Using Pain Sharing for the First Time

Henshita Tsugina wanted to beg Yan Si to stop talking or argue with him a little, but he didn't dare.

His seniors had taught him.

Arguing with a jujutsu sorcerer only brought more torment. Silence and "yes" were the safest answers. "Yes."

"Right?" Yan Si laughed.

Over the next twenty-odd minutes of the drive, Yan Si changed topics an average of once every three minutes.

From "Mr. Henshita, what kind of girls do you like?" to "Which ramen shop in Tokyo do you think is the best?" to "If I jumped out of the car, would they dock your pay?"

Then he simply leaned against the window, talking to himself as he judged the signs of every shop they passed.

"That shop's colors are so ugly." "That one's gone out of business, right? Its shutter's down." "That one looks so good. Mr. Henshita, can we stop there on the way back~?"

When that last question came up,

Henshita Tsugina circled back in the car and quickly pulled out his notebook.

He carefully wrote down, "Stop at delicious ramen shop on return trip."

When they arrived, Yan Si opened the door, put one foot outside, then pulled it back in.

He turned around and waved at Henshita Tsugina. "No need to come along. Wait here for me. Ten minutes will do."

"I'll remember to use a Curtain~"

"They won't dock your pay~"

Henshita Tsugina already had his hand on his seat belt, ready to unbuckle it. At those words, his hand froze. "...Are you going alone?"

"It's only a grade 2 cursed spirit." Yan Si pulled up his windbreaker's hood. A few strands of long black hair slipped out from beneath its edge and hung over his chest.

He smiled at Henshita Tsugina, his purple eyes especially bright in the shadow of his hood.

"If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, come find me... Ah, no. If I'm still not back in fifteen minutes, you should run~"

"If even I can't beat it, you'd only be coming to die. But that won't happen~"

Henshita Tsugina watched him enter the abandoned building, sitting quietly in the driver's seat.

A few seconds later, he glanced down at the digital clock on the dashboard and started timing him.

After entering the abandoned building, Yan Si didn't rush to find the cursed spirit.

He stood in the ground-floor lobby for a while, then surveyed the layout once his eyes had adjusted to the dim light.

There were fresh footprints on the floor, and the disturbed dust led toward the corridor on the right.

I'm really curious.

Why can some cursed spirits touch physical objects sometimes, but not other times?

The cursed spirit's presence drifted from that direction too. It wasn't particularly strong, just the standard level for a grade 2 cursed spirit. It was probably hiding somewhere like a basement.

He walked deeper into the corridor over broken glass and flakes of peeling plaster.

Cracks covered the concrete beneath his feet, and every step produced a faint crunch.

Sure enough, there was a staircase leading to the basement at the end of the corridor, its iron railing mottled with rust.

The cursed spirit's presence rose from below, carrying the damp chill unique to underground spaces and a faint smell of decay.

"Found you~"

He lightly tapped the wall.

"You're going to die. Get ready~"

He descended the stairs, his footsteps amplified in the narrow stairwell.

The basement's iron door stood ajar, a sliver of dim light seeping through the gap.

Yan Si kicked it open. The iron door slammed into the wall with a clang that echoed back and forth through the basement.

The grade 2 cursed spirit crouched in a corner, somewhere between hunkering down and preparing to spring.

"What a good little thing. You actually stayed here instead of running around biting people~"

Yan Si gave his assessment of the cursed spirit with a smile.

The cursed spirit wasn't enormous, but it wasn't small either.

It filled roughly a third of the basement.

Its appearance was difficult to describe precisely.

It looked as though a pile of discarded industrial parts and rotting organic matter had been ground up and molded back together. An irregular shell covered its surface, and several tentacles extended from either side of its body, with bony protrusions at their tips.

Seeing a lone human in a black windbreaker standing in the doorway, it immediately reached the conclusion any predator would: prey.

Because of Yan Si's constitution, it desperately wanted to attack him and didn't hesitate.

Its tentacles rose and swept toward him, whistling through the air.

Yan Si sidestepped them.

A tentacle brushed past the brim of his hood and slammed into the wall behind him, gouging the already fragile plaster and sending debris raining down.

He didn't draw his knife.

"You're so ugly~"

Yan Si walked around the edge of the basement at an unhurried pace, each step falling between the cursed spirit's attacks as he dodged effortlessly and offered nasty commentary.

The cursed spirit swept its tentacles at him several times in succession, but he avoided them all with the smallest possible movements.

A tilt of his head, a turn of his shoulder, a step back-his movements flowed as though he knew in advance exactly where each attack would land.

Perfect.

That should be enough.

Yan Si decided to try Pain Sharing.

This was his first time using Pain Sharing.

There was no manual and no tutorial. The system had only said, "Can be triggered at will."

