Naoya looked down at the absolute destruction and chaos his little brother had just caused. While he was inwardly startled—dumbfounded, even, wondering how the cowardly little brother who was only ever good at running away had suddenly grown so terrifyingly strong—his hatred only festered. Yet, despite the venom boiling in his veins, he maintained a gentle, loving smile, playing the role of the benevolent older brother.
"I see," Naoya said smoothly, his eyes drifting past Suzuki. "You're throwing this massive tantrum because you care about those two, right? Mai and Maki."
Naoya stared at the twins, who had been standing silently behind Suzuki this entire time. While the rest of the clan ignored the girls, treating them as harmless, useless trash, Naoya never ignored them. He knew exactly what triggered Suzuki's violent rampage.
"You really do like the two of them, don't you?" Naoya chuckled darkly. "Don't worry, little brother. With my help, you can keep them both as your personal harem. Even if modern laws don't allow polygamy, it doesn't matter. No one can dictate what the Zenin Clan does behind closed doors."
Chuckle.
"...." Naoya's smile twitched.
"...What's so funny, Suzuki-kun?"
"No, it's nothing," Suzuki replied, suppressing a laugh.
"Tell me," Naoya demanded, a thick vein bulging on his forehead, his composed facade instantly shattering into rage. "If you don't, I am going to beat the absolute shit out of you right now."
"No, it's just..." Suzuki stopped giggling and looked at Naoya as if staring at a complete idiot. "Under what delusion do you think you can beat the shit out of me, Aniki? You should be bowing down, apologizing, and maybe I will show you—"
Naoya didn't wait for Suzuki to finish his sentence. He instantly activated his Projection Sorcery!
He never had any intention of forgiving Suzuki. He only wanted to crush him, to violently reassert the hierarchy and prove who the superior heir truly was!
Naoya launched himself at absolute full speed. He instantly reached subsonic velocity, moving so blindingly fast that no one in the courtyard could track him—not even Maki, whose Heavenly Restriction granted her superhuman kinetic vision.
"I AM THE FASTEST!" Naoya roared, his voice distorting from the sheer speed. "YOU ARE JUST A CHEAP COPY!"
In his arrogant mind, he knew Suzuki's bizarre speed couldn't be easily explained. He had no idea how Suzuki had bastardized Projection Sorcery into an ability that made him glitch through reality like a broken video game character. But it didn't matter. In the face of Naoya's raw, overwhelming velocity, all those cheap tricks were meaningless!
"DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"You really never change, Aniki..."
Suzuki let out a helpless sigh. Yet, he did nothing to defend himself. He stood perfectly, completely still. He simply waited for Naoya to enter his "Frame."
Naoya rushed forward, his hand outstretched, fully intending to touch Suzuki and freeze him!
Freeze.
This was the ultimate, lethal rule of Projection Sorcery: once the user established their 24-frames-per-second trajectory, they absolutely had to follow it. If they broke their own laws of physics, or if the target they touched failed to follow the 24fps rule, they would be trapped—completely frozen in a two-dimensional pane of glass for one second.
Usually, Naoya used this to freeze opponents who moved "wrong," and naturally, he intended to do the exact same thing to Suzuki.
Naoya had pre-programmed his 24 frames of movement, and he was ready to force that rule onto his younger brother. But what Naoya didn't realize was that Suzuki's Manager could see absolutely everything.
Naoya was loudly, arrogantly broadcasting his exact future coordinates. The Manager read Naoya's starting posture and instantly calculated his entire 24-frame flight path. Suzuki didn't even try to outrun him. Instead, he calmly used Frame Deletion to manifest his heavy tungsten spike at the exact spatial coordinate where Naoya was bound to be on Frame 12.
"Eh?!"
Naoya was moving entirely too fast to stop his own momentum. He was inches away from crashing chest-first into the hyper-dense, immovable metal spike. Operating purely on panicked survival instinct, he flinched, desperately trying to contort his body to avoid being fatally impaled.
But by altering his trajectory, he violently interrupted his own technique. He broke his own 24-frame rule.
"Shit—!"
Snap.
Naoya instantly froze into a 2D panel of glass mid-air, a look of absolute horror etched onto his flat, pixelated face.
"You're fast, Brother," Suzuki said coldly, walking up to the hovering pane of glass. "But your trajectory is incredibly boring. I calculated your exact flight path five minutes ago."
