Consciousness surfaced like bubbles rising from the dark depths of the water.
The first thing Arata felt was the light, followed by the smell—a mixture of disinfectant and a specific herbal scent so familiar it made him instinctively want to frown.
But as soon as his brow twitched, a violent wave of vertigo washed over him.
“If you’re awake, open your eyes.
Don’t play dead.”
A slightly raspy female voice sounded from the side, her tone as casual as if she were commenting on the weather.
Arata opened his eyes to see a woman in a white lab coat sitting in a chair by the door.
She had a lazy yet sharp aura about her; one hand was shoved in her pocket, and the other held a freshly lit cigarette.
Smoke drifted slowly through the air.
“Miss Ieiri,” Arata managed to speak, his voice rasping like sandpaper against his throat.
“No smoking in the infirmary.”
Shoko raised an eyebrow and slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“Are you the doctor, or am I?”
“You are,” Arata admitted honestly.
“Then that’s that.” Shoko took another drag, her eyes scanning his face.
“If you can talk back, you’re not dying.”
Arata tried to sit up, but the moment he moved, his entire body felt like it had been flattened by a steamroller.
He sucked in a sharp breath of pain and slumped back down.
“What’s the…
situation outside?
How long have I been out?”
“Just a few hours.” Shoko stood up, stubbing her cigarette out on the windowsill.
“You’re quite something, making Suguru eat dirt like that.”
Arata looked down at himself; he was wrapped in bandages, and an IV needle was stuck in his wrist.
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“I wasn’t complimenting you.” Shoko walked to the door, her hand resting on the handle.
She paused and looked back at him.
“Don’t push yourself like that next time.
Reverse Cursed Technique isn’t magic, and neither am I.”
The door opened, and Shoko’s footsteps hesitated.
Urgent running echoed from the hallway as an assistant director arrived, panting heavily.
“Miss Ieiri!
They need you in Shinjuku immediately!
There are too many casualties!”
Shoko sighed, buttoning up her coat.
“Understood.”
She stepped out but looked back into the room one last time at the bedridden Arata.
“Stay lying down.
The door clicked shut.
As the footsteps faded, the hallway returned to silence.
Arata stared at the ceiling, his mind a chaotic mess.
The Night Parade had begun.
Shinjuku and Kyoto were battlegrounds.
Shoko was gone.
Which meant Jujutsu High was currently…
Arata’s pupils contracted sharply.
The school was empty.
Suguru Geto’s target was never Shinjuku or Kyoto; those places were mere bait.
His true objective was…
“Yuta!”
Arata gritted his teeth and forced himself upright.
Cold sweat poured down his face from the sheer agony, but he didn’t care.
He ripped the IV needle from his hand and stumbled out of bed.
The moment his feet hit the floor, his knees buckled.
He grabbed the bed frame, gasping for air.
After grabbing several blood bags, he began to shuffle toward the door, one agonizing step at a time.
The corridors were eerily empty.
Arata leaned against the wall as he moved; every step felt like walking on glass, but he didn’t dare stop.
When he reached the stairwell, he saw the black curtains of a Veil beginning to descend over the school.
“Dammit!”
He forced his legs to move faster, stumbling out of the school building.
The freezing air filled his lungs, sharpening his senses, but the sight before him made his breath stop entirely.
In the middle of the plaza, a familiar figure lay in a pool of blood.
Maki was lying on her back, her naginata discarded meters away.
Her casual clothes were shredded, and one leg was twisted at a grotesque, unnatural angle.
Massive amounts of blood flowed from wounds in her abdomen and side, spreading into a shocking dark crimson across the cold stone tiles.
“Maki!”
Arata collapsed beside her, his trembling hands pressing against the abdominal wound.
The pale white glow of Reverse Cursed Technique flickered to life, covering the injury and slowly spreading.
Maki’s eyelids fluttered.
Her unfocused pupils struggled to lock onto Arata’s face.
Her lips moved as if trying to say something, but only blood bubbles emerged.
“Heh.”
A light chuckle drifted from ahead.
Geto stood a few meters away, hands tucked in his sleeves, looking down at the scene with a faint, amused smile.
“A truly touching scene.
But as I said, my world has no need for a monkey like this.”
Arata wanted to speak.
He wanted to curse him, to scream, to pour every ounce of his fury and killing intent onto this man.
But though his lips parted, no sound came out.
He could only glare at Geto with a silent, primal hatred.
The next second, the entire campus began to tremble.
The blood bags in the storage room, the unprocessed blood in the infirmary, even the blood-stained gauze in the corners of first-aid kits—everything containing blood reacted at once.
The blood acted as if pulled by invisible hands, surging from all directions.
It converged into crimson rivers, spiraling and churning behind Arata’s back.
Geto’s smile vanished for the first time.
The scale of this was far beyond the scope of any Blood Manipulation he had ever seen—it defied his very understanding of the technique.
Red markings appeared around *both* of Arata’s eyes—the sign of Flowing Red Scale, but darker and deeper than ever before, as if branded into his skin with a hot iron.
His breathing grew heavy, his body temperature soared, and his heart hammered against his ribs, but he felt none of it.
He raised his hand, and a tidal wave of blood swept out.
It was the purest, most primitive rage, transformed into a towering crimson tsunami that crashed toward Geto.
Geto raised his hand, and a massive curse tore through a rift in front of him, opening its maw to swallow the blood.
But the blood tide tore the curse into shreds instantly, leaving nothing behind.
Geto kicked off the ground, retreating rapidly as several more curses lunged from the shadows to block the path.
The blood wave acted like an unstoppable juggernaut, pulverizing every curse in its way.
Seeing this, Geto finally turned serious.
A pink manta-ray curse appeared beneath his feet, carrying him into the sky to create distance.
But Arata gave him no chance.
The blood, moving as if it had a life of its own, pursued him, weaving into a massive crimson net in mid-air.
The net began to close.
Geto’s pupils shrank.
The manta-ray curse began to dissolve the moment it was touched by the blood net.
Decisively, he leapt from the curse’s back, wielding the three-section staff, Playful Cloud, with its iconic Garuda patterns.
The moment he landed, Geto closed the distance to Arata.
Playful Cloud descended with a whistling roar.
Arata twisted to dodge the first strike, but the second followed instantly, slamming into his shoulder.
With a dull thud, Arata staggered.
The bones in his shoulder groaned under the pressure, but he didn’t stop.
With a backhand sweep, he commanded the blood to condense into dozens of blood arrows that hissed toward Geto.