The modern city was something else.
Himmel walked along the street with his eyes going everywhere at once.
The asphalt was impossibly smooth, white lane markings stretching straight into the distance, colorful metal boxes parked bumper-to-bumper along the curb.
Common sense told him those were called cars.
The building walls were plastered with flashy posters , handsome men and beautiful women Himmel didn’t recognize.
“What’s that?” “Vending machine.” “What’s this?” “Massage ad.” “And this one?” “Sugar daddy ad, probably.” Had Geto-senpai ever gone through something like this?
Nanami Kento had answered the questions at first.
Eventually he stopped answering entirely.
Himmel, for his part, was genuinely curious about the sugar daddy ad , common sense hadn’t covered it, and he had no idea what it was.
Before they’d left, Geto Suguru had handed him a phone.
Himmel had figured out the social apps in short order and already knew how to add friends.
“Let me just check something real quick.” He was about to scan the QR code on the sugar daddy ad when Nanami stepped in first and started reviewing today’s job.
The mission was straightforward.
According to the client, a father and son had been cursed by a curse user and were being haunted by a cursed spirit.
An abnormal blood smell had appeared in the apartment.
Neighbors called the police.
The officers who went in never came back out.
Jujutsu High took the request and sent Nanami along with this new “transfer student” to handle it.
Grade 2 mission.
In this world, Grade 2 cursed spirit exorcisms went to Grade 2 sorcerers.
Things generally didn’t go wrong.
That didn’t mean you let your guard down.
“We’re here.” Nanami stopped in front of an old apartment building.
Five stories.
The gray-white exterior was streaked with black stains where rain had run down the walls for years, and the security bars over the windows had gone the color of rust , like prison railings.
A few of the first-floor mailbox doors hung open and crooked, showing nothing but dark gaps inside.
Something in the air smelled wrong in a way Himmel couldn’t name.
“It’s really old,” Himmel said, looking up.
Nanami didn’t respond.
He was already checking the residual filth readings, and after a moment he shifted to a different subject.
“Himmel-kun, right?” “Ah — yes.” “Name doesn’t sound local.
Exchange student?” “You could say that.” Himmel figured an otherworldly Heroic Spirit probably counted as an exchange student.
“Is that so…
Doesn’t matter.
So Geto-senpai pulled you into the transfer program?” He glanced over.
“How old are you?” That question made Himmel pause.
Right now, the only people at Jujutsu High who knew he was a Heroic Spirit were Geto Suguru and Yaga.
To everyone else, he was just an ordinary transfer student.
He hadn’t planned on saying anything different.
As for his age , “Sixteen.” Physically speaking.
Having personally experienced why Frieren would emotionally collapse when someone called her an old hag, Himmel said it with complete conviction.
“What made you become a sorcerer?” Nanami asked it while looking up at the building, like the question had just occurred to him.
Himmel thought about it for a moment.
He was a retired hero.
Why had he come to this world…
“Because someone called out to me for help, I suppose.” “…I see.” Nanami paused.
He didn’t say anything to that , just glanced at Himmel once.
“Let’s go.” He pushed open the apartment door and walked inside.
— TAP!
The stairwell was dark.
The only light came from a window at the third-floor landing, casting everything in dim gray.
Their footsteps echoed off the narrow walls.
Room 302.
The door was ajar.
Two shadows fell across it.
Nanami Kento and Himmel stopped.
The building’s other residents had either fled the smell or been escorted out by the assistant supervisor.
In the jujutsu world, sorcerers used barrier techniques — Curtain, in particular , to blur civilian perception and clear the area.
Nanami listened.
Silence.
Too quiet.
Intel said the father and son were still alive.
A cursed spirit actively lurking should make noise.
He raised his hand toward Himmel.
“I go in first.
Follow my lead.” He pushed the door open.
The blood smell hit them like a wall , thick enough to choke on, like pressing your face into the bottom of a pool of it.
The entryway floor was covered in bloody footprints, large and small, trailing deep into the apartment.
Dark red liquid had sprayed across the walls and dried there, gone almost black.
Nanami kept walking.
