When it was all over, the basement was left with nothing but drifting dust, scattered rubble, and the sound of someone desperately suppressing a groan.
Tōru Azuma also emerged from that strange, almost indescribable state.
Just moments ago, he had landed another Black Flash.
This time, however, he hadn’t lost consciousness.
Instead, he had experienced the entire process from beginning to end.
At the exact instant the Black Flash occurred, he had clearly perceived every flow of Cursed Energy within his body.
It was as though a microscope had been placed inside him, allowing even the smallest currents to escape neither his notice nor his awareness.
Unfortunately, the sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come.
His Cursed Energy soon returned to its usual state, but that mysterious feeling had already been deeply etched into his memory.
Perhaps he would have another chance someday…
After confirming that the Cursed Spirit’s presence had completely vanished, Tōru Azuma put away Fudōmaru with a faint sense of loss, then immediately turned and ran toward Utahime Iori.
Once he released the excessive Cursed Energy Reinforcement, his calves began trembling slightly.
He had no time to worry about that, however, and hurried straight to the girl lying on the floor.
Her eyes were tightly shut.
Cold sweat had soaked the hair around her forehead, and her face was twisted in pain, as though she were enduring some unbearable torture.
His movements became gentler as he carefully reached toward her shoulder with a hand that was still bleeding slightly.
“Senpai?
Are you okay…?”
The instant his hand touched her, her body jerked violently.
A moment later, she struggled to open her eyes.
“Is it…
over?”
“Yeah, it’s over.
Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?
Are you hurt?”
Seeing the concern in his eyes, Utahime felt a trace of guilt instead.
She didn’t know why the Cursed Spirit’s Cursed Technique had produced that particular effect, but the black mist had clearly engulfed both of them.
If she had experienced that pain, then Tōru Azuma must have suffered the same thing.
And yet, he had endured it and exorcised the Cursed Spirit, while she could only stay off to the side and wait for everything to end.
At that point, it wasn’t simply a difference in strength anymore…
Seeing her remain silent, Tōru Azuma only became more worried.
“Senpai?
Are you sure you’re okay?
Should I contact Jujutsu High and have someone come right away?”
Hearing nothing but concern in his voice, Utahime Iori felt her nose sting.
Even so, she stubbornly shook her head, then reached out and let Tōru Azuma help her slowly to her feet.
“I’m fine…
I’m just not used to that feeling yet.
You were caught in that black mist too, weren’t you?
Did you also see…?”
Seeing that she could still move, even if only with some difficulty, Tōru Azuma finally relaxed a little.
The Cursed Spirit’s attack had caused them to see illusions and experience pain, but it did not seem to have inflicted any actual physical injuries.
Tōru Azuma was usually calm by nature, but when he thought about Utahime being hurt because she had gone on a mission with him, he found it difficult to remain composed.
Still, now wasn’t the time to talk about that.
“I think I saw an illusion…
I don’t know where it was, but I was standing among the ruins of a collapsed city…”
He paused.
He didn’t mention seeing the corpses of Utahime and the others, or those people from the future.
Instead, he brought up something more important.
“There was also a gigantic humanoid monster in the ruins.
I don’t know whether it was a Cursed Spirit, but it felt terrifying.”
Utahime, who was leaning on him as they made their way outside, suddenly stopped.
Surprise appeared on her face.
“You saw that monster too?”
Too?
The moment he heard that word, Tōru Azuma realized that things might not be as simple as they had thought.
If the Cursed Spirit’s ability merely dragged its victims into an illusion, then the two of them should have seen completely different scenes.
“Could it be…?”
“Yes.
I saw that monster too.
I think I was also somewhere among the ruins of a city.
The difference was that there were several people around me that I didn’t recognize, and we were all trying to avoid the monster’s attacks together.”
Halfway through, her body trembled, as though the pain she had just experienced had returned.
“But that monster was far too huge.
The last thing I remember from the illusion was an enormous fist coming down on me.”
Seeing her expression twist in pain again as she remembered what had happened, Tōru Azuma tightened his support around her slightly and spoke in a low voice.
