Utahime summoned me first thing in the morning for what, according to her, was an urgent matter.
Her office wasn’t anything fancy.
It was simple and tidy, with a bunch of photographs scattered across the walls.
Most of them were of people I didn’t know, although there was one I did recognize: the picture the first-years had taken together a few days ago, in which, by the way, I looked pretty damn good.
How sentimental, Sensei.
“I have a mission for you,” she said seriously.
“You’ll be handling it alone.
It’s appropriate for your rank, and you need to start gaining field experience without assistance.”
She handed me a sealed folder.
“We’ve had to shut down a section of the Karasuma Line because of several curses on the tracks.
Subway traffic has been partially disrupted, and we need it running again as soon as possible.”
I opened the folder and skimmed through the first few documents.
“Every hour it remains closed causes significant losses, and keeping part of the line shut down for too long could end up costing businesses and companies a huge amount of money.
That’s why this mission is a priority and needs to be resolved today.”
I opened the report.
It concerned a station on the Karasuma Line, which runs north to south through Kyoto beneath Karasuma-dōri and connects much of the city center with areas like Shijō and Kyoto Station.
“According to the residuals we detected, there are several Grade 3 curses, along with a couple we estimate to be Grade 2,” Utahime continued.
“They shouldn’t give you too much trouble.”
“Because of the urgency, you’ll also receive an additional bonus equivalent to the payment for a Grade 2 mission.
Around 500,000 yen.”
I felt how my eyes shined.
My first real mission.
I hope I do well.
“Understood.
I’ll take care of it, Sensei,” I replied with a smile.
“The Kyoto assistant will accompany you,” she said.
“He’ll take you there and raise a curtain around the affected area.”
Minutes later, I was sitting in the back seat of a dark-colored car.
Behind the wheel was the same guy who had driven me and Ino that other time:several days’ worth of stubble, tired eyes that made him look permanently hungover, and a half-smoked cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
He recognized me immediately.
“Glad to see you’re doing well, kid,” he said, looking at me through the rearview mirror.
“I’m Kanzaki, by the way.”
“Driver, curtain raiser…” I counted on my fingers.
“Anything else?
Do you make Gakuganji’s coffee too?
What’s it like being overemployed?”
He let out a small laugh, coughed, and lowered the window slightly to let the smoke escape.
“Things are getting expensive, kid.”
The smell of tobacco drifted back into the car as he took the next turn with one hand on the wheel.
“By the way…” I said.
“I never really understood what curtains are.”
“How the hell do you not know what a curtain is?
What do they even teach you at that school?”
I scratched my head, a little embarrassed.
“I’ve been there for 1 week.
Give me a break.”
“We don’t want non-sorcerers knowing curses exist,” he explained.
“A curtain is a barrier we raise around an area to conceal what’s happening inside.
Depending on how it’s configured, it can prevent people from seeing inside, keep civilians away, or impose other conditions.”
“Could you teach me how to make one?”
“No.
Ask your sensei. The source of this chapter is g.com.
I’m busy.”
The car stopped in front of the subway entrance.
A huge concrete opening descended beneath the main avenue, topped by a sign reading Kyoto Municipal Subway — Karasuma Line.
The entire area had been cordoned off.
Several barricades blocked access to the stairs, and a pair of police officers guarded the perimeter.
One of them was fairly young and didn’t seem to be handling the situation particularly well.
His eyes remained fixed on the subway stairs as he spoke quietly to his partner, a much older officer.
“I swear I saw it,” he said.
“I went down to the tracks to check the damage, and there were cables moving on their own.
Like something invisible was gnawing on them.”
Kanzaki pulled an ID from inside his jacket and showed it to the older officer, the man examined it for barely a couple of seconds before stepping aside.
I started walking down the stairs beside Kanzaki, but I heard the younger officer behind us.
“Wait…
we’re letting a teenager go down there?”
“Don’t ask questions.”
The station was, indeed, completely empty.
“Kanzaki-san,” I said as we made our way through the corridor, hopping over the ticket barriers.
“If there’s nobody here…
why use a curtain?”
“Kid, you can never be too careful,” he replied without looking at me.
“There’s nobody here now, but some worker could show up unexpectedly.
Curtains always go up, whether there are people around or not.”
Got it.
We reached our platform.
All the electronic displays were switched off, a trail of cursed energy ran along the yellow lines, and farther ahead, a train sat motionless with all its doors shut.
