After leaving the park, Mashiro wasted no more time and headed into Shibuya Station.
Sendai lay three hundred kilometers to the northeast, less than two hours away by Shinkansen. But a ticket cost ten thousand yen, which was far too expensive.
"I'm broke." Standing before the ticket machine, she clicked her tongue softly at the scrolling fares. "I need to make money."
She counted the cash in her wallet. After setting aside money for tonight's lodging and meals, she didn't have enough left for even half a Shinkansen ticket. The overnight bus was cheaper, but still cost several thousand yen, and it was still too early for departure.
"My immediate priorities are getting travel money and increasing my cursed energy. I need to reach Grade 2, or even Grade 1, as soon as possible." She pressed a hand against her waist, where Murasame rested quietly in its sheath. "Only then will I have what it takes to get close to the inner circle and keep delivering iconic lines."
Without enough strength, those weren't iconic lines. They were just wild bravado.
Only the strong deserved to make memorable declarations.
Mashiro left the station and sensed the cursed energy around her again.
Shibuya still had a high density of cursed spirits, but after last night's and this morning's battles, grade 3 cursed spirits no longer interested her much.
They were too inefficient. They yielded little cursed energy, and the gains from adapting to them were limited.
"I need to find Grade 2 or higher, or... take commissions. But I have no connections. Approaching Jujutsu High or Mei Mei right now would be too risky."
She touched Hiromi Higuruma's business card in her pocket and sighed. "I can't go asking Higuruma for a loan right after playing the mysterious riddler, can I?"
Borrowing money is how the weak think!
Since commissions were out of reach for now, she would keep hunting.
She hurried north, toward a stronger cursed energy signature. Time waited for no one. The moment Itadori swallowed the finger wouldn't change. She had to reach Sendai before then, or at least intervene shortly after it happened.
Before that, she needed more cursed energy, a stronger body, and, most importantly-
Travel money.
At three in the afternoon, Mashiro stood before an abandoned apartment building. It was scheduled for demolition, and all its residents had long since moved out. Its windows were broken, its walls peeling.
Mashiro extended her senses, then paused in surprise.
There wasn't just one cursed spirit inside. She sensed at least three Grade 2 cursed spirits, their presences entangled, each wary of the others.
"Living in a group?" She was somewhat surprised. Most cursed spirits operated alone. They rarely gathered unless a Special Grade led them.
But that didn't matter. She needed cursed energy, and they happened to have it.
More importantly, three Grade 2s meant three different forms of attack, which would expand her library of adaptation samples.
There were risks, of course, but she was confident that fighting three Grade 2s wouldn't kill her now.
It would only hurt a little more. Over the past two days, she had gotten used to pain-no, adapted to it.
Mashiro gripped Murasame's hilt and stepped into the dim stairwell. She made no effort to hide her footsteps. Cursed energy spread from her body, serving as both a probe and a provocation.
Almost the instant she entered the third-floor corridor, the balance shattered, and the three cursed spirits revealed their true forms.
She glanced over them: Vengeful Binding Spirit, Gap Woman, and a Shadow Hound.
They attacked almost simultaneously, each in a different way. Mashiro turned slightly, letting Vengeful Binding Spirit's piercing attack graze the left side of her chest rather than her heart. Even so, the bone-chilling agony that reached straight into her organs drew a muffled grunt from her.
She raised her right arm to block Gap Woman's invisible slash. The unseen blade cut her arm open, sending tearing pain through her as blood sprayed. Had she not leaned back in time, her right arm might actually have been severed.
She didn't even have time to twist away from the shadow attack below. Several claw marks deep enough to expose bone appeared across her back, and blood instantly soaked the fabric there.
It hurt. It hurt badly.
Adaptation can't even adapt away the pain? Is that because pain is useful to me?
But she had grown accustomed to pain like this. If something so minor made her lose the heart of a strong fighter, she might as well be dead.
"Again!" Mashiro cried out, ignoring her wounds as she raised Murasame to meet them once more. The Dharma Wheel above her head spun furiously.
Every time their attacks landed, they grew a little weaker.
Adapt, adapt, adapt.
When Vengeful Binding Spirit pierced her chest again and she felt only a faint chill, she knew her adaptation was complete.