“It’s okay, senpai.
It was only an illusion…
The Cursed Spirit is already gone.” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Although he said that to comfort Utahime, his own mood sank.
By now, he was almost certain that something was wrong with that Cursed Spirit’s Cursed Technique.
The people Utahime claimed not to recognize might have been them after they had grown older, along with the people who would appear when the main story began.
They had also been attacked by that monster.
Judging from the sequence of events, what Utahime saw might have taken place before the scene he witnessed.
And they had probably all been wiped out.
That would explain why he had seen their corpses.
In other words, the Cursed Technique looked as though it merely pulled people into an illusion and made them experience the pain of their deaths.
But in reality…
it might even have possessed some limited ability to foresee the future.
Perhaps the scenes they had witnessed were events that could actually happen someday.
But that didn’t make sense either.
Wasn’t Ryomen Sukuna supposed to be the final boss of the original story?
Why had an enormous monster he had never seen before appeared instead?
And even if it really was a Cursed Spirit of that size, there should still have been some way to deal with it.
So why would the future turn out like that?
Unable to make sense of it, Tōru Azuma could only keep the matter in mind for now.
He helped Utahime Iori to the entrance of the abandoned hospital, then contacted Jujutsu High.
Before long, several cars arrived.
A number of assistant managers stepped out.
After Tōru Azuma and a female assistant manager helped Utahime into one of the vehicles, he returned to the hospital entrance.
Several assistant managers were recording and inspecting the condition of the abandoned hospital when a stern middle-aged man wearing square black glasses approached him.
“Azuma-san, so according to your account…
you encountered a Semi-Grade 1 Cursed Spirit and defeated it?”
Tōru Azuma nodded.
He could more or less understand why the man sounded skeptical.
Before coming here, none of them had expected anything like this to happen.
To be frank, if the two of them hadn’t been considerably stronger than ordinary sorcerers, this mission might have ended very differently.
The thought reminded him of a certain incident that would happen in the future.
“Yes.
It possessed a Cursed Technique, and its effect was unusual.
Anyone affected by it would see a vision of themselves suffering some kind of tragic fate and dying.
Afterward, the pain they experienced in that vision would manifest in their senses.”
As he spoke, Tōru Azuma explained everything he had observed.
After listening, the middle-aged man nodded, and most of the doubt in his expression disappeared.
“If that’s the case, then that legend may very well have given birth to this Cursed Spirit.”
“Legend?”
The middle-aged man nodded.
“There has been a rumor online for some time that this hospital once had a messenger of death that would pronounce people’s deaths.
But we’d never encountered a Cursed Spirit connected to that story before, so we didn’t pay much attention to it…
I never expected it had been hiding in the basement all along.”
Seeing the lingering fear on the man’s face, Tōru Azuma thought for a moment before offering a reminder.
“I know this might sound like I’m putting pressure on you, but future investigations need to be more thorough.
You should gather and compare as much information as possible, and make sure details like these are clearly included in mission briefings.
Otherwise, it could lead to unnecessary casualties.”
The man’s expression became slightly uncomfortable, but he still nodded.
After all, they really had fallen short this time.
If the people sent on the mission hadn’t been unusually capable, there could easily have been serious casualties.
On top of that, this young man seemed to be someone the higher-ups in the jujutsu world valued considerably.
They couldn’t afford to make the same mistake again.
Before leaving, Tōru Azuma handed over the black device Utahime had given him earlier.
“Utahime-senpai gave this to me.
It’s the recorder from my mission assessment.
Please pass it along to the higher-ups as well.”
The middle-aged man accepted the recording device and nodded, then watched as Tōru Azuma got into the car and left the scene.
Once inside, Tōru Azuma didn’t hear Utahime say anything and assumed she had fallen asleep.
When he happened to glance over, however, he found her leaning against the window, staring at the nighttime scenery outside with a deeply dejected expression.
He had already noticed something strange about her behavior in the basement, but he hadn’t thought much of it at the time.
Now, it seemed she had fallen back into that cycle of doubting herself.
Tōru Azuma wasn’t quite sure what to say.