The living room.
Blood covered the ceiling in broad, dark patches.
Some of it was still dripping.
PAT.
PAT.
PAT.
Shredded flesh in the corner.
Bone fragments caught on the back of the sofa.
Things scattered across the floor that almost looked like flower petals.
Ribs.
Clean ribs, fully stripped, arranged in a neat circle.
In the center sat a pile of soft tissue that had stopped resembling anything human , wet, glistening, catching the light.
Nanami’s brow twitched.
Then his face went smooth again.
(Adult male.
Recently killed.
Cursed spirit still in the area.) Half a second.
That was all his assessment took.
Then he heard it.
Muffled sobbing.
From the far corner of the living room , a closet, door half-open, the inside too dark to see into.
The crying was coming from in there.
At the same time, cursed energy began filling the room.
Nanami’s hand went to his cursed tool.
Here it comes , A rush of air hit his back.
Himmel shot past him.
Three strides, maybe two, and he was at the closet , there before Nanami had finished the thought.
Fast.
Nanami’s eyes went sharp.
Normal human action ran in sequence: [Observe] [Confirm information] [Think] [Draw conclusion] [Nerve signal to limbs , act] A year of training had let Nanami compress that sequence considerably.
Himmel had skipped it entirely.
The moment he saw the scene, he was already moving.
(What, ?!) (Idiot.) Nanami’s pupils snapped tight, his jaw clenching.
No cursed spirit would leave a child unguarded.
It was still here.
It was waiting.
No time.
He moved.
BANG.
One stomp and the bloodstained tatami cracked apart under the force, pieces flipping up in every direction.
He drew his blade.
Above him, from the shadow pressed against the ceiling, something shifted.
The cursed spirit had no fixed shape , a writhing mass of human organs fused together, wrong in every direction.
A tentacle-like appendage had already stretched to within half a meter of the back of Himmel’s head.
The moment it lunged, Nanami’s blade took it off.
The severed tentacle hit the floor.
The cursed spirit screamed , a sound like metal tearing , and the whole mass peeled off the ceiling.
Nanami didn’t let up.
One step forward, blade sweeping horizontal.
The cursed spirit split, black cursed energy residue scattering through the air.
The remaining half was still reaching toward the closet.
CRACK.
BANG!!
The wooden closet came apart under the impact.
Boards splintered and slammed into each other, throwing up a burst of dust and debris.
“Himmel!” The shout cut through the chaos.
An attack like that wouldn’t kill a sorcerer , not one using cursed energy as a shield, anyway.
Nanami sheathed his blade and pushed through the settling dust.
When the air cleared, Himmel was already stepping out of the wreckage, a child held against his chest.
“Nanami, my side’s handled.” His expression was easy, unhurried.
“Doesn’t look like this one’s hurt.” “…” He was right , Himmel appeared completely unharmed.
Nanami didn’t look at the child.
He looked at Himmel.
The look on his face was not a friendly one.
“Why did you move?
I told you to follow behind me.” “Yeah — but I read the situation.” Himmel’s voice stayed even.
“The cursed spirit’s goal was to use the child as bait.
Lure a human in, take the child hostage the moment one appeared, then strike.
To cut off that option, someone had to pull the child out of play before it could.” His tone was gentle.
It stayed gentle throughout.
If he hadn’t moved instantly, this child would have died.
…So what?
“….” Nanami went quiet.
The mission itself had been simple.
It would have ended in success either way.
But that wasn’t the point.
Whether they could have saved the child depended on a razor-thin margin of speed , theirs versus the cursed spirit’s.
Getting lucky once didn’t make the instinct safe.
In a harder fight, that same reflex could get him killed.
Nanami closed his eyes.
His whole frame was very still, with a faint tremor running through it that he was doing nothing about.
He breathed out slowly.
The anger drained off his face.
What was left wasn’t calm , it was something past calm.
“Finish the mission.” He turned and walked away.
Like a man who’d just made a decision.
(That’s it.) His pace was measured, his eyes going cold.
(I’ll do it today.) ➤ Next: Nanami-min,
The story is already written.