First Battle

If I can manipulate liquid rich in my cursed energy, then... all I need to do is turn part of my body into water, just like I did inside the domain yesterday.

Then, in theory, I should be able to do this...

In the dim stairwell, Feng raised both arms.

He pressed his hands together, pointing his fingertips at the rampaging cursed spirit ahead, and assumed an opening stance reminiscent of some ancient inherited cursed technique.

At that instant, his well-proportioned torso and limbs visibly thinned, as though part of his body's mass had been drawn out of thin air.

Then a jet of high-pressure water, compressed to its limit, erupted in front of Feng's palms.

The water tore through the musty air with a piercing whistle, precisely and brutally punching through the centipede-shaped cursed spirit's humanlike head.

Black, foul-smelling bodily fluids sprayed backward along with shattered fragments of its shell.

Yet this low-level cursed spirit, born from mingled resentment, did not die immediately after its head was pierced.

It let out a far more agonized shriek than before. Its enormous body went into a frenzied death throe, its remaining barbed limbs slashing wildly at the boy before it like a raging storm.

Feng did not retreat. Instead, he pushed off the floor and took a quick step straight into the cursed spirit's attacks.

Raising his arms, which were coated in an extended water film, he calmly moved into the chaotic web of strikes.

Thud! Thud!

Dull impacts rang out one after another.

Sharp barbs scraped viciously against the water film, churning up violent ripples and white foam, but they could not cut all the way through that flowing defense.

Looks like it doesn't just neutralize cursed techniques, but cursed energy itself... Does that mean my domain does more than simply suppress sorcerers? Can it suppress the cursed energy of hostile targets?

Taking advantage of the brief opening his defense provided, Feng twisted sharply at close range.

He raised a leg and stamped hard on the cursed spirit's armored back, using it to steady his footing as both hands precisely seized a thick tentacle swinging toward him.

With a teeth-grating crack of shell and tearing of muscle, he forcibly snapped the barbed limb off the cursed spirit's torso.

Black, filthy blood gushed out.

Without a moment's hesitation, Feng flung the severed tentacle back toward the orange-haired girl.

Then he drove off with both legs and quickly retreated into an open space at the side of the corridor, giving her a completely clear line of sight and room to attack.

The heavy limb traced an arc through the air and landed on the dusty concrete floor with a wet plop.

Nobara Kugisaki's gaze lingered for half a second on the boy's thinned figure and the high-pressure water jet that had pierced the cursed spirit.

Her brows knitted tightly as her mind raced to analyze what she had seen.

Attacking with water was nothing unusual, but physically consuming one's own body at the moment of attack defied everything an ordinary jujutsu sorcerer knew.

Still, her combat instincts left her little time to delve into her new classmate's secrets.

Looking at the severed limb by her feet and her companion, who had already retreated to a safe distance, Nobara Kugisaki's lips curled into a savage, cold smile.

"Nice teamwork! I don't know what that weird trick was that hurts you almost as much as the enemy, but now it's my turn!"

The girl deftly raised her foot and pinned the still-twitching tentacle firmly beneath her shoe.

With her left hand, she pressed the roughly woven straw doll onto the tentacle. With her right, she raised her hammer and positioned a long nail over the doll's chest.

Pale blue cursed energy surged and burned like flames around the hammer and nail.

"I'll send you straight to hell-Straw Doll Technique: Resonance!"

Thump!

The hammer slammed down, driving the long nail through the straw doll and deep into the tentacle beneath it.

A powerful surge of cursed energy, bypassing physical defenses, followed the connection between the severed limb and its original body and erupted inside the centipede cursed spirit.

The enormous cursed spirit, poised to give chase, abruptly froze. A muffled explosion sounded inside its chest.

Black spikes of cursed energy burst out of its body like a hedgehog's quills, turning it into a ragged sack riddled with holes.

Before it could even let out a final cry, its enormous body rapidly disintegrated in the air like melting wax, becoming a cloud of black ash that scattered away.