He had affirmed her abilities before, but during today’s unexpected incident, her performance genuinely hadn’t been very good.
If he simply tried to comfort her anyway, she might think he was only doing it out of sympathy or pity.
That wasn’t what he wanted.
Perhaps he needed a different approach.
As their car passed through a bustling commercial district, Tōru Azuma spotted a shop sign in the distance.
An idea suddenly occurred to him.
I’d like to buy something.”
The assistant manager driving in front looked slightly confused, but she still pulled over.
Utahime Iori, who had been staring blankly out the window, also came back to her senses and looked at him curiously.
Tōru Azuma didn’t explain.
He simply removed his jacket, which was covered in dust and a little blood, opened the car door, and got out.
Before long, he returned carrying three crepes.
He handed one to the assistant manager in the front, who looked pleasantly surprised, then held the other two out in front of Utahime Iori.
“Senpai, which one do you want?”
Looking into his concerned eyes, Utahime remembered what she had said earlier about wanting to go eat something with him.
Her lips moved slightly, but she still turned her head away.
Seeing her like that, Tōru Azuma leaned a little closer and lowered his voice.
“Senpai, I know what you’re thinking.
You feel like you weren’t any help again, don’t you?”
“Wasn’t that exactly what happened?”
She didn’t look at him, but the disappointment in her voice was obvious.
This time, however, Tōru Azuma didn’t try to comfort her.
Instead, he changed direction entirely.
“In that case, why don’t we start working on that research tomorrow?”
Utahime’s eyes widened slightly.
She immediately turned toward him, but because the two of them were sitting so close together, she suddenly found Tōru Azuma’s face right in front of hers.
Caught off guard by the sudden closeness, she instinctively leaned back, her expression flustered.
Her voice, however, was already much livelier than before.
“You mean…
the Barrier Techniques…?”
Tōru Azuma raised a finger, signaling for her to stop, then offered the crepe to her again.
“Shh.
Did you forget?
We agreed to keep this a secret.”
His reminder made Utahime remember.
The two of them had indeed agreed to research the possibility of turning Barrier Techniques into offensive techniques.
The condition was that they would keep it from everyone else and study it privately.
No one had ever seriously researched anything like that before.
If others found out, they might simply decide it was a waste of time and forbid them from continuing, telling them to focus their efforts on more important things instead.
That was why the two of them had made their little secret agreement.
Only then did Utahime finally accept the crepe, though some uncertainty remained in her voice.
“Can we…
really start now?”
“Of course.
You don’t want to go through something like today again, do you, senpai?
If that’s how you feel, then let’s start working hard together tomorrow.
We already made a promise, remember?
I’ll get stronger with you.”
Looking at his serious expression, Utahime Iori felt something stir in her heart.
She nodded, then took a bite of the crepe in her hand.
The sweetness slipped down her throat, bringing a little warmth back into her body.
Seeing that her mood had finally improved somewhat, Tōru Azuma smiled.
The female assistant manager in the front seat, who had been watching the two of them through the rearview mirror, quickly looked away.
Still, when her eyes fell on the crepe beside her, her expression softened as well.
The peaceful atmosphere didn’t last long.
Utahime Iori suddenly seemed to remember something and turned toward him hesitantly.
“I just remembered.
You haven’t been paid yet, have you?
Where did you get the money for these crepes?”
“Uh…”
Tōru Azuma really hadn’t been paid yet.
In fact, he didn’t have any money at all.
He had only remembered that after placing the order.
The shop owner had apparently noticed his embarrassment and laughed, saying he could come back and pay whenever he had the chance.
In exchange, though, she had asked him to leave his contact information.
After thinking about it, Tōru Azuma decided it would be better not to tell Utahime that part.
So he simply brushed it off by claiming that the owner had been kind enough to give him a few for free.
Utahime looked somewhat doubtful, but she merely nodded and lowered her head to continue eating her crepe.
Tōru Azuma, meanwhile, turned toward the window and began thinking about everything that had happened that day.
If he didn’t want the future he had seen to become reality…
Perhaps he needed to work even harder.