HOLLOW – CHAPTER 22
— GAKUGANJI'S POV —
The meeting chamber was built beneath a mountain.
Most of those present had forgotten which one. It didn't matter. The rock around them had been reinforced with old rituals and older blood — the kind of protections no one dared write down anymore.
A long table carved from a single, cursed-resistant tree split the room. Twelve seats. Eight filled.
Three empty. One deliberately unassigned.
Silence ruled first.
Then Gakuganji cleared his throat — and that, more than the summoning seal at the door, began the meeting.
"Japan's cursed activity has doubled in three weeks," he said flatly. "And it is not following pattern."
No one interrupted.
Beside him, a report lay open. Not printed. Not digital. Ink and parchment, as protocol demanded for threat-level anomalies.
He tapped the edge of the paper once with two fingers.
"Grade 3 and 4 curses are migrating in groups. Not drawn to power. Not attacking randomly. Moving. Together."
A pause.
"They are afraid of something."
Across the table, Mei Mei raised an eyebrow.
"Or drawn to something else."
The silence in the room wasn't just social.
It was enforced.
The air itself was sealed — layered with silencing sutras and binding contracts inked decades ago. Not even echoes escaped. Every sound that passed within these walls was recorded by hand, never by machine. No cameras. No recordings. Just cursed ink, cold stone, and memory.
Gakuganji ran one gnarled finger along the table's grain.
This table had outlived five principals.
And it would outlive five more.
"Migration patterns show curses moving away from their natural territories," he continued. "Several exorcism sites have reported complete anomaly voids."
He looked up.
"Not suppression. Erasure."
The word hung there. Heavy. Like the room didn't like hearing it.
Naobito Zen'in's replacement — a younger cousin with his same clan-marked eyes — finally spoke.
"That shouldn't be possible."
"It wasn't," Yaga said, his voice low. "Until now."
There were no lights in the chamber.
Only the slow burn of cursed lamps — black wax melted into bone-stemmed sconces that lined the walls. No shadows. Just dimness.
Deliberate.
Mei Mei sat two seats down, expression unreadable. She hadn't touched the report in front of her. Her presence alone was enough to justify her seat — power made people listen, even if they didn't like it.
"Two confirmed spiritual blooms in the past month," she said. "Three more under review."
Gakuganji's brow twitched. "Unverified."
"They appeared after spirit erasure," she said. "And they're growing."
He didn't respond.
Instead, he tapped the edge of the table again — not a nervous tic, but a signal. A second scroll was passed down the table. Thicker. Sealed with red ink and braided talisman thread.
The kind of document that didn't exist unless you were already compromised.
Principal Yaga unwrapped it carefully.
Read it.
Frowned.
"Off-the-record encounter in District Twelve," he muttered. "Special grade curse disappeared. No residual. Only trace left behind was…"
He trailed off.
Everyone already knew what it said.
No one wanted to say it.
"Xavier."
Silence followed.
Not surprise.
Not resistance.
Just… inevitability.
Gakuganji didn't blink.
"He was meant to be a weapon," he said.
Mei Mei raised an eyebrow. "Aren't they all?"
"No. Not like this."
Naobito's cousin leaned forward. "There's no record of his enrollment."
"There was no enrollment," Gakuganji snapped. "He was a trial."
Yaga's hands curled slightly around the scroll.
"Who authorized it?"
No one answered.
Because no one wanted to admit the truth:
No one had.
"He's unstable. Untrained. Unbound by cursed energy logic. We can't categorize him — which means we can't control him."
Across the table, Mei Mei rested her chin on her fist.
"That's the first interesting thing you've said all morning."
Gakuganji ignored her.
"We don't know how his ability works. We don't know if it's replicable. But we do know it's spreading."
Yaga frowned. "Spreading?"
Mei Mei smiled faintly. "You think those blooms are accidents?"
Naobito's cousin cut in. "He hasn't attacked anyone. Every recorded incident shows restraint."
"Or confusion," Gakuganji muttered. "Either way, he's a liability."
Mei Mei gave a soft, amused hum.
"So's Gojo. We let him walk around."
That drew an actual twitch from Gakuganji.
Gojo, silent until now, leaned back in his chair. Eyes shadowed behind his blindfold. Voice calm.
"If you want to put me in the same category as him, I won't complain."
Gakuganji's mouth tightened.
"He is not you."
"No," Gojo agreed. "He's worse."
That got everyone's attention.
Gojo tilted his head.
"Because I knew how to play your game."
Naobito's cousin leaned forward, fingers steepled.
"Then we eliminate him."
The words fell clean. Cold. Practiced.
"A controlled strike. Quiet. If we act now, we avoid a precedent."
Yaga narrowed his eyes.
"He hasn't committed a single crime."
"That doesn't matter," the cousin replied. "What matters is what happens next. If others start resonating with him—"
Mei Mei cut in.
"Then the system breaks."
A beat.
She didn't say it with fear.
She said it with interest.
Gakuganji grunted. "And if we do nothing, he becomes a symbol."
"He already is," Yaga said.
The cousin raised a hand, palm flat.
"Then we contain the symbol. Permanently."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Until—
Gojo stood.
He didn't shout.
He didn't raise his voice.
He just moved — and the room shifted with him.
Even the cursed wax flickered.
"No one touches him."
It wasn't a suggestion.
It wasn't a threat.
It was a law, spoken aloud.
"Not unless you want to find out if I'm still the strongest."
He didn't sit.
He didn't have to.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Even the air seemed to hesitate — like the cursed seals themselves were recalibrating.
Naobito's cousin didn't meet his eyes.
Mei Mei leaned back in her seat, lips parted in a quiet smile that said I warned you.
Yaga said nothing. But something in his posture eased.
And Gakuganji…
Gakuganji just stared at the center of the table.
Not in defeat.
But in calculation.
The debate was over.
Not settled.
Not resolved.
Just… silenced.
For now.
At the far end of the table, a junior scribe dipped his brush into cursed ink.
He didn't look up. Didn't ask permission.
He just turned to the page titled ACTIVE MONITORING: UNREGISTERED ENTITIES, scratched out a redacted entry, and wrote a single name:
XAVIER — STATUS: ESCALATED
No one stopped him.
Because it was already true.