First Mission

After a half-hour drive, the bustling streets vanished entirely. In their place stood an abandoned, unfinished building enclosed by rusty wire fencing, most of the finish peeling from its walls.

A silent cemetery lay right beside it. A cold draft swept across the weed-choked lot, bringing an unsettling chill.

Feng tilted his head slightly, his dark red eyes studying the concrete structure before him and the dangerous aura it gave off.

"So where's the sightseeing? This place doesn't exactly fit the bill, does it?"

Beside him, Nobara Kugisaki nodded vigorously in agreement.

She had expected an upscale shopping mall in Roppongi. Instead, she was facing a haunted house. The crushing disappointment made her slam her shopping bags onto the ground and point at the building's entrance, raising her voice.

"Exactly! This place doesn't even count as the outskirts of Roppongi!

"And there's a cemetery right next door! What happened to our Tokyo sightseeing tour, you lying blindfold freak?"

Yuji Itadori was just as devastated. He clutched his head with both hands, looking as though all the color had drained out of him, and stared despairingly at the dilapidated entrance.

"What about Roppongi's skyscrapers... my big-city dream..."

Faced with his students' collective condemnation, Satoru Gojo showed not a hint of remorse. Instead, he spread his hands with a smile, his voice light and utterly matter-of-fact.

"What's the problem? This really is within Roppongi's jurisdiction!

"Besides, the darker side of a metropolis tends to gather more negative emotions. There's a pretty lively curse lurking in this building."

Satoru Gojo dropped his smile and looked through his black blindfold at the three first-years standing in front of him.

He raised a finger and traced a circle encompassing Yuji Itadori, Nobara Kugisaki, and Feng, who stood quietly beside them.

"So this is your field test. Yuji, Nobara, and Feng, the three of you will go in together and exorcise the cursed spirits inside."

Megumi Fushiguro leaned against a broken wall nearby, both hands in his pockets.

His green eyes swept over the trio about to enter the building together as he quickly assessed the situation.

He knew full well that Yuji Itadori had monstrous physical abilities but lacked even basic knowledge of how to use cursed energy. Nobara Kugisaki had experience fighting cursed spirits, but rural curses and Tokyo curses were on entirely different levels when it came to cunning.

As for the first-year named Feng... Megumi Fushiguro's gaze lingered on the black-haired boy's back, his brows drawing together slightly.

So far, Feng had been far too quiet and composed, and he hadn't emitted any aggressive fluctuations of cursed energy.

Megumi Fushiguro had no way of telling what kind of combat Feng excelled at. In a fight where circumstances changed by the second, that sort of unknown was often the deadliest thing of all.

Nobara Kugisaki took a deep breath and suppressed her irritation.

With a click, she drew her weapons from the strap at her waist-a hammer with a heart-patterned charm attached, and several long nails.

She turned, looking back and forth between Yuji Itadori and Feng, and divided the team in a forceful tone.

"Listen up. Since this is a test, I don't want either of you dragging me down.

"Popcorn guy, you handle the cursed spirits on the lower floors. Pretty boy, you're coming upstairs with me.

"Don't tell me all you can do when danger hits is scream."

"I..." Feng was somewhat speechless, though thinking back on the previous night, he supposed he really had screamed.

Come on. If you started out with Mahito chasing you down, wouldn't you scream too?

Yuji Itadori immediately clenched his fists. Since swallowing Sukuna's Finger, he could now hurt cursed spirits even without a cursed tool.

Brimming with energy, he thumped his chest.

"Leave it to me! I'll send them all flying with my fists! Be careful too, Feng!"

"Got it. You too," Feng replied softly.

Satoru Gojo leaned against the wire fence, watching the three prepare to enter the dark corridor, an intrigued smile curling his lips.

"Oh, one little reminder: Yuji, you can't let Sukuna out.

"If you let that guy loose, he'll kill everyone nearby. Well, good luck~"

The building's interior was pitch-black, the thick concrete walls blocking out the sunlight entirely.

The smell in the air grew stronger as they drew closer.

Should I expand my domain here? There's not much need... relying on hand-to-hand combat alone probably won't work, though. I never trained in martial arts in my previous life.

Then I'll use Domain Amplification, Feng thought as he followed Nobara Kugisaki.

The lighting inside was dim. Only a few shafts of sunlight managed to penetrate the broken, dust-covered windows, casting pale, mottled patches across the cracked concrete floor.

The corridor reeked of nauseating mildew and some other unidentifiable odor.