Suzuki casually flicked the glass with his index finger.
CRASH!
The glass shattered. Naoya was violently expelled back into 3D reality, his ribs snapping under the immense kinetic penalty of breaking his own rule.
"Guwah!" Naoya crashed hard into the dirt, violently coughing up blood and clutching his caved-in chest. He was completely, utterly defeated.
"..."
Everyone who witnessed the clash was rendered entirely speechless. Suzuki had just completely humiliated Naoya at his own game. Naoya had tried to freeze Suzuki, but ended up freezing himself.
Suzuki executed it all so effortlessly because Naoya's movements were entirely predictable. And naturally, if he could predict Naoya's movements, he could absolutely predict his father's—the strongest Sorcerer in the Zenin Clan.
High above the courtyard, Naobito, the Clan Head, had watched the entire massacre unfold from the veranda. He was the fastest sorcerer alive (outside of Satoru Gojo). Yet, unlike his hot-headed eldest son, Naobito was pragmatic and smart enough to realize that attacking Suzuki right now was suicide.
Suzuki smiled. Deep within his mind, the Manager was already monitoring Naobito's heart rate and adrenaline spikes. The AI calculated that Naobito was actively, desperately searching for a flaw in Suzuki's technique.
Suzuki didn't give his father the time to find one.
He executed one final Frame Deletion, crossing the massive distance from the courtyard to the upper veranda in zero seconds.
The result?
Naobito blinked.
Suzuki was already sitting comfortably in the chair next to him, casually sipping from a warm teacup, with the razor-sharp tip of the tungsten spike resting gently against Naobito's jugular vein.
"Your martial arts are severely outdated, Father," Suzuki whispered, setting the teacup down. "I have just calculated the 14,000 ways you can attempt to move in the next second. All of them end with this tungsten spike forcefully displacing your brain stem. Now... let's discuss the immediate transfer of all clan assets, and officially name me the next Clan Head."
Gulp!
Naobito swallowed hard, the cold metal biting against his skin. "...Is this the result of learning human physics and mathematics?"
"Yes," Suzuki nodded with a polite, gentle smile. "It's all thanks to you paying my university tuition that I could become this strong, Father. But don't worry. I will gladly use the family's family funds to pay for your luxury nursing home. I'll even buy you top-shelf alcohol to accompany your retirement days while I take your seat."
"....."
Naobito stared at his youngest son. "...You won."
Naobito desperately wanted to chug his gourd of alcohol to forget the sheer humiliation of this moment, but he couldn't move his neck. In the end, he let out a heavy sigh. "Can you move your spike away from my throat now?"
"Of course."
Suzuki pulled the weapon back and gently patted his father's tense arm. "Don't worry, old man. This is just my beginning. Our clan isn't the only one rotting from the inside out. Soon, there will be a lot of powerful people in Jujutsu society who will feel the exact same utter helplessness you are feeling right now."
"..." Naobito closed his eyes.
Yup. The boy is an absolute sadist, Naobito thought.
Yet, who had made him this way? The clan. Naobito had no one to blame but himself and the toxic traditions he had upheld. He could only sigh in deep regret, finally lifting his gourd and swallowing a massive gulp of alcohol, desperately hoping this was all just an alcohol-induced nightmare.
"By the way..." Naobito muttered, wiping his mouth.
"Hmm?"
"Have you manifested your Domain yet?"
Domain Expansion. It was the absolute pinnacle of Jujutsu sorcery. The supreme technique. As long as a sorcerer mastered it, they stood at the apex of the world. Had Suzuki actually managed to achieve it?
Suzuki's polite smile widened into something far more dangerous. He tilted his head. "Do you want to see it, Father?"
"...No. It's fine," Naobito immediately refused, feeling a cold sweat break out on his back. "Let's just move straight to the celebration of you becoming the new Clan Head."
"Don't worry. It will be an unforgettable feast."
"...I certainly hope so."
Naobito didn't know what his terrifying son was planning next, but he knew he was going to need a lot more alcohol to survive it.
Yet, at this exact moment, as the sun began to set over the shattered courtyard, every single conscious member of the estate knew the truth. A brutal, inescapable hostile takeover had just occurred.
The new Head of the Zenin Clan had been born. His name was Suzuki Zenin.