Something like a switch appeared in his mind. With a gentle mental flick, he felt a connection form.

It was a peculiar sensation.

As though an invisible thread extended from him, its other end tethered to something.

He couldn't see or touch it, but a new channel had opened in his awareness. At the other end was the grade 2 cursed spirit, still flailing menacingly.

For the sharing ratio, let's try the basic setting first.

Ten percent.

He took out the Boning Knife.

Its pitch-black blade was invisible in the basement's dim lighting. Only the handle reflected a faint glimmer in his hand.

Instead of attacking the cursed spirit directly, he first cut his own left forearm.

The edge sliced through his skin. Blood welled from the cut, and pain signals traveled up his nerves.

At the same instant, the invisible thread that only Yan Si could sense trembled.

The cursed spirit suddenly froze mid-swing.

The grade 2 cursed spirit's movements stopped in midair.

It clearly had no idea why its body had suddenly hurt. The pain was intense, a sensation it couldn't comprehend.

There was no wound, no blow, no visible attack of any kind, yet pain had descended out of nowhere.

It let out a sound somewhere between a roar and a whimper. Several tentacles twisted in pain, shaking wildly in the air as though trying to drive away some invisible enemy.

Yan Si looked down at the wound on his arm, already healing through Reverse Cursed Technique, then back up at the cursed spirit, which was clearly consumed by confusion and pain.

The corners of his mouth lifted.

"Trash."

His voice was gentle and smiling.

Yan Si turned and walked toward the basement door.

Behind him, the cursed spirit was still turning in place, its tentacles drawn cautiously around its body. It no longer dared to attack recklessly.

He had tested Pain Sharing and was satisfied with the result.

Yan Si beckoned with a finger, seeming both to taunt and entice it. "Come hit me~"

The cursed spirit lunged.

Yan Si simply stepped aside and plunged his knife into its body.

Pain Sharing activated.

A trace of pain reached Yan Si, barely painful to him at all.

"So it goes both ways."

"How fun~"

Two minutes later.

Yan Si emerged from the basement, sunlight falling across his face again.

He narrowed his eyes and raised a hand to block the light. The wound on his arm had healed completely, without leaving so much as a scar.

Only a faint smell of blood lingered on him.

He walked to the car, opened the door, and climbed into the back seat. Henshita Tsugina's timer stopped at five minutes and four seconds.

Henshita Tsugina turned to look at Yan Si, his sharp eyes catching a small dark-red stain on the cuff of his windbreaker.

He opened his mouth, then swallowed the question on the tip of his tongue.

His seniors had taught him not to ask about mission details unprompted.

"Taken care of?"

"It's dead~ It died horribly~" Yan Si took off his hood and leaned back in the seat, pushing his flattened hair back from his forehead with his fingers.

He rubbed his stomach, then suddenly remembered something. Leaning forward, he braced both hands against the backs of the front seats.

His purple eyes met Henshita Tsugina's in the rearview mirror. "Mr. Henshita, that ramen shop we agreed on earlier. Let's go."

His eyes curved with his smile, utterly captivating.

Henshita Tsugina started the engine, and the car pulled smoothly out of the Abandoned Industrial Area.

A few hundred meters down the road, he heard a lazy mutter from the back seat.

"Ah... I think I forgot to ask for leave..."

Yan Si had walked straight out of Jujutsu High without asking Teacher Yaga for permission~

Henshita Tsugina glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

Yan Si leaned against the seat back, looking neither regretful nor worried.

He scratched the back of his head, his gaze drifting toward the roof, a lingering curve still at the corners of his mouth.

His phone lay quietly in his pocket, showing no sign of ringing.

But he could more or less guess that, in another ten or twenty minutes, Teacher Yaga would discover that one of the first-years was missing.

Then Suguru Geto would find an excuse for him in that gentle yet weary voice, something like "Yan isn't feeling well," or "He might still be in the dorm," or "Yan asked for leave earlier. I forgot to tell you, sir."

"Would you like to call the school?" Henshita Tsugina asked.

Although the students at Jujutsu High all seemed a little unruly, fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds still generally followed the rules.

"No need," Yan Si said with utterly baseless certainty.

He stretched his long legs forward and planted his soles against the back of the passenger seat.

Sprawled in the seat in a manner that didn't quite comply with traffic safety regulations, he laced his hands behind his head and watched the roadside trees race past the window.

His long black hair hung loose.

The passing light fell across his face and slipped away again, repeatedly casting the shadows of his lashes above his cheekbones.

He was very, very beautiful.

"Doesn't matter."

He had only failed to ask for leave. At worst, Teacher Yaga would be in a bad mood, and he might get punched or made to sweep the floor.

It didn't matter.