Morien wandered the streets aimlessly, guided entirely by instinct.
He raised his head and looked at the somewhat murky sky.
It was nearly nine-thirty. Darkness was normal at this hour.
But the sky looked as though a filter had been laid over it, making it dimmer than usual.
Because there was currently a "Curtain" overhead.
It could be understood simply as a barrier.
There were four layers of Curtains here right now.
But he was just an ordinary nobody, so he had no plans to head into the core area.
"Come to think of it, I remember there being a Curse User in Shibuya whose Cursed Technique was 'Strength Reversal.'"
"If I could find him, I'd really like to fight him." Morien sighed. "I'm really curious what would happen if the most ordinary Jujutsu Sorcerer in history, whose Cursed Technique is 'Message Sending,' ran into 'Strength Reversal.'"
Unfortunately, Morien could not find him.
At this point in time, that little old man had probably already been dragged off somewhere by the protagonists and gang-beaten.
Suddenly, a voice came from above Morien.
"Hey! You masked kid over there! It's dangerous here, so hurry up and hide!"
"Hm?"
Morien followed the voice and looked up.
It was an overpass. A bespectacled middle-aged man in a suit stood on it, shouting at Morien.
The man had black hair and the face of a corporate drone, looking like some poor office worker who had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by a heartless boss and forced to work.
"It's an assistant supervisor." Morien waved happily at him.
How nice. He was a Jujutsu Sorcerer whose amount of Cursed Energy was as pitifully low as Morien's.
Assistant Supervisor Kiyotaka Ijichi looked around, then immediately jogged down from the overpass and ran toward Morien.
"Hide quickly! It's dangerous to run around outside!"
Morien immediately understood the situation.
Ijichi had sensed his nearly nonexistent Cursed Energy and mistaken him for an ordinary person.
Assistant supervisors dealt with Jujutsu Sorcerers every day, after all. He had that much discernment.
Right. By the standards of this world, with the tiny amount of Cursed Energy Morien had, even if he really was a Jujutsu Sorcerer, he was no different from an ordinary person.
Even seeing Cursed Spirits would be a struggle.
Even Ijichi, an assistant supervisor, might be able to deal with him easily.
Ijichi grabbed Morien by the arm and pulled him toward a nearby mall.
"Hide quickly!" he reminded him.
"Ah... but I just got out..." Morien let Ijichi drag him away without resisting, jogging alongside him.
He glanced back at the overpass behind them.
He remembered that Ijichi had been ambushed on an overpass in the original story.
Did that mean he had saved Ijichi's life?
Good thing it was already dark. Otherwise, his first "grand escape into the sunset" would have been with a man.
As he thought that, Ijichi pulled him into the mall.
Ijichi kept dragging Morien up to the second floor before finally slowing down.
Only then did he realize that Morien's earlier voice had appeared directly in his mind.
"Y-you're a Jujutsu Sorcerer?"
He released Morien.
"Mm-hm." Morien nodded. "I guess I'm a Grade 4 Jujutsu Sorcerer."
"Grade 4... no wonder." Ijichi nodded. "Then why haven't you left?"
"The outer Curtain here only affects ordinary people."
"I know, but I didn't have time to leave." Morien nodded.
Morien knew that much.
There were four Curtains here: two targeting ordinary people, one targeting Jujutsu Sorcerers, and one targeting Satoru Gojo alone.
When he had still been an ordinary person, the outermost Curtain targeting ordinary people had stopped him.
After awakening Cursed Energy, he had been hiding the whole time and never had a chance to leave.
Until more than half an hour ago, when he entered the Shared Space and gained some ability to protect himself.
At that point, he no longer wanted to leave.
He was already here. It was not like he had no strength; he might as well have some fun.
"It's extremely dangerous here right now. Leave immediately," Ijichi urged.
"Then why did you drag me in here..." Morien complained.
"Uh... I thought you were an ordinary person, after all..." Ijichi's Japanese reserve left him unsure how to put it.
"Because I'm just too weak, right?" Morien smiled.
Ijichi could not exactly nod, so he simply went along with it.
"So..."
At that moment, Morien suddenly extended his foot between Ijichi's legs and hooked inward.
Ijichi immediately lost his balance and fell backward.
"Ah?!"
He had not expected Morien to suddenly attack him.
As an assistant supervisor, he was only somewhat stronger than an ordinary person. Faced with such a sudden attack, he could not react at all.
But in the next second, a spinning longsword flashed past his eyes, barely grazing the spot where his head had just been.
It was a blade without a hilt, sharpened to a keen edge. Where the hilt should have been, a human hand grew from it.
Thud.
He landed hard on his backside, breaking out in a cold sweat.
"Th-thank you," Ijichi stammered.
"You're welcome." Morien looked toward where the blade had come from.
From that direction came a blond man with an extremely relaxed posture.
He wore a revealing bodysuit, his blond hair tied into a ponytail, with six purple inverted-triangle tattoos beneath his eyes.
"Ah, found you. One guy in a suit," the blond drawled in a girlish voice. "And another guy with so little Cursed Energy. Did you just awaken as a Jujutsu Sorcerer?"
"How wonderful."
He grinned.
"I really am best at picking on the weak."
It was the Curse User Haruta Shigemo.
In the original story, he had been the one to ambush Ijichi. Judging by the timing, he really should have appeared here.
It seemed he had seen Ijichi dragging Morien away to hide nearby earlier.
Morien stepped forward to the edge of the second-floor corridor and looked down at Haruta Shigemo on the first floor.
"Huh? You're not running? I even threw out my weapon. This is the best time to run," Haruta Shigemo called up at the second floor with his hands cupped around his mouth.
He wanted to play a game of cat and mouse.
He wanted to watch the two flee in panic before slicing their Achilles tendons.
But Morien ignored him. He merely pulled two kitchen knives from his pocket, letting his left hand hang naturally while aiming the one in his right hand at Haruta Shigemo.
"Oh? Are you going to be a partner of Justice?" Haruta Shigemo still wore that malicious smile.
"What meaning does something like that have?" Morien's voice appeared in his mind, making him freeze.
Was this the other party's Cursed Technique?
Telepathy?
Morien's voice continued.
"You dress like that, wear long hair, and look all feminine..."
"Yet you do something so disgusting..."
Morien looked down on him from above. He wore a mask, so his expression could not be seen.
But Haruta Shigemo could sense that he was trembling slightly.
Was it fear? Or anger?
The malicious smile on Haruta Shigemo's face grew wider.
He loved seeing partners of Justice lose their composure.
In the next second, Morien's voice nearly roared inside his mind.
"As a femboy enthusiast, I will never allow someone like you to exist!"
"Femboys should be sweet, soft, and adorable! You're a disgrace to femboys!"
"I'll destroy you in the name of femboys!"