“Now, do your thing,” Kanzaki said.
He nodded toward the darkness of the tunnel.
Shinkeigan.
Several cursed spirits moved between the rails.
Some resembled rats, only much larger, with elongated bodies, disturbing bulging eyes, and mouths packed with crooked teeth.
They gathered around the electrical cables, gnawing at them relentlessly.
Others looked like deformed moles, emerging from the walls and using disproportionately large claws to scratch and burrow through the concrete.
Higher up, bat-like creatures—with no real wings, only malformed membranes—clung to the ceiling, letting out high-pitched screeches.
Kanzaki pulled out another pack of cigarettes.
“There was an accident here a few months ago,” he finally said.
I turned toward him.
“A failure in the braking system.
Several people died.”
He slowly exhaled the smoke.
“Ever since then, people have associated this place with the accident, building up fear and grief.
Enough negative energy to turn the area into a pretty good breeding ground.”
Kanzaki pointed toward the end of the platform, where the darkness of the tunnel began.
“I’ll raise the curtain from here.
You follow the tracks and eliminate everything you find.
Make sure none are left before you come back.
Once you’re finished, return to this point.”
I nodded and adjusted the Basalt Knuckles.
Kanzaki stepped forward, dropped his cigarette, and crushed it beneath his shoe.
Then he raised one hand.
“Emerge from the darkness…” Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“Blacker than darkness…”
“Purify that which is impure.”
Above us, a black mass slowly began to spread, sealing the station off at both ends of the tunnel behind a wall of absolute darkness.
“Curtain’s stable,” he said.
“You’re clear to go.”
I jumped down from the platform, landed between the rails with a metallic thud, and sprinted into the tunnel, the Shinkeigan illuminating my vision through the darkness.
The rats released the cables and turned toward me.
One charged straight at me and leapt with its jaws wide open.
Chronostasis.
It froze in midair.
I drove a fist straight into its skull and destroyed it with a single blow.
Between the Basalt Knuckles and my improved control over cursed energy, my punch strength were very increased.
Another suddenly emerged from an emergency exit, its metal door bent outward.
I threw myself to the opposite side, rolled across the ground, and used the momentum to drive both feet into its body.
A high-pitched screech tore through the air, several cursed-bats dropped from the ceiling at once.
I slid underneath the first one’s attack, although it managed to tear my uniform slightly as it passed.
“Tch.”
The second flew too high for me to reach from the ground, so I changed direction and ran straight toward one of the tunnel walls.
I planted one foot against the concrete and launched myself in the opposite direction, reaching out with one hand.
The gloves resisted my grip.
I poured more cursed energy into my fingers to compensate for the loss of gripping strength and managed to close my hand around its body in midair.
I squeezed with all my strength, the curse’s head collapsed between my fingers, and its body began to dissolve.
I continued toward a maintenance area where the tunnel widened.
The walls were more damaged there, covered in holes dug directly into the concrete.
Several mole curses emerged from the walls.
One charged straight at me.
I waited until the last possible moment, rolled beneath its claws, and, as I rose, drove my elbow into its jaw.
The impact snapped its head to the side, but it didn’t fall.
I fired a sphere at point-blank range.
Chronostasis.
I followed with a downward strike, and the curse disappeared into black smoke.
The echoes of the fight reverberated throughout the tracks: vibrating metal, blows against concrete, screeches, and bursts of cursed energy disappearing into the depths of the tunnel.
I started encountering fewer and fewer curses as I continued along the tracks.
Until a gigantic mole emerged from a hole at a side junction.
“You must be the boss,” I muttered.
The mole roared and burrowed underground.
A moment later, it burst out of one of the holes with its claws extended.
I dodged, and it immediately buried itself again.
Sometimes it only poked its head out; other times it emerged just far enough to attack, but it never stayed exposed for long outside the tunnels it had dug.
It kept appearing from different holes unpredictably, reminding me of that famous whack-a-mole game.
There was no way to know where it would pop up next.
But the Shinkeigan sharpened my senses and reflexes, the vibrations beneath my feet, combined with the superhuman intuition my eyes gave me, warned me where the next attack was coming from.
Straight ahead.
I concentrated as much cursed energy as I could into my arm and channeled it into my gloves.
The wall in front of me cracked.
The mole burst out.
BOOM.
My fist smashed straight through its head with a massive impact, and the curse dissolved into black smoke.
“Mission accomplished,” I muttered.
Chronostasis and help more people find it!