Feng walked silently along the right side of the corridor, about half a step behind Nobara Kugisaki.

A thin layer of nearly transparent liquid clung tightly to his arms.

It was an amplification water film formed from pure cursed energy. In the dim light, faint ripples occasionally shimmered across its surface, like a layer of flowing glass armor.

Ahead of him, Nobara Kugisaki advanced cautiously, a hammer in one hand and several long nails held between the fingers of the other.

Her keen peripheral vision caught the unusual fluctuations around Feng's arms.

The girl narrowed her light brown eyes slightly, her gaze lingering on the flowing water film for a moment.

As a jujutsu sorcerer with some combat experience, she immediately recognized it as a means of reinforcement that coated the body in densely concentrated cursed energy. Its liquid texture, however, was clearly different from ordinary cursed energy reinforcement.

Without enough information, Kugisaki didn't rashly ask him about the details. She simply revised her assessment of this teammate in her mind: at least he wasn't just a helpless pretty face.

Just as the two were about to pass an abandoned elevator shaft, something suddenly changed.

Riiip-

The already precarious ventilation duct above them burst apart, showering them with rusty sheet metal and dust.

A huge, twisted black shape lunged out of the opening, carrying a thick, putrid stench.

It was a cursed spirit that looked like a many-legged centipede stitched to a human torso.

Several segmented limbs covered in sharp barbs sliced through the air like the Grim Reaper's scythes, shrieking as they swung straight down at Nobara Kugisaki in front.

Kugisaki's pupils contracted, but her body reacted far faster than her mind.

Rather than let out a pointless scream, she quickly lowered her center of gravity and drove hard through her legs, sliding backward.

At the same time, she flicked her right wrist, sending her hammer whistling through the air to strike the joint of an oncoming limb with pinpoint accuracy.

Clang!

A piercing metallic collision echoed through the corridor, sparks flying everywhere.

The recoil left the web of Kugisaki's hand slightly numb.

The cursed spirit's shell was far harder than she had expected. Her blow failed to shatter its joint, merely knocking the limb a dozen or so centimeters off course.

The cursed spirit let out a shrill screech like a baby's wail. Using the force that had knocked its limb aside, it twisted its massive body at an unnatural angle in midair.

Then another thick limb whipped through the air with a sharp whistle, lashing viciously at Feng behind her and to the side like an iron whip sweeping across.

It's fast...!

Feng didn't dodge. The rapidly approaching barbs reflected in his dark red eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest at the last possible instant.

Thud!

A heavy impact thundered out.

The barbed limb slammed into Feng's crossed arms.

The amplification water film coating his arms erupted in violent ripples. Under the tremendous impact, the water churned wildly, producing a teeth-grating sound of friction.

Although the film successfully neutralized the cutting force that could have sliced through flesh, the overwhelming physical impact still passed through without losing any of its force.

It's not that heavy compared to Mahito. If I could reinforce my body with cursed energy properly, I should be able to block this more easily, right?

Feng's body jolted violently under the tremendous force, his feet sliding backward uncontrollably across the dusty concrete floor.

His soles scraped over the ground, leaving two clear, deep trails. He slid back nearly two meters before barely managing to steady himself.

When its strike failed to tear its prey apart, the cursed spirit grew even more frenzied.

Its many segmented limbs scraped restlessly against the floor, and its huge body drew back like a fully drawn bowstring. It was clearly gathering strength for another, deadlier lunge.

In the brief second or two Feng had bought by blocking the attack, Nobara Kugisaki had already pulled back to a safe distance.

Her mind raced as she calmly analyzed the situation.

"This thing's shell is abnormally hard. Physical blows won't do much right away!

"And it moves too fast. Fighting it head-on in this narrow corridor puts us at a serious disadvantage."

The girl's voice rang especially clearly through the empty corridor. She spoke quickly, but without a trace of panic.

She has plenty of combat experience... no, is it talent? Feng thought, making slight adjustments to his position and stance.

She quickly switched her hammer to her left hand and drew a palm-sized straw doll from her waist pouch with her right, her sharp gaze locking onto the cursed spirit as it gathered strength.

"Hey, pretty boy! If you can tank its attacks, make use of that!

"Find a way to keep it occupied. As long as you can tear off any part of its body-even a single barb-I can curse its main body directly!"

Nobara Kugisaki gripped the end of a long nail tightly and pressed its tip against the straw doll's chest, assuming the opening stance of the Straw Doll Technique. Without hesitation, she left both the burden of taking the lead and the responsibility of coordinating with her to Feng, who stood at the front.