since beco bitter enemies. There was no room left to maneuver.

Should he go to Gojo Satoru, the strongest jujutsu sorcerer of the modern age?

Impossible. Given the relationship between the Zenin family and Gojo Satoru, Gojo would absolutely just sit there happily sipping milk tea and eating sweets while waiting for him to die. There was no way he would help.

Even if Naoya told him all this information about the future, the arrogant Gojo would never listen. If anything, being the battle maniac he was, he would probably be thrilled at the chance to fight Ryon Sukuna.

So after going through every card the original owner of this body had in hand, Naoya Zenin realized with bleak clarity that he did not have a single good one to play.

That was the price of being the bad guy.

See? When the crucial mont cos, you are always alone. No bonds, no friendship, no family you want to protect.

If you do not have the strength, then all you can do is wait quietly for death.

And yet, it was only after being driven into this kind of dead end that Naoya Zenin discovered sothing to his own surprise.

He was trembling with excitent.

Yeah.

When he played gas, he had never been the type to give up just because the difficulty was too high.

Naoya Zenin was exactly the sort who would secretly hit no on the surrender vote just to torture his teammates.

There is no surrender in esports.

Faced with the enemy's taunts, faced with his disastrous record, faced with the ranking points he was about to lose and the family register his teammates were about to curse into oblivion...

The mont you surrendered, it was really over.

Sa as always. What if you turned it around?

And if you did turn it around, then you could finally rub it in their faces. The rush of that mont was a thousand tis better than jerking off.

Even if this was his second life.

Life was not a ga.

But this transmigrator learned the hard way that so people just never change.

So this was the real nature he had buried deep beneath his boring daily life.

You might beat , but you will never beat into submission.

"Oda, have you ever heard this famous saying?"

Naoya Zenin finally ca out of his thoughts and turned to the utterly baffled servant at his side with an arrogant smile.

"When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman profits."

"Never heard it..."

Oda wondered what kind of wrong dicine his young master had suddenly taken.

When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman profits?

I could just as easily say two bears start fighting and the honey slips away!

"The clam's shell is hard, and the snipe's beak is sharp, but the fisherman has a net."

Naoya Zenin tapped his fingers against the table, a chilling gleam in his eyes.

"As long as the clam and the snipe start fighting, the fisherman can sit back and profit from the chaos."

"...Are you planning to go fishing?"

Oda could not follow Naoya Zenin's train of thought at all, so he could only ask carefully.

"I do want to catch a very big fish."

Naoya Zenin was in a fairly good mood, so he chatted idly with the servant.

"It is just that this fish usually hides in the darkest depths of the sea, and no one knows its true face."

Oda thought Naoya Zenin had definitely gone mad.

Instead of being a proper genius jujutsu sorcerer, he had started obsessing over fishing?

Starting to beco a fishing addict at this age. I do not even dare imagine what he will be fishing for when he is old.

Ignoring Oda's wild thoughts, Naoya Zenin simply stood up and carefully straightened his haori in front of the mirror.

"Prepare the car, Oda."

"Huh? Where are we going?"

Oda truly felt that his master had beco even harder to read.

He did seem much easier to get along with now, but his thoughts jumped around so wildly that Oda could not keep up no matter how hard he tried.

Was he really going fishing now?

It had been years since Oda last fished. He did not even know if his skills had gotten rusty...

"What are you dawdling for?"

Naoya Zenin frowned and kicked the conflicted-looking middle-aged man squarely in the backside.

"Hurry up and change into sothing presentable! Do not embarrass later!"

"Huh?"

Oda was completely dumbfounded.

"These days you have to wear formal clothes to go fishing?"

"Idiot! What the hell are you even thinking?!"

Naoya Zenin's tone turned icy.

"Of course we're going to the banquet at the Imperial Palace tonight!"

"Haah?!"