Tokyo, somewhere inside a subway station.
Tōru Azuma opened his eyes.
He stared at the dim underground space before him, the crowds coming and going, and the train tracks faintly visible in the distance.
It took him two or three seconds to figure out where he was, after which confusion immediately set in.
He clearly remembered finishing work for the day, going home, eating dinner, taking a shower, and chatting online with someone he had only recently met but had quickly hit it off with.
So why had he suddenly appeared somewhere unfamiliar in the blink of an eye?
Could it be…
had he been so tired that he fell asleep and started dreaming?
“Is this a subway station?
This dream feels way too real…”
Before he could finish, however, he noticed something was wrong.
His voice sounded younger, almost as if he had gone back to his high school days.
When he lowered his gaze to his hands, his confusion only deepened.
“Why am I so much smaller?
And…
why do I feel stronger?”
Unlike the exhaustion that usually weighed him down after work, he did not feel tired at all.
If anything, his entire body was brimming with strength, as though he could enter the Olympics at a moment’s notice.
The bizarre sensation made him increasingly uneasy.
He looked around, intending to stop a passerby and ask what was going on.
As it happened, an old-looking train with no passengers inside slowly pulled up alongside the platform.
Just as he was about to call out to someone ahead of him, the train doors suddenly twisted and warped at a bizarre angle, as though something inside was trying to force its way out.
The strange sight made everyone nearby freeze.
“BOOM!”
The next instant, the doors tore free with a deafening crash and went spinning across the platform, knocking down several unlucky passersby.
Someone screamed.
“There’s a bomb!
Run!”
The crowd scattered in every direction.
Only Tōru Azuma remained standing there, staring blankly toward the ruined train doors.
A humanoid monster shrouded in an eerie black mist stepped out of the train.
It wore a tattered suit and carried an enormous briefcase.
Its head was made up of several human faces, each one screaming and wailing as they writhed together.
“So crowded…
so stuffy…”
Strangely, none of the people nearby seemed to notice it.
They simply screamed and fled farther away from the train.
Then the creature seemed to notice Tōru Azuma staring at it.
Its head, a twisted mass of overlapping faces, turned directly toward him.
Every pair of eyes locked onto him, while every mouth opened in eerie delight.
“Found you!”
The instant Tōru Azuma heard the floor crack, he instinctively threw himself aside.
A foul, murky gust tore past him, making every hair on his body stand on end.
A tremendous crash followed, along with several agonized screams.
When he turned around, he saw the monster pulling its misshapen body free from a pillar.
Twisted human bodies lay scattered across the ground, surrounded by spreading pools of dark red blood.
The sight made the sheer force behind that charge painfully clear.
“…Missed?”
The monster’s voice sounded confused and disoriented.
Its head slowly turned as it searched for its prey, but when it found nothing in sight, it began furiously pounding the pillar beside it.
“Come out!
Come out!”
Tōru Azuma hid behind another pillar, breathing hard as he replayed what had just happened.
He swallowed and cautiously watched the monster rampaging nearby from the corner of his eye.
“What is that thing?
What the hell is going on?”
He had no idea why it had singled him out, but the constant sounds of cracking concrete and violent impacts told him one thing clearly.
If he stayed here, sooner or later it would find him.
“Look around, Tōru Azuma.
Look around…”
He forced himself to calm down and began surveying his surroundings.
It was a relatively old and cramped subway station.
Six load-bearing pillars stood along the platform, supporting the underground structure.
He was currently hiding behind the pillar on the far left, while the monster had emerged from the train between the two central pillars.
Beside the pillars was a wide open area containing several vending machines and benches.
At the far end of that space was the corridor leading out of the station.
Judging by how fast the monster had charged earlier, if he left the cover of the pillars and ran straight for the corridor, it would definitely catch him before he reached it.
So what he needed to do was create a diversion.
Distract the monster first, then…
Just as he was working out his plan, a roar suddenly erupted beside him.
His blood ran cold.
“You’re here!”
At some point, the monster had reached his side.
It swung the enormous briefcase down at him with tremendous force, blasting chunks of concrete and dust into the air.
Tōru Azuma scrambled up from the ground and stumbled out of the cloud of debris.
That same instinctive warning had saved his life again.
Otherwise, the pillar would not have been the only thing smashed apart.
But just as he tried to repeat his earlier tactic and slip behind another pillar, a heavy sense of danger struck the back of his head.
He dropped into a crouch.
The enormous briefcase swept just over him, missing by inches.
“Your scent…
I remember it now.
Don’t even think about running!”
The monster’s roar came from behind him, accompanied by pounding footsteps.
That forced Tōru Azuma to abandon his original plan.
