186. Black Bullet : Saving Another Cursed Children and Succesful Experiment.

Although Rentaro right now should be meeting the main antagonist, the masked man, Kagetane Hiruko, at the beginning of the story, Kaito has no interest in watching their fight at all.  Kaito would rather finding more cursed children to save while also punishing evil people in the city. (as well as Est's soul fragment if there was one).

So, after completing his mission quickly today, Kaito and Midori decided to explore the Tokyo Area that he hadn't properly visited before.

Although Kaito claimed that he had swept all corners of the Tokyo Area to find Est's soul fragments, he still had not saved all the cursed children in the city because many were hiding in hard-to-reach areas such as closed sewers, hidden holes, or back alleys.

Sure enough, after walking south of the city in an area that could be called a slum, Kaito and Midori quickly hear a scream of children coming from an abandoned building nearby. Naturally, Kaito and Midori immediately enter the building to save the cursed children that clearly in harm, but both of them are stunned by what they see.

"...Fuck."

When they entered the room, both of them saw a little girl with long pink hair wearing white haggard clothing, about 10 years old, who was crucified on a wooden board with her feet and hands nailed with blood like the second Jesus. 

*BAMM*

...!!!

On top of that, 5 disgusting men surrounded and beat her in turns using a wooden bat with nails, clearly having fun with it.

*BAMM*

...!!!

From her condition alone, it's clear that she had been beaten for a long time, with her entire body covered in bruises, scars, and wounds. Her tears also dried up, and she could occasionally scream and groan in pain every time they beat her.

...

"I am sorry... I am sorry!" (Cursed Children)

*BAMM*

...!!!

"SORRY! I AM SO SORRY!"

"You kid! A sorry is not enough! Don't you dare make a mess! Brat!" (Bastard A)

*BAMM*

"FORGIVE ME! SORRY!"

*BAMM*

"You stole the food! Those leftovers were not for you, monster! It's for those wild cats roaming in the street!" (Bastard B)

*BAMM*

"SORRY!"

*BAMM*

"We don't feed the monster! A wild cat is better than you!"

*BAMM*

...

Listening to the 'conversation' carefully, Kaito easily catches the reason why the cursed children are getting tortured. Apparently, the cursed children were punished because they tried to eat a leftover in a trash can that a nearby restaurant had thrown out. 

She did not even steal food; she wanted to pick up food that people had thrown out!

...!!!

'How outrageous!'  Kaito thought darkly, clenching his fist deep with his nail, gritting his teeth, his head feeling hot out of anger. His blood pressure couldn't help but soar, and Kaito wanted to commit a massacre and torture them back!

In a normal world, if something like this happened, those guys would get arrested and imprisoned for years... but in this world, police are also useless, if not the biggest offenders toward cursed children!

So it's only up to them to punish this evildoer!

"...Damn it. Damn it...!!" Kaito muttered and turned to his partner, "Midori, you stay here. I am going to deal with them."

"Umm."

Midori nodded, already getting used to Kaito, who always wanted to save cursed children and punish the evil. If anything, Midori wanted to beat them too, but Kaito always refused for her to take action, saying that he didn't want Midori to dirty her hand and commiting evil because of him.

...

"Excuse me, Everyone, can you please release that cute girl?"

""Hahh??!""

Realizing someone was behind them watching, they all turned around and saw Kaito walking towards them, with Midori silently guarding the exit-- in case they wanted to run away.

"Who are you, kid? A promoter?"

"Yeah, I am part of the Tendo civil security service, and I order you to release that girl."

Hearing Kaito's answer, the five men then looked at Kaito with anger and didn't take him seriously at all. 

"Hahh?? We have been tracking these cursed children for a long time, and you want us to free her? Are you joking?!"

"Get lost, kid! Mind your own business!"

"Trying to be a hero?! Do you want us to beat you?!"

...

Hearing their insults, Kaito looked at them with a dead stare and then activated the props he had been using the most lately. "I have warned you."

"Beat him up!!"

