Anomaly

"I've always believed that improvement in combat comes through constant fighting. So start by feeling the sword in your hand."

Maki and Megumi Fushiguro stood facing each other, each holding a Wooden Sword. The lesson began quickly, and unsurprisingly, Megumi Fushiguro soon fell into a disadvantageous position, only barely managing a clumsy defense.

Even as she launched fierce attacks, Maki continued reminding him what he should do. After watching for a while, Shen Yuanyi greeted Panda and the others before slipping away, lest Maki come looking for him again later.

"Seems Gojo-sensei needs me for something. I'm heading out first. Bye."

Shen Yuanyi wasn't lying. Gojo Satoru really had sent him a message, and when he arrived, he saw Gojo Satoru speaking with Yaga Masamichi.

"Gojo-sensei, did you call me over because there's a mission?"

Leaning back on the sofa, Gojo Satoru said, "That's right. This time, the target is a Curse User. He's fairly notorious in the Jujutsu World, often drifting from place to place and exploiting or creating vicious incidents to bring about ferocious Cursed Spirits."

"He fled overseas before, but recent intelligence discovered that he's returned to Japan—and set his sights on this."

Taking the few sheets Gojo Satoru handed him, Shen Yuanyi gave them a quick glance and immediately understood the information written on them.

In short, there was a criminal who had imitated the methods of a former serial killer. However, his imitation had been rather crude, and he was quickly tracked down.

But something bizarre happened afterward, throwing what should have been an ordinary case off course. The murderer, who had resisted arrest fiercely and been shot dead by police at the scene of his crime, appeared again two days later and committed another bloody massacre.

Having barely suppressed the news, the police immediately sought help from the relevant parties. The investigators then discovered traces of that Curse User as well.

After further investigation, it was basically confirmed that this dangerous Grade 1 Curse User was involved. The report was swiftly sent up the chain until it reached Shen Yuanyi.

"Don't you have any Special Grade missions?" Shen Yuanyi flipped through the mission information. This Curse User might have posed a considerable threat to ordinary Jujutsu Sorcerers, but Shen Yuanyi looked thoroughly bored.

Seeing this, Gojo Satoru laughed and scolded, "You brat, where do you expect to find so many Special Grade Curses for you to exorcise? This one's already pretty good. The target's actions have been especially heinous, so there's no need to take him into custody. Just exorcise him on the spot."

Shen Yuanyi casually waved the papers in his hand. Yaga Masamichi, standing nearby, seemed about to say something but stopped himself. After Shen Yuanyi left, he said to Gojo Satoru, "Gojo Satoru, your student is still only a First-year..."

Gojo Satoru gave a soft laugh, his covered eyes revealing none of his emotions. "He'll be a second-year soon..."

Seeing Yaga Masamichi raise his brows, Gojo Satoru continued before he could speak. "I know what you mean. Don't worry. Genichi is far more outstanding than you think. He has that resolve."

Standing before an Abandoned Factory in the suburbs, Nitta Akari looked at the photo in her intelligence report and said to Shen Yuanyi, "This is the place. The location of the killer's last crime. Based on the available information, there may still be traces of a Cursed Spirit inside."

Shen Yuanyi nodded, then formed a hand sign and chanted an incantation to lower a Curtain. Then, amid Nitta Akari's words of "May fortune favor you in battle," he walked toward the factory.

This place had been abandoned for years. The weeds beneath his feet were half a person tall. It should have been desolate, yet there were many traces here now. Tire tracks and footprints stretched all the way toward the factory.

Shen Yuanyi stepped through the factory entrance. The moment he entered, he frowned. The cursed aura rushing at him was as unsettling as the piercing wails of wronged spirits.

"Hiss... Something's off..."

Looking at the traces in this dilapidated room that had once been a factory workshop, Shen Yuanyi grew suspicious and searched the surrounding area.

The unnatural cracks, the damaged and rusted machinery, and the residual Cursed Energy scattered everywhere all pointed to one fact: a battle had taken place here, either between Jujutsu Sorcerers or between a sorcerer and a Cursed Spirit.

"If the intelligence is correct, I'm the first Jujutsu Sorcerer assigned to this case. Then these signs of battle can only be related to the mission target."

"The police only withdrew from here yesterday, and now these traces are already here. That Curse User came back and fought some unknown existence? He's that brazen?"

Clang...

A crisp sound echoed through the empty factory, instantly drawing Shen Yuanyi's attention.

Wisps of mist descended from the black Magatama Earring, and Dojigiri slid out from within it before Shen Yuanyi caught it in his hand.

At the source of the sound stood a heavy, rusted metal door. As though it had heard Shen Yuanyi's footsteps, the unknown existence inside, which had fallen silent, suddenly slammed into the iron door, producing a deafening boom.