"Excuse me."
Murasame left its sheath. A silver flash swept across Vengeful Binding Spirit, who dissolved into black smoke and was absorbed by the blade before even letting out a scream.
Mashiro felt the cursed energy inside her surge.
"Good." She turned toward the remaining two. "Nothing you do will make a difference. Lie down and wait to die."
Gap Woman seemed to sense the danger. Opening her twisted mouth, she sent an invisible spatial rift slashing toward Mashiro.
Mashiro raised her left arm and took it head-on.
Shhk-
Her skin split, spilling crimson blood, but the wound was at least half as deep as the last one.
Is that all?
Mashiro scoffed. Through adaptation's analysis, she understood Space Cutting's trajectory, strength, and cursed energy composition.
"So that's how it works." She murmured, twirling Murasame in her hand. "Spatial cutting is essentially applying traction to breaks in cursed energy at specific coordinates..."
She accelerated into a forward charge.
Gap Woman frantically hurled rifts at her, filling the narrow passage with spatial slashes.
My enemies fear my madness.
Mashiro wove between them. Her movements were a little stiff at first, but as she dodged more and more rifts, her body began anticipating their trajectories, allowing her to evade them with ease.
She could even lightly touch their weakest nodes with her own cursed energy, causing them to collapse prematurely.
"The more I adapt, the more I understand. So I can even copy other people's cursed techniques!" A rush of delight swept through Mashiro. "I never thought I could go this far!"
This was an ability Mahoraga hadn't possessed in the original story. He could only adapt to develop counters to cursed techniques, but Mashiro, who could understand them, could actually use the techniques she had adapted to!
"Adaptation complete." She stopped in front of Gap Woman, the Dharma Wheel above her head ceasing its rotation. "Your cursed technique is mine."
Then came Space Cutting. Gap Woman's head flew off, and her body dissolved.
Murasame absorbed another helping of cursed energy.
Shadow Hound was last. This cursed spirit already wanted to flee, but Mashiro gave the hound no chance.
She had already adapted to the rhythm of movement through shadows. The instant the hound emerged from a shadow in the corner, Murasame's tip was waiting.
"Don't disappoint me. Is that really all?" Murasame pierced the hound's skull as Mashiro laughed brazenly.
Three clouds of black smoke rose, and silence returned to the corridor.
Mashiro leaned against the wall, panting heavily. She had at least twenty wounds of varying depths, and the worst were still bleeding.
But she could feel that the cursed energy inside her was nearly twice as substantial as before.
"Grade 2... I should be close," she estimated. "And I've developed some initial resistance to spirit attacks, spatial slashes, and movement through shadows."
She was slowly building a foundational database. As she absorbed more and more samples, dealing with enemies would become easier.
She rested for five minutes, waiting until her wounds had mostly stopped bleeding before dragging her exhausted body out of the apartment building.
The sun sank westward, and the sky grew dark.
Mashiro checked the time. Five in the afternoon. She needed food, rest, and treatment for her wounds. Although she could heal on her own, the blood loss and pain were very real.
She entered a convenience store and bought hemostatic bandages, disinfectant, and the largest boxed meal available. Then she sat on a park bench and began tending her wounds.
The sting of the disinfectant made her suck in sharp breaths, but her hands never stopped moving. Her bandaging wasn't pretty, but it was secure enough.
Once she finished, she opened the boxed meal and began eating ravenously.
"If I don't make any money today, I'll only have enough left for one last night's lodging." She thought aloud between bites, pouting. "Ugh, how am I supposed to make money?"
Mashiro had never had much of a head for making money in her previous life, and looking twelve in this world meant she couldn't even get a part-time job!
Fortunately, she handled pressure fairly well. Arguing with people online every day had trained her for that.
"Thank you, everyone. If I could argue with you again, I'd definitely curse you out even harder." Thinking of how she looked now, Mashiro hesitated. "Would that be rewarding them too much?"
Enough wandering thoughts!
After finishing her meal, she was about to resume hunting cursed spirits and see if she could find any unlucky victims being attacked along the way when an unexpected figure entered her field of vision.
"Is that... Nanami?"
Before you continue