Looking at Kaito's 'calm' expression, the group of men feel they were underestimated, and this makes them feel angry. They immediately wanted to beat him together before crucifying his partner (Midori) like the girl they had tortured just now-- until they found that they couldn't even move a single finger!

...!!!

"Eh...? I can't move... Ah!"

"What did you do?! Release me!"

"Why can't I move?! Damn it! Move!"

Looking at their panic reaction, Kaito's mouth curled up as he shrugged, "Well... It's no use, you won't be able to move here as long I am here."

...!!???!!

Inspired by the Nara clan jutsu, Kaito has nailed their shadows with his new props on his white Adidas shoe shape, [Shadow Bind Shoes], which can stop people as long as this object is stuck with the shadow connected to the target he wants to freeze. Since they are currently inside an abandoned building, almost every part was covered in shadow of sunlight, making this props perfect for freezing/capturing people indoors.

Of course, this tool has a major weakness where Kaito must always supply energy to keep nailing the target and the more targets, the more energy is needed. However, for Kaito, who is now able to take energy from the root all the time, energy consumption is not an issue at all.

Hence, due to its practicality and ability, this shoes become one of his favorite props which Kaito is going to use all the time.

"Damn it! Let us go!"

"You won't get away from this, kid!"

"If you don't let us go, you will regret it!"

...

"Yeah... Whatever."

Getting annoyed, Kaito decided to shut them up too, thus they couldn't move their mouths or even their facial expression anymore. Fear quickly dominated their body--- but even then they couldn't even change their expression, only their eyes show an absolute fear.

Ignoring the 'immobilized' group of men, Kaito quickly reached toward tortured, cursed children that currently under crucified.

"It's okay. You are safe now."

"Bro... ther? I am... saved?"

The little girl looked at Kaito with a blank stare, making Kaito feel pain in his heart. No matter how many times he has saved cursed children in this world, Kaito feels like he will never get used to this, and it makes him hate this world even more. To crucify a child who did nothing wrong like this-- Kaito can't help but feel despair at how vile-- ugly-- disgusting this world is.

Without hesitation, Kaito quickly destroyed the cross that crucified her to free the girl-- but because she was too weak after being tortured for a long time, the cursed children immediately fell to the ground. Luckily, Kaito quickly ready to caught her-- and this made the girl feel surprised since she didn't expect to get saved.

"W-What is your name, little girl?"

"An... na..."

"Good kid."

Without hesitation, Kaito immediately hugged the little girl's wounded body, ignoring all of her blood now sticking to his uniform.

Kaito then took another prop from his Gate of Babylon that could heal all of her wounds, [Phoenix Necklace], his only prop that could give the user the ability to heal any physical damage using user energy by merely touching. The more area he touches, the faster the healing process is.

Kaito swore he didn't make this healing prop to give him a legit reason to hug people. If anything, it's just the system's bad taste. Like gungnir, this props was created with the help of the system and quite expensive-- but Kaito didn't regret, as he already used this prop to heal hundred of cursed children he saved in Tokyo Area.

In a matter of seconds, all the wounds and pain suffered by the little girl disappeared, and even the level of gastrea virus in her body decreased to a safe level.

"It is okay. I swear you will never experience this kind of thing again."

"R-Really..."

"Yes. I promise you, Anna."

...!!

"THANK YOU...!!"

Hearing Kaito's gentle words, the little girl who realized she had been saved immediately cried in Kaito's arms, happy that she was free from suffering, "...Thank you, thank you!"

Seeing the girl sobbing in his arms, Kaito felt very sad and angry toward this world. Like the other cursed children he had saved, this girl had never received any kindness from the adults in this city, and she felt overwhelmed even though Kaito had only treated her with ordinary kindness.

Once again, this world was truly cruel, and it made him sick to the core.

>>>>>

After all her wounds had healed and the girl was exhausted from crying, Kaito called Midori to come and ordered, "Please take care of her. I will finish my business with them."

Midori immediately approached and stood beside Anna, who was already fast asleep and lay on the blanket Kaito had prepared, "Yes, Kaito-sama.