Shen Yuanyi raised a brow and sneered. "Want to come out that badly? I'll help you."

Dojigiri in his hand merely trembled lightly. The iron door before him immediately let out a piercing shriek, and crisscrossing slash marks tore it apart in an instant.

Then a shadow rushed out from within. Shen Yuanyi did not attack immediately, instead observing the strange thing.

"A Cursed Spirit?"

The thing roughly had a humanoid shape. Its facial features were twisted as though they had been rotated counterclockwise more than half a turn, then shifted around and turned another full circle. Its arms were grotesquely uneven, the left large and the right small, while a purple-skinned hand extended from its abdomen.

Its body was covered in hard, thorn-like skin, and the joints in its lower body had become reverse joints.

The most conspicuous part of the thing was the hand on its thick left arm. Calling it a hand would be inaccurate—it looked more like a heavy blade welded into its flesh. The sound from earlier had likely been made by that thing.

Shen Yuanyi was puzzled because this creature seemed subtly different from ordinary Cursed Spirits.

Before he could think further, the monster charged at him. Its wind-and-thunder-swift impact returned it to its original position in an instant. Then its entire body jolted violently and was smashed into the ground by an overwhelming force.

Only then did a trembling ring arrive belatedly. The culprit behind it all—Dojigiri—was buried deep in the monster's chest and driven into the earth.

The blade in Shen Yuanyi's hand had already become Onikiri. He studied the monster struggling to rise from the ground. The organ that might have been its mouth muttered something indistinctly... Moving closer and listening carefully, Shen Yuanyi barely managed to make out its meaning.

"Kill... kill you..."

He stomped the monster, which was about to break free from where it had been pinned to the ground, back down. The concrete beneath his foot cracked apart in an instant, and a wave of dust spread in every direction.

He then raised his hand and cut off both its arms with two strikes, saving himself the trouble. Shen Yuanyi used the tip of his blade to prod at the clothing that had nearly fused into the monster's flesh.

Yes, this monster was actually wearing clothes when viewed up close. Shen Yuanyi tore open one of its relatively intact shirt pockets with his blade, and something fell out... a notebook?

Watching the armless monster instinctively try to pick it up, Shen Yuanyi grabbed the notebook. It was small, barely the size of a palm. After casually opening it to a page, his expression immediately turned strange.

He quickly flipped through several more pages, then tossed it to the ground in disgust. By then, he knew exactly what this monster was. It was the murderer who had come back from the dead.

"His name was Matsumoto Tadan, right?"

The notebook was filled with pencil sketches, and they were quite lifelike. But their content was deeply disturbing.

The intelligence had been right. This perverted killer would leave behind records of his completed "works of art," and this notebook was the vessel for them. It contained scenes that would make ordinary people vomit, scenes that intoxicated the killer.

"Four words describe you perfectly: guilty of the vilest crimes. You got off easy."

He raised his blade and placed it against the forehead of the monster beneath his foot... or rather, Matsuda Akira. With a gentle push, Onikiri could pierce his brain and churn it into pulp.

But Shen Yuanyi hesitated. He was considering a question. Ordinary people had a chance of turning into Cursed Spirits after death, though whether they remained their original selves was another matter entirely.

But this one had turned into a Cursed Spirit while still wearing the clothes it had worn in life, even carrying real objects. And this blood... this strange feeling...

Shen Yuanyi took out his phone with his free left hand, opened the camera, and snapped a picture of the monster on the ground. Then a scene that drastically changed his expression appeared: the photo in his gallery clearly showed the monster in its entirety.

Ordinary people could not see curses, and modern technological devices such as cameras and surveillance equipment could not capture traces of curses either. Therefore, there was only one possibility here: this monster was not the curse Matsumoto Tadan had become after death, but a monster transformed from his physical body.

"This situation... It's that Cursed Spirit!"

Shen Yuanyi recalled an existence that had left a deep impression on him: the Special Grade Cursed Spirit—Mahito! Its technique could alter the souls of those it struck, thereby causing changes to their bodies.

Shen Yuanyi carefully examined Matsumoto Tadan's condition again. Perhaps because it was his first time encountering such a thing, he had not recognized it immediately. If not for these characteristics, he would not even have made the connection.

Remembering the fate of victims like this, it seemed they could not be saved. Of course, even if there had been a way to save him, Shen Yuanyi might not have acted. Death was already letting him off easy—why would he save him?

Shen Yuanyi then cut off his head with a single slash. The struggling body soon stopped moving. Pulling out Dojigiri, another question surfaced in Shen Yuanyi's mind. Matsumoto Tadan was here, so... where was that Curse User?

Those traces around him did not look like something a single monster could have caused. At the very least, Matsumoto Tadan, after becoming a monster, had already fought either the Curse User himself or a Cursed Spirit under his control.