Hiding and baiting the monster into changing direction to create an opening for escape was no longer going to work.
It had just shown that it could attack from a distance.
Even if he lured it to the other side of the platform, it could still throw its briefcase to cut off his escape.
And judging by what it had said about remembering his scent, that did not sound like an empty threat either.
That left him with only one option.
“Don’t run!”
The monster closed the distance and swung another punch.
Tōru Azuma abruptly changed direction and circled tightly around the pillar, barely slipping out of the attack’s path.
That was right.
Playing cat and mouse around the pillar.
It was the only method he could think of that might let him evade the monster’s attacks.
So far, the creature had displayed terrifying straight-line speed, ranged attacks, and overwhelming strength.
If that was the case, then it had to be weaker in terms of agility.
Otherwise, during its first charge, even the slightest adjustment in direction would have been enough to kill him.
And the tactic worked.
Once Tōru Azuma began using the pillars as cover, constantly circling around them to evade its attacks, the fight settled into a stalemate.
Every blow from the monster landed with a heavy thud.
Even the briefcase it casually hurled around could knock a vending machine straight off its feet.
But because Tōru Azuma kept shifting angles and staying out of its direct line of sight, the worst injuries he suffered were two glancing blows from its fists, leaving several bruises and a burning sting across his body.
That only made the monster angrier.
Its roars grew louder and louder, eventually reaching someone hiding near the staircase at the far end of the corridor, watching the situation from a distance.
“That sounds terrifying.
It must be a pretty tough Cursed Spirit.”
An ordinary-looking man wearing glasses and the standard suit of an overworked office employee cautiously peeked around the corner, trembling as he stared toward the clouds of dust in the distance.
“I mean, I’m just an assistant manager with basically no combat ability.
I’m only useful for logistics and support.
There’s nothing I can do except hide here.”
He sounded as though he were trying to convince himself.
Still muttering under his breath, he pulled out his phone and made a call.
“This is Assistant Manager Rei Nakamura.
A Cursed Spirit has gone berserk at Minowa Station on the Hibiya Line.
Based on my assessment, it’s at least Grade 2.
A Curtain has already been lowered over the area.
Requesting immediate backup!
Requesting immediate backup!”
The reply from the other end made his heart sink.
“What?
Another place like that?
This is already the sixth attack in an outlying area within the last ten minutes.
Almost every sorcerer capable of fighting has already been deployed.”
“How is that…
Wait.
Could Curse Users be behind these attacks?”
“We don’t know yet.
What’s the situation there?
Are there heavy civilian casualties?”
At the question, Rei Nakamura cautiously leaned out again and glanced into the station, then immediately ducked back behind the corner.
“There are several civilian casualties.
Someone seems to be fighting the Cursed Spirit, but I don’t know who they are.
They don’t look particularly strong, but they’re managing to keep it occupied for now!”
The person on the other end clicked their tongue.
“Damn it.
That makes things difficult…
I’ll try to contact anyone nearby who can fight and send them over.
Keep watching the situation!”
“Yes!”
After hanging up, Rei Nakamura shakily pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
Watching the human and Cursed Spirit battling in the distance, he silently prayed.
“Just hold on a little longer…
Please, just hold on.
Help is coming!”
As for Tōru Azuma, the person on whom Rei Nakamura had pinned all his hopes…
“Damn it…
Does this thing ever get tired?
It hasn’t even slowed down.”
Breathing slightly harder now, Tōru Azuma moved behind one of the few pillars that was still mostly intact.
A heavy crash came from the spot where he had just been standing, and he could not help feeling a little desperate.
The whole reason he had resorted to circling the pillars was to see whether the monster would eventually tire itself out after attacking nonstop, giving him a chance to escape.
But for some reason, the thing seemed to have limitless stamina.
It continued smashing and destroying everything around it without pause.
Of the six pillars he had originally been using to maneuver around the platform, three had already been smashed apart, severely reducing the space available for him to dodge and reposition.
The monster seemed to realize this as well.
A cruel hint of laughter entered its furious voice.
“Haha…
You…
can’t run anymore!”
Tōru Azuma gritted his teeth and glanced toward the tracks.
Once the remaining pillars were destroyed, he might have no choice but to fake a jump down onto the tracks, lure the monster after him, and then run with everything he had.
As for whether that might lead the monster aboveground and put other people in danger…
He could not afford to worry about that anymore.
But just then, after the corridor had remained quiet for so long, the sound of hurried footsteps suddenly echoed from its far end.
An anxious woman’s voice followed.
“You in there!
Hold on a little longer!
Keep that Cursed Spirit occupied!”
Tōru Azuma, who had been completely focused on staying alive, froze for a moment.
“Cursed…
Spirit?”