After that, Kaito then stood in front of the 5 'immobilized' people who couldn't move from before, to decide what he should do to them. Seeing Kaito in front of them looked calm, even though they couldn't speak, their eyes were full of fear and the desire to live on... but naturally, Kaito won't give them a chance.

After thinking for a moment, Kaito had already decided what he would test today,  and if he was successful in doing it today, there was a chance Kaito could turn back Gastrea creature back into a human!

...

"I was thinking to kill all of you scum of the earth but I changed my mind."

Kaito smiled at them, looking like a devil in front of them, before he asked a very cruel suggestion, "Since you guys were that obsessed with torturing cursed children, why don't you become one yourself?"

...!!!

Hearing what Kaito said, the five men's eyes widened, completely terrified by the proposition he had proposed. Being something they hated... as the ones who oppressed the cursed children, they knew how hard the cursed children's lives were, and the five men didn't want to be like them AT ALL!

Even Midori was a little scared by what her master had said, because if it worked-- wouldn't this city be filled with cursed children?! After all, there are a lot of evil people in Tokyo who like to torture her kind! Unfortunately, the group of men had no way to refuse or even a choice. Kaito had already decided to do this to them, and none of them were able to escape until he was satisfied.

The idea came from the antagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen, Mahito, who could change the form of living beings by manipulating their souls.

Since Mahito in Jujutsu Kaisen can manipulate the soul, why can't he do the same? As the one who can manipulate, control, or even create a soul himself?

After that, Kaito began to play with the souls of the five men in front of him one by one, studying the relationship between the soul and the body, and learning to manipulate it directly.

At first, Kaito failed to reshape their bodies into the shape he wanted, making them deformed like monsters, but Kaito gradually learned to get better at it after dozens of trials of failure. Of course, in this process, the group of men were suffering, as their souls that were manipulated roughly and crudely by Kaito without any holding back whatsoever--  but because they could not move and scream, the group of men could do nothing but enduring the extreme pain, and they couldn't even pass out since it's an attack toward their soul

Fortunately for them, it didn't take that long for Kaito to master what he wanted. Turns out that Kaito really can shape someone's physical shape using the third method, even more superior to Mahito because he figured that 'creation cheat' could help in forming people's body shapes as much as he wanted to.

This means Kaito now has learned how to shapeshift people via soul, and is even capable of disguising himself using this method! Although the process is too painful so Kaito probably would never do that.

Within 40 minutes and a lot of energy consumption, Kaito finally managed to turn all the men into 5 little girls with red eyes. Of course, even though their appearance became like cursed children, they did not have Gastrea cells in them, could not change the color of their eyes, and did not have any powers.

Kaito also did not forget to mark their souls and use points, erase their recent memories about him so that in the future, he would not mistake fake cursed children with the real ones, and they wouldn't recognize him in the street.

"It turns out to be a successful experiment, and I manage to learn new abilities thanks to it."

Kaito nodded excitedly after looking at 5 men who had turned into 5 fainted, cursed children in front of him, "Great, from now on, I will do this instead of just killing people off and making a mess on the street and alerting the official."

"Master, is it done?"

"Yeah." Kaito nodded at Midori as he picked up 'Anna' in a princess-style hug, "Don't worry, although they had the same appearance as you with red eyes, they had no power of Gastrea, nor were they able to transform into a Gastrea creature themselves."

"...Umm."

Seeing Kaito's process of turning the five men into girls like her firsthand, the awkward Midori was afraid of her own master. In Midori's opinion, this kind of punishment was more cruel than being killed directly by Kaito, because Midori knew how difficult it was to live as cursed children in this world, especially if they had no power to protect themselves.

Kaito is naturally aware of Midori's aversion to him, reassuring her that he will only use this method on criminals like them... or maybe save cursed children that has become Gastrea creatures and turn her back into a human. After that, Midori and Kaito, with Anna, left together from the abandoned building directly for the base, leaving the transformed 5 'cursed children' on their own to live on.

Thanks to today's experiment, Kaito realizes the true potential of how terrifying soul manipulation is, and later it become the basis of the creation of Kaito's most terrifying trump card ever that he would only use to his worst kind of enemy.