Deathly silence returned to the corridor. Nobara Kugisaki lowered her hammer, her chest rising and falling slightly.

She turned her head, her light brown eyes openly inquisitive, and stared straight at the black-haired boy standing off to the side. Her gaze swept unabashedly over his somewhat thinner body.

"Hey, what was that just now? Did your body... shrink?

"And that water jet had way too much penetrating power. What exactly are you sacrificing to attack like that?"

"It's an extended application of my cursed technique. To make it easier to understand, you could call it cursed energy manipulation..."

Feng turned his head slightly to look outside.

"Hmm, the teacher put up a curtain earlier, and it still hasn't disappeared.

"That would mean we haven't finished exorcising all the cursed spirits yet."

Nobara Kugisaki listened to his casual explanation, but her brows did not fully relax.

She casually stuffed the used straw doll back into her waist pouch, wiped a bit of dust off her cheek with her thumb, and gave a soft snort.

"Cursed energy manipulation that consumes your own mass? What a reckless way to fight.

"If you use yourself up until you disappear in this dump, don't expect me to collect your corpse."

Despite her merciless teasing, the girl did not press him any further.

Jujutsu sorcerers possessed all sorts of bizarre abilities, and prying into someone else's cursed technique was taboo in itself.

As long as he could contribute useful combat strength, that was enough.

She followed Feng's gaze out the window. A translucent barrier shrouded the sky like an overturned bowl of ink, the light refracting strangely along its edges.

That was the "curtain" Satoru Gojo had erected before they entered, primarily to conceal jujutsu activity and keep ordinary people out.

Normally, a curtain would only disperse once every target inside had been exorcised, or when its caster deliberately lifted it.

Nobara Kugisaki withdrew her gaze. The wariness in her eyes did not fade; instead, it grew more intense.

She lightly tapped the hammer against her palm with a dull thud, her mind racing to reassess their situation.

"It really hasn't disappeared. That Itadori guy downstairs might look like a brainless wild gorilla, but with his strength, there's no way he'd waste this much time on low-level cursed spirits."

The girl turned to face the darkness deeper in the corridor. It was an area they had yet to explore, where several battered wooden doors stood half-open like abysses ready to swallow the light.

"That can only mean one of two things: either there are too many downstairs, or... that centipede wasn't the only real threat in this building."

The instant she finished speaking, an extremely faint sound came from behind the half-open security door at the end of the corridor.

It was not the slimy sound of a cursed spirit scraping along a wall, but a desperately stifled sob from a human child.

"Ugh... no..."

The voice was very faint, almost drowned out by the wind outside, yet it broke the deathly silence of the corridor like a thunderclap.

Nobara Kugisaki's body instantly tensed. Her relaxed back abruptly arched like a leopardess scenting danger.

Rather than charge recklessly, she immediately lowered her center of gravity. Her left hand swiftly drew three fresh nails from her waist, pale blue cursed energy glimmering faintly between her fingers.

When faced with a possible civilian hostage situation, indiscriminate, wide-ranging destruction was the worst possible approach.

Though cursed spirits lacked human intelligence, some cunning individuals knew how to exploit human fear and use human bodies as shields.

She turned her head slightly and lowered her voice, quickly outlining a plan to Feng at a volume only the two of them could hear.

"There's someone alive in there. Listen, put away that high-pressure water jet that punches through everything.

"If that disgusting thing uses the kid as a shield, your attack will kill them both."

The girl's eyes turned sharp and cold. Keeping close to the peeling wall, she advanced step by step toward the security door where the sound had come from, signaling her companion to follow with a glance.

"Get ready for close combat. I'll force it to leave an opening, and you get the hostage out.

"Don't screw this up, rookie."

"If the child is being held hostage, this could be tricky. Judging by his presence, I think the curse might be surrounding him.

"That means your plan probably won't work. Once we're inside, hold off for a moment and observe first."

Feng spoke softly, then continued following her.

At his words, Nobara Kugisaki's fingers briefly tightened around the hammer as she walked ahead.

Normally, if a classmate she had only just met rejected her plan to her face, she would probably have snapped back without mercy.

But their brief exchange in battle had shown her that the now-thinner boy behind her was no useless poser who only knew how to boast.

"Tch..."

The girl gave a quiet, disgruntled click of her tongue and bit her lower lip.

Her mind swiftly reassessed the situation along the lines he had suggested.

If the cursed spirit really was lurking practically on top of the hostage, charging in could indeed get the child torn apart in an instant, or even lead them into an unknown trap.

"Fine, we'll do it your way. Get a clear look at the situation before we act. Stay close. Don't fall behind."

Nobara Kugisaki took a deep breath and abandoned her original move to break down the door.

She silently placed her left hand on the rusted handle. With a teeth-grating scrape of metal, she slowly pushed the heavy security door open just wide enough for one person to pass through.

Beyond the door lay a spacious but chaotic abandoned office. Toppled desks and chairs were piled together, casting patches of deep shadow in the faint light.

In the farthest corner of the room, a little boy who looked no older than six or seven hugged his knees, his head buried deep in his arms, trembling all over as he let out broken sobs.

Feng stepped silently into the room, his dark red eyes sweeping along the outlines of the walls.

A foul, bloody stench filled the room, so thick it almost seemed tangible.

Yet strangely, aside from the crying boy and the wreckage strewn across the floor, there was no physical sign of a cursed spirit anywhere in sight.

Why is this different from what I remember? Feng frowned slightly as he studied the room.

Nobara Kugisaki bent forward slightly and cautiously edged two steps ahead.

Her gaze shifted between the boy and the surrounding shadows, a faint sheen of sweat gathering on the palm gripping her hammer.

It was so quiet that all they could hear were the boy's cries and their own breathing.

In that suffocating silence, something suddenly changed.

The white wall behind the boy, previously covered in broad water stains, began writhing violently like a boiling mire.

Huge patches of plaster peeled away, and without warning, an enormous mouth assembled from countless twisted human faces bulged out of the wall, taking up nearly half its surface!

"ROOOAR!"

With a deafening roar of venomous resentment, several tentacles formed from grayish-white flesh, their edges lined with sawtoothed bone spikes, shot out of the giant mouth like snakes striking from their holes.

One tentacle curled down from above toward the boy on the floor, while the other three sliced through the air with shrill whistles, hurtling at Nobara Kugisaki and Feng by the door at astonishing speed.

"Damn it! It's been hiding inside the building this whole time!"

Nobara Kugisaki's expression changed in alarm. A cursed spirit capable of completely merging into an inanimate environment was far beyond an ordinary low-level cursed spirit, and its cunning was appalling.

She swung her hammer hard, holding nothing back as she smashed it into one of the bone-spiked tentacles stabbing toward her.

Clang!

A tremendous crash, like a blow against a solid steel plate, exploded through the room, sending sparks flying.

The tentacle made of flesh was unexpectedly hard. The immense recoil drove Kugisaki back several steps and split the skin between her thumb and forefinger, nearly making her lose her grip on the hammer.

Tch... this doesn't seem quite like the original story I remember. I thought I could handle it without opening my domain.

Does this mean my arrival has changed everything that happened in the original story?

Meanwhile, the other two sharp tentacles closed in from either side, shearing viciously toward the black-haired boy like an enormous pair of crossing scissors.

Feng quickly raised both arms in front of himself.

The instant the serrated edges of the tentacles touched the extended water film coating his arms, an ear-piercing scrape rang out, like metal being cut.

This hidden cursed spirit's attacks were far stronger than the centipede's. The tremendous force pressed his water-coated arms severely inward.

"This again..."

Under the heavy blow, Feng's body lurched uncontrollably. His feet were forcibly driven nearly a meter backward across the dusty floor, his soles scraping two deep black streaks across it.

Meanwhile, the tentacle reaching for the little boy had already tightened around him like a meat grinder and hoisted his scrawny body into the air.

As the boy was about to be dragged into the abyssal maw on the wall, the situation turned utterly